001welcome back to the April 1st 2025 uh meeting of the hot Union PR School District Board of Education we're back from executive session kindly rise and join me the Pledge of Allegiance [Music] [Laughter] one little clicker me all right I aliance to the of the United States of America to stand Na and justice for [Applause] all thank you number four on agenda superintendent's update Dr Murphy thank you Mr B welcome everybody tonight to our meeting Steve you okay good I do have some uh some highlights some updates to share about our students uh first off we have eight uh H middle school students participate in the theral Fisher Scientific Junior Innovation Challenge this happens yearly for us uh we had a number who received recognition uh adier aun and aeden napalitano both received honorable mention
002isan mahish Kumar receive third place bav hegi and Mia sa Kumar received first place they've been part of the Newton stem scholar program which is unique to hop out since sixth grade and now they will be invited to the National Junior Innovation Challenge so congratulations to all students [Applause] there next uh next The Hop hob strong team raised over $166,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society uh as a part of their student Visionaries of the Year campaign the team worked hard to raise money spread the word about the mission of the Leukemia lym Lymphoma Society the team consists of Chloe cofin and Sophia Brown both are uh captains Braden Brown JD cardi Luke sarach Jacob wman Sophie Green Emma funo Eva lingan Abigail de santz and Shay giglia who's a student outside of hog uh
003these are all the students that helped to raise that uh 16,000 exact number $1 16,39 67 so thank you and congratulations to those stents next on uh Friday March 21st we hosted um the 7eventh annual L Island code Conquest Junior hackathon the reason that we hosted is because we were the returning Champs the last 2 years uh and I am so pleased to announce that we won this again competing against school districts from across FL Island Nasa County districts all all throughout supper um we also won won the award for best logo so I think there's three three prizes during the competition the one that everyone's hoping to win is is the hackathon winner which we WN again for 3 years in a row but we also won best logo um I just really have
004to shout out the coaches and then on list of students uh our coaches are two teachers Mr fr Miss Thompson both in the Middle School um I posted a picture of them on Twitter called them the goats I mean it I left my office to go to the hackathon there was about 10 minutes left we were down by five or six territories picture almost like a risk for for those of you of my generation who remember playing risk as a kid um you have to take territories by winning these coding battles and uh our coaches set us up in such a way that the last 10 minutes we we ended up taking over a bunch of territories and winning by a considerable margin uh so that's Mr farar and Miss Thompson the students our team
005captain uh isan mahish Kumar uh eighth graders part of the team Nicole dorsy Bruce langos um Jake Kat seventh grade Tyler Lee Prav rumar adri Aron Alex marani Blake Benway and Jackson Schwarz so congratulations to our [Applause] Cod last but not least I just like to um share that uh this Saturday at 11:00 a.m. is the hoo uh parade the start of little leag season which is always celebrated and uh brings a sense of excitement here at Hot Box so uh hopefully we have good weather for that event thank you thank you Dr Murphy uh 5 on the agenda presentations 2025 26 uh school budget by Bri Bridget Sienna our assistant superintendent for business and operations Miss Sienna and Dr okay thank you Mr B uh tonight we're going to this is our third Workshop
006um and we keep the same traditional format uh tonight is all about what's in the budget in terms of curriculum technology health safety um it security so big picture um since I've been in the district particularly this board uh maintaining class sizes has been a top priority so proud to share that that will continue to be uh possible with this budget along with our extensive array of uh uh programs uh throughout the district our course catalog is diverse but balanced uh particularly at the high school um we continue to be a leader when it comes to classroom technology uh and security as well um and of course uh at the Forefront of everything we do is the health and safety of our students and our staff that's the 10,000 foot view I'll get into the
007Leed here just a little bit on each of uh these slides from an instructional perspective again um just to thank the board this was remains truly unique to hophog there are other districts that may fund some of this uh but not all that you see here so I'm talking about the exam fees for students so we've philosophically believe that if a student wants to step up and uh uh sit down and challenge themselves with one of the well-known assessments that are out there the board has uh been behind the idea that we want to take away barriers to that possibility so of course that's ibap uh sat act and PS uh that has gradually grown to that full Cadre of examinations and uh we see from students every year how doing that is just um
008such a value add and so much appreciated by our students and our our parents and families um next as we always do uh through the curriculum of instruction and Technology committee led by Dr m we have course offerings um am I hearing feedback or is that just you guys hear feedback it's the fan kicking in um two new courses this year Eagle Essentials at the middle school 10 we course uh and history of Long Island which we have excitement about those courses were were vetted through uh the crical instruction and Technology committee and approved by the board earlier this year um we also have our offerings with with CTE career uh uh Career Technical uh education sorry LST that word there um we have so many students who are taking advantage of what's going on
009at Bose I was having this conversation the other day in a high school class uh each year I join Mr White hor and we visit every High School senior to interview them and to get feedback and learn what we're doing well and where we improve it was such a tremendous conversation with this young group of students three of the the uh students were pursuing um HVAC a couple others were were looking into electrical work another was looking into Plumbing so all this happens because of the budget and our ability to uh support students through through bosis um in addition to those we have cosmetology we have animal science for those students who wish to be you know veterinarians um so in total uh that's 72 individual students who are taking advantage of those offerings uh
010and lastly there uh with a lot of excitement not everyone may know but my prior life I was a uh equities Trader on Wall Street uh we are uh we have planned and are uh moving forward with a trading room at the high school um we've visited some some schools and and some that are private schools and others that are public uh to learn a bit about what's worked in other districts this is a rarity so again thank you to the board for supporting this region but really what we're looking to do is build excitement at the high school where students uh walk down the hall and they'll see glass and you can kind a picture a traditional ticker that you see on Wall Street with the stocks moving uh across the ticker and then
011uh trading terminals so the idea for year one is to uh route students in different courses through the trading room to have that experience so we are really excited about that building upon that uh in years to come next from PPS uh led by Dr bilsky of course um you're seeing a a lot of uh bullets on on this slide I'll let you read them and just kind of uh you what the Highlight some of them um again just unique to hophog um we are a district that has had the ICT model for years and we've brought it down into our youngest grades and into uh different courses at the high school so we always provide the necessary supports there um at the bottom of that list you're seeing that we have a new bcba
012um certified Behavior Uh analyst I will say that um uh we're able to do that because we found that we were uh Outsourcing a lot of that work to private company and we're able to save money while bringing that individual on board so this is a a savings while it's also adding value by adding someone to our team permanently uh which of course is is always best for students um I added that last Bullet at the last minute just to kind of highlight something that hit my superintendent thread this week um a superintendent asked how many Wilson certified teachers do you have in your District this was asked um there was about 13 superintendents on this thread um and without naming names I will say that my answer was we we're north of 50 teachers
013and there's different levels there you have like level one level two you even have teachers who can train others which is which is extremely rare uh so we were north of 50 a district of comparable size had chimed in that they had four a district that is three times the size of us um maybe even larger had 40 so um again this is not always something that the board sees or knows about but that happens because of your support and this is such a value add for our students uh Wilson certified teacher this is helping our students who have the most severe leading needs many times students with Lexia um so just a feather in the cap there and something that I just when when I learn what's going on in comparison I love to
014share with the board and the community um I again you need to hop hog our College trips um The College Tour that's coming up uh over the summer summer 2025 uh includes many Sun schools um including the oy College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences also of Vermont middleberry Marist which heart is beautiful um from students hot on students who go there um Mount St Mary so that's on the docket and then um again with pride the you know the student internship item there just to kind of highlight what that means we have um students in our life skills courses who uh have these opportunities to have life experiences so when I walk through the hallway of the high school there is a coffee cart where teachers and admins can purchase a cup of coffee through
015an order form early in the morning well that coffee cart comes to our classroom and it's our life skill students who are preparing the coffee delivering it uh dealing with money um so it's just this tremendous value that everybody talks about and and of course benefits our students there's also a student who recently was assigned to district office who will come to my office and deliver mail to all members of cabinet um so and and it's it's really such a um a valued addition and and what happens in those you know brief engagements is that the the assigned assistant with the student will you know coach them on communication and how to address adults um and you know just these little moments that helps to build capacity in life so uh tremendous job again uh
016Dr bilsky Le you know leads those efforts um over moving right here um of course everybody knows about our uh attendance campaign again um we've sent out a couple of videos that have gotten some great Buzz everyday counts uh I will tell you that there are districts that are looking to copy that approach um I guess there's there's flattery but I'm I'm also competitive I don't like everyone's stealing our ideas just to be honest but of course the bigger picture is if our small campaign here leads the students to other districts who are chronically absent attending school more then uh God bless that's a great thing for for for all students so we're we're thrilled about that um over to the right we have our North well partnership um which we've been so pleased with
017offering uh tier three supports uh to students who to have those uh crises where they need extra help um we have additional Elementary Social Work support coming next year and ESS some members of the board effective School Solutions may remember a few years back where when we brought this partnership in this program um we were wondering about you know how effective it was and at the end of the school year we had parents come to a board meeting and talking about how this made a difference in the lives of their kids uh no better data uh than having that feedback in technology and security um actually it seems like a lifetime ago that we went one to one the only difference in um our approach now is uh mostly iPads have been replaced with Chromebooks
018iPads are still better suited for our younger students in K1 who are still using their fingers more um but we're continuing to be one to one um our smartboards are everywhere in the district we're actually going to be coming up on a new refresh cycle there uh and deciding the best approach I'm wearing audio enhancement mic uh this is standardized in every hot classroom again unique to hop up um and something that other districts are interested in Flex boards um is something new that we have think of a Smartboard in your hands um suited for small group construction small reading groups a teacher that's uh uh um working with a few students in the back of the room these have taken over classrooms because it allows for um almost to distill distill the classroom experience
019down to a smaller setting but have uh the same opportunities for our kids digital dens and coding Labs um again as former Tech director here I I walked through some of these spaces um Dr mfee really took the the lead here um reimagining what used to be our our computer labs the days of going in and S a desktop computer behind us the poles in the middle of the room that used to have Outlets all that stuff is gone you walk into these spaces they're colorful there's lots of different opportunities it's tremendous Network refresh Dr SMY presented on earlier this year uh we're we're going about this through a few different uh funding sources the presentation from Dr SMY was all about the smart schools funds which will be exhausted as as part of this
020effort uh multi-year effort um we continue to have you know our eye on monitoring and testing and making sure we have a safe environment moving to the right um happy to report when I walked through the high school all students we we went seemingly overnight to one or two students wearing their ID badge to almost all students I I credit really Dr White course and Dr SMY for figuring out the best approach to ensuring Buy in there as we know I have kids students don't always like to put something that doesn't match their wardrobe so this was not something that was uh we getting buying on but we found opportunities to make it meaningful for kids the real purpose there of course uh without getting into the twoo much detail is all about Safety and
021Security when we know who's wearing a badge we know who should be in our schools um camera system enhancements again uh I never get into too much detail here but that's always part of our overall vision of Safety and Security uh and you know I feel like we have the best group of security guards around um some of them are here tonight and uh we have we have Gary Masina the man with a pedora who's leading them again with with Dr SMY as well we're always looking at additional training for them in addition to that happy to report that um we're going to begin the process of turning over our security vehicle Fleet much overdue um lot of money has been spent trying to keep these cars up to you know up to to date
022and as you can imagine there's a lot of miles that they have Co over the years so they'll actually you know we're hoping for a savings by uh by uh you know refreshing that whole Fleet I would say in year one we're looking at two to three uh Vehicles as part of that replacement plan moving over to health and safety uh at the middle school um standing there the parents walk over on Lincoln uh there's a need for some repair work on that curb so that's part of uh the budget this upcoming year along with um the replacement playground at Forest Brook the the playground for The the younger students um I think it's okay to share this uh with some excitement that playground replacement will happen due to a gr from Senator Martinez the
023way that that works is we lay out the money we get that back uh I just really want to commend Miss Sienna who who I'm going to say tortured the Senator's office to get was relentless to to to advocate for Hot Hog and that's a value of about $100,000 coming our way through the Miss Siana it's a great job Bridget on that uh every year we have abatements every slide every presentation for the last 15 years probably longer has batement um that's an old buildings that's pip and and TI and then um upk so questions come up every year uh just to kind of rewind going back to year one the philosophy had always been here uh with the board you know our pre students are hot hop students so how can we accommodate as
024many as possible happy to report for the last couple years the lottery has not even been necessary because we've been able to accommodate all of our youngsters um it's come at a price which I'll explain uh for the upcoming year you see that uh that's growing so we're going to have 10 sections that's somewhere around 180 uh youngsters who are going to be in our buildings the way that works is we have a few classrooms in each of our three elementary schools and they filter in to those classrooms as much as possible we try to make it the home school of that family uh but most important is that they're able to ATT without cost to par why I say that there's a uh Financial consideration is the way that it works at the state
025level today is we get a certain amount of money that is allocated per student we have no flexibility this is not unique to hop on this is the way it works for the moment and I'll explain my little Cy out there um so first of all our provider scope scope has been a tremendous partner but their cost keep Rising but the per child allotment from the state has stayed at $5,400 a student scope charges 5,800 so that Delta $400 multiply that by the number of students and there you have the added plus again that's been supported by the board um so our parents have not been out of pocket we've been um complimenting those State funds the odity here is that we've been leaving so much money on the table so roughly I'm going to
026say we were given $900,000 for upk the way the formula works we were we were only able to use about $600,000 of that I'm in the bullart SC come so even though we were expending an additional $128,000 we had $300,000 that we couldn't touch it's this cork the formula and their philosophy that we are praying there's a lot of buzz in Al that they're going to Sol for in this budget cycle I of course cannot make that promise but we're all we every superintendent every district is hoping they solve this even the legislators I've talked to like this makes no sense we we're giving you the money to spend it but you can't spend it like you're sending us back money you're spending money that's not the the purpose of of upk funding and philosophy
027so there's talk that they're going to raise that per pupil amount or even better um get rid of it and have flexibility for districts to have um some local approach to you using those funds to best suit our needs so I'm hoping for that lastly uh for those in attendance and may be listening at home um this is uh just a plug a a school district uh strategic plan is is uh in the works to gather feedback from all of our constituents parents um faculty staff the board all of us to help CH the course for hop hog uh you know over the next 5 years um there's so much good going on of course you can't drive past the high school and not see the big dirt piles I was with uh the board
028early today with shovels and hard hats um celebrating the beginning of that work which will happen over the next 3 years but what does it look like to reflect the values of our community what the goals look like what do those board goals look like in terms of my own goals and the goals of my team um so I'll be messaging the community uh we're using a platform called thought exchange which will help to gather feedback and Elevate uh group thinking to to best crowdsource The Hop hog community and and understand uh where we go next okay so with that still part of presentation I'm going to hand this over to Bridget and then we'll take all questions at the end if you yeah think I can see this way okay so tax levy update
029the biggest update that I have for you tonight is that at the last presentation it was presented that we were at 377 I explained payments and mo taxes we'd be working with the three municipalities to date I've worked with two out of the three regarding payments and mo taxes they expect to see for 25 26 so that number has increased which means that the tax levy has come down from 377 to the only graphic I have of tonight 3.25 you like that so funding snapshot tax levy is the largest source of revenue for hotg schools 3.25 is that number state aid so today's April 1st today is technically the the date that the governor is supposed to have her um legislative budget her final enacted budget uh we do not have that as of today
030we're hoping that we received that before and ahead of the April 22nd budget adoption so that Still Remains the Same Pilots as I said has increased by 500,000 so that reflects that there everything else Remains the Same so the grand total budget of 138 39328 which is a budget to budget increase of 3 .88 so 138 3938 will be proposition one on the ballot and then on the back side of the ballot will be proposition two regarding energy performance contract so the district has been exploring an energy performance contract we received several bids we selected a company and that company right now is undergoing a detailed engineering uh audit technically which is at no cost to the school district so proposition two is asking the community to receive an additional 10% of the funded by
031the state and it's important to note in this that we don't have to have voter approval for an energy performance contract we only need approval or we are only seeking approval to capture the additional 10% from the state so it's kind of small but why would hot out benefit we would save over 1.14 million per year uh through Energy savings those savings would then be applied into the infrastructure upgrades so there would be no taxpayer impact and I tried to make that as large as POS possible that there is no taxpayer impact so what does this entail so we're looking at every aspect that that could potentially save us energy so heating ventilation and cooling lighting upgrades bringing it into today's times and today's requirements and then something that's interesting that the company offers that
032most do not or others that um put in for it do not is student engagement so the project will be a learning tool for students which is really exciting it will allow them to learn about what it is to work for uh an energy uh company it will also have them understand how energy and sustainability is implemented and how it can improve their learning environment which is something that we find to be very important so again no taxpayer impact on this and the next step is that the detailed energy audit will continue we should see those findings towards the end of the summer we will present those out to the board of education and the community so back to budget land so the next important date April 22nd is the budget adoption so it will
033be the budget itself but also the property tax report card which has to be submitted to the state after that May 13th is the budget uh hearing and between April 22nd and May 20th the budget vote we'll be doing the PTA Road show where we go to every single building um and it's always a great turnout at every single one of those and then finally May 20th is the annual budget vote and school election so there will be proposition one on the front side flip it over proposition two on the back side and that's all I got thank you thank you questions from the board concerning uh either the presentations Dr crafa it's a great idea to get the students involved in that energy contract and learning off of it um how are we actually
034doing that as a course or are they going to get B so I actually have a Energy System group here so I would like um do you mind using the microphone people at home can hear you hi I'm be the project manager who will manage the project once we get there um so it's done through multiple ways at all different levels it's really what you guys and what we discuss how we'll do it um anywhere from Little activities that we can send to the elementary school um took courses with high schoolers and middle schoolers um previously for an example at oan side we did a 3-e course with the high schoolers where we explained what an EPC was we had them actually build their own EPC project um we did a lighting audit we showed
035them all the work that we had done um and then we also do a career um kind of conversation just so that students can see other options and they can hear like how we got to the roles that we're in um our hope is to also then bring in some of our contractors and other people um that are involved in the project so they can just see all the different stages and all the different types of great thank you yeah any questions from the board Mr sco Dr Murphy as far as the um great going to the high school today are they going to put updates on the website so a lot of people call and they ask know what's going on at a pile of dirt you know what's happening we going to put
036updates cly or something yeah so on the front page of the website there's um links along the right called piano keys one of them is Bond updates so every single step along the way is added to the website there uh it's a link to its own section with all updates so they'll explain what 10 cour sir yeah that's actually twofold so it's the website but then we send monthly updates as well to the community so um and and I think you'll see more of that once the activity even speeds up a bit but it it's already you stop by the high school one week and and the next week it's tremendously amount of uh momentum thank you so much sure any other questions from the board concerning you presentation questions or comments from the community
037concerning the presentation yes I have a question [Music] about is that once these students graduate what do another level of vocation to do that or do they do internship or do we know well the way we're looking at this uh we're having these conversations every day um actually set of conversation today about what does preparing preparing our kids right this is the Genesis even of the Strategic plan is what does preparing our kids will tomorrow look like because we're we're seeing that college is not for every student and that number keeps increasing right the vocational path um so the conversations I'm having having with students are so helpful because it's actually informing conversations I'm having with with this group and the rest of the admin team one of the ideas that came out of the
038conversation with the students is um one of the the boys was saying it I know what I'm doing but it would be great to think about a course in let's say 9th or 10th grade that maybe is a little bit of AGB a little bit of electric a little bit of Plumbing so you know this is just kind of a a conversation I just had to think about what is the complete path look like cuz you want to we do our job right we want to kind of plant seeds that get fertilized to the kids find their passion the second part of that is is internship opportunities and career uh connections um we had me today Dr mcarty myself was broy um and uh Kelly Barry um and and Mr wos High School principal so
039that's very much part of our thinking about what does it look like after they leave us this has been a conversation even with the board for years like how can we stay connected to our kids after they leave us CU that that may be the truest sense to know how we did right where are they in 3 years 5 years 10 years so it's very much it's a great question part of our thinking about how we complete that cycle they f y uh if there's no internship or they have to look for the a lot of companies different how much experience do you have sure how you get that if you opportunity to try out a lot of them don't want to put in that time sure they have someone with experience I said yep
040no it's it's a great question and definitely part of our our thinking experience I went through and I don't know if you guys have seen that part of it I know it's great that the kids go off TR but you know from there it's ni our kids to try this company even if it's minimal or no pay whatever you're getting training well a recent visit to a a private school again led to a current conversation about what what does um a more formalized connection to hophog Alumni network look like which is not something that necessarily exists for public schools formally but you do see it uh like a St Anthony's or or some of the other uh schools so uh we're having these convers it's perfect time but we're in the same thinking space thank
041you thank you further questions comments from from the community okay thank you thank you 5C on the agenda is the adoption of minutes from our uh budget business meeting of March 18th 2025 do I have a motion thank you Mr sco Mr Michaels with the second any discussion all those in favor 70 questions and comments from the community concerning tonight's agenda only are there any items from the consent agenda that members would like to have removed I'll make a motion to approve the uh consent agenda in Toto uh Mr sco Seconds any discussion uh all those in favor 70 new business uh do any board members have new business Mr sco I just want a couple of shout outs um I want to thank Dr Murphy I had a parent call meting about a pole
042um over near the Pines Elementary that was getting larger by the day and uh it was quickly taken care of so I want to thank you very much forck action by thank if I may I want to pass on my thanks to Mr Hol who I messaged and who got on top of that right away so appreciate he I appreciate you saying that thank you problem got a couple CH April 28th is a College and Career Fair At the Hop High School from 6:30 to 8:30 so please mark your calendars um and here's a closer one tomorrow night Wednesday 4 to8 at the chipot there's a fundraising for the hotg high school class in 2028 so really helpful that class and then Dr Murphy the board always looking to save money I um approached by
043Smithtown schools and uh they did Mary Poppins this year we did mamaia and they have an interesting thing I'm going to give you a copy of it but they have their students sell ads for their programs and I'm going to give you a copy of it and uh maybe that's another way to raise some money to help our community as well as our students sounds good I appreciate it we will definitely explore that thank you uh do any other board members have new business administration have any new business questions or comments from the community concerning anything related to The District whatsoever with that I'll take a motion for an adjournment our next meeting is the um is a business meeting and budget adoption uh it's April 22nd 2025 I'll make the motion for the adjournment
044Mr Mr Scaro seconds any discussion all those in favor 70 we are adjourned God bless hhog and God bless the United States thank you good night everybody