001Good evening and welcome to the Yorktown Central School District Board of Education meeting for March 16, 2026. And I have a motion to go into executive session to consider a matter related to a specific student, to discuss the employment of a particular corporation, the employment history of particular pedagogical and non-pedagical employees, matters made confidential under FURPA, and to obtain the advice of legal counsel. >> So move second. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Thank you. Motion to go back into public session. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Good evening and welcome to the Yorktown Central School District Board of Education meeting for March 16, 2026. Can we stand for the pledge of allegiance to be followed by a moment of silence for our armed forces
002and those in the district community who have lost loved ones, especially the grandmother of Diane Pasakita and the stepfather of Jeffrey Howard. I also indivisibley and justice for all. First is public comment event. Anybody sign up? All right, then we will turn it over to our student members. Good evening. Last weekend, Yorktown High School held three fantastic performances of its spring musical, The Wizard of Oz. Congratulations to all the performers and the crew. This week, Brooks Elementary School will hold its first grade concert on Wednesday, March 18th. Next Wednesday, March 25th, the Yorktown School District will hold its orchestra concert at the Yorktown High School. Next Thursday, March 26th, Yorktown's 5th through 12th grade musicians will performance in the annual Band of Palooa concert. The spring tour season has begun last week. Yorktown spring teams
003are preparing for the their seasons upcoming, many of which will begin with scrimmages this week. This evening, the spring sportsformational meeting was held at the Yorktown High School. And as a reminder, all Yorktown schools will be closed this Friday, March 20th for Superintendent's Conference Day. Thank you. >> Thank you, Hunter. Dr. Hatter. >> Thank you. Thank you, Hunter. and good luck this season. So, I have a quick update that I will give to members of our community. Evette, I think you have the slide advancer. Oh, here it is. So, there are nine items that I'll provide a quick update on. So, the first is with regard to remote instruction emergency closure days. So, we have used all of our emergency closure days. Just a reminder, February 23rd was waved by the state education department commissioner.
004I hope that we don't need an emergency closure between closure between now and Friday. If that is the case, schools will be in session for students. But uh in truth, Mrs. Amarling and and our school administrators and central office administrative team have worked so hard to prepare a wonderful day of learning for our faculty and staff. It's also a K5 parent teacher conference day, which is really important to our parents and to our teachers. So, I'm hopeful that we will not need an emergency closure, certainly not for this week. Should we have an emergency closure after Friday, March 20th, then we would follow a remote learning model, and we would be on a 2-hour delayed opening. That'll provide families the opportunity to get their their children situated on a device. It'll give our teachers opportunity
005the opportunity to pivot from the in-person lesson plans that they prepared to a online platform and and transition their lesson plans over to whether it's Google Classroom is is them platform that we'll be using. There are specific schedules there. There'll be a schedule released on Tuesday, March 17th that uh families will be able to access for our remote learning plan. Again, it's something I hope we don't use. It's it's a lot of planning for something that I really hope never comes to fruition. Grades 6 through 12, we do have a two two-hour delayed bell schedule. So students would follow just our 2-hour delayed bell schedule. With regard to the red light cameras, 18 tickets were issued in February. It's the lowest recorded total. However, it was our lowest month of instructional days as well. So,
006uh, the 18 is encouraging, but once we factor in not only the President's Week school closure, but the three snow days that immediately followed, there weren't many instructional days that in a way that we could compare to October or November and and certainly not January either. However, of the 18 tickets, I thought it was worth noting that 15 of those 18 tickets were on three streets under Hill Avenue, Route 35, and Route 202. So, that's something that I'm certainly going to make sure that our police department is aware of so that uh greater enforcement even though we have the cameras and tickets are being issued. Uh certainly worth noting to our local police department. I wanted to just touch base on some electricity costs because we recently received our electricity bills for the most recent
007month and we were very surprised by the increase that each of our schools has experienced. So I I just highlighted crown as an example and in yellow you'll see February 2026 versus February 2025. You'll notice our usage is down and our usage is down substantially, but our bill is up substantially. So even despite our best efforts to reduce consumption, we're seeing an increase in our costs. And we looked at this in October 2026 versus I'm sorry, August 26 versus August 25. Same story, lower usage, higher bill. Same thing in May of 2025 versus May of 2024. That's when you start getting into cooling season in the buildings. So consumption was modestly higher, but the bill was substantially higher. So we're keenly aware of the rising electricity rates and and our schools are not immune to
008this. I I highlighted one school. I could have easily highlighted any of our five schools and the story would not have changed. That takes me to this next slide. With regard to bus fleet electrification, many in our community, certainly our board is aware that New York State is requiring that any new bus purchased after 2027 be electric and by 2035, the entire fleet has to be electrified. So, our district commissioned an independent report. We used INF Associates to conduct that report and their report suggests that it would take 42 to 46 million to electrify our fleet and build infrastructure. That is a lot of money. Money that we certainly don't have as a school district. Money that most school districts would not have. Money that we're not able to levy in a tax cap environment,
009nor would we. Uh we're all about being responsible stewards of our environment and caring for our environment. But this was a number that I saw that that was just shocking. With regard to the annual costs of electrifying our fleet, it is estimated by our consultants that it would cost about $600,000 a year in electricity to charge the buses. Right now, we're spending $120,000 on gasoline for our buses annually. That is a substantial difference. That $600,000 for this year represents about 30% of our maximum allowable tax levy. Those monies should be spent on students and their needs and supporting academic programs and and co-curricular programs. I have shared our report with our local elected officials, Senator Harkham, Assemblyman Slater, Assembly Member Levvenberg. I have a call set up with Assembly Member Levvenberg in April to discuss
010this mandate and the implications on our school district. The vast majority of school districts have had a feasibility study commissioned. The vast majority of school districts have received similar costs that would be really impactful and harmful to educational programming. So, I share that with our board. I share this with our community. We'll post the report to our website. We'll we certainly want to get the report. I shared that report previously with our board and we'll certainly share this with our community because I think it's important for members of our community to understand what this mandate is and the impact of this mandate on our school district. With regard to UPK registration, the regular enrollment has concluded, but if you live within the Yorktown School Central School District catchment area and you have a child who
011will be turning four years of age on de on or before December 1st of 2026, please register them for our UPK program. We have 137 students and climbing registered. We anticipate having 188 seats, so there still is more room for us to grow the program. The program almost filled up this year. we were in the 160s which is just our the highest number we've had to date and nothing but positive feedback on our UPK program. One final reminder, April 1st is the deadline to submit requests for either out of district transportation or transportation to daycare. Please be sure to get those requests in. A request received after April 1st may not necessarily be accepted. If there's space on our current buses, then we don't have to add a bus or or add a route. We
012can certainly consider the requests, but please know that requests after April 1st are not guaranteed. We are going to be starting an afterchool program and this is really exciting for our school district and for our community and we'll house it at each of our elementary schools, Mohansick, Brookside, and Krompond. We had a very thorough and comprehensive RFP process. Thank you to Lisa San Philippo and her office for generating that RFP meeting with some of the different providers in town. Getting the RFP out to different providers in town so that everyone had an opportunity to assume this program. The YMCA was selected from for the RFP. They'll administer the program. We anticipate opening registration soon. Their their prices are reasonable. They have a proven track record not only in running after school programs but running programs
013within our district. We we've established a great relationship with them and they have really proven themselves as just a wonderful provider of academic programs and all of the details there there are details on cost there are details on uh times for pickup at each of the locations. All of that will come out in the next week or so. construction update. Lots happening. We posted the Brian Marshaus did a great job of creating a time-lapse video that's been posted. It's remarkable on our website and has been very insightful in seeing the progress. We are for the most part enclosed in some of our areas and and they're working on within the building. We have I I think we've surpassed the setback that we had on our middle school and high school athletic complex. The snow was
014really problematic. Two really large snowstorms set us back, but I don't think it's delayed the completion time frame at this point. Contractors are working. Things are moving along. They're excavating and that's resumed and the soil is being evaluated to ensure that it's a proper underllayment for the turf that we're going to place on top. So, more to come. We update our community at every board meeting on construction. This is an exciting event. Our school district and the Yorktown Police Department have just such a great relationship. I I'm seeing Officer Mundy in the back and he's referred to as the voice of the Huskers. So, not only is he a police officer in town, but as a police officer in town, he's also announcing many of our games. We have a great relationship with the Yorktown
015Police Department and it's going to really, I think, test the strength of that relationship because we're going to play them at a basketball game and the money will go to supporting student programs. It'll go to supporting families in our community. That's on April 10th. There there's a modest admission fee, $5 for adults, $3 for students. There'll be some other fundraisers at the event. Again, all of the proceeds are going to support our programs and Yorktown Police Department would use uh their proceeds to support families and different organizations in town. So, if you can come out, it's going to be a great event. It'll be right at Yorktown High School in the gymnasium. And that concludes the report that I prepared for you. I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. >> Anybody questions
016or comments? >> Okay, good. So we are going to pivot into the next portion of the superintendent report and that is our next installment of our budget presentations. This evening features the final of our departmental presentations. Next week will be my final presentation to our board. But this evening, we'll hear from some really really uh important budget drivers. We we're largely driven by staff. We'll hear a lot about staff. We'll hear a lot about programming. So, tonight we're talking about instruction, general education, and pupil personnel services. And as I mentioned, there are some really important budget drivers within this presentation. And so I'll turn the presentation over to Mrs. Amarling, but I know that we'll have members of my central office cabinet also participating in parts of the program. Is yours Now we're on. Good
017evening, members of the board and Yorktown community. Tonight, we continue our 2026 2027 budget development process by looking at two key areas of our district's operation, curriculum and instruction, and pupil personnel services. This segment of planning is where we align fiscal resources with our instructional goals, ensuring that every dollar is an intentional investment in the growth of our students. To begin tonight, I'll focus on the curriculum and instruction department. The work of this department is the engine that drives the daily classroom experience. And to begin, it's important to first understand the core philosophy that guides every instructional decision we make. As you see, the word esteem in the background here serves as a constant reminder that our work is anchored by this initiative starting with E for empathy. In Yorktown, empathy is the spark for
018solving real world problems. We believe that when a student truly connects with a challenge, whether it's a personal struggle, a community need, or a global crisis, they are naturally driven to use the tools of steam to build innovative solutions. This empathy empathydriven approach is the engine behind our district vision to develop students who don't just learn about the world, but have the capacity to influence change in it. We move toward that vision in four key ways. First, by cultivating empathy, the true driver for authentic problem solving. Second, by celebrating creativity and innovation, giving students the permission they need to think beyond traditional boundaries. Third, by promoting critical thinking and inquiry, moving our classrooms past wrote memorization and toward deep research-based understanding. And finally, by nurturing ambition, ensuring every student has a specific pathway to reach
019their individual goals. While these pillars define our goals, our success depends on how we integrate them into every facet of a student's life. That brings us to our whole child's model. At Yorktown, this is how we put our vision into practice. We know that academic success is inseparable from a student's social, emotional, and physical well-being. To support them as complete individuals, we've unified eight key areas of growth. First, there's the instructional core, academics, the arts, and innovation. This is where that authentic inquiry happens. Supporting that core is social, emotional, and character development. the foundation of our empathydriven mission, ensuring our students have the resilience and emotional intelligence that is needed to lead. And finally, through athletics, clubs, and community service, students find real world environments to apply their skills, collaborate, and begin influencing change in
020their communities. By integrating these eight attributes, we're not just teaching students, we are preparing them for the future. Maintaining this level of focus requires more than a shared philosophy. It requires district-wide coordination. As superintendent, assistant superintendent, I don't have your job there, Ron. My primary role is to ensure the integrity of every instructional program. To do that, I work directly with our tech and data teams, PPS, building administrators, and curriculum supervisors. This structure ensures that our highle curriculum design is always integrated with the personalized supports our students need to thrive. To provide this level of support, we utilize a comprehensive staffing model. It starts with our instructional staff, the classroom and special area teachers who are with our students every day. They are supported by our support staff including literacy coaches and our MTSS coordinator
021who provide the framework for targeted interventions. Our PPS team brings in the essential expertise of behavior specialists, nurses, psychologists, and finally, our administrative team provides the leadership and oversight necessary to maintain Yorktown's high standards. With this team in place, we concentrate on three primary areas. In curriculum, we focus on design and assessment, ensuring our materials stay responsive and integrated with social emotional learning. In instruction, we make sure every lesson is aligned with state standards and rooted in best practices. In instructional support, we provide the engine, the tech, data, and health services that underpin the entire model. While our teams manage the daily implementation, we significantly expand our reach through our regional partnerships with Boseies and the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center or Lyric. Through Boseies, we provide K through6 students with rigorous inquirybased tools such
022as science 21 and our online social studies ELA curriculum. For high schoolers, Boseies opens doors to career and technical education where students can earn industry certifications and fields like HVAC and culinary arts. Finally, the Lyric serves as our technological backbone. They manage the data systems that drive our MTSS process and through model schools, they provide the AI integration training our staff is exploring to modernize instruction for the future. I'm incredibly proud of the progress we've made this year. These highlights really define this school year and show how our vision is coming to life in the classrooms. First, in literacy and support. This was our first year with two new literacy coaches, and their impact was immediate. By working side by side with teachers in the classroom, they've ensured that research-based instruction is reaching every student.
023We also expanded our MTSS framework into the middle school, adding a dedicated AIS English teacher to provide the small groupoup support our students need to bridge achievement gaps. Moving to innovation, we successfully launched an E steam afterchool program at Krompond. This was a huge hit with almost 200 students participating in hands-on challenges and we're already looking at ways to expand it for next year. We also updated our K through5 report cards to give parents a much clearer, more clear, more descriptive picture of their child's developmental and educational journey. At the secondary level, our team has been proactive and forwardinking. Our teachers have been working hard to prepare for new regions exams in English, algebra 2, earth and space science and biology. We also introduced two popular new electives, business entrepreneurship and raising Asian voices, both
024of which were very wellreceived by students. Finally, we are seeing incredible student achievements. Last June, 239 students earned the seal of civic readiness in its first year, and we are on track for high numbers again this year. These students demonstrated a high level of proficiency in civic knowledge and a commitment to active community participation. We've also been focused on expanding student participation in the seal of biiteracy with nearly 60 students currently working towards recognition of demonstrating mastery in multiple languages. In past years, this was less than 10. These highlights show the momentum built over the this past year. To keep that progress moving forward, I'd like to share some key priorities that will guide us into the 2627 school year. Our first two priorities focus on professional development and curricular alignment across every content area.
025By anchoring our staff training in the latest state standards and best practices, we ensure our curriculum is both vertically and horizontally aligned. This gives our students a seamless experience as they move from grade to grade with consistent highquality instruction in every classroom. An example of this is our preparation for the new physics and chemistry regent exams. These updated assessments align perfectly with our district's hands-on philosophy, shifting the focus toward the conceptual understanding and engineering practices our students need for the modern workplace. We are also expanding our support framework. Following our successful pilot at the middle school, we are building a comprehensive secondary MTSS plan that covers both the middle and high school. This ensures we are using real-time data to provide timely interventions for every student. In terms of in innovation, we are advancing AI
026initiatives through a collaborative leadership model. We've shifted the role of our instructional tech support specialist to focus on AI where she will lead direct hands-on training for our teachers and staff. This work will be supported by teacher leaders in each of our buildings, creating a structure that ensures both districtwide and building level support in order to use generative AI responsibly and effectively. And finally, we are ensuring our students are prepared for life by integrating personal finance instruction across the middle and high school levels. In accordance with New York Inspire's plan, we are embedding this content directly into our family and consumer science and economics courses. This ensures our students will have the practical skills to manage their money and build a a secure financial future. Beyond these district-wide priorities, our high school is exploring and
027developing many new courses for the coming year. These offerings are designed to meet evolving student needs and interests and provide high demand career skills. In business and technology, we're introducing AP business and personal finance, which give students a college level head start on entrepreneurship and wealth management. We're also planning to launch AP cyber security where students will learn to detect digital threats and use AI tools to solve security problems. In the realm of modern media and research, we've updated digital media production where students use industry standard software to create professional content for platforms like YouTube and Instagram. We're also introducing historical inquiry and innovation, a course built around the National History Day competition that challenges students to produce professional level documentaries and exhibits. We are also excited about our new AI focused pathways. Our intro
028to AI course will teach students the art of the prompt to leverage these tools for academic and creative goals. We're also planning a unique interdisciplinary course, AI and Science Fiction, which examines how AI is portrayed in literature and film, challenging students to think critical critically about the ethics of technology and the future of humanity. Finally, we're rounding out our fine and performing arts with intro to piano and a comprehensive theater, arts, and drama course, giving our students even more avenues for creative expression. While these slide new courses prepare our students for future success, we know that success is only possible when it's built on a strong foundation of care. to share how we provide that essential support. I am pleased to introduce Miss Caroline Amida, our director of pupa personnel to share her department's work.
029Thank you, Mrs. Amarling. Good evening, Dr. Hatter, Mrs. R, and trustees. Thank you for having me here tonight to speak about the Department of People Services. Our department is comprised of many wonderful and hardworking people and includes special education teachers, psychologists, social workers, behavior specialists, nurses, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, and occupational therapy assistants, teaching assistants and administrative assistants, as well as two special education supervisors who are with us in the audience tonight. When we look at the different numbers of our staffing, I have a slide here that shows the numbers. And I want to in particular draw your attention to two numbers this evening. And that's the number of social workers in the district. And all of these numbers are districtwide. Um we have currently nine social workers in the district and two behavior
030specialists in the district. And uh I'll get to uh why I wanted to draw your attention to those two numbers in just a minute. Each year when I present, I talk a little bit about our numbers and the trends that I'm seeing in special education. And um I thought about cutting some of the previous year's data out, but I wanted to leave it in because I think it's significant in showing any trends that we're seeing across the district in terms of referrals and the types of needs that we see. And so in preschool, you'll see that the number is um it varies from year to year. Um and uh this year is one of um is like yeah last year we had 104 students and at this time this year we have 111 students in
031preschool. The numbers always change throughout the school year and tend to go up towards the end of the school year as more students are referred. One of the biggest increases we've had over the last six to seven years are the number of classified students under section 504. Section 504 serves general education students who have impairments that limit their ability to participate in school such that they need accommodations and sometimes related services. And you can see that the number of 504 students has increased considerably from the 1920 school year for instance when we had 158 classified 504 students to at this point during the 2526 school year where we have 303 in terms of our classified school age students. So, kindergarten through 12th grade students classified through the committee on special education under the 13 different
032classification categories. The numbers did climb after COVID and are now starting to drop again. Our current classification rate is 18% and our classification rate last year was 18% as well, which is on par with what we see throughout New York State. Our uh out of district students are students who need a program that um we're not able to provide within our district for one reason or another, usually due to the highly intensive and specialized needs of those students. And that number has remained fairly constant over the past several years with currently 51 students being served in out of district programs, bringing our total count this year to 1,084 students at this point. It's our goal to provide for our students within the least restrictive environment. And for many students, that's right here in their home
033public school district. And for many of those students in their home public school building. Some of our students receive uh general education services and some receive related services as a pull out or a pushin. We have consultant teacher direct services and indirect services. Integrated and co integrated co-eing is one of our models that we use most frequently here in kindergarten through 12. It's a model that we have in all of the core areas. Um we also have special class programs of varying sizes 811, 1212, 1211, 151. And we serve some students out of district as well in other public schools in schools such as Boseies or other private schools um and in some cases students on home instruction or hospital instruction. We also provide an extended school year summer program each year for our students.
034This is a program that we provide here at our high school. And it's a K12 program that supports the needs of students with more more intensive needs who need a 12-month or year- round program to prevent substantial regression. And this year, that program will run from July 1st through August 11th with no school on July 3rd. Last year, we had 11 classes in that program, and I imagine we'll have about 11 this year as well. One of the things that's different for this school year that I wanted to draw your attention to is the age at which students are eligible to receive services through their public school district. Historically, students have received services through the end of the school year in which they turn 21. Whether that be during the regular school year, they would
035finish in June, pardon me, or if they turned 21 over the summer, they would finish school at the end of the extended school year. What's different this year is that um in accordance with the regulations from New York State, we are now providing services for students until the day before their 22nd birthday, regardless of when that falls in the school year. And so this will be the first year that we're having students remain uh that late again until the day before their 22nd birthday. I listed on this slide some of the different Boseies and public school districts that help us serve our students. We have students at Putinham Northern Westchester Boseies, Southern Westchester Boseies, Rockland Boseies, some other public school districts, approved day programs, and we have a couple of students at um approved residential
036schools. And I also wanted to point out that we provide services to students through what's called a district of location provision. And this is a provision in New York State that allows public school districts, actually mandates public school districts to provide services to students who are parentally placed in private or parochial schools that are within their catchment area. So in the Yorktown catchment area, we have St. Patrick's School where we currently have 21 students receiving services. Some of those students receive in your uh reside in Yorktown and some of them reside in other school districts. We also have two other uh district of location schools. They are both uh yeshivas within our catchment area and neither of those two schools have students registered with our district currently. Um but um as long as they were
037to register by June 1st of this year, they would be eligible to receive services for next September. And so we we always um look to see and include them in any of our child find obligations. I want to talk a little bit about my recommendations for next school year and come back around to what I mentioned earlier about the number of social workers and the number of behavior specialists within the district. When we look at the overall needs in the district and the growing numbers in certain areas, in particular in section 504, we pay particular attention to where those students are who are being referred and what the reason is behind those referrals. We also spend a lot of time working with our colleagues in the different departments and what we have come to know
038and and has become a very strong reality since co and it's been growing is the complexity and volume of the mental health needs of adolescence. It really is um a crisis. I would I would consider it a crisis based on the numbers and the needs. Um, we have a staff that work phenomenally well together to help identify and and uh serve students and work with their parents to help get treatment for students. Um, we conduct threat assessments and risk assessments and suicide assessments and um lots of other tools that we use. We also are very fortunate um in that uh we have a partnership with Westchester Medical Center, a new partnership that uh was started this year in primary part to Dr. Hatter and his work with the Westchester Medical Center. Um it's an outpatient
039um partnership where we look to work with them for consultation and pre-assessment to determine when a student has a high level of need if that student can be met through an outpatient clinic type program or if they require an emergency room visit. Um, and so it's a great partnership because it allows us to have the consultation with that with the psychiatrists at that hospital to help us determine um if it's an emergency room that visit that's needed or to avoid those unnecessary emergency room visits if students can be seen outpatient and and to help get those appointments for students and to follow up with the with the outpat the ongoing outpatient needs. Um so really the at risk youth is our is our highest or our most growing area. Um and then when we look
040at the referrals districtwide the majority of referrals last year were at our high school and this year as well. So far to date the highest the building with the highest number of referrals is our high school. And that's significant to mention because when we look back historically over the last 10 years, it was always our elementary schools that had the largest number of referrals, especially to the referrals to special education. Um but um since co we've really seen a it's really turned on its head and it's the secondary level that's having the majority of the referrals and uh the com I can't stress enough the complexity of the needs and the amount of staff that are involved with some of the assessments that are required in some of these cases. So for that reason I
041am making a recommendation to add a full-time uh social worker at the high school to help meet those growing needs. In addition, our behavioral support needs have grown and the number of evaluations that we have to do has grown considerably. From risk assessments and threat assessments to functional behavioral assessments to create behavior intervention plans, these are all evaluations that require a lot of time and specialized staff to conduct. So at the kmpond elementary school, my proposal is to add an additional psychologist. That person would serve as the behavior specialist for the building, conducting FBAs and VIPs for the building. They would also supervise the 811 program at Cromp, including the program books, which run through the ABA program there. That person would provide counseling to students who no longer fit through. We have one social
042worker at Crompton now her case load is full. So what I call overflow counseling or counseling cases that can't fit on that social worker's list. And the person finally would also provide psychoeducational evaluations at the elementary level. I believe that this position is necessary in order to meet the growing and more complex needs at the younger grade levels. And by doing so, we it would allow us to place the other two behavior specialists full-time, one at Brookside and one at Mohansik, where right now each of those behavioral specialists is in those buildings four days a week because they're in Crown Pond one day a week each. And in addition, it would allow me the opportunity to reassign one of the psychologists from the PPS office to the high school for two days a week to
043assist with the case load at the high school. And finally, I want to talk about our flex path program. This is our therapeutic alternative high school program here at Yorktown. It's a it's a program that I'm extremely proud of. Um we have a an extremely dedicated staff in the program and this is the second year of the program. You may require last year we had 14 students in the program and when I came to you last year I asked to increase it to 18 students. So in the two years that we've had the program are the numbers of students in the program have ranged from 12 students to 17 students. We haven't yet been at 18. Um, and we have six students who will be graduating this year and very proud of the students and
044the staff. And it's not easy to come together and build the program. Um, and they did. And it's really it's really been remarkable and very rewarding to see um to see these students and to really in in in my opinion give them a second chance at school. A lot of the students who who have come to the flex path program haven't found success in the more traditional classroom settings um when they were in middle school and in high school prior to coming up to flex path. So it's been a real honor to have the program for next year. Um I am recommending reducing the number back down to 14. With six students graduating and having two years under our belt, we have really been able to see that 14 really was the right number all
045along. Um it'll allow us to meet the needs of the students that we have and um it also allows us you know in terms of numbers we're not going to have students that we're turning away because I think with 14 we will have enough seats but also it enables us to provide the depth and level of support that each of those students deserves and needs to thrive in that program. And finally, looking ahead again, our priority um one of our priorities is to support student well-being. Um if a student doesn't feel safe and isn't um able to be comfortable in their learning environment, it's very hard for them to do well academically. And so their well-being um is one of our our one of the things that we really need to focus on, especially as
046we see the needs of these students growing so much. It's something that I lose a lot of sleep on thinking about all that a lot of these kids are going through. It really is more than you could imagine some days. Um and again, thankful to Dr. Hatter and to our board for the contract with me Westchester Medical Center and that partnership. Um, we are also continuing to look at our CSSE processes from pre-referral to intervention to evaluation. Um, and really looking at data and making sure that um, we're making decisions that are the right decisions and that are in line with uh, the regulations. Of course, compliance is always something that we're focused on. Advancing multi-year planning to respond to evolving student needs through IND district programming is something that's a continual process. for staff
047development. Um we we spend a lot of time focusing on that every year and this year we conducted a survey of our CTAs and TAS and matched up the professional development on the superintendent's conference days with the needs that they had. We also provide crisis prevention intervention training, threat assessment training, risk assessment training, and a lot of other different types of training, specialized training like ABA training and prompt training for our speech therapists, for instance. And finally, operational efficiency and resource management. Um, one of the things that we do is we seek reimbursement from Medicaid for the cost of some of our services wherever we're eligible to do so. And we have a new prescription process that we're rolling out now that'll take place starting on July 1st, which will result in, I think, prescriptions
048that will be um more acceptable through the Medicaid process. Right now, if any little number is off on a prescription that a doctor writes, we can't bill for Medicaid. So, by us printing the prescriptions through our software system, we'll be able to ensure that the start date, the end date, the frequency, the duration, the group size for all of the services matches up completely with the IEP. And in doing so, we'll be able to recoup more funds from Medicaid than we have in the past. And that's especially important as more students become Medicaid eligible. Thank you very much. Sure. Thank you. Hi, good evening. So, I am going to review um the budget where it stands so far. These numbers are subject to change. We still haven't finalized everything. There are lots of uh moving
049pieces and lots of decisions and discussions that are still ongoing. So, I just wanted to highlight a few things that um that we have at the moment. Um so, let me just highlight for you under supervision, there's a almost $100,000 increase budgeted in that line. That is mostly the result of the increase in our SRO costs of about $68,000. That's projected for next year. The next line, teaching um regular school, that's all of our teachers and um teaching assistants that are um allocated to general education. And that number that increase is contractual increases. Uh we're still negotiating the teachers contract that will be in place for next year. So that number can change. There's um some uh some numbers in there for upgrading of some classroom furniture. So those discussions are still ongoing as well.
050Um but that also includes all of our other um contracts and um salaries in that line. Um for the program for students with disabilities uh code that line um that increase again teachers contractual increases are in that line. There's also an increase of about $200,000 for out of district placements that Miss Almeida just discussed and an increase of about $63,000 in related services um that are IEP mandated for students with special needs on the um occupational education line. That increase um that that line is entirely for Boseies. Those are for students who are um going out to the Putinham Northern Westchester Boseies for a career in technical education. The um the increase for this year that we're projecting is because Boseies uh is increasing their rate. They're going from a three session a day model
051to a two session a day model. And as such, they're increasing their rate to about $13,800 per student. We have approximately 85 students attending. So that's resulting in approximately a $218,000 increase for that line to maintain students in that program. Um from here I'm going to skip over a couple that are smaller increases. Um we did speak about computer uh assisted instruction in our last presentation. So there's nothing new there. Um so if you look at the psychological services, social work services, pupil personnel codes, there seems to be a bit of a flip-flop there. And I can explain um some of that. We have recently received updated guidance from the state regarding um expenses that we can put to our grants that we get from the state. So um following their recommendations um we've made
052some changes as to which salaries and or um other items contractual services we're going to be processing through the grant and getting reimbursement from the grant. So some of those decreases we're not cutting psychologists obviously we're um those salaries are going to be allocated to the grant things will come from other areas of the budget not you know they're being collected in this line so you see it um as a pretty significant change there but some are coming from contractual services some are coming from supplies from other areas of the budget where it's not so apparent but um those big swings there are mostly the result of uh the grant reallocations but also Also included in that number um includes the cost of adding the psychologist and the social worker that Miss Ala just requested.
053Again, is it going to stay? Is it going to go? You know, that that's not final yet, but that number's in there. Um so then the other the next two items are co-curricular and our inter uh inter interchool athletics. um they uh we spoke about that that um at the last presentation as well. So there's no changes there. That increase is um mostly due to coaches stipens. So overall um for general education and special education instruction, we're looking at approximately a $2.37 million increase over the prior year, which is about a 3.3% increase year-over-year. So this brings us to our almost last presentation. Next week Dr. Hatter will present um his final budget presentation to the board. Uh there will be a board meeting in between final budget adoption where the board can discuss um
054items to be included in the budget. Budget adoption will be April 20th. Uh budget hearing is going to be May 11th and the budget vote will be on May 19th and that's it. Thank you. Take any questions. >> Anybody have question? >> Um this question is for Miss Almeida. You had spoken about um I believe it was student counts for classified students. how since CO these numbers have flip-flopped from elementary to the high school, which I understand why there would be an increase, but I'm wondering why didn't they increase at the same rate throughout all schools? Why all of a sudden just at the high school level? Thank you for the question. I I think I can answer it by talking about the reason for the referral. And as a referral comes in, the parents
055will specify or the staff will specify the reason. And really it is the growing mental health needs that we see with adolescence. Um the majority of our referrals um for secondary students are because of increased mental health needs. So and we're not seeing as much of that at the elementary school level. And I think that answers >> yes absolutely. Thank you. Um well, first of I want to say I'm so excited about the new courses that will be offered at uh YS next year. Um more importantly, I think I love the approach that we take um to keeping in mind student interests and just where um careers are um going to be in a few years and sometimes we can't anticipate those either. Um, but I think um I mean definitely uh digital media, cyber
056security um I know Jan talks about that all the time. Um so that's that's great. Um I had a question uh for Lisa on the last slide. Um the CTE increase um of the 218,000 is that is that all of it due to the Bosey's rate increase because it seems like like a 22 23% increase from this year. >> Yes, that line is 100% Boseis. That's the only charge that hits that line. >> So do we have any insight into that because it seems like I mean it's a steep increase. it is and and they are aware of it. Um they like I mentioned they're moving their model. They're going from three sessions a day to two sessions. Um but they believe that their current rate was um was too low and that um when
057they compared to other Boseies in the region, they felt that they were undercharging and that um you know they they felt that to in order to provide a better program that they needed to um it was warranted to increase their rate. >> Thank you. Mike, any questions? Can um can Ronald Lisa can you just talk a little bit about the SRO increase? Right. We're not increasing the number of officers, correct? We're just reproportioning. >> Yes. How we share the cost, right? >> That's a Yeah, great question. So, not all of that line is attributed to the SRO increase. We are still maintaining the five SRO's, one per school. So that's not changing. We're actually at present time there's no plans to change the personnel within the buildings. So the SRO's who we're so fond of
058and we've grown comfortable with are are at this point remaining in the building as far as I know. Uh what this reflects is the new rates that we negotiate with the town each year. So there's a cost sharing mechanism in place with some of the positions and then the district bears the full responsibility for some of the newer SRO positions that we added. So the increase is an annual increase that was negotiated as part of the our agreement with the town. So it was negotiated with the town but again the number of SRO's that doesn't change and and at this point the personnel doesn't change either. So, it's just a function of a contractual settlement with the police officers in town through the town and the that's reflected in the rates that we pay for
059the officer salaries. >> Alina, any questions? Um, Miss Emerllin, can you explain how the new courses at the high school are who comes up with the ideas? How are they developed? How do how do we do all of that? >> Uh, it's it's a combination. Many of the courses are student driven. um they approach some students approach teachers directly. They talk about what they're interested in um what pathway they are on for their future and uh through that collaboration a course is born. Um we have teachers that are just so innovative and they are coming up with some of these really incredible um programs on their own. um as we see the um AP courses that came out, we have several teachers that are kind of vying for wanting to teach those courses as well.
060Um so it it's I think everybody knows what the jobs of the future future are and I think whether that's coming from our students or it's being driven by our teachers, I think we're um everybody's rising to that occasion to offer something new, different and innovative. >> Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Okay. So, now we have to turn to um a board discussion item. Um we have as a board received several requests for tax exemptions. Um those tax exemptions include the veterans. We've also received um one for surviving spouses of um officers killed in the line of duty. Um, and I wanted to have a discussion with the board. Um, get some numbers if we can from the administration about what each one what the impact each one would have and see what the board
061uh, wants to do in response to these requests. >> All right. Thank you for that. So, I have some data. Uh, M. You have one here, so pass that down. So on December 15th, 2014, the Yorktown Board of Education adopted three veterans exemptions. So uh individuals who served in the armed forces and of course thank you for your service to our country. Um there's a basic exemption, a combat zone exemption, and disabled veterans exemption. So those have been in existence within our school district for the last 12 years or so. There have been some relatively new exemptions that have been authorized by the state and each local government has the opportunity to review and make a determination if they would like to proceed with granting those exemptions. So there are a few that have been
062requested of the board as Miss Roll mentioned. one and is it okay that I go into each of the specific? Okay, so the exemptions that were requested of the board include volunteer first responders. >> So with our district that would include members of the Yorktown Volunteer Fire Department and the Volunteer Ambulance Corps and essentially what that exemption is, it's it can be any amount that the board determines. Nothing up to 10% of the assessed value of the house. It's a the property must be the primary residence of the individual receiving the exemption. The property must be exclusively used for their residence and it cannot be uh aortioned out for any other purpose. The volunteer or or if it is used for other purposes only the portion for the residential purposes can be eligible for the
063exemption. So just to clarify that um and then again exemptions are we would the board would decide if you'd like to grant the exemption exemption to volunteer firefighters and at what level if you'd like to set the minimum years of service anywhere between two years and five years. It has to be a minimum of two years and uh it can be five years of service. You can offer other exemptions as well. Um, we performed an analysis of the impact of granting such an exemption at a 5% threshold. The town is at 10, a neighboring school district is at 5%. So if we were to grant the exemption at 5% the impact would be about 19,575,000 uh $19,575 and that would be dispersed across the other taxable parcels within our school district's taxable area uh within
064the town. There are also two other potential exemptions that um you can consider for veterans. one is cold war veteran and the other is a disabled cold war veteran. So again their criteria qualifications should the town decide to at right now our data are sourced from the town. So individuals who qualify for the veterans exemption cold war veteran and cold war disabled would be sourced from the town. That's how we would determine who would be eligible. And we estimate that that exposure in the aggregate um would be about $5,000 for Cold War veterans and Cold War disabled uh veterans. So we anticipate those two different sets of exemptions. So, the volunteer firefighter and ambulance corp being about $20,000 19575 and the vol uh cold war veterans, cold war disabled veterans being about $5,000 in the
065aggregate. Uh we provided you the data. My thanks to Miss San Philippo for working with the town to obtain those data. The backup to those data are also included in your packet so that you have that information. Um but essentially the way the exemption would work is the district would still levy the amount approved by our voters. That amount would be the amount of any exemption exemption would be dispersed across the other taxable parcels in town. So it would be a total should you approve both it would be a total of just over $24,000 that would be dispersed. Um, and when we look at the current assessed value in town, it's 79 million and and the full value is at about $5 million or so. So, with regard to the other exemption that has recently
066been passed at the state level, it's an exemption and I don't have all of the details at this point. It is relatively new. The town has not passed this exemption yet. So we don't necessarily have any data that would provide you with what the impact would be on on other taxable parcels, but that exemption is with regard to individuals who who are widows or widowers of fallen police officers. So that would be an exemption that um I would not be able to provide you data with and and as such you may not wish to consider that or or you may wish to but but we're not able to provide you with the implications on the other residents in town. as we are with the already approved exemptions. There is also word of another exemption coming
067from the state for military veterans. We we obviously want to take a look at what that means and and Lisa, you can speak to that a little bit more than I can where it's a mandatory exemption. >> So, my understanding following up with the town was that um it's it's most it's been it's passed through the Senate. It's still sitting in the assembly, but they believe it's going to pass and it is a mandatory 100% exclusion for disabled veterans exemption. Um, obviously with no funding. Um, so while it it's not um the governor hasn't signed it yet, it's not it's not a law yet, um, they anticipate um that it will be and that um, again, don't know when it's going to go into effect, but that um, it would give disabled veterans a full
068property tax exclusion >> with regard to so we've shared the impact as we understand it from the town on um, the the rest of the taxable parcels in town. Should you wish to consider this further whether it's yes or no then we would have to have a public hearing on we would have to hold a public hearing to hear from the community and then the board would make their determination one way or the other as to whether the grant grant the exemption and if you do grant the exemption at what level and what are the parameters and we can certainly provide some some feedback and and some information on parameters that we might consider. I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. >> Um, the Cold War veteran and the disabled Cold War
069veteran, is the town participating in that exemption? >> Yes, the town is participating in both of those. For the Cold War veteran, it's a 10% exemption that the town is granting and it's variable. For the Cold War disabled, and Lisa, you know the formula a little bit better than I do with regard to the variability. Usually when it's a disability um exemption, it's based on something that's determined by the government, their extent of their disability. So it will vary based on their individual circumstances. >> Anybody have any questions? >> Um I have a a question, Ron Lisa, on the um timing of this. Um can you walk us through that please? >> Yes. So if the board acts um probably within the next 30 days um the assessor can make these changes to impact the
0702026 assessment role. Um that will impact the 2728 school year taxes because we're always a year behind the assessment role. So, um, anything any changes that are adopted now, taxpayers will not feel that impact until the 2728 school year. If we don't get on the 26 assessment role, it has to wait until the 27 and then a year beyond that. >> Thank you. >> I have a question. Um, so the potential disabled veterans exemption, we don't have we don't know the exposure of that exemption. It's a mandatory exemption if it goes through. Correct. >> The one that's still up at the state. Yes. No, we we I have no idea. We don't know the exposure of that. Okay. All right. Thanks. >> Anyone else? Mike, >> just a comment really. Um, just to clarify for
071everyone that this any of these exemptions do not reduce our taxable base. All we're doing is spreading out the the tax base among less taxpayers. So, everyone else is picking up the share of the tax base. So, um, from our standpoint, it's not a budgeting issue. It's simply how we uh aortion the tax bill amongst all of the um community members. So, um I think you know a public hearing is a good idea um if if we want to entertain that, but certainly a way to go and get some feedback from everybody and see what they think. >> So, just to follow up on on what Mike was saying, um is there any way are you able to assess what the impact would be to an individual? Right. Right. So, if the board um passes
072all of the exemptions that are on the table right now, what does that mean to me as homeowner? Uh so, these are very small amounts we're talking about when we're looking at the whole tax base, right? But, um we're estimating that both or all three exemptions combined would impact the tax rate by approximately 0.03%. Right? So that means your everyone else's tax rate would increase by 0.03%. You could apply that to your assessment and kind of get, you know, do the math that way. That's the best way I can estimate. Anyone else questions? Um, so I guess the next step is to decide if we want to proceed to a public hearing. Um, is everyone in favor of doing that? >> Yes. >> Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll work out logistics with that. Yep. Good.
073Okay. All right. Uh we'll move on to policies. We have uh the first Hold on. I'm not refreshing. Oh, there we go. It came up. All right. Uh thank you. Uh the the board will conduct a first read of the following policies and regulation. 1120 school district records. 4714 parent conferences. 5422R student headlice regulation. 5500 student records. Um any questions or comments on those first reads? uh question. The um student records, the 5,500 changes, there was a significant amount of um language added to the policy, but then it seemed as if we were taking that out of the regulation and and putting it into the policy. Is that what's happening there? Because that's sort of opposite of what we've been doing with policies, right? We usually add things to the regulation, not take them away.
074So I'm just trying to get an understanding of the process there. >> Yes, definitely. You know, a lot of the information from the regulation has been included in the policy and I think as we move forward um actually we're seeing us we're removing more regulations and also relying more on the law. So you'll see some information taken out if it's based on the law and in other cases you may see regulations be deleted and we're moving towards merging them with the policy because a lot of times we'll see seeing duplicate efforts as well. we're seeing information in two different places and if it's not aligned properly you may have two different messages because the maybe the wording isn't exactly the same. So we are going to that shift shifting in that direction now. >> So
075is the regulation changing on this because I didn't see that. >> I believe we said we were deleting that regulation and what happens is when we make a change in a policy we can't delete the regulation until after we accept a change. If we do like lead to regulation first or at the same time, there could be a period of time where we don't have that information available to us. >> Perfect. Thanks. >> Anybody else? >> All right. And the uh the policies listed below were reviewed with no um substantial changes. Any questions or comments about those? Okay, we will move on to our consent agenda which includes um approval of the minutes, the treasurer's report, the claims audit, the extra classroom report, personnel matters, various business matters, special education matters, and gifts, grants, and
076donations. Can I have a motion to approve? >> So moved. Second. >> All those in favor? I. >> Any opposed? >> Who said who seconded that? >> I did. >> Um Okay. Okay. And now we're on to board comments. Uh Catalina, anything? >> Um it's really exciting about the after school program. I think a lot of families would really benefit from that. Um Deedra, will the east team at Cromp's after school continue as well? >> Yeah, we're we're looking forward to that. Um it was five sessions for each grade level this year. We're looking to do much more than that and maybe do it in cycles throughout the year so that all of our students, we miss some students depending on what sports or activities they're in. So, we're hoping to be able to cycle
077it through the year so that we reach more students. >> Rest me, >> I'm good, thanks. Cheryl, >> nothing. Thanks, Jacqueline. >> I just wanted to thank the PPS office. It's always so wonderful to hear all the work being done, all the people that participate in helping the children and just personally for all the support you guys give that sometimes not everybody has transparency into seeing. So, thank you. Thank you for that. That's it, Mike. >> Um, so I just want to um thank Lisa Deerra and and the whole team for tonight's presentation which was excellent. Um, and I know we're looking forward to wrapping up uh the budget season. Uh, we have a fiscal advisory committee meeting coming up on Thursday where we'll uh put the finishing touches on this um and then bring
078it the Dr. Hatter will bring it to the board at our next meeting for uh presentation. So, looking forward to finishing this up. >> Yeah, I'll echo Mike's sentiments. Thank you to the entire team for all the work you put in. um make it look easy with, you know, the pretty slides and the watercolors, but we know that there's a whole lot more going on behind the scenes for that. And as always, thank you to everyone for the gifts, grants, and donations. The generosity of the community is is always amazing to see. Uh avette, public comment number two. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> All those in favor? >> I second. I'm ready to go to sleep. Second, >> second. >> All those in favor? I >> have a
079good night.