001Good evening. Can I um have have a welcome to the Yorktown Board of Education meeting for March 2nd, 2026. Can I have a motion to go into executive session to consider correspondence related to a specific student to discuss matters pertaining to tenure, the employment history of particular pedagogical and non-pedagical employees, and matters made confidential under FURPA? >> Second. >> All those in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Second. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Good evening and welcome to the Yorktown Central School District Board of Education meeting for March 2nd, 2026. We stand for the pledge of allegiance, followed by a moment of silence for our armed forces and those in the school district community who have lost loved ones, especially the father-in-law of Katherine Giblin, the father-in-law of Sharon Larson, and the
002grandfather of Tara Daly. To the flag of United States of America to the stand. Okay, starting off with public comment number one of it and our um exeicio report. >> Good evening. Since we last met, the faculty and the students of Yorktown School District enjoyed an extended winter break followed by a few extra days due to the blizzard. We are glad to be back and we have an exciting spring ahead of us. This weekend, Yorktown High School performance spring musical, The Wizard of Oz. Tickets are on sale for three the three performances which will be held on Friday, March 6th, Saturday, March 7th at 2 pm and 7 p.m. and we encourage the community to attend these. Yorktown's 5th through 12th grade musicians are preparing for their annual band of Palooa concert which will be
003held later this month on Thursday, March 26th. Many of our winter sports have concluded and want congratulate all the athletes and teams that had successful seasons. The boys varsity basketball team continued its fantastic season with an incredible semi-final game this afternoon at the county center against Clarkstown North. Despite a tremendous effort, Yorktown Ants fantastic season this afternoon. Congratulation. Congratulations to this incredible team. This spring sports season begins next week on Monday, March 9th. As the weather gets warmer, I want to encourage the community. Come out and enjoy the many exciting sports that we feature here at YHS. As an athlete, I can tell you that this that there is nothing better than a community behind you and cheering from the stands. Please continue the support for our YHS athletes. Your support drives our success. Thank
004you. >> Thank you. >> Uh Dr. Hatter. >> Okay. And if they do come out for a spring sports game, particularly a lacrosse game, they'll have the good fortune of seeing the best lacrosse goalender in the country uh in net. So, please do come out and catch a sport, any sport. We have a very special recognition tonight. I invited Josh V Desai and Mr. Rubio to this evening's board meeting because Josh V accomplished something that is incredibly rare and special. The Regeneron Science Town search is expansive. It's nationwide. There are participants from all over who apply. 300 students are identified and then the top 40 finalists are identified and for the first time in a really long time we had a student recognized and it's Josh Vai. So I'd like to invite Mr. Rubio first
005to the podium to introduce Josh V and to say a little bit about the science talent search program and then we'll invite Josh V up and we can hear a little bit about her award-winning research. So Mr. Dr. Rubio, I'll turn it over to you. >> Thank you, Dr. Hatter. Thank you to the board. Um, and just to kind of give some statistics, um, over 2600 kids, uh, who are all seniors that did independent research apply to the science talent search. These are sort of the top researchers in the country, young researchers. Uh, of those, as Dr. Hatter mentioned, the top 300 are selected and win a $2,000 award. And of those, then the top 40 are selected. And so Joshy is going to be spending the next week or so starting Thursday in Washington
006DC um getting kind of the royal treatment. She'll be meeting congressmen. She'll be uh presenting her work and uh we're hoping she'll do a great job. And regardless, this is a really special thing. I think we've had three in the history of our program and it's been I think 10 years since the last one and she's one of I think three in the state of New York. So very exciting. Um and again I just want to take a moment to thank the board and to thank the district because without your support uh this would not be possible. I also want to say that uh Josh V's other teacher my my partner Mr. Sever wrote the recommendation. So thank you Mr. Sever for for supporting Joshy. Uh and we just have a really special thing here
007at Yorktown. So I think it's it's worth applauding all of us who were involved in Josh success. So thank you so much and uh we really appreciate it. So Josh, I'd like to invite you to the podium. We'd love to hear a little bit more about this incredible research project that has been recognized now nationally. >> Thank you very much, Dr. Hatter, and thank you to the rest of the board. So after CO 19, many people were experiencing long-term neurological symptoms. Now CO 19 is something something that's impacted all of us in some way, shape, or form. And for some people to go on and then maybe lose their sense of smell, their sense of taste, or even experience brain fog, these symptoms could be lifealtering. However, we didn't really know what was going on
008in the brain that could lead to the development of these symptoms. And that's the goal for my project and what I explored over the past couple years. Phase one looked at structural alterations in the brain. And I found that and I found that the deep brain structures which are very important for executive functioning and memory were being reduced in volume whereas the cortex was actually increasing. This was a pattern that was very unique to co 19 and not something that we typically see in other diseases that lead to neurological symptoms. I explored this further in the next phases of my project specifically looking at the prefrontal cortex and I found that the prefrontal cortex was being implicated way more in co 19 patients in compared to controls. The prefrontal cortex was basically being put in
009overdrive and over time this could lead to increased stress and lead to some of the symptoms that we see in these co 19 patients. The next steps for this research would be to focus on the prefrontal cortex and there are some therapies available that would allow us to support the prefrontal cortex as it takes on this very important role of supporting the co 19 patients overall brain health. Thank you very much. >> There's going to be a quiz on all of this at the end of uh the meeting. So Josh, I'm going to ask you to wait right there. So, on behalf of our school district, we have a certificate for you, a certificate of recognition to recognize your selection as a Regeneron Science Town Search Top 40 finalists. Congratulations. We know you're going to
010represent Yorktown very well in Washington DC. I'm going to ask you to just go around, shake hands with our board trustees. Joshy, congratulations. That I'm just in awe. Everything that you just shared up there, I tried to follow as best I could >> with no notes. That's the other thing that our board president pointed out. You had no notes. That was a that was remarkable. Wow. I don't know if there's anything that our our board would like to offer a commendation and and best wishes in Washington. >> Congratulations and best of luck. You're going to knock them dead in Washington. >> Congratulations, Joshu. Um you make our district very proud. Uh of course we'll be rooting uh for you in DC and uh hope you know you're going to be one of those jackpot winners.
011So, we are going to be rooting for you and Mr. Rubio, thank you for everything you do. Um, I know your job uh doesn't allow you to have summers off and weekends off and you're always on the um you know with the students on the various competitions and travel and all of that. So, we recognize that and thank you for everything. >> Congratulations, Jashvi. Um, I I love your topic because it's so relatable to everyone because we all live through this and this became such a monumental experience in our lives. So, what a great topic and really all the best to you in Washington. And thank you to Mr. Rubio because all of you just make us shine and we're so proud of all of you. So, thank you. >> I was going to say
012very similar, but just I would love to see what what the outcome is and how everything is uh kind of plays out in Washington. I mean, like you like like Cheryl just said, everyone lived through this. So, it's just so interesting to hear how you took one piece and just kind of went on your own path with it. So, congratulations and can't wait to hear how it comes out. >> I don't know what else I could say other than congratulations and um I really look forward to seeing the outcome of this also and seeing your name on top of the list. So, >> congratulations. It was very impressive and thank you to the all the teachers that supported you. >> Will you um come back and tell us how Washington went? >> Okay, great. We'll
013put that on the calendar. >> Thank you. >> Josh V and and Mr. Rubio and Mr. Desai, welcome. Um you're you're free to go at any point. I know you have a very rigorous course load and you're trying to make up in advance for work that you're going to miss that um I'm just in awe of you and Mr. Rubio, just echo what uh Miss Bose said. Just thank you because the dedication, this program doesn't just get built. It it doesn't just happen. It's when you take great students with great teachers, great mentors, put them all together, that's what success looks like, and you're a very big part of the success of the program. So, congratulations to you. Josh V's success is not just individual success. It highlights our entire district and our entire science
014research program on a national level. So, congratulations to you and the entire program. We're going to now move in to the next portion of our meeting tonight, which is a presentation. if that's okay with you. I'm we're going to move into the next >> presentation and it's an update that I've been giving at our board meetings on a regular basis. And so now that we have the presentation loaded onto the screen, we'll move through. There are several updates that I want to share. There'll be brief but really important updates. So the first is with regard to UPK. The regular enrollment period has concluded. That was up until March 1st. So that just closed. We have 126 students registered as of 226. I believe that number is actually the same as of today. So there is
015still room available. So, I'll be sending out a letter this week to families confirming their enrollment, of course, contingent on state funding not being reduced, but we have 126 students enrolled. We have more room in the program as we anticipate having 188 seats. So, we do have room at this point. We will continue to fill the program until the program is full. We'll accept enrollments until the program is full. So everyone who registered within the regular registration window has a seat and the remaining seats will be given on a first come first serve with the understanding that there are two criteria. Number one you have to reside within our school district's boundaries and number two you have to be four years of age as of December 1st 2026. So more to come on that. very
016exciting. The partnership with YMCA will continue for another year and and we look forward to the great work that they'll continue to do for our district. This is another really really important announcement for our community. We put it in this week's weekly. It'll be in probably next week's weekly and the week after that. Requests for transportation to and from private schools and to daycare to and from daycare are due to our transportation office by April 1st. That is a very firm deadline. So if anyone in the community is watching this and you're looking to have transportation either to or from daycare or to or from private school, that must be in by April 1st. Construction update. I I made a commitment to giving our community and certainly giving our board our board is aware of
017this through through the updates that they receive and our community I wanted to make sure is aware of any updates. Every board meeting I'm providing an update and sometimes that update is that there is no update. As you recall last week we had 23 inches of snow fall between Sunday and Monday and that was a little disruptive to the con outdoor construction work that's happening not just at Mohansic and Brookside but certainly on the athletic complex. So there is no new update for last week's work. The update that I provided was in the last board meeting was also forward-looking about putting up steel and and um creating the structure. Brian in our communications office or Brian our communications office because there's only one person in that office is putting together a time-lapse video of the
018construction and it's up. We're Are we putting it up? We're going to put it up this week. >> It'll be up tomorrow. All right. So, uh, Brian's put together a beautiful time-lapse video of the construction. So, we've gone through some of the cameras that we have outside and it really shows the community the progress of the Mohantic and Brookside project specifically. We don't have a time lapse at this time of the athletic complex. So, more information will come. There'll be another update. I'm hopeful that the weather has subsided and they'll be able to resume the construction in earnest this week. With regard to Band Palooa, I just wanted to come back to Band Palooa. Hunter mentioned that we're having a wonderful concert on March 26th. I want to ensure that parents are looking out and
019families are looking out for the letter that I sent on Friday, February 6th. I will also include this in my update that's coming out this week. There'll be another update and I'll include some information about Band Palooa. But really, really important, time is of the essence. The concert times are listed. If there are any changes, those need to be communicated to the your child's music teacher as soon as possible or band teacher I should say. And with regard to emergency closure days, last week was not a great weather week. We had three school closures. Obviously something that I'm not happy about. I don't think any of us except for the students might be a little happy. But even by the third day, I think the students wanted to come back. We have used to date
020five snow days. However, one has been waved by the state as an emergency closure day and that was Monday, February 23rd. So, consequently, we have one emergency closure day remaining. I'm hopeful that we don't have any more closures, but I'm looking at the weather tomorrow and who knows. I'm hoping we're here for a full day all day, but I'll be watching the weather for tomorrow very closely this evening. If we have one more closure, that's part of our snow day allotment or emergency closure allotment. If we have another beyond that, which again I really don't anticipate, we would convert March 20th to a student day rather than a professional development conference day. And subsequent closures would result in remote learning. So, we would pivot to a remote learning platform. So again, I'm hoping this is
021all just an academic conversation that doesn't come to fruition, but certainly we're prepared to do that should we need to. And then finally, I just want to share a closing note. There was some data that were shared with me and I wanted to share this and we'll do a more formal presentation a little later in the school year. I don't often present test scores because I just think our district does so much more than give tests especially with the three through eight tests where almost one in two at some grade levels are not even sitting for that assessment. So I don't know what data we can necessarily glean from that data. Certainly, you can't glean the achievements of our science research program, all of the wonderful accomplishments and and wonderful things happening that you see
022at Good News presentations and that we see in visiting the classroom so frequently. But I did want to just share a metric that I came across. Our ELA state assessment results pre-COVID went back to 1819 and then to last school year are up by 10 percentage points. In math, it's 14 percentage points. When we look pre-COVID to the most recent data, excellent things are happening in the classroom, our teachers are doing a great job. We have support around them. I see Mr. Miller in the audience. I know Mr. Chester is frequently um in the audience as well and part of the work and and I just want to also commend Miss Ammerling because much of this has happened during her tenure. So good things are happening with this one metric. I I share that again.
023And it's it's one metric that I thought it was appropriate to share. The results on our regents and AP exams are equally impressive. And I I just thought it was something worth sharing because the opportunity to connect data prior to COVID and postcoid is an important one and so I share that with you. That's looking at 33 through8 in the aggregate. So I can share the data source for that as well. And that is the report. I'm happy to answer any questions that the board may have on the items I presented. >> Anyone have questions or comments? >> Um the data that you just shared, I think that's even more impressive than the percentage points that you just told us because if I remember correctly, postcoid scores went down. So we've come up from pre
024to the pre-COVID level and then increased since then. >> Yeah, they um there were some areas where we were flat in many areas we were flat postco some areas we were up and there were a few areas where we were lower and so yeah looking objectively at data prior to COVID and then our most recent testing data there's a very clear increase. >> Great. Thank you. So now we pivot to the next presentation. So I bet I'm going to just going to ask that you call up our budget presentation. So we have now come to the point in our budget development process where we'll be presenting on technology, athletics and co-curriculars. So this is the third I believe it's the third presentation in our series of budget presentations. The first was an overview with tax
025cap state aid calculations, debt services and reserve funds. The next presentation which happened on February 9th was general support, employee benefits, facilities, transportation. And this evening we have our third budget presentation and that will speak to tax cap technology co-curricular and athletics. We have one more presentation before I give my final presentation to the board on March 23rd. We have one more presentation on March 16th. But without further ado, I will turn the presentation over to Miss San Philippo, our assistant superintendent for business. She'll take the presentation from the podium. Thank you. Good evening. So, tonight, as Dr. Hatter said we'll be um giving a tax cap update, uh reviewing the instructional technology budget, co-curricular activities, and the athletics program. So, I will be giving the tax cap update. Um Jen Forsber, our director of
026technologies here. She will be doing the instructional technology update. I will be giving the co-curricular presentation. And we also have our athletic director, Rob Barrett, here. He will be presenting the athletic program. At the end of each section, there will be budget information. I will present those areas. But in terms of the programming, um those other administrators, um and oh, Jamie Cabberto from the high school will be here to take any questions on the co-curricular activities at the high school. So, the tax cap um was due to New York State yesterday, today, because yesterday was a Sunday. Um it was submitted on Friday um before the weekend. So again, this is um the tax cap as it stands now. It is most likely not going to change, but we do have until after the board
027adopts its budget formally in April to make any changes should something occur or um should the uh board decide they want to do something different with the tax cap. But the calculations here, I'm not going to walk through line by line. it. This presentation again will be up on our website tomorrow um so everyone could take a good close-up look, but the tax cap calculation comes out to a 2.38% increase over last year's tax levy or just a little over $2 million yeartoyear. This again is the maximum amount of levy that the district can levy during this budget cycle without seeking an override. The district at this point does not intend to seek an override. So this will be the maximum tax levy uh that the district will be seeking. So with that, I would
028like to call up Jen Forsber to go over our technology and data area. Thank you. Good evening, members of the board of education and my district office colleagues. Tonight, I'm pleased to present an overview of our technology and data department, highlighting our current environment, recent successes, and our priorities for the next coming year. The department is organized into four key areas to ensure comprehensive support for our 4,100 daily users in the district. These 12 members in the data and technology department work across their disciplines on a daily basis. We support the data network, hardware, and instructional systems as they relate to technology. to better serve our schools. This year, our support structure shifted a bit by transitioning to more instructional, excuse me, IT support. This year, we're ensuring that technical troubleshooting and infrastructure maintenance are
029handled by a dedicated building technician in a timely manner. The smaller box in the instructional systems pillar are not direct members of the department, but different groups of teachers and CTAs that our teams work with to support technology across every building. The roles previously mentioned on the the previous slide are are seen here. And this this is the daily work of those different members of the department. the data systems. We have two data analysts that focus on our student information system, the e-chool data and the management of that system. New York State Education Department reporting, data privacy, and they do all of our data analysis and rostering of the software. in the network systems which is managed within our editech technicians. They manage our digital infrastructure, the cyber security and cloud management and our wireless
030infrastructure. On the hardware side, again with Edgitech, we're overseeing the onetoone Chromebooks. It's really the daily in the classroom and in offices working with all of the staff and students, the help desk management and all the different classroom technologies and in the instructional systems which is supported with an instructional technology specialist that supports our integration of artificial intelligence, supports computer science and digital fluency standards, coordination of different ETEM projects and other technology projects and professional learning. This is our current environment. Just a quick snapshot of uh again we have 4100 daily users in the district. We are 1:1 Chromebook K through 12. So this is more of all the the items or the stuff that the district has that we support in kindergarten, first and second grade. The Chromebooks remain in the classrooms and we
031are fully touchscreen Chromebooks kindergarten through 8th grade which will move up to 9th grade next year and we do have a BYOD bring your own device option for our secondary students. One thing that's shifted over the past couple years uh the bullet that says 800 plus workstations and laptops, those are Dell specific which has been a shift in the top right corner. You can see it's it the numbers have actually flipped over the past couple years. So, we're we have more um teachers and some of our staff members using Apple devices. Four years ago, we were able to offer teacher choice and it's really evolved into it was 50/50 for a while. I would say now it's more MacBook, but we really um are fortunate to have that choice or the teachers can have that
032choice. Uh we do have pockets of laptops and iPads and Macs in the middle school and high school for specialized software and special classes. Our team also supports almost 600 phones across the district and the management of that software. Over 400 security cameras and it's actually security camera views. So some of our cameras have three heads or two heads or a single view. So, it's actually 400 different views around the district. We have over 380 displays, which some are interactive and some are not interactive. So, that just depends on the office or the classroom. We have over 50worked Xerox work centers. So, we have more of a centralized printing approach where staff members release it to the cloud and then can uh print it by using their badge into different centers around the buildings. There's
0333D printing in all of our schools. Uh we're continually upgrading our infrastructure including um our access points and our firewall. We have video streaming for live sports and other student events that we support. And the Vivy casting devices are within the past couple years. You're able to wirelessly cast your content from any device to the TV. And that's for students or any staff member. a review of our cyber security and data privacy which has certainly grown over the past I think this is my eighth presentation. I looked back to my original and it was a couple bullets and this has really grown um just the environment that we we live in. Um so security does remain cyber security remains a top priority and we have implemented a multi-layered approach and defense strategy. So a lot
034of our tools are working 24/7 because um different things happen not in the confines of an 8 to4 type of a day. So a lot of our protections are 247 to monitor any sort of threat detection, DOS protection and ongoing vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. So we do outside tests to see if anything can get in a couple times a year. There's also some changes um sort of on the human side. We had we launched a new fishing simulation and employee awareness campaign this year. We've always had it in place, but this year it's using artificial intelligence to send out fishing campaigns and simulations to staff members different times of the day, different content, and it it it knows how the behaviors of those um staff members as well. So that's been new this year
035and it's a it's a very good system and we perform regular administrative console. So the Google we use Google workspace and the admin console is really the backend. So we do regular audits uh with an outside vendor to look at our console. The amount of changes that take place in the admin console are weekly and we want to be sure that we're up to date in all of our data um and security settings in the admin console. and the fishing detection that we have built into Gmail, we've had the past few years and it's really helped remediate threats before it hits the inbox. So, that's been a really good addition and a brand new slide that certainly did not exist even a few years ago in this capacity. Um but the artificial intelligence or AI
036implementation has really grown over the past few years and including this year and we are actively but cautiously embracing artificial intelligence in both the instructional and non-instructional capacities. On the left side of the slide shows some different types of non-instructional software ways that we're using artificial intelligence. A lot of our cyber security tools, data analysis tools have some AI built in. And on the lower part of the slide are a snapshot of some of the instructional software tools that are more artificial intelligencebased. A lot of our software that we have, online software, has artificial intelligence add-ons or some pieces built in and they'll just start pushing it out. But these are four tools that um we've done the research and the data compliant tools for um AI. And on the right side is a brief
037overview of the different types of professional learning that's out there for really any staff member to take part of. Um as I mentioned, we have a K through2 instructional technology specialist. So she'll she's um going to lots of sessions a lot of these sessions that are listed here and she's working with teachers directly in the classroom and at faculty meetings. We have a board of education AI committee. We have our partnerships remain with the Putinham Northern Westchester Boseies and the lower Hudson Rick. We have cohorts of teachers that have been working with the Lyric for three years now. Um, something that's new this year is it's the NYIC, which is the New York AI Consortium. So, I join there. It's once a month, every Friday. So, it's educators from across New York State who talk
038about and give updates on AI in New York. Magic School is our K through2 AI platform that we acquired a couple years ago, and we've had Magic School come on site. We've also had um webinars with the vendor. And I mentioned vendor webinars because all of our software tools often offer uh different types of webinars for teachers if they would like. The amplified IT monthly sessions are really centered around Google. Google Gemini which is similar to a chat GPT for the Google side is one of the Google for education approved tools and it changes very very quickly both on the front end so the user side and also on the back end in that admin console side. So we need to stay up to date on all of those settings. And this year we've implemented
039some in the elementary schools and soon for the secondary schools some monthly faculty meeting spotlights around AI. Some highlights from this year. I'm very proud that our team has helped to maintain near 100% network uptime. Of course, there are outages out of our control, whether it's a vendor outage or sometimes a power outage. Um, but I would say for the most part, our network is reliable and up. Our help desk is something that's used widely by everyone, including students and parents, and we've since July 1, our team has resolved almost 18,000 tickets with an average turnaround time of 36 hours or less. Some tickets are very quick and others take a lot of collaboration. you have to order a part. Um, our team goes back and forth on that. So, that is a nice highlight.
040As I mentioned before, just I I think a highlight is collaborating with the AI integration, launching the data compliance software and supporting the different professional learning sessions. last spring into the fall deployed uh mandatory multiffactor authorization in the new fishing awareness campaign to safeguard our data and student or excuse me staff privacy. And last but not least, a favorite bullet of mine for a highlight would be that um I was able to mentor or co-mentor 10 different high school interns. We annually have student interns over the summer to help with all the work that's done over the summer. And those were returning interns. They also came back, all five of them, for the first time during the holiday break. And I had three interns from a social studies class first semester and then currently right
041now we have two interns from the Boseis computer technology program working on the hardware side with our team. So that's been a nice highlight. and looking forward to next year. In no particular order, um, one of the priorities for us is to continue collaborating with administrators and teachers on the technical rollout of artificial intelligence and prioritizing professional development, K through2 teaching and learning, student learning, and all the district operations and ways that we can use it. We have to do some server updates. So we'll be transitioning over the summer um some servers um to improve our security and performance which is necessary and um a bit timeconuming for the team and we have to time it for that downtime which is always a challenge because we're never really it's not a good time to ever
042really be down anytime during the school year. We're going to merge our asset management tool with our help desk um to integrate them more for better inventory management and streamlining support requests with the hardware. Launching a centralized platform for software management and all the different contracts. Um implementing new IT workflows for our team to make our operations more efficient. And last but not least, continue to strengthen our cyber security posture. um just to make sure that we are um protected from different situations. And thank you for your continued support for our my department. And I'm going to turn it back to Miss Sanbo to do the financial slide. Okay. So this is an overview of the technology and data department budget. So, in the salary code, that's all the salaries for the uh tech and
043data department. There is a um about $45,000 decrease um from the current year budget and that is due to a uh resignation that will not be replaced this year or next year. Um and you can see that in the contractual expense line that has increased. Um the offset is an increase in the technology um support engineer through edgeitech. So that contract with edgitech where we outsource all of our network support um will be increased to add a 1.0 support engineer. Also in that line are any other um contractual services that we will be using to accomplish all the priorities that Jen has just laid out in terms of um the cyber security and um AI and um that includes software as well instructional software um which we also get state aided a lotments for instructional
044software so that's included in that line. Um Boseies are services that we purchase from Putnham Northern Westchester Bosei which can also include some software or other um professional development support um or some um other um technology support of systems that we also can get from Boseies. The supply code is um slightly reduced. Um that also includes um state aided um supplies uh that um that again we get dollar aid from New York State in and that's down slightly but overall the budget um yeartoyear is up slightly over 67,000 or 1.7% year-over-year and that too is subject to change until we finish uh go through going through the budget process. So the next area we'll talk about is co-curricular activities. So this is a listing of all the clubs that are currently running in the high
045school and the approximate enrollment student enrollment in each of the clubs. Um there are 52 total clubs here listed and I won't speak to all of them but um there's quite a variety of clubs that are offered in the high school. Um if you have any questions at the end regarding the process of how does a club come into existence Jamie Silberto will be happy to uh explain that. Um, this slide shows the the clubs that are currently being piloted in the high school. And what that means is that this is the first year of the club running. It's not really technically an official club. It's just kind of a test club to see um if there's interest and if it can be sustained. Uh so there are 17 of those clubs running as a
046pilot this year and they may exist next year, they may not exist. It depends on um how what type of experience they have this year. Um the next slide is with the middle school clubs. Um the middle school also has about 23 clubs that are currently running this year and you can see the enrollments um are listed there as well. So the co-curricular budget um is really really has not changed much. Um we're not planning on a change. It's a slight dollar increase $951 year-over-year 3% increase. Um the number of units allocated to the high school and the middle school for clubs has not changed. The amount of the unit per ch per unit changes as per teachers contract but overall the total number of units um is remaining the same and uh slight increase
047in some supply codes and um equipment is flat. Contractual expenses is down about $5,000. So, next we will move on to our athletic presentation and Rob Barrett coming up. No, looks very comfortable. No. Okay. He's here for questions. Okay. So, this is an overview of the athletic department. Um, we have our director of athletics, physical education, and health. He has one clerical support staff, many coaches, 86 to be exact. He has two athletic trainers and seasonal coordinators um which is the same person but for three different seasons. This is the student participation slide for um for spring sport, I'm sorry, for all sports including fall, winter, and spring. As you can see, total district-wide we have 62 total teams, 86 total coaches, and approximately a little over,200 students participating in athletics. An overview of all
048our athletic teams and the various levels. Um, it is presented here broken out by season and it varies from year to year. Some years we run freshman teams, some years we don't. It depends on um how many kids come out um and if we could uh support the team or not. So this is a further breakdown of our fall sports for this year. This um details the number of teams per sport, the number of coaches, the number of ath of athlete, I'm sorry, of athletes, the number of transportation trips that the district paid for, and the approximate cost of the trips for each sport. The same is shown here for winter sports. And again, some of these numbers are a little estimated because we're just wrapping up the winter sports season in terms of the
049cost of trips. Um, so some of those are estimated. And for the spring sports, this is spring sports, this is actually um based on last year's spring season because obviously we're just starting the spring season this year. But just to give you an idea, here's the recognition of our student athletes. Um so our as we all hear that our athletes are very successful every year. They do a great job. They've um they've accomplished quite a bit. You can see all the accolades they've received for this past fall, the winter season so far. And again, spring accolades from last year. spring hasn't occurred yet, but we have many students um making all state, all county, um all section. Um we have teams going to league championships, state championships. So, some of the details are there. Some
050new items included in the athletics budget this year are um we will be adding a varsity boys volleyball assistant coach. All of our varsity teams have assistant coaches since the boys volleyball team was relatively new. We didn't start off with an assistant coach, but now we are adding the coach this year as it's been a very successful team. And uh we've also budgeted to purchase some new soccer goals this year. So this is an overview of the athletics budget summary. So, year-over-year, it's going up a little over $98,000. Um, most of the increase is in salaries. Um, there's a about a $9,000 increase in contractual expenses. Bose sees has a $9,000 increase and supplies also has about a $5,000 increase. Equipment is coming down slightly. That varies year to year based on which pieces of
051equipment are needed. Um so with um you know this department has been greatly impacted by inflation in terms of the um purchasing the um the athletic supplies that need to be purchased every year. There have been significant material increases. So that accounts for um you know some of that increase in the supply code. So as Dr. Hatter said this was our third presentation of our budget uh calendar and our next presentation will be on March 16th where the general and special education instructional budget will be discussed. On March 23rd, the superintendent will present his final budget recommendation. April 20th is when the board will adopt their final budget. Um May 11th, we will have a public budget hearing and on May 19th is the public budget vote. So if you have any questions, we're happy
052to answer them. >> Anyone have any questions? Pete, we'll start with you. Go ahead. >> Um with regards to on the technology, um the contractual expense is edgitech part of that. >> Yes. So and and is that people or is and then how many people are associated with >> with edgitech we have currently seven >> seven. So we from July 1st we handled 18,000 >> tickets. So those seven people >> it's everybody. So that includes our two data analysts myself I also answer tickets uh my assistant our technology clerk and our one instructional technology specialist. That's 12 total people >> even. So that's about 100 tickets a day and it's pretty it's actually more than that based on the time. It's pretty impressive. >> So no, that was just really the >> big question I
053had with that. So, Catalina, >> um I don't have a question, but I do want to thank Jen for sharing um some of the uh the the details of what um is new for your department this year, uh especially in the area of cyber security and AI. Um, of course, there's always, you know, maintenance and keep the lights on kind of things, too. Um I I just noticed last week that that the college board actually has launched a new course in cyber security. So um I wonder if you'll see an uptick in the number of student interns you uh you see over the summer. Um but thank you for sharing those details. It was very helpful. >> Sure. I have a question for Mr. Barrett. Um I think it was about four years ago we
054started boys volleyball. Five four or five years ago, right? >> Uh three years ago. >> Three years ago, right? Okay. Yes, I remember my son was a senior. Um, so I guess my question is since then we added a JV team, now we've added a modified team. Just how's it going? Obviously, it's going well because we've, you know, increased the program, you know, three, we now have three teams. We only had one. So, just give us a little bit of insight about how's it going? What's our enrollment look like at each level and and how, you know? >> Yep. So, it was a little bumpy at start. So, we had varsity. We were hoping to have JV because we had, if you remember, we had some cuts. um big number cuts that first year. um
055JV did not happen that second year and then we were we were said all right we have to build and see if we can get the modified and that's how we came to the idea of starting the modified and then coincidentally we did have JV so our numbers have gone now all of a sudden through the roof um which has been great um and hence the reason why we're kind of wanted to add the the complete staff so that we're um kind of moving the right direction continue to move in the right direction um this year we won a section title for the first time which is great um went to the state tournament which was awesome for the kids. Um it was a great experience. I was able to travel up there with them.
056Um you know, coincidentally, our girls did the same thing as well, which was great for our whole volleyball program as a whole. Um it was great to see them, um kind of root for each other, the boys and the girls program. Um so it's really gone as well as I could have expected it to go, actually better than I expected it to go to be honest with you. Um winning the section title and such a quick turnaround um wasn't expected, but we've been there right away. Luckily, we had a couple of volleyball players come through and uh things are going very well thankfully. >> That's great. And are most of the uh Westchester schools do they most of them have a boys volleyball team? At least one team. >> No, not most. I would say
057about half. Uh it's growing every year, you know, similar to flag football. You know, it's it's just incrementally growing. Um flag has seen a bigger jump than volleyball, but volleyball is uh right there in the mix now. So, so it's great to see old sports doing so well. >> Yeah. Great. >> Um, I have some questions about the clubs. >> Yeah. >> Hello everybody. >> Um, so how does a club get formed? How do you evaluate um whether it should continue? How can you describe that process? >> Sure, absolutely. So, um, if a student is interested in running a club, they typically come to me first so that we can chat it out. Um, and see if anything is too similar or if anything already exists kind of in the realm of what they want
058to do. Um, if the student wants to pursue it then becoming a club, their next stop is Mr. D. Janeiro, who will either decide to allow them to continue with that pilot. um the student has to find their own club advisor um and they have to get signatures from other students who are also interested in that club. And once we know that there's student interest and that there is an adviser who is willing to run the program knowing about the one-year pilot program um then they can move forward with the paperwork. We uh then pilot the club for a year to see if students have been interested in it. and newly I am uh reaching out to all the club leaders through the leadership academy which just has recently started in the last few years.
059Um so I'm holding the students now accountable for following through with all their club responsibilities and um if the clubs are not meeting if they are not showing the attendance or they're not showing that they're having those regular consistent meetings where students are showing up then uh Mr. DJ Janeiro can decide that he doesn't want to see that pilot through to the next year. >> Right. Thank you. >> Just >> Yeah. >> Um Rob, on on the um teams for next year, do you anticipate anything coming or going? >> I I don't. Our numbers are through the roof right now. Actually, the highest since I've been here as the athletic director in terms of registrations. So I don't see our teams going any teams going for sure. Um and I don't think we we will
060see anything added but certainly um right now our numbers are great. So I don't see nothing going away for sure. >> And then when we have something like the hockey program which is shared by multiple schools, how do the expenses get um split out between >> Sure. Um so it's based on the number of students that participate um and then um whatever the total bill is. So, for example, if it was $30,000 and there was 30 students, it'd be $1,000 per head. And then if we had 10 of those, it would be $10,000 for us. And if somebody had six, it'd be $6,000 for them. And so on till they kind of covered that bill. >> Cool. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> Okay. >> Thank you all. Okay, we'll move on.
061Um, move on to policy adoption. Motion to approve the second reading and adoption of the following policies and the renumbering of policy 5425 to 8122. And those policies are listed below. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I. >> Any opposed? >> We'll move on to the consent agenda. Resolve that the Yorktown Central School District approves the consent agenda which includes items 8 through 12. Board matters, personnel matters, business matters, pupil personnel matters, gifts, grants, and donations. >> So move. >> All in favor? >> I didn't hear a second. >> Wait, I didn't hear a second. >> Second. >> Yeah, we need a second first. I'll see. >> Um, and I'm just going to note that I'm going to abstain from the consent agenda because um, there's a personnel agenda on there
062in which my son is listed as an employee of the district as a substitute CTA. >> Thank you. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> And it looks like we are down to board comments. Uh, Jacqueline, you have any comments? I would just say it's kind of impressive as a first time hearing about all of the budget uh to see the excelling in both educational and sports program. So just um proud to be a part of it. So thank you for everybody put the time into the presentation for today. Barl. Uh, I just want to say it was nice to have a representative um, our our teacher from the science research program as well as um, one of his students here representing us at such a high level. And I we just excel
063as we see in sports. Our program is expanding and uh, science research and our co-curriculars and our music departments. It's just we just keep excelling and just keep going up and up and up. And I'm just so proud to be a part of this board because they our students and our staff really represent us well. >> Rashmi. >> Yeah. I uh would like to thank um Lisa uh San Philippo and Dr. Hadra and Diedra as well. Um I think that demands on our budget every year uh go up for a variety of uh reasons. um there's transportation there you know their employee costs the you know at one point it was covid and uh the lingering effects of that and I think we we have re we have added programs uh we have added teams
064we have added clubs uh we have added classes uh so we have really raised the bar on what we're doing with um sometimes what seems like a smaller pot of money um so kudos to our administrative team for um leading that every year. >> Catalina, thank you. Pete, >> no. Just um I've been part of this board for like 17 years now. And when when I first started, it was an unbelievable district. And when I look to where we've come now, we just continue to grow past I think anybody's expectations. and a lot of it's related to our our leadership, our administration, our teachers and our students. So, um maybe I'll be around another 17 years. I hope not. But, um it's just been a pleasure to be part of it. Really is to see
065this district grow. >> Um I want to thank everyone for coming out and um taking the time on a on a school night to give us the presentations on on the budget. Thank you for that. And thank you to Miss Sanalipo, Miss Ammerling, and Dr. Hatter for all the work that you do and I I echo Pete's comments about the changes over the years. I haven't been on the board as long as it's Pete, but I' I've been around a while and um and it's really amazing. Really amazing. Um public comment number two, we have one speaker signed up and that's Major Mike Sheridan. I'll invite you to the podium. There's um uh three minutes per speaker. Um I I'll read you the rules. I don't think I need to, but I'm going to read
066them to you anyway. Um, a maximum of three minutes per speaker. Speakers may not comment on matters of public interest involving school, I'm sorry, may comment on matters of public interest involving school operations and programs, but may not criticize or personally attack any individual connected with the school district. No student or district employee may be commented on or identified by name or situation. Um, questions asked by the public will be referred to the appropriate staff member for reply. Questions regarding investigations will be referred to the superintendent for consideration and later response. With that, Major uh, floor is yours. >> Very good. Thank you. I'm Major Mike Sheridan, United States Army, retired. I'm here representing the Veterans Advisory Committee of Yorktown. uh and all of us are the taxpayers who help fill that pot that you
067draw from to fund all of these uh budgetary items. We've been trying to get involved in the budget discussions because we want to resurface uh something that happened within your tenure uh back in 2014. Um when you pass uh a a generous uh tax exemption program uh when it was an option for the school district to do so under uh state law. uh the exemptions that you passed provided for a basic exemption of uh 15% of the assessed value of the property uh for every veteran. Um in addition to that there was a combat zone exemption which would be an additional tax exemption of 10% 10% of the assessed value and there was an also additional uh disabled veterans uh assessment that is kind of tough uh to calculate but it's based upon the veterans
068disability rating from the Veterans Administration multiplied by 50%. % and uh when these measures were passed in 2014, it was great. It was good. We were all deeply appreciative of it and we're still deeply appreciative of it. Uh but that was 2014 and the affordability of 2014 is different than the affordability of 2026. Uh we were hoping to get involved in your budget discussions as you were involving as you were calculating up all of the tax caps and all of the other items that would uh drive your your funding and uh to request that you perhaps re-examine uh the method in which it's calculated. Uh from the perspective of the assessor's office in town in your school district, uh there are uh 223 households uh with the basic veterans exemption in place. Uh there are
069147 of those would have the additional uh combat zone exemption. And again referring back to the 223 uh households for the veterans basic, there are 91 uh with the disability. Now you have some who qualify for all three, some who qualify for only two, but your baseline is 223 households where the veteran uh 15% kicks in. In the calculation of it, uh there are hard and fast caps shall not exceed And there are other calculations which are uh doubly convoluted because after you take the percentages and you get to the shall not exceed part uh you get to or the product of that shall not exceed multiplied by something else uh which inevitably results in a lower number. >> Major the three minutes is up um with the board's um does the board want to
070extend the time so we can finish? Is that okay with everyone? Go ahead please. major. >> We we we think that the that that the perceived impact uh at the household level for the people uh for the veterans who do qualify for this, if you compare your uh property tax for the uh town and county and you put that side by side with your school tax, the town assessor applies the same exact percentages. They have those same exact categories, the basic exemption, the combat zone, and the disabled veteran exemption. same percentages and yet those same percentages yield a vastly greater amount of relief on your property tax than applying the same percentages to your school tax does. And it may have something to do with the cap values. It may have to do with the
071additional convoluted calculations or it could just be you're just using a different schedule of the property tax base uh to to to form the base of your calculations. and we'd ask you to reconsider it and members of the vet veterans advisory committee are available if uh you wish to have us in invite us in for discussions on it for more details subject to any of your questions. I'd like to thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Good night.