001Good evening and welcome to the board of ed Yorktown Board of Education meeting for February 9, 2026. Can I get a motion to go into executive session to discuss the employment history of a particular pedagogical and non-pedagical employees and matters made confidential under Furpa? >> So move. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? >> Can I get a motion to go back into public session? >> So moved. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Good evening and welcome to the Yorktown Central School District Board of Education meeting for February 9, 2026. When we stand for the pledge of allegiance, followed by a moment of silence for our armed forces and those in the Yorktown Central School District community who have lost loved ones, especially the mother of Gina Fchalongo, the mother-in-law of Daniel
002Fchalongo, the mother of Steven Meltz, the mother of Carla Malone, the father of Christy Anne Denalt, the mother-in-law of Caitlyn Gada, the mother the father-in-law of Joanne Salo Tuscano, the father-in-law of Julie McNamera, the brother of Jennifer Herby and the grandmother of Ryan Lancel. To the flag of the United States of America. Good evening, Dr. Hatter. >> All right. Good evening. >> We seem to have a full house. >> We do. And what a great thing. So, first of all, before we begin with our presentation, I just want to apologize. I know we were a few minutes late coming out of executive session. We really appreciate your time. We know it's Monday. It's cold outside. You've got a thousand other things that you have to do tonight to get ready for your routines and to
003get ready for the rest of the week. So, we certainly do apologize for being a few minutes late coming out of executive session. With that said, I am so excited to welcome students from Krompon School here this evening. It is so wonderful to have you here. and I had the opportunity to preview the presentation and I believe that our board and members of our community are going to be very very impressed. So at this time I'd like to invite Crown Pon school principal Miss Jacobs to the podium to introduce the presentation. >> Thank you Dr. Hatter. Good evening board of ed and uh central office admins and I'm actually happy to see such a big crowd here even though you may not be here for our presentation. I'm super excited to uh to show you
004what we've got uh in store for you. I I don't want to take too much of the thunder from the presentation, but I what I will say is that our PBIS committee has spent the last couple of months of the school year working in a way to add student leadership to the decision-making pro process on how we create lessons and also on how we deliver those lessons. I think you'll hear from some very excited students who had an opportunity to change what has been a long-standing program within our community. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce Mr. Toesto um to come on up and get us started. Good evening everyone. My name is Nick Toouasto. I teach fifth grade at Crown Pond Elementary School and I'm part of an amazing positive behavior interventions and
005supports committee, the PBIS committee. The PBIS committee has created what we call heart lessons in order to promote positive behaviors in Crown Pond Elementary School. HART is our acronym for helping others, engaging in learning, acting responsibly, respecting people and property, and taking safety seriously. In years past, we distributed the heart lesson in the form of a slideshow for teachers to display, as well as a script for the teacher and an activity to follow the lesson in the classroom. When we met as a committee before the school year started, we thought about the words Dr. Hatter spoke during Superintendent Conference Day, the Yorktown difference plus 1%. We asked ourselves if there was a way that we could engage students, maintain our sense of school spirit, and support teachers with heart lessons. Behold the heart assembly. This
006year, we started with gradewide assemblies where the PBIS committee plans and presents challenges, activities, and learning materials such as readalouds and videos. Students loved the new heart assembly. So, we decided to take a step further. The Yorkman difference plus 2%. A handful of fifth grade students were selected from each class. These students were asked to take on a leadership role to assist us with our heart assembly for the month of January. These students met with myself and Mrs. Tara Dailyaly during their lunch and recess time to develop and present January's heart assembly. Yes, you heard correctly. They gave up many lunch and recess periods and they would have given up more if we needed to. We wanted to offer students an opportunity to experience being in a role of leadership and they have discovered that
007leadership can look differently. More often we think of leadership as people who are outgoing, motivational, and brave. However, our group has discovered that leadership can also apply to those who are more introverted and quiet. to speak about these this experience. I'm going to have some of our fifth grade students to speak about what we did together as a PBIS group. >> Hello, my name is Madison. We were all so proud to be chosen to be part of this leadership group. We were very excited to meet at our lunch and recess times to plan for this month's heart assembly. We were divided into two teams. One team would help Mr. Touasto plan and create the assembly on the topic of courtesy while the other team would help Miss Daly develop a new PBIS bulletin board. Good
008evening. I'm Arafa. With Mrs. Dailyy at our lunch and recess, we planned the design of the bulletin board. We used Canva to create posters describing what courtesy means to us. Hi, my name is Jackson. We also had an idea to ask high school student leaders to help us. With each new heart word we learn, we will display a student who represents that word. We'll place their picture on the bulletin board as a high school spotlight for all the crown students to see. Hello, my name is Liam. This month we are highlighting high school student Talia Pearson who is the leadership academy at Yorktown High School. She was quoted as saying, "Leadership means having empathy, setting an example, empowering others to find and use their voice." Being part of this of our school, PBIS assembly is
009doing that for us. We are helping other students at Crown Pon see how important it is to set a good example and be a role model. Hi, my name is Amy with Mr. Toasto. The other group of students planned how we wanted the assembly to go. We thought of a challenge to start our assembly just like Mr. Toazto has been doing in our assemblies this year. We then needed to introduce and define our heart topic of courtesy. We wanted to make sure we included student participation. We plan to ask questions and get the audience involved. >> Good evening. My name is Colin. We all agreed that rather than reading a book or playing a video, we should act out different scenarios. These scenarios were ones that we would see in our school and where we
010think we could show more courtesy. Finally, we came up with a class activity to be completed in the classrooms to follow up on the lesson. Hi, I'm Egan. To get our audience attention, we decided to do a fun challenge. We divided the cafeteria into four teams. It has a pose-like challenge. I did a pose for everybody to see. This was the post students need to recreate. One student contestant would describe my pose only using the words and the other student contestants would need to try to recreate my pose. The audience loved watching all the poses that were made until we had a winner. Hi, my name is Ava. After the challenge, we presented the definition of courtesy. Courtesy is being polite, using good manners, and showing consideration to others. When you are being courteous, you
011use acceptable words, proper tone of voice, and appropriate body language. We explained what courtesy looks like and sounds like through our skits. Hi, my name is Austin. One of our scenarios took place on the bus. We pretended to use a phone, chew chew gum, and talk very loud. We stopped and asked the audience about our actions on the bus. We walked through the aisles and asked our peers what could be changed to show courtesy. Then we revised the scenario using the suggestions from the audience. Students on the bus were now talking quietly and they were not chewing gum. The and they did not take out their phones. The audience loved seeing their suggestions come to life in our skits. >> Good evening. My name is Seisa. We also felt that sometimes the words we use
012and the tone we use may or may not be in a courteous way. We thought of examples of phrases we hear where we could say them in a different way to be more courteous. For example, with my friends after school, I might say, "Yeah, whatever." But being courteous in school, I might say, "I agree to disagree with you." Here are some videos of our assembly. Um, excuse me. Could you please go behind me? This wasn't your spot. >> It's okay. We can sit together at lunch. >> Give him a round of applause. >> Let's try this scenario. >> Ready and >> action. Spit out your gum. >> Okay. What do you guys want to talk about? >> Um, let's talk about like the drama. >> And NC. >> Was this being courteous? >> Much better.
013Give them all a round of applause. >> Hi, my name is Olivia. Lastly, we wanted each class to have something in their classroom that reminded them of how to be more courteous. We came up with a project where each class would be given a large heart with the word courtesy in the middle and each student would receive a smaller heart. On the smaller heart, they would write something they could do to show courtesy in school or at home. We can't wait to see everyone's hearts. Hi, I'm Ella. Being part of planning and creating this month's lesson on courtesy made us all feel like we could truly help our Cromp community show heart. I learned that teamwork shows us that you could do anything when you work together. It was such a great chance to be
014part of the real experience of creating an assembly. Hi, my name is Madison. When I saw how fun the previous PBIS assemblies were, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I felt that joining the group would help to build confidence in myself. Hi, I'm Arabella. The reason I volunteered to be part of the assembly because I love participating things. When I saw how fun the teachers were having, I knew when I saw how much fun the teachers were having, I knew I wanted to join. I really love going into the audience and calling on students to volunteer. Hi, my name is Elijah. We were curious about the feedback from our peers. So, we asked some fourth and fifth graders about the assembly. And here's what they had to say. I like how
015the challenges showed teamwork and that we could trust each other. They really had to choose their words carefully. Hi, I'm Grayson. Another student said, "I liked how the kids were really acting out and showing you the real scenarios. This is something that I would like to do next year when I am in fifth grade. I am Kristen Sam, the assistant principal at Crump Pond. How about a round of applause for them? They did an amazing job. We also want to thank our PBIS committee who also did a wonderful job with our students and giving them a platform to create a student-driven assembly on positive behaviors they want to see within our school community. Both Miss Jacobs and I are so proud of the work they've done and their genuine desire to give back to Crown
016Pond. Building community is such an important part of the work we do here as adults. So, it's so amazing to see our students taking on this mission as well. We look forward to sharing future student created assemblies with our board of education. And now, one last surprise. Our students have a gift for our members of the board. So, you can be reminded to show heart, too. Thank you. Oh, I love this. So sweet. That's so sweet. Thank you. >> Wow, that was amazing. Um, thank you Krompon for coming out to see us. Public speaking is one of my favorite things and you guys did amazing. This is a very crowded room with people you don't know and you stood up there, you adjusted the microphone, you spoke clearly, you did an amazing job. Some of
017you made eye contact with us which was great. Um, some of you demonstrated poses. I mean, it was just so impressive. But even more impressive to me was what you did with the public speaking at your school in front of all your friends. That must be really nerve-wracking. And you guys did a great job. I'm so proud of you. Thank you for sharing that with us. Anybody else want to comment? Yeah, I'll comment. Um, this was phenomenal. I love this assembly. Uh it really puts the E in E steam and uh kudos to Mr. Toasto because you're saving us a ton of money on assemblies because you're actually putting it together and involving everyone. So I love it. Love it. Love it. Um it was wonderful. Um for fifth graders to realize so many valid
018points that I even think as adults we don't give a second thought to. One of the things I heard in the very beginning beginning was you don't have to be outgoing to be a leader. that sometimes there are quiet leaders and that's such a valid point that we lead by example and by who we are and I think that that's a really great point to drive home and you everyone here seems to have realized that as you presented it. So um the involvement by the students I loved I love the fact that you were acting out skits in front of your peers. I think we learn by hands-on activities more than just getting up there and uh you know talking about something. Um Mr. Mr. Touasto, I have a question for you. Tonight, you handled
019the Yorktown difference plus 2%. Is there a Yorktown difference plus 3% headed our way at some point? >> Awesome. And one more comment. There was a Marbella with an adorable sweater there. It has a picture of my dog on it. So, if you can just let me know after the meeting where you got it, I would love to know that so I can get one in my size. But great job all around. >> Great job, uh, Crompand. Uh thank you for sharing the PBIS assembly uh snippets. I enjoyed um uh watching the uh two snippets and I also loved hearing about how it's helped you build confidence and like Charles said develop those leadership skills. So thank you for coming out and sharing with us. >> Great job everybody. I just saw some heart behind
020the scenes. I don't know if the audience could see but when the kids were coming out everybody was high-fiving and really encouraging everybody. So thank you So I just want to take a moment to acknowledge so many Krompon faculty and staff here tonight. Um whe no matter I see fourth grade teachers, I see fifth grade teachers, I see teachers from all across the building. So whether you were directly involved or not involved at all in this, you're here and I really appreciate your support of our students, your students, your colleagues. So, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge so many crown staff who are here tonight. Um, students, one thing that I heard that I don't a lot of what I was going to say was already said, so I'm not going to
021say it twice, but you gave up lunch. Is that true? Lunch and recess to do this. That is to find something that you believe in, something that speaks to you, and give up lunch and recess at at your age. at any age. Honestly, I don't know if I give up lunch and recess at my age, but to do that, I think is just so remarkable. And it speaks to what great students, what great people you are, and what great families you have. And so, families, I just want to acknowledge you and thank you for giving us great children to work with. They're you're their first teachers. I say this all the time, you're their best teachers. We're just honored to have them for a small part of the day. And students, you should be so
022proud of yourselves. I am so proud of you. What a great job. The eye contact. I was telling Colin how impressed I was with it when he dropped off this heart. Uh I was telling Colin how impressed I was with the um eye contact because that was absolutely remarkable and it's something that I am still working on and so many of us are working on. But you figured this out as a crumpon student. So that's absolutely remarkable. With that said, uh what we'll do is we'll take a brief recess. We have plenty more meeting left. We're we have budget presentations. I'm giving an update. My superintendent student council I see is here. But you've got I'm sorry before we do the break. I'm sorry. Before we do the inter we have one more recognition that
023we're going to do and then we'll take a quick intermission. We have we've recognized our Krompon students and we talk about good role models. We have another student here who is going to be acknowledged and I want to take a moment to acknowledge Yorktown High School student John Mosca. And so John was recently named a student of distinction at PNW Boseies. And to introduce John and the honor that he's getting, I'd like to call up assistant superintendent from PNW Boseies, Dr. Greg Brown. Good evening everyone. What a tough act to follow, huh? Amazing. Um, my name is Greg Brown. I'm the assistant superintendent at Putinham Northern Westchester Boseies and it is truly an honor to be here tonight. I just want to take a a brief moment to to thank the board, the administration, Dr.
024Hatter and the Yorktown community at large for being such amazing partners with us at PNW. Tonight, uh we have a student that we share, John Mosca, who's here with his family. Um I'm joined by Career Academy uh principal Jessica Miller. Also, our on&M director Jim Hubil, who's been uh working with John on his internship. So, thank you for sharing uh in this educational journey with us. John's in our uh HVAC program at PNW and when I say excelling, excelling. Um so we're really proud of him and I swore I wasn't going to say too much. I was going to leave some for Miss Miller. So with that, I'm going to introduce Miss Miller and again, thank you for having us uh this evening and thanks for sharing John with us. >> Okay, so it's my
025job to embarrass John. So here we go. So these are some of the things that John's teachers, teaching assistants, and community members in our school have to say about you, John. So John demonstrates the qualities every teacher hopes to see in a student. John consistently pursues growth and improvement in his skills and approaches his work with dedication, diligence, and respect. Not only is John a stellar student, he's currently interning with our operations and maintenance department at PNW Boseis, where he continues to impress staff with his strong work ethic and professionalism. He's he has excellent skills and brings an enthusiastic energy to everything that he does. He is friendly, kind, and respectful to everyone he interacts with, and he continues to communicate effectively with both his peers and adults. What truly sets John apart is his
026genuine desire to learn and make the most of every opportunity the program has offered him. He shows up each day eager to grow, willing to take feedback, and committed to doing his best. John is a positive presence in our school community and he is truly deserving of this candidate for student of distinction. So, John, come on over. I have a medal for you. This is the most dressed up I've ever seen, John. As the um HVAC student that he is, he always comes dressed ready to work. >> Congratulations. >> Questions? No, I I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge John. Congratulations, John. I see John's mother, Michelle, in the back. Congratulations. Uh, and Dr. Brown, thank you. Our partnership and our relationship. I've known Dr. Brown probably for 15 years, 15 years, something
027like maybe more. U, so we go back a long way. And he's just been a great friend of our district, great partner to our district for so many years. And so to the folks at at PNW Boseies, I just Jessica Josh, thank you so much for everything that you do for our students and HVAC. It's a great great field to uh get into and so congratulations to you, John. Well done. >> So John, don't leave. We're going to all pose for a picture, but what I want to do is um give you the opportunity to go on with your evening. We'll have a quick intermission. So, if you wish to depart for the evening, please do so. We're going to resume in about five minutes with the remainder of the meeting. >> Okay, we're up
028to public comment number one of anybody. Okay. All right. We will move on to our exeicio student member report. Hunter, >> good evening. So, last week we began the third quarter of the 2025 2026 school year and it's hard to believe that the school year is halfway over. Last weekend, the YHS Dance Company hosted several fantastic performances of its annual winter showcase. The routines were well orchestrated and the three performances were well attended by the community. Last week, the Brookside third grade course held winter performance of Squirm, a fun musical which performed our talented young performers. This Wednesday, February 11th, the Muhansic third graders will host its concert. This past weekend, the YHS band held its 17th annual swing dance concert. The event featured musical performances by our talented YHS musicians, as well as dance
029lessons taught by a professional instructor. Rehearsals are well underway for the YS spring musical, the Wizard of Oz, which will be performed on Friday, March 6th, and Saturday, March 7th. We encourage the community to attend this. Yorktown's fifth through 12th grade musicians are preparing for the annual Band of Palooa concert which will be held on Thursday, March 26. Our winter sports teams have had a great season to date. The YS wrestling team has had a fantastic season. This past weekend, the team won the section one team title following their win of the dual meet championship title last month. Several team members compete in the section one individual wrestling championship. Congratulations to Rockco Lori, Tyler Kerakotti, and Rowan Larson, who individually advanced to compete in the state championship. The boys varsity basketball team continued its incredible
030season last week with a win against Lakeland on Thursday, an exciting win against summers on Friday in the Charlie Strong game. The Y gymnasium was standing room only for exciting and meaningful game which benefits Bllythe Children's Hospital. I'd like to congratulate the varsity cheerleing team on the placing fifth at the UCA nationals held in January in Orlando, Florida. I would also like to congratulate the YHS science olympiad team for qualifying for the state tournament. Finally, last week the boys and girls varsity bowling teams finished their season strong with wins in their final season matches. These wins were incredibly important to the players as this was the final competition for coach Steve Atiri who retired last week after 26 incredible years at Yorktown High School. We will miss Coach Furi. Thank you. >> Thank you Dr.
031Hatter. That was excellent as always. Uh so I have members of our superintendent student council in the audience. This is one of the most prominent and prestigious groups that we have in our school district. This is the group that was responsible for making the selection of the exeicio board member. This is a group that is responsible to bringing so many wonderful things to our school district. So, I will go through my update. Um but at the end we're going to hear from members of our superintendent student council which I think is so fitting as we prepare for uh our budget presentations and we talk about the different programs our students are represented in so many of those programs and in fact they have brought so many new programs to our school district. We'll talk about
032some of those this evening. So I'll begin with my superintendent report. I assume the clicker is there. So I'm going to go and take the presentation from the podium. Okay. So, just a quick summary of what we'll discuss today. I I want to provide our community with a update on our universal prek program, an update on the bus stop arm ticket. I try to give monthly updates to our community about the number of violations that we have of individuals passing a school bus with their stop lights on and the stop arm out. We'll talk about some upcoming dates which Hunter Hunter did such a great job of sharing. Construction update with regard to our bond mohans Brookside and the athletic facility. abandoned Palooa update which is really really important for the community to make mention
033of this evening and our superintendent student council will finish out the presentation where members of the council will come up and just share a little bit about their experience and the council. So our UPK registration is open. Registration seems to be going very quickly. We are already at 112 students registered for prek in our district which is a phenomenal number to this point. If fewer than 188 students register by the end of this month, by March 1st, then there will not be a lottery system needed. Everyone in this community who wants prek will be able to access preK at no cost to them. That has been true for each of the first three years of the program. And we look to be trending that this will be true for year four as well. If you
034or someone you know, I just want to go back to this slide, will turn four years of age before December 1st of 2026 and you live within the Yorktown Central School District catchment area, please reach out to Miss Subber, reach out to our registration department so that we can get you enrolled in our district. So, I I wanted to put that plug in. Also, just for kindergarten, while we're here, if you're turning 5 years of age on or before December 1st, please and live within our school district's catchment area, please do register for kindergarten. Terms of bus stop arm tickets, I wish this number were lower. I wish this I wish we would see more of a decline from December. These numbers are where they were in November and December. There were 47 tickets issued.
035That's valid tickets issued. that that's not summit that's not uh referrals to the county police. There were 84 referrals to the county police. They had enough evidence to issue tickets on 47 of them. That's 47 vehicles passing a bus with the red light flashing and stop arm out. We were at I I want to say it was 69 back in November. We dropped a bit into the 40s in December. I'm sorry. In November and December, we dropped into the 40s in October. We were at 69 and we're at 47. 37 close calls. What close calls really mean is that there either was not enough time for the driver to stop. Maybe the stop arm was deployed late and someone passed at the moment the stop arm was being deployed or the license plate was not
036in view or other factors that prevented the cameras from picking up the license plate. The three most ticketed locations in town are on Route 202, Route 35, and Underh Hill Avenue. Those are areas, it's not excusable, but those in some cases are two lanes on each side of the road. And it's important for the community to know that if a bus is stopped in the right lane in one direction of traffic, the far right lane on the other side also needs to stop when the red lights are flashing. So, putting in a plug for PL public safety in front of our officers in the back. With regard to some important upcoming dates, again, schools are closed for February recess next week. February 27th, our science researchf practice night is happening. If you have any experience
037um in the science world in any genre or any sector and you want to be a a practice judge for our students, want to help out, there's information on our website, certainly on the science research social media pages. We have some board of education meetings that that are upcoming or Wizard of Oz productions coming up as well. I want to once again call the community's attention to March 19th and March 20th. There was a change made to the calendar. Originally March 19th was a superintendent conference day where students would not report and March 20th was a regular school day for students. Those have since been reversed. March 19th will be a regular day of classes. Students will get the longer weekend and have a a superintendent conference day on Friday, March 20th. So, a very
038important uh note to make for our calendar. With regard to construction, I don't have an update to report at the high school because the snow from two weeks ago is still there and we've been moving it. The contractors have been moving the snow, but that has taken up much of their time to get back onto schedule because the temperatures don't look like they're melting the snow anytime soon, especially from last week uh and the week before when we had the storm. So, there's not much of an update to report on the middle school high school athletic complex from the Mohansik and Brookside perspective. Essentially, steel is being um in installed at this point. There's piping that's being installed, roofing is being installed. We're making a time-lapse video to show the community. We're going to post
039it to our website so the community can actually follow the construction, not necessarily in real time, but in a time-lapse video. So, we will have something posted relatively soon to our website to just let you know of the progress, give you some some real-time data as we uh see that construction happening. The students are are enjoying seeing the big machinery come in and a kindergarten student seeing all of the construction equipment. It's it's just uh enjoyable to watch how excited they are. With regard to Band Palooa, we have a a great situation. Our band numbers, our enrollments at the highest level in recorded history. So in at least 14 or 15 years, we have not seen band numbers like this. For any parent who had a child in the band last year, you recognize how
040crowded that gymnasium was. We've decided to adjust our approach this year. We came up with a two concert system with two tickets for each child and they the tickets were preassigned. So if you're a child, if your child is in grade seven through 12, you have two tickets to the first concert. If your child's in grade five and six, you have two tickets to the second concert. Again, part of that rationale was just band sizes a uh gym capacity, but also fifth grade students have to be signed out. So that's where we put fifth grade in concert, too. So parents at the end of that concert can sign their child out. So, some strategic moves were made with regard to timing. We do want students, we need students to stay for both concerts. Staying for
041one concert, leaving for the other isn't quite fair to the rest of the band. So, students are expected to stay for both concerts. But again, a great night of music. What a great situation. 595 children in this district participate in our band program. That is absolutely remarkable. That's a more than 10% increase from prior year, which which is terrific. And it's a testament to our excellent music teachers, our band teachers, our students who are committed families because it's an investment that families make as well. And just a a wonderful situation. So we came up with a two concert approach for this coming school year for this school year for March. And now for the moment I've been looking forward to is introducing my superintendent student council. Not all the members of the council are here
042tonight, but many of you will look at that sea lot from years ago. Brian and I had this conversation. Brian was a student here. He remembers that seot in disrepair for many years. It was this council that got that paved at the town's expense. And it it's remarkable. And I'm looking at Lauren in the back. Lauren was the architect of that negotiation. and she did just a brilliant job in litigating the point, forming a solid rationale and coming to an agreement. But the student council is about much more than just getting projects done. We spend a lot of time talking about leadership, understanding the perspective of others. It's this idea of empathy mapping, consensus building, communication skills, and follow-through. So, so many things are happening as part of our superintendent student council. And so, we
043have some students here. Each student brings something unique to our council. And I'm looking at each of the students who are on the council who are here tonight. You bring something special and unique. Um, we're going to talk about the student eye grants. That has been something that Alex has really, really gravitated to and he's found a passion in this idea of a student eye grant. He'll talk more about that. So, I want to invite members of the council. You all can come up if they want. They don't all have to speak, but if I I did want them to address our board because they're just such an impressive group. You're welcome to address any of the topics we're working on and they're listed there for the community to view or just some general words,
044which is what I asked you to prepare. Just some general words about your experience on the council. So, Lauren, we'll start with you. You can just introduce yourself. >> Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Tamarelli and I'm a senior at Yorktown High School and I have the have had the privilege of serving on the Yorktown Superintendent Council now for two years. Before I begin, I would want to thank Dr. Hatter. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight, but most importantly, thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to serve on this council. I joined this council because I believe that student voices are essential to the growth of our school. I wanted to make an avid change to our school. I wanted to make Yorktown a better place for every single student
045and to become a more active contributing member of the community. Looking back at last year, I am so proud of what we achieved as a group. We successfully implemented designated testing days for the end of quarters and the weeks before big breaks. By suggesting that specific subjects test on certain days, we've allowed students to study more efficiently without feeling overwhelmed. We all know those weeks are the busiest for us. And this change has brought a much needed sense of ease to our schedules. On a personal note, I took a significant role last year in advocating for the paving of the sea law. Navigating conversations with the highway department was tricky. However, by staying persistent and utilizing my communication skills, I was h able to have the lot paved at no additional cost to the high
046school. Today, that law is free of potholes and hazards, ensuring the safety of every every student who drives to school. This year, the council has even more in store. We are working on student eye grants to fund innovative ideas, new outdoor areas for students to enjoy during the warmer months, enhanced mental health facilities to support student well-being, the additions of an AI and finance lab along with the course guide to prepare us for the future. I am incredibly excited about these initiatives. Working as a team of students has been incredibly amazing experience and we are constantly brainstorming ways to make Yorktown the best it can be. Thank you for your time and I look forward to make to make Yorktown a better place for all students. Hi everyone, my name is Giana Bucher. I'm a
047junior at Yorktown High School and I've also had the honor of serving on the superintendent council for two years. I applied in the fall of my sophomore year and we had our first meeting November of that year. From the very beginning, it was clear that this council was something special. It's an honor to be a part of the group that isn't just there to discuss what could be changed, but to actually make that change real. Representing my fellow students is a big responsibility, but it's one that I take seriously. I truly believe that every person on this council does an amazing job of advocating for their peers. Together, we're able to collaborate, share ideas, and accomplish things that we once thought were impossible. Being surrounded by such dedicated, motivated people has made this experience even
048more rewarding. Lauren already talked a lot about this, but I mean, one project that I'm especially proud of was the CEO. I mean, I feel like that's the one that the students, they felt the most, they appreciated the most. It's the one that people have come up to me and say like, "Wow, like thank you for making that happen." I mean, it it was a very daunting task. It's required a lot of planning, coordination, a lot of funding. I mean, despite the challenges, we worked together, we stayed committed, and we made it happen. Seeing that project come to life showed me how impactful our voices can be when we're given the proper opportunity. Overall, this council has just taught me so much about what it means to be a leader. I mean, leadership isn't just
049about ideas. It requires compromise, communication, and empathy. Being a part of this council has helped me grow, not only as a student, but as a leader and advocate for others. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board, Dr. Hatter and our audience. Um, so I'm here to talk about um something new to propose to the board, which is our student eye grants. Um, this idea that we've come up with in the past couple of months. So, as I'm sure you're aware, we've had the teacher eye grants for quite a while where teachers have been able to propose things for the betterment of the school and then receive funding for it. The idea behind this basically came from the fact that we have however many administrators we have 15 to 16 people on the council on
050any any given day. We can't think of everything. Students who aren't on these things and students who wouldn't necessarily want want to be on these things have ideas as well. And these ideas can be just as valuable to the school community. So by implementing this program, we hope to create an application where students could apply for a monetary grant to then implement something into the school that would better it. The way this would work, we've drawn up an application. Um, I've drafted it and then we've edited it as a group um with the help of Dr. Hatter. And this application would basically ask students to describe an itemized budget and a proposal they have for the betterment of the school district, specifically York High School, which is where most of the students who would apply
051would be would be from. Um, this could range from anything from getting tissues into more rooms to buying or fixing instruments to literally anything that someone could think of for the better betterment of the school. um each grant would be a couple hundred dollars. The total cost, the total um package for all of them would be a couple thousand dollars. And what these would do annually, it allow new students to apply on a rolling basis and then have them reviewed by Dr. Hatter and the council to then allot funding in an itemized budget proposed by the student to then be used towards the betterment of the school. The school would then purchase manage the financials of the items and the students would implement them. Um generally speaking, this would promote more student involvement. It would
052spread out um decision- making and engagement to the student body at large. And overall, again, it would expand the ideas beyond just a small group of people to something that after review from a smaller group of people could allow every student in the school to have an active role and to bring stuff that only they can think of to the school. Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Diana Katzenberg. I'm a senior at Yorktown High School. Um I wanted to speak about the outside seating at Yorktown High School. So we're currently focusing on creating an outside um basically gazebo that would be a nice area for students to hang out outside during the warmer months. This is a great addition and I believe it's going to be a really nice aspect that will enhance student
053life because going outside is really important for our mental health and um you know we have a beautiful like uh campus so it would give it students a great opportunity to be outside and enjoy the fresh air and we're currently working on this along with other projects. Thank you. >> Karina and Rachel are in their first year with the council, so they've joined us. They've been wonderful additions to our council. Rachel was actually on the middle school council when she was a middle school student. And Hunter is an alum of the council. Hunter was part of the council last year. So, we have a great group. They have great ideas, really big vision. We talked about this is not the committee for putting extra salt on the French fries. This is a committee that thinks
054of some really big highlevel change for our school district. And I could not be more proud to work with such a great group of students. They are absolutely amazing. They work around the clock. They work non-stop. They've got me working around the clock. Alex, the application's finished. I finished it tonight. So, we're we're ready to go. But what a great student. What a great student group. What great people. Just very very bright futures ahead. If there is anything that the board has with regard to questions or comments, I'll I'll turn it over to you. >> I just want to say how impressive you all are. Right. We listen to the compound students just learning their public speaking skills and you guys have mastered them. I'm those of you who spoke without notes, who just spoke
055so eloquently. I'm incredibly impressed. And one of my favorite things that I've heard, I mean, the seat's amazing, right? That's always been a disaster. Thank you for fixing that. Us parents couldn't get it done, but you guys got it done. Um, the eye grants. I love the fact that you're including everybody else, right? because there's there's you guys who are on the council and you can sit around and talk and and this is what's important to you, but to listen to what everybody else in the in the school, what's important to them, and including that in your goals is very impressive. You guys have a very bright future ahead of you. Thank you for everything you do. Anybody else? >> Yeah, I'll say a couple words. Um, one of the things I heard, um, from
056almost everyone who spoke there is seems like a lot of the projects revolve around mental health. I heard about the outdoor seating, um, and some of the other ideas. I love that. I love that that's becoming more of an everyday concept for us and not just something that's a oneoff and we start to hear about after the fact, but now we're being so proactive and our students are involved in building programs around that. So, I absolutely love that. and the sealot. I'm going to tell you a quick story. I have four cars sitting in my driveway and somehow I wound up with the one that my sons used in high school and you can go outside right now in the in this parking lot right here and you will see three dings on the right
057hand side of my car and those were a product of the sea lot. So my car thanks you. Unfortunately I don't have kids here to enjoy that new sealot but I am so happy that you guys have done something about it and it was because of the lack of lines and everyone you know parking every which way. So this what a great job. Like Miss Roll said, we didn't have a lot of as much power as you guys did in getting this resolved. So thank you so much because your students who you go with now really do appreciate it. >> I just want to say it's wonderful to see you all here. Uh Dr. Hatter, I hope we bring them back um you know time to time so we can hear from them. You're certainly
058a very impressive group. Um the clo looks amazing and I can't wait to see some of the ideas for the um I grants. Um Alex has the whole process down. So that's amazing. I know Lauren has um chatted a bit with the AI committee on some of the ideas for the AI and uh finance lab. So we are going to um talk more about that. But it's great to see you all. So parents, thank you. I know how busy you all are as well. And students, I I know how busy you are. So, we're not going to take a formal recess. You can depart at any point. You can stay at any point. We've got a budget presentation on facilities and transportation coming up. Um, but if you do depart, you can use those doors.
059Students, I'm always so proud of you. Parents, you have amazing children. And if no one has told you that today, I'd like to be the first to tell you, your children are absolutely amazing, just such special people. And I have the joy of meeting with them. It was once a month. They asked if we can up the meeting frequency. So, we're now up to two meetings every month to get the work done at an accelerated pace. High school students asking for more meetings to to enhance productivity. You have amazing kids. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work with them for even just a short amount of time each month and each week. So students, thank you for being here. You all were great. I will see you at our next meeting. Have a
060great night. If if you all decide to leave, have a great evening. Thank you. I do I just have one question. >> Um you talked about the superintendent conference day. Um can you just say what does the staff do on a superintendent's conference day? >> That is an actionpacked day of professional learning and professional growth for our faculty. So I'll turn it over to Miss Amarling to speak more to the details of of the schedules. Thank you. For this um professional development day, we really have a lot planned for our 6th through 12th grade teachers. Um our K to5 teachers will be having the day spent in parent teacher conferences. We also will be jam-packed with a lot of planning. I've been working with uh Caroline Almeida on our CTA. They also have a lot
061of professional development for the whole day. The day is structured from 8 to 3 so that we can really coordinate amongst many of the different buildings. We're going to have presentations on um mental health. There will be a lot of curriculum uh department areas. We have um some anxiety uh presentations that are will be done. We have a lot of AED training for our staff. Um, so we'll have a little bit of time for departments to really get together to do updates to assessments um and to really look forward to some of the planning for the summer work and the year ahead. So, it's a jam-packed day. Um, our schedule should be coming out uh the week that we return from break, but it is a jam-packed day with very, very little downtime for anybody
062other than lunch. >> Great. Thank you. Does anyone else have any questions? Okay. So, now we continue on with our budget presentations. So, for the community, originally I was scheduled to deliver a presentation on just an overview of the budget budget development process on January 26. Unfortunately, that meeting was snow canled due to the inclement weather. What we ultimately decided to do was I video recorded that presentation. We sent it out to the community and the communities can certainly view that at at their leisure, at their availability. I believe we sent that out on Thursday, February 5th in the afternoon or in the evening. So after that presentation, we go into departmental presentations. So this evening's presentation is focused on general support, facilities, benefits, and transportation. And to deliver this evening's presentation, I'll call upon
063our assistant superintendent for business, Miss Lisa Sanfalippo. Good evening everyone. So tonight, the four major areas I will be covering are those of general support, facilities, operations, and maintenance, employees, employee benefits, and transportation. Uh we're still in the process of developing the full budget. I'd say we're probably about halfway through at this point. So it should be noted that the numbers presented tonight are tentative and may change as we complete the budget process. The board will adopt the final budget in April. So general support um consists of several departments. It is the board of education and district clerk. It is the office of the superintendent and public communications. It's the business office, auditing and legal services and human resources. It also includes salary adjustments for 63 nonrepresented employees districtwide that are budgeted for in the
064admin business business administration line. We have conducted an um an increased number of residency investigations this year. So we have increased the budget on that line by about $25,000. you'll see that there's also been um a significant increase in the number of superintendent hearings for student discipline as well. That's also reflected in next year's numbers. As of right now, we are estimating an approximate 10% um increase for our property and casualty insurance. We won't have our rates for another couple of months, but um we're targeting about 10%. and our Boseies and administrative and capital charges are also increasing and these are mandatory charges as we are component of Putinham Northern Westchester Boseies. So this slide I know there's a lot of information on it. I'm not going to read through all of it, but it'll
065all be on our website um if anybody wants to review it at a later date. But just um an FYI in in all of the categories listed, it includes salaries, equipment, contractual services, Boseies expenses, and supplies for each of those categories. And on the right hand side is just a bit of a description of the types of items that are contained in each of those budget categories. Overall, I should mention overall um general support is increasing a little slightly over $227,000. That's a 5.6% increase over the current year budget. So, moving on to our facilities, operations, and maintenance departments. Um I would like to acknowledge and recognize Dennis Burbo, our director of facilities, who's here tonight. and Dennis will be here to answer any questions at the end of the presentation if anybody's got any
066questions. So, this slide is um each of our buildings, the square footage of the building, and the year that it was built. And you can see that most of our buildings have been around for quite a while and um have had some significant renovations done and are still in need of some renovations. Uh we also have total grounds of over 100 acres that also need to be maintained. Um that includes playgrounds, athletic fields, parking lots, walkways. Um whenever we have a snow event, all those things need to be cleared. Um all that grass needs to be cut. So to do that, this is the um staffing of our O andM department. We have 48 full-time equivalents. That includes Dennis at the at the top. And um you can see all the staff um that we
067have um under Dennis's direction. We don't anticipate any increases in FTE for next year. So again, this slide has a lot of information, a lot of breakdowns of um you know, the uh the overall department budget into specific categories. Overall, the ON&M budget as of now is looking to um increase slightly over $300,000 or about 4.7% from the current year. This slide will uh discuss some of the drivers of the budget. Um and the salary code um that includes contractual increases. Most of the employees in the O andM department are members of a collective collective bargaining unit and um those salary increases are related to their collective bargaining agreement. For next year in the equipment code, we're looking to purchase um a new pickup truck with a plow and some additional salters. The contractual services
068code contains a um a budget amount for the required building condition survey. That is something that the state education department requires all districts to conduct every 5 years. It is a thorough investigation of our facilities by our architect and engineers. Um and we have to pay uh money for them to do that and then we submit it to the state every 5 years. uh utilities for next year. As of right now, electricity rates are up significantly. So, we've budgeted a pretty large increase for that for next year. Heating fuel sale uh rates, I'm sorry, are down um slightly. Um so, we're also budgeting a slight decrease in that. We'll see what happens in the next uh few months on energy prices. uh in the maintenance and supplies codes, uh we're looking to replace burners at
069the Brookside School and install hand dryers districtwide. So, those amounts are included in those budget codes. As of right now, we're not planning to do any transfers to our capital fund because we are in the process of uh rather large capital projects. So, a lot of our needs are being addressed through that. Next slide, we'll talk about um the employee benefits area. So the employee benefits um includes all of the benefits for all employees including retirement retirement pension, social security, health insurance. So we'll just hit upon a couple of those items. Um the employees retirement system is the pension system for all our classified civil service employees. That rate is increasing from approximately 15.8% this year to 17.1% next year. Our teachers retirement system, which covers all of our teachers and administrators, that rate is
070actually decreasing from approximately 9.59% this year to 8.24% next year. And that is going to um generate uh meaningful savings for us. Social Security tax will be up as the FICA um max is increasing from 176,000 to over 184,000 on per individual. Workers compensation is going up by about 3.2% but we are going to offset it from a dividend that we have uh coming to us from the consortium. Uh we also cover life insurance and unemployment insurance. Um, another significant area of employee benefits is health insurance premiums. Those premiums for next year are also increasing by 5%. And our Medicare Part B reimbursements, those amounts are up as well from $185 per month to over $22 per month for retirees who qualify. And finally, our UN union welfare benefits. That is um based on the
071number of employees. So that varies from year to year. So this slide will show you the um the variances for each area that I just covered. Again, these are preliminary and will change once once the budget is completed. These numbers are based on a rollover of our current staff. It does not take into account yet any potential additions or reductions in um staffing for next year. So next we'll talk about our transportation department and I would also like to introduce and acknowledge Patty Saubber our assistant supervisor of transportation who's here and Val Bibarrage her the assistant in transportation um they also um serve as the district's registar in transportation we transport over 3,000 students daily to all in district and to private and parochial schools um as required by New York State Education Law and
072our BOE policy. We currently utilize 68 vehicles. I have the breakdown listed there. Our contracted rates for next year are increasing by 5%. Most vehicles either run two routes or three tiers every day. However, we do have some outofd district routes that transport only one student to one school, which based on the distance and the time that the route takes, that's all that a single bus can can accommodate. Routes are designed by the district utilizing transportation routing software and we do continuously analyze routing efficiencies that may generate savings. For example, we just uh last week conducted headcounts on all our buses and we will look to see if there's um any possibility of perhaps consolidating routes not for this year for next year. So this slide shows us the budget summary for transportation as it
073stands right now. Um it also includes um athletic co-curricular and field trips which um transports to all athletic competitions including sectionals and tournaments, other academic competitions such as the aeronautics club participation in national competition out in Oshkosh Wisconsin over the summer and other curriculum based excursions. The largest increase is our home to school transportation line. Uh when we started this year, we were a bus or two lower than where we are right now. We've had to add back a few buses and monitors this year in order to meet the students needs and uh moderate some ride times. We will continue to look at our routes and ridership and hopefully we can bring this number down a little bit before we finalize the budget. So our remaining budget presentation schedule uh so for our next meeting
074on March 2nd we will have a tax cap update technology athletics and co-curricular presentation on March 16th instruction both general and special education will be presented on March 23rd. Dr. Hatter will present his superintendent budget presentation recommendation to the board. April 20th, the board will adopt the final budget that will be put to the vote. On May 11th, we'll have a budget hearing. It's required by education law. And on May 19th, we will have the budget vote and the trustee election. So, if anybody's got any questions, I'm happy to address them. You have any questions? >> No. No. Uh so my question is on the transportation. Um are we seeing any uh uh need to add buses uh based on the construction in town? Cuz I seem to um you know if I'm in town
075late afternoon I kind of you know hit traffic in that underhill area. So are we seeing similar things or how is how are we projecting that? So yes, we have found that routes um that had worked in previous years um were taking longer this year and children were just on the bus for longer than they had been previously. So we had um earlier in the year split up some routes by adding another bus and um you know to alleviate some ride time. So yes, I the traffic has impacted um you know how many buses we need to use. >> Thank you. actually answer sort of answered the question that I had but it's around the uh bus routing. Um when we look at efficiencies we typically look at them I guess from year to year.
076Do we ever make any changes and and evaluate throughout the year like midyear would we make any bus routing changes? >> Um only I think if that were absolutely necessary. For example, if we had new students move into certain areas and we needed to change bus routes to accommodate that or if we had a a new student placement out of district that that might impact it. But um you know generally once the routes are set it can be disruptive to have to change them. So we will if we have to but it's really you know as a last resort. >> Okay. All right. Thanks >> Catalina. No question. Um you Lisa, you you talked early on about the um residency investigations. What does that mean? So when we um get um an indication or suspicion
077that perhaps a student and their family do not reside in the district um when that's reported to us um the district has a couple of options um regarding investigating their residency and um so to start that investigation can be expensive and um we do conduct them if we have a strong belief that perhaps they're not actually living in the district and um if it is our opinion that they are not legitimate residents of the district then um they are excluded uh through a process. It's all a very legal process. They're given notification. They're given time to contest it. Um but at the end of the day, if it's determined that they are not residents, they need to register in their district of residency. Um and then on slide 11, there was um a decrease in
078the workers compensation, a significant decrease >> um from 249,000 to 70,000. Is that related to the the dividend you talked about? >> Dividend. Can you explain that? >> Yes. So um our workers compensation consortium has been performing very well over the past few years and um it's kind of their way of giving a rate decrease. they have a dividend pool that they allocate among the members. Um, and whenever the member decides, you know, they want to kind of cash in that dividend, we can. So, um, it's significant. So, we figured now is as good a time as any to use that dividend to offset our premium for next year. >> Anybody else have more questions? >> I just want to thank Dennis, Patty, and Val for everything you guys do. Um, you keep our district
079running. Uh Patty and Value keep our students where they need to be. Dennis, our grounds are second to none. I mean, we really have the best grounds and the way you cleared up after the snow, the way you and your crew did that. Um very impressed. Thank you for for everything you do. >> Okay, that's it. Ready? We'll move on to uh board reports. Uh Rashmi artificial intelligence committee. >> Sure. Um so AI we have our next meeting on Friday uh to discuss uh some of the ideas uh that were on the table from our last meeting and audit committee uh we don't have any updates at this time. >> Uh the fiscal advisory committee is Mike, Pete, and Jacqueline. Unfortunately, none of them can be here today, but they provided us with um a
080summary from their last meeting, which was January 13, 2026. Um they discussed the tax cap calculation, um different budget drivers such as transportation, contract negotiations, health insurance, teacher retirements, ERS, TRS impact, all the things I think we heard about um from Miss Analippo this evening. Um they're projecting a maximum 2.1 increase in the levy and a 2.4 million increase in the budget drivers and appropriated 1.2 million in fund balance in last year's budget and an additional 700,000 for fields drainage. Um appropriation will need to be similar this cycle. Um and I think that's it on that. Then we have facilities projects committee. I I I can give an update since Mike's not here. I think uh Dr. Hatter covered a lot on um on his slides for the construction at Mohens and Brookside, but essentially
081there were um couple of um changes that we had to make with the snow and things are running on budget and overall on time. >> Great policy. Cheryl, >> uh, since my last report, I believe we met four times, November, December, January, and February. In those four meetings, we reviewed 44 policies. Um, some of the highlights of those policies were some new statutes from the governor, some NISPA installments, and then we always default to our oldest policies um that haven't been reviewed. Um, some recommendations we make to the board throughout the year are adoptions, first reads, deletions, and reviews. So, you'll see them pretty much at every board of ed meeting on the agenda. And the only real follow-up item I had is we had talked about an artificial intelligence policy, and we'll follow up
082from and get guidance from the AI committee um after they meet on Friday. Uh we'll move on to policies and we can I get a motion to approve a second reading and adoption of the following policies. 1400 public concerns 4850 animals in school 9290 staff attendance at conferences, workshops and professional meetings. 9420 staff evaluations 9430 staff co-curricular assignments and allocations. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Any opposed? And we're going to do a uh first read of the following policies. 4110 school calendar. 4118 employee identification badges. 4313 teaching about religion. 8122 automated external defibrillators. 8130 school safety plans. Any comments or questions about those policies on our first read? >> Nope. >> Move on to policies deleted. Motion to delete policy 4315.01 AIDS instruction as superseded by state law and
083policy 4322 enrichment programs as included in existing curriculum. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> And as Cheryl said, the policy committee also just reviews policies with no changes. Um the following policies were reviewed. 4010 equivalents in instructional staff and materials. 8505 charging of school food items 8520 free and reduced price food services. Then we'll move on to our consent agenda items 10 through 15 which includes board matters, personnel matters, business matters, curriculum matters, pupil personnel matter matters, gifts, grants, and donations. And I get a motion to approve. So second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> We'll move on to board comments. Catalina, anything? >> I think uh Crompton did an excellent job and I think we see some of your
084future um student council members there. They really spoke and and just came true to heart when nobody was watching. I I saw that they they did that. Um and really impressive. um your superintendent council. Um you know, I love how they, you know, some people want to be in that council, but they're trying to reach out to everybody because everybody has a voice. And I know it's just for um for funding and for grants, but I wonder if that application if they're just going to also be able to give them the ideas and that that council could bring back and then really make some change. So, very impressive. >> I'm good. Thanks, Earl. >> Uh, just to comment how impressed I am at how prepared our students are when they come up and speak and
085how that that's really kudos to their their teachers who really guide them and give them a good um help them with their presentations. Um it's just tonight it was really not it always is very noticeable but I just picked up on it tonight and realized how um prepared our students are and they know the value of that that they're coming to present and that they should really um consolidate their points but get it across very quickly. And also next week we have off and I I always say to our staff and our students and our families enjoy enjoy enjoy um the time. Hopefully you get some time with your families because you've earned it. Um, yeah, I just wanted to comment on the gifts, grants, and donations. We threw it into our consent agenda. Um,
086but I think it's important to point it out. We have about $8,500 in donations from the PTA on our agenda today. Um, and we call it the PTA, but we know that that's the community. That's not lost on us. Um, so thank you for always coming through for our students. Ron, dear Julisa, any public comment number two? Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> Second. All those in favor? >> I >> have a good evening.