001Good evening. Welcome to the Yorktown Central School District Board of Education meeting for April 7th, 2025. Can I have a motion with uh executive session for the discuss the employment history of particular pedagogical and non-pedagial employees and matters made confidential under the federal law, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. So move second. All those in favor? I opposed. Can I have a motion to go back in public session? So moved. Second. All those in favor? Opposed. Good evening. Welcome to the Yorktown Central School District Board of Education meeting for April 7th, 2025. Will we please stand for the pledge of allegiance led by some of our Brookside students and then remain standing for a moment of silence for armed forces and those in our community who have lost loved ones, especially retired school nurse Victoria
002Sullivan, the father of a biat, the brother of Eileen Mcanon, the mother-in-law of Michelle Monaco, the father-in-law of Kristen Sam, the father-in-law of Liza Day, the brother-in-law of Fico Do Santos Rabalde, and the grandmother of Jennifer Travis. The pledge of allegiance of the flag of the United States of America to to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. I don't know, Dr. Hatter. The further we go in the school year, the cuter these kids get. This is terrific. So, for for the families and for our students and Brookside staff, my apologies for us coming out a few minutes late. We had some business that ran a little bit over. So, we're here now and we are so excited to hear from our Brookside students. They have
003a wonderful presentation in store for us. And without further ado, I'm going to turn the presentation over to Brookside School Principal, Mr. Joe Caserini. Thank you. I want to give a shout out to Tristan for leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Good evening, Dr. Hatter, Miss Amling, Miss Carbone, board members. Thank you parents. It's always great to have such a great turnout for a for a good news item. Um, tonight Brookside is going to share a multidisciplinary project that Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Moralia have actually been doing for a number of years. Um, in this project, the students prepare a skit along with songs, props, masks, demonstrated what they learned from an old European folk tale called The Noisy, Crowded House. This folktale, like a fable, has a moral or a message. At the
004end of the skit, see if you can figure out what the moral of the folktale is. I'd now like to introduce our wonderful ELLL teacher and first grade teacher, Mrs. Ames, Mrs. Moralia. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you all for coming out tonight. This is very exciting. And yes, as Mr. Cassini mentioned, we've been kind of incorporating reader theater into our ELA program um for quite a while now. So, we're thrilled to share it with you. Um we also want to celebrate that we feel the reason we're here is we feel children do learn best from an interdisciplinary experience. This is a classic folktale, but the integration of music and dialogue and movement and e steam and drama really does heighten the entire learning experience for the kids. We love reader theater
005because the students, they grow as learners. As they practice over and over again, they become more fluent and they become more expressive readers. And we love the way that they have to work together to create our finished product. And they learn that every one is important and every part is important. In first grade, we learn about folktales. Folktales are a kind of story that was told a long time ago. Folktales were told again and again. People told this story originally and eventually the story was written down. Folktales tell stories about things that are important to people from different cultures. The lessons we learn from a folktail is called a mole. We want to show you what we learned after reading this folktale. There are many different versions and titles of this book. Some titles are
006a big quat house, it always be worse, and too much noise. In this story, a man tells a wise one that his home is too noisy and full of people. The wise one does not give him a simple answer. Instead, she tells the man to bring his animals inside. This makes the house even more noisy. After some time, the man learns something and put in. When the animals go back to the farm, his home feels quiet and big. The moral of this story is to be thankful and happy for what you have. After reading the story, we worked with Mrs. Bor's freaky masks. We also worked with Mrs. Berber to sing a song. Finally, Mrs. Breen helped our class to brainstorm and build the houses. This was a fun project to be a part of.
007We learned so much. Here is too much noise. [Music] There was a man and he was sad. Too much noise he thought he had. Then he met a wise man. Listen as his story told. Noise noise. Too much noise. Everything made far too much noise. Creep creep rattle and squeak. Too much noise. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Happy [Music] birthday. There was a man and he was sad. Too much noise he thought he had. Then he met a wise man. Oh, listen us. Listen as listen as his story told [Applause] Too much noise. Once long ago, there was a man named Elijah and a woman named Shira who lived with their family in a very old house. The chair squeaked. [Music] The door creaked. [Music] The wind whistled through the window. The clock tick
008tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. The faucet drip drop. Drip drop. Elijah and his family were miserable. Elijah decided to seek the help of the village wise one. Please help me. My house makes too much noise. The door squeaks. The chair caks. The wind whistles through the window. The clock tick tocks and the faucet drip drop. There's only one thing to do. Get a horse. Get a horse. And get a donkey, a sheep, and a hen. So Elijah did just that. [Laughter] Eh, the animals were very noisy. The chair squeaked. The door creaked. The wind whistled through the window. The clock tick tock and the faucet dripped. [Laughter] That wise one. So the baby went to visit the wise one. There's only one thing to do. Get a dog. [Music] Get a dog. So the baby
009did just that. Now the dog said the sheep said [Music] the hens said the donkey said the horse said the chair squeaked the or creek. The wind whistled through the window. The clock tick tocked and the faucet drip dropped. Too much noise. The family decided to visit the wise one together. What can we do? Our hack make too much noise. Find a new home for the horse, the donkey, the sheep, the hen, and the dog. [Laughter] Yes, please. Elijah and his family did just what the wise one said. They found new homes for all the animals. Now the cheer squeaked. The door [Music] creaked. The wind whistled through the window. The clock. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. The faucet drip dropped. Drip dropped. Drip dropped. Elijah and his family never complained again. So, the
010moral of the story, don't get upset when things are going badly because it can always be worse. [Applause] Could we please have our narrators out for their curtain call? Come out in front. One, two, and bow. Lovely. Okay. Can we have our animals move back narrators? Okay. Look at me. One, one, two, three. Lovely. And can we have our family and the wise one? Okay. One, two, [Music] three. Wonderful. Round of applause. How amazing. [Music] Happy birthday. [Music] music. [Music] Congratulations. Take your scripts or do you want to take them take them with you? I have a couple of quick acknowledgements. I said this was a a multid-disciplinary project and I'd like to express my thanks to Mrs. Breen, our library media specialist and East teacher for all her support, Mrs. Burgerer, who's here, our
011music director who helped and Mrs. Bours, our art teacher who was at the JV mall doing an unveiling of some artwork at the JV mall tonight. I also want to acknowledge Yere. Jeremy's one of our students who was under the weather today and so he wasn't able to join us but he really wanted to be here to to see the project. Thank you. So students this was just wonderful. Put a big smile on my face and I needed that today. So thank you. But I think a lot of board members would like to speak to you. Want to start with Mr. Baceia? Have a seat. Yeah. You want to sit down? Yeah. Go ahead. I wanted to thank all the children, parents for an excellent, excellent. I look at it as like a play. I
012think we have a Broadway play in the making. It It was so excellent. And the young lady on the crutches, you maneuvered this area so well. Very, very impressive. Thank you all. Catalina, I was so impressed. I had to go back to see what great this is with your scripts, turning pages, following, attending, singing. Everybody knew exactly what to do. So impressive. Thank you so much. Where is she? Students, you did such a great job. I I loved um I loved your masks uh for the animals. Um I have a big dog myself, so yes, I do understand it can get very loud sometimes and noisy, but I would try to keep in mind what you said. It could be worse. So, uh great job, Cheryl. I agree with Mr. Bacea. I think we have
013some upand cominging Broadway stars here. Uh, but even sooner than that, I hope you all keep your excitement and keep in mind that we're looking always looking for actors in our middle school and our high school plays. So, I think we have some people here, some students here who may be interested in that someday and those directors will be very lucky to have you. And I absolutely love your message. Don't complain. Things can only be worse. So, great job all around, Mike. Thank you, boys and girls. that was a lot of fun and it was um certainly a very interactive and fun way to learn. So that was really important. But um for me the most important thing was you made such a fun evening um and put a big smile on my face on
014a day that I definitely needed one. So thank you. Yes. Um and and students, you know, you came before us and you all spoke. you spoke in front of a lot of people and that can be really scary and you all did such a great job and we are just so proud of you for doing that. So, we want you to keep up the good work and we're hoping you have a great end of the school year. Dr. Hatter. So, I'm going to address the students in in a second, but I just first want to acknowledge that I was so lost in the engineering, in the singing, in the artwork that you almost forget that there's a literacy unit at play here. Trying to identify and understand author's purpose, identifying the problem of a story,
015the solution of a story, and so many other elements that come from our literacy units of instruction. So, I was so impressed by that. I was so impressed by the public speaking. Boys and girls, what you did, many of the people in the audience can't do, including myself. You stood up and you sung in front of a room. I can't do that. That was really impressive. You stood up in front of a podium and you read in public. You read in front of a wide open room of adults, some people you know, some people you don't know. That's really really impressive to be able to do that at your age. And parents, I I just want to share with you how proud I am of your children. They they're just remarkable. I don't know if
016anybody's told you that today, but your children are amazing. So, you should hear it at least once today and hopefully once tomorrow and each day thereafter. Your children are absolutely treasures. You're their first teachers. I always say you're their best teachers and we're honored to have the few hours a day that we're able to spend with them along their journey through our schools and we appreciate you entrusting us with that. What I'll also share is another word of thanks to the parents and and families here. It's a Monday night. The weather's ugly out. You have bedtime routines. You've got lunches to pack. You've had a long day yourselves and you're here. And I appreciate you being here. And this partnership between the schools and homes is just a terrific one and we really appreciate that.
017Faculty and staff from Brookside. I appreciate everything that you do. No, nowhere in our curriculum says do you do this and you always take it above and beyond. So, Miss Ames, I'm making eye contact with you and and with so many of the other staff in the audience. You take things above and beyond just what's written on paper. So, I thank you for making that Yorktown difference and for making this such a special place for children to learn. So, students, I'm so proud of you. Keep up the good work. Keep up the great work. You guys are absolutely terrific. You had a long day, too. So, what we're going to do, if it's okay with the board, we're going to take a 5minute recess. We're going to give you the opportunity to exit. We've got
018a meeting that we have to continue. I'm giving a budget presentation. You're welcome to stay or you're welcome to find the presentation online tomorrow. It'll be posted to our YouTube channel and our website. But we'll take just a brief 5minut uh exit uh break. We'll allow you to exit through these doors and wish you a wonderful remainder of the evening. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, we're up to our first public comment event. Did anybody sign up? No. Okay, so we're going to move on to the superintendence report. Okay. So, I have a few updates and then we'll transition into the budget discussion where I'll make my way to the podium to just give a follow-up presentation to the presentation that was delivered at the March 24th board of education meeting. Prior to doing that, I just
019want to share a few good things. Some were alluded to earlier. Our students have artwork on display at the Jefferson Valley Mall throughout the month of April. If you have the opportunity to go to the second floor of the mall this month, I would encourage you to do so. There are about 20 pieces per school, so about 100 pieces in the aggregate that are on display and just such a wonderful acknowledgement of the great work that our students are doing in their art curriculum. We have so many other events that are happening. I just want to call attention to two events. One is happening this Thursday, April 10th. the our pupil personnel services department under the leadership of our director of PPS Caroline Almeida is having a terrific speaker come in and a presentation on
020parenting and supporting anxious youths. So I think that would be a a just a terrific presentation open to members of our community 6 p.m. in the high school auditorium. That very same evening at 6:30 our middle school is hosting its international night and it'll be in this very room the cafeteria of our middle school. We have spring recess next week. So, our schools will be closed from April 14th to April 18th, reopening on April 21st. However, during that recess, there are some athletic events that are happening on our campus. Admission is free. So, if you're looking for something to do with the kids, come on out to a game, whether it's a softball game or a lacrosse game. One game I'd like to call attention to is our 15 for life game for our boys
021varsity lacrosse team. and that's happening on Tuesday, April 15th at 5:00 p.m. on our turf field. All are welcome to attend, which should be a great game. So, those are the updates that I wanted to provide. I'm going to transition over to the podium to deliver a follow-up presentation on our budget. This is a follow-up presentation to the presentation that I delivered to the board, to the community on March 24th. There are many similarities in the slides. I just wanted to obviously emphasize some of the points that were made at the at the prior presentation, but also add some more context. So obviously our budget begins with children. We identify student needs. We look at interest. We look at course enrollments. We look at enrollment. We look at students who have IEPs, students who have
022504 plans, the various programs that we offer athletically, per theater and performing arts, fine and performing arts, and so many other aspects of our organization to determine the types of programs at what level we'll be offering those programs. and we begin building a schedule for students. But of course, we what we try to do is we try to balance our student needs with the economic reality. And and certainly the economic reality of today is one that we're all aware of. Whether it's rising taxes through the town, whether it's what rising utility rates, rising water rates, and and everything else that we seem to notice are increasing around us. So our work is really to balance what our students need with the economic reality of our day and that's how we determine what the levy will
023be. We follow just for members of our community. I'm not going to go into too much depth on this, but we followed a modified zerobased budgeting approach which is different from a traditional rollover budgeting approach. We scrutinized the staffing levels, enrollments, and and core section numbers that we offer to really look at right sizing and strategic scheduling our way into some natural reductions. As an example, we have 10 teachers retiring, three resigning. We anticipate six or seven teachers would be needed to replace those positions. So through attrition we're naturally able to rightsize our staffing and these are these are positions I just want to clarify uh this is through attrition so teacher retirements or resignations there's not a person who would be in the position for next year we had some goals in our budget
024those are there the same goals that I shared with the board so I'm not going to go through them but I do want to emphasize this idea of reducing dependence on fund balance because although It's the second bullet of this slide. The impact on our district's long-term financial health is enormous. So, I just want to take a moment to go into that in a little more depth. The budget drivers are the exact same budget drivers that I provided last time. There's a transportation contract where if we did nothing to recognize efficiencies, we're looking at a $700,000 increase from this year to to next year. 650 employees and their contractual increases are about $2 million. There's a net decrease in the pension system. Health insurance is rising by about $600,000. And then we have other programmatic
025and contractual increases where we're building new opportunities in for students or some of our contractual items, additional tech support, our SRO contracts, those are increasing. But on the bottom of that slide, we're looking at $2.2 $.2 million in fund balance to comply with the tax cap, which means that we're leveraging $2.2 million of unspent monies to ensure that we come in below the tax cap, which ensures that programs remain intact and we don't need to reduce staffing or reduce programs. With regard to that $2.2 million, what we're looking to do is reduce that dependence. That's a tremendous amount of pressure on a business office to have those monies left at the end of the year and to try to recognize efficiencies in real time during the course of the school year. What we're looking to
026do for next year is take that 2.2 million down to in fact it's $1.2 million. I just want to clarify the slide reads 1.9. That's correct. But we are looking at this use of fund bounds to assist with some of the field conditions that we observed in terms of the new turf field that we have uh scheduled to be installed. So there were some field conditions below the surface with some piping that will assist with the drainage. We're obviously well on our way with our bond. The project is running on time. We are working within budget. We will give an update to the community at the April 21st board of education meeting. But I wanted to clarify that we're actually reducing our dependence on fund balance by a million dollars next year. And that is
027a huge huge uh step forward for our district, reducing our dependence on fund balance to comply with the tax cap for the long-term fiscal health of our school district. So yes, 1.9 million is there. You'll see the footnote at the bottom of the page that clarifies how $700,000 of that $ 1.9 million is being used. And that's a one-time non-recurring transfer that we're making to our capital line state aid. So, I just want to clarify the state budget was due April 1st. It's April 7th. We don't have a budget. I don't anticipate there being a budget in the the next few days. This will take some time. There are some policy holdups. As as I understand it, there are some holdups on some of the uh cell phone language and and the cell phone ban
028that the governor has proposed amongst other pieces of legislation and that has held up the budget approval process and that's to the best of my understanding. So, the best that I can do to forecast and it was my hope that we would have this information finalized for the board at this meeting so that you can be in a position to review the actual numbers before you adopt the budget on April 21st. Unfortunately, I'm once again giving you proposed numbers. You'll see an increase in foundation aid to the tune of 2.5 2.6 million. You'll see some other uh reductions. Those are categorical aids generally expense driven from prior year and those are reductions which we anticipated seeing just based on our expenditures and some of the um ways that we've structured contracts moving forward. Edgitech being
029one of the contracts that's no longer going to be getting Bosey's aid and would be put through just direct contracting with Edgitech. At the end of the day, you'll see a net increase of $1.7 million year-over-year in state aid. some key components of the budget. What we're looking to do obviously is keep the existing programs we have intact. We we've added some wonderful things to our schools. Two years ago, we added SRO's to our elementary schools. All of our schools now have SRO's. This past year in the budget, we added modified sports and and that was a wonderful addition for our school district. We also have added so many new courses whether it's engineering, aeronautics or or even in our middle school level looking at artificial intelligence and some s sustainability pieces within our curriculum.
030Flex Path was another great program that was added last year. We'd like to expand that, not only continue flex path, but expand from 14 seats to 18 seats. We'd like to add two literacy coaches primarily focused at K5, but certainly with a role in grades six through eight, really bolster our already robust literacy supports. We're looking at adding an academic intervention services teacher at our middle school. We're adding additional American Sign Language sections. That was a new program for this school year and it has been incredibly successful. We're looking to add more districtwide tech support. We are so dependent and it's not unique to Yorktown, but so dependent on so many um aspects of technology, whether it's what's readily evident, classroom Chromebooks and classroom MacBooks to what's not as evident. All of the safety and
031security on the back end is operated through our technology department. all of the phone systems, all of the digital sign, the cable channel and so many other of the controls within our district on on the climate controls that we have in place here. So much is dependent on technology. So enhancing the support for that department is important as well as enhancing support for our facilities department. So much comes out of our facilities, whether it's getting the fields ready for the spring, making our sure our buildings are ready, making sure snow is removed. We had one snow day and only a few delays this school year and I attribute a lot of that to the great job that our facilities department has done. There's a lot of coordination that goes into getting the buildings ready. We
032also have a $55 million bond that has come online and there's a tremendous amount of coordination that needs to happen there as well. We're looking at energy performance contracts or looking and looking at other ways that we can cut our carbon footprint and and be more sustainable in our approach to teaching and learning and operating our school buildings. And all of that requires additional office support. So, we're looking to add some additional clerical support in our facilities department. Ultimately, what that translates to, and I've got it down to one slide this time, budget-to-budget increase of 3.35%, tax levy change of 1.74%. I want to clarify to the community that our maximum allowable tax levy was 2.69%. So, we did not go to the maximum because we believe that we were able to balance that the
033needs of students with the economic realities of our community at 1.74%. And what that equates to in our community, and we don't set those bottom three numbers, the estimated tax rate in the respected uh respective municipality. So, the town of Yorktown, which makes up a little over 96% of our tax base, it's about 96.3% of our tax base. We estimate that being at 1.12%. For the uh Newcastle residents, it's less than 2% of our tax base. About 1.6 or 1.7% of our tax base is 9.646% estimated increase. And for the town of Courtland, again, less than 2% of our tax base. We estimate that being 7.59%. I do want to reiterate, we don't set those tax rate numbers. Those are through equalization rates at the state level based on information from each town's assessor's office.
034So, we do set the levy. We set the levy at 1.74 or I'm actually asking the board to set the levy at 1.74% and the resulting tax rates based on equalization rates are as shown on this slide. We are below the allowable tax cap levy and and we're substantially below the allowable maximum. We've got such a great history of fiscal responsibility. You can see specifically what I call attention to is the the pre-COVID numbers are the pre-COVID budget numbers and the postcoid environment. Certainly the cost of doing business in a postcoid environment has has increased. And so you'll see the that shift beginning in 2020 2021 where we were below 1% for so many years prior and we've tried to keep the increase to a minimum but certainly higher than 1% in the subsequent years.
035But I want to give you some context and I shared this with the board at the last meeting. I shared it with the community at the last meeting. We went back to and my thanks to Brian Marchazzer for gathering this data. He did a great job of putting all of this together. Over the last eight years, we have had the fourth highest fourth lowest I should say tax levy increase on average. So as we compute the arithmetic mean over those last eight years, you'll find that our district has done some remarkable things, made some remarkable strides and and introduced some wonderful programs. And we did so with one of the lowest average tax levy increases around. Again, these are all Westchester Putinham schools. I only went down about 25 or 26 schools because that's what
036could fit on the slide and still be legible. But we do have the comprehensive list that'll be included in our newsletter as when we send that out and it'll be included as a QR code so somebody can access that using a QR code. But we have been quite responsible in setting tax levies, but we've also been extremely responsible in terms of formulating programs that meet student needs. Finally, just some information about the budget vote in the trustee election. The location is at French Hill. Once again, that's on Baldwin Road. The date is May 20th. It's always a third Tuesday in May. So May 20th, 2025, and the polls are open at 7 a.m. and close at 9:00 p.m. I'm happy to answer any questions that the board has. Uh, I know you had many of
037your questions answered at the last meeting, but if there are any additional questions that have arisen in the interim, I'm happy to try to answer them and my team is here and we can answer them together as well. Thank you. Um, and again, thank you for a very thorough budget season. Um, we've gotten a lot of information, so this is really great. Um, Pete, do you have any questions? Catalina, fresh me. Darl, no. Mike, no questions. Um, I just think to to reiterate some of Dr. Hatter's points, this was a very well-conceived budget. It from top to bottom with your, you know, zerobased approach and I I think it was it meets all of the needs that we have in the district and it does so in, you know, perfect balance, I believe, in in
038meeting the economic realities that we face as well. So, I'm fully in support. Yeah. Um I I agree. I just I just want to clarify a couple of things. Um how many contingency teacher contingency or teaching contingencies positions are in the budget? Do you have that number readily available? I want to off the top of my head I want to say um there we definitely have a kindergarten contingency because we're we're never uh quite sure about that. And I believe there's um a special ed contingency um but we also have other contingencies and areas of uh teaching assistance and oneto ones because those are those depend upon students IEPs. So there there is some contingency for that built in as well. Okay. So my concern is is there enough contingency and you're going to yell
039at me because I'm going to say we can back fill it with fund balance that you're trying to get off of but if we don't need it we don't need it. But I get very concerned when we get really close and tight with not a lot of contingencies because we don't have control over who moves in in the summer and and and how class sizes are going to eventually come out. And I I don't want you guys to have your back up against the wall because we don't have enough contingencies. And the same goes is there enough money in special ed because we don't know who moves in during the year. Yeah, we're we're pretty confident. uh we we took a measure twice cut once approach in developing this budget. There was a scrutiny this
040goound and I think that's one of the benefits of this zerobased budgeting approach is it forces you to scrutinize the budget in a different way a way that we may not have done in a traditional rollover environment. So I appreciate the question I and I really appreciate the support and making sure that we have the resources we need to deliver a solid program to children. We do believe that we have what we need. I obviously would not come forward with a budget that I didn't think captured all of our student needs. So based on the information that we have with the one unknown being kindergarten enrollment, that's always an unknown for us. We have a pretty good handle on it, but that's just always an unknown for every school district. If you look at live
041birth data from 5 years ago, you you try to look at home turnover and children already in the system for who were pre-registered with an older sibling. But even with that data, you're still always somewhat guessing, although it's an educated guess. But but I do think that the zerobased budgeting approach has helped us to better understand the class sizes, the sections that we'll be able to offer and and build a staffing model around that. But we do have a couple of contingency positions that are built in in the event that some of our numbers are wrong, which I doubt would be the case. But I think what would be more likely is people move into our community. This year alone, we had 13 students with IEP in hand move into our school district. It it
042could grow to 20 in the coming school year. That that's something that we obviously are forecasting or wouldn't be able to forecast yet, but we have a contingency position built in for special education. and we have some other supports built in on contingency. So, we're confident that we have what we need to deliver a program that that's solid for our students and meets our needs. Okay. Did you have a question? Oh, okay. She's looking then the other the other question is is state aid because it's an unknown and yes, they were very generous and gave us some money that was, you know, more than anticipated, but how quickly can that disappear and then what position would that put us in? Yeah. I mean, I would argue the other point. I I wouldn't say that they
043were generous. I would say that they were underfunding us for so many years. And now that they had the Rockefeller Institute revamp the formula to correct the formula, it really shined a spotlight on how underfunded our school district was to the tune of $2.55 million. So, and and with all of that underfunding, we were still able to create some really wonderful opportunities for our students. But your point, your bigger point's a good one, which is there's a lot of uncertainty. And I don't anticipate the numbers being worse from the first runs. The numbers generally only get better. And when we look at what the Senate and the Assembly have proposed, it looks better from a foundation aid standpoint, from a from a school aid standpoint. That'll be determined once the actual budget is passed. But
044uh again, if we have that data prior to April 21st, and we are getting close to adoption date, I'd love to get you that data. Once we have that, we'll share that with you. And if there are any pivots that we have to make, we'll certainly report that back to the board on April 21st. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Just two things, Jackie. One, um, to your point about state aid, Ron mentioned it, but we're not hearing anything right now coming out of Albany that gives us any indication that there's anything going down. Um, most likely it'll stay the same as what's been already provided, but, you know, it could go up a little bit. Um and then the other thing I think with regard to you know contingencies and predicting enrollment um Ron do
045you think having our prek program inhouse now gives us a little bit more data than we've used you know had in the past that kind of helps us in that sense too. I mean it certainly gives us a good starting point. Generally children who are in our prek program will come to kindergarten the following year. So in year one of the program we had 120 students enrolled. So that gives a nice baseline. We're generally at classes of about 250 or so in the aggregate across Brookside Mohansic. And Dear Dren Lisa can correct me on enrollments, but we're somewhere in the area of 250 in general is where we ultimately land. So it gives us a good starting point and it's certainly helpful in getting children into the system earlier so that we can plan for
046them earlier in our budgeting process. So I think it has been helpful. Yeah, I would agree that it's been helpful. Anybody else? Okay. So, the plan is then hopefully nothing goes wrong, we can adopt on April 21st. I I would appreciate that. And as new information, we don't have a choice. Yeah. If new information comes from the state, I'll certainly report that back to the board. Thank you. All right. Our other budget discuss other board discussion item is the exeicio student board member that um we are being required by law to put into um in Jan in July 1st and we need a policy policy has been working on it so they were coming back to us with questions so I will turn it over to you Cheryl. Yes that's all correct. So how we
047left it last time was that uh we had introduced the topic and and allowed everyone to know uh what was going on that we do have to identify one student member of the board. I think how we left it was how we were going to go about identifying that student and I'm going to read from policy some of our options um and then share with you a recommendation of a of a uh something that we had come up with. So our options are uh this that student can be the uh student president of the high school. That student can be duly elected by the student body. The student can be selected by the high school student government. The student can be selected by the high school principal. The student can be selected by the superintendent
048of schools. Sorry. Or the student um can be selected by a majority vote of the board of education. And our proposal is a little bit of a hybrid um or a little bit of a spin-off of one of the options that is listed. Um I think in some of these um methods in identifying a student, we don't want to ask a student who may not have the time or desire to be involved with the position. The position is going to require a lot of time and a lot of Monday nights out um and a lot of reporting back. So, I know our our student body at YHS, if we ask them to do something, they're going to say yes. So, if it's the current student president, whether they have the time or not, and we
049go to them, they're going to say yes. So, what we came up with and what we recommend, however, we would gladly entertain any of the other options I've outlined here is a process whereby they would go through an application process. They would apply. They would be interviewed and the select the selection process would go ultimately to our superintendent and his superintendent's council. This was this group is a wonderful group who um has discussions about various topics throughout the I guess high school. They're all high school students, correct Dr. Hatter? Um and I think um that they would be in a great position to help Dr. had her select that um student who would be best fitted for the position um of board of ed uh student member. I think that the benefits um would be
050that they that student gets to go through an application process. We would find something who's very interested in the process. I think in some ways it helps them go through interviewing if they go for a job or they go for college interviews and applications. I think it also gives some great experience to our superintendent council and they become interviewers and they become selectors of that position and I think it gives them a wonderful opportunity to add some input um with along with Dr. Hatter. So that was our recommendation but of course we would go with any of the options that I've um already mentioned. So what happens if a person on the student council wants to be inter do they pull themselves out of the how does that work? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah,
051I would assume they would have to recuse themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Good question though. Yeah. Mike, go ahead. We'll go around the room. Just a um I guess a question because I'm unfamiliar with how this the superintendent council works, but if we're going to codify this into policy, is this something is the council something that we are, you know, sure is going to exist all the time? And how long has it been in existence? you know before we say this is how we're going to decide this we need to make sure that that process is going to be consistent so so I think I think that's a great and I think you can revisit the process by which the student board rep member of the board is selected I believe the selection would ultimately come from
052the superintendent of schools I'm telling my process would be to engage the superintendent student council as part of this decision for all of the reasons that Cheryl meant um I anticipate the council continuing. It's in year one. It has been enormously successful. There are some big announcements that I think the council will be ready to make in a month or two. I'd like to actually invite them to a meeting in the spring as their year comes to a close to make some of those big announcements. So, I would anticipate engaging the student council as long as um as long as we're able to. They're they're a great group. four freshman, four sophomore, four sophomores. It's supposed to be four juniors and four seniors, but I had two seniors apply. So, we have six juniors and
053two seniors, four freshman, four sophomores. So, great group of students from all different um areas of interest. So students who are enjoying our sports program, students who are enjoying our theater arts programs, students who are enjoying some AP classes, non-AP classes, we have a a very nice mix of students and and great thinkers. So I I would love to engage their help as long as we can because uh we have some really good thinkers as part of that group. You got more? No, I was going to say that that sounds fine to me. Jason's gonna yell at me if you don't rush me. Yeah, I think uh the proposal is a terrific one. So, uh thank you Cheryl for um you know outlining it uh so clearly and for taking the time to explore all
054the possibilities. Um the superintendent's council is a diversified group by by interest, by grade levels. Uh, so I think they represent their, you know, the high school and and their peers very well. So I think that it makes total sense to take this approach. I agree. I think that was a great option for us. Just that I I like the recommendation and I'm all for how how it was presented. So So could I just ask a couple other questions? The term is a one-year term. So, this is going to be a yearly um interview with the student council. Every year, this is going to be done. And is there So, they have to be in the our school for one year. So, you're saying anybody from a sophomore up to a senior can apply to
055be a board member, right? Yes. It would be they would have to be in place by July 1st. It would have to be right. Juniors would be interviewed for their senior year. Yeah. I I don't think we would dip down to eighth grade into ninth. So, it would be sophomore or junior. Okay. Yeah. Is there any thought of maybe getting a board member and an alternate because there's a lot of Mondays. So, if one can't make it, the other can and then it doesn't put pressure because there's also wording in there if they miss three meetings. Well, you know, there are times they could miss three meetings because there's a lot going on in their lives, too. So, what if we considered an alternate? Would that make sense or that? Absolutely. That's in policy. It
056actually is going to state at least one. So, we can have more than one uh member. Okay. Student member. All right. Um it says in the policy it's going to be the superintendent or the superintendent's designate, but if you're going to appoint, then it shouldn't say a designate. I will. Yeah. I'm not going to be de delegating this to anyone. Okay. And then just could I ask one other thing on the policy? Yes. The first paragraph is fine. The second paragraph starts out with all the nos, right? Could we make it more positive and put the no paragraph at the bottom and and make the more positive things? You know what I'm saying, Cheryl? It seems kind of negative. Yeah. Sure. And we want this to be a good experience for students, right? Yeah. Yeah.
057Absolutely. And you are again, how are the um because there's a lot I had um Evette put up two other documents that I'd seen I'd gotten from Wishes Putnham School Board Associations and from uh NISBA. Yeah. Um for what they put together, brochures they put together. And the only thing is the orientation in the training program. Are you designing that? How is that getting worked out? I think we'll work with I'm sure Westchester Putinham School Boards will have something. I'm sure the New York State School Boards Association and our legal council will also be able to guide us. Part of that orientation just like it is for a board member and which is embedded in our policy would be to meet with me. That would be part of the process but it wouldn't be the
058only piece of the process. And I I just want to add if it's okay. So it sounds like I have an okay to begin without the formal policy being adopted. I can begin crafting an application and I will share the application with you for your review if if that's okay. Um I'll get you a little bit more with regard to steps that I plan to follow so that you have that as part of the selection. My only question is would you like two students selected instead of one and an alternate so that there are two students who are part of the presentation or would you like to go with one student and an alternate? You think one one and one? Why one and one and not just if two want to show up let two
059show up. I mean if they can sit probably well we're gonna Well, we're going to have to reconfigure this table anyway. Let's be really honest. This is not going to fit if we have to put another person here. So, we could fit one more in here, but we can fit another, but I do agree with Mike. I think it's one and an alternate. I think one and an alternate is the right way to go. Okay. So, we'll continue. We'll continue with one and alternate. Sounds great. Okay. Uh those are all of the questions that I had. I'll get working on that and get you a copy of the survey to review. So can you just explain the timeline just because if there's anybody looking out in the community what what kind what's it So if
060we start with the end in mind the first board meeting of the new school year is slated to be provided you approve the board calendar is slated to be July 1st y so if we work backwards from there we certainly want to have someone in place before the last meeting in June. So I'm just going to work backwards from there get the application out as soon as possible. Give a couple weeks for turnaround. We are heading into a busy part of the school year. So I I do want to give at least a couple of weeks for students to respond. This would be for current 9th, 10th, or 11th graders because they'll be 10th, 11th, and 12th graders for the coming school year. And so I anticipate getting something out quick within the next couple
061weeks before the next board meeting is my hope. giving a few weeks to respond, reviewing applications, bringing a slate of candidates to the Superintendent Student Council for vetting and review and discussion and interview, and then giving you a recommendation before the second meeting in June. Uh, that sounds like about 6 months worth of work, and you don't have six months. Well, we're going to get it done in six weeks. You keep saying a few weeks. A few weeks. There's only a few weeks left of the school year. I assure you it will be done by the second meeting in June. No, I I know you will. I just am not sure how you're going to do it. Can I just ask that we um just recheck the policy as far as the dates go because
062it says one year attending for one year but they're going to be voted on be just check the dates and make sure it's applicable to the people. I'll certainly verify with legal have any confusion on it. My understanding is that they have to have been in the school for a year before being able to serve. And by the time they take office, they will have been in the school for a a full year, a full school year. But we'll we'll certainly clarify that. It's a great point. Must have attended high school in the district. They have to be attend high school in the district for one year prior to selection. Right? So if they're current, but they'll be selected for July 1st, beginning July 1st, but we'll get the clarification. It's a great point. It's
063a great question. Just make sure we have it worded the way we want it. Great point. So that we can have Okay. sophomores. So I'm going to assume that there's going to be procedures that are going to be written behind this policy. Like the policy is just cut and dry. Then there's going to be your procedures that you're writing behind it. Yes, there would be some internal procedures. I don't know if we'll codify them in policy. So that there's some flexibility to amend the procedures as we need to without going through a formal policy change. But yes, there will be procedures. Okay. Can I just ask one more question? Sorry. So would the would the alternate be able to serve as the as the main person the following new year or is it like you
064know we're trying to give as many students a chance. So I think that would be at the discretion of the board. U a lot of it will be a function of the grade level of the student who is the alternate. So will they be if they're a rising senior obviously that wouldn't be a possibility but it's certainly at the discretion of the board if the alternate becomes the which is a great idea the alternate would become the serving board member unless the alternate winds up becoming the board member because they they come to more board me than the right person it's a lot to ask uh from one student uh to serve for two years uh but I think as long as it doesn't exclude them for serving the next year if they choose do
065that's that's all you know. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is going to be a learning year for all of us, I think. All right. We good with this? All right. Where am I going to go now? All right. I'm going to go to board action items. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the March 24th meeting? So, move. Second. All those in favor? I oppose. and a motion to approve the 2025 to 26 board meeting calendar. So move second discussion. Um so I know um like this year we did the calendar a bit differently. So we have had two meetings in January, two in Feb, March and then April. But then the c looking ahead of the calendar for next year, it looks like we're kind of going back to those three March
066meetings. And I mean just typically, you know, for 9 years now, uh like those two of those three March meetings have a 5:00 p.m. start uh for the board. So it it just tends to be a very long night. So can we kind of rearrange the dates a bit and maybe add another meeting in February on the 23rd and then have two meetings in March instead of the three? Um I I you know I I think what we did this year worked a lot better. So unless somebody feels it then you know it was a disaster of course we can talk about it. Um yeah we can amend the calendar. I think we need to approve this tonight as is so we get the reorg meeting on um because we have to do that legally
067and I think we can come back and re amend amend this even in um June if they want to look at it and figure out which how to how to move that February. I'm not disagreeing with you. Yeah, I'm okay with approving this tonight, but I think we should make an effort to amend it, you know, perhaps at the next meeting and not wait till, you know, July one and amend because I I I'm sure we all use this calendar to um for a lot of other things. So, it would be very helpful if we a walk up every single Monday night. I can't I wish I could, but I cannot and I'm sure you all can. So, um So, you'll work at it for the meeting. Okay, Jack. We Yeah, I bet says we
068could table this till the 21st if we want to. I would I would rather approve it so we know July 1st is set in stone and then we can amend it on the the um 21st. The 21st. Okay. Okay. Just in case. That's fine. Don't look at me like that. All those in favor? I opposed. um policy. A motion to approve the second read and adoption of the following policies. We have 0 uh 1111 sexual harassment grievances under title 9 0115 sexual harassment and bullying bullying prevention and intervention 5152 admission of non-resident students and 8240 traffic and parking on school property. So move second. All those in favor? Any opposed? And then a motion to delete the following policy and regulation because they have been updated and combined into one policy. 0111 sex discrimination and
069sex based harassment under title 9 and 0111 or sex discrimination its regulation. So move second. All those in favor. I opposed. Uh personal resolutions. A motion to approve the resolutions A and B as stated below. So move second. All those in favor? I opposed. Um then upon recommendation of the superintendent, I motion that the following be approved. We have certified personnel tenure appointment. Uh part-time and temporary appointments. Uh other compensation extra duty. We have a correction to extra duty. We have additions to the substitute list. We have a few resignations in underclassified personnel. We have additions to the substitute list. An unpaid leave of absence and a resignation. So move. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Business office. A motion to approve the attached FASA and TAP data access and security agreement with the
070New York State Higher Education Services Corporation. So move. Second. Discussion. Can you just explain this? Sure. Um, in October of this year, the state ed department um is requiring school districts to ensure that the parent of every senior student uh completes a FAFSA application, a DREAM Act application, or a waiver that they're not going to file either. So, this contract allows us to work with the higher ed um services corporation to get the names of students that have already completed one or the other. Um, so that as a management tool, our our high school would be able to know what students they need still need to reach out to. We would not be receiving any of the information that parents are submitting. It's really just that we have access to to those students that already
071did complete an application. So, more work for our guidance counselors. Yeah, the the principal primarily will be in charge and and probably Miss Frink, our coordinator for guidance. Okay. All right. All those in favor? I opposed. A motion to approve the following Yorktown High School overnight field trip to the International Science and Engineering Fair in Columbus, Ohio, May 10th to the 16th. So, move. Second. Discussion. Ron, how many of our students qualified? We had two students qualify this year, which is just a tremendous feat for our school district. We we had one last year and prior year. This year we have two, which is just such a terrific terrific acknowledgement of the great work happening in our science research program at the high school. That's awesome. Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. Special ed
072emotional arrange the following placements as of April 7th, 2025. So move. Second. All those in favor? I I oppose. And a motion to approve the instructional services agreement between the Yorktown Central School District as a sending district and the Hawthorne Cedar Nullles Union Free School District as a receiving district for students from the Yorktown Central School District to attend special ed programs in the receiving districts for the 2425 and the 2526 school year. So move second. All those in favor? I oppose. Gifts, grants, and donations. A motion to accept with gratitude the following gifts, grants, and donations at Mohansik. $750 for the third grade around the world assembly from the Mohansik PTA. $180 for the first grade excursion to the maritime aquarium from the Mohansik PTA. $50 for the third grade excursion to the Westchester
073County Nicks game from the Mohansic PTA. A mad science assembly from the Mohansik PTA. And a BMX assembly from the Mohansic PTA. So moved to second. All those in favor? I oppose. Thank you very much. The PTAs are very generous. Port comments, Mike, just just thank you to the students again. It was a lot of fun. Um, very very entertaining and uh joyful. Thank you, Joe. Want to wish everyone a wonderful and restful break next week and enjoy the holidays. Richmond, um, great evening. I have a question. Um just thinking back to uh the presentations uh not presentations the uh comments uh from uh Yorktown 100 uh at the last meeting. So I don't know if we I don't I'm don't think we received any followup because they they were going to email us a
074couple of things that they couldn't finish saying or whatever. But um while we're waiting for that, I was wondering if we explored the possibility of um you know, putting in any kind of solar roofs or anything on the new part of the construction or even the parking lot in the high, you know, in the high school or andor the middle school. Um kind of similar to what they've done at the Croin train station. Um you know, I mean, I know we don't have answers tonight, but I was just reflecting on some of the uh conversations we've had. Yeah, all great points. We did have a follow-up at the previous meeting. I indicated that we were speaking to uh a company to discuss an energy performance contract. So, we did have that meeting. I subsequent to
075that, I had another meeting with a different company to discuss an energy performance contract and solar canopies were part of the discussion and also solar on some of the roofs. Not all of our roofs are compatible just given the mechanical and ventilation equipment, but there are some possibilities for solar panels, looking at LED lighting, looking at some other opportunities, whether it's through looking at heat pumps or looking at controls that can have some more auto automaticity on the timing. So, those conversations are ongoing. We're in the very early stages, but I did the meeting that I indicated I was going to have on I believe it was April 2nd. Now, we did have and it was a productive meeting. I don't know if that's going to be the right company for us for this contract,
076which is why I met with a second company. I'm not quite sure about their proposal. They're going to get me a little more detail on how that might look for our school district. And we've also engaged our attorney and we're having conversations and she has also sent us some samples that we might want to consider from an energy performance contract perspective. With regard to the construction, we've discussed different ways of making the buildings greener or more sustainable. Solar panels were one of the conversations that that we had, but given how small the additions are and the roof space that we have available, there will be mechanical equipment. So, I don't know if we can do that right at the start, but those have been part of the conversations. And Jackie, obviously, you can add anything
077else that I may have left out from steering. I I think the um the placement of shade canopies over windows to reduce heating um and stuff like that. We've talked about the things we can do. There's there wasn't much we could do given the financial constraints. We had x amount of dollars we could do to design this and we are really pushing the envelope. We had many many discussions about how and we still have those discussions. What can we do and we're still engaging when we're talking about um the field we're talking about solar panels maybe somehow on the um concession building and stuff like that. So there are places we are looking where we're able to. It's not quite as easy as building a new building. We wish it was we are having a
078discussion. Yeah. No, I'm glad that the discussions are ongoing because some of the financials have changed, you know, very recently. So, what what was what applied years ago doesn't, you know, quite apply anymore. But I'm glad I'm glad to hear that, Catalina. Just tonight was a great night and um everybody enjoy your break, especially those teachers. readers theater was so amazing and you not only saw the students and the parents happy but those teachers really you could tell how much they enjoyed teaching so I hope they enjoy their break. Pete, no again a great night and and Ron you and your team great job with the budget this year. Yeah, thank you. Um I want to just ask Evet a question. Um we have it's the budget vote and the trustee election so petitions are
079available. Can you just um take Mike's microphone and just give people an update because I think we're coming to the end. Uh yeah, the petitions are due back to me on April 21st by 5:00 p.m. You can uh get a petition from me by emailing me at yagaly yorktown.org. That's y-larktown.org and I could email them out and you need 25 signatures. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, and I have to tell you, I came in here needing to put a smile on my face, and they did more than that. Those kids are amazing, and our staff is amazing to get our kids, every every program that comes in here that we're seeing. It's just, you see the passion in our staff and I so appreciate everything they do. Um, thank you and your team for your
080budget. Lisa, thank you. We know how hard this was. So, we appreciate everything and we hope you have a wonderful break. Uh, public comment number two, nobody. So, I have a motion to adjurnn. So, move. All those in favor? Any opposed? Good night. Good night.