001Can we all please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the standy for all. >> Can you please call the role? Thank you. >> Maryanne Meen >> here. >> Marian Quinn >> here. Brian Arnold >> here. >> Sophia Bon Hollis, >> Jennifer Boy >> here, >> Linda Gaines, >> Jeffrey Hate, Donna Logan here, >> Eileen Snook, Mia Newsome here. >> Thank you. Um, reading of the district mission. Our mission is to empower all students to be self-directed lifelong learners who willingly contribute to their community and lead passionate, purposeful lives. May I please get a motion for the approval of tonight's agenda? >> So moved. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. Um any discussion? >> Seeing none, all those in favor? I >>
002opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Uh correspondence. Does anybody have any correspondence they like to share tonight? Seeing none, uh, moving on, board president remarks. Welcome to everybody. Thank you very much for, um, accommodating us on this Lunar New Year holiday. I really appreciate it. Um, uh, a couple things I just wanted to mention. Um, I want to thank the LMS Jazz Band. They sent us their performance, a portion of the performance they were going to have for us last week. My oldest son started out in the LMS Jazz Band. it was a great opportunity for him and um led into some wonderful opportunities in high school. So my I was very happy to see that again and uh I wanna I want to um thank their director Stephen Ryan. Um I hope he knows how much
003we really all enjoyed the video. So thank you. Um, the other thing I just wanted to mention is that I wanted to thank the board members who were e able to attend the virtual uh capital conference hosted by NISBA to help educate us on the on the current um legislative session and the and the um development of the of the budget and how that'll affect schools. That was a couple of weeks ago, Friday, that we went to that. Um, always very informative. Um, and then la I was going to mention last week, but we weren't there. I think the week before was National School Counseling Week and I just want to thank all of our employees who fill various roles in that area. Our school psychologists, our social workers, all the people who work so
004closely with our children to support them. I want to just thank and honor them for their service right now. And that's it for me. Um Dr. Verdante, >> thank you, Mr. Superintendent. >> And thanks to the board members and members of the community who are here this evening. I know the reschedule from last week uh to this week presented a bit of a challenge in that it's uh during a a long weekend. So, thank you to those of you who are in attendance and I'm going to turn it over in a second here to Mr. Shedder. I appreciate your flexibility, Mr. Shedder, uh for adjusting coming from LMS uh and having the meeting here this evening and thank you Mary and for acknowledging Mr. Ryan's uh students and his video that he shared with us.
005I know they were looking forward to perform, but they sounded great on the YouTube clip that he that he sent to us. Um, I'm not going to speak too much about the skilled spare skilled trades fair because it was so wonderful because I know at least one and potentially two other people will be speaking of the skilled trades fair uh that went on at Arlington High School last week. But it was just a wonderful event and I want to thank um obviously Mia and her team uh but also the many um individuals who chose to uh participate on behalf of our kids. I think we had 800 students who cycled through at some point that evening and thanks to Sue Serino for her partnership and uh co-hosting with us. Just wanted to say to the
006bo to the uh board that our boys bowling team, which you know was quite successful last year, successfully defended their section championship. Uh they so they won the section last week by I think over 400 pins, which is remarkable. So they go right to states now. Their state competition is next weekend, I believe. Uh so we'll be rooting for them uh to defend their state title. They have a great team and uh we'll see how they do next weekend. uh sectional competition is starting to pick up for for all of our teams. Uh boys bowling was a bit earlier than the other teams that are participating this winter. Uh and in the spirit of competition and the Olympics are ongoing. I did want to mention you may have seen uh Melissa Obacher's post. We had
007a graduate who was participating in the Olympics. Uh Clayton D. Clemente who's a 2017 grad. He's a speed skater and uh he was he's participating in Torino. Um, I know I watched him a little bit last week. Uh, made it into the finals. Uh, uh, did not, uh, medal. Uh, but I think he may have one other race that is still, uh, competing in the 1500, I think, is still to come. So, we're wishing Clayton well in his competition. >> Is that it? Thank you so much. >> Um, then we'll move on to our exeicio student board member, Mia. >> So, as uh, Dr. Venante already mentioned the skilled trades fair was a huge huge success. We had around 800 people attend and we had 80 vendors showcas showcasing many different careers and trades. Everything
008from hairdressers to labor unions to the we had like the state police, the state troopers. We had just about everything there. Um, additionally, that event would not have been able to run as smooth as it did without our 75 student volunteers who all worked very hard that night and attended meetings prior to um, make sure they were fully trained for the event. Um so yeah it was a big success and we I would like to personally thank everyone who helped us from the administrators to uh Susino's team and the student volunteers as well. >> And I should note that vendors went go out of their way when they hear I'm the superintendent there. So I try to introduce myself to them. How helpful you and the members of your your team were in getting them
009set up. And also, I know I I didn't stay till the end, but also helping them break down everything back uh to their vehicles. It's quite the operation. Your organizational skills were on full display there because everything happened really efficiently and effectively. And I know uh the groups that were participating were very appreciative of your help. >> That's great. Um anybody have any questions for Mia tonight? Seeing none, moving on to public comment for agenda items. Do we have anyone tonight for public comment? >> Yes, we do have one. >> Okay, >> Mr. Ed Hley. >> Okay, great. >> Hello everyone. My name is Ed Haly. No problem. Um, just to identify myself, I am a 31-year member of the community. I am the proud father of two Arlington alums and I am the even
010prouder grandfather of an incoming kindergartener. uh which leads me to be a little bit compelled to speak tonight. So my comment is really on the superintendent's budget presentation. Uh I looked at it um and I noticed as of your slide deck today that you're probably um looking to reduce in the area of $9 million just under $9 million. So what I as a as a past member of Dr. Moyer's community cares committee. Um it it was quite evident that the I'm going to I don't like to use this say it this way, but the two sides of towns were not always equal. And I just want to um I feel compelled to talk a little bit about that that I know that there's going to be reductions when you have $9 million, which also always
011leads itself to class size increases. And a class size increase at Arthur S. May is going to look very different than a class- size increase at, let's say, Unionville because the resources are different, the demographics are different, and the facilities are different. And I know that I'm preaching to the choir. Um, but I just want to say that as you go into your deliberations and that you um look to um create things as equally as possible. Well, I know Arlington has talked about equity for a long time, but this is literally the opportunity for you to really put your money where your mouths are and let's walk the walk the walk of equity. Um, whereas every student in the district should have the equal opportunity to have a a similar educational experience from one side
012of town to the other regardless of their demographics and their and where they live. So, secondly, I'm going to tie this into uh the fact that I'm wearing my Arlington Jazz. Um, and I sent out a a a an email to the to the board this morning and um to Dr. Benante and to the high school principal about my experience um with the high school jazz ensemble over the weekend at the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival. I'm going to tie this back into agenda items in a minute, but um I just want to give a shout out to the Arlington Jazz. Um I had the good opportunity to um be a consultant um with the jazz ensemble and Mr. um Gillan for about 20 years and um this particular group of students were just exceptional. They were
013young uh in age, mostly um sophomores and juniors. There were only four seniors in the group. They came in second uh in the entire um eastern seabboard. And what is most notable uh not only of how they performed and how they played um but to tell you the fact that they were uh sincerely admiral in how they acted around all these other jazz performers in with all these other school districts. um and the the way they just carried themselves um within that um venue was truly exceptional. So, tying that back into the superintendent's budget. Now, um as I was a high school student, I never came to school for academics. I came to school for co-curriculars and extracurriculars. So, I know you have a tough job and I know you have to make some cuts,
014but there are people just like me who come to school for things other than academics. So, I hope that you um consider those things in your deliberations. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mrs. Ad. Do we have anyone else tonight? >> No, that was it. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Um that moves us to reports and discussions. Um Lrange Middle School. >> Yeah. I'd like to invite Mr. Mr. Sheddder to the front of the room here. Come on now, Mr. Sher. Yeah, there you go. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> And I'll just say just as we're setting up there may be a slide or two that we're sharing. >> It's just it's just too fine. >> Yeah, it's they're short brief. I'm just going to go through them real quick. >> Bringing those up. I
015just wanted to thank you, Mr. Shedder. You hosted uh another good turnout from our board. I think we had seven board members or so visit the school two weeks ago uh along with members of of your team. And you had us everywhere. And I I usually write thank yous to the staff whose classrooms we we went into and I lost track of how many classrooms we visited. Not that this is a competition, but you probably had us some more classrooms and more spaces and talking about the building project that's going to occur than I think we've seen yet. So I caught up as best I could, but I know I missed a few, so I'm going to get those names from you. And just really appreciate the range of programs that you were able to
016highlight on our visit to the school a couple of uh weeks ago. Uh I know you wanted to share a few things that are going on in the school and then we're going to have an opportunity for our board members just to debrief about their visit. >> Absolutely. So I just wanted to start by thanking those seven that did uh come to visit. Um it was nice to meet many of you for the first time and for you to get into many of our classrooms which I was able to kind of maneuver you around quite a bit. And I also just want to give a shout out to the process. Um I am a board member uh believe it or not in Beacon. I've been there for three years. This is an excellent way for
017board members to see what's going on in school. We all remember the traditional um PowerPoints, the 30, 40, 50 slides that we used to go through and this is just a much better way for you to kind of get a real feel of the school. Um it also gave many of you an opportunity to kind of see where, as Dr. Bante said, where the renovations were taking place. You could ask questions. you knew now you know where the we're outside the art room, the library, the home and career skills room, the where the PPS place is going to be across from the library. So, it was a nice way for you to kind of see exactly where things were happening. And I just wanted to state say that it was really nice for us and
018for myself and the assistant principles to kind of sit down and um have that feedback with you. So, we really appreciated it. Um, and also I just want to mention that we did last week have a home and career skills competition. I guess it was a competition. They were cooking and I think there were four members, board members that were there as well with Mrs. Romano. Uh, the students cooked for it took an hour for them to do it and um, the chicken came out pretty good. Uh, you know, we all tried it and we're all here. Um, so it it it it went well and um I really appreciate you coming over for that. That's really nice that you're able to uh to get out and about and see what's going on in the
019schools and I'm I know Mrs. Romano and the students really appreciated that. Um I just wanted to mention I do have um Lette Bales here with me and Ann Sheldon is here. Thanks Ann for coming. Ann, as you see on the slide is actually substituting for us. Uh she's doing a wonderful job. She's been with us since January. Um her time is getting towards the end I believe. Um but she comes in, she does a wonderful job. Uh she works with our m mainly our eighth grade group and Lette works with our sixth grade group and because of the change of date uh Sam Samantha Maker couldn't make it tonight and she does seventh grade, but we just uh just wanted to mention that. Devin, could you just hit that slide? So just a couple
020of things. These slides are really a hodgepodge of things that have been going on from beginning of the year. Um, and even continuing now, um, up here in the top left, uh, those I don't know if this is working here, but >> maybe I bought one. Oh, I bought one, too. So, just because I wasn't sure. I think mine is on. Okay, here we go. So, these up here in the top left, we do quarterly um, recognition of our students. These are teachers that um, uh, write up. They nominate students. We bring the students down, we give them a little breakfast and we read what the teachers have said about them. We'll be doing them uh next week. Uh this these upper two are from our equity panel which many of you were at. Uh
021we had three students that presented. The middle slides are from some clubs that we've had. The middle one is a community service club. This is our Lego League which we just started this year. Uh it's one of our most uh popular clubs that we have in school. And then at the bottom of course are dances uh which of course are uh major uh thrust of what we do keeping kids busy and giving them fun things to do. Um we just had a sixth and seventh grade one couple weeks ago and we had almost 300 students there. It was very very well attended and they had a great time. Um Devon, can you hit the next one? And then uh at the top is um this is new since um uh since I've been back here.
022This I think this happened a couple years ago. It started basically our se our eighth grade band and orchestra students go to the high school and they actually in the morning play with the Unionville students and some ensembles from the high school. It's a way of kind of recruiting the students to uh kind of want to stay in the band. So that's why those groups are so large. Uh we have in the middle here we have these are on to the right in the middle are some groups that played during the holiday times which was wonderful. And at the bottom, uh, we have our musical coming up, which the students are practicing for now. It's the weekend of March 20th through the 22nd. It's Adam's family, which is a good one for middle school, and
023that'll be taking place in about a month. So, things are starting to ramp up at the middle school. There's a lot of activities going on. It's it's fun place to be. Last week, our high school students visited our our middle eighth graders visited the high school and did some um visits uh by team um which was really cool. They were able to get into a lot of classrooms. They were there for two hours. And actually tomorrow night, our sixth and seventh grade parents are coming in for a curriculum night and um I'll be presenting on the uh offerings for sixth into 7th and 7th into 8th. So, it's uh starting to warm up and which is great and uh hopefully uh everything well as we know things are going great and we'll just continue to
024have all these great things going on for middle schoolers as we wind down go believe it or not as we start to get into that second half of the year and do some wonderful things in school. So, uh that's all I had for tonight and just to know if anybody had any specific questions about the visit or anything else. Uh Eric, just to start us off and it I know this wasn't a primary focus of the visit, uh but we talked a little bit about the construction project and you had the board we could talk forever about the upcoming construction, but the board has heard several reports from Tetrate Tech and Palumbo uh about the designs and and obviously budget and whatnot, but you shared your experience uh in working with them more in the
025educational planning. you know what uh reviewing different parts of the school and then coming back and engaging with the faculty. Could you just share a little bit about what your experience has been at the building level and working with Sure. our architect and construction manager to to get ready for uh for construction and what's that what that's been like. >> Sure. So, um [clears throat] for me this was brand new. I jumping in in July. So, I was kind of learning as we went along, but it was great in October. uh the uh Tetrate Tech engineers came and met with all of the groups that where they were having um renovations take place and what they did was they met with I'll just use home and careers. So they met with our two home and
026career skills teachers and had everything on the t on a table. They had everything mapped out and basically went through what was going to be happen happening and things that may not be happening. But it was great because each group was able to kind of talk about uh oh you couldn't do this but oh you could do that and and each group we had I we had designed a model I think it was over two days so each group was there for about 20 minutes to a half hour and every teacher was able to rotate through we got coverages for them because we wanted to spend time on this so that everything was was right and I I mean for me being brand new um I learned a whole lot and um the teachers there
027were very appreciative um uh of it. Uh they asked great questions. Tetratech, I have to say um we work with them in Beacon too and I they're excellent. um and they they just are so knowledgeable of what they're doing and I think they put the teachers at ease and then in January um they came to a PTA meeting um which was not that well attended but we're going to also show some renderings from uh what they showed at the PTA meeting and I'm sure you've seen them but they showed a classroom, they showed the library, the cafeteria, uh the front entrance and it's amazing and we'll be I'll be showing that to the faculty. I believe we're going to do that in April because they're going to have some further renderings for them to show
028um as well. I think the guidance suite wasn't really done but I think they were going to have more renderings. But I think um what it was able to do is kind of um show the staff that this is happening and and what wonderful work or what it's going to really look like when it's when it's gets to that point in three to four years. Really well done. >> Take a bit. >> Thank you, Mr. Sh. >> Sure. >> Any other reflections from the board? >> Anybody? >> I Oh, Jen. Yeah. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the visit and you pointing out where things were going to be renovated and what space we were in and what it might be what it was going to become. Um I enjoyed all the
029visits to all the classrooms. Um the one that stood out the most for me was um the children balancing their the students balancing their checkbooks [laughter] >> and how they some of them had to learn how to sign their signatures and um what it meant to than you had and how to fix it. And I I really appreciated that because that's something that they're always going to have to use. And um they were all really into it and it was just nice to see. >> Yeah. And and um that actually speaks to something that we're working on with um Mr. Orcut about financial literacy and this kind of played right into it perfectly. Uh you're right. It was really nice to see and and just to say I wish my children were in that class
030because [clears throat] I wonder if they're spending too much at times. In fact, I know they are. [laughter] along those same lines was was the fact that I thought it was it did this old heart well to see that they were using the checkbook register to balance [laughter] because my personal people in my life think I'm a dinosaur using such a vehicle and they just look at what the balance at the ATM is and magically that's how much money there is apparently. >> That's correct. I I was I I thought it was great that they could at least will understand what they could do if they so chose. >> Absolutely. >> Again, your visit was a little bit different than some that we've been to so far, but it was spoton for a building that's
031going to go through all of the renovations and the things because you did have us all over the place and we did get to be in the that will look quite a bit different when all is said and done. So, that that was helpful. Um, I also wanted to just give a shout out to the teacher, I believe it was seventh grade, that we did the heart lab >> visit quickly. Um, those students so engaged in what they were doing and that the teacher was so proud on the way out the door, she said. And look, she had the DNA strands that the kids made all around the room as the decoration. It was just it was it was lovely. um Christine Johnson and her because I have grandchildren who are watching the movies with
032the um Inside Out characters, but to bring it up to that level of mental health and regulation of emotions and all um it's just wonderful to see all the things in action. as you pointed out in terms of being board members, I think we're getting a wonderful education that helps us >> and and she also tied it into and she tied it into the equity panel which she was just it the day before. It was really amazing how she had done that. It was really really interesting. >> Yeah, it was all great. >> It was well done. >> Thanks for having us. >> Sure. >> I I apologize. I was unable to make it that day, but I really wish I had. Um but uh thank you so much and thank you to everybody who
033was uh hosting it. Did anybody else have any final comments? I think that's Oh, Donna. >> I just wanted to say briefly I I also really enjoyed the visit. Each one is is quite different and one thing I really enjoy besides going to classrooms and I just always am impressed with the teachers are willing to have us. I'm I know they agree and like we just like bomb in there with all these adults hanging around looking over shoulders. It's It's got to be very disruptive. I really appreciate their their willingness to have us in there. But your visit was interesting because I we really spent a lot of time with your assistant principles, which I really enjoyed. You know, they had a lot to say and I thought it was great. I really I enjoyed
034them them uh telling us about about what was happening in the building. And >> yeah, and like I said, they enjoyed it, too. So, that was it was a nice uh it was great interactions going on. It was it was nice. you know, I don't I don't get that experience to to really to to um to hear from other other of the administration and I enjoy that. >> Great. Glad you enjoyed it. >> Well, thank you very much. I think Thank you so much. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Sh. >> Um then moving on to the superintendent's budget update. You go up there. Okay. I love it when there's tall people at the podium. I can kind of avoid that big light bulb that wants to beam me in the face.
035>> It's been a while since I've been up here. So, we have quite a bit of ground to cover over the next few weeks, especially considering that the uh this meeting was delayed one week. So, you have two budget presentations. And I promised Regina I wouldn't be too long uh because Dr. ation has her presentation outlining um budget related factors for special education and pupal personnel services directly after mine. But I didn't want to go uh too much longer without just giving the board some uh general outline of how we're entering into the educational planning component of the budget. Uh so simultaneously while we're trying to balance a budget as Mr. Haly mentioned we're also doing our educational planning for next school year. And there's components of this which are completely intertwined and then there's
036some that sit completely outside of the budget development process. But both processes are playing out uh again at the same time. Uh and I want to be sure to just share with the board before we get too far into the department specific reports uh some elements of the educational plan and then an overview of where we're at with the uh budget development process thus far. Mr. Haly stole my thunder a little bit. He already threw our working deficit out there. Uh but that's okay. And I Mr. Housey, just quickly, you know, there's probably no more role uh as important as a community member of being a grandparent. I think my my uh my dad would certainly say the same, but you left out that you're also our community rep on the district emergency response team.
037>> Yes. So, he's a very engaged community member, and I appreciate your comments, Mr. Houssey. We need we need more engagement. So, uh thank you for being as engaged as you are uh along the way. Uh so uh before we get too far into this school year or next school year, I do want to look back for a few minutes. And as you'll remember, through last year's budget development process, we we made a few key investments. And I just want to highlight those for you. Uh, one was that the board designated a certain level of funding to supplement our universal prek funding that we received from New York State to further expand the opportunities that our kids uh our four-year-olds would have over the course of uh over our or throughout our community. So this
038year we opened up a few classes in district. Uh we have a universal prek class uh at Beman Elementary School. We have a class at Traver Road Primary School. Um and we remember we also contract with holy trinity. Uh there's two sites actually for holy trinity or through the arch dascese that we use and then also through the um uh old cinnamon tree uh as well. So we actually increased the number of students who are engaged in prek uh by 50. So uh we were right around 150 students the previous year. We have 204 prek students uh across those five site locations this year. So a good investment by the board. We're really enthused by the students who we have in prek. And as we go to visit Beman Elementary School, I think next I've
039kind of lost track of that schedule, we might be able to stop by and see some of our our prek students uh that are engaged in the class there. We also expanded other experiences that our kids uh have or pathway opportunities that our students have. We have the winter circle project which I'm I'm almost certain you'll hear about when we make our way to the high school later on this school year. Uh there's the individual arts assessment pathways. Uh the family and consumer science pathways that have now been added as part of our secondary program and the seal of sustainability application that we submitted to New York State. Uh John had pro provided an emphasis last year on reviewing all of the assessments that we were our kids were engaged in. We did reduce some
040of the assessments uh that we were administering to increase instructional time. [clears throat] We reduced the number of outside consultants who are working within the district. Uh we've definitely emphasized uh uh the professional learning community model which you've heard he heard quite a bit as we visited our schools. Uh we've increased safety and security measures over the course of the district. uh CRG mapping as a program now that we're utilizing uh with our first responders uh in case they have to respond to an emergency incident on campus. We did budget for an additional SRO. I'm going to circle back to that in a second. And we also budgeted for an additional safety staff member at Union Veil Middle School that's currently in place. Um of all of these things, I I think they're going very
041well. Uh the only hiccup is we did have had an issue uh I should say the county sheriff's office has had an issue um identifying an SRO to uh fill that position or school. So we budgeted for it uh but we don't yet have a person in that position. Um two things uh factoring in there. One the level of training uh that was required. So there was another cohort of individuals going through the training for SRO uh SRO school if you will. Um, also we indicated our interest last year, but there were other schools ahead of us uh on the list of fulfilling SRO requests that have been made to the sheriff's office. So, right now, demand exceeds supply uh of SRO. So, we have some decisions to make going into next school year uh
042regarding this position. And it's definitely a point of connection that I have to make back with the sheriff's office on the feasibility of actually uh attaining an SRO and a timeline, especially knowing that we're going into some budget um stress uh this year. Um so, that's still things to be worked out. I shared with the board last year really two anchors that I want us to consider as we're thinking about the educational plan. Uh there's a lot of school uh improvement frameworks. Uh this is one that I oriented the board to last year which comes from Marzano. Uh we want to think uh so these build upon each other uh for lack of a better frame. We need our schools to be safe, supportive, and have a collaborative culture before we can really get into
043a sustained dialogue around effective teaching in every classroom. So there were elements of last year's budget uh the budget that we're currently in where we talked about adding to safety uh thus the SRO the use of increased um uh safety staff members uh the CRG mapping software but also reviewing all of our processes related to safety uh in our schools to ensure that it was a safe environment. Again if people don't feel safe in the school uh they can't focus on learning. uh uh if we were just look ahead and I were to point to continued areas of emphasis, it's to ensure that we have effective teaching going on in every classroom. Uh there's work going on in in each of these levels, if you will. But if we're to standardize something, and this isn't
044meant to necessarily be a checklist, we want to make sure that we're emphasizing that effective teaching is occurring in every classroom every day for our kids throughout our school district. uh which is no uh you know small feat uh given the fact that we have hundreds of classrooms over the course of uh our district and ensuring again that the standard of quality in each of those classrooms is uh consistent and I can say that over the course of last school year we did realize an increase in student achievement and we also lowered rates of chronic absenteeism. So our building based teams really leaned into this work they leaned into the learning community model. Uh these results are have been shared with you previously through last summer and into the fall uh of this school year.
045And and while that increase in student achievement has varied across our schools uh particularly at the K8 level, we still see districtwide an increase in number of students who are reading at grade level and who are uh reflecting uh grade level proficiency in mathematics. Still plenty of room to grow. Uh but at the same time, we feel that the processes that we're employing in our schools are effective and are working and we want to continue to engage in those processes and by way of that we're seeing more of our kids engaged and uh coming to school and and lower rates of chronic absenteeism. So some great things are going on in the school district. Uh we want to obviously uh continue uh in that direction. And uh just ciring circling back to Mr. Holly's comments
046at the beginning of the meeting. One of the things that makes Arlington unique is that uh we have a great opportunities through academics in the district uh really K12 uh also through athletics uh and also through the arts and we say you know a strong school system there's a lot that goes on but they balance uh athletic opportunities arts opportunities and academic opportunities for our students and we're certainly doing that here and it's our responsibility to continue to try to balance that as we're going into next year's budget development. So, a few things that I'll uh just highlight that are guiding our planning for the 2627 school year. Uh we want to continue to expand the UPK program. Uh our goal is to add at least two additional classrooms in district. I'll speak to the
047funding for UPK in a few minutes. We also want to increase funding for the early college access coser through Boseies. So you're familiar with the Boseies that we can access opportunities through um cooperative services with Boseies. Arlington does a great job offering early college access opportunities for our high school students. Uh you may hear about our concurrent enrollment or dual enrollment classes where students can simultaneously earn high school credit and college credit uh for the classes that they're engaged in. Mia, you might be in a class or two uh like this that we offer through one of our partners. whether that's Duchess Community College or whether it's through Sunni Albany um or other uh higher education institutions. Uh so just as an example, your child can get their high school English credit uh senior year,
048but they may also be taking that as an English 101 class that they can get a first semester uh English credit for um uh and apply that to college if their colleges will accept that. uh transfer to Duchess uh as an example if they plan to go to Duchess or whatever institution they choose to go to go to. Right now our families uh pay uh for these courses for their children. Uh this coser will allow us to eliminate the registration fees uh for our students who access those dual enrollment classrooms. So we would have to front a portion of the tuition cost but we would receive uh a portion of that tuition back as a reimbursement uh through the Boseis coser. So there will be uh an initial um investment that the district would be
049required to make. Uh at the same time uh a significant portion of that investment will come back to us through the coser uh and it eliminates the cost for our families where that may be a barrier to entry for our kids. You've heard us talk quite a bit around tier one instruction and tier 2 instruction. So tier one instruction being the instruction our kids receive as they are in their math, science, social studies, and ELA classes each day. Uh we call that tier one instruction, the instruction that our teacher is delivering to our kids. And again, we want that to be of high quality. Tier 2 support being the uh potential extension support that's needed for a student who's demonstrating difficulty towards meeting a particular standard. Tier 2 support can occur in a classroom. It
050can also occur through traditionally we would say academic intervention services uh or support. Um we want to make sure that the framework that we have in place for instruction that's occurring both at the tier one and tier 2 levels is consistent. uh the universal design for learning framework and I won't get too far into it tonight is an opportunity for us to have consistent professional learning uh as well as resources available to our staff to draw upon when they're designing core classroom instruction for our kids. Um we also would like to expand responsive classroom as the core social and emotional learning program for our elementary students. Responsive classrooms are being utilized for in many of our elementary classrooms, but we can't say that it's consistent uh kindergarten through fifth grade. And you can think of
051responsive classroom as where kids go to learn pro-social skills learn how to how do how do I be a good member of a community in the classroom and beyond that classroom of community. And [snorts] then we also would like to begin planning through next school year for a shared character education model for our secondary schools for Lraange Middle School, Unionville Middle School, as well as for Arlington High School. Uh Regina's going to talk quite a bit uh about our special education planning and programming. Uh I'm getting a little ahead of her here, but you will see through that presentation that we are in a position where we will need to increase the number of special classes for our entering kindergarten students for next year. And then our goal is also to work towards greater compliance
052with the physical education requirements at the K5 level. Uh this is uh um well what's past is prologue I guess. uh this was we spent quite a bit of uh time uh examining this I'd say 10 years ago where there is a minimum requirement for physical education minutes at the elementary school uh that is defined by uh the week. So students are supposed to have a certain level of physical education or frequency of PE uh by week at the elementary level. Um, right now our students receive generally two physical education classes per six-day cycle. We're on a six-day cycle at the elementary level. Uh, John has been working with our physical education teachers, our principles, as well as our other special area teachers to work towards a plan for students to have PE three times
053uh in that cycle. That certainly would bring us much closer to compliance. it wouldn't totally get us there because three times in a six-day cycle, our students should have PE three times in a week. Um the six day cycle extends beyond a week. Uh we're on a six-day ro rotation, but it's a lot closer to where we currently are. And it's something a focus we've gotten away from uh over the last few years and it's really something since it's a a requirement. There's a regulation related to this. It's something we should be working uh towards compliance with uh in our educational planning and we plan to do so as we're going into next year at least to get us partway there. More to come on that. I shared this statement with the board last year
054and I just think it holds true. State aid is expected to moderate and there's going to be more pressure to control our internal costs, salaries, benefits, expansion of programming while maintaining additional revenue, which is taxes for us and state aid in a manner that the community can support. That's the dynamic. That's the tension that we continue to find ourselves navigating as an administrative team. uh as we develop this year's budget, it applied last year. It's going to apply this year. And it this will be the the tension for the foreseeable future. We're not going to get the state aid increases that we've seen in the past. We're not going to get stimulus funding that we may have received through uh the pandemic. Uh so state aid is going to be minimal. Uh we have to
055maintain additional revenue to the extent that the community can support. uh and that's where obviously you know we rely on your feedback uh to to help guide us in our planning and I'll share a few things related to that this evening. So here's just a current status of the factors that are influencing budget development. Uh this is not an exhaustive list. Uh a minimal increase to state aid uh as proposed by the governor. So 1% increase to state aid. you may be seeing through advocacy if you follow the NISSBA weekly updates um uh advocacy to try to get that to 2%. Uh which would be great but still not a lot of uh not a significant increase in state aid by any means. Uh there's a significant increase in health care costs. Uh we uh
056purchase our healthcare through a consortium uh to to reduce costs. Uh but as of right now, the proposed rate increase for that consortium uh is 16% for next school year. That's quite significant. I would expect that to go down a little bit because every district's in a similar position as us. So uh we have a seat at the table. I think we're all going to lobby for it to go down. Uh but it's more a reflection of something needs to fundamentally change within um uh within the health care plan. uh because that the the increase reflects the plan cost going up. Uh so um really unless this cost structure uh changes, we're going to continue to see increases like this. And just a note, last year I believe we were at a a 6% increase,
057Kevin, does that sound right? 6 to 8% >> healthcare. >> Yeah. >> Last school year. Oh, last year >> six. Yeah, sorry to put you on the spot. Um, so again, just as in terms of what the budget is accustomed to accounting for, generally six to 8% increases are what we've experienced in the past, 16, that's probably the most significant factor on budget development this year in comparison to the others. We anticipated that state aid would be low. Um, we know our other costs with respect to labor that are driven by contract. It's the health care cost that's a bit of an unknown going into each school year. That's probably the most significant variable influencing us this year. Um, a continued increase of out of district special education costs. Again, Regina's going to share a
058little bit more with you about that in a few moments. The governor on on good news. Uh, the governor's executive budget includes increased funding for UPK. So, an increase to $10,000 per student. So again, that should put us in a good position uh to realize our goal of expanding UPK further uh at that reimbursement rate. There's going to be other department specific factors as Regina uh John uh Mike Healey present uh their budgets over the next couple of weeks. I mentioned the governor's executive budget 1% increase. Um there were other modest increases in other aid categories. So remember the 1% increases to our foundation aid uh which we have the most uh flexibility in utilizing. There's other categorical aid that we received where we did see an increase in funding. So you're actually going to
059see our uh state aid increase. It's going to be different than 1% because we're we're on in a slide or two here because it's accounting for the other categorical aids that we receive. The levy limit uh for next year is estimated to be 3.5%. So that's news uh compared to where we were uh when we presented last to you in January where we didn't have that calculated. So to summarize um sorry I can't enlarge this anymore for the uh for the audience or potentially even for the board. I'm going to draw your attention to the one two three the fourth column the 21026 budget 2627. So we were planning to share with this with you on the 10th. Thank you Devin. That's helpful where that uh where your cursor is. If we just look down
060that column right there our current this is the slide you're used to seeing as we go through budget development. So we'll show you this uh again uh next week. Um, as you may recall when Kevin presented the rollover budget in January, we were working with a $12 million budget deficit. That's reflected in the column to the left there. So, our current revenue plan $276 uh million. Uh we're anticipating right now with the governor's proposal $94 million in state aid. If you were to follow this row over to the right, you'll see the percent increase of 2.7%. And you may say, well, wait, you said 1%. It's 1% on foundation aid. We are receiving other increases in other category based aids. So, the net increase in aid right now that we're working with is 2.7%. I'll
061just share with you though, if we're getting a big increase in transportation aid, that's great for our transportation department. That's where we have to spend that money. We can't apply that to um to other areas of the budget. So, that's the uh that's the piece there that um is important to remember. Uh we've designated about $8.4 million in other revenue that comes into the district. These are investments that Kevin manages when we first received the levy along with some other revenue sources. We're uh assigning $7.1 million, about $7.2 million in fund balance to offset the deficit in this budget. We also have a a reserve allocation for tax reduction that we're applying in budget development at the levy limit of 3.51%. Uh that would be a $166 million revenue line for us. So I'm it's
062just want to uh underscore this for the board. We're showing the levy right now in this working budget development already at the levy limit. uh last year and I can certainly put this together for this year. You realize uh that I you wanted me to show you the levy at different levels. Well, what would what would the levy be at 0%? What would be at one two if you will? Um and I can certainly do that. Just uh the math of it um obviously every percent on the levy that I reduce off of this is another $1.6 million that's going into that current deficit. The current expenditure plan is $285 million. This does not reflect any personnel reductions that we've made in the budget. We're not reflecting any of that yet. Um we will do
063that next week for you. So again, this is still close to a rollover budget, if you will. What we've prioritized over the last several weeks is just making adjustments to revenue lines. um uh which is what what you see here. So with that, we're at a current deficit of $ 8.9 million. Any questions about this slide? Just before I process to some final thoughts, got a question here. >> I can hold it till next. I don't I just Were we in the 2% last year for the levy? >> We were 274. >> Thank you. >> Our levy limit last year was over three. Uh and we went through a pro we had a dialogue and we eventually got to 274. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And um nobody else's question. the um your current expenditure
064plan on a 6% increase rollover 6.36 um that includes how how did you roll most things? I mean you rolled the uh the staffing based on contracts, >> right? And then everything else you rolled based on uh >> we kept everything as is >> as is. >> Um I mean if there's any more detail Kevin you want to provide but generally this is assuming all current levels of staffing. We do project obviously what our salary increases are going to be with our existing staff. Uh but we have retirees, we have breakage that's not yet factored into uh to any of this or any reductions that we were to make in total staffing. Kevin, is there anything else you wanted to add? >> We also tried to estimate, you know, increases to specific lines that we
065would know. So we knew that um Boseies would be going up. We knew that out of district placements would be going up. We knew and we estimated our debt service. So you know, we took into account what we could but understand January, not all of the work is done. >> Okay. No, of course that's good. I just wanted to actually point that out because >> um because you were talking about staffing, you know, our our contracts are not looking at a 6.36. And I guess I just want [laughter] that there are other things in that number. I guess that's what I want to illustrate. Is that is that a true statement? >> Yeah. >> Okay. That's kind of what I wanted to >> as one example and not to shine a spotlight too much on
066it because I don't want to overemphasize really the health insurance is correct if I had to point to one thing. Yes. Uh that's significantly influencing the budget. Uh health insurance would be included in there based on the >> um uh based on the anticipated increase that we heard from from DHICK which I do think will come down but we probably won't know until early March. >> Right. So basically that's a blend of your best case on large B on large dollar items and a current level of staffing. >> Correct. >> Got it. I just want our friends at home who are looking that to understand. >> No, thank you for asking. That helps clarify that. >> Thank you. Anybody else have any questions right now >> on where we are? Okay. >> Just uh next
067steps and then I'll turn it over to Regina. So next week you can anticipate that will generate an updated working budget deficit. We will account for staff reductions in that and I I want to point to reductions just in our goal going into budget development is to maintain all existing program opportunities for kids uh K12. So uh we go into looking at areas across our district where uh first of all we have a number of retirees. Is it necessary to to fill those positions? Uh that's a that's a focal point. Um and then if we just look across all of our schools and all the current programming we are offering, what would it take in terms of a staffing level to still offer all of those opportunities for for our students? Um uh class size
068does come up and I I just uh want to speak directly to it. We do have class size, if you will, parameters that we use to guide each level of planning at the elementary, middle, and the high school level. So, we use those parameters. We apply it to our current level of staffing and see, uh, can adjustments be made. um every year uh at least you know this is only the second budget that I've worked on here um as superintendent having worked on previous budgets on the program end in my previous experience here we have been in the position to realize that we can reduce staff while still maintaining those program opportunities for our kids and that typically happens as a result of uh seeing a general decline in enrollment um over several years which
069we have we're at um 7,700 students uh approximately right now. Um our staffing typically lags in making a complete adjustment to providing the scope of programming that we offer to our kids uh given the number of students we have and the staffing levels that we maintain and sometimes we make a best estimate going into the school year. So I'll use kindergarten as an example. We are always working on staffing kindergarten off of a projection. uh we don't really know uh until September 3rd or 4th how many and sometimes we don't even know at that point how many kindergarteners are actually going to come uh to Arlington. So um we we staff based on a projection. Sometimes things also come up during the school year uh where you'll just have a number of people for whatever
070reason move into a community at a particular grade level that will bump uh a grade level up. Uh so again, it lags a little bit. That's why we're usually in a position to make an adjustment. Um there's sometimes some other factors uh uh that that contribute to that as well, but um you know, I I feel pretty confident that uh we're going to reflect a staffing reduction that still maintains a certain level of uh a level of programming that the community comes to expect their kids to have uh in the schools. Uh we also are going to be making recommendations to add staff in a few areas. So I just want to point that out. Um when we mention more special classes potentially at the kindergarten level, that's an add of staff and we have
071to take that into consideration as well. There may be other program opportunities that we just want we think are really important to remain competitive to offer to our kids and to our families. Uh so there may be some staffs there, but I do think there'll be a net staff reduction. Uh obviously we'll show you the tax levy and the influence of that on the budget uh deficit at varying levels between zero and three and a half%. I think I used 1% increments last year and you kind of get the math at that point um when I show it to you that way. And then there's any additional revenue or expenditure adjustments we'll make uh from uh tonight's presentation to next Tuesday's presentation. So next week, you know, I said I'll try to keep you Kevin
072and I I'll try to walk you along uh particularly with this uh last slide here because it's one you're oriented to. So you may just hear uh from me on the front end of uh uh next week's presentation before John um Hillary and Mike present just to give you a sense of where we are now and what's influencing that. That being said, I might go last. I I'll work that out with my team. We haven't gotten that far ahead yet, but I'm encouraged you're going to see the deficit go down um as we work through each week, but we're working on this each day. So, um uh things come to light or fruition as we work through the budget line by line. So, um I'm confident we're going to work through it and we're still
073going to offer some really uh great opportunities for our kids, but a bit unique as compared to uh to last year. And the last comment I'll make just because I want to underscore it. Um the health insurance influences are not unique to DHICK. Uh these are national issues with the cost of health insurance. So that's not I I don't want to you know place any undue scrutiny on the consortium or on uh even on the district. In fact, I would say that had we remained at the level of increase that we had last school year, um while it doesn't wouldn't completely resolve the deficit that you see here, it would resolve more than half of it. And then with the adjustments similar to what we did last year with staffing, we would be, you know,
074uh we would have the deficit completely resolved. The discussion would be around at what levy increase. So, um, that really is the key variable in terms of budgeting year-over-year. Okay. So, I'll have some more to share next week. And if it's okay with you, uh, Marian, I'll just turn it over to Regina at this point. >> Yeah. Let me just make a quick pass. Does anybody have any questions for Phil or are we good for now? Looks like we're good. Sounds good. >> Small doses. Dr. Kation. Uh, now we'll come forward and give you a little bit more information around special education and pupil personnel services. I'll lower the mic. This is on. Bad joke. >> Thank you, Dr. Bonante. Um, and uh, thank you to the board president and our trustees and Mia. Um,
075I'm sorry I won't block the light for you. [laughter] So, I apologize for that. Um, so very happy to be here um, to present. I'll try to be succinct. I know that um we had the opportunity to hear more about our uh pupil personnel services and special education in December. So I would refer you to that presentation for some of the other um things that we highlighted. But for tonight, I think the focus will be more on again our programming and our budgeting. Um so thank you. I can do it. So just an overview on who we are. the pupil personnel services does cover a wide range of of um functions and people um very um I think uh Lisa Castaldo who was the interim before me had had said how incredible she found working
076here in Arlington and now that I'm here since July I can say that she was right. I it's such a great team and the the people are really what makes this job so special and obviously our focus is on the students and on their families but it really helps to have a team that's kind of united. Um so just a special thanks to um some of my uh supervisors who are here. So thank you. I have Cara Romano and her main job is the supervisor at the high school. I have Rick Sutton who works with one of our middle schools um UVMS as well as um some of our elementary schools. We have my director, Vanessa, Vanessa Weekes, and then we have Alicia Hershey, who works with our um CPS-C students. You may hear from
077them as I present just in case we need some clarification because I do know that some questions were submitted by the board and we want to make sure that we address those. Okay. Let's see if it'll go. There we go. So again, I'll be brief, but we we we really do a lot in terms of supporting all of our students here in Arlington. And that's everything from our students that may have a disability, whether they have an IEP or um have support through section 504. Um we work with student health services. Um, all of the nurses are a part of our team and and really so crucial for that first level tier uh from Morzano about um having healthy and safe spaces to learn. Um we also work with students that can't get to school
078and homebound tutoring. Um students who are entitled to services because they have um housing insecurity. I'll I'll say a little bit more about that later. Um, we work to make sure that we're um following and are in compliance with things like the Dignity for All Students Act, which really is designed to um really support students who might encounter bullying of any sort or some kind of discrimination based upon a protected class. Um, we have our central registration office which works really hard and is very often um a family's first exposure to our district. Um, so we work very closely with families as they're coming in and sometimes they're coming in midyear and having gone through a lot um and having landed here. And then we work with, you know, just basically overall wellness, the wellness
079committee and trying to connect with all of our different schools on on wellness because we know students don't learn well. You know, they have to feel safe, but they also have to be physically well. Okay. Oops. Here we go. Sorry. Okay. So, I thought it might be interesting just to divide the data up and look at it a few different ways. Um, when we look at the students that have disabilities and are served by the committee on special ed and and these numbers were from what we call beds day, which is October 1st, just for consistency from year to year. You can see that our o overall numbers are really not going up that much. our population has gone down and that's why some our our classification rates have gone up a little bit, but
080our classification rates are still within what is typical for this region and for New York State. Um, but what we're really looking at is how we can provide specialized instruction and and really give our students with disabilities the best opportunity to succeed. And so, we are looking at data. we're looking at their their their outcomes and what's happening as they transition beyond high school. Um so we're going to continue to keep an eye on that and to work with our broader team. Um I shared in December that we had some work to do in in terms of the um individuals with disabilities and education act and some of the indicators. Um and it coincides very much with Dr. Bonante's goals for the district around increasing proficiency rates particularly in uh language arts and math. Okay,
081thank you. Um, just a quick pie chart to to show um there's 13 different categories in in um in in terms of classification for a disability. Now, children don't really fit fit into neat little buckets. Um, but in order to have entrance into services under special education, we have to basically say which category most describes where their area of struggle is. So, I just thought it might be interesting for the board and the community to see. Um, we have a decent number of students with other health impairment and that's usually that they have some kind of diagnosis or disability that impacts their learning. So, it could be something like an ADHD or something along those lines. We also have a solid number of students that have um fall under the learning disability category. And actually,
082that is typically the biggest category that you see in a school district. So it could be a student that has a math disability, a reading disability, a writing disability, something along those lines. We have an increased number of students who fall under the category of autism. And again, that's that's typical of this region and also of our our our world right now. There are more children identified as having autism. Um and then we have some other categories, emotional disability, intellectual disabilities, and speech and language. Great. In terms of the number of students receiving preschool special education services and and these numbers may look slightly different than the ones I presented in December, but that's because we were looking we we looked strictly at beds day again. We just said as of October 1st, what are
083our numbers? We do know that very often and and Alicia could tell you um we see increased numbers of preschool students as the year progresses. So I do expect our number of 165 for 2526 to go up because children are still three and four years old and just being referred. Um so that number will go up a little bit but again our numbers haven't been increasing that drastically. Um I think 2122 is reflective of you know following COVID fewer children were receiving services and getting classified. So that year is a bit of an anomaly. I also thought it might be helpful to look at the data in in this way. So, I showed you the students that were receiving their special education services within the district, but it might surprise you to see that there's
084a good number of students that are receiving services outside of Arlington Central School District. So as you can see from the chart, we do have a large number of students that receive services through our Duchess County Boseies and also some at some other local Boseies such as Putinham Northern Westchester. Those are students that column and the gold column reflect students that the committee on special education has made a decision to place in a in a program outside of the district. and that is typically because we don't have a program that would necessarily meet their needs here within the district. You'll also see the column that is parentally placed and that would be students that are identified as having a disability. They receive special education services, but their parents have opted to place them in a
085program and it could be one of our local, you know, parochial schools and they do actually still um they're still entitled to special education services in those schools. Now, one board member did have a question about that. So, I think I'm going to ask Miss Weeks to come up and just talk a little bit about um what just as for information purposes, what are our obligations as a district for students that are parentally placed um when they have a disability? might block the good evening. So, um Arlington is the district of location for five um non-public schools and then we also have students in a charter school which is located in the city of Pikipsy. So, um our obligation is to provide equitable services to those students. So, just like we would for students who
086receive services in our own district, we're responsible um to identify a student um for Child Find, if the parents or the school um suspects that they have a disability, we're required to do all the testing and then we're required to provide equitable services to those students. Um we do there's a lot of paperwork and legalities involved but we do um get consent to um bill students who are not Arlington residents. So some of those students are Arlington residents. Parents chose to place them in those schools and we provide them services but then we also provide services to students from many other districts. So um there is some type of um financial um reimbursement that we do get back for those services and um right now the way we do provide the services if we have
087we have staff assigned to um those buildings. So we have um three full-time teachers split up between the five programs um and then related service providers OTP and speech. Um and then we're also required to set aside a percentage of our IDA funds to um provide the services as well. So that was a quick overview. I don't know if anyone has any questions about parentally placed students. No. Okay. Thank you. [snorts] Okay. So, another slide that I thought might be helpful just for understanding purposes is, you know, we we did an analysis because we do have a large number of students that receive their services outside of our district. And it is something that came up in in terms of our um our state reporting and um was something that we are looking at. Um
088when you look across this slide I'll just if you'll notice the subtotal for Boseies from the year 2021 uh we had 105 students placed in a Boseis program. Um that number has gone down so that this year 2526 we currently have 86 students placed in Bosey's programs. Um so while that number is declining you'll also notice the out of district placements. So if you look at the subtotal for out of district subtotal OOD you'll see that we had 60 students originally in 2021 and that number has gone up significantly. So by the time we hit 2526 we're up to 97 students who are in New York state approved um programs that are not um funded through Boseies. So, I can tell you that they cost a lot more money, those programs. Um, they're very, very
089pricey. Now, there are some students, you know, we we're very dedicated to all of our students with disabilities. We're dedicated to their families, and we understand that they absolutely are entitled to um the best most appropriate education that they can have. Um, but we also want to be mindful of saying looking at what we can do to maybe support more of our students here within the district, which would ultimately benefit them and their families as well. So, that's something that we're looking at very closely. And then the bottom line, you'll see >> question over here. >> Sure. >> Sorry for the interruption, but um the Boseies going down, the outer district going up. Is that is there any connection to the fact that Boseis doesn't have enough space for our students or that it's programmatic
090the reason that they're not an out of district placement is happening as opposed to a Boseis placement? >> It's an excellent question and I would say it's a little bit of both. Um I can tell you that we're very committed to partnering with Duchess County Boseies. They have had some turnover in leadership. Um, I do think that they are committed to expanding their programs. In fact, I know that uh both Vanessa and I recently met with their new director of special programs and I'm going to be touring some of their programs. I've already actually started to tour some of their programs. Um, they are recognizing and are working hard to, I think, determine what are the needs of the the um the districts that they serve, right? and they're they're looking to actually expand some
091of their services. So, I do think it will get better in a sense that if we're partnering with them and if they're working toward uh addressing the needs from like our school, Wingers, all of the different Duchess County schools, um they will be able to maybe take care of more of our students needs at at the Boseis Center. Um, but they also do they are actually looking for space and and part of that is coming up when we talk about our kindergarten group and I'm going to ask Alicia to step up in a minute to talk about that. Um, they're out of space also. >> Yeah, that's what that's what I I may have heard. I was wondering if in the county in general with declining enrollment if there might be opportunities for space for
092Boseis more Bosey's classes in districts also >> potentially potentially I think it's going to be um tricky with balancing certainly for Arlington in the next four to five years uh some of our construction along with universal prek coming in and and so I think it's going to be space is going to be uh you know it's continue to be a precious commodity. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And I had a question. I is part of the decrease in the in the Bosei students, didn't we bring some classes back? So, um so that's I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's a Did we bring we brought some classes in house that are we we run ourselves? Yes, we we have expanded our number of special class programs and that could also be
093reflecting that and that and it's interesting because that decrease >> still includes the fact that we sent two kindergarten classes there last year to yeah two special classes to Boseies. Um, so yes, >> and to Marian's point, that's interesting because we've hosted Boseies in additional space from time to time and I wonder how hard they're looking throughout all the different, you know, contingent places to open classes. Yeah, I I would just add I just because I see it that they're they're actively seeking space availability in other districts and >> uh bit of a competition here in that we're we're using some of the spaces for prek. It doesn't always some of the spaces we have available as well don't always line up with what their programmatic needs are, >> right? >> Uh but they are
094actively seeking or soliciting from districts whether or not they have space available in the host program. And and so it would also make sense if that Bosey's number has gone down and we've we've brought some of those classes in house, but those are those are um children with some needs that are more expensive even inhouse like so we're still having costs associated with those children which is and it's nice to bring them close to home, right? It's nice to bring them near maybe siblings and family and all that. That's wonderful, but it doesn't necessarily mean we have that many less students that need those kind of services, I think. Right. >> That's true. That's true. Um I I think that when we are able to meet a student's needs within the district, even if we're
095using our own like speech and language uh therapist or our own um occupational therapist, uh there's there's many benefits to that and I would say that the overall cost is definitely less still. Um but we just have to be mindful because we have to make sure that we that we plan for their needs when we bring students back. We have to have we have to build the capacity. We can't just add children and and expect everyone to, you know, rise up to that level. >> Agreed. Thank you. >> And then the final line I would point out is our number of students in residential programs. And that has also gone up significantly, almost doubled since 20 uh 21. And I I really do think that that's a product of the world we're living in today.
096I think we see it in the number of students with more mental health issues and anxiety and also families under a lot of stress where by maybe their this their students needs are you know it's it's beyond the capacity that the family can manage. Um so again I think that that is happening everywhere but what we're seeing is that in the last few years the costs of all these services have really gone up exponentially and I have a few slides just to kind of demonstrate that to you. So just a quick notice that you know when I talk about families under stress you can still you can see here that we we have a decent number of of families that are struggling with housing insecurity. Um o almost you know multiple times a week we
097have families that are reaching out because their housing is unstable. Um there's been evictions. They've had you know hardships. There's been loss of of of employment. Um, we have families that are forced to move out of where they were and move in with someone else and they're considered doubling up. We even have students that are um, you know, considered un unaccompanied youth. Um, so the the Mckin Vento Act allows for us to make sure that whatever's happening in a child's life, whatever's happening in their family's life, it's never the child's fault and we really want to keep the continuity of their education going. So that's what the Mckin Vento Act um, is for. But I just wanted you to be aware it is it is a it is a significant number of students. Um those
098numbers there don't obviously just up until this time in the year. I expect them to go up a little bit. Um we're also tracking how how many times we have to reach out because we are concerned for a student's safety. uh like to you know to reach out to social services specifically being that were mandated reporters um reaching out to child protective services and um again those numbers are fairly high. We have students that are experiencing some significant struggles in their home. They're they're they're facing what we'd call adverse childhood um experiences or ACEs. um and some of them have, you know, been in in harm's way and and again, that's just another sign of some of the things that we're dealing with when we try to make sure that they're safe here in school.
099Um we have really good teams. I know you shouted out the our counselors, our social workers, our psychologists, but I don't know what we would do without them because they're they're busy every single day and u we're very grateful to them and and they really do work collaboratively with each other. So, um, sometimes I I I I will receive a report and I'll just reach out and check on them and say like, "Are you okay?" Because they're hearing some pretty some significant trauma. Um, and they're they're really terrific. They're really a good team. And, uh, one more slide. Um, we we we sadly have sometimes that trauma manifests in self-injurious behavior. We have students that are either um making statements about wanting to hurt themselves or may be engaged in some self harm behavior. And
100so we have um really worked to secure um our protocols for how we approach it and and we are um improving our game with making sure that we're using researchbased assessments. Um whether we're using the Colombia scale or whichever scale we're using. Um I if you were in the district-wide emergency response team, you'll have seen that we have um binders now that are like your go binders that have uh threat assessment forms in it from our comprehensive school threat assessment um guidance group. We have um risk assessments for students with self harm. Um, and actually at our upcoming superintendent conference day, we're working with um a psychologist who's helping our team become even better at um interviewing skills for when you're you're probing questions and asking about a student's potential risk to themselves or others.
101Um, so we're continuing to build our team's capacity to do that work. This slide I'm just going to ask for a little grace because I seem to have you can keep it there for a minute. if you would just ignore 25 26 26 27 in a sense that that data is still coming in and moving and it looks like AI evened it out when it wasn't supposed to. But what I can this this slide is really just to show you that even when we budget sometimes our special education expenses go beyond what we predicted. And some of that has to do with like I said tuitions go up. They don't have to ask us or tell us. In fact, they can actually bill back two or three years. Three years. We we did just get
102a bill um in our special education office. Oh, by the way, ESY went up three years ago for this particular program. And now we ESY being extended school year services. So we do the best to predict but we get students that move into the district. We get people with complex needs. We have an increased number of students with complex complex needs. But I can tell you that we are working very hard to make sure that our 26 27 estimated budget is as close as possible to um what we predict it will come out as. So, if you were to look at this slide, I think this gives a pretty clear indication. And you'll notice it's gone up significantly. Even within the last few years, we've had a significant um increase in our overall pupil personnel
103services budget to the tune of, you know, I I'm anticipating it's going to be over $22 million this year. Um, and I think the number that I had calculated that that if we went back roughly 10 years, our budget's gone up over 40 48% in 10 years. So, I wanted you to see um what the budget is spent on in PPS because we don't always go down line by line. So, I really just took a few minutes to show you some of the areas that have gone up the most. Um and you can see that top line, the bulk of the budget is for programs, basically tuitions and all of the related services involved in students programs. Um largely out of district programs. Now, also included in our budget, we have security, we have our
104health services, um we have the home tutoring, as I said, for homebound instruction, we have registration, and then we have very small stipens for um some of our other um departments that support students. But I thought this would also be interesting to you to see it like that. >> Can I ask a question? >> Sure. Can you um can you maybe explain again for a minute what's in that top number? >> Yes. Um so the top number really is largely um tuitions. So if you actually go to the next slide Devon um >> it's not it's not internal people, it's internal people. >> No. >> Right. >> Kevin want to add >> I think it's posties and out of district placements. [clears throat] >> Okay. It's not our staffing. >> It's not your staffing. Okay.
105All right. >> So I I don't Can we go back again also to that top line? So percent of total budgets about 8 84 and a half%. So I'm not sure if I caught it when you were saying so how has that changed again that again last couple years even in 10 years that's gone 40% in 10 years? >> 48%. Yes. So, so where are our internal expenses? >> Yeah, I just want to clarify, Kevin, and I know putting you on the spot, but that's a to a $19 million figure. The total budget's 22. So, that would be our internal staffing as well. >> Or or is this just a piece of your budget and there's a whole other piece somewhere else? like and I guess yeah it's maybe I think it's a different presentation
106than we've gotten other years. >> We we deal with all of our personnel uh completely as a as a unit over the entire district. So when we talk about staffing >> allocate it's all in the staffing. All right. And so part of that is the special ed staffing. Now about 8 million of that is goes to Boseies. The other 8 million goes to the out of district placements. That's 16 million of the 19. And I don't know what the other pieces are off the top of my head, but there's some other tuitions and things like that in there. >> Okay. And so yeah, go. >> So just then the like let's look at the speech at the bottom that is not our people. that is tied also to Boseis then out of >> that's most
107likely material supplies or testing services and those types of things for speech psychology guidance but it's not the people themselves it's not the teachers >> that's correct it'll be conferences it'll be travel it'll be some of their professional learning um but materials and supplies we've seen go up too and I know uh technology can speak to this a little bit but technology is a wonderful thing but there's also now subscriptions so we have like a subscription such as everyday speech SPE which is really a phenomenal um subscription and it actually can be used not just for speech and language but like social emotional communication skills. So we even find some of our social workers are wanting subscriptions to everyday speech because it can really help with social communication and conversation. Um a subscription like that
108can be anywhere between 500 and 650 a year per subscription. So if we have you know 10 speech and language pathologists wanting that you know that that's the costs. So, um, yeah, >> if it's helpful, I could for the next presentation do like a a pie graph of of where it's going. It might be helpful to see it that way. >> I think maybe we should um I think it would be I think maybe we should talk about what would be helpful to help us understand kind of how the pieces fit together and how they fit into the staffing in total. I'd also like to get an idea of how much of our other staffing numbers are related to special ed. I'd also like um what's the security again >> Dr. Bonante? >> Uh that
109would reflect our safety staff. >> Okay. So that just is that so that is internal. That's just so this is this is the things that you put in her budget but not >> but not um co-taught teachers not >> right >> okay >> and Kevin do we include SRO's under security as well >> yes >> okay and the third line down health services we've seen we've had to rely a lot on agencies so if for example we have students who are homebound but they need speech or lang language. We have some students who have very they're medically fragile and they really can't come into a school building and we have to send agencies to them. So, we have seen an increase in health services um and agency costs. We also have more students with diabetes
110that it's not a special ed um disability per se. Um but we have there's just more students with diabetes in the world right now in the United States. And um some of those students, especially as they're kindergarten and sometimes even first grade, sometimes require a nurse. And so we have that that falls under that health services line where we have um you know, nursing services and and all of that. I I think what's a little hard to um to to um completely understand is sort of the mix because I think am I correct that under health services really are our all our nurses >> again I don't think their salaries are under there >> aren't in there >> we have nurse overtime salaries are >> unit >> so our security people are in there they're
111in there um but the nurses aren't So that's extra that's extra health support. >> And I think the difference, but I you know I would I would defer to Kevin would be that when we're contracting with an agency, it's represented here, but if it's a salary within our district, it's not. >> Okay. >> Security really is the outlier here. Um it it's inclusive of all of the people and it's because some of them are contractual and some of them are inhouse, but and it's its own separate um functional code within the district. Now 1622 security. >> Yeah. For security. So it's >> So So is that just contracted security like our and that or is that um the the wonderful people who also work in our schools as security people? >> Correct. >> So that's
112a mix. That number is a mix. >> I think it's both. >> Okay. Okay. And maybe maybe some year-to-year comparison. Um I think are we missing 2526 on the previous slide? I think we are right. >> Oh yeah, we'll fix that. >> Um because uh and and um and maybe maybe some numbers on there. So this is the to this totals down to what's below you've broken out, but it's interesting to see how they grow over time and the percentages of them. >> Absolutely. >> No, this and I wanted to say this is very good. I'm not it's it's just that it's presented to us in a slightly different way, which is great because it kind of sparks different understanding and thought processes and stuff and as we go on to the staffing thing, we'll
113we'll look at it differently too. So great. So um as I I had summarized a few of the primary uh factors that contributed to this significant rise um I just wanted to also mention um what we call the FAPE 22 so free and appropriate public education um there was a lot of rulings in the courts but ultimately they decided that school districts are responsible for funding a student with a disability if they don't get their um diploma um all the way up until they turn 22. And so, um, that I understand the reason for it. There really aren't great programs to hand off a child to into the adult world necessarily, um, for students with more complex needs. However, that that is a a mandate that came without funding. So, we have, you know, it
114it is actually quite expensive. Most of the students who are staying with us until 22 are in um sometimes residential programs and sometimes um or at least you know pretty pretty um 12 month wraparound programs. >> So we're incurring an extra year of service for those students wherever they are. Okay. Got it. And then we've also just seen an increase in requests for homebound tutoring. So our cost for providing homebound instruction has gone up. We have students who sometimes have a mental health need that requires hospitalization when they're hospitalized. An agency provides tutoring and then we get the bill for that. And so we have more students with more mental health issues. They're they're ending up hospitalized and then that means our homebound tutoring costs go up. So good. Um I I thought it might
115be helpful for you to just see how two outofd district programs the costs then these these are state approved. Um so I used Anderson Center for Autism as well as the Center for Discovery and you can see that the Center for Discovery starts out pricier than Anderson Center for Autism. Um I'm not going to talk about the benefits pros and cons of either one. And I just wanted you to see two I re I literally just went down the list and picked two programs and and mapped out their cost. So you can see how it really wasn't it was pretty flat from 1920 to 2122 school year. But then things start going up exponentially and um and according to the this data which I took off the New York State website um these costs went
116up 38 to 40% in the last few years. So looking ahead, I think we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic. As I said, I think we have really good people in the district. We have a a a very um supportive board of education and I've seen some really great things happening. Um but you know, we're all working together here. So, just like in December when we talked about our audit, I want to just continue to emphasize that some of the good work that's been started but needs to continue around um really putting an emphasis on solid tier one instruction is going to benefit and lift all of our students. Um Dr. Bonante talked about the universal design for learning and um it is an area that we we are going to continue to
117try to develop with our faculty and staff, but it's not a new initiative. It's more of a an overlay or a lens. It's basically taking what we already do, our New York State standards, our gradebased curriculum, and basically saying, "How can I make this more accessible to all the students in the room?" So, if I have a student who maybe is learning the English language, and I want to design the the lesson so that that student maybe has more visuals, maybe there's more modeling, maybe there's more hands-on. Lo and behold, the research says that when I design a lesson specifically for someone with a with a a need, whether it's a disability or just a language need, um all students benefit from that approach. Um likewise, being able to have students more engaged in lessons,
118meaning the lessons are more relevant. They're more tied to things that are meaningful for students and and if you read most surveys from students, they want more engagement. Um and universal design does seek to do that. So that is something that we are working on as a district. And Dr. Bonante also referenced having a more robust multi-tered system of support. We have MTSS going in our buildings, but we want to have it a little bit more consistently when we talk about equity. We want to make sure that any child that might be struggling, regardless of which building they're in, that there's a safety net for them, that there is an opportunity to get AIS or for their teachers to have a sense of how they can differentiate within a classroom. So, that's something that we're
119working on and all that work will will definitely benefit our students with disabilities. I also want to just maybe um ask Alicia to come up for a minute to talk very briefly with you about um our incoming students and and she did a very nice job predicting how many students we were going to have um based on some of the numbers coming in from the year before. And so, without further ado, Alicia, maybe you can come up and just speak a little to that. >> Thanks. Good evening. Hi. Um, so as we've spoken before, we have um around 121 students coming into kindergarten that are accessing preschool services. So they'll have transition meetings. We're predicting about 27 students that have complex needs and need a very small census, small environment to be accessing their special
120education services. Um, within the programs we have in district, it looks like we're going to need to expand for at least two classrooms to be able to house them within the district buildings. >> Oh, yeah. And as um as discussed before, Boseies doesn't necessarily have the space to house that many students coming in. They may be able to take on one classroom size. Um we're looking at classroom sizes of eight, potentially um 12 at the most. And so they can take on one classroom size, but we would really need to be planning for about two classrooms, uh, special classes, and along with that the related services, looking at the facilities, um, and time within the building. I didn't know if there were any specific questions about preschool and the transition for incoming kindergarteners that you
121had. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so as I said, we have about 121 students right now and that is changing every day um coming into kindergarten and that we know of right now that have are accessing preschool services. 27 of them are have uh very complex needs that need a high level of service. As I look into the year after that, our three-year-olds that will be four that will then turn five in the 27 28 school year. Um we have around 85 students and 23 are showing very similar profiles um which mimics to uh this current year from that year before. Again, we have a lot of change. We we average well over 200 by the end of a school year um that have come through and are accessing services. Um so that will adjust and of
122course we're expecting growth over the next year and a half for those little ones um for the year after. Um we did reach out to some neighboring districts to see if we're in a little bit of a bubble or if we have um some comparisons and the neighboring districters had shared they have seen an increase in students with specific needs more complex needs um the last two years as we have and predicting as we move on. Um, we do work with the county. So, we have a task force monthly that we're trying to review information as best we can. Um, they're not at a level of sophistication that we can really get clear information. So, we really don't know about these students until they come in around two and a half, three and are able
123to provide services and then support them in that transition to kindergarten. >> And what's our Oh, go ahead, Donna. >> Oh, um, I just had a question about complex needs and just do we have the capability if a need is complex, maybe there's not a whole class of people with the same, you know, needs really. So, I wonder how that works when you have students that might have a variety of >> Yeah. So, specifically for the 27 students, um 25 of them have very similar needs when we talk about complex needs and their development and their ability to be accessing the environment they're in and the amount of support they need to be successful as individuals and as students. and for kindergarten that learning piece. >> And so is is this typically I know children
124grow and change as they as they age. Did do you find typically a student that comes in in preschool preschool age 2, three, four that has special needs now? Would they >> how would that change as they they age and go through? >> Yeah, that's a great question. >> It's fun to celebrate every spring >> of that. Yeah, absolutely. There's always growth. Um, some of our students come out of early intervention and are declassified through preschool time and then some are cl are declassified during their preschool time and we have about 25% that are declassified in their transition from preschool to kindergarten. And so it's a great time to to be able to celebrate them. Some move into building level supports and access that related service check-in um which has been essential through um the
125tiered system at the building level. others need to continue with that classification. Um specific for these students that we're trying to plan for, these are students that have um accessed early intervention, preschool, and will continue to need a high level of service for a while, but there's absolutely growth for them. >> Thank you. >> I can say that I had the benefit of visiting a couple of the programs with Alicia. She goes out to every single program, sees every single student. Um, and it is really, um, I think very vital to our families that they get to know her. They know that they that she knows their student, and it it really does help with the transition to school. Quite a few of them do have a a profile that would fall under probably autism,
126but for preschool students, we don't put them into the 13 different categories because we don't always know what's manifesting. We have more students that maybe were um born prematurely and their development is delayed and they may be delayed with their speech or their language, but um they actually can catch up in leaps and bounds. Then we have other students that may need a higher level of care throughout their educational journey. We just don't always know, you know, what what you're going to get. Okay. Um another thing that we've been looking at is definitely looking at the equitable distribution of resources. Um, so we're definitely working with all of our teams. Um, and we are looking at ratios to make sure that we have um, a good coverage for school counselors, school psychologists, and social workers,
127but we're also looking at trying to develop our broader faculty's capacity to be able to give interventions um, and to be able to check in with students and to notice, you know, what what is a warning sign that maybe a student isn't doing so well. You know, e even something as subtle as a change in behavior. So, um, again, we're working on some of that through whether we're using, um, deescalation strategies, whether we're working on, um, you know, mental health first aid. We are trying to build all of our capacity because any student really, truth be told, any faculty member or staff member um, on any given day could be bringing with them something that they're carrying or struggling with. Um, so that is something that we're really trying to tune into. Um, we're also
128looking at our discipline practices and um, we have a a large number of students that sometimes engage in student uh, school avoidance behaviors. And so we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can do to maximize their chance to thrive and to feel connected in their school buildings in whichever way that is. Um, and I'm working very closely particularly with our high school with Carol Romano. we see some children that really maybe not they're not necessarily identified as having a disability but they're not thriving in our programs. So as we look at the number of students that we have in Boseis, there are quite a few that are going to um like an alternative high school type setting in Boseies or they they've avoided school and now they're going for their GED. And
129so it is something that the district has looked into before and we are going to look into again whether it might make sense for us to consider some kind of an alternative high school program of sorts. Um we have something called the responsive support program which is the we or otherwise known as RSP. Um but it's really quite small and we we have a small handful of students that can come there for a few weeks reaclimate. Maybe they're coming down from a hospitalization um and then they start to gradually go back to their classes. Uh or vice versa. Sometimes we try RSP before they go out to a program like an intensive day treatment program. Um but I think we have a bigger group of children that could use this level of support. So it's
130something that we're exploring uh for the future. And then you know we're doing what we can working with the wellness committee to support our faculty and staff so that they can also support our the healthy environment for our students. So I just want to circle back to the equity panel. Um, it was extremely impressive to hear the students talk about their experiences and to be able to have to put, you know, to have a voice and um, it was just so impressive. I couldn't stop smiling, but also, you know, it it hits you in the heart when you hear that some of them have struggled with feeling connected and feeling like there's somebody that they can talk to. And so, we have people that our students can talk to. we just have to do um
131perhaps a better job at connecting them because you know we have there there's caring people in the buildings. We just want to make sure that every student feels like they have someone. Um one of the considerations coming from that equity panel is um going back to mental health uh first aid training for students. So that is an idea that we're working with the high school with. Um I'm working with Mr. Or or um with the high school principal on the possibility of bringing in mental health first aid training. So it could be something like freshman year all students get mental health first aid training perhaps to through their health classes um because that was something that students asked for specifically was more education on mental health. So any final questions? Maria >> I just back
132two slides so not this most recent one we we spoke about the prek. But then the next bullet about the community based programs, the I guess what I'm hearing is we also are going to be looking at space as a premium in our district. If we're looking at incoming kindergarteners that have needs for class space, >> Yeah. And then there's the UPK kids who also, you know, that we would like to bring them in and >> also space. >> We Yes. So we have, if we have space in an elementary school, we have probably uh two different programs, although they can be combined in some ways, uh uh that we would prioritize for utilizing that space for. >> Yeah. prek and then the need for additional special classes. >> But if I may add to
133your point, if we can bring in more universal prek into our buildings, whether it's run by an agency or whether we ultimately run some preks ourselves, it will benefit again our students with disabilities because right now if a student needs special programming, they have to go out to some program centerbased place. And if we have our own programs, we could potentially apply to become a 4410, which would enable us to have some special education services, more special education services with within the building. Um, still through the county, but um, I ultimately think it will help with our students entrance into preschool to kindergarten and really kind of give them a boost in their journey. And and it gives them exposure to typical children. It gives them exposure to peers that don't have a disability. And
134we know that that ends up being good for all the students. >> Well, right. Because if you're center based, you probably aren't accessing, >> right? It's and and that was another area that came up um in this in the reporting. >> Yes, definite benefit definite benefit. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And I'll work on some uh clarity on on some of the numbers for you. >> Yeah. Yeah. And if I could just pause there for a second, Marian, because I want to make sure >> certainly >> we usually have a little space between meetings, but we don't between now and next meeting. And it's the board's feedback is is helpful in ensuring that you have uh the information that you need to make informed decisions around the recommendations that we're going to
135make over the next couple of weeks. So, uh, so please, by all means, if there's specific things that, uh, you feel you'd like to see, um, not just from the PPS and special ed budget, but also an anticipation of a, um, Hillary providing a staffing overview or John providing more of a educational planning and programming overview, uh, or Mike with technology, please, please let us know. Um, and then we'll obviously follow up if it comes up during the meeting. The two things that I had noted for three for this evening, I just want to make sure I have it right because we'll seek to get this to you by next Tuesday is how much staffing do we have designated as special ed and related service in our general budget lines, not what we highlighted this
136evening, but on Kevin's feedback that we have a general budget line around staffing or personnel. And you want us to show you well generally how much is that? I guess yes if it's if it's reasonably available like if it's if it's um I don't really want enormous resources spent at it. Right. >> No, I appreciate that. Right. >> Um and then note the slide 13 we have to provide the 25 26 u uh figure. Uh, and then [sighs] probably what we would be in the best position to do is show you the allocation of staff in each building under special ed and PPS. And then we do have in the budget, Kevin, if I'm not mistaken, because I was looking at it today, uh, a school by school salary line, right? So you could look
137at the staffing by building and then look at the staff the salary line and pretty much be in a position to discern okay we have 10 staff designated as an example in PPS uh for Arthur May school just pulling one out of the hat it's probably a little more than that and the salary being what it is and you'll the balance of that is general ed when it's not in PPS staffing >> okay right and then maybe if we're looking at adding two additional kindergarten class, we need to know about the related service costs of those >> space and related service. >> Yeah, I think we're we're wary of there's so much information related to to budget of not having it become information overload for the board. Uh but at the same time, we have
138it and we want you to have accurate information. >> Well, more the idea that you're that it's out there. Yeah. >> I as far as a specific number, I'm more interested knowing that all those areas are covered, >> you know, and as the acuity of the students who are inhouse are increasing, maybe we are seeing, we haven't really track those kind of things over time. If we're if we're seeing an increase in staff related to the needs increasing, right, that we can kind of explain that because, you know, part of our our foundation aid being at 1%, so we have decreasing enrollment in a time of what appears to be increasing needs. Correct. Right. And another thing that I don't really want to get into in great need, but I would I would actually like
139to understand, you know, um like the the FAPE 22, right? It, you know, we don't need to do a lot of work on that now, but it's interesting if we're talking to legislators just be able to say you need to know that this is what this cost us. We're, you know, we're not >> whining about it. We're happy to help our kids, but there's a cost, but but there's a significant cost to it, and there needs to maybe be an understanding of some of that. you you know and I think the more we come with specific examples to talk to people about um where unfunded mandates hit us you know um I think that that's powerful >> yeah you're in a better position to advocate in your role so I know we're the thread of
140the conversation we come in and out of over the course of the year as Regina noted where Regina went behind me now [laughter] uh that um she highlighted a few things with her team back in December right now. We come back into some of those on a budget lens in February. Uh we'll follow up next week. We may not come back into a conversation around it until the end of the year or even next year. So, uh we're doing our best just to try to hold the thread on some of the on some of these conversations that we come in and out of over the course of the year just to ensure that the board's well positioned to understand the large factors that are influencing whether it be budget or advocacy or or any other
141shifts that we're making. So, >> and also where where we have choices and where we really don't. >> We don't. Yep. So, so we'll work on that. No, thank you for your feedback. That's helpful. >> And so, it doesn't need to be a specific thing. It's just to to help us move towards an understanding of those areas. Got it. You know, more than a specific. >> Thank you. >> Oh, can I please get a motion to extend the meeting to uh 9:40? >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. >> Thank you. >> We've intend to do that in a while. >> Um >> Okay. Yes. Sorry, Donna. Yeah. Um, I just I have to say something difficult because I think we're we're seeing like you're
142pointing out areas of need, things we have to do um because of our students and these unfunded mandates. And I I'm just I'm struck by um you know the increase in say out of district expenses for some of our students or it's expensive and it's dramatically increased. Well, think about our residents. Has your salary increased 16% this year? You know, my salary hasn't increased 16%. And I think I think it's going to be I think some tough decisions are going to be made and I I think, you know, um starting with 3.5% the max of our tax levy is it's too high. You know, we we that's just we can't continue like we had years of this. We had five, six, seven, eight% increases, double digits. So, I think we need to really respect that.
143um you know our community our community is expecting a couple percent you know a couple percent increase and we need to not um you know overburden them um so it's it's just going to be difficult we have you know to the respect and see what see what we're facing um so I just think difficult decisions are going to have to be made and I >> I hear you I think that there there will be difficult decisions in all fairness until last year we did keep it at 2% even when our levy could go higher for a number of years and in fact we gave million Kevin has a lovely little spreadsheet that shows us the number of dollars we left on the table for our community that we could have taken with our levy if
144we had levied to the the max that we could then we didn't and it it it is getting you're exactly right it's getting to the point of very difficult conversations and very difficult decisions so I guess my suggestion is that we move forward slowly and see the nature of those decisions before we decide if we can support a 3.5 or if we want to go down to a two or if we want to go down to a zero. I mean, I think um we need to see what those what those moments are. At least I do. I because I really haven't even heard from Dr. Bante what he's proposing and how it's going to all come together. Um, and our job is to steward the district into the, you know, financially, you know, into the
145financial future like in a in a healthy way as much as we can. Um, and certainly we're under pressure from I think that's, you know, part of this presentation is the pressures that we're under that are out of our control in to some extent and to and to a large extent to a very large extent. So, um, you know, that's what I would just request. >> I think I think what we'll see too, Donna, over time as this continues to unfold is what specifically is going to be impacted. That's always helpful in the discernment process. Um, we need to get through the staffing thing. That's a that's a big piece. Um, we need to hear about DHICK and what their final um, costs are. And then I think um, what we'll hear from Phil and
146Kevin is what what exactly we're we're talking about having to um, deal with in terms of programmatic things possibly. And the tax Um because I I I hear what you're saying. I think that our taxpayers need to know that we have turned over every stone to try to do what's best for the students of this district um before we present it to them in the final form. And and I I I do respect the fact that Phil said that he just put that on there for illustration purposes at the moment. There have been no decisions made. But because the because that gap number is so big like I guess to basically illustrate that even with that we don't come to closing the gap. I think there's still they still have a couple of cards to
147play you know that are easy to play but I think that there's some cards that are that but I don't think they've got all the cards. Do you know what I'm saying? And that's what we we need to find out what happens at that point. So, >> yeah, that's accurate. And I just to note because I appreciate Donna's um uh comment that I anticipate presenting a a recommended budget to you on March 10th. I might need to March 17th, just talking with our team on that. But again, that's to give you time uh to continue to discuss and deliberate. You don't adopt the budget until April. Uh so there there's still a lot of time to engage in a dialogue uh around uh what I'm recommending uh and then or our team is recommending and
148then what we resolve to put before the community in April. Uh but I certainly want by early March to mid-March to have a pretty good representation to you of what that budget reflects um what's included, what's not, what the potential impact is. So you have plenty of time to deliberate, think it over, and consider uh what other direction you may want to pro provide back to the administration to make an adjustment. Um so I I do say I I don't decide the levy um that we put before the community, the the board does. Uh so I reflected something to you today at the levy limit, but ultimately the bo I take the direction from the board on what to develop. I'll give you a recommendation. And obviously Kevin and I, you know, went through that
149with the board and we had a healthy dialogue last year, but ultimately we'll work with the levy that the board can support. Um, I just think, uh, it's going there's going to be more pressure this year uh than there was last there was pressure last year. There's going to be more pressure this year. >> Thank you all. Look forward to further discussions. Um, did anybody want to add anything else to this portion of the evening or are we comfortable? Okay. Um, okay. Moving on to uh policy. Um, we have uh some final readings. Can I please get a motion on the second and final reading for the revisions of the policies listed? >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? I'll just say thank you to the work of our policy committee banging
150it out this year. Really appreciate it. All those in favor? I opposed abstension. Motion passes. Um second and final reading without revisions, can I please get a motion? >> Thank you. Um again, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. Uh the new business section of our agenda lists several items for individual resolution approval. Documentation concerning these items have been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. Item B, classified administrative lead. May I please get a motion? >> Thank you. Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I >> opposed. Abstensions. Motion passes. Item C, classified administrative leave. Please have a motion. >> So moved. >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. Um any discussion? Seeing none, all those in
151favor? >> I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. SMA S. Oh my goodness. CSEA contract. That was a little tricky. Um can I please get a motion? >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. Um any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed abstension. Motion passes. SM OA AESA contract. May I please get a motion? >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? I opposed abstension. Motion passes. Item F, settlement agreement. May I please get a motion? >> Thank you. >> Second. >> Thank you. Um, any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? >> I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. That brings us to our business consent agenda. Our consent section of the agenda lists several items for approval by a single motion. Documentation concerning these items have
152been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review. May I please get a motion on the consent agenda? >> Thank you. Second. >> Thank you. Any discussion or comment? Seeing none. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstension. Motion passes. All right. Zooming along to page um I think we're all the way to page 25. Brings us to future discussion items. We don't have any in our docket at the moment. Does anybody have any they'd like to propose tonight? Okay, moving on. Um Mrs. Adita, do we have anyone for the second portion of public comment for non-aggenda items? >> We do not have anybody. >> Okay, thank you. That moves us on to committee reports. Um, first up, advocacy. >> Um, no report, just um, another piece of the puzzle
153that we're going to hear weighed in on at the beginning of March is the one house budgets from our legislators to see if they're going to propose anything different. than what the governor has laid out. Sometimes there is joy there a little bit. So let's hope for that. Um but yeah, that's that's it. >> Okay. >> For advocacy. >> Thank you. Um audit >> nothing at this time. >> Okay. Thank you. Um Kathy, >> I did speak to Jeff about general topic for the next Cathy meeting. He was agreeable with that, but we have not set a date or time. So, I'm sure at next week's meeting we'll do so. >> Great. Thank you. Um, policy, Linda's not here, but we'll thank them for their great and ongoing work. Anybody else want to make I
154don't think there's >> we have a meeting in a few weeks. >> Yeah. >> Back at it. >> Okay. Um, organization reports. Um, we have we have a number of board members out because they thought they had a nice we rarely get a week we rarely get a week off like in the middle of a month. So everybody like booked their calendars. So um uh Arlington Education Foundation Eileen's not here. Do you have anything on that? >> Uh just they're working on the the 5K. Okay. >> Um and that is going to be on May 2nd. >> Okay, great. >> And the scholarship breakfast applications are out uh or I'm sorry, the portal is now open because you can do so electronically now for kids who are interested in applying to the Ed Foundation scholarships.
155It's always very That's a great event, too. >> It is. >> Um Duchess County School Boards post update. >> Um Duchess County School Boards met on February 5th, right? We have not met since then, right? So that's that's appropriate thing to say. Um the discussion item were was uh two teachers from Wingers um that do project based learning with in their district. their in-house uh teachers that are working throughout the district. Um so that was that was an interesting um presentation. Bosey's um was a lot of dates pretty much from um from Jodie. Uh they have two open seats on their board coming up. Um so they are going to be looking for nominees that need to be brought forth by March 20th. The um only caveat is that it has to be uh the
156people that come forward have to be from districts not already represented on the posts board of which Arlington is one. >> We had Ed >> for so many years. We did. So if any of our board members are looking for a little bit more fun in their life and are available, Boseies is happy to hear from them by March 20th. Um >> and you can also just be a a citizen that is interested in running. You don't need to be on the board, but you could you can be on both boards if you'd like >> for more more fun. >> Yes. >> Um their annual meeting is April 8th. Um and They are Boseies Duchess County Boseies is partnering partnering part partnering is that a word sounds close enough >> with Questar Boseis New York
157State Ed and the Hudson Valley Community College uh in April for um an event on PEK and early college access. So that was it for them really. It was it were there were dates and then the next um Duchess County School Board meeting is Thursday, March 5th via Zoom. Um they're they were tossing around a couple possible topics and I don't think that's been nailed down, but Kelly will certainly let us know before March 5th. >> That's true. Thank you. >> That's the end of that. >> Thank you very much. Um PTA, PTSA council, I caught the last seven minutes. Um I I knew I had to join late but I didn't know it would be a short meeting so I caught very little of it. Is is um I don't know if you have
158anything you want to share from that. >> It's become a very efficient meeting. It has become Miss Blake uh >> which we respect deeply. >> Absolutely. So yeah if you're late you might miss it. That's it. Turns out I went I really I I tried very hard to get there earlier than that. But um it's always great to hear what the units are doing. And um when is the Did Did I When's the MST? That's already passed. It was the last Saturday. This >> No, it hasn't. >> It's coming up, isn't it? It's in February, isn't it? >> It's the end. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, it's got to be >> February 27th. >> 28th. It's got to be Saturday, right? >> It's usually Saturday. >> 28th. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great event. >> Thank you.
159We'll let you give a report. Um, uh, district health and safety, I don't know if you want to give >> We just met this week. Uh, and part of our process is to go through some of the, uh, more critical incidents that have occurred in the school since we last met. So, we reviewed, I think, three different, uh, matters as a team and then talked about a range of other health and safety items that have have popped up. primary focus was also reviewing uh our response to DEA's law which requires u a certain level of readiness for responding to a cardiac emergency, right? >> Uh so hopefully we'll note new signage uh in our schools. Uh we're relocating our AE so they're consistently located in each building. Uh god forbid again there be a cardiac
160emergency where people know they're they're in the lobby area and there's another one in the main hallway. Um, but our signage is also going to go up related to that as well. And there's various training components that we've also instituted for our staff and we'll be offering more opportunities for CPR um this summer. So, uh we're doing quite a bit uh in relation to that and thanks to Regina uh as well as Sean Lewis who's our uh representative for Alteras that works with us. they've really been collaborating with the nurses at each of our schools to increase our our readiness posture uh for responding to a cardiac emergency. Um so yeah, plenty uh went on and was discussed at the meeting, but I'll highlight that. >> Okay, thank you very much. Um district equity, uh
161Eileen's not here. She's our rep on that committee. I will say that many of us went to the student equity panel at the high school. Um, I've many of us have gone for many years. I thought it was very well organized this year. I really liked the fact that the students got to choose which um which questions they answered and they were able to prepare ahead of time. It just it just was and um so they're they're they had very um personal reflections um on any of the topics. I I just uh it's always a terrific event, but I I particularly enjoyed it this year. >> Yeah. And I was just going to add I think what I found so heartening and so magnificent. Um and Mia, nothing against our high school humans because I
162think as we as you age, you know, you become more um comfortable stating your opinions. The middle school kids blew me away that they would sit in a panel like that with their older hears and speak so eloquently and with, you know, true feeling and and oomph behind it. Um, I just found that to be so magnificent. And the fact, as um, Regina mentioned during her presentation, too. We need to listen to the kids. I mean, you know, just all of the kids because they have some very concrete suggestions for us as the adults. that would help them in their life in our space. And it's the fact that they're willing to share that with us in such a a wonderful way. Um I'm glad to hear that, you know, already some of their suggestions
163are being thought worthy of possibly moving forward. So kudos to everyone involved in that event. So that brings us on to superintendent's closing remarks. >> Nothing further remark upon. >> Okay. Uh and that was kind of my Does anybody else have any board reflections? I was going to talk about that in both. >> No, that was me too. I got carried away. >> Um >> Donna has something. >> Donna. Yeah. So I have two things. So I wanted to say so my company came as an exhibitor to the skilled trades fair and I saw me and Bill and uh there um Eileen was there um and from our perspective we thought it was very well organized um very helpful. So it was funny because we had never been to one of these kind of events
164at at a high school Serena came by. It was nice to meet her and talk with her and she said she's been doing this in Wingers for a while and I was we weren't even aware of it. We've been we've been at Wingers for 30 years, >> you know. I [laughter] had no idea. Well, not Wers for 30 years, only 15 in whoers, but um but I but my um our president so we we brought our uh sort of our displays that we might bring to a trade show because that's kind of what we had these kind of big banners and uh our president like liked the fair so much. He really just enjoyed interacting with students. We don't typically hire, you know, students that young in our in our company, but you know, you're
165building for the future and that's why we we went there. And he was so impressed by the students and the experience. He said, "You get back, we got to work on some new banner, so we go next year, we've got better better information for this type of an event, you know, because we're not like, you know, when we go to a trade show, you're presenting your products, not presenting, you know, for the skills you're trying to trying to look for for your company." So, it was was really enjoyable for us. Um and secondly, I um uh we were invited board members were invited to the at LMS the FCCLA culinary competition. So um Brian was there with me and Eileen was there as well as uh summer faculty for the home and careers uh faculty
166were there. So we had nine judges. We judged three teams of students. And um I would say my chicken was not just oh didn't kill me, but it was delicious. It was really good. So, we had chicken picata, green beans, and orzo. And it was really good. And I I was just impressed by these these these young were sixth and seventh grade that they prepared an entire meal like that. You know, I was still pouring cornflakes and I think in in sixth grade. So, I was really impressed. Uh, Miss Romano organized that and I we thanked her that. appreciate the work that she done um as a as the organizer and the the adviser of that that group and she said the students will earn recognition based on their score. We've graded them at the
167state conference in March. >> So look forward to hearing hearing about how they how they fared there. But we we thought we were all really impressed. >> Thank you. Any other board reflections tonight? Seeing none, can I please get a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. Thank you. >> Thank you. [laughter] >> No discussion needed. All those in favor? I >> opposed. Obsession. Closing.