ACSD Board of Education Meeting 2/25/25

001good evening can we please all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you Mrs Flynn can you please call the RO here Linda gain here Jeff sopia B Hollis Donna Logan here Maran here here thank you the reading of our 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 um I'd like to get a motion for the approval of the agenda I'm going to make a very small change to the agenda we're not adding or deleting anything but under reports and discussions we're going to move Item B budget presentation by Dr benante and Kevin down to the end of that section so we can hear all the other budget presentations first before we discuss you know where we are

002with the budget now so I so with with that revision can I get a thanks so thanks um any discussion hearing none all those in favor I I opposed extenstions motion passes thank you um does anyone have any correspondence they want to share tonight seeing none um moving on to the board president remarks I just want to briefly say thank you so much to the Pleasant Valley Community for the warm reception and the goodies on the back table I really appreciate it it'll keep us going and thank you to everyone who commentated this earlier start of the meeting so that hopefully we can have a rich discussion and get out of here at a reasonable hour so did that sound good so thank you um and I'll move it on to you CH because I

003think we're all anticipating a long meeting and and now we won't have anything to say that we'll we'll see how that goes no thank you Mrs Conrad for for hosting us this evening and it's great to see so many members of the tra Road staff I feel like it's on a I'm on my home turf here uh living right up the road and uh with both the kids coming through the school so we're looking forward to your report we'll get to that in just one moment I did want to give a note of thanks to Mrs Borland who I think it was a former Traver West Road uh um PTA member who ran our district science fair over the course of this last weekend and that was something that we weren't sure if it was

004going to get off the ground this year but uh she pulled it together with a a host of volunteers and we had about 130 students participating in the science fair last uh Saturday at Arlington High School uh a couple other exhibits that were on display and it was a great uh opportunity to see some of our students exploring topics of their interest um areas of inquiry that they were very passionate about uh how they applied the scientific method to some of the areas of their own uh research uh there was a judged portion of the science fair and a non- judged portion of the science fair which fit really well and I think will serve as a good base for us moving forward as uh we look forward to that continuing to grow so thank

005you to Mrs Borland and the other members of the community that supported that effort along with Mr orc member of his team I know who were helpful uh behind the scenes uh with that I did want to ask Mr Orchid to come forward we did have one uh employee that we wanted to be sure to recognize this evening and we structured this in a certain way because we knew if we had designated this uh you know as just for the employee he likely would not have attended because he wants no recognition so uh but he had to be here tonight so with that I'll being cryptic I'll turn it over to John to uh lead the recognition thank you Dr bante Mr cring could you bring me at podium yes this won't hurt a bit

006sorry sorry not sorry um Mr we have a presentation certificate here I'd like to just read it to the onto the record in recognition of your outstanding leadership and dedication to the student athletes of the Arlington Central School District we proudly present the certificate in honor of your achievement as the athletic director of the year for section one Athletics your commitment to fostering a culture of Excellence sportsmanship and growth has made a lasting impact on our school community and Beyond through your vision and dedication you have strengthened athletic programs supported coaches and provided student athletes with opportunities to excel both on and off the field this is well-deserved recognition as a testament to your passion hard work and unwavering commitment to student athletes thank you so much Mr crank for everything you too just appreciate

007it I owe yeah but we also want to just stop for a quick picture right that's okay we promised Melissa we'd take a picture and we had another oh oh that's nice mind if we take one quick recess for pause second yeah go take a picture that's great where would you like thank you the the background work is that Mr cring had to be here because uh he had a budget presentation to provide this evening um or at least part of one so that's where we knew we knew we would get him for this uh one thing I just would like to add is that Arlington has uh an incredibly Rich history within its athletics department and has really um over time been uh is revered for the fact that we've had such steady Athletics

008leadership over the years uh starting with Fritz Jordan who's you know if you go to Arlington High School you'll see uh many uh symbols of of of Mr Jordan uh throughout the hallways in Arlington and going out to the athletic fields uh great leadership and the years that followed and uh Mike has continued that tradition he is a quiet leader within Athletics throughout section one and to be named uh the athletic director of the year there's I believe over 80 if not 90 uh schools that are represented in uh section one and I have uh no problem saying that we have one one of if not the best athletic director not just in section one but in New York state and Mike has done that uh with very little ego uh as he acknowledged that

009end he supports uh our faculty and staff that are part of the Athletics program who provide just an outstanding experience for our kids each day uh well over a thousand students participate in our Athletics programs at Arlington High School I think when you think about that for a second over a thousand I mean there's school districts that don't have that many students in it uh and to think that that many students uh participate in our programs I think is quite remarkable and it goes off uh very well so thank you again Mike and congratulations to you mark you wanted to say something yeah I uh had the pleasure of working as a section one umpire back in the day and one of the things that I I'd like to mention about Mike is he's built

010a culture of good sportsmanship uh it's not hoped for it's expected right and and that's something that you can't buy uh he's he's done a fantastic job with all the athletic programs and this is a you know just a small sign of uh gratitude of all the work that he's done absolutely congratulations Mike all right that concludes my remarks thank you very much okay this brings us to the first portion of public comment Mrs Mrs Flynn do we have anyone okay moving along um reports and discussions tor bling this way I'm going to see if we can get this to work good evening we are thrilled to have the Board of Education central office Traver faculty and staff and community members with us tonight we're excited to offer you a sneak peek Into the Heart

011of Traver showcasing a dedication that goes into supporting our children staff and families joining me this evening is Kim van vores one of our wonderful first grade teachers and my administrative intern for the school year change is essential for progress is one of our Arlington core values that we are focusing on for the school year embracing change for growth and success change is not just inevitable it's essential for progress in a in a learning community workplace or personal Journey growth can only happen when we are willing to adapt evolve and improve staying the same means standing still and in an everchanging World standing still ultimately means that we're falling behind progress requires us to challenge old ways of thinking Embrace new ideas and continuously seek better ways to achieve our goals this applies to education

012where schools must innovate to meet students needs as well as to individuals striving for personal and professional development through change though change can be uncomfortable and even difficult at times it brings opportunities for learning Discovery and Improvement by seeing change as a necessary and positive force we open ourselves up to new possibilities and greater success we will take you through our story of change around plc's and how we are starting to see direct connections to our students very early in the year opening conference days we did an activity that is actually done with the the cadets of the Coast Guard and we did this activity to show the importance as working as a whole versus an individual collective intelligence collective intelligence refers to a group or a team's combined capacity and capability to perform a

013wide variety of tasks and solve diverse problems collective intelligence has been found to be consistently predictive of future performance of groups and teams in this shipwreck shipwreck activity which is a collaborative survival exercise where participants imagine being stranded after a shipwreck and must prioritize a li list of survival items working individually first and then as a team they discuss debate and rank the items based on their importance for survival uh Mr toror already did this earlier in the evening this activity enhances a teamwork communication critical thinking and problem solving skills while encouraging participants to justify their choices and reach consensus it also highlights the importance of decision- making under pressure when actual Cadets did this exercise and it's studied um many years their Collective list is closer to the real list than when the were

014than when they work alone so 81% of the time this is done the collective is closer to the actual result or the answers when then done alone we contined to learn the why of how groups and individuals work independently and together and how we can improve our and so our students would improve on this slide we have arguably two of the best athletes in their respective Sports except one of them achieved their ultimate goals of winning Championship status much quicker when Tiger Woods steps onto a golf course for a tournament he may be surrounded by other players but he competes as an individual he's part of a professional Community but his success isn't dependent on anyone else's performance no matter how well poorly the other golfers play Tiger's ability to win rests solely on his

015own skill and execution Michael Jordan on the other hand was in a completely different situation despite being just as talented in basketball as Tiger Woods was in golf Jordan could achieve his ultimate goal on his own couldn't couldn't achieve it on his own basketball is a team sport meaning his success depended not just on his own Brilliance but on the ability of his entire team to come together and perform at a high level now he's happens to be one of my favorite athletes is often regarded as the greatest basketball player in NBA history in 88 he achieved something unprecedented he was named the League's um MVP top scorer best offensive and Def defensive player of the year making him dominant on both ends of the court yet with his extraordinary Talent he didn't achieve his

016uh ultimate goal that year or for any of the following five years of winning a championship title why it wasn't that he didn't have the lack of skill or determination Jordan was as gifted in basketball as Tiger Woods was in golf but there was one key difference Jordan Jordan was part of a team while Woods competed individually no matter how exceptional Jordan was success and basketball required the entire team to come together until that happened his goals remained Out Of Reach the lesson here that we talked about a lot as a group in the beginning of the year is that the individual Brilliance alone isn't enough whether in sports school or Life True success depends on teamwork and Collective effort so we continued we were doing this over probably three or four meetings uh because

017we took it super seriously and we really wanted to figure out how we could all work together and then Al in their grade level teams uh we continued with a commitment to growth and achievement and we focused um a little bit more and I'll give you some history of the PLC and then I'll explain another activity that we did to bring us one step closer so uh as we're you've heard throughout the year and over the years PLC it's a thriving Learning Community where commitment to every student's growth and success is Paramount in these plcs Educators collaborate to ensure all students achieve at high level shaping the organization's Visions decisions and actions plcs define clear goals track student progress and provide targeted support or enrichment based on individ individual needs they prioritize continuous professional growth

018embedding Collaborative Learning into daily practice unlike traditional models focused on teaching plc's are emphasiz learn emphasize learning at the as the ultimate goal ensuring that our students move gain Lo um knowledge and get to their end role of success collaboration represents a systematic process in which teachers work together interdependently in order to impact their classroom practice in ways that will lead to better results for their students team and school the collective inquiry enables team members to develop new skills and cap capabilities that turn into new experiences and awareness so the next activity we did is a compass point activity learning about who we were as individuals and what we needed to be successful on a team so this is similar to a Myers Briggs personality inventory and this exercise uses a set of preferences which

019relate not to the individual not only to the individual but the group behaviors in order to help us understand what it looks like to work as a group so I'll just do two read two of the questions one of them was what are the limitations of your own style so when you're in a group what what limits you in a group and what style do you find most difficult to work with and why those two questions alone uh allowed us to have some really rich discussions about who we are as individuals and what we might do to impact other members of our team this this Compass activity guided us to our final step identifying who we are and what we need to be effective team members within high functioning teams each PLC developed its own

020set of norms tailored to their needs so each PLC that we have in the building does not have the same set of norms these Norms Define how we collaborate hold each other accountable and ultimately ensure we do our best work for our students so there's an example up there that you can't read but I'll read two two example Norms are we will be active listeners and open minded we will use positive solution forward language with each other okay so I'll just take you through um what each grade level has been doing um in our PLC work after we've done all of this Norm setting and um laid all the foundational work so each grade level has implemented changing changes during our intervention and enrichment block we're no longer implementing our interventions in silos and we're

021now working together as a team to improve student outcomes kindergarten began by looking at their I ready computation scores and determine that addition and subtraction would be their focus they chose an essential standard supporting their learning outcome and created a 15-day plan unit as a team they created assessments interventions and enrichment opportunities for their students and then from the data they were able to create student groups um based upon certain targets to make sure that they were giving their students exactly what they needed to get them to Mastery of the standard first grade selected the standard that also addressed addition and subtraction we created a proficiency Scale based upon the standard and identified learning targets so there's a small picture up on the slide of a learning ladder and that's where we broke the standards

022apart to make sure that we were enriching students who had met the standard and we were creating some targets for students who were just approaching and then students who needed a little bit more work to get there uh we gave a common formative assessment to determine the groupings um and then we made a plan to share students between all of our classes so we did that for for one cycle um and then when we came back together um well we gave a CFA and then came back together and we were able to collect some data to really show that this work that we're doing together um has been effective on student outcomes so when we gave our preassessment out of our student population 49% of students had showed that they were able to add and

023subtract to 10 with accuracy and then after only one PLC cycle where we were sharing students um and teaching groups of students based on learning targets that lifted to 78% so now with the remaining 22% that haven't achieved Mastery of that portion of the standard yet we've regrouped the students and then for students who are already enriched um or students that are now meeting the standards the teachers work together and we created new interventions and new teaching to address um new goals or we're going to just continue um teaching new activities to get them to standard Master but we were pretty excited with the amount of growth that they need and the second grade team um they picked a different Focus their focus was addition and no excuse me their I'm so their focus was

024uh comprehension La Focus they looked at their data from the Arlington uh early literacy behaviors um p and Vell I ready and they determined that from that comprehension Focus that their um target areas would be re uh retell and sequenced and that's where they have put their efforts into um intervening now because those were the groups of students that really showed the greatest needs um to be able to to drive um the comprehension goal that they eventually want to get to and then they are going to reassess those students again um and then we'll do kind of like the same thing that first grade did where they're going to look at the data again make new groups again make new learning targets again and just really keep those students moving um to get to Mastery

025of the stand standard that they identified was essential for okay so first grade um really I I can speak to that because I'm part of that team um just to back up a little bit though the administrators and the teacher leaders um all year long since last August at least with what I've been a part of um we've been attending professional development around PLC through Solutions trade so one of our PD questions by Maria neelon was about the 15-day challenge so the 15-day challenge it's a framework to ensure that all the students are mastering the standards our Focus really in the building um our grade levels plc's has been on learning together um collaborating with one another and really focusing on results um in the past we used to look at these four critical questions

026in isolation so we might spend a year on one question then we might spend a year on another question you Mak been a year going with preventions this framework allows them um to all be built in into a collective inquiry cycle so we've been able to just in a short amount of time really work our way through that whole cycle um and it's also allowed us to really Target students that need specific interventions um or enrichment and now this is the part that I wanted to speak to so that that I can speak too so in for even though kindergarten and second grade also are doing a 15- day um SE challenge first grade um we've gone through many of the steps and there's a two charts right behind you um the one with the

027green sticky notes is the kindergarten chart the one um with the pink and orange and yellow sticky notes is the first grade chart so we start out where we picked a unit um we Unit Seven coming up in the late spring and identifi those six standards that are on the top that are essential standards that we creaders need to know by the time they exit and go to second grade so we unpack each one of those standards into learning targets um we prioritize them and then in our most recent meeting we worked on making common form of Assessments so each one of the um learning targets has an assessment so we're not leaning to the very end of the te change just based onative assessment we've now embedded um we very purposeful common formative assessments

028to really be able to see where our students are and then uh the difference of how our IE block is operating now once we're teaching that unit when we give a common formative assessment and we identify a student that either needs intervention or enrichment that's what our focus is going to be during that I block time so they're going to be getting that work while we're within the unit in the hopes that by the time want students are at Master what we looking for so we are continuing to check in with our Learners and our adults to make sure that um we are doing our job so we asked them informally what they thought um about the cycle um typically the IE Block it's an intervention in enrichment block where um Kim was talking a

029little bit about how switching students meaning that teachers were teaching specific interventions to students that needed um where they were struggling so when we ask the kids um a couple I'll just read a couple um Liam shared I like that some of my some of the people are my friends and then I get to know other friends because they're switching it is fun because the math is challenging um it is fun I learned about plus and minus minus it's not confusing anymore and then I like to meet new friends retelling is fun uh and just in the short time that we're really doing this and putting a lot of effort into it even the connections with the adults and because typically they're in grade level wings uh the adults and the students of that are

030not in their classroom all day long is also a nice added benefit and then we asked some of our staff uh what they're saying about PLC this year uh we have a grade level team that using our PLC to analyze data to develop strategy grp groups ensures that the instruction is tailored to student needs it reinforces skills provides enrichment and offers support to all students and then one of our uh K team members said looking at the standards this year during PLC has allowed us to align our teaching more closely as a grade level in closing change is not just inevitable it's essential for growth and progress as Educators embracing change is key to ensuring our Student Success by adapting to new ideas and strategies we create learning EnV environments that meet the evolving needs

031of our students change CH challenges us to reflect improve and innovate ultimately shaping a future where students have the opportunity to thrive when we commit to continuous growth we Empower not only ourselves but also the students we serve so we are looking forward to move um with confidence embracing change as a catalyst for success so we appreciate you listening to our presentation and we were wondering if you have any questions that Kim's going to answer them all thank you does anybody thank you very much for that very good presentation does anyone have any questions Eileen and Mark um great work I mean it looks like you're really making a lot of progress um you did a lot of foundational work before you even went into the nuts and bolts piece did that come from the

032Consultants was that from you I think initially all of us that went to training this this summer administrative wise we talked a lot about what our opening presentations would look like we did a lot of collaboration of what we want them to look like but then I think uh ultimately it depended on what the building needed so as a building in the beginning the foundational work we went together and we went slow to go fast ultimately and then um where we are now we might not all be at the same level as at the 15-day challenge but we're all getting there because there's unique needs um at every grade level so yeah so we kind of started all together and now we're plugging along great thank you uh Mark bandana okay uh you talked about

033the learning ladder what uh defines success on the learning ladder for the individual and then for the group um well as far as the learning ladder if you if you think of like the the the middle of the learning lad the way that we used it that would be Mastery at the standard um the students that were were so that would be the the group success as far as individual success um I mean that that begins at that middle rung and then it's there there students who who have already achieved that um they're they're being enriched um and then even the students who to um our our students who have the the greatest need as far as where their knowledge is in relation to standards Mastery um they're they're still they're they're showing individual success

034each time they're moving off wrong with that ladder what I'm kind of more asking about is what is what is the Mastery is it a percentage for life for example um to get to that middle rung to get to the Mastery you're saying the mastery the Middle Run it's it's just a Mastery that's the New York state standard okay yeah we want we want to see 100% of okay thank you Donna just U excuse me just a basic question is this PLC structure new this year in the building no it's been it's been in the district for probably 10 plus plus years um every so often we'll we'll get more training on it but this year uh a group of us went uh to Albany in the summer and then we're having trainers that come

035to the buildings or to district office where we have small teams um of admin and teachers on them so we're all getting the same information together uh which is nice that it's kind of you know infiltrating throughout the district so it's definitely been around forever but there's been more pieces that we're taking that are I feel like this year the most that's really pushing pushing the work yeah so it's just sort of like the right a uh move forward in your in your progress and development of the model Marian so the 15-day challenge idea then comes out of solutions tree like that's part of their okay so it's the book the book we met there's the book and we able to meet with the present she gave us um she I don't know we were

036there for it was a full it was a full day of training uh and we then we were able to bring it back to the buildings and then trying to share it within each grade levels and that comes 15 days the unit it's a yeah it's not it's not it's a it's unit work okay and sometimes it goes longer than 15 days but that's why so you have to be you have to be flexible about that part okay I think the part that's really interesting and that we that we as administrators try to share with our teams is that that work isn't perfect perfect and that's what we want it shouldn't be perfect it should be fluid it should change something might happen or come up or the grade level of students has a hard

037time with this this particular topic I think it's important to know that this could change every year you know yeah why which is good yeah yeah excellent okay thanks I guess I have a question um kind of piggybacking off of Donna's question um you know we have had plc's for a long time but there's been I think different sort of moments of emphasis or Focus or sort of rejuvenating in some way do you feel like um your your staff feel supported by it now do you feel like they feel like there that it's do you feel like I guess I'm just asking where are we now with that do we feel like it's really yielding what we're looking for it to yield or beginning to look for what we're looking for it to yield it's

038more I would say is would it be fair to say it's more attached to data in the last couple years than it was eight years ago or you know I think it's looking at data differently okay I think we're looking at it differently we did a lot of foundational work about um it's really doing the the work of the adults because if we're not working together then nothing's going to happen for our students so I feel like that work for me made a huge difference and then when I when I would touch base with grade level teams uh I felt like this year staff felt more comfortable pushing back and asking questions and asking the why and we advocating for themselves and well I don't know about this and I felt like our conversations because

039of the safety of the team because of what we created I feel like um has got us to move a little bit better and so you're feeling like what comes out of it is this is a question doesn't sound like one um is um more supportive to our Learners like are we starting to feel like like the work of the adults is more more as we do this work right that it's more and more supportive to what the Learners need what our students need are you I think so I think when we let go of things that are hard for us as adults uh and then we start to just try because there's no I'm not walking around and like checking to see who's switching in classrooms I'm trusting that we're trying to do a

040model like this on behalf of our kids yeah and and it's going to be I mean I think one grade level they had to change something the second day which is totally fine right more of our we're more we're doing this more collectively so we're figuring things things out as we go I think just the support and the understanding that it's going to be messy but I mean in one cycle the in first grade that is that's CRA that's because they're being targeted in interventions like like purposeful for them so I think that the more we do that it'll be a lot easier to we're really just kind of ripping the bandaid off of that a little bit this year just to know that we can do that and then next year we can start

041so much sooner with this thank you you're welcome anybody else have any questions we look around here well thank you very much thank you to the whole staff it's great work thank you hey look look at you so eager we love that yeah we have a lot you know I love to talk into my microphone this will be the STA presentation from Hillary Roberto you go I can make this work so we have three additional presentations two after me um so we're gonna keep on moving and learning tonight so good evening I'm Hillary Roberto assistant superintendent for human resources going to provide we're gonna I'm just to say we're going to pause after each section correct for questions questions absolutely okay yes just so we all know that absolutely um I'm going to provide an

042update to a presentation that you may remember from last year this is meant to serve as a highlevel overview of enrollment and Staffing for several years we've spoken about declining enrollment and the Staffing associated with that so I want you to just take a look I know it's a little hard the audience to see but we we have our there's one behind you too if that's closer great so it might be a little difficult to see the numbers the purple is the high school so that's on top the blue is the Middle School in the middle and the orange at the bottom is the elementary schools the high school so this is taking us from 2012 moving forward 12 years till now essentially and the high school has approximately 845 fewer students than it did

04312 years ago the middle school has approximately 435 between the two fewer students in the elementary school has seen a decrease of approximately students so this is just our high school it's showing our enrollment from 2012 the number you just saw just a little different way of looking at it and those red dots on there uh when it gets to the dotted line this is what our demographer projected our enrollment to be and the red dots are what it actually is you can see the grapher is pretty close to um what we had planned for so it does look we're either relatively stable or maybe we'll have a slight decrease over the next couple of years um but it is uh more stable than it was um so the dots represent the actual number for

044this year of 2,470 students so this is our entire School District this is our in District enrollment so this uh does not include any of our um out of District placements this is our IND District enrollment for the past 12 years we have approximately 1500 fewer students today than we did in 2012 despite this decline in enrollment we have two additional teachers compared to what we had 12 years ago our current enrollment of 7,644 students is about 350 fewer students than we had 5 years ago District wide and it's 16 more teachers than we had in 2020 so we we did pair down our staff in response to our changing enrollment but in the past four to five years we have added multiple positions few positions were cut last year but more adjustments are needed

045to help balance the budget and to be responsive to our changing enrollment needs so as we look at our staffing for 2025 September we need to consider our enrollment and how we adjust our staff for the students we're currently serving not the ones of 12 years ago we have to balance our needs with our wants the specific areas um we are considering as we move into next year in a way that we maintain or expand our academic programming and how we serve the needs of our enl students because of our changing enrollment needs we will have internal staff movement but we anticipate that there will be no layoffs so if you look at these three main areas that we have to consider we have our reductions our additions and our internal offsets that includes our

046displaced teachers and uh other movement that happens so we've worked to adjust the elementary buildings and the Staffing is pretty well matched um with enrollment at this time the main reductions will come from the secondary level this year we're working with the administrative staff at the buildings to find efficiencies and how things are staffed and at this time we're planning for approximately 7 to nine FTE or full-time equivalency so 7 to nine fewer positions as we move into next year we do have some needs in the area of enl and SEC Safety and Security so you'll see that up um there with our one to three approximate additions um in those areas and our internal staff offsets are really just a result of our student need for example one building may lose a section at

047a grade level but another building may need an additional section at a grade level so we just take that and move it to a move it to that new building uh this is typical movement it happens every single year we're looking at our staffing shifts at the existing staff to ensure that our staffing is appropriate for enl and PPS services and that we're offering those services in an equitable manner we do anticipate there could be some movement um to make that happen this typically causes some unrest with our teachers um however our staff is fabulous they are very um willing and able to work with us through this process and they seem to adjust very well after we get all of the pieces to follow in place the next couple of weeks our principles will

048be having conversations with our teachers about those those internal movements and it does take some time for this stuff to be worked out so we're going to spend from now next two weeks to really have those conversations and make sure that that movement happens um so we'll continue to work with the principles um our director of HR and I have been working daily multiple times a day trying to figure it all out and trying to make sure that we're looking at the budget and meeting the needs um that uh our schools have and that we're being responsive to um our budgetary concerns as well and making sure we can still offer that excellent educational experience so are there questions right now about Mar that I can answer yeah just um on this slide with the

049additions the enl Safety and Security the one to is that collectively between the two or in each area no that's all all additions so additions in that okay so you can see it's a plus minus because it is it's a little fluid right now okay um but that's but those numbers are for whatever is listed corre okay thank you other questions I kind of have like a wondering you know I'm looking at your first slide sure not your hello slide but the one with the bar graphs sure if I was looking at the hello slide that would be problem sorry um you know it's just interesting to me you can look at the 12 years but I was kind of looking at the 10 last 10 years right where your Elementary is actually flat right

050and you know my you know this I went to make a calculator I went to get my calculator if you wondering what I was getting my phone for and um so you know I I've got we've got about 550 560 kids per grade now you know it's not even and it's not even everywhere and you know and it so it's interesting to see do we know understand the Dynamics we haven't really seen that creep through it's a little bit creeping through but we have 600 kids per Middle School level and 617 per at the final year right so that either means we're really going to start to see declines in our middle and high school levels or something else happens I mean I know we maybe have you know parochial school kids that join us

051or that sort of thing I just wonder what you know about trying like that uh we we definitely have some perial students who join us um in nth grade U but I would say that bubble not really a bubble the the trend of the smaller class size has gone through the elementaries and when it went through the elementaries um our elementary folks can tell you like we have been we reduced at that point right um it Middle School the last couple years we've tried to pair that down and then the high school that bubble is there our class sizes if we look at 2012 I was the house principal for 2012 I had 850 kids graduating and now we are graduating classes of 600 and we have classes of five at the high school so

052um that bubble is there our staffing those adjustments have not been made at the same way that they were at the elementary school and so we really you know the secondary is where where we're looking for um additional savings with our our staffing again through attrition okay thank you umill you said from 2020 to 2024 we added about 15 additional staff was it at the high school or overall that can you repeat your question these are a little echoey in here if anybody everybody could be just a little closer it's kind of hard so I didn't hear question um so I asked we from 2020 to 2024 we added about 15 additional staff we 20 thank you that's much better to 2024 we added about uh 15 additional staff and my question was was that

053districtwide or just said the secondary no that's districtwide and that included a combination of Faculty so it looked um that was teachers that's when we put um ICT more ICT teachers in uh we did some PPS s staff so that's a a compilation across the district and does that also include like the social workers that we added during that time per okay other questions I have a followup so when you just to clarify for myself and maybe our friends at home so when you say there's classes of five at the high school right I mean obviously that would be a section that is that a teacher would have but then they might have a 35 class like how do how do we balance is that a scheduling issue or sorry no I meant classes of

054500 like an entire sorry a cohort a coh of 500 clarify that I thought you meant sections no we try not to run classes that have five kids in them right right right that's a very expensive model yes no it definitely is um that's an interesting kind of thing to ponder right though because there must have been some adjustment to class sizes in that time period so yes that's worthy of an analysis perhaps and it it's not that there hasn't been any reduction either there has been there have been some adjustments Through The Years um but not not in the way there was at the elementary school to account for the the much smaller class sizes right and and is it true or not true that we've maybe added we've taken advantage of adding new

055offerings as a result of having some capacity yes yeah so it so it's kind of difficult to say then you know when we talk about our new offerings not requiring any more staff that's a true and false statement because it requires the retention of staff that we may not need in a current program situation is this a true statement or a false statement that is a very accurate statement yes so we are able to um through the years we have been able to offer additional things there's we don't have we don't have very many class sizes of five or eight or 10 we have I'm glad we clarified that yes we have been expanding uh the programs that we're able to offer and the electives that we're able to offer um so that has definitely

056expanded so we don't have to you don't have to add additional staff but it potentially allowed us to keep staff that maybe if we were not um adding additional classes we wouldn't um otherwise um probably let go of of those positions which is also wonderful because we're offering such a wide variety to our our community kind of expects the wide variety of classes that we're offering so I just do want to clarify that and that's really why one of the things when we're looking at Staffing we're always looking at the program right and can we maintain the educational program that's needed and that our community expects um to make sure we're meeting the needs of our students so we always have to balance that um while we're looking at the budget anybody else have a

057question on this section okay looks like we got it thank you Hillary I'm sorry to have picked on you that was so much better there's just something about being closer to it that's so much better good evening tonight I'm going to present the technology proposal for the um upcoming school year um in our agenda this evening uh oops going a little fast down our agenda this evening I'm going to discuss and reflect on our mission and core values in relation to the technology department talk about our mission and core values and action look at a technology snapshot of some of the equipment that we have in production review our budget chart and review the estimated Bose's Aid when we reflect on our mission and core values technology is a tool that can help our students

058become self-directed lifelong Learners it Fosters collaboration communication and understanding within our school Community as well as um externally in our students uh personal lives students starting kindergarten today are going to encounter technology probably Beyond our wildest dreams um and just like Society is rapidly changing we too will need to change which is in alignment with our core values that change is essential for Progress um tonight I'd like to uh bring to your attention one staff member on the technology department team Deb Brook trichion who embodies our mission and core values last year she recognized the need um for our English um uh English language Learners um that they needed translation devices and so she chose to write a nice gate technology Grant um to get pocket talk translation devices for uh the students to help

059them translate with their teachers and communicate better with their classmates uh these devices empower the students to learn um along with their classmates in a normal classroom setting and make them feel welcomed and valued in our community um so I want to take the opportunity to uh bring to your attention that Deb uh went Above and Beyond in writing this grant um realizing that change is essential for pro uh progress and also that all uh students and all people have inherent value in our district uh so she's not here tonight but joined me in recognizing her work the next slide represents an instructional technology snapshot this Hardware is in production right now in our classrooms across the district you'll see that Chromebooks obviously are the the top item on the list uh but there's over

06014,000 pieces of equipment represented here everything from interactive boards to uh desktop computers and classrooms laptops uh tablets um and other pieces of equipment that our students and our staff are using um and the next slide represents the technical infrastructure snapshot which is often forgotten but it's really the critical backbone to how everything uh functions in a school building as well as providing the uh internet and Telecommunications access uh for our students and staff um in 2026 I want to point out the last uh item or the last bar the wireless access points uh they're coming uh end of support by the vendor and so we're going to need to replace them in nine of the 11 school buildings the middle schools were replaced back in 2022 um and I'm going to talk about where

061that falls in the budgeting process for the upcoming uh school year a little later on in my budget chart but without these critical components everything from security cameras IP speakers which is our PA system uh phones for communication uh the district can function on a day-to-day basis in our budget chart you'll see a comparison from last school Year's projected uh budget to this school Year's projected budget um I'd like to bring to your attention that while the budget is is proposing a modest increase of about 2% um the overall ending budget the impact that the district will feel is actually closer to 10% less than last school year and that's due to the Bose Aid which is highlighted in red uh the revenue that last year's budget has generated during this school year that will

062come back into the district offsetting some of the costs um I'd like to bring you uh through each line and talk about why uh we're seeing some of the increases that we're seeing um most of the lines have decreased from last year as we've moved more uh services and software and Hardware purchases to the Bose line which has increased um we are seeing an increase due to inflation which is currently nationally around 2.9% um we're bringing in some curriculum software that was previously grf funded um into the operating budget and we've also identified some areas of need that we didn't anticipate when the school year began such as aging lockdown strobe BL we have a monitoring system that is detected false and that moisture is getting into those lights so they need to be replaced

063uh next school year as well as a small number of security camera Replacements at Arlington High School in Titusville as the lenses on those cameras which are external and exterior facing have become sun-washed and hard to view uh by our security Personnel um and the last thing that we're looking to add possibly as a new program is some sort of an artificial intelligence software that help our teachers uh prepare uh engaging lessons for students as well as make their lives a little bit easier and linking uh their lessons to uh the state standards um and artificial intelligence really has the potential to save teachers time um and we always hear from teachers there's not enough time there's often too many new things but what we're seeing in the pilots that we're doing with our building

064Tech leaders today is that they're able to save time and brainstorming ideas uh developing lessons linking those lessons to standards and personalizing learning for our students um ways that they can do that is if you survey students and you get their interest uh which students are passionate about which they'll tend to work a little bit harder if it's something that interests them they can take that data put it in the artificial intelligence software and have it take the students interest to help develop and craft lessons around it very quickly um and so we've gotten some positive feedback on a couple of different software platforms from our technology leaders we haven't selected yet they're still in the middle of a pilot right now um but we're looking forward to hearing back from them too so we're

065hoping to uh do something with that in the future the Top Line the hardware line uh supports um the Aging monitors um that we talked about in past years we've been kind of phasing monitor replacement um and it also supports um excuse me uh tablets for instructional programs such as art and music and those are iPad devices and each of the Departments have requested a very small number of iPads uh to continue to grow their programs um especially in art um to support the digital digital arts and the movement and the state standards towards digital art um in the professional and Technical Services line this line covers cyber security services server maintenance and our lockdown Services the computer instruction line funds things like movie streaming and Licensing as well as Email encryption uh which is

066a security measure to help keep the email and Corr respondents between staff uh secure especially when we look at it from a data privacy and security perspective uh Material supplies and other expense line includes funding for Chromebook repairs such as Chromebook Parts screens uh frames uh building specific technology purchases such as toner for classroom printers and miscellaneous replacement items for Chromebooks like keyboards I shouldn't just say Chromebooks but computers in general keyboards mics computer uh speakers that go along with those computers the monitors uh things that may just uh fail or break the computer software line covers a variety of operational and instructional software including the it help Des uh ticket software and also software in the instructional area as math physical education career exploration and typing the Bosey Services line which is our largest

067line encompasses instructional software and Hardware across a variety of areas including in instructional as well as uh networking and operational Services um in planning this budget um the Bose's line starts at about 2.4 million because we're carrying uh past leases over about five years which account for about 1.2 million the instructional software which we're typically not changing too frequently because we invest a lot in professional development and learning and and and enhancing and leveraging that software that's about a million dollars and then the mandatory Bose fees at about $ 285,000 so right when we're planning the budget we're already uh in the whole or or or accounting for $2.4 Million worth of expenditure which is about half the Bose's line the other half of the Bose's line is things that come up for Renewal such

068as licensing for servers switches web filtering data backups our internet services our telecommunication services our bandwidth and network monitoring uh solutions that help keep an eye on our Network and and what's going on and if uh a service goes down Hardware purchases that will be purchased through bosies include replacement Chromebooks for both students and faculty in the upcoming school year uh a network INF infrastructure repairs such as repairs to the IP speakers our lockdown system and the strobe lights that I talked about that are getting some issues they are are built into the the Bose replacement uh line as well as the wireless access point project that I talked about earlier uh that will touch uh nine school buildings and it's it's hundreds and hundreds of access points they're the things on the wall that

069give us the internet access the estimated Bose aid for the uh following school year in 2026 2027 we estimate to be uh in line with what we did this past year about 2.6 million so that would be Revenue that's generated by this uh technology budget and spending through bosis that would help us offset the cost in the future year and our four-year budget projections you'll see in 2025 2026 uh we're about 6.2 million that's what we're presenting to you tonight we're leveraging eate funding to offset the cost of the wireless replacement project as well as utilizing Bose's installment purchase agreements ipa's uh lease agreements uh to help bring that cost down um and then from the years 2026 to 2029 uh those numbers are based off of whole numbers and retail value numbers uh that

070we're projecting right now but they don't take into account uh things like e rate because the eate formula is uh going to be renewed hopefully uh by the federal government in the upcoming school year so we don't even know what the pot is going to look like yet and we haven't uh added in any sort of installment purchase agreements to spread those costs out over time so when we get to those years it's more than likely that those numbers will come down lower as we utilize some of the financial tools that are available and I want to thank the board for all of their support and your time tonight and at this time I'll take questions thank you does anyone have any questions I see Mark uh you were talking about repair for uh the

071computers um now who is our contractor and is what's the line that uh you replace versus repair uh we have a microcomputer technician specialist on our staff and they typically facilitate the repairs we do purchase a I think about 100 hours or so from bosis and we send things like printers and and things that the micro computer technician can't repair in house up to them to do the repairs anybody else Jen yeah yeah um we have we had looked at some of the services that we had previously ran through those lines and a lot of times you need one or more districts uh to enter into like a Bose's agreement and we found other districts that are using those services and so we've been able to to pair up with Bose's to run those Services

072through the Bose's coasters rather than just funding it on our own um and it could be whether it could be something such as a software that's shared it could be a network monitoring service that we're using um and as districts start to adapt some of the new emerging Technologies whether it be software or monitoring Services we talk as Tech directors and sometimes we like oh I didn't know you were using that maybe we can work with bosis and see if we can create a coaster together or we learn that there's another District in another area um and so we can do cross contracts so as we learn that there's a cross contract available we can also fold those Services back in in theosis which helps generate the aid for the district that's great anybody else

073Mark did you have a question Maran I think I do okay could could you go back to the infrastructure support slide yeah thank you so the blue lines yep that are stagger does does that like for example security cameras I guess if I pick on that one at the top that line going across to the point it goes across to means you're fully you've got what you want there that's not something that you're yeah like these are things that you feel we're covered with whatever those blue lines are amounts I don't know that I would feel use the word covered what I will say is that these are the items in production right now so they're actually live in action being used um I think that sometimes our security greeters might say that there's a

074blind spot or two and so they're always advocating for more cameras which is why we're replacing those faded cameras they brought that to our attention um IP speakers we probably in a good place phones I think we're in a good place nearly every classroom every office has has a phone infrastructure switching and power supply we've been listening to the board the last two years we've actually reduced some of our switching and have been consolidating switching uh a lot of the Jacks in the classrooms are uh from an age where we didn't have wireless and we had to plug in the computer so we don't need those Jacks active anymore so we're actually unplugging those cables from the switches and and consolid ating switching to help bring down the cost because every switch that we have

075the hardware itself costs money but every year we have to pay licensing and maintenance on top of that cost so if we can reduce the number of switches we're trying to do that in certain places um and the wireless access points I think that we have uh very good coverage uh we have a a wireless dashboard that when a teacher reports an issue if they say I'm losing a connection in my classroom we can go into that particular unit and see the activity that's happening we can actually see every single device and it will tell us the reason why it disconnected or had latency as a term where it's a little bit slow or lag uh why it's having that so that we can work with our providers and adjust the antenna settings a lot

076of times on those access points to give a better experience we just need the users to report those those issues when they come out okay I think I maybe didn't understand your use of the word impr production perhaps so that meant that's what you have okay not that you're you have a wish list somewhere that we are taking care of okay cool thank you Mark yeah what's the ratio if there is one between us leasing uh computers versus uh owning them and uh in terms of the replacement if we have a least unit if there's something wrong with it goes back and they replace it or we pay for it to be fixed or what's the status of those kinds of things yeah so when we're using the Bose's IPA lease it's staggering the cost

077over time uh typically at the end of the lease there's no value so bosies just give the equipment to the district um we don't have a plan in place right now where we're doing like I think you're referring to like a paid warranty or something like that uh I have found that the cost of the warranties per device are typically more costly or more expensive we have the person on site that can repair them and the parts themselves depending on the part the screens are the most expensive typically with the newest models maybe $100 a screen but like the keyboards and smaller components that students break can be12 for WiFi antenna and so it just doesn't justify typically the warranties are $25 to $30 a unit and so that would be something we would have

078to then add into the budget but I don't think we would see the amount of return not every single unit is ever going to get broken and probably plus $30 a piece to thank you ch don't have that data in front of me um I mean there are in a district our size with approximately over 7600 units we have 7600 students we have all our staff with devices uh I mean it's definitely in the a few hundred I wouldn't say it's screen specific but just damage specific yes anybody else thank you very much welcome thank you continuing on we welcome Mr orot y all hanging in we are we're doing pretty well we're gonna do that what is that the seventh inning stretch or something yeah that was for you Mr CR that's I don't

079make I don't make sport Sports comments very often that was just for you oh yeah yeah I'm more of a fan of that actually there you go um good evening everybody we uh on to the Third Leg of the presentation here where we're going to start bringing some of everything that you've heard tonight together um I I do want to just quickly start by reviewing what we've been doing this past year because I think it helps tee up what we're looking to do next year so um this year we've finally finally seen a lot of the implementation of new programs at the elementary schools come to scale so um it's been a tremendous lift we those of you who remain in in the audience who are elementary teachers can certainly talk to a lot of

080the shifts that have occurred in terms of their programming um it's really been a tremendous effort on their part and and it's um we're anticipating really seeing it start to pay some dividends in terms of how our students are performing uh we are required all school districts in in New York state are required to initiate A literacy review process which is a review of our um pekk through three literacy U materials prum instruction and it's basically we have to attest and submit evidence to the state that we are in alignment with the science of reading um and so we've begun that process and we have a lot of teachers involved in that we're look at implementing and possibly pivoting to some new resources to takes to make processes that our elementary teachers are using around

081Baseline assessments um a little bit easier and a little bit more streamlined for them and give them back some instructional time we're also in the process in alignment with that with all these programs came a tremendous amount of opportunities to check in on our students and assess their learning and their progress um and potentially at a detriment to instructional time so we're reviewing our assessment protocols to make sure that we're not taking redundant assessments or um having information that we're collecting that turns out we're not actually using to inform our instruction we are in our second year of of teaming at the elementary levels and um so we're monitoring that as that's moving along and we as you heard earlier we have really continued to prioritize with professional Learning Community work at the secondary level

082um we one of the newer resources that we implemented this year we purchased it last year but this is our first year of really bringing it to scale is School links which replace Naviance this is the platform that our our high school students navian primarily was a high school platform that was used for college application process with School links it's actually a program that we can push all the way down into the middle schools and start to really generate a interest profile for students that will uh allow them to have a much more comprehensive and robust College and Career planning profile and this was our first year that we used it for college applications um and we're going to continue to grow that and you heard me say also obviously at the secondary level we're

083also continuing with our professional Learning Community models for next year we are looking to continue to expand our CTE Pathways I spoke earlier this year about our Winter Circle project um we're also looking to continue to manage and and offer authentic learning experiences for students and that will become increasingly more relevant as the Blue Ribbon commission comes to um becomes a little less amorphous and more into the regulatory framework so it's going to that's going to be a critical element of our programs um continuing with the professional learning Community model through solution tree we are in a national cohort right now which you heard uh our earlier presenters from Traver talk about this participation with these sessions is actually in the National cohort um and and next year would be year two of that we

084are again assessing the viability and impact of Elementary teaming stream aligning our assessment profiles um and a a critical step here is we have really consciously reduced our reliance on outside Consultants throughout the district so I'll be speaking a little bit more to that this evening these next three slides represent our in the curriculum instruction World probably our largest um direct instructional expenses these are these are consumables these are materials supplies and textbooks that are um critical for elements of the programs that have been rolled out so the first one is the science 21 Elementary curriculum resource the good news is and just as Dr key was saying we are able to run that cost through a bosis koser so it we do pay for it but we get a fairly significant amount of Aid

085back on that the next one is the investigations math while this one isn't run through a coer it it does qualify for textbook Aid so we're able to use textbook money for that and that's a aable um cost every year and then the third one here is our fundations this one is the the on the right side again that's textbook funding um and then that the uh 24,000 there is the direct cost of the materials and suppli so that is a direct cost to the district with respect to professional learning communities I guess in this presentation I can't emphasize enough how um proud We Are to continue to support and we're really starting to see the work that our buildings are doing around professional learning communities pay off I I again to Echo this is

086not new work to Arlington um but I think I think things are lining up correctly I think it's been around long enough that people kind of understand the the purpose of it I think we've we've targeted the support and the resources so that people um are able to see how how this works and and they can work together to support their students um we've given them some autonomy around we heard earlier we're not there's no PLC police riding through the district teachers are able to make instructional decisions as they see fit and that includes sharing kids and maneuvering them so that we're able to meet the needs of the students um but we also have all of these curriculum programs that have have lined up and people have um received a lot of professional development

087so I think it's a like a lot lot of things coming to the Head um we are also emphasizing our teacher-led PD and one of the things that I I we're going to play with a little bit is around developing micr credentials within our teacher faculty so we have one teacher he actually earlier this year was one of the Master Teachers through New York state that we recognized hung Su at the high school he has been doing a tremendous amount of work already in terms of supporting his colleagues with um AI in their classrooms adapting lessons to support English language Learners using it to support your own lesson planning uh and he and I have been working together and he's developed a series of courses that we will be able to offer teachers for inservice

088PD and award them a micr credential and this is the badge that he developed that they when they complete the series they will be able to put in their emails um and they will be a Arlington Central School District a AI certified educator so it's just a it's a fun little spin on PD making it um you know it's relevant to the profession but also uh really recognize all the hard work that people are putting in to supporting their colleagues in terms of professional learning costs these are some of the projected costs for next school year um the Megan hardgrave we're bringing in for five days next year she's going to support some of that literacy review committee that that's right in her wheelhouse as well as um train our newer newer hires through the

089summer the cost for the professional Learning Community is $90,000 but we do we do run that through the Bose coer so we we receive Aid on that also in the following school year so so next school year we'll get this year's participation back um our cost for science 21 has reduced significantly uh last year to this year because we only need to train our new teachers now um the Bose's curriculum circles that's Duchess Bose's and other put like putam Northern Westchester Bose's we' we really are encouraging our teacher leaders to participate in relevant curriculum circles and we're looking to join one of the regional curriculum councils for the following school year to participate in that all of that will be aable through the BOS these coasters the direct costs next year are going to be

090our I ready professional development which will be aimed mostly at our new teachers same thing with investigations math um and then any uh PD that's run through by teachers through their leadership stiens or at the contractual rate of $502 per hour my department manages four of our federal grants that come in um these are these are this year's allocations um next year we anticipate to be roughly in the same ballpark so the first and our largest is our Title One we have five schools currently designated as Title One um that both of that funding is used for extended day programming in summer schools and then there's five salaries tied to that we have title 2 programming we use we've over the last four years we've really used this to pay for our equity facilitators and

091a significant chunk of our curriculum writing we have two different title 3 grants there's the um title 3 supporting English language Learners and then there's one that's a little bit less but more specific to IM to supporting immigrant students um we run have run a similar model with extended day programs and summer schools for that money uh and then we we are pivoting with our title four grants we've really funded our Panorama surveys through that um and we're while we're going to maintain our commitment to assessing our student needs andal supports and wellness and belonging we think we can replicate a similar survey inh house house at no costs um and would rather allocate that money to pay for schooling which I talked about earlier but also responsive classroom training and so we have amended

092this year's grants to support responsive classroom and we already have um I I think around 60 teachers signed up for responsive classroom training for next year um and then on the other side just speaking a little bit to some of our aable um returns now the fun stuff though so as you've heard uh reiterated throughout the course of the school year and through these presentations we really remain committed to providing opportunities for our students there are a handful of things that we could talk about and trying to get them to fit all on one slide felt like a challenge I think the thing that we're all really excited about is the Winter Circle it will provide us with three new courses for our students as well as two new CTE Pathways um that is going

093to be run through the Bose's coer so it is next year's we're going to feel it but the following year we'll start to get some of that Aid that we can put back towards it we uh are art teachers Jill feswick has done a really phenomenal job of pulling together what is needed to apply for the individual Arts assessment pathway this is uh the art version of a CTE pathway students can pick a me medium and create a portfolio that can ultimately count as a four plus one so they could use it for a graduation requirement in L of a Regents exam we can accomplish it with the courses that we're already offering and with the faculty that we already have so it requires no additional anything to to accomplish that but we're really excited

094about it I presented on the new courses earlier this spring so we have the Spanish proh herited speakers marine biology principles of economics and action Hydroponics and AP African-American studies um and the anticipated cost beyond the the cost to Winter Circle uh is roughly $52,000 for curriculum writing to just sort of tie this all together and then Mr cring uh is requesting three new athletic programs the first one is an expansion of our unified program we have um this has functioned as a club for the last couple years the students did travel um and and compete with or participate with I guess we could say compete right compet a fair word competed with other schools um this is I believe at Kingston High School we have a tremendous um unified program and and I think

095this is a a nice addition to that the modified girls lacrosse program we have they what both modified girls lacrosse and freshman football I'll talk about together because the the request for both is along the similar line we have a lot of kids looking to participate in these Sports and ending up needing to make cuts um and so by creating another modified girls lacrosse team and by creating freshman football we're not only able to create more space for students to participate and stay connected in sports um and with their school and with their teams but also create beater systems for those programs down the road so um the hope with modify girls LaCross is that we see those numbers continue until the high school and with freshman football um the freshman year in particular is

096a year where you really want to keep kids connected it's such a transitional year uh and you don't want to see in particular young men with a lot of energy get cut from a passion um in August and you know now they're starting high school so anything can do to create and keep kids connected to schools and connected to adults uh is a very uh important program and experience and I will now take any questions you have unless they're about the sports and that's why we asked Mike oh thanks Mike um does where shall we begin Mark I see markk hand up there I see you raise your hand you get call that um could you tell me and I assume they're all in the high school and but maybe I'm assuming too much the

097number and type of pathway programs that are up and running or and versus and improved by the state and all of that that U we intend to to offer in the next year or two yeah so I will I can tell you that there are currently eight they are all in um family and consumer Science Tech and business the in no particular order and I'm not sure I'll get all eight here it's a construction pathway Advanced manufacturing there is a textile and other materials course we have uh early childhood education there is um an accounting and Business course marketing I think and then marketing is a separate pathway um and I'm buzzy on what the other couple are but they're we'll be at 10 we'll be at 11 technically with the Arts pathway um in

098this in the summer and can I follow up uh sure how are we communicating I asked earlier someone about you know we don't have anything on the district website or that I'm to my knowledge uh to those students that might be involved now the students that are in eighth grade they have kind of a jump on if they take classes in for example guess what tech y um when they go come to the high school so how are we for lack of a better phrase selling the these program to students it's a great question and actually this month is also career in technical Education Month I'll be there and and on our district website right now um I and I only saw that today was when I was looking for something else our pictures of

099kids in our Career and Technical Pathways scrolling across the main Banner site um I think it was February 12th was curriculum night at the high school where there were presentations on all of the different courses students were able to take not just in the Career and Technical education realm but it was all courses right uh at the MST fair that Dr bante referenc earlier um that career and Tech classrooms were open and families were able to go in so we had elementary students walking into the advance manufacturing lab and the autoshop and the metal shop to see what those courses are like we also bring both middle schools to the high school and they get the students get informational tours they get to see the spaces they meet with coordinators and counselors and hear about

100the programs they also get to meet and see kids connected to those programs um so and all of the teachers put together information all there's videos and PowerPoints that that they've created to share directly to students um and I believe those typically get posted to the high school website IA anybody else Marian just a a nitty-gritty question yeah one of your slides that talked about um foundations yeah was there somewhere y um got to it okay so te textbooks for foundation they're workbooks they're okay so that okay that makes more sense to me because I thought it was consumables right yeah it's a consumable probably skirts the line okay but but it falls under the right place okay yeah sorry about that okay I have some like Oddball questions sure um one thing is now

101we've heard a couple of times about AI we heard in the technology presentation we're hearing it from you yeah so um I guess uh uh we're looking at some software to help teachers that' be different than what they could get in the world on you know what we all all could get on cat GPT or whatever I'm no expert for sure and I guess I'm just wondering um I know that like when we've been to you know we've been to different training and stuff it's such a moving thing it's moving all the time you know if if the teachers feel supported in that space or if we have policy requirements in that space as far as what they're seeing with student Behavior or you know but it but is a tool it's here to stay

102and and so I'm glad to hear that we're embracing it in some way and I guess my question was also like how much how much does it cost to get this this um software and is it aable there too many questions all one question yeah so great question and I might at least you can get back to us if you don't know I mean some of these aren't exactly related to the presentation yeah well what I what I will say is what we're seeing in in um curriculum instruction in particular is that companies are starting to integrate it directly into some of the software applications that we already have so for example formative which is one of the testing protocols um assessment protocols that is used more at the secondary level right now has the

103ability to that through AI a teacher can just put a PDF in there's a button they click the AI grabs it and then they can it will offer questions and the teacher can interact with the AI to to drive the questions to be more along what the teacher is looking for um and that's at no cost to us it's where it's included in the cost of the license for the software um then also Google Gemini I don't want to I mik if I'm jumping out of bounds here feel free to jump in but Google Gemini is is integrated directly into our Google suite at this point um so everybody has access to that that is a kind of straight run-of-the-mill uh Ai and and people you can make it dance the way you want it

104to but it's not always necessarily thinking just about education you have to train it a little bit before you start to get what you're what you are really looking for out of it um I'm I'm not sure exactly which software you were referencing Mike if you want to speak to that yeah we've been piloting um two pieces of software one is uh brisk Ai and the other is school Ai and they're both artificial intelligence platforms that are geared specifically towards K through 12 uh education and while some of the platforms have components of AI built in this really gives teachers the ability to um connect both the standards to their lessons generate ideas generate assessments um some of the platforms can provide uh personalized feedback uh to some of the questions and and answers that

105students give um and the teacher has an opportunity in some of those platforms to review what the computer generates before releasing it to the student so it's it's a again it's about uh creating more efficiency and and time saving for the teacher to focus more on the student and the and the personalization of delivery of that instruction um and some of one of the platforms also has the ability which teachers are I think exploring right now who are are participating in Pilot uh a way to create a virtual chat poot so students could actually ask a chatbot that's supposed to be a Content specific expert um one of the demonstrations I saw was that for social studies class the chatbot is a historical figure like George Washington and the student can interact and ask that

106chat box questions like what was it like to to live in that period of time and and what was your role and the chat bot will have an interactive discussion with the students making the learning more engaging and so I'm sorry go ahead no I was just curious have specific teachers approached to to Pilot or requested specific things like this if you could just say what level they're at are they high school level Middle School level yeah Elementary we've had several teachers uh reach out via our ticket System since the beginning of the year asking to use various pieces of artificial intelligence and so we've uh collaborated with people in the region um who are using these platforms for example School AI is used in the Pearl River School District right now and brisk is

107already being used in the Wappinger school district and several of our uh our technology leaders went to the nice gate Hudson Valley Conference in the fall where they saw a demonstration of brisk AI at Wappingers and many of them came back from that conference asking if we could try it out which we did um and we're in the process of uh piloting a school AI with the same group now and the tech leaders are made up of teachers from all of the different school buildings so all grade levels um and in some cases some of the tech leaders and individual buildings have said hey can we bring in a couple of classroom teachers who are't Tech leaders and we've worked with the companies to get them licensing trial licensing as well so that they can

108collect the feedback and then our our our Tech leader meetings the tech leaders have been bringing feedback back to the group um and after the pilots conclude we're going to try and compare the two pieces of software and see if there's one that we think would benefit our district and I I jumped back to the the school year and review slide because in the under uh exploring options to leverage technology to provide Baseline and Benchmark reading assessments we have a handful of teachers that are piloting a program called Amira right now which um if I was going to boil down the the concept of it it could potentially replace the f&p assessment that teachers do by having students go through a reading assessment digitally they could do it right on their Chromebooks and there is

109AI that is is assessing the child's ability to read it records the whole thing so the teacher can still hear the student read teachers would be able to um assess student like groups of students as opposed to individual students at the same time and then review the report so they can Target the students that they would need to potentially intervene with immediately um whereas you know in a in a I know that teachers will most likely start with the students that they think are going to struggle um but this takes the guess out of it when they're doing the the FMP they're able to assess the students the AI provides a very quick report scores it and then gives the teachers a jumping off point of which group do we want to start with and

110where we go from there so just another example of like AI making its way into the sphere in a really targeted way that's intended to reduce some of the teacher load without compromising the data that they got because that's a particularly teacher intensive process it's a very time and teacher intensive process and student intensive correct what's the what's the what's the ballpark cost on something like this ballpark in the budget line that we created is we put a $50,000 line in that doesn't mean that we're going to spend that it will depend on the feedback that we get the number of people or students that we want to license if we were to move forward with something and also when we go to actually execute an agreement with a vendor we can usually get better

111pricing than they're initially giving us UPF front uh through negotiation and then uh we'll probably run that through a Bose's line so it will be um it'll be ceral so we could get Aid back on it Donna um I had a question about fundations uh um uh the you talked about the um right um yeah but just I guess even on that same slide just one of the new curriculum that you said we're kind of like getting into sort of full usage um that's a relatively new one as well the foundations uh and have you been using it since Co it was introduced during over was over the last three years four years yeah three to four how how is how is the faculty liking it oh thumbs up I'm sorry do you want to

112if you want I hate to ask but if you could please come to the microphone so our friends at home can hear your response or you can jump to this one here at the end if you like but sorry oh no oh thank you for coming up so foundations like The Faculty loves it really does help the students with reading and writing they're transferring it to their reading to their writing um um and it started out around right around Co time and now we're really like in a Groove in the elementary schools using it excellent thank you so much I appreciate you answering it's interesting you had like several things like pretty substantial programs that are uh coming on coming on right now I thought you were going to say it's interesting that you've made

113it an audience participation oh yeah that was wise but yeah no I think and that's and that's some of exactly what you're right like we're this would this has been a tremendous lift our elementary teachers have really A lot has been asked for them especially in you know in the thick of a pandemic and um and it it was a lot but I think we're we are at the point where we're at full implementation um and there's always a dip you have implementation dip is a real thing especially when there's three major new programs that people are wrapping their heads around but staying committed to it um the PLC structure is the perfect structure to create an internal support where people are able to work together plan together support each other learn from each other

114um and so hopefully we're we see this over the next couple years really starting to elevate student performance Jen we you know I was gonna make up a question for Mr King if I had to but I can wait oh he'll come up hello Mr Crane thank you Mr Crane I just had a couple questions about the um the freshman football I know a couple years back we had um the board at the time had voted to get rid of it in option of modified are there more schools in dutches and putam now that have freshman team so two years ago uh I believe it was still believe it was the right decision to do that and if we could have done everything and that we added the middle school program and kept freshman football

115um at that time that's we needed to make some decisions uh programmatically I was trying to place some emphasis on what we're doing in our middle schools as well uh with the footprint and opportunities for our middle school students so we had to focus on adding some of the things there which we're still trying to do um when the opportunity presents itself as far as uh freshman football we would have a full schedule uh if we put it back in place um one of the things that we found our school's a little bit of an anomaly with football we have um the trend in football Across America has been less except that's not the case for us um we've had very high numbers uh even in the Middle School the one program we've had to

116cut a lot of students so there's even been discussion should we have one at each middle school and and then with staff we discuss freshman would make uh the most sense because of the transition that Mr Ora talked about okay thank you thank you don't wait wait wait we're gonna we're gonna consolidate all our Mr Crane questions we don't want you hopping up and down Maran just this was just a quicky I I was gonna let you talk from back there but we get in trouble for the microphone thing um do you see any issue with finding coaches for these three uh things that you're suggesting for Unified no uh that one will be easy um and that will also if I may that'll provide unified sport each sport season for for those students so

117I think it's fantastic yes it is fantastic it's a wonderful program so football possibly um although we we we tend to get more applicants for football and the coaching staff and I have been talking about a little bit so we have some thoughts should this become reality um and then the middle school middle school across um that one could be a challenge and it's right around the corner but the other piece that's important to note there is we also have to see that the numbers present itself for us to have two teams and currently registrations open so that's not 100% certain that we're going to run enough students there to even run the program but we felt it was important uh because we had so many last year to provide the opportunity okay thanks I

118just wondered thank you any other questions from Mr crang thank you very much um back to Mr orot uh Donna um on talking about the federal grants um could you just explain it seemed like $56,000 for title three that doesn't seem like very much money not is there I mean I'm just thinking of yes what how how does the district deal with with the the additional needs of of these kind of students is that kind of the only real does the state provide some money in for that kind of category of students as well not that I'm aware of there's no additional State funding for you know right no um it so we do the best we can with it one of the it's not on this but one of the areas that we're looking

119to apply this grant for is actually connected to some of the technology um that will hopefully be able to use little dollars to have big impact um because it's it's really it's not a lot of money it's not enough to increase salary we can't um or pay salary so that position that Hillary talked about that's why it's not listed under there um it's just it's not a lot of money to address the level of you know I think um we're still under as a district our enl population is still under what the the state requires to trigger some other things um so we have a significant number but because our student body is 7500 students 300 enl students is not not percentage wise enough to trigger more funding within um within the Federal grant budget

120do you find the English language learning students coming in and and are they very young or are they across a variety of Ages what what are you seeing I I will tell you there is no profile right now so if you were to go to overlook there which is one of the primary schools um obviously they're only getting K through two students but they are students from all over the world it is it is not just Hispanic Latino students it is students coming from Albania Romania Pakistan um Afghanistan uh Syria there have been a lot of Syrian refugees we the district has started to see a lot of Ukrainian refugees coming in um so there is no and and that that is part of the reason why technology creates the opportunity because that's neat uh

121you know I I think people when they see enl the default is oh we're talking primarily Spanish speaking students that's that is not our current experience um it it is at at the CH the other challenge at the secondary level is you see we are seeing an increase of students that have interrupted formal education um Scythe is the acronym students with interrupted formal education so these are kids in particular who were living in a country that was then uh impacted by Civil War and so have been in refugee camps where there's no schools or anything they're they are not receiving education but they come in they come to the US and they're 16 17 years old uh and so the challenge there is very different than when you're working with a primary student who's learning

122to read kind of learn to read for the first time so um it it's really a a very challenging and underfunded area for us to Grapple with um I just want to say I appreciated this piece we haven't always traditionally gotten what happens with our money from these grants and it's just interesting to see um I had a question um in that area too uh the AIS teachers that are funded through the title one program yeah would we say that those are that we're using that money to fund teachers over and above to those schools like they have sort of an extra AIS person in each of those schools or would you say that basically we're using the title one money to fund an AI teacher we might put in there anyway that's a great

123question and I don't know if I have the direct answer if I may yeah uh so as a requirement under title one you have to supplement uh this funding is meant to supplement the schools not supplant okay uh and we have to certify that through our application uh to the federal government uh that being said so we should think of these as additional staff that are provided to the school um that being said as uh I think Cara alluded to in her presentation and John and Jennifer ham and King who's in the audience also oversees this that we're constantly evaluating the level of need uh or routinely evaluating the level of Need for reading support in each of our schools uh that is somewhat of a fluid process every uh five weeks if I'm not

124mistaken Jennifer yep every five weeks we eight weeks thank you uh we step back and evaluate how our kids doing who's have our students made progress towards uh grade level standards who needs more support and who doesn't so it is a very fluid process but one of the requirements of receiving uh Title One funding is that that funding is um uh supplementing uh Staffing in the building not replacing staff that otherwise would be there with h Federal federally funded staff great thank you and it's also nice to hear how regularly that need is being assessed it's not you know just with the school year or a quarter change or something that's terrific thank you um anybody else have any questions I had like one more question um I guess I'm just curious I think um

125you did a good job with the whole the textbooks the investigation math I guess what I'm wondering is you know as the world changes and there's the AI there's just so much changing I wonder seeing as this is kind of a budget knife for if we look at our budget are we kind of shifting is it fundamentally different how we're paying for things like for example the like the Renewables and stuff the fact that we' had so many vendors who we now have contracts with who we're paying every year versus you know back in the olden days where you know you got the book and you carried the book and you whatever you know and I'm not suggesting going back to that I guess I'm just saying have we added sort of a new level

126of like base Sil level expense that always going to be in our budget and I guess I would be curious as to how much that was because as we think I remember I thought that way when we put the turf in right the turf only lasts so long so the turf cost so much like a lot of money we put in the turf and it only lasts for 12 or 15 years whatever long last which means fundamentally you're paying X thousands of dollars every year for Turf and I just wonder as we look at our budget projections and we look what's going on with the state you know how we can feel about building in more and more costs that never go away we've talked about that with Furniture we've talked about that with a

127lot of different things and and and that is definitely a challenge that we're seeing so and part of what our team has been doing is looking for areas where we have potential redundancy are there are we paying for two programs so this so this school year there some teachers have access all teachers have access to zern math and all teachers have access to stn they are very very similar programs and there will only be one of them next year um but that program will be it's a it's a um supplemental math resource it's not investigations but it's a supplemental math resource teachers have integrated that into their lesson plans they're using it during wi time they're using it to support students in AIS they're used so so yeah it becomes a a something that a

128teacher is relying on as an instructional tool right that has a dollar cost every year um as opposed to the one andone textbook that we could buy and put on the Shelf then kids could you know you have to reassess and evaluate that every couple years so yes you are you are correct there is a a level at this point of um Reliance on some of these on a lot of these programs and Technologies and these numbers aren't huge which is nice and you're telling me that they're aable but like overall do we feel like that's a a big shift in the last however many years or not so much we don't know so I would say that this is probably one of the things we're going to feel with the covid money not existing

129anymore I think this was this is something that covid dollar a lot of covid dollars were thrown at these materials and supplies and these programs and um and so we that's how probably I don't want to speak for any of our elementary colleagues but probably felt like a wave crashing down on them the wave was funded with Co dollars um primarily and those are gone and so what we're in the process of doing as we're looking at the budget is what's what's the need and then what's the nice to have but could we live without it if if we are forced to reduce that um so your intuition on that is correct and there are definitely some programs that we are we I don't I mean I don't mean to frame it like this we've

130hooked people on um and we've become relying on them and we've built Curriculum maps around them and um and that they are now fixed cost to some extent within our budget which is the model of these companies you so it's not you're not to be blamed it is it is the model of the companies right that's um I mean they're also in the business of making hopefully an excellent product but it's the way they make their money right okay thank you anybody else have any more questions questions all right thank you so much you John so Mrs Flynn I have a question for you when do we have to vote to extend this meeting not till 9: still you know how we vote to extend the meeting usually at 9 is it still 9: even

131though we started at excellent oh good no that's good one more I'd like to yes yes yes that's quite all right yes we're all feeling the need to stretch a little take a stretch break is that no I think Mar I mean we could take a five minute break I don't know we don't usually take a five minute break me and you both G get to stand maybe there's maybe there's a break happening whether we want one or not again I'd like to thank Cara and her team who are here this evening as well as uh Hillary John and Mike for their presentations uh Mrs Ferrera for your presentation this evening I know that was unexpected all of my questions were answered I had questions as we were going along but uh most of mine

132were I I had one question that that wasn't answered which was at the very beginning um was that party in the USA the ringtone oh it was I thought it was I thought it was Miley Cyrus I just wanted to confirm that so I want to thank the the board for your discussion and really this is a bridge from the board's Committee of a whole discussion uh two weeks ago um where we discussed the tax levy those meetings are open to the public uh however they're not recorded and the public doesn't uh necessarily have the ability to go back and see what was discussed in our committee of the whole because there's no voting just to be clear correct and and just for anybody who would be tuning in this is a continuation of that

133discussion where we really uh started to uh discuss the tax levy uh so as the administration is preparing the um uh budget to recommend to the board for next school year a key variable that is the tax levy so we're going to continue that discussion this evening I did want to go back just for a minute to set some things up uh before I turn it over to Kevin uh one of the things that's my responsibility coming into Arlington is to Think Through what makes us unique as a school district there are many elements of our program and of Arlington that um are important to us but they may also exist in other school districts but it's a combination of things uh that make us distinctly unique from the school district next door uh as

134we've highlighted tonight there's a wide array of programmatic offerings in Arlington that's something we've really prided ourselves on especially at the high school level that in and of itself doesn't make us unique there's other schools that have a wide array of programmatic offerings but it's something again that's important to us uh something that I've come into over uh the years uh or the year here is teacher quality you've recognized several teachers just this school year uh who have received their national board certification uh or who have been designated as Master Teachers in New York State uh again do those uh types of uh distinguishment uh exist in other school districts yes uh however I think more so in Arlington as compared to others uh and when combined with our programmatic offerings makes makes us a

135little more unique uh I think the leadership in the school district both uh at the board level uh at the teacher level uh both formally and through our teacher leader structure and at the administrative level is something that over time has made us unique I know you've heard me speak a little bit about that about reestablishing the leadership core in Arlington uh particularly this school year uh our history as a school district we mentioned prit Gord uh earlier today many of you are familiar with some of the stories of folks who we would regard as uh Arlington Legends of the past whether that be Mr Jordan in athletics Mr Sweeney uh in the music program try to honor Mr Brooks and Mr Pepe at the beginning of the school year for contributions they made in

136each of their roles and there's many others that uh make up a very unique history for our school district and while every district has its history I think in Arlington we've prided ourselves on on on our history and tell telling the stories of the individuals whove served our community well over the years uh and then we have a incredible commitment from our support staff I I I must say that I've been so impressed and I I don't want to leave any group out so forgive me if I do but our transportation workers our maintenance and operation workers our food service workers all desire to feel and like they're part of Arlington and are a part of Arlington they uh in their service uh demonstrate a commitment to the Arlington identity so it's not any one

137of these things that make us unique as a school district It's a combination of these things and others that make Arlington's identity unique as compared to others uh and there's many others that I'm not that I'm not listing here now it's my responsibility uh as superintendent in working with the rest of our Administration and our teacher leadership and our other staff members to make sure as we're building an educational program for next year that we're honoring what makes us unique as a school district I shared with the board earlier in budget development process uh we use Frameworks to help guide the decisions that we make or shape the program that we're constructing as a school Community uh and this is one of several so I'm using Marzano's work here at base level we need to

138ensure that we have a safe supportive and collaborative culture in our school you asked some questions of Cara and her team about the Learning Community work uh here at trayor what's different about this work this year as compared to 10 years ago and Cara didn't directly State this but she alluded to it I think in some way shape or form it's about building a collaborative culture that takes a lot of time uh that even though we had similar processes in place 10 years ago we may not have had the collaborative culture that uh she's been able to develop with her staff now at the same time we want to make sure our schools are safe uh we can't focus on teaching and learning if there are concerns about safety in our schools so as Hillary

139alluded to on the program uh Staffing ad and she mentioned enl which is a very specific need she also she also me men potential ads and safety I alluded to that uh again last month so as I'm working on budget development there'll be some recommendations there and that's to ensure that we can have effective teaching in every classroom at base level going in next school year if you had to ask me what's our focus programmatically is to make sure that the time that we have our kids uh during the school day is well utilized and that there's effective teaching going on in every classroom John spoke to some of the professional learning supports that we'll have in place for next school year uh some of those we began years ago and are continuing all of

140that is to drive effective teaching on a daily basis for our kids in each of their classroom environments so some background information just to set up discussion around found uh excuse me discussion around the tax levy uh there's been some significant changes to state and federal funding over the last five years I'm going to illustrate this in the next slide uh we received a significant increase to Foundation Aid which is our base level of aid from New York State uh and we put that money to good use in our schools uh Hillary alluded to I think Eileen you had some questions around the supports that we put in place the staff that we have added over the last several years really from the pandemic on on through um but we're not going to receive those

141large increases in Foundation Aid moving forward in fact even last school year that that stopped uh we also received over $14 million in pandemic relating related funding so not only did we see these large increases in Foundation Aid we also received Federal stimulus dollars as well on top of that which put us in a good position again to expand staff uh to add on to professional development but those funds are no longer available to us so the mindset that we have and that I'd encourage the board to to think about as we go not only to this year or I should say next year's budget development but also the years that follow state aid is going to moderate we're not going to see big increases to state aid that's going to put more pressure on

142us to control our internal costs so our salaries benefits which are still 80% so uh of our budget because we're a people oriented uh organization uh as well as expansion of programming we have to be very deliberate there we still want to offer a wide array of opportunities uh to our students at the high school level we still want to offer a high quality based program at our elementary level but there's going to be more pressure to make that happen not only next year but the years ahead years ahead and we want to do so while maintaining additional Revenue tax taxes uh for us in a manner that the community can support which is the balance the board has always tried to navigate uh over the years uh providing a quality program but at a

143a fair cost to the community and that's a tough balance to strike sometimes so if I could go back I would like make this 200% um but I'll ask that you do your best and looking at the uh and following this here or behind me um or if you have board docs open it's in that present a I just want to draw your attention to the column on the far right our state aid increases and you'll see starting in 2021 which is the bottom row working up to current year how those state aid increases in 2021 5% a 7% increase to state aid in 2122 an 8% in state aid the year that followed a 14% actually close to a 15% increase in state a in 2324 now these were monies if you were here

144at the time that were uh conceivably owed to the school district and the state was accounting for that not just for Arlington but for all districts in in New York state um uh last year we did not receive a big increase in in state aid less than 1% uh and uh going into next school year and I'll be deliberate with how I frame that we're in budget development for 25 26 now in the governor's P proposal we're expected to receive a 2.57% increase to state aid now if you look at our Levy increases so the uh middle column there you'll see we've stayed anywhere between just under 1% and as high as 2.47% and if we were to go back further which we discussed at the committee of the whole meeting Arlington has always hovered

145right around the 2% Mark uh with our Levy increases we've had some years where maybe were a little higher couple years where we were lower but generally we're right around 2% now in the budget to- budget increase we haven't emphasized too much but I there is an important line here that I want to emphasize is we're planning the budget for next school year our total budget so the total cost operate our school district we we're developing a budget that's right around 1.9% right now budget to budget which you would say we're we're really doing our best to control costs uh that being said with state aid only coming in at 2.57% it puts a little bit more pressure on us with the tax levy which is what we're going to discuss this evening one last

146piece I want to draw your attention to in 23 24 we had a 6 and a half% budget to- budget increase um but yet a tax levy increase of under two how were we able to do that because we had such a significant increase in state aid so that's the year where we would have seen most likely a significant increase in Staffing uh that would have driven that budget to- budget increase uh up uh significantly which you know uh it certainly did and how did we pay for that how did we cover that well we had so much more money from the state to work with that year so looking ahead we're developing a budget right now that balances what makes us unique with the need to maintain additional revenue and I just want to

147transition now to the next slide which again doesn't display up here well but it's one you're familiar with uh and then I'll turn it over to Kevin here to uh just provide a little bit of information on how he set up this slide uh but you'll see along the Top Line our current Revenue plan we started budget discussions formally with the board in on January 7th uh you'll know that we were working with quite a deficit at that period of time uh and right now we're on this uh one two three fourth column over uh there where we have our proposed budget it's February 25th and depending on what Levy amount we are at which is towards the bottom rows there the working deficit that the bo that the administration is working with right now

148so I'll just start at a place or I'll turn this over to Kevin the place where we left off at a 2% Levy if we were to Levy 2% we would have a working deficit of $2.6 million if we were to increase the levy to 2.5% the administration is working with a $1.8 million deficit and if we were to go up to 2.74 uh our working deficit right now is $1.5 million and that's pretty much where we left off that discussion around 25 to 274 uh when we last met so the administration right now is working with anywhere between a 1.8 and $1.5 million deficit I do would point out and the board member had asked that we show this um that if we were to go up to our Levy limit which is 3.74%

149we'd actually right now in our planning be working with $42,000 in our favor um now again I don't know if there's real temperament for that we haven't gone that high in in in in some time but that is our Levy limit uh by by formula um so again we left off somewhere in that 25 to 274 range um but we're showing you what the working deficit would be at two other levels right here K I think is there anything like that so I had a whole thought about how to recap where we came from where we went but I think Phil did that pretty well so um so so to explain maybe some of the difference between the budget to- budget increase that's like 1.8 and the state aid that's increasing at 2.5 and why

150that may feel like it's a little different it's because this budget is has removed the dec holiday which takes out a an expenditure which reduces the expenditure from year to year by 3.5 million but it also reduces the revenue by the same amount so so that's why sometimes there's a disconnect between what a budget to budget increase is and what's going on with the taxes and with the revenues does that make sense why does it why why does the deck holiday also reduce because because when it's built into the budget it's a budgetary number so it so it increases that budget by 3.5 million as an expense as an expense correct but when I take it out in the 25 26 budget it has the effect of lowering the budget to- budget increase okay another

151words if I put another 3.5 million on top of that the budget to budget increase would be more like 3% if I kept if I kept an apple to an Apple okay um is that why that chart changed I'm that's okay no no uh no the chart you mean uh from January 7th to February we'll just let it go we'll just let it go it's fine okay yeah so so we're we're working through the process and we we first started in January and that January budget was about $7 million apart but we had we were missing building blocks we were missing information and so we've been developing that information as we go along in the in the budget building process and so we've adjusted for state aid we've adjusted for a reduction in our assumption

152about dehi uh uh rates for for health insurance and we've built those in but we still have a deficit depending on which number we choose for the levy of somewhere between 2.6 million and and a basically a balanced budget uh so between now and uh March 11th we the administration are working to try to give you a final proposal that says this is what's in this is what's out this is what balances and this is what the tax Lo is so to further that discussion we're we're we're we're having tonight's discussion so that you can tell us or give us feedack back as to what you feel the temperament is or um give us some sort of Direction so that when when we try to come through the door on the 11th that we we

153hit where you're You're Expecting that's all I got all you got for um I think Marian's waving at you and then uh so just for the for the folks at home uh the budget vote is May the 20th there's a budget hearing a week before on May 13th and there'll be more board presentations as we go along March 11th being the next go ahead all right that one our short our shortfall to to point that bottom section there corre do those amount coincide in a way with Hillary's plus and minus High chart thing I'm gonna I'm going to say that that right now we the administration have a lot of tokens on on on the floor and we're still trying to put the or pieces of the puzzles and we're trying to mix and match

154them together and what that final puzzle looks like is going to depend on maybe a little bit of direction on on how much money we have to work with hence the plus and minuses on each of her things yeah so the way to think about this is on the tax levy any point. one change so if we went from 2.7 to 2.8 that's $156,000 if it's a whole point if you go from like 2.0 to 3.0 that's 1, 561,000 that that that we would have to to work with the with the budget that okay and so go say the first part again if it were only one yeah so so if you went from um two point so look between 2.5 and 2.7 that value difference is roughly $360,000 which is 159 time 2 okay

155thank you that's 159 for each it's it's 156 for each point point for each for each point one point1 point and and a whole point is 1,5 161 got it okay I have a question that goes with Marian's I want to make sure I'm understanding this so we talked we talked last week and we talked tonight about a reduction of Staff through probably through trition does that in this proposal as it sits there are seven ft that that are taken so that is out that is already out that's that's included in this this model okay so that thank you that but still that's what I wanted to know thank you and our just this is just looking down the road like so in March like getting to the point where you know what numbers you're

156working with are we going to get specific feedback on what positions are being added and we're going to get a presentation on the CH specific changes in Staffing yes on March 11th we would show uh specifically what reductions are being made okay what additions are being made and any other adjustments that have been made within the budget okay I think you know it's no secret I I'll just point to this that as Kevin said at the 2% level which is what we had presented I think in early February uh that included a reduction of seven positions and based on the information uh uh that Hillary provided this evening uh those positions predominantly we identify at the secondary level at the high school level uh we just had not without impacting uh student programming and just

157to speak to it over the years uh we have made reductions in our staffing levels at the elementary level as those smaller cohorts uh were making their way through the elementary those smaller cohorts of 550 to 600 students or so are now in the High School uh and we have not reduced High School staff through that time in fact we've added staff in several areas because of the increases in state aid uh as well as the increase to Foundation Aid so if we're going we in a position where we need to reduce staff we should first be looking to our High School uh to do it we believe we can do it through attrition and we believe we can do it without impacting student programming all things we like to hear Mark so if I

158understand correctly what you're looking for is a number so that whatever it is two and a half 2.7 whatever so that you can find what cuts you can make in wherever in the budget to bring it back on March 11th is that essentially what you're looking for from the board what he said what he said yeah I I think that we we were looking for a number that is going to be relatively close to uh what it is that you that you have a temperament for what what it is that you expect but you know if if I'm envisioning how we're going to present there'll be some numbers against some of these things you may say I want that I don't want this I want this I don't want that so they're you know I

159recommendation we try not to get too much into that but yeah sometimes that happens right but if you but if you but if we come in higher than you're willing to go then then we're going to want Direction got go all value more than the other so just remember it's only March 11th we're not set to fully adopt until the beginning of a right so you'll so I don't want you to think that when we come through the door on the 11th that this is it and take it or leave it it's still it's still a working document we have two more meetings in March we have a cow and another meeting correct okay that's good to know that's really good to know yeah no it is really good to know because um as other

160pieces begin to be exposed you know also other people care right care so and we care um Donna yeah I always have a question um suppos being the Newbie so what would really happen the next month that would significantly affect the budget I guess that's my question like what kind of thing um be substantial I'm not expecting any any uh new uh bullets points of of of to come through the door um I may know the answer to the deck holiday and that may help us in another section of the budget but I think for the discussions that we are now in at the administrative level uh to try to put together a final recommendation or at least a recommend you know a complete package um I don't know that there's any new real information

161that we're looking from external sources it's more like we're working internally we're trying to assess what it is that we can and cannot do what the effects of those things will be that type of thing yeah one thing there there were years as the state uh legislature worked on the budget off of the governor's proposal districts would realize percentage Point increases to their state a uh every indication we're seeing is that it's not going to happen right uh so there have been years where there was that month where a lot happened uh between the governor's proposal and what the um uh the one house budget uh that's we don't believe that's the case anymore that's what I was just going to say to you and also the one house stuff happens in March which is

162good news but they keep haggling you know it's it's getting more unusual with our current governor that April 1 means a whole lot and then that's getting us behind the aall like we can't really I say this sarcastically one of the joys of school leadership and board governments right is going through the budget process with trying to align it with whatever's happening at the state is not influenced by the school budget process at all but education funding is a big ticket item in the state budgeting process so um we pride ourselves though in something that's important to us um is making sure that any staff who are impacted which would mostly be staff movement at this point um as Hillary alluded to what did you call it in your slide it was the bubble internal

163offsets thank you that's staff movement people who are going to be moving around the district um we really pride ourselves on making sure when we're recommending the admin ministration budget next uh on March 11 that those staff have been notified that when we're talking about those positions that that they're they're being influenced by that we don't want them to find about find out about it after the fact so we do push some elements of budget development uh in our process I say we it's me um to a degree in what I ask of the administration but the spirit of this is to make sure that we're also guiding our internal staff through the process as well um particularly those individuals who are impacted again not through layoffs but just through movement because that's uh uh

164that that has an impact on them as [Music] well don't I'll talk at once um I guess we need to think about we had had a little bit of a discussion the last time time about so I guess I'll just say that historically the board has felt very serious about the fact that the community here is a 2% world and thinks 2% they don't think index were Le and this is a little bit higher than we've been indexed before so just to be clear we have the we have the authority to put in a regular budget with just a simple majority vote a 3.74 raise to taxes and I think we've clearly said that that's too high that we don't want to do that I think um you know and uh to be honest we'd

165be much happier if we were just saying 2% the reality is you know if only we just look at you know I mean I guess the classic example right now is eggs right you know but whatever everything is going up and um and how do we best prepare ourselves with the uncertainty of a of a of a world you know um because Kevin gave us I was actually kind of hoping that this was going to be something you were going to present and we can actually share this on maybe on the website or something I think this is we've shared this before the cumulative savings that we've by not taxing to the levy limit we've saved our taxpayers you know um since the 12 I you correct me if I'm reading this wrong cing so

166I don't get uh since you know the 12 13 year 12 22 plus million dollar right that we could have levied but we're not looking to Levy we're looking to Levy what we need not to just take from our community to build more and more things that we don't need so we're taking this decision very seriously and uh and so I guess I'm just saying that to kind of get everybody talking again because we do need to come back to them tonight with something and it's not so much a question at this point as a rumination and a weighing of um it so I have no doubt in in in our ability to close this level of hole but it's a question too of um setting us up for success in future years as our

167future state aid relies on how much we put in the budget this year so you know um as Dr bante intimated there was some discussion of a of a 2.7 or 2.5 and I guess I just would like to hear mark stop hearing me you I thought you heard me enough tonight yeah no anyhow uh I I I am I've said this in in our cow I'll say it again for the public to hear uh I I believe that our job is board members is to watch the pennies and the dollars and to be physically responsible but I think it's also to do what's right for students and for our district uh and I I'll just put it out there I think that a good compromise with what we are able to do 3.74 and

168what our business manager has proposed uh in and going with a 2.74 I don't know how I got 74 but 2.74 is uh and and see what kind of next meeting that we have on the 11th uh what that's going to mean um I'm not saying will you away the store blindly but I think that that's seems to me a good compromise number to me uh to take and provide for students in our uh district and the employees that we have and so on uh you know and that that's to me is where we should you know start but I just want to different opinion I think that the 2.74 came with taking a full percentage point off the maximum amount we were able to to Levy which is the 1.56 one million so that

169would be a reduction of what we Levy to our tax buyers of the 1.56 one jump in anytime I'm wrong Kevin did you have a question oh you going around no I was just I'm not going around people just talk for now we can go around when we get to that point um I I'm comfortable with 2.74 um I think it's palatable for our community not jump to the highest level and not to stay at two I'm really adamant about I know Hillary say that you know will'll be moving teachers possibly or whatever they're going to do I really don't want to see any teachers uh laid off or let go or however you want to say it um that would be my number one priority um but I'm okay with 2.74 you know I

170I think I I think we talked earlier I I think though it we're like to kind of come off your comment I think that we're and please tell me if I'm wrong I get the sense that we're committed to a process that right sizes our staffing uh overtime with attrition that doesn't hurt our students or our staff unduly right and in a in a that keeps with our Arlington feeling but if we've got um some capacity we have a responsibility to take that capacity out where we can for our taxpayers right so I think that that's where it kind of is the balance um oh sorry Jen didn't see your hand make sure you're close to your mic I turned it on so I I just had a question about the reduction and at 1.74

171does that remove any current teachers or is that just all through attrition right now as of today uh because we're still working on this it appears to that we can manage all of it through attrition and just for audience me attrition meaning people who are retiring were for the most part not filling those positions so no one's laid off what you had said earlier in our process that was taking care of even at 2.0 AT 2.0 uh where those seven positions we included in that okay that's right yes Donna so that so we were at 2.0 what where would the work would you envision the money come from if we were not going to lay off teachers where we'd have to lay off people you would have to that would really be yeah I we

172really dug this over the course of the last two weeks I don't see a way of resolving a two what would then be a $2.6 million deficit uh without layoffs at that level I think at [Music] 274 we can get pretty close uh uh to balancing the budget meaning a 2.74 levy increase which would put us at a 1.5 working deficit 1.5 5 million working deficit um we can get pretty close to balancing that without impacting staff um through layoffs and still making one or two programmatic ads that John had spoken about this evening I I um I agree um with my colleagues I I don't want to see any layoffs I think that's really important I think exactly what you said Maryann we we obviously if there's going to be some right sizing as

173we go forward but I don't definitely don't want that to happen this year um but I look at the tax levies you know we've had I mean this is a high 2.75 is high historically it is high which is why disc I mean two of the last 10 years I had a tax decrease in M range so you know I just want to recognize that for the community it's it's it's a high increase so I think it's great though that you did recognize that you've had tax decreases over the last 10 years and that really is a response to the fact that we're responding to the same world that everybody else lives in right now you know um we have employees that want a certain cost of living adjustment we have all these different pressures

174on us and and so it's making me I I really felt like I was the flag waiver for 2% means 2% but I I am rethinking that in light of the fact that it would cause certain amounts of of uh that and actually as it rolls into our our base to help us as we have diminishing State um contributions you know we only have I mean what is it one Kevin tell it's one3 two3 oneir from the state 2third from our local taxpayers right so if we if we think about it that way um and we got this year somebody helped me out here from the state what was our what was our state tax 2.57 2.57 yeah so um that kind of tells the whole story we have a one onethird so we're looking

175to if we if we keep our twoth thirds at 2% and our onethird at what did we just say it was there goes my brain 5 two yeah right you can see where where inflationary pressures on us are are are pretty heavy yeah and I just pulled up the slide I just want to add that our budget to budgeting increase for next year is going to be 1.9% and I know we don't look budget to budget we look at the tax levy because that's what impacts people it's the smallest increase that we've had budget to budget uh over the last six or seven years I believe so from an Administration stpoint we're that's a very relevant thing we're doing our best to control how much our budget is increasing unfortunately because of uh you know

176we're just not getting a lot more state aid we then have to balance that with a levy increase that's going to be slightly higher does does that include the 1.89 does that include the de holay no okay are we gonna know about that before we vote I kind of came in hoping we could leave it at 2.5 to be honest with you well that I'm I'm teetering between those two to be honest the 2.5 and the 2.74 or whatever that's go on from up there I'm trying I'm trying to uh to worry about our taxpayers um given everything that's going on but I also want us to honor as a school District the changes that we've seen with our student population particularly post pandemic and into these you know ensuing years um it's it's it's

177a different it's a different world that we're operating in than some of the our budget things on the chart show um well and there's a lot of support needed in in a lot of the areas so but we want to adly support our people that do that work well that's how it gets done yeah right um okay I can I can I can continue to muddle and think about that um if someone has something that will help me please say it Maran I'm in the same place that you are between the 2.5 and the 2.74 um but I think a point just came out of what you were saying but not super clearly it is a different place than we were 10 years ago Donna you looked at your last 10 years right um but

17810 years ago our enl population was very different than it is right now our special ed population was very different than it is now and we have pressures that we didn't have coming out of the pandemic and through those two areas which then makes me lean to the 274 um just to piggyback on what uh e said technology 10 years ago we weren't having these budgetary conversations at all so you know I'm just still sticking to 2.74 I think it's going to you know it's not the 2.9 the business manager maybe once or whatever but you know it's not we're not jumping right to the top but we're giving our taxpayers a little bit of a wiggle room you know a little bit of a you know not jumping to the top I think Maran

179I think Mark's been waving at me behind fine yeah no no I I would piggy back on top of that I know since I've taught here and years ago we were looking at 8% of the population uh being classified in special ed now we're at 25% maybe more 17 17 I think you might be thinking though Mark about our free and reduced lunch uh numbers which were at 1.8% and now is at 33 to 35% nonetheless we still have much more increased costs when you're talking about a smaller numbers of students being served by you got to have more teachers you've got to have more people um and I don't know that it's necessarily going to get any better we'll see but you know ultimately we're in different times than we we were those years

180ago and we had opportunities to raise taxes $122 million over the last 13 14 years did we do it no we every time we got an opportunity we did what was right for the taxpayers and right for our students and we passed budgets that were before the 2% tax cap we were doing uh some pretty good budgets where we could have taxed a lot more than we did and we're trying to do that again but here we face you know some issues with the state and the funding that they're giving us and inflation and you know the the political world we live in um so I I I get you know I I say we are getting advice from our business manager this is the this is the thing we need to do in the

181over the long term uh this is a good strategy and a good way to manage this district and I think we ought to follow his advice I think Marian and Linda both have something to say at least that's okay I'm good um so we're zeroing in on you know teachers and attrition and maybe layoffs and everything is teacher teacher teacher but I think there's more to this District than teachers there's administrators there's Tas there's bus drivers there's there's you know whole lots of people make this District as wonderful as it is um so I hope when the belt tightening comes it it does it looks at all of the all the people involved not just teachers um and we're different from 10 years ago people are getting paid more hope that's great that's a great

182thing that you know you yeah and I would just point out that this school year we made a reduction Administration midy year um uh we also in previous years we've made significant reductions in maintenance and operation in facilities uh John's department and Dan's Department run very lean um at this point so and and administration administratively in the district and may seem hard to believe we have one of the leanest administrations in terms of Total Staffing as well as a percentage of what we spend um in in the area and by area I mean in the in in the region so you know there just comes a point trust me we're looking at every we've looked at every area but we also need a base level of support in place to make sure our kids get

183the school that the schools are clean when they get here uh that the management of the school district is is good um or strong um and that we obviously uh put the our teachers in a position to be uh supported and and to do good work with kids so uh We've emphasized the teach reductions uh because we're at a point here where we've somewhat protected uh that area over the previous two years and um there just comes a point where that's what's left uh and I respect and honor uh the fact of what previous administrations and boards were M doing in that area um uh but at the same time uh we don't see other areas where uh we can make the types of of reductions we're going to need to resolve the budget deficit

184that we have um so every person is important uh everyone's a piece of the puzzle uh as I shared on opening day uh we're just at a point here you know and I think Hillary Hillary's background information reflects this we have uh 1,700 fewer students than we did 10 years ago and we have the same number of teaching staff that we did 12 years ago go so I just want to emphasize we have 1,700 fewer kids and we have the same number of teaching staff so we've made the reductions all the way around everything else as best we could um and I don't want to lay off teachers uh and I don't want to cut teachers either but we're just at this point where that's what uh stands out and some of that I mean

185I think there I think for our taxpayers to hear that I think some of that has to do with with increased Special Ed I mean isn't there some other needs that have increased during that time because that that seems like tough thing to say um yeah but not to the extent that we're at otherwise we wouldn't be in a position to reduce seven teachers have we I know it's difficult to say I'm just telling you I'm in the building 1700 is a very different that's a that's funny matter oh if you if you want to in terms of programs uh and other Serv that we're providing those have expanded yes yes we have as Mark pointed to we have um you know eight uh or I'm sorry three times the number of free and reduced

186lunch students that we had uh 20 years ago uh We've doubled our special education population in that time um so there are other things that are contributing to that um and I think we provide other supports that are um you know pretty good right as well so we've expanded programming in some areas but I the reason the only reason I said that is I just didn't want people to hear that one blatant comment about 1,700 less kids in the same amount of staff it it seems like honestly mismanagement it's not mismanagement but I will point and I just want this is an important conversation when I became a teacher in the school district and I'm not advocating for this at all because it it wasn't the best I had 30 students in my class right

187and we don't and that was as an elementary school and we do not we've made value decisions around class size and I that keep our class sizes particularly at the elementary very respectable level uh now so some of that adding of Staff now could we sure we could I don't think you would support that I wouldn't recommend it right um but I do think that you know those who've been a member of the community for some time would know that well you know we have made some decisions that do emphasize and in or cost us increased out correct an increased money thank you for I appreciate the clarification of that Jen and just to the special ed um like Mariana said the need needs have increased in specia and we've brought more kids back into

188the district by opening some program yes and no you know I go back to Lisa's presentation from a couple weeks ago and look special there's a variety of factors that are influencing that because we have as Lisa pointed to that I think we don't control is who moves into the district and you know Lisa's figures reflect that there's a number of uh students um who are classified who've moved into the district each each year over the last couple of years um we have brought made a dedicated effort to expand in District programming um part of that is in response because the the entire system is stressed uh so there aren't seats available at Bose's uh but I also noting that are out of District parentally placed has increased um so I I wouldn't say that

189there are fewer um out of District placements I I think our out of District placements have increased slightly if I remember correctly Lisa right because they're fall just that littlest bit closer to that microphone please sorry it was on that's okay what you also have right now is it's District of location for the building for the private schools so we're providing services to private schools but it used to be District of residents that did that so you were only providing let's say for Holy Trinity the students that were who lived in Arlington and went to that school now we provide for anyone who's in that school and likewise other districts provide for ours in those non-public buildings so that's also something that's changed in the 12 years and of course the enl you probably didn't

190have 12 years ago so any of those teachers would have been added on in that time all of the reasons why you have 1,700 or we have 1,700 less students but the same number of teaching staff thank you so any more hands any more comments do we want to like do an inal SN straw pole um anybody want do you wanted do you feel come want to go around do we not want to go around what do we want to do can I make just one recommendation if it's okay with the board because we have time again the admin it's the administration's recommendation it doesn't it's not yet the board's adoption of a budget I know with the board if you're okay with this trying to send you for I hear you what I'd like

191to do is develop a recommended budget at 274 show you all of the ads show you all the reductions and some of the very there's a couple costs that we're incurring that I haven't shared with you yet that are influencing budget development so I want to uh give us the space on March 11th to share all of that with you so you can see with detail what we're talking about by positions both reductions and ads uh and other influences programmatic and then let's work from there we have a we have a month to hear feedback if you'd like us to go lower based on what you shared or what we share okay or the other variable is if we receive additional state aid I don't think we're going to get a lot but if we

192do we can always make the decision down the road to further offset the levy increase with the additional funding we're getting from from the state again I don't think that's going to be a lot but I don't think it's going to be less at least Kevin and I I think that sounds like a good and I think you could do the 275 I think the four thing I mean that was you know I think that's fine and um I think actually that that's great because I I think that's a really good idea because I was going to say could you just do your best within the range of 2.5 to 274 and come back to us with something because I do feel like you continuing to work is the right answer here continuing to look

193at the things right and with the idea that you're not getting a hard no from us on a 275 so I think got you know I think that's a good that feel good I think yeah it would help us visualize a little bit more exactly what we're talking about which I think is important at this point that's what we'll do thanks okay thank you and thanks for everybody participating in that conversation that brings us now to the end of the reports and discussion section I think yeah yes and now we're on to new business our new business section of the agenda lists several items for individual resolution approval pardon me documentation concerning these items has been provided to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough review Item B first reading on

194a whole lot of policies I don't need um that's just there we don't need a motion on that we'll be looking at that again in a couple of weeks second reading we I'm sorry oh oh okay we can do it okay no that's fine you know there's there's there's different ways to approach it you could just reach out to the policy committee but if you want to talk about here oh okay all right good okay on policy 1120 okay will the 1120 I no do I see that one here which one's what's the name of that one 11 I see it okay um will student board members be addressed through this policy or what's the what's the name of the policy I don't have it on my sheet here do we know sorry I had

195it up I my computer went me one second it's um that very on uh Board of Education qualification numbers and terms of office okay um I was just curious if we were going to address student board members through that policy um or a separate policy once the new law takes a effect on 71 I yeah so uh I there is a provision for addressing once student board members become uh or students become a member of the board next school year that uh there has to be policy language included in terms of how they're selected um and and their participation and then the other parameters that uh we put in place and when I say parameters we may have the agreement that at 9:00 the student goes home you know as an example of that parameter

196um just uh that we have to talk through um because some of our meetings do run late um whether it falls under this policy or a separate student policy uh student participation policy um I have to work with our attorneys to figure out I know it has to be in policy somewhere I'm just not sure yet which policy it goes in whether it be 11 20 or a separate policy in and of itself thank you okay um so um item C second reading um can I get a motion please we wa I need a motion first can I get a motion please thank you can I get a second thank you any discussion J sorry um second I apologize um um the policy regarding um so I'm sorry 8210 is safety conditions and prevention instruction

197thank safety conditions and what prevention instruction prevention instruction thank you I just had a question about um the discussion of Aid education prevention of child sexual exploitation and abuse and the child development and parenting skills that are provided to all students within home economics or health education courses at a secondary level I'm just looking for clarification on how these topics are made accessible to all the students at a secondary level um if the children do not if certain children may not have an ability to take these electives due to scheduling or program constraints such as um special education and elll students yeah good question and thank you for that I asked John to look into this so John has response for us so it is a great question there there's a very very small percentage

198of students that wouldn't receive this instruction and and we will any student that's on a traditional graduation track which is which all enl students at the secondary level um that are not dual classified in terms of having a um and a special ed classification that would put them in a life skills classroom all enl students will receive Health instruction and would potentially have space to take a um home and careers class or a family consumer science class there with respect to the life skills students um we will have to work with in the curriculum to make sure that they receive that instruction directly are we comfortable then voting on The all three policies excellent okay um all those in favor I I opposed abstention motion passes certified tene recommendation um may I get a motion

199please thank you a second second thank you um any discussion just would add that I had the opportunity to make meet with Jacob uh last we week with Dr Murray and um Mrs Roberto I think he's going to make a fantastic uh educator within our system have they also the chance to observe Jacob earlier this school year his uh enthusiasm is contagious he's a reflective uh practitioner and there's no doubt he is committed uh to Arlington um saw him at the Wizards game shooting some too he's everywhere so um I told Jacob he did not have to come this evening we have a meeting later this school year where we recognize all of our tenure candidates but he's one of the midyear uh tenure candidates because he started with us uh the week before uh

200covid School shut down so he quickly went into online learning after that so we talked about that a little bit but just a a demonstration and reflection of his flexibility and responsiveness as well so very pleased to recommend him forend thank you so much so let's all in favor I I opposed ition motions pass excuse me motion passes and congratulations to Jacob um business consent agenda oh actually can I get a motion to extend the meeting just so because I'm thinking of it right now till 9:20 so moved all those in favor I opposed extensions motion passes business consent agenda our consent section of the agenda list several items for approval by a single motion documentation concerning these items have been provided proved to our board members in advance to assure an extensive and thorough

201review may I please get a motion on the consent agenda thank you thank you any discussion seeing none all those all those in favor I opposed extensions motion passes this brings us to Future discussion item I don't have any to clear from a prior meeting does anybody have anything they' like to bring up tonight seeing none um uh public comment for non-agenda items Mrs Flynn do we have anyone for public comment okay all thank you oh wait you know what I'm sorry I didn't read my little Spiel so give me one second I sometimes we don't have um this is the second of two opportunities for people to address the board please state your name and address and keep your your comments to three minutes or less although we do not engage in dialogue we

202are listening disparaging remarks concerning specific individuals or POS or positions are prohibited if you leave your contact M information with Mrs Flynn our district clerk the superintendent or one of his staff will contact you as soon as possible so thank you for that my name is Morris magnoli I'm at 658 TR Road in P Valley New York 12569 I would like to speak with you today A Little Closer if you want to be heard by there you go thank you about not only the contents of the lrange Middle School library but guidelines for the selection of these materials it's my understanding that in addition to complimenting the district approved curriculum selection is also to offer Global perspectives and present various sides of controversial issues meaning political social religious and gender issues however I feel that

203this level at this level especially Middle School 10 to 13y old children there are better ways to do that without explicit content I have on numerous occasions picked up random books in the Middle School library and been extremely concerned about the content I was utterly shocked this past June to see graphically covered topics not just gender identity but sex and masturbation the first photo I noticed was that of a sex toy there was also an image of a female presumably at the gynecologist with a caption that read people shove things in their vaginas for pleasure question mark exclamation point there was also an image of two individuals lying nuded in a bed presum presumably engaging in sexual intercourse I don't view this as age appropriate means of teaching various perspectives I do view it as

204inappropriate I know that some parents may say that children can find these materials online but others may choose to restrict or limit their child's internet access which is no easy feat in today's world but I'm here to tell you that parents want to teach their children about sex and masturbation in their own time in their own way and when they feel it is the appropriate time for their child I I know that I don't want my child learning about these things in a book unsupervised at that as it's just simply in a library I don't think we're engaging in um active teaching or curriculum at that point my understanding is that's not until the middle of eth grade or the end of 8th grade and I don't think that it's that detail detail oriented perhaps

205I'm not too privy to that however because been a very long time since I've had an eighth grader but by making these materials available in the school library you're taking away the parents right to do that to make that Choice how and when to teach their child about these issues and these are only 10 to 13 year old children we're talking about so most recently I noticed the drug section at the lrange middle school library one of those books club drugs included information about real hypn and how it's difficult to detect causes weakness and difficulty moving these are quotes making it difficult to resist sexual assault it also notes that victims may become comos making it impossible to fight back and that victims may not remember the details of the assault I do not believe

206that the school should be introducing any part of rape culture without discussing it in its entirety and I don't believe that the school is bringing in all of the relevant facts to discuss rape culture with middle school children so I don't think that the school is in any position to introduce to potential offenders how they can subdue potential victims and I'm not seeing that every perspective piece here either we're not seeing all the perspectives coming into play we're just seeing the opportunity for a middle school child to peruse and and obtain this information without any supervision or guidance and as a Survivor myself I would like to teach my daughter about rape I would like to teach my daughter about these drugs and threats and her power that she can utilize I'm I'm letting you

207go over time but I'm asking you to please conclude if you could um the other thing that I he a huge issue with was um contained in a book about meth um not only details of the chemical composition of crystal meth but it gives household items such as match sticks nail poost remover road flares camp stoves batteries air conditioners I don't think that's necessary for them to learn um in such great detail um it's not necessary for them to develop wholesome health and skills and practices or discourage and deter them from experimental and recreational use as per the district Health and Drug guidelines in fact I believe overexposure at this age is contradictory to that goal of deterring experimental use I've taken I'm gonna need to ask you to wind up please okay I'm sorry

208not much more I assure you um I've taken issue with particular books and the district has conducted review at least one and I was informed that it was going to be um made available to eighth graders only um though my real concern is not only how is that actually possible but why was it there in the first place and I'm pleading I'm requesting that protocol be more proactive rather than reactive if I had noticed these things when I was there how would I know what's in the library so I'm here to ask that you Librarians the district be more specific in guidelines and certainly more selective and thorough in the selection process thank you you're welcome thank you do we have anyone else Mrs play good evening true half from uh 48 water loop CL

209Valley I agree with the L young lady that just spoke somebody sent me text messages about these books I was horrified absolutely horrified some of them are made into comics and I have pictures if you'd like to see on my phone actual cartoons of a man and a woman having sex not necessary that is not necessary for the kids I would really like to see oversight and maybe your budget you can lower your budget your library budget by taking these books out these let the parents raise their children not the school you're here to support the kids not destroy the kids thank you thank you Mrs pln anyone else who you who who what was your I'm sorry ma'am what was your name because I don't think we have your name right on the signning

210sheet Donna Ray true half t r e h a f t were you talking on of Mr Mr somebody else on the list and we thought when we called that name you came up that's why we're confused but it's no I stayed I specifically came to speak about this okay know him okay okay thank that's it okay thank you um moving on to committee reports let's see starting with to see nothing I think we've budgeted ourselves we we're waiting okay nothing else to say thank you audit Finance we are meeting on the 13th of March 10: am in the Border excellent thank you uh Cathy Cathy is we missed our last meeting thanks to the wonderful snow uh so we will be meeting on April excellent thank you policy the policy committee met last week

211February 19th we discussed the policies that were on the second reading tonight as well as uh we made sure that the policies on the first reading uh we're good to go uh I want to thank Margie Flynn and Valerie Warren for all their hard work this past week on these policies it took a lot of time a lot of time away from their General duties um and also Dr ban um he has a lot to put up with me in my mishos and um you know trying to be organized and you know get the policy uh manual up to where I want it to be so thank you Dr bante um the next meeting is March 12th thank you um organization reports Arlington Education Foundation um the next meeting is April 2nd so so not

212really an update just um work is being done on the 5K on April 26 you can register through the Arlington website on the Arlington Education Foundation page there's a QR code um and all are welcome excellent thank you so much um Dutchess County School Board bothos these update um next meeting is next Thursday the 6th of March um topics are a sh of our District's um cell phone policy where we are with that and your budget check in so it's it's a general share evening and everyone is also invited to that and that's a zoom excellent thank you PTA PTSA Council um I was able to go the last time unfortunately I left my little note sheet but they at home but they did have a um there was a lovely support for the people

213who were working on the T I'll comment again what a great event that was I I actually was unable to attend this year but um they they work really hard on that and it's such an ad to the district to have such a such a nice event um and I think their next meeting is like is it the do I have it on here is it oh yes it's March 26th via Zoom at 7 o'clock [Music] um Jeff isn't with us tonight for the District health and safety update so we'll get that from him next time unless somebody El like I don't mind we had a wonderful meeting just two weeks ago uh with the district health and safety committee and uh Dr castaldo was instrumental in bringing an expert in the field who I

214forgot her name Dr Lia Who provided an overview to the district health and safety team on um threat assessment so the research that had been done uh by um various agencies that help schools uh develop processes for working with other local agencies law enforcement and others in in identifying risk behaviors that could lead potentially to something uh someone to harm themselves or to harm others so she provided us with a good background on uh you know why are we doing this in our schools why are we putting the process in place on uh threat assessment um what's the research that's really driving that and was able to answer questions from our uh group and then she went on and met with other uh service providers uh later in the day as part of the superintendent's

215conference thank you very much I'm District Equity team ien uh we had a meeting on February 20th um you know I always talk about the share a lot of um buildings are doing work this month around Black History Month um if you have Facebook you can see pictures of overlooks um innovators gallery that they did uh it's cut it's um organized in an alphabetic fashion so for each letter they picked like um uh the letter P and talked about professions that in that group like I don't know what would be a p like a painter and then talked about um different examples of of people in the black history space that were painters um and so it kind of really tied to what what different individ ual did and accomplished which was great way to

216do it so I happen to notice that you can see the picture on the Arlington page on Facebook um and then a lot of the discussion and the share really honed in on Titusville shared about the work they're doing with restorative circles which is part of restorative practices um students are taught conflict resolution techniques and eventually they're facilitated by the the um teachers that are running it the adults that are running it but it becomes student Le um it fits in with responsive classroom that a lot of the elementary schools are are working with um and what the reason I'm bringing it up is because Titusville talked about the work that they're doing with Duchess mediation um and then one of the high school teachers talked about the work that she also did with Duchess

217mediation and it just kind of Grew From there right John it was like all the schools were interested everybody's like oh can you tell me more what are you seeing how are kids doing it so I think we'll continue to hear more about that excellent thank you so much um superintendent's closing remarks I'll just share I know there I wanted to thank Mrs spagnoli for her comments this evening and uh the other speaker I'm sorry whose name escaped me I know it takes a lot of courage to come and speak in front of a public body or a governing body it's not an easy thing to do and folks uh take a lot of time out of their uh lives to do so so uh first I just want to um my remarks to start

218from a place of appreciation for that um I do want to clarify for for the board and for any members of our audience there's two books that were brought into question uh this evening um one of which it's my understanding is not in circulation at lrange Middle School um so I know uh there's a difference of uh perhaps uh perspective or information that's been shared but one of the books that was more uh salacious in nature uh that was described by two of the speakers this evening are is not in circulation at lrange Middle School um it has not been uh this school year um uh the second um is and I I would just point to that the board has policy uh for um concerns related to any instructional materials that are utilized in

219our school uh The District administration myself and Mr Ora oversee the process for reviewing those materials when those concerns are brought to our attention uh that process has been employed at least once this school year um it very well may be employed in this particular case it is uh I I guess reactive in that it comes from a place of concern uh and I'll note Mrs spn's comments there about having a proactive process so we don't uh so there can be ideally some uh maybe agreements around uh what materials are included in our libraries or in our schools uh I will say this though um in my experience with this most recent incident I I when I came into the district and the leadership team that I'm trying to establish here and the culture that

220I'm trying to establish certainly with our Administration and within the community to the extent that I have I would say that I I want our schools to be a place where people uh can come together and understand one another and I I don't think uh anything any greater understanding is gained um through um you know text messaging or things that are posted online and uh and I really would encourage any body who has concerns uh regarding what's going on in our classrooms or in our schools to First seek out the classroom teacher or the librarian uh that we've uh and perhaps this is what's going on in the world and the way things are handed there's uh too much of an instinct to just hear about it and then post about it um or to

221text about it with no conversation with the individuals who are most directly related or were involved in making the decisions to put those materials in our libraries are in our classrooms um you know they're they're almost an afterthought uh in that process and I think that's uh that's not helping come into any understanding for why we would include a resource in our uh in our class in our schools excuse me or perhaps give us consideration for why we shouldn't um so it goes both ways and uh I think that's a conversation that exists uh you know more so um you know at the CL with the with the teacher um or or with the principal um then been here at at the board level uh that being said the board has policy on this and

222the district has a process for managing it uh when it does but I would really encourage our community members who want to know more about what's going on in our schools or concerned about what's going on in our schools and if they have children in our schools uh to talk to their classroom teacher and I think that they'd find uh that there uh is uh maybe u a place of Greater understanding uh both ways uh to to find in in that dialogue or that discussion I have no further remarks thank you Dr um that moves us on to board Reflections does anybody want to reflect all right we seem reflected out although we love you all out there and everything you're doing we reflect you're all doing a great job I get a motion to

223adjourn please so effective thank you no discussion needed meeting adjourned