BOE March 26, 2026 Thursday

001I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing as we make our morning invocation. In the spirit of fostering an atmosphere of unity and purpose, we seek a harmonious existence for all members of our community and strive to bring humanity to our deliberations and our work. You may be seated. Welcome to the March 26th meeting of the Carle Place Board of Education. Vice President Gary did not attend tonight's meeting due to a personal matter. We will start with comments from the board, and I will take the lead. Welcome, everyone. I would like to say thank you for your support of passing the HBAT vote. I'd also like to welcome Betty

002Connolly to our district. She's here. Here, stand up. Thank you. We wish you well, and you're going to really love our district. Thank you so much. I'm very lucky. I'd also like to congratulate some hotshots. We have Madison Reedy, who had her 100th free throw score. We also had Ryan Nary, who reached his 2,064th basketball shot. Congratulations. I'd also like to congratulate the boys reaching all the way to the Long Island Champs. If you saw both games, it was better than the NCAA March madness. Ooh. For sure. Lastly, I'd like to thank Trustee Dinallo for his 25 plus years of voluntary service for the board. You will be missed. And really appreciate your mentorship and support. Thank you. I will now hand it over to Trustee Dinallo. At the last meeting, I announced that I

003was going to resign from the Carle Place Board of Education as of June 30th, 2025. However, if I do it that way, the remaining board will stay at four. And you don't want a board really with four members. You want an odd number. So, I'll be resigning earlier than June 30th, and I'll read my resignation. It's to Kelly Gutowski, our district clerk. That's Kelly. Please be advised that I'm resigning my position as Trustee of the Board of Education and from the Audit Committee of the Carle Place Union Free School District, effective the close of business on April 17th, 2026. So that will afford the ability to have my spot open, and whoever comes in my spot, even if they're the third lowest- Third highest ... The third highest or lowest? The third highest. Okay. Okay.

004Third lowest. We'll then finish my term. So I think that's the best way to do it. I did want to end my time here handing out diplomas, but it's better that we do it this way. So I'm very disappointed in that, but it's better for the school district and better for the remaining board members. I'll now pass it on to Trustee Dunphy. Thank you, Trustee Dinallo, and thank you for your service. True story, I was getting a diploma probably from you. So just to- Probably ... put that out there. So I appreciate the diploma then, the time then, and of course everything since. So we really do appreciate that. And welcome to Betty. Thank you so much to the community for the vote, ensuring that we can follow through on our projects here. Congrats to

005all our athletes. To President Monaco's point, I'm a big St. John's fan. Really looking forward to tomorrow. Thrilled with the opening day. I see some Mets colors in the crowd here. But really, the run that our boys basketball team has had has been as exciting as it gets. And everyone really has done a great job in the community, too, to support them. So, great job to them. In the moments that I ran home from work and then down the street to come to the board meeting, I did see all three of my kids briefly, and I got kind of a report from them. Alice had a little spring party in her class. She was thrilled about that. George got a home run in kickball at Rushmore, so we got Charlie and Rushmore covered. That was

006the day. And Theodore, going into high school, kind of gave me a shrug of the shoulders. A big day. I didn't make it to Cinderella, but some family members did. My five-year-old did, and she was dressed like Cinderella after and acting out the show for the rest of the weekend. So, great show. How come I-- I don't like going after you. You're so animated and amazing. I don't feel like I want to congratulate Larry. He's a mentor for us. Pat and I just started two years ago. It's going to be two years. So we're learning a lot from him, and it's sad to see you go, but I know that you're not going to be too far away, just a couple of houses down. But anyway, good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for coming

007out tonight. I'd like to start by mentioning that I wasn't here last week because I had my own parent-teacher conferences at my school. And since I did, I didn't want to miss this opportunity with congratulatingAll the students that sat for the awards committee, I was on the committee, so I had the opportunity to see all these students poised and confident and articulate themselves well. I'm not a voting member, but it was simply an amazing gift to just sit there and watch these kids. And I know this was a couple of weeks ago, but I really wanted to make sure that everybody knows that these children that sat were amazing. And I'm so happy that they're in our district. I also want to share a personal highlight. I attended the regional basketball game in Farmingdale, again,

008a couple of weeks ago. And I haven't been to a basketball game since 1996. The year I graduated. I have to say, it was the most amazing game. It was exciting. It was like a nail-biter. If you saw me in the stands, you probably thought I was some kind of crazy animal because I kept on jumping up and running up and down. But the boys did so good. Everybody did. It was such an amazing game. And I even tried to get tickets to go to Binghamton, but I obviously couldn't get them, because I wanted to take a plane there and fly back real quick, but that didn't happen. But they had an amazing year. So congratulations to all of them. What an amazing season. And I also want to recognize the amazing cast and crew

009of our high school production of "Cinderella." The performance was truly outstanding. Our own Carolina, who played the lead role, did an amazing job. As always, I come with a group of kids, and they were all completely mesmerized. It's important to acknowledge that these actors and crew members dedicate countless hours to rehearsing and perfecting every detail of the show. And what makes it even more impressive is that many of these students are also involved in sports and other activities. So balancing their time, and other commitments, it really shows. They put on an amazing show. And thank you all the staff that participated and helped out. I always say it, Cold Place is an amazing town to live in and to grow up in. And not all different places, I'm sure, I'll say they don't have this

010opportunity that we have such a small town that we can be in everything and still succeed. So thank you to everybody that takes part in that, staff and teachers, and also students and families, parents. And that's it. Have a nice night. Oh, and the break. Have a fun break. This past weekend, the Cold Place Theatre Company performed the production of the "Cinderella" musical, and it was a lot of fun. And as for sports, the season is off to a great start. The varsity softball team and the B league Cold Place boys lacrosse team both had games yesterday, and the girls varsity lacrosse team had a game today, and they won. Additionally, school today was very exciting, because it was Career Day. Professionals from different fields such as business and healthcare came into the high school

011to speak to students from sixth grade to 12th grade about the professions and the different paths that they can take throughout their professional careers, and we did learn a lot from that. And lastly, Battle of the Classes is officially one month away, and both the student organization and Key Club are hosting an assembly on Monday to inform students about how to get involved and fundraising for this year's charity, Calvin Towers. Thank you, Carolina. And now we will hear comments from Dr. Knopff. Thank you, Madam President. I would like for everybody else to say thank you to Mrs. Lionel, for your leadership and your guidance. I wouldn't be here without you. And it is a remarkable thing in this day and age for a person to be able to serve on the board of education for

012that length of time. It is a major accomplishment, and you will be missed. I know we have one more meeting together, so we won't get too gushy yet. But that being said. Also, Mr. Bennett cannot be with us tonight because he has a family obligation, and so I'm going to recap some of the things that other people have said. Career Day was a remarkable experience. We had all of our students at one point or another in the gymnasium today. I want to say thank you to Mr. Blasio and the guidance counselors for putting that together, and to Mr. Foraker and Ms. Cantinarian, Ms. Solomon for helping to make that happen, and all of the teachers and educators who participated in that. We had folks from the police department and fire department, artists, medical professionals, pilots,

013military personnel. You name it, they were there. Researchers, and what a great thing it is to see our students getting the chance to meet with and talk to people that they aspire to be like. That's what school is supposed to do. It's supposed to create opportunities for kids to grow and reach for the stars and become the thing that they desire to be. And that was a step in that direction for them today. Really, really cool. "Cinderella" was a fantastic show. Cinderella herself is sitting here with us, our alter ego as Cinderella. It's a lot of fun to watch our kids perform on the stage and also to be involved in the production of that. You learn teamwork, you learn resilience, you learn just so many skills that are valuable later in life in a

014bunch of different ways. It's a great thing. Spirit Week and Battle of the Classes is coming up. Worked in a few districts in my career. Cold Place does it right, and they do it with a gigantic amount of enthusiasm. It's going to be something to see. It always is. Really, really cool. To our folks here tonight and to our families at home, please remember that the New York State ELA and mathematics and science exams are coming up when we come back from spring break. That might not be the most glamorous and exciting thing in the world, but children have put a lot of work into that so far this year, and their teachers have put a lot of work into supporting them. Have a lovely spring break and come back ready to demonstrate what you

015know. That's a super important part of what we do here. That's what school is all about.The plug for the future, the Fine and Performing Arts Hall of Fame ceremony is coming up April 30th. That's going to be really soon. It was a spectacular event last year. Mr. Limon put that together. It will be a spectacular event this year again. It's the 29th. The 29th. My mistake. Thank you very much. Yes. The 29th. Let the record show. Yes. Thank you. I also want to announce something that I will send out more information about. I've been working with Ms. Menino to put together a way for us to say something when we see something. And we have a new application that's going to be on our website. If you see someone behaving the wrong way, or maybe

016someone is bothering you or giving you a hard time, and you want to report that anonymously, we're going to have a means to report that anonymously. It's really important for kids to be able to do that. We've been working on that for a little bit of time. We got guidance from some other districts who've done it successfully. I want to say thanks to Ms. Menino and her team for helping make that happen. I will be sending information out to the families on how to do that. It's super easy, and it is a site build on each school's website. That concludes my report for this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Caligiuri. The public comments disclaimer will be read by Trustee Duffy. Board of Education allows time at the conclusion of these regular meetings for comments

017from residents and attendees. Please note that any person wishing to speak during this time shall comply with all provisions of the board policy. Although a total of 30 minutes is allowed for comments, the board president has the discretion to adjust the total timing. We remind you to keep your comments to three minutes and to conduct yourself in a respectful manner. Please address school matters only and refrain from addressing topics related to personnel matters or individual students. Such concerns should be discussed privately with the superintendent or administrator at an appropriate time. The board is here to listen and cannot provide immediate feedback or engage in open dialogue. Any necessary follow-up will be noted and provided at a later date. If there are any comments or questions from the public on agenda items only, please come to

018the podium. State your name and address. Hi, good evening. Vicki Brenner, Parkway Drive. My questions are regarding the several health and welfare agreements with Mineola, Jerrold Cove, 4.12 all the way through 4.17. It seems as though these dates are closing this June. So could you please explain why something now is being approved or an agreement is being agreed upon that was from September up until now? And then could you just explain what health and welfare agreement we would be entering with these seven districts? Thank you. Okay, we'll see. Joanna. Basically, why September? Why are we talking about them? Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, no worries. So, health and welfare agreements are for Cauley Place students attending private schools and other school districts, so we're required to provide the health and welfare services. Okay. So because we're

019required to do that, the contracts don't always flow in right at the beginning of the school year. We don't really have a choice. So as we get them and get through reviewing them, they get on the chart. Okay, thank you for the clarification. Mm-hmm. Are there any other comments or questions from the public regarding agenda items only? There's one. Oh, there's one about the agenda. Oh, okay. Joe. Hi, Joe Macurdo, 54 Bright Street, Westbury. First, congratulations to all sports teams. I've been away from the board meetings and both the fall and the winter sports had a great year in multiple sports, so congratulations to all the students, coaches on those teams. Number two, congratulations to Larry. I enjoyed working with him when I was on the board, and he certainly put in a good part

020of his life to the school. So congratulations and good luck with retirement. My question is on the MOA regarding the Board of Education approves the memorandum agreement between the Cauley Place Union Free School District and the Cauley Place Administrators Association, and it includes everybody in the admin. What are we doing related to their contracts, especially when some people just signed a contract or summed up to a five-year contract, got a two-year extension, then I think got a one-year extension, if not another two-year extension. So what are we changing to contracts of administrators? Joanna got a promotion. I can understand that that might be getting changed. We got two people who were just hired this year. I thought they signed a contract to work here. So what are we changing and why? Is that the end

021of your commentary? Until I get the answer, yes. Do you want to wait till the end or should we go for it? Do you have other questions, Joe? I'm going to have budget questions when the budget comes up. Okay. And I have this question because it also relates to the budget and future expenditures in my mind if you're changing things in financially. We are not changing anything financially. I want to make sure that I'm not- Treading into- Okay. Which please? Yeah, how do I say- Sick day donation agreement. There is an administrator who is ill, and the members of the Administrative Association and central office members are donating their sick days to that seriously ill administrator so they can remain on payroll through these sick days. So you need an MOA for all the contracts

022to do that? Yes. It's a standard sick day donation MOA that the district has done quite a number of times. Okay. And that's the only changes to the contract, so when I foil them, there'll be no other changes. There's no changes to the contract. They're not actually changes to the contract. That's just an amendment- And I didn't even know- Between ... you referenced the Administrative Association. It sounds like we've got a union that we negotiate with the admins. The union stops at the principal level that we negotiate with the union reps. So that was kind of misleading as well. We do individual contracts- This is not about contracts- With admins ... for any of us, though. Well, certainly, there is nothing there that tells you that. And on top of that, it says, "Authorized the

023board to execute," saying somewhere it says that it requires that there's a copy of this somewhere, but it's not attached. Mm-hmm. If you would explain it more in detail, we wouldn't worry about it. Certainly, I wouldn't. Mm-hmm. But when it comes to contracts and you put out an MOA, I'll tell you ahead of time, I'm going to be asking about it all the time. Why not? Because I did it before I got elected, I did the contracts during my election, and I'm still going to be on top of them after I'm off the board, because that's what drives expenses in this place. Mm-hmm. Okay? Understood. So as long as you understand where I'm coming from when I ask- Absolutely ... and a little extra wording would help. Understood. Thanks. I'll talk to you about the

024budget later. Thank you. Are there any other follow-up questions from the public regarding agenda items only? Okay, we will continue with our business meeting. The next is the budget presentation, starting with Lindsay Weisman. All right. Thank you for joining us tonight. For at our meeting on January 22nd, you heard my presentation about balancing vision and details with leadership. During that presentation, we spoke about a photography concept called deep focus, where both the foreground and the background are clear. So tonight, we're revisiting that concept as we look at how the details of our committee work, our community priorities, and the budget are working together towards our overall vision. In preparation for tonight, Michelle and I were thinking about combining our presentations, and she had selected this quote, and this is what really inspired the way that

025we're approaching our conversation tonight. It's a simple concept, but it's a good reminder. We can talk all we want, and we can generate ideas, and we can gather the data, but if we don't take any action, and if we don't exercise our agency, we won't have any success. So tonight, we have the opportunity to show the work being done to weave together insights from previous administrator entry plans, committee recommendations, board education goals, and community priorities. The result is a stronger ability to bridge that gap between education and operations, and with it, a responsible spending plan that ensures the best opportunities for our students. So we're going to go through community, community capital, connecting the dots. We're going to talk about our budget thought exchange results briefly, and then we're going to move into the more

026traditional budget presentation for our remaining areas, which tonight are fine and performing arts, technology, athletics, and special education. Sure. Michelle's going to show you how to navigate through our committee recommendations from our Portrait of a Graduate committee and where to find the recommendations for our other three committees. So this slide is here as a key for anyone that wants to revisit that or learn about our other committee work. Essentially, what we did is we looked at the recommendations for the '26, '27 school year, and linked them to our budget, to our strategic focus, to our core strategies, our short-term goals, our board goals, and the budget thought exchange, which has input from the community, our staff, and even our students. And with that, I will pass it to Michelle. Yeah. All right. So thank you,

027Joanna. Thank you to the board and Dr. Thoney for having me here tonight to share these exciting updates, some of our next steps in planning that have taken place in regard to our core committee that you see on the screen right now. First, I want to share the tool that you see up here. This is a tool that we put together to walk anyone through our committee updates, through all of the work and plans. After this evening, these slides will be available on the district website as an interactive tool. So to begin, I want to bring your attention to the work of the curriculum aligning committee. So step one was doing the work over the summer and then fall with vetting the storyboards and our curriculum work that had occurred. Right now, we are just

028finishing up step two and three. So by clicking on step two and three it brings us to our updates for '25 to '27 and our next steps. Tomorrow, this website right here that I'm going to click on will be available on the district webpage if you go to curriculum instruction. So this is where we'll be housing our storyboards, so they're transparent to all of our families that are interested in understanding more about the curriculum that their children are receiving every day. Right now, we have mostly seven through 12 storyboards. Our next step in our curriculum is to expand that to K through 12. So starting this summer, we'll be training more teachers with the creation of storyboards and publishing them as those as they come. So if you scroll down, you can see the work

029of the committee, including the presentations and the template they worked with. Coming soon is a third-grade sample of some of our curriculum. You can click through the middle school and high school storyboards. And most important, to take us to our next step as a curriculum aligning committee is the question and comment section. This is an interactive forum. Please leave feedback. We're going to use that feedback to continue to refine our storyboards and make them even better for the families that are seeking more information about the curriculum. So throughout this tool, anytime you see this hand, you can click on it, it'll bring you back to the beginning of our slides to the committee work. So I'm just going to walk us through another strand of our committees. So our Portrait of a Graduate committee phase

030one was what we just about finished with the district right now, which was educating our staff about New York State inspires, our Portrait of a Graduate committee, doing some deep research and making sure all of our staff understands what our Portrait of a Graduate competencies are. So if you click on phase one, it'll take you through that with some artifacts of that learning. Followed by phase two, which we're in right now. So in phase two, and throughout this presentation, anytime you see '26, '27, you can also find connections to our budget, strategic planning goals, our thought exchange for our budget, and how it all connects, especially with our board goals. So for example, phase two we're just embarking upon right now. We're integrating our Portrait of a Graduate skills and language into curriculum and Carl

031Place daily student experiences. Now that we know it, now we're going to start applying it and using it. So our first step is to integrate Portrait of a Graduate into our curriculum writing projects this summer. You can see an icon here, and by clicking on this little icon, you'll see a snapshot of where this is planned for in the budget. Continuing on to the next icon, we're going to continue to create ongoing professional development and experiential learning opportunities that align explicitly to our Portrait of a Graduate competencies. And by clicking on the icon here, you can see that this is part of our strategic focus. So all of the work of our committees and all of the next steps are planned for throughout our budget, strategic focus, feedback, and board goals. If we go a

032little lower, we can see down here, this is feedback received from our K to 12 faculty. After learning about all of the different competencies... Whoops. Let me bring us back. After learning about all the competencies, we asked our K to 12 staff to talk to each other in heterogeneous groups, mixed groups, and decide what are the areas that we need to grow in in order to achieve our competencies upon graduation. Our staff said in order to foster agency, we really need to up our game in hard work and resilience , conflict resolution, and critical thinking. So that's an area that we'll be focusing on for '26, '27. And if you click on the light bulb throughout the presentation, it'll take you to our thought exchange questions and responses for the community. This is the feedback

033we got about the budget for this year and how it aligns to some of our planning and our committee recommendations. Lastly, and extremely important is when you click on our logo throughout the presentation, you'll be able to see how the committee recommendations and next steps align to our board goals. So this is our second board goal, which is to advance implementation of the Carl Place School's Portrait of a Graduate to ensure equitable access to learning experiences, resources, and supports that prepare all students for success in a global society. So this tool will be available on the website starting tomorrow, should you want to see all of the work that happened for the committees, where we're going next, and how it all matches and aligns to our strategic plan, board goals, budget and beyond. In this

034tool, anytime you see that hand, if you click on it, it'll bring you back to the beginning, so you can check out all the other ones. So I'm going to hand it back over to Joanna, and thank you for allowing me to share. Thank you. So you saw on the previous slide, we surveyed our staff, in all grades K through 12, on which Portrait of a Graduate competency they felt we should focus on for '26, '27, and that was hardworking and resilient. And when you look at the thought exchange results, when asked to rank the priorities for helping students achieve the Portrait of a Graduate, the overall highest-ranking item was rigorous academic programming, which fits perfectly with developing those hardworking and resilient students. If you want to see the complete results from the thought exchange,

035this link will be live when we post this presentation. All of our responses are here, and if you scroll all the way down, you can see all of the thoughts that people made when they responded, and then all of the topics within those thoughts. So now we're going to move into our more traditional budget presentation. We have 8.2% of our budget left to cover tonight. This is the breakdown of the proposed expenditures. Overall, these categories represent a net decrease from our '25, '26 budget of $5,800, with increases in technology and the arts being offset by decreases in athletics and special education. And now I will pass it to Ms. Villenova to discuss the fund reallocating report. Thank you. Good evening. I'm very excited to be here with you all to talk about our plans for

036fine and performing arts for the coming year. So this is an overview of the line items that affect the fine and performing arts. I want to highlight a few, which I'll talk more about in the next slide. But if you take a look quickly, we have a decrease in regular school equipment music. There was quite a bit of equipment that we purchased last year for the auditorium. And we bought a bass and a new bass guitar. And really, the biggest expense there was concert microphones that we are now purchasing this year. So those have been great. They worked out great. They sounded great. So if you were able to attend our winter concerts this year, you might have noticed that the sound quality was greatly improved. So really happy about that. Down a few lines,

037which I'll also talk about in a moment, you'll see just some movement between budget codes. The $19,000 is not really an increase, it's just a movement from one code to another. But we did also do some work to create a special line item for fine arts at Cherry Lane and fine arts at Rushmore. Those had traditionally lived in the principal's budget. But I worked with Joanna this year, and we've moved those into my category so I could have some more flexibility with how we budget for those classes. The next one is, I'd like to just point out program supplies music. I'll spend the most time probably tonight talking about that. That's an increase that we are looking to bring up the professionalism of our performing groups, which I'll talk about in the next slide. So

038that's one I want to talk about. And then the next increase that I'd like to talk about is BOCES, and what that's all about, our arts and ed, and exploratory enrichment programs that we pay for through BOCES, arts and ed, Nassau BOCES. So let me just highlight a few things. Actually, we're really excited about the growth in our high school and middle school chorus. Mrs. Yonker's been doing an incredible job. Those kids have gotten really excited and there's been an increase in pride, and the numbers in the high school chorus, especially. Last year, if you recall, we added some funds. We wanted to try something out. I'm going to actually go back a few slides and show you. That bottom picture, if you recall, we thought let's jazz up our holiday concert colors. All of

039the young ladies are wearing a pashmina and the boys have matching ties. So we tried that out. They're in their own blacks. So we gave this a run this year. It turned out the kids really liked it. They felt really special. There was pride. We tried it, and maybe Carolina, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea was Mrs. Yonker shared with the kids, "Listen, it's a pashmina. You wear it how you want. You can style it the way you want, but at least all have the same color." After the concert, the kids talked with Mrs. Yonker, and they were looking at the pictures and said, "We should all wear it the same way because it would look sharper." So we thought, okay, that's great. They are on board with the idea. This

040is where we're headed. So if you look at this picture to the top left, that was our high school choir last spring. They look fine, but they're not a unified group. This next picture in the top middle, that was similar to the concert here. That's our kids performing at MacArthur Airport. Again, those are the colors that we added, the pashminas, and they're all in their own black. But we've gotten them excited now about this idea, so we are looking now. The picture all the way to the top right, that is not our choir. But that is an example of a choir that's in uniform dresses and tuxedos. So we've added some funds to move one step further into unifying the choir, helping them to feel like a team, a family, a group, presenting themselves as

041a chorus, as a choral group of voices. So, that's what we are adding some funds for this year, as well as for our pep band that plays at our football games. The bottom left is a photograph of our band students playing at the football game last fall. As you can see, they are in their own clothes. There's really nothing that's making them a unified group. If you look really closely, there is a special guest on cowbell in the back, who I understand was really the highlight of that night. But we're really looking now to move them in the same direction as the chorus. We want them to feel just as unified, like a team, like the football team. The players are in a uniform. It creates a team. So, we're adding funds to create... I

042don't know if that's exactly what we're going to get, but we'll work with the kids and our team to pick something that makes sense for them. The season starts offEvenings can be hot in the season. The season ends, and it's freezing cold. So something that will work maybe on something with a warmer, but whatever. But the idea is to really unify that group, give them some pride, get them excited about being in the pep band and being at the game and being part of the whole experience. So, that's what those were about. I also wanted to let you know about some of the funds we've added. So as I explained, we moved some of the funds out of the principals' budgets at Cherry Lane and Rushmore, and I've added some funds to unify what we're

043spending at that level in the elementary school. Three thousand at Cherry Lane, that is exactly 1,000 per grade. We've got K, one and two at Cherry Lane, and 4,000 at Rushmore. Again, 1,000 per grade for fine art supplies at Rushmore, 1,000 per grade. We didn't increase our funds at the middle school, high school. We just moved that into a new code. That 19,500 was just for the middle school and the high school, so that's six grades. Well, I do want to mention my next bullet here. We've made some programmatic changes to how we're going to be instructing our music classes. This does not affect the budget, but I just thought I would mention because we've taken some money from where it had been previously and moved it to a different line item so we could

044add some funds for software. What that software does is, not only does it allow our students to practice for NYSSMA. Sight Reading Factory is a program that shoots out challenges for the students for their sight reading, which is a challenge that they have at NYSSMA. But also our Make Music program, which is a big success at Rushmore, we're bringing it up to the seventh grade. So those sixth graders who are used to working on it with Mr. Duluso and Ms. Del Shigan will have one more year with it in seventh grade, which, Mrs. Smith and Mr. Krieps, will be a great help. I don't know if you all know this, but our seventh graders have music every other day. Our eighth graders have music every day. And, so it's hard to keep those seventh graders

045on pace with the eighth graders. So this will really help them keep up with the eighth graders by giving them some opportunities to continue to practice on their own. And we can print music with that service. So we've taken some money out of the sheet music budget and moved it into that line item so we can purchase that software. So it's an even swap, but I just want to explain where you might see some of those funds moving. The last thing I'd like to talk about is our BOCES Arts in Education and Exploratory Enrichment programs. We've added some significant funds there in partnership with our PTAs, K through 12. We've... Is it me? Okay, turn it on. We're working on moving into bringing some programs into all of the schools in partnership with the PTA.

046The PTA will be using some of their funds, and we're going to be matching those funds to bring some new programs in to the schools. Exploratory enrichment, those would be bringing special folks in to... Yeah. We haven't identified yet what those will be, but the PTA have lots of ideas, and we are excited to meet them halfway and support those efforts. So that's what those funds are for. And that was my piece. So- Feed into it. Yeah. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Gambino. Hi, everybody. Thank you to the board for allowing me to present this evening, also to the community for showing up and listening. I will be presenting a little overview of the technology budget for the '26-'27 school year. On this slide, you'll notice probably pretty glaringly that there is a

047300% increase in technology equipment. So I'd like to speak a little bit about that, seeing Mr. Brenner already smiling at me. This year's increase in the technology equipment line reflects a unique conversion of needs rather than a typical annual purchase. So in a normal year, we like to replace Chromebooks for two grade levels, typically incoming first grade and then ninth grade. However, about four years ago or so, we used federal COVID funding to purchase multiple grades' worth of devices all at once, because that was what the grant money allowed us to do. And now those devices are reaching their end of life and must be replaced. As a result, this year includes both our regular replacement cycle and a one-time catch-up from those earlier purchases, which significantly increases the total. At the same time, we're

048trying to modernize our equipment and take this opportunity to do so. With this investment, if the budget passes, all students in grades one through 11 will have pretty brand-new devices that will all be touchscreen for this September. This is really important and I've listened to the community and I've gotten a lot of emails from parents saying, "Why don't we have a touch screen? Why don't we have touch screen?" So this is really important for our youngest learners so that we can support their instruction, maximize learning time so that there's no downtime, lag time, and then also ensuring reliability and ease of use during those computer-based testingWe're also accounting for a small amount of additional devices just to have replacements in the case that we get new students, and also we need a healthy supply of

049testing loaner devices. If a student forgets their device and then they have a state test, we want to be able to provide the same type of touch screen device for them. Lastly, I'm sure you've heard of this in the news, technology costs are just increasing overall. The devices themselves have increased. I believe last year we spent about $260 per Chromebook. They are now up to $350. This is due to global factors such as supply chain pressures and an increased demand for components for AI tools. So while the increase is significant this year, also we're trying to incorporate a planned reset modernization, and then it will allow us in the future to then position us into a more stable, predictable replacement cycle moving forward. We are replacing four grades this year. We should be replacing three

050grades per year, and that will happen the following year. Also on my slide, you will see there's a 53% increase in technology supplies district-wide. Mr. Forager had mentioned this would appear in a later presentation. Here it is. This is for 12 computers that we need to buy to support the Bloomberg program, including two monitors each, so that's 24 monitors. We also need mounts for those monitors. So that's why you see a big increase there. The other big increase is almost 97% in computer software for the high school. We have a software program that our social studies teachers are using called Albert IO. It helps them assess students and prepare for things like AP exams. But world language teachers caught on to it, and they would now like additional licenses for that. The last big number

051that you'll probably notice on here is BOCES student info system and data support. That's up almost 40%. That code usually contains our student information system, aka SchoolTool, aka the Parent Portal. But we are adding another product next year called MTSS Edge that integrates with SchoolTool to provide us with a K through 12 MTSS tracking system to support our growing MTSS program. Go ahead to the next slide. And I took the pics out. Okay. This slide is in here to show you that while my technology budget is significantly large, a large portion of it does get purchased through BOCES, so therefore we get state aid back on the purchases that we do make through BOCES. The BOCES presentation was made February 26th, I believe. So this was also mentioned for kind of previous presentation. Lastly, I

052really want to focus on the purple thought bubble, that this was a quote from a student speaking about their Chromebooks. I'm sure we have some parents out there who know that students are not too happy with their Chromebooks because they tend to be slow right now. So if you look at the two quotes, the top quote is from a parent-- I'm sorry, the top quote is from the student, the bottom is from a parent through the Thought Exchange. We are hearing a consistent message here from both the students and the community. Devices must support modern learning, right? So our outdated technology is not just an inconvenience for kids, it's impacting their instruction. The lag time, they can't open that many tabs. They can't do a simple task like open a Google Doc. This affects engagement.

053It's also affecting assessment readiness. While it's a reasonable, respectable request for students who want to have a Windows-based laptop, we are not doing that. We can buy two Chromebooks for the price of a basic Windows laptop. I'm just happy they did not ask for MacBooks. And again, this investment that we are looking to make is looking to modernize both our students', our staff devices, ensuring that everyone has a reliable tool to learn. Also supporting instruction, learning, assessment, and also digital literacy and a portion of our graduate goals. And now I'm going to pass this over to Justin, or... Justin. Yes. Sorry. Mr. Block. Justin. Thank you. All right. First and foremost, thank you, Dr. Canoni, the board, admin. I promise I'll only be, like, 25, 30 minutes, so we're still tight. I don't usually like

054to read off paper. I'm not going to really read off paper the whole time. But I did want to bring my budget lines with me so you knew exactly what was going into each of the line items that I'm going to talk about. As it said in the previous slide, last year, the adopted budget was $414,204. This year, the proposed budget for athletics is $368,516. That's an 11.3% decrease. I'm going to also explain why there's a decrease, and then I'm going to talk about just quickly the things that we're going to get in the work that I'm proposing in the budget.Okay. So there's three main line items that I really want to talk about. The first one is $291, that's interscholastic equipment. That's generally items that are over $1,000. These are pretty big-ticket items that

055generally we wouldn't be able to get just through the normal budget. The five items that we're proposing to get are a two-man sled that's for football. I'm going to show you some pictures of the current two-man sled that we have, and you'll see why that's in there. A scoring table for the girls' gym. The boys' basketball has a brand-new one. The girls' one is breaking down, and it's time to upgrade that as well to show the girls, obviously they deserve just as nice things as the boys in that gym. The high jump mat and pit, when you see the pictures of that, you're going to probably yell at me for not doing this last year. Indoor baseball mound. Baseball pitches at an elevation. It rains a lot in the spring. The baseball team has been

056inside, and they need to simulate real throwing. So with these new mounds, our pitchers will have the real feel as if they're outside, but inside in the gym. And one thing that we are considering right now is branded benches for the soccer field and for the stadium field. I want to, eventually over time, brand this place out so, the kids can look around and see Carl Place everywhere, and people can come in and they know exactly where they're at. So that's something that we're proposing. One more thing that I do have in here also is a Hall of Fame kiosk and a 75-inch TV and iPad. I was inspired by Mr. Limon and what he's done with the arts. We have a lot of Hall of Famers here. We have a lot of success in

057sports. There's a lot of plaques, trophies, and pictures, and pretty soon we're going to be overrun and not have space for it. So one thing I want to do is condense and make it a little bit more manageable. The next line item that I have is interscholastic supplies. I went up a little bit in this one, and I'm going to explain why in a few seconds. This is a line item $391. This is the general budget for athletics. There's around $11,500 that does go into the athletics program, supplies that I'm able to buy. Keep in mind, this is for every single team, middle school, varsity, and that's why the equipment budget is so important as well, because those are items we wouldn't be able to fund normally. We also have a uniform cycle. Every five

058years, the kids recycle the uniforms. This year up for it is boys' varsity basketball, girls' varsity basketball, girls' and boys' varsity tennis. So that's four teams that are on the uniform cycle this year. We also have football helmets that, I was talking with Mr. Martino. Football helmets, they go through what's called reconditioning. Every 10 years, they become void. And we're at a very big potential for a lawsuit if someone gets injured with voided football helmets. So every year we're going to start to add more helmets to it, so a little bit at a time, so it's not a major hit. And then lastly, and this is probably the biggest change in this, is that we are going to move forward with a boys' lacrosse team at Carl Place, for Carl Place at the middle school

059level, JV, and varsity. We're also going to be including middle school boys' lacrosse uniforms and varsity boys' lacrosse uniforms as well. And the last item is interscholastic other expenses. These are contracted services. And what do I mean by contracted services? These are entry fees into tournaments, bowling alleys, golf. Bowling and golf are taking off, not just in Nassau County, but globally. So these are going to be expenses that over time, they do increase. We have postseason costs because we're in the postseason in most sports. We have reconditioning of our football helmets, and we also have costs for a shared swim team that we have with Oyster Bay, Locust Valley, and Glen Cove. That's approximately for the four teams, that's $12,000. We learned that because we went through the process with the four teams this year.

060That includes weighing fees, that includes coaching, and that also includes miscellaneous fees that they need, such as goggles and uniforms. I also want to throw in some other contracted services. The BOCES cost schedule, and these are things that we don't really have any say in them. The cost schedule for referees, the cost for BOCES, for technology for BOCES that is required, and also to be a member of the Physical Education Consortium. I also want to state that this right here in front of us, this is for community recreation. This is our summer camp program. I just also want to say that these programs are budget neutral. Even though they are listed in our budget, there is not actually budget money that goes to it. All revenue is generated from the proceeds of the summer camps.

061And just lastly, I just wanted to add some things. And I told you I was going to share some pictures so you can see and get a little idea of why I put the things in the budget. Top left, this has been like, it's like a graveyard for sleds in the top left. It's somewhere between the middle school baseball field and Shelly Lane. They've just been sitting there for two years. They're not usable. They're rusted, they're broken, they don't work. Our football team needs these supplies to be competitive with some of the very tough teams that they do participate with in Nassau County. If you look at the top right, that's literally what our high jumpers are jumping on. And when other schools come to Carl Place, they're jumping on that as well. And that's

062the first thing they say. I want to replace that with something nice, beautiful, and that brands that says Carl Place on it, so when people come here, there's a respectable look to it. Bottom left, that's the current table that's in the girls' gym. The boards are broken. It's like that on both sides. There's scratches. There's a wheel that's missing. It's just not working. And then also on the right, those are the benches that we currently have. So if you look a little closer, you'll see that they're folded and bended almost in half, and they don't actually connect, which you do need at least 21 feet of benching, for teams to sit comfortably. And with that being said, thank you everyone for listening, and I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Limon. We're going to

063jump into special ed, and I promise that my pictures are going to be much nicer than the pictures we were just looking at. All right. So when you look at the special ed budget, you will see that the majority of our budget lines are completely flat. So we are continuing, and even last year, many of our budget lines continue to be flat as well. We have minimal increases, really some shifting, and the overall special education budget is down $164,000, which in all my time here in public, we have not been down, where we actually have a reduction. Now, we have a reduction, but that does not mean that we have a reduction in regards to the services that we're providing. If anything, we're providing more services than ever within our budget. As we know, in

064special education, everything is based on student need, and it comes through our meetings that are called our CSE meetings. And that's how we really try to determine our budget. When we go through, and again, a lot of them are completely flat. We have minimal increases. We have a decrease on special education tuition. So special education tuition is when a student has needs that require more support than what we're able to provide within our four walls, within one of our buildings, and we send them to an out-of-district placement. We have a reduction in that of just under $126,000. So that is definitely helping with our decrease. Then we have some minimal increases with our data warehouse that we use for special education, where we keep all of our documentation and our IEPs called IEP Direct. There's

065a minimal increase, not terribly. And then we have a decrease with one of our programs that we have been using. We're still going to use it, we just decreased it. We don't have as many staff members and students that are using it, called Achieve 3000. We're actually going down almost $24,000 on that budget line. Then we'll continue in regards to the budget lines. Again, we really don't have any changes here, which is going to bring us to that $164,000 reduction that we're looking at. The picture that we have here, which is going to be a much nicer picture, but it is ultimately connected to phys ed and our special education students, specifically our students that are in our life skills program up to high school. This is our unified bowling team. This is a team

066that's made up of our students that are in our life skills program. There are also some general education students that are on it as well, and they support our students. So our students partake in multiple different sporting activities, and we'll continue to talk about them on this next slide. So where is all the money going? Again, as I already said, it is definitely going to all mandated needs that are coming through. But what are we focusing on? Social emotional learning is a big area that we continue to work on and increasing our mental health support. This is an area, our mental health department is maxed out, and they work tirelessly, and we are looking to potentially put in some additional support as long as the budget will support it. And again, there is no increase

067in the budget. But we're just looking to see if there's any additional support on how we can support the mental health department district-wide, and that would ultimately then turn around and continue to support our students. The curriculum for our ABA classes at the elementary level, and when the students come up, when they age up to the middle school and high school, we call it the life skills program. We have been looking at programs. We have looked at about 10 different programs. We have narrowed it down to two programs at this point that the ABA teachers, the life skill teachers are looking at right now, and we're right there to make that final determination. We added something new in this current school year. It's called Regents Prep. And in that, we've been identifying students that have

068been struggling with passing some of the Regents exams that they need to get their high school diploma. We had multiple students that took Regents exams in January, and these are exams that they had struggled in either August or June, in the prior school year, and we had a large majority of them that passed the Regents exam based on this Regents Prep. The Regents Prep is with one of our special education teachers that is certified in that content area, and they're working with a small group of students, focusing in on their areas of weakness on that particular Regents exam. So the special education teacher looked at their exam and identified the questions that they got wrong, and we're targeting those specific areas. We have specialized reading and math interventions, career exploration, vocational opportunities, transitioning to adult

069services. These are all supports that we're giving to our special education students. These are supports that we have been giving, and we just keep on expanding on how we're able to provide those supports. School plays in Rushmore, middle school, high school. I spoke about the unified sports. We also have challenger sports that our life skills students in middle school and high school participate in as well, and they play against other school districts as well. Every school clubs, chorus, band, and orchestra concerts, and in our art shows. So when we talk about special education and when we run through this list of bullets that we've identified, this impacts every single teacher, every single department. We are only as successful as we are because of the support from our building principals, then of course our directors, and

070then branching out intoThe folks that are fully implementing it from the start of the period to the end of the period would, of course, be all of our teachers. That's our general ed and special education teachers. Every general education teacher is working with special education students as well. And that's how we're able to provide all of this support. And then, of course, with the board approving the budget and the community supporting the budget when we put it out. Just a couple more pictures and then I am done. The picture all the way to the left, those are our students that are doing some vocational work at SUNY Old Westbury. We have a partnership with SUNY Old Westbury, where our students go there and they work in the police station as well as other offices. I'll

071jump over all the way to the picture over in the right, is where we have some students that are working in the hotel. They happen to be, on this particular day, they were working in the laundry room and they're folding towels. And then in the middle picture, it happened to be the Rushmore Shrek play, and we had students that were participating in that as well. And as we all know, special education runs the full gamut from students that need minimal support to students that need more support, even to the point that they may need an adult standing with them in order to complete a task. And all of our students, again, based on all the support that we get from all of our colleagues, our students were able to participate in all of these activities.

072Thank you. Thanks for sticking with us. We get an awful lot done with that 8.2% of the budget, and everyone's very passionate about their areas tonight, so thank you all. On the ballot this year, we covered it last time, but just as a quick refresher, you have Proposition 1 is the budget. Proposition 2 is a request for authorization to establish a capital reserve. We've been getting it done over the years. Our current reserves are fully funded, and it was time to start a new one so we can continue our capital improvements. And then the last proposition has changed from the last time you saw it. So now we will be electing three members to the Board of Education, two for a three-year term starting on July 1st of 2026, and one for a two-year term

073starting on May 18th, and that's to fill Mr. Zamo's seat. Remaining budget meetings, we have the budget adoption, our next meeting on April 16th, the budget hearing, and our meet the candidates on May 10th, and the vote, most importantly on May 19th. So thank you again. This is all the places you can find out more information if you so desire. And I hope to see you all on April 16th. Thank you. Now for approval of the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. All are approved of the consent agenda. Any questions or comments from the public not regarding the agenda? Please come to the podium and state- I gave you this agenda, so that's what I want to talk about. We already

074went through this. This is for comments and questions, not- Open mic. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'll retract that. It's open comment. Okay. We have someone that's listed first, Alexandra. Okay. Alexandra, would you like to go first since it is regarding the budget? No, I don't mind. Okay. Alexandra Brodin, 708 Westbury. Congratulations on your retirement. I'm sure it's bittersweet, but I know you've served this district and appreciate it. Thank you always to the teachers and staff. It has been a great bond with both of my children the whole way, so thank you. I did have a question that no one in the community seems to be able to answer. I'm sure you could answer it tonight. Regarding our varsity teams, junior varsity, does every team have a team manager or is it select teams?

075Mr. Block, you want to take that one for us? Athletics director. We'll allow managers on any team. It comes from the coach's recommendation. Okay. But there's not- It's not a standard thing that we have in the district. I'm just trying to think right now. We have managers right now. We've had them in tennis. We have them in boys' basketball. That's really it. I haven't been approached with too many manager opportunities. We don't have for JV. Okay. And how were those students or managers selected? Was it open to the public? Was it a connection they may have had to the coach? You know, generally- A player? Yeah. It's my understanding that generally it's like a relationship with the coach. They'll come to some of the workouts. They decide that they're not going to be moved forward

076with the team, but they still want to take part in the team. Okay. The reason why I bring it up is that I think since our district has adapted that leader in me program, and I know we get some of those students to help with career day today. As an educator myself, not just a parent and community member, is that something maybe we could seriously entertain as a leadership opportunity for high school students who may not necessarily have athletic ability, but they have leadership skills, management skills. We have a big social media presence now on our websites, our social media pages. Perhaps a student who's interested in doing PR. I think this would offer a great opportunity for children who want to be on the team and don't have that ability. Children who can manage

077schedules, equipment, communicate to parents where games are, time changes. I know sometimes I've arrived at a game myself and the location was changed. Um-Maybe that could be a CAP project for teachers. Maybe students who volunteered with the leader in me could be part of that decision-making, and maybe it could be an application process. And while the athletes return in August for tryouts, maybe those potential candidates who want to be a team manager can show up, interview like we do for scholarships, and be part of the team. I don't want to cut you off. Is that the end of the comments or? Yeah. So I'm offering to help. I'm off on the summer. Thank you. I could help. So as you're bringing up this point, I think of a couple of things. I think that's a

078conversation I would really like to have with Mr. Block and Mr. Foraker, perhaps a couple of my cabinet members, and our work-based learning coordinator, because it seems like there's a triangle that we can form to explore how we could do that well. So I really appreciate you bringing up the topic. Yeah, and especially since, as a parent, I've sat in a few meetings by our guidance counselors with the pathways changing, requirements for diplomas changing, this might provide some opportunities for job training, experience. This can help them with the college application process. So although it's nice that it was coach saw a kid that might be helpful, I think maybe we could make it a standardized thing. And I think sometimes when kids want to be part of a team and they lack the athletic ability,

079sometimes by them taking a leadership role, they are seen as an individual that has something to offer. I think sometimes, because we're known so much for our sports, I think kids who have other assets sometimes get left behind. When you talk about mental health, you talk about building confidence. Those are ways that those kids could be seen and valued and part of something. So I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts. And again, I'm off in the summer and happy to help in any way, and I thank everybody. Thank you. I love that. And they could have this uniform, too. Mr. Limone chose a very fashionable jacket. The team, more fashion. Okay. I look at the state of the address, and I have a statement. Larry, you aren't here, but congratulations. I said it before,

080I'll say it again now that you're here. I enjoyed working with you. You're welcome. But a few years is a long time. Enjoy your retirement. A couple questions on what was presented tonight first and then the general budget second. In athletics, I was surprised to hear we're going to have our own lacrosse team. Why are we changing versus the partnership with Wheatley? Do we have more students all of a sudden? We have the numbers for that plus baseball, plus track? We'll take all of the questions, Mr. LaCurra- Okay ... and we'll answer them all together, please. All right. We can't have a conversation in school anymore. Second, related to that, because I was going to ask, when I left, we lost our relationship with Wheatley in football, and we had committed to having another discussion

081with either Wheatley down the road or Mineola for football. And I wanted to know, is there any focus to partner up with any school related to football? And also, you can roll field hockey into that because the numbers are dwindling in field hockey, too. And I'm concerned about both of those sports. Related to the budget also, have you looked at the turf fields? They're running into 10 years. When do you think those are going to be teed up for replacement? And I say that not expecting that they're going to be next year, but we've got a reserve that last I was at the meeting is now down to $6 million. So we got to be planning ahead if we're going to build for a million-plus expense on two fields. Related to tech, I guess my

082biggest concern is what we are doing for AI for the students and start to teach them about AI. It's coming faster than anybody thought, and there is a private school getting a lot of publicity about how they're using AI to teach kids. I'm not concerned about people going to the school necessarily, but I'm concerned about the fact that as other schools roll out AI programs and AI education, if you will, if we're not at the leading edge, we're going to fall behind quick. We had the opportunity to do the Bloomberg's a couple of years ago. We didn't do it for financial reasons, and it's a good idea that we're finally doing it. So I hope we put some focus on that and don't fall behind. And I also hope we're putting some focus on how

083AI can be used to get around the system as a student, and what we have in place to counteract students using AI the wrong way on tests, on papers, et cetera. Phil, just wondering where we are in terms of headcount for special ed. I noticed that you had a huge reduction in outside expenditures to, I guess, third parties or vendor-- I can't even see it this old.125,000, 126,000. So is the head count going down, or are those students that we use in our service graduated? But head count is about the same as special ed year to year? Okay. And tuition to external students, about flat, less, more? Let's hold the answers. The revenue money in your shop is about the same, less, more? Mr. Accurso, are those all the questions? No. Okay. Why don't we

084take a pause? All right. So let me get to my last question, then. You have a question? Thank you. My last question is to Johanna. All right. Two, three... I think the range here is two six, three. Am I reading this right? Budget to budget expenditures? That was the initial. We're down to two four eight. All right. So that's great. Because this is kind of piecemeal because I wasn't around for the other presentations. Where are the big saves in the budget? Because I saw only one line as I was trying to catch up, which was retirement line that was close to or over $280,000. And I was wondering if that is because of tier six, or what is causing that? I know we've had a lot of teachers retire recently, but what are the big

085saves? Because I expected a lot higher expenditure given Bloomberg, some of the other things you're rolling out, head count, et cetera. I know we have a younger teacher base, but still. Thank you very much, Mr. Accurso. We'll take that from the top. As far as lacrosse goes, as far as any of our sports goes, we have not had, as you know, an easy time with it with our neighbors in partnering up with East Williston. That continues to be the case. It's not a knock against anybody who lives in East Williston or the folks who work there, but it can be a difficult district to work with. We have significant interest in lacrosse here in Coral Place. We can go it alone, go it on our own without the restrictions and, quite frankly, the lack of

086partnership that we're experiencing. Because we're a small district, we're always going to have to work hard to recruit kids into the program and get them excited for it, Mr. Block, and working with coaches to plan on that. We will have more flexibility, we will have more self-determination as a completely Coral Place lacrosse outfit. With football, we did continue to do a lot of work to talk with other districts very close by and even a couple of rings out to see if we might make a partnership with them. And that was not really yielding the outcome that we needed as far as trying with other districts within a couple of miles, maybe within 10 miles. And I have to say, the coaching staff, some of our guidance counselors, Mr. Block, have done tremendous work, and the

087high school administration, tremendous work in recruiting students and building excitement for football. We're always going to have to continue working for that, because we have a small pool. We have come off of two really successful seasons. The '24 season was a great boost. That was our first independent season. We made the playoffs in '25 for the first time in a bunch of years. That's from the hard work to recruit kids and the hard work that happened in practice and on the field. We are going to keep going with that, the same with field hockey. It puts an onus on us to recruit and develop and create excitement. I'd say the coaching staff and the athletic department in general, Mr. Block, the high school, they're up to the task. And the independence that we gain from

088that means that we're not beholden to anybody and that we don't have to get sometimes second-class treatment from people. The downside of it is we have to work a little bit harder to make those teams robust. But that's what we're here for, to do that. So that takes care of that piece. As far as turf fields go, you are right. We're getting deep into the life of those turf fields. We have had a conversation about where we go from here. It's a little bit more planning for us on our side and with the Board of Education. But yeah, they don't last forever. We have to have that on the refresh, and we'll talk more about that in the future. So I'm glad you asked, because it is something that we're aware of, and on longer-range

089planning, that's work for us to do. So yeah, it has not been forgotten about. As far as artificial intelligence goes, I'll connect with Ms. Mantino in a moment on that. Again, that is one of those things that is a challenge for all of us in education. Our own work with artificial intelligence as far as it pertains to education, A, how we use it responsibly, B, our own safeguards on how to be aware and wary of kids who might use it for the wrong reasons. That's a developing piece for us. We have put some pieces in place already and have more work to do. Jen, do you want to say a few things about AI work that we've done, please? So the teachers are definitely using it with students, depending on the grade level, in different

090ways. I know that some teachers in Cherry Lane are using it to create chatbots, like characters, so that students can have engaging conversations with a historical character. In the high school , teachers are teaching students how to create an outline with, let's say, AI, for a paper. They put-Sort of like a spotlight model on the assignments. Like green, yes, you can use AI. Yellow, you can use AI that I approve. Red, this assignment has no AI. Students, in my opinion, it's changing so fast, right? So it's really hard to keep up. Students need to know the ethical ways to use it. They also need to know how to write prompts. That's a big piece, too. What are we doing to check to see if students are using AI? There's nothing 100% that is accurate that

091will detect AI. We have a couple of... Well, we use one program called Turnitin. Okay. They do have an AI tracker. Google has an AI tracker built into it. But I remember last year I had a meeting with the Turnitin company that colleges use, and they said, "Absolutely not. Your instructors, your professors, cannot fail a student when their assignment comes up 90% AI-generated." That's an opportunity to have a conversation about it, because there's so many, let's say, assignments. Think about how many social studies teachers are assigning, "Write an essay on the causes of the Civil War." What is a kid doing for that? They're going to Google it, right? All that information is out there because that's a popular essay assignment, but now all that information is also in AI. So it's hard to pick

092up that kind of thing. It's more about front-loading it and teaching students which assignments they can use it on, which assignments they can't, and then have a conversation if the teacher suspects that they're using AI for that assignment. I've also heard that some teachers are going back to pen and paper for tests and things like that so that they can't have their access to the computer live while they're taking an assessment. How's the- There was a K-12 team. Say that again. You have a K-12 team of teachers who've been working- Right ... to develop more of a- We're also looking at right now, working with some teachers, we're creating an AI mission and vision statement that we hope to have done by the end of the year. And then moving forward from that, build out

093a more comprehensive K through 12, A through... A through I. Sorry, it's late. AI curriculum and what should each student be able to do at grade levels using AI. And I'm glad to hear Vivino bring up that piece about pen and paper. I was in the hallway here in the high school the other day, and I got to talking to one of our folks on poll duty, and I saw a stack of papers in front of her, and I was asking her, "What are these essays? Why are they here? What are you doing with them? Where in time and space in social studies are we?" And we got into a conversation about how because they were handwritten and because they were written in front of the teacher, that's another way, an old-fashioned way, right, to

094mitigate against the misuse of AI. That piece about academic honesty versus academic dishonesty is an important piece for us. That idea of the mission and vision statement becomes a governance piece for us, and we have to just really work hard to be on top of measures and countermeasures, right? It's like in the military. If somebody builds a radar, another person builds a way to defeat it, and it keeps on going. So that's a big part of what our technology sector is going to keep on working on for the next foreseeable future. It's an important piece for us. Um, Phil, let me pick up the PTS part, if you don't mind. Sure. Thanks. Joe, in regards to the dollar amount going down, about 125,000. We had a student that just graduated, aging out, who was in

095an out-of-district placement. In regards to revenue, it's even better. Okay. Are there... There was a headcount piece overall. Overall, for CPSE and CSE, so the preschool and school age, it's pretty much the same. We're right there. Hasn't really changed much. Are there any... I think that was it. Was that in there was the budget piece about the big savings? Yeah. So you found the big saver. That is TRS, their rate has gone down for the second year in a row, so that's provided us with a nice amount of savings, and that's just based on their plan performance. They use a five-year average, and the plan is doing well, so we're seeing that savings. You saw some decreases tonight that are contributing. But really, it's about paying very close attention and slowing the growth rather than

096decreasing. If you think about it, we've had really high inflation rates over the past couple of years, and we've been able to keep our budget-to-budget much lower than inflation. And this year, we're actually coming closer to inflation, which makes sense because keeping below is not sustainable. So even though it's a smaller increase, we are coming more in line to our increase being parallel with inflation. Are there any other comments or questions from the public? Please come to the podium. State your name and- Eloise Wyatt, 58 Woodcock Road. A couple of comments. Thank you, Mr. Samuel, for 25 years, and it's going to be a very, very great loss to the community, to the school board, to all of us. Provided years of service and your knowledge in history of this school Great loss to the

097board and to all of us. Thank you very much. I want to once again thank Mr. Limone for working miracles with perhaps the smallest budget in the school district. Always do amazing amounts with the least money. I want to comment that I actually did hear from Jim, from two Garden City teachers who said the same thing about the pen and paper and having to resort to pen and paper for some tests. And Miss Shaw, I suppose I'm a dinosaur. I would be very interested in knowing more about really and seeing the curriculum that everybody has in this school district. I guess that's not really technically part of the budget presentation. That would be very interesting. But I have to say that I really couldn't make hide nor hair out of what you were talking about.

098Portrait of a graduate, the whole thing. I'm sorry to say that, and I'm sure it's me, but in big picture just couldn't put it together. It's a lot of- Yeah. I need more definitions of all of the- A lot of codes. And, well, I guess that's sort of my view, but I'm always very interested in what we're doing. I just need some things. It's just not clear what you're about. Sorry. No insult, but- None taken. -I'm sure it's me. I think if you really wanted to, we could arrange a way to take a deeper dive on that that makes it defined and clear. Thank you. Come to the podium and state your name and address, please. Hi. Faith Brenner. I would agree with what Miss Eloise says, that a lot of parents are confused with

099much of the jargon. If you don't come here and you're not one of the six or eight or community members, then it's a little challenging locating information, fighting it. However, the previous board meeting, um, Ms. DeMartino had handed out this big two sixty-four-page packet. Does this change? Is it... So this is not final? Correct. This is not what we're voting on. Correct. Okay. Because, Ms. Bambino was discussing the technology, which I can't wait to go home and tell my future seventh grader about, should probably bring me the device tomorrow. It did indicate this sixty-five iPads for kindergartners, so that is not happening? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, do you want to read it? No. I'm okay. Yeah. So, I know I only have three minutes, so it was the sixty-five units of iPads that was on

100here. You have three hundred and fifty dollars for Chromebooks. I was quite surprised at that number. Me too. So, I'm proud to see. And my question regarding that is, what will the rollout for getting new devices look like? Will the students with ancient devices hand them in in June and receive new ones? Because of summer work and requirements, my particular children only use their school device for schoolwork and their personal devices for personal things. So we manage it that way at my home. Regarding overtime for staff, the custodial, Cherry Lane up twenty-five percent, Rushmore up sixty-five percent, high school, middle school up thirty-three percent. My question here is, is overtime approved prior, or does overtime, whoever wants it gets it? Because the numbers are rather staggering for those things. I'm not really sure. I know

101we had some snow and some other things, but I've been to some buildings, and I see the custodians literally there literally all morning. And then I come back in the evening for an evening event, and the custodian is still there. And then the next day, the custodian's back. So mentally, that's not safe for the school or for the custodian. And accidents happen, things like that. And then in the... I'm a numbers person, sorry. Over here, salaries. FTSS contract only. Am I to assume that that's full-time support staff? Yeah. Okay. So, huge numbers there. We're talking sixteen percent increases, thirteen percent increases. So to anticipate we're hiring more school aides, more ABA aides. Just wonder a little additional clarification there. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Ms. Brenner. I'll start with the jargon part. I agree.

102Right? Jargon can be particularly difficult. And one of the things that we were talking about tonight, because there are folks who are really great routine participants in these board meetings. We live stream themWe said, let's take the live stream of tonight and place it with the presentation when it goes up, so that if anybody wants to re-listen to how to access the different pieces of this budget presentation in particular, they'll be able to. Because this one very much was a sophisticated and complex set of information. So folks will be able to hear it and watch it again if they want to. And if they have questions, those are the places that they can ask us, and we'll help them get through it. I happen to agree with you on that one. Does that give them

103a typical- Okay. The 65 iPads. So, the kindergartners only use the iPads. A year ago, less than a year ago, Apple, like they always do, says, "Hey, we're updating the OS system, and all of these models that you previously had will no longer take updates." So we can't use them for things like i-Ready. We were able to purchase 35 this year with some reallocated funds, so I have 35 sitting in my office. And then we need to buy another 65 to cover the kindergarten, so that they're up to date. Chromebook exchange, what we usually do is when we do the swap for ninth graders, we do it in the summer, in late August. They have an orientation. Being that we're replacing middle grades, our incoming seven through nine... Well, here's the other piece I hate

104to break to you. The supply chain issues. If the budget passes, I'm really hoping that we're able to order them July 1st and/or July 2nd, and get them before September. We have been hearing things like, could be November. We placed an order for some extra ones the other day. We got the order in, the vendor contacted us and said, "Someone beat you by a minute." And so we lost the order. And long story short, we were able to get a different set of devices, but that's what we're dealing with now. So we can't do the swap in June because I have to wait till July 1st to make the purchase, and we would hope to do that sometime over the summer before school starts. Mm-hmm. So our custodial overtime is pre-approved. We go through a

105process of calling on a rotational basis. However, we often get the same people who are willing to come in and do the overtime, so you do see a lot of familiar faces from time to time. Some of the overtime lines are a true increase based on prior year actual expenses, because we've been having to make budget transfers into those line items. So this is to reflect our actual expenses. But for example, the Rushmore increase is offset by a decrease in the part-time Cherry Lane salary line. So it's not all increases. Some of it's reallocations. Ms. Mandracchia has been working really hard to get us more subs, so I hope to see those lines come down in the future because a lot of our overtime goes to shift coverage for people who call in sick or

106what have you. And on the support staff piece, all of those expenses are contractually based. We're not increasing any staff. There are some positions that we had temps filling that we no longer have temps for. But it would be helpful if we looked at it together so I could see exactly what folks you're looking at. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from the public? I am now going to close the public session. Can I have a motion to close the public session? Motion. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you for coming out.