001Order the March twelfth, twenty twenty-six meeting of the Park Place Board of Education. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Hand over your heart. I 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 meeting invocation. In 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 can please may be seated. Welcome to the March twelfth meeting of the Park Place Board of Education. Jackie Corey could not attend tonight's meeting due to personal-- due to a personal matter. We will start with comments from the board, and
002I will take the lead. I feel like we should have a cup of tea because who would have thought that it would be snowing in Chandler today? Um, I would like to send my sympathy to Sharon Gately Kunkel's family. She wa-- served as part of our capital area, and she absolutely was amazing. I'd also like to send my sympathy to Max Snell's family. If you were a long-lived Frog here, you know who Max Snell is, and if you're a Jet fan, his spirit is around us. I'd also like to congratulate to the Carl Place Winter County Award winners. Boys varsity wrestling, Jose Morales, Justin Powers, Pat Otis, Panos, Mark Rope. Girls varsity basketball, Ava Gomez, Madison Reedy. Boys varsity basketball, Ryan Cleary, Marianne Alessandro, Kayden Saccone, John Cantwell. Varsity competitive cheer, Angeliki Palathalathas. Gymnastics, Olivia
003Port, Victoria Goldsborough. Boys swimming team, Joseph Schmidt, Anthony Malfitone. And I'd also like to congratulate the boys varsity basketball team, who are heading for the states at Farmingdale this Sunday. If you watched this- Saturday. Saturday. Sorry, I correct myself. Thank you, Mr. AG Justin Bla. Um, if you watched the game, it was a pump up to March Madness, right? No doubt. Um, I'd also like to share the Park Place pride. We have a no tax impact vote on Thursday, the March, March nineteenth. And a hello to my new friends who made my Park Place friendship bracelet, Aubrey, Valentino, Jameson, and Presley. Some Charlie Lane and Rushmore friends that I now have. I will now hand it over to Vice President Green. Uh, good evening, everybody, and thank you for coming. Um, I attended the annual
004Chorus Life Skills Collaboration Concert on March fifth, and it was truly a meaningful and heartwarming event. All of the students did an amazing job. A special thank you to Mrs. Tanner, as well as the teachers and aides for everything you do to support and inspire our students. Uh, congratulations to all our Park Place High School students who competed in the DECA New York State Career Conference, showcasing their business skills and role play events and exams. A special thank you to their advisor, Mrs. Duplas, for her continued support of our DECA program, for providing opportunities like this for our students. Um, I, too, want to congratulate the boys varsity basketball team on their win. Uh, go Frogs, and, good luck in-- Is it the regionals or is it-- It's the regionals. Okay. Good luck in the
005regionals. Go Frogs. All right, I'm gonna pass it on to Trustee Zana. Thank you, Vice President. Um, I'd like to, give my condolences to the Gately family on their passing of Sharon. And also, I-- Vanessa has said it all. Congratulations to all of our teams and to all of our coaches. And what I find interesting that our teams always do well, our kids do well, our coaches do well. When we ask people why they're sending their child to a private school, a lot of times they say it's the sports. They want their kids to play a higher level of sports. Well, I don't think you can get much higher than what we offer here. Our coaches are great. The kids play well together. Look how far we-we go with each of the different sports. So
006maybe as we, as we talk to the, parents, when they are, are thinking about sending their kids to the private schools, we should mention this to them to explain, to show them. Maybe they don't know that our sports are this good. So... Trustee Dunphy. It's worth, worth preaching. I, I agree. Uh, yeah, congrats, to our, boys basketball team and, and the girls. My, my younger son, George, and I went last week. We weren't able to make it this week. I'm actually here, for a different event. But, just we can feel it in the community. Um, it was really exciting to be there for both the girls and boys, last week, and, we wish them well. Um, also baseball season. Uh, I wanted to give a shout-out to Miss Lorino. Uh, did a great job, supporting
007our little league. Um, the last couple of Saturdays, they had a, a couple clinics here and very well-attended, both for baseball, baseball stars, hockey ball, our softball players of the future. Um, and, they did a great job. So-- And Vinnie from Little League, too. So we-- You know, they-- And, and the board have been doing a great job. Um, I had the great privilege of being here the last few nights, just pouring through. I'm just-- You know, it feels like I don't want to be left, and, uh- We've, we've done that. So, but it was worth it. Uh, we haveWe have a lot to be proud of as a community. We had-- We interviewed forty students? Forty-one students. Um, and each and every one of them, really, w-we have a lot to be, be proud
008of. They, they are, uh... Actually, I'm sitting next to one, I'm realizing- -um, as I, as I look for, for some inspiration. Um, but, each and every one of them too had some of the same kind of things to speak of, how they were able to get involved in so many different things. How they have such support in their teachers, right? How they are just so accessible and so helpful and flexible in what they, they, they need. Um, so I wanted to, to share that as well. Uh, but just a great experience, again this year, being able to interact and hear from them, hear about their stories, and really the great things that they're going on to because they had a great foundation here. Um, so, Science Olympiad, there was a lot of jokes made
009about the scrambler over the last few nights. Yes. Not even worth going into right now. Not in Barry. We'll, we'll talk about the scrambler. Um, we had fun with it. We had fun with it. Scrambler But I wanna just give a shout-out to, Ms. Foraker, Mr. Mayo, Science Olympiad, and the ma-- the Math Olympiad actually this, this week also. But, got back some great stories of, of that event and, a lot of good learning in that too, so. And then, of course, just a shout-out to Cinderella. Make sure you get your tickets. I think there's, there's a good amount of tickets left. And, I was down when I first, came in this evening. Um, I was drawn to the stage and, actually there was a lot of students we've interviewed, the last few days were
010there too. Um, the set looks great. They're excited. Um, so get your tickets while it's, it's back to, back on the road touring. So thank you. Good evening, everyone. A few things from our reports tonight. First, this past Saturday, the Car Play Student Organization hosted a princess breakfast in preparation for our upcoming Cinderella play. Thank you to all the student volunteers who helped make the event a big success. Special thank you to our SO advisor, Dr. Kelly, and Ms. Morini for helping organize the event. The play will take place next weekend with shows on Friday and Saturday. Be sure and come to provide support. Today, the Key Club hosted a blood drive. Thank you to all the students and community members who donated. A big shout-out to the Key Club officers and their advisor, Ms.
011Fuckingham, for organizing the event. As Battle of the Classes approaches, I wanna mention that the Key Club and Civic Association have partnered to launch a nine eleven Flags of Honor fundraiser in recognition of the twenty-fifth anniversary of nine eleven. This year, Battle of the Classes charity will support the Pillars of Power Foundations, and proceeds will also help fund a nine eleven memorial in Car Place on West Grand. On the sports side of things, spring sports have officially begun at the high school, and boys varsity basketball will play Saturday at one PM at Farmingdale against Woodlands in the regional round. Thank you, Luca. We will now hear comments from Dr. Cody. Thank you, Madam President. Um, when you're batting in the cleanup position, sometimes it's hard to say something that hasn't been said already, but I'll
012go through a few things. Also, to reiterate our sympathy to the, to the Gately-Kunkel family. Whenever somebody passes, that is a significant moment in the family's life and for friends, so we wanna mark that. Um, as you know, our team, our basketball team, boys basketball team, has had great success. They're playing in the regionals versus Midlands, one PM, SUNY Farmingdale. If you haven't been there, it's a great gymnasium. A lot of feeling, a lot of spirit there. So many of us will be there. I'll be there. I'm looking forward to it. Please turn out to support the team. Something also momentous happened, and that is that Ryan Leary scored his two thousandth career point at the game over the week, or the, during the week. That is a remarkable feat. I don't think that's ever
013been accomplished in Car Place. He's the leading point scorer. Not too many high school basketball players score two thousand points. Quite something. Not to miss the opportunity, our girls fought really, really hard upstate in Binghamton. They gave it their all against a very, very tough competition. Um, and a lot of respect for them for traveling all the way up there and fighting their hearts out. That was really cool, too. Um, I wanna say the scholarship committee, it is a privilege to be a part of that. The students who participate in it are among the best students anywhere in any school, truly. I-- And I know the difference 'cause I've been around the block. Um, they are so well-spoken and so smart and are the products of their homes and their upbringing. They're the products of
014all of the fantastic teachers that got them all the way here to high school. Um, so I wanna say thank you to everyone who has supported our kids along the way. I wanna say a special thank you to Mr. Foraker and Mr. DiBlasio for putting in very, very long hours to organize that and to execute it over the last couple of days. And along with Dr. Duncan and Mr. Torre, we have a really great volunteer committee who does that work. They are good people committed to this school district. It's a wonderful thing, and a privilege to be a part of. Um, as you know, Cinderella is coming up. Princess Breakfast was a really, really fantastic thing, for our high school students to do, to have the little folks get excited about the play. And, you
015know, they are actual princesses, I'm sure, when, when the little kids see them all decked out in their fantastic gowns and-Um, that's next Friday and Saturday, the twentieth and twenty-first. Get tickets. We wanna see everybody there. Blood drive was really a great thing to be a part of. I donated blood for the first time in my life today. It was an amazing experience. I was always a little scared to do that, and one of the kids actually brought me to the, to the gymnasium. She said, "You'll be okay." And it was really neat. And thank you to Ms. Buckleno and the D Club for making that happen. Believe it or not, with all the weather, spring sports are happening. Our spring athletes have their eyes on the prize too. Like Mr. Tino said, you know,
016we have a tremendous program, and it, it shows because of the coaches, because of the kids. Um, we will have a video coming out about that vote on the nineteenth. We'll be releasing that shortly. We'll send it home. For parents who are-- We're putting it on the, on the website for folks watching at home. Please come out and vote on that. These will not increase anyone's taxes at all. It's just an authorization for us to use money we already have. We have to be authorized to save it. We have to be authorized to spend it. And because a few other things we talked about tonight, I wanna remind everybody that for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, we will be having a Carl Place Day of
017Service led by our students and it's Dr. Kelly and Ms. Laura Dean who are at the spearhead of that. You will definitely hear more about that as we get through July Fourth. And these are things that will happen this spring going into the summer. Uh, President, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Public comments right now will be read by Vice President Reardon. Board of Education, excuse me. The Board of Education allows time at the conclusion of its regular meetings for comments from residents in attendance. Please note that any person wishing to speak during this time should comply with all provisions of board policy. Although a total of thirty minutes is allowed for comments, the board president has discretion to adjust the total time. We remind you to keep your comments to three minutes and
018to conduct yourself in a respectful manner. Please address school matters only and refrain from addressing topics related to personal 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. Thank you. If there are any comments from the public on agenda items only, please come to the podium, state your name and address. Eloise Meyer, TH Park Road, Westbury. Um, the agenda items are all these things that... The goals, these goals and, uh... Okay. On the goals, one, foster a safe, supportive, and respectful learning environment that promotes student and adult wellbeing, and there are other items similar to that. We
019have in the past bent over backwards to provide security for this school, and even extra crossing guards when someone was hit on the street, probably for not looking both ways when they crossed. And, I believe that we need to provide-- Some part of this should, should foster the idea that there should be respect for the community. One of our students, throws rocks at my windows and breaks glass, and writes graffiti on my driveway, but also pulls other students into these pranks. Now, recently on the news, they've talked about, students at another high school who put toilet paper on the tree of a, of a math teacher, and he went out there and tripped, and the students backed up and ran over him and then tore him. This same party sets off fireworks at that time
020of year, and they get in cars and drive off. I did mention this to one of the other board members, but I'm by myself, and I'm really... I, I'm really feeling like the... It, it's not Trinagara that I'm worried about. Mm-hmm. It's, I hate to use the phrase juvenile delinquents that are right here. So I hope some part of this would encourage, en-encourage a respect for those of us who are funding this, this school district. And I briefly would just like to ask if, these items where you have insurance proceeds, I'm not quite understanding how the insurance proceeds approve of whether, whether these items go in as, since revenue. So does that-- What does that change? Does it change monies that we've spent or... H-how does... What exactly is that doing there, um-Sixty-three thousand something
021for insurance proceeds for water damage and eighty-three hundred for insurance for auto damage. And I suppose I shouldn't ask what they are, but I would just like to know. There's no harm. Thank you, Eloise. And also what are warrants? Okay. Next item. So for- All right, I'll, I'll just say quickly. Eloise, may I please call you tomorrow regarding the- Yes. -the student issue? Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, on the insurance recoveries, we suffered some damage, both the result of a water pipe leak and auto damage, and we submitted the claims to our insurance company. That's the money we're getting from the insurance company to cover those expenses. So just from an accounting perspective, the board has to increase the revenue and expense budget equally to offset each other when we get
022those funds back. And a warrant, is just the term that the claims auditor uses. It's a listing of all the claims that we-- all of the checks that we've cut and vendor bills we've paid, in a given period. Thank you. Are there any other- Sure. If you come to the podium and state your name and address. Hi, good evening. Nikki Garner from Bridge Drive. Um, in addition to what Ms. Eloise said, my questions too are regarding the goals of the board of education. So, it says that this is for twenty-five through tw-twenty twenty-seven. So does that mean that these goals are currently being worked on and is the mission that the board, elected is, is working towards? So my question is, going forward to the, the end, you know, the, the final year of these
023goals, are there, are there any changes that you're looking to make? Um, how are you measuring these goals within short-shorter goals? That's teacher talk, but, you know, as any administrator, you know, asks of their teachers, "How do you-- How are you going to achieve this goal?" Taxpayers are asking the board, "How are you going to achieve these goals?" Additionally, what unit of measure are you using? How are you going to, notify the public of the achievements of the growth or, changes that you'll make, and how will these be monitored? Thank you. So, for example, some of those goals, similar to the ones that Eloise mentioned, those connect directly to the portrait of graduate. One of the things that we're working on right now, we spend time with this throughout the year, specifically recently on the
024superintendents conference day, building in ways to identify where we're working towards those goals right now, where we need to do some additional work towards meeting them, looking at specific concrete ways that they can be met at the primary, elementary, middle school, high school level. We will be making sure that our students know that. Part of our, part of our outcome there is for kids to have the means of getting recognized for reaching those goals at those different levels, right? And that's concrete, and kids will demonstrate it. And another example has to do with, like, academics in its most basic sense, you know, assessment. We'll see evidence of that when we do our student achievement report in the wintertime, right? Usually in December we do that. So those are some examples of how those goals will
025be worked on and measured. And as you asked right at the beginning, yes, these are ongoing things through this year into the next year. Okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Are there any other comments or questions regarding the agenda? Yeah. Okay. We will continue with the meeting. Res O three point one, the budget presentation, instructional programs and staffing presented by Joanna Dumont. Okay. Thank you all for coming tonight. This is our third budget presentation. Tonight you'll hear from myself, our principals, and our director of HR. Just a reminder of our theme for this budget season. Tonight we're gonna be reviewing our building-level educational programming budgets. Uh, this year we're gonna incorporate the results of our budget thought exchange. We're gonna review instructional staffing, give some updates on the overall budget and tax levy, and review what's going
026to be on the ballot in May. Tonight's presentation represents two-point three percent of our overall budget. Despite the small percentage, we do really get a lot done with these funds. Essentially, it's all of our supplies and materials and other expenditures for our instructional programs. This is the breakdown of the expenditures as proposed. Um, again, they're program budgets, so they don't include salaries and other district-wide expenses. They also don't include anything that will be covered at our next meeting, which is fine and performing arts, technology, athletics, and special education. So overall, our building program budgets are increasing by a little over a thousand. That's obviously being driven by the middle school, high school, offset by decreases in our elementary buildings. As we move through the rest of the presentation, I'm gonna review our thought exchange results
027as they relate to each building, and then the building principal will discuss their budget and how it relates to those results.Overall, our thought exchange had a hundred and eighty-nine participants and just under two thousand ratings. That includes participation from our students, our staff, parents, and community members. Tonight, we're just gonna be looking at parent responses, and at our next meeting, we'll review the results for all groups. So our Cherry Lane parent and guardian participants made up, twenty-eight point seven percent of all the parent responses. Uh, one of the survey questions was to rank a list of the district's priorities based on the importance, in helping students achieve the Proudly Portrait of the graduate characteristics and be successful and for graduation. So the top three, three priorities for Cherry Lane parents were maintaining low class sizes,
028preserving rigorous academic programming, and offering authentic real-world learning experiences. In addition to the survey questions, we had our exchange question, which was "What programs or resources should be prioritized for a successful school year?" On the left are the themes of the highest-rated thoughts. They're rated on a scale of one to five, rating of five being a pretty strong agreement with that thought. Uh, on the right are examples of a few of the top-rated thoughts, and the color of the bubble represents the category that it came from on the right. So a few of the highest-rated thoughts for Cherry Lane parents were, "Extracurricular activities are important so kids have a safe and productive space in which to socialize and develop hobbies." "Project-based learning generates and inspires interest among students," and, "Small class sizes provide an increased
029opportunity for academic and social emotional supports for our children." So now I'm gonna pass it over to Ms. Moriarty to talk about how her building budget supports these items. Thanks, Ms. DeMartina. So when we look at our overall budget, you'll see that there was a di-- a decrease of approximately sixteen thousand dollars. That directly correlates, with last year. We had asked the, board of education and our community to approve a budget that included, robotics materials for our project-based learning, and that was a one-time purchase, so we did that last year, and we no longer needed to include that in our budget. Um, and then all of our other, budgeting items remain relatively neutral so that we can maintain our rigorous academic programming and support for all of our students. As we went through our survey
030results for, that our parents had provided for us, some of the things that we had identified and real priorities for us, as a district as a whole were expanding these real-world and STEM experiences. So this budget really sustains our commitment to project-based learning. It provides the materials needed for students to participate and, to participate and solve authentic challenges such as designing sustainable housing or engineering light-based communication devices. By transitioning from that one-time technology purchase last year for robotics and PBL to integrated classroom applications, we ensure every student engages in a rigorous, standards-aligned STEM exploration. These experiences directly align with the community's priority of authentic learning that builds critical thinking and future-ready skills, and that really comes out of our program supply budget. Additionally, we saw the importance of extracurricular activities and student leaderships, student leadership,
031so we are maintaining eight diverse before-school sessions, including gardening club, little leaders, and student ambassadors, which foster socialization and social-emotional growth. These clubs empower students to become community leaders through impactful service projects, such as our Starbucks Inspiring Messages partnership and senior citizen and veteran outreach. By funding these programs, we provide the real-world leadership opportunities while encouraging students to develop their unique personal interests and passions, and that's directly in line as well with our parent survey results. And then finally, strengthening academic support and literacy foundations, which is a, very big priority for us at Cherry Lane. To ensure a rigorous academic programming, this budget expands our successful literacy initiative through a multi-year purchase of decodable classroom libraries that align the foundations and the basics components of reading. This investment is paired with our ESGI progress monitoring
032system, which allows teachers to use biweekly data to tailor their instruction for the needs of each individual learner in our classrooms. This dual approach guarantees that our academic support is both data-driven and equipped with high-quality resources for independent student success. Um, I'm very happy to see that our priorities at Cherry Lane align so closely with the priorities of our parent community and our district, priorities. So thank you guys so much for your support in this. We really appreciate it. So when we look at the thought exchange results for Rushmore, we see that Rushmore parents made up about thirty-two percent of all parent responses. And the top two priorities for Rushmore parents are the same as Cherry Lane, just in the reverse order. And then their additional-- The third priority that was different was providing, after-school
033activities, opportunities for all students. Again, on the themes, we see a lot of overlap, with Cherry Lane. Um, and a few of the top thoughts for our Rushmore parents are non-sports activities that focus on community service, activism, et cetera, work to build character traits that will support our children beyond our district. Uh, one was, we need enrichment at Rushmore based on standardized testing, not just based on who was left in the classroom when others are pulled out. And I think it's important to continuously do benchmarking against other Nassau schools to ensure ours is competitive.And I will pass it over to Mr. Cardino to discuss Rushmore. Okay. Uh, good evening, everyone. Um, it's my pleasure to speak on behalf of Rushmore Avenue School. It really is a pleasure to be here. Um, our first slide for
034Rushmore is, one similar to Cherry Lane, our expenditure, and our codes. It's the, you know, basic description of our subheadings for supplies, our textbooks, our, our materials, our library. It-it's all covered there, from the year prior into this, upcoming school year. And part of this development, developmental process includes analyzing our prior year's actual expenditures compared to the budgeted amounts. So from this analysis, we were able to determine that much of Rushmore budget would remain flat for the twenty-six, twenty-seven school year, and this will help the overall picture. Will slow, slow the overall rate of growth as our district budget as a whole. So if you go to our next slide, Rushmore expenditures, we start to talk about some exciting things here. Academic achievement. We have things like BEAST Academy, which is advanced mathematics instruction provided
035for students that demonstrate high levels of achievement. Uh, out of that comes our Math Olympiad contests, which are a lot of fun, and our students do really well. And placement in BEAST is based on academic readiness and performance. Our teachers also incorporate, incorporate differentiation and enrichment during regular instruction. Recently, I've seen that with many teachers who we've met with, analyzing our i-Ready scores. We also build our professional development opportunities, such as, the other day for Superintendent's Conference Day. We had wonderful workshops learn-- working and learning to strengthen our teachers' toolbox for our students at Rushmore. The school is exploring some scheduling options for our students with similar profiles to collaborate with our STEM program and enrich learning in a way that our budget can remain neutral. Our continuous efforts to improve, with simple multiple measures
036of achievement. We seek to be competitive not only across Nassau County but all of Long Island. Our building MTSS, goes, to build continually ex-- assess student data and secure pathways for improvement and success. And an example of that is our Rushmore IST team. Uh, I've been overly impressed with the amount of teachers and their level of professionalism, working, real hard to find the best, support systems for our students, and we do that each and every week. Uh, that has really been a highlight for me as well. Uh, the last slide, here for Rushmore, is our expenditures in regard to character and clubs. Um, I must say, our, our school after school is like a school that really didn't dismiss. And I discovered that the first couple of days I was there. I'm watching this amazing
037dismissal, organized, safe. I walked up and said, "This is the best dismissal I've ever seen in my career." And then I realized, and I walked through the auditorium, there were kids in there. There were kids on the stage. There were kids in the gym. I went upstairs, there were kids in the classroom. I went downstairs, and I said, "No wonder it's so small. They like the school." So that is a great sign. And we offer more than I've ever seen in, in an elementary school, and I've certainly been, to take a phrase from, Dr. Canoni, around the block a bit. I've seen a lot of schools, and we really are providing incredible opportunities for our kids in so many areas. It's a pleasure to see it. Um, we explore ways for our students. We have,
038nine different clubs, student council. The clubs are technology, knitting, performing arts. Uh, our student council facilitates all our community service projects, and there are so many great ones. There's been so many since I've been here, and we have so many that I'm working on now as we move into the future for different parts of our community to come in and actually see the school present to our kids. Uh, we just had a local dentist there the other day. He came in and did an amazing program for kids, and he gave them all, you know, goodie bags for, for their health, for, for, for hygiene and, you know, for dental. And it was really-- it was great. We have a possible proposed, re-replacement for clubs would be a future business leader of America. We're excited about
039that. Dr. Canoni and I actually received a nice letter, and we're gonna watch a presentation from an elementary student. The letter was very well-written, and I just got a request today, possibly adding yoga. We have Shrek. We all know how amazing that was at the school. So, there's a lot of great things going on at Rushmore. It's a pleasure to be part of it, and, thank you for your time and your attention. Thank you. You're welcome. Middle school, high school, parent responses made up thirty-two and a half percent of overall parent responses. Uh, again, we're seeing the same top two priorities, so that's the same top priorities amongst parents across all three buildings, which is nice to see that we're aligned there. And their third top priority, offering authentic real-world learning experiences. Again, a lot
040of overlap with the top themes that shows that throughout the district we're pretty well-aligned in terms of what we feel is important. Uh, a few, top thoughts from the middle school, high school are we need to invest more in middle school. It feels like they are the forgotten grades at a crucial time of development. Uh, the Robotics Club has been such a great addition to the districtUh, and expanding STEM and hands-on learning opportunities encourages curiosity, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills. Before I hand it over to Mr. Poore here, I just wanna make a comment about the middle school, high school budget changes. We're showing them on the next three slides, as we have in the past, and you'll notice that there are some big swings, in terms of percentage changes, both up and down. This
041is what I like to see because it shows that we're reviewing budget every year, and we're allocating money where it's most needed rather than rolling what's been there from the past. So that being said, looking at the expenditure codes like this can be confusing and hard to draw the conclusion from in this format. So in a few slides, we're also gonna show it to you broken down by department to help it make more sense. And with that, I'm gonna pass it to Mr. Poore. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for having me. Uh, I'm gonna take this opportunity while I kinda have, have the microphone and the floor to just reiterate what Dr. Guffey and Dr. O'Connor was talking about with our scholarship interviews. It was three long evenings, but it was three evenings that were
042well worth it. Obviously, the group who was part of it as well. Um, I do wanted to mention that one of the, one of the questions is, what do you hope is here in five years if you return to Carl Place? And overwhelmingly, clubs and activities, which we know is important, athletics, extra, extra help comes up a lot, but what came up the most was the teaching staff. I think it's really important to recognize because I do think, and I am a teacher here for many years as well, that we have the best to offer. I just wanted to mention that. Okay. So obviously, Miss Demartino spoke about, this slide here. I'm gonna go to the next slide, so-- and I wanna talk about a couple lines here that obviously are gonna pop out to
043you. Uh, other expenses in high-- it says high school business. I'll discuss that on a later slide at length. But I do wanna talk about the textbooks in foreign language. Uh, that's due to our new AP textbooks for world language. They're expensive, and we need to update those books as well. The next slide here, now you see some lines that are highlighted. Um, the one line I wanna focus on is the occupational ed line, the BOCES line. Those are increases that we do not control, so that's just something that's gonna happen from year to year. I'm always talking to Miss Demartino and Dr. O'Connor about what can we do. Can we get some more students going? They've been very generous. Uh, I know some parents in the audience have spoken to me about that as
044well. Um, some of those increases we just can't control. Um, also clubs, you'll see that line. We have some proposed clubs, again, that I'll talk about in a little while, on a later slide. But before I move on, I just wanna let everyone know here that, I know social and emotional learning is a big topic and a big focus. That will be discussed and included in upcoming PTS budget presentation, just so everyone knows that. Okay. So here you see the three main, groupings of departments broken down. Uh, you see humanities and world languages. They actually-- the budget goes down. Um, I'll go to phys ed and family consumer science, and you see it's a slight increase. But you're gonna see STEM be there. That's our big increase, and that's what I'm-- with-- that's what I'm
045gonna talk about, mostly tonight. I do wanna reference-- I'm not gonna go back in the slides, but what you see here does reference to our-- Bless you. To our earlier slides on the thought exchange for the middle school, high school talks. And one of the highlights was offering authentic and real-world learning experiences. That's when we talk about the Bloomberg in a second, and one of the top priorities was STEM and enrichment. So it kinda all connects. All right, here we go. So when you look at this slide, it, it might be a little overwhelming, but in case you're not sure what it is, STEM being science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business. That's what we're talking about there. The equipment line of four nine three one, that is for our stock ticker, right? Stock ticker is
046a learning tool that offers real-time data. I'll talk about that in a little while. It's a connection to all of our global markets worldwide. That-- If you can see it, if you look at the bottom right pic, that is the stock ticker that you see there. I'm sure everyone is somewhat familiar with it. The other expenses line, high school business, that is a big number there, that is for the Bloomberg Terminals. If you look at the middle picture, that is a Bloomberg Terminal. Believe it or not, the Bloomberg Terminal is, is just the keyboard. It's not, it's not the monitors. So I do wanna reference again, we will also have some hardware needs that will be shared at a later budget pre-presentation included in our technology budgets. Okay. A little bit more info on Bloomberg.
047So what's our goal? We wanna ensure that our students develop real-world financial and business literacy, provide authentic tools for students in finance, business, and data-driven fields. What is it? The Bloomberg Terminal is the same platform used by fin-- finance professionals on Wall Street, top universities. It's used worldwide. It provides real-time data, analytics, global financial news, but the most important thing is it's all verified. It's all verified data. The one thing you always hear about Bloomberg is it, it takes our learning from simulation and theory to real-world, real-time. That's what we're, that's what we're focusing on. How do we know it's a worthwhile investment? We're gonna track our student enrollment in our courses.This lab is also gonna be used for other courses, economics, government, statistics, and our research program that we're, that we're building up as
048well. College acceptances, there's no doubt that we've learned that having a Bloomberg certification, which our students can earn, will give our students a competitive edge when it comes to college admissions. It's proven. Long-term indicators, we'll go-- we-we'll have surveys, alumni feedback, career pathways we'll talk about. In the end, we're gonna see where are our students going to college? Where are they getting in? This is a big piece here. Staffing for twenty six/twenty seven. This is big. We can implement the Bloomberg program within our existing FTEs for twenty six/twenty seven, so it's not gonna require any hiring from the outside, which is really, really important, and very important for our budget as well. How will this benefit our students beyond high school? Well, it's gonna support, like I said, economics, mathematics, research. Hopefully, it's gonna strengthen
049their critical thinking and data analysis, and it's gonna support our K through twelve research program. Next slide. That'll be-- as-as I said I was gonna talk about, are our clubs. I'm gonna go in a little bit different order. I'm gonna talk about it, and then I'm gonna talk about the why. So the middle school music review club. We're looking to strengthen that pipeline, that connection from Rushmore to the high school. Why are we looking to do that? Well, past year, we had seventy-five students participate in the Rushmore musical. Yet this year, we only had fourteen audition for the middle school musical. Uh, so we're hoping that this musical re-- review club will be some type of flexible alternative while avoiding the past scheduling conflicts, 'cause what happens when you get to middle school with after-school
050athletics? And unfortunately, a lot of our students are forced to make a choice. So that's what that one's about. Uh, the second one I'm, I'm gonna reference is our scenery advisory, which we currently have. We're looking to kinda morph it into a hands-on technical theater space for students between the school day and rehearsal. Don't really have a name yet. Maybe it'll be Stage Design and Production Club. But the why, let's give our students hands-on technical learning while contributing to our theater set. It's a win-win. So it's not just our theater set person. The students can get involved and use their hands as well. Big one we have up there is to revive our leadership club. It's something we haven't had, and we think it's important 'cause everyone knows with all the new initiatives, we need
051to build our student leaders within. We wanna build our student leaders, continue with our Leader in Me initiatives in partnership with our President's, Council. And the why, obviously, let's continue to build their confidence, connect to our Carl Place Portrait of a Graduate characteristics, and just see how they can, how they can practice that leadership beyond the classroom. And how are we gonna measure success? Let's see how it goes. Let's measure that participation and the attendance. Thank you very much. Before we hand over to Mr. Bennett, I just want to say again, the Bloomberg items in the budget are a huge dollar value, a huge change to our budget, but it has just been such a tremendous amount of work that's gone into it. It really started last October at the New York State School Boards
052Conference, and I just wanna thank everybody who's been involved. Mr. Zano, Beth Granado, Ms. Shaw, Mr. Boric, or Mr. DeBlasio. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but it has been, you know, a very long and well-thought-out and well-researched process. Dr. Barry, that's who I'm forgetting. Thank you. Um, so with that, back up to Andrew. Good evening. Um, I am Andrew Bennett, the Executive Director of Human Resources, and it falls to me to talk to you about staffing. Um, with all of the wonderful things that you have heard our principals, and as DeMartino speak about, that we are bringing to the district or have already established, the natural next question is, well, is it going to require that we hire new people for these new things that are going on? Um, and before I answer that question,
053I just wanna focus on... Wait, I didn't? I did. Okay. What does it mean to be instructional staff? 'Cause not everybody that's employed in the district is instructional staff. So what we mean by that are our regular classroom teachers, our related arts teachers, those are those special area teachers, the teachers who work in academic intervention or in other support capacities, as well as our guidance and mental health staff. Um, and, the board has lots of goals. Uh, you saw on the agenda tonight they, that they're, sharing some with you. One of the goals when we talk about budget, is to, maintain our instructional value, while also remaining fiscally responsible. Um, part of that process of, ensuring that we're adding the instructional value that, is valued by the community is to go out and ask you
054what your opinions are. That was that thought exchange, and you've heard the principals talk about specifically what was associated with their buildings. Um, and I'd like to, share with you that in the staffing piece, we are focused on maintaining that small class size. Um, and in order to, get at the other pieces that the community members spoke about in that thought exchange, we are focused on sustained, professional development opportunities. And both of these things together provide measurable positive effects to student learning. Okay. The next two slides, this one and the next one, focus in on the instructional staffing at Cherry Lane.The table on the left are your regular classroom teachers, and then the table on the right starts to get into some of the special area teachers. As you can see, there is no change
055to the overall staffing in the building. We call that staff neutral. As we move to the next slide, you can see more of the special areas. Again, there are no increases in the staff at Cherry Lane. The next two slides, show us the staffing at Rushmore. Again, we're seeing a ve-- a staff neutral picture. Uh, the left table are the regular classroom teachers, and then the special area teachers, we see some on that right table. Numbers are identical. And here's the rest of our special area teachers at Rushmore. Again, staff neutral. And the next three slides we're going to show the instructional staffing at the middle school and high school. Um, we have two shaded boxes here, and, I'd like to reiterate, again, we are staff neutral at the middle school and high school. What
056we see in those two highlighted boxes is a little shift, where we were at, seven staff members in the math department. Next year, we will be at six point four because part of that seven, that point six, is shifting to the business department to help out with the Bloomberg, in those classes, those courses. Um, so th-that shift in FTE. Here are more of our special areas, in the middle school, high schools. And we see staff neutral. Um, it really is a special thing to be able to improve the academic experience for our students while remaining staff neutral, because that is one of the biggest drivers, if not the biggest driver of the budget from year. And the last bit of our instructional staffing at the middle school, high school, again, staff neutral. Um, returning- Are
057there totals, totals anywhere? Totals on these? Uh, the, the tables do not show a, a total at the bottom, but I can get you that. I'm going to return the presentation to Ms. Demartino. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Um, I just wanna mention regarding the handouts for tonight, they're not directly related to this presentation. Um, what was out there is, the changes that we made to the budget, specifically since our last meeting, so you can see what we've done. Um, and the full expenditure detail report for the district as a whole, so everyone has access to that, and it will be on the website, tomorrow. So just a quick update on the tax levy. The number and the percentage have not changed from our last meeting. Um, just wanted to present
058that again. It's two point three two percent increase. Uh, we're proposing a levy equal to our maximum allowable amount. And for an average class one home without a star reduction, that's about two hundred and thirty-six dollar increase to your school tax bill, or two point five four percent. Average is what grade? It's all over. It's on a, in this kind of column. Um, since our last meeting, we've made some changes to the budget, as I mentioned, resulting in an overall reduction. Um, we are not finished reviewing the budget yet, so there will be some additional changes coming. As of today, we've reduced our budget from two point six three to two point five percent increase. Um, and that decrease in expenditures was balanced by decreasing the amount of our appropriated retirement reserve. The ballot this
059year is pretty straightforward. Proposition one is gonna be the vote on the budget. Proposition two is request for authorization to establish a capital reserve, in an ultimate amount not to exceed fifteen, fifteen million dollars. Again, for the purpose of acquiring capital equipment making or renovation, construction, all the capital work we've been doing. Um, the reserve will be funded by unexpended appropriations and/or excess revenue in any given school year, as well as allowable transfers, pursuant to law with a term of fifteen years. So this proposition is just for us to establish our reserve and have the ability to fund it. It has no impact on taxes. There's no money involved. We're just asking to open the account because our current reserves are fully funded. And Proposition three will be the election of two board members. These
060are the additional board meetings we have, for budget-related presentations. We have related arts certification and special education on the twenty-sixth. Budget adoption right around the corner on April sixteenth, and of course, the budget vote on May nineteenth. As always, check out our website for more updates. If you have any questions, you can reach out in any way, including emailing budget two six two seven. And I hope to see you at the vote on the nineteenth and then again on the twenty-sixth. Thank you. Thank you, Joanna. We'll hold all the questions for the end of the meeting, towards the end of the meeting. We will now continue with the business of the meeting. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the Board of Education meeting of February twenty-sixth, twenty twenty-six? Do I have
061a- I so move. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? The minutes from February twenty-sixth, twenty twenty-six are approved. Now for the approval of the consent agenda. May I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. May I have a second? Second. All in favor? All are in approval of the consent agenda. Any questions or comments from the public not regarding the agenda, please come to the podium and state your name and address. My name is Marge from HR, Rochester, New York. Um, since this was on staffing, I would like some-- I think it would be good to have totals, subtotals, and a whole total so that we could figure out what we're spending. Um, since it's a budget meeting, not a PR meeting, is there also a number for the
062cost of this staffing? Where are those numbers? The salaries and someone. Are, are you finished with your questions, Elvis? No, get all the questions out, and then we'll answer them at once. Um, well, and my question is this Bloomberg. I, I don't know how many students have really top math scores, but you've decided to spend this money and that this would be a good thing. I personally think that this district could use some plumbers and carpenters and electricians. Um, but you've decided that they're going to all be rich stockbrokers that maybe won't have jobs with AI, IA, whatever it is. Um, I hope this is-- I, I really hope that this is money well spent because I don't know that there's enough time to teach all the math in the high school first before they
063get to play with the Bloomberg terminal. And if you give them a stack of annual reports from major American companies, could they read that report and know what they were looking at? That wouldn't cost much. Just send away. They'll send you stacks of them, and you could see if they really know what this stuff is about. We of course did not present on the cost of staffing here. We're just, uh-- tonight's presentation meant to show that we are not changing our staffing. Um, we know those costs are driven by our collective bargaining agreements. Uh, we present the percentage of salary and benefits of the budget overall. Um, but everyone has access to all of those details in the budget documents. We also are required to post an administrative salary disclosure every year. That's online. So,
064if there's anything specific that you wanna see, feel free, to find that information. As for the Bloomberg program, that resource doesn't supplant good mathematics instruction. Good mathematics instruction will still happen. Good mathematics instruction must happen. We have an obligation there, so I want you to know that that doesn't make it go away. And the goal is definitely not to create a whole school full of stockbrokers or traders. The goal is to give those students who are interested in business as a career path, and we have a number of, a very large number actually for a school of our size, who are interested in business, a leg up on using what is really like a state-of-the-art tool in the business world. More importantly than that, it will help us meet the requirement that New York State
065will put on us this year for financial literacy instruction. And one of the things that Corey was talking about was ways that it can be used for data analysis and critical thinking for students who want to be involved in science research or who wanna be involved in research into social science. Because the information that that tool aggregates is ro-- they are reliable data sets, they're verified data sets, and you can use that to pull information that serves the interests of our students who are interested in biology or chemistry or any number of other subjects. And I agree with you that plumbers and electricians and carpenters are really, really important. That's part of why we send students out to schools like Battery Tech, right? We want them to have that real-life experience. And I would say,
066really truthfully, I would love to see students who follow those career paths have really good, computational thinking skills, right? The plumbers and electricians and carpenters I know use their computational thinking skills all the time and use their analytical skills all the time to find solutions to the building problems that they're, that they're undergoing. And I appreciate your skepticism on that. It's important to be skeptical about things like that. We, we take that into account, and, you know, we're going to hold ourselves accountable, and we will report out on how this is progressing. Could I add something? Sure. You, you need to add to the comments Back a thousand years ago, they had classes like bookkeeping. And everything you learn can lead to creating small businesses. But you need to know your business, your subject. It
067can come from geology, sewing, it can come from any number of things, but, just trading on somebody else's business is different than starting businesses and understanding just basic bookkeeping. Basically, how to, how to keep track of your, your income, your outgo, et cetera. Thank you I just-- I, I, I am skeptical. I, I, I agree with you, and, things like virtual enterprise, which we engage in very heavily here at the focus high school is, is connected to that. I'm gonna call you tomorrow anyway. Okay. So maybe we'll talk a little bit more. Thank you for your comment. Does anybody else have any questions or comments from the public not regarding agenda? Please come to the podium and state your name and address. Hi, Christina Aguilar. Um, I'm just gonna follow up on the Bloomberg. It
068sounds very interesting. I don't know enough about it yet. Um, but I wanna also make sure that our kids are being prepared for regions exams, because I do think that's going by the side a little bit, and I have a little problem with that. Okay. Um, so I like the creativity, and I'm always open for that, but we still have mainstream classes that need to be productive and getting things done. Mm-hmm. Okay. So that's number one. The second thing is, and maybe I missed a meeting, I apologize if I did, but the March nineteenth vote, I'm a little leery about the fact that we set out to, um... I'm losing my words, but we got the, the prices again Bids. The bids, thank you. And less than a year later, we're three million under what
069our bids were. That just seems unacceptable for whoever's job that was. Mm-hmm. And now to say, you know, I read the pamphlet that came home to say it's not raising our taxes. No, but that's three million dollars that was supposed to be spent on a whole list that we have. And I know we always had it when I was up there. We had a to-do list. So to tell the community it's not raising your taxes, that's what the letter said. Mm-hmm. It's really-- You're still taking three million dollars, but the job should have been done right. And a year later, there's no way mathematically that it should go up by three million dollars if the job was done right. So I would One more minute. I'm sorry. I apologize. You're right. It's hard when we're
070in a conversation. Yeah. I hate that we do this. I think it's terrible. Yeah. Um, so I'll go on other subjects. And the other thing is the teaching staff. So I will start with Cherry Lane. Um, we-- And you know I've spoken about this before, about the instructional coach. Now we're paying full time for an instructional coach. We have a math academic intervention teacher, so that's two teacher salaries. And I'm just hearing we have this in English, which I, uh-- from what I'm hearing is good, great, because they have two co-teachers in a room for ELA and reading, which is fabulous. But that total is like three people. Why do we need an instructional coach and a math person? Because to me, I don't agree with the instructional coach because we have other places that
071we should be spending our money. Um, and a ma-- The instructional coach should be able to do both. But again, maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I think that's a waste of money. And then yet again, the same thing in Rushmore. We have an instructional coach as well as math support, two full salaries. But yet, as we continue to see in the high school, our business program, we're talking to Bloomberg, we want all this business stuff, but yet we don't have enough business teachers. And you're taking now three sections away from math which in my opinion, math is hurting a little here. And now you're saying you're adding one point six of business, but you're not really, 'cause you took it from... So we need another business teacher, and we need to look at the Rushmore and
072the Cherry Lane, and stop wasting money because you're saying business, business, business, but w-- there something has to be done, and it shouldn't be at the expense of our kids. Thank you for your comments, and we will address them now. So we'll just start with the vote for the nineteenth. We did have, a meeting about it. I share your frustration on both the increase in cost and the length of time it has taken. Uh, we did bid the project out twice. In between, we tried our best to value engineer the project with our architect to bring the cost down as much as possible. Uh, a lot of the delay is a result of the electric side of the project, working with PSE&G. There's a lot of restrictions about where you can put things and how
073far they have to be. Um, so that did take time. It is frustrating. Uh, but as far as doing our, our due diligence and doing it correctly, we have done that. Th-there was a lot of work that went into the bid process, engineer-- the value engineering part of that process. We share your frustration with it. I would just reiterate what Nikki Martino said. Yeah, I just wish it was done before-Right. I, I want to assure you, and we may differ on that, Ms. Aguilar, it was done right. The prices that people charge us for things are out of our control, and I don't want to debate that part of it. Um, and I know that we have disagreement on the instructional coach piece of it as well. The work that we did to present the
074value of the instructional coach concept last year was extensive, and a lot of parents came to that meeting and listened to us and asked a lot of skeptical questions. We're gonna continue to report out on the, effects of instructional coaching, and we will monitor it. Just because it exists doesn't mean it has to exist forever and ever. I happen to very strongly support the idea of instructional coaches, as I know my colleagues do, and they are not just letting it happen in a laissez-faire, in a laissez-faire way. I know that we did- So they don't-- But they don't help them with math because you have a math specialist. I, I'm, I'm not gonna engage in a debate. I'm not debating, I'm asking a question. So does the instructional coach only come in for, I don't
075know what, for English? I don't know what they're teaching that the teachers can't teach. How do we, how do we wanna handle the conversation? So, so I don't- Do we know what they do or we don't? I don't understand. No, we had a presentation. I know, and I've been to many of the presentations. Right. So- It's still no great. So I think at this point in time, we are going to just end the conversation here. We can't- Follow up. We can follow up. Nobody ever follows up with me, just so you know. I'm sorry. I don't believe that either. And if that's the fact, then let's talk about that separately, because that's not a matter for this boardroom. And we-- And I'm always available to discuss that with you, and I, and I hope that
076you will take advantage of this offering. At this point in time, are there any other questions regarding- So the rest of us would like to know too. Yeah, that's what my problem is. Elise, we had a whole presentation on the coaching. So, so we're not gonna go through a debate of justifying everything. We had the principals come up here. It's on live stream, so it has all the details. And that's what, that's one advantage of live streaming. People in the community had mentioned that we need to be transparent, so we invested in a live stream, and people can play it back. Our staff spent a lot of time with this coaching presentation that was only a couple of months ago. So it's there. It's out there. So I don't wanna waste the time to debate
077back and forth because we already had that discussion. Sum it up then, so that- I mean, you wanna tell me what date to look at then? 'Cause I've been at meetings, and it's been discussed, but now you're basically saying I should sit there and look online. I just asked a simple question. Do they do math? I didn't ask you to explain the whole thing in detail, 'cause I get that. The instructional coaches- I don't want you to waste your time. The instructional coaches work with our teachers. They are very experienced, successful primary and elementary teachers. They work with our teachers on all of the core responsibilities that primary and elementary teachers have, like literacy, like mathematics, and the list goes on, right? We created a very specific set of responsibilities for them. We created a
078very specific set of accountability measures for them. That, that is a fact. That is something that our principals monitor. That's something that our directors monitor. Ms. Shaw, myself, ultimately in the end. Right. So that is a succinct answer to that question. Do we focus on math? Yes, we focus on math. And then the math instruction lady just comes in and does math. That's a different position. AIS is a different position. No, no, no. AIS is only in Cherry Lane. That's not what you have written down for the Rushmore. We can talk about this more. I'm trying to respect the wishes of the board here and not get into a protracted debate, which is not what public comment is for. Oh, no, I'm not trying to. I'm trying to understand what they're doing because that's-- I
079just-- They keep asking for business classes, but we're not getting them. We are expanding our business offerings. I believe there's another question or comment on that. Yeah. Thank you. Ms. Brenner. So, regarding the presentation, questions. Bloomberg, I'm, I'm not a hundred percent sure, is how many students does-- is this reaching, and who exactly is utilizing it? Is the students utilizing it, or, or are teachers and administrators utilizing it? I, I, I don't know. Like, delete. We, we-- Right there. So my-- That's a Bloomberg question. Next question is, yes, I, did see in the thought exchange that the extracurricular and the clubs and all of that was consistent. Um, I think speaking as a Rushmore parent, the students want longer sessions. They're offered many options. However, they're only offered an option for one-- for four sessions.
080And if they're in student council or they do the play, they can't do those options because all of the clubs are additionally on the same day. Mm-hmm. So students want that, that-- I think that that's what the parents and the students are asking for. Regarding Cherry Lane, thought exchange, the clubs, yes, I'm, I'm noticing now that clubs are available in the mornings, but I think that parents are asking for clubs to be up against the, the end of the day. I know PTA works very hard to do clubs and other options that are paid, for by c- by our families. However, they don't start until four o'clock, four thirty. So it's like, you know, shuttling the five-year-old, six-year-old, to get to clubUm, so that's my questions regarding the presentation. My additional questions I have here,
081regarding the middle school transition team. I am going to become a middle school parent, and in, in addition to calming my daughter's nerves, I'm trying to figure out all of this information myself. So is there a way that the transition team could possibly create some sort of hub that we can-- all information can go through there? In the last two weeks, I personally have received, many messages in ParentSquare, in addition to all the other messages, and they're very hard to keep track of. So parents are like, "If-- When is this due?" And then you click on the PDF, and then the PDF is small, and then there's a link. So it's very challenging for parents to keep on top of all that information. And I know that something is due tomorrow, and there has been
082no reminder of parents to, you know, fill out this form. It's due tomorrow. So that's a question for middle school transition team. Um, cafeteria. I know this is always a dis-discussion and debate. So regarding the cafeteria and the food and the overhead, I know school food is free through New York State. So my question is regarding ordering and completing and ensuring that the correct amount of food is ordered. There have been plenty of time where my own children or children that I know of on sports teams, they are upset because they are on the last lunch period, and pizza is not available because it's all sold out. So that kind of stuff. And my other question was for Cherry Lane regarding the decodables. How many more decodable books and how many classes will that, reach?
083Sorry for the scribble there. Thank you. Yes. Twenty-four, twenty-four minutes. I'm gonna try to-- I'm gonna try . I'm gonna try to take everything in turn. Who will use Bloomberg? Students will use Bloomberg. It is a, an instructional tool, right? So students will be engaged in learning across the grades in, in the high school. But the short answer, we can always have a longer conversation about that. Um, I understand what you're saying. I hear you saying that Rushmore students want to have more sessions. Not a longer duration of session, but instead of four, they'd like six or eight or ten, for instance. Yes. Okay. I hear you on that. I also hear you saying that Cherry Lane parents, some of them at least, maybe more of them, want to have the end-of-day clubs closer to
084dismissal time. Is that what I hear you saying? The Rushmore, the Rushmore fac-- Uh, the Cherry Lane facility-- facilitated clubs are mostly in the morning, so they're, they're run by the staff in the morning. You want to have them at the end of the day closer to dismissal. That's what I think I hear. So possibly yes. Afternoon just- Understood. Gotcha. All right. And then the question about the middle school transition team, right? Right. Could there be a hub, a one-stop shop for information? That's a question that I would say is best asked of the middle school and high school administration, right? Because they are the folks who are in control of that. It's great that you asked that question. And you know, Mr. Foraker is here. He hears that. It's just I don't know who--
085I'm getting different, ParentSquares from Dr. Barry- Uh-huh. -Ms. Rubenstein, Mrs. DeBlasio. Condense it. So I don't know-- Yeah. Right, is what I hear. Yes. Condense it- Condense ... so I can go to one place. Yes. Understood. And then the Cherry Lane decodables, that's really a question that Ms. Moriarty can answer. I don't know if, if we want to- I will. Yeah. Just say how many, like- Or if you wanna-- I know that you and Ms. Moriarty have a pretty good relationship. That's where- Yeah. I think everybody would like to hear how many more books. Yes. I just feel everyone should hear answers. That's, that's- Yeah. No, I'm just saying. I'm, I'm, I'm saying- Yeah. Would you rather- No, I appreciate it ... hear that now? Yes. Great. If she knows the number. Ms. Moriarty, could
086you- Sure. So, we orig-- we budgeted for decodables for kindergarten and first grade. Um, but I think also part of our relationship and your advocacy that we've been talking, I was able to also, shift some things around and put second-grade decodables in this year's whatever money I have left over, so that starting next year, we'll be able to outfit all classes K to two with, decodables. So I, I appreciate your questions. Okay. You know- Thank you. I think we work together nicely so that- Thank you. I appreciate it ... we can be responsive. The book? Oh, so I'm sorry. What is it? A decodable are, texts that students can tap out. So they're not books that students have to memorize the words. They can sound out the words. So, Tom went to hit a ball.
087All those sounds, correlate with our phonics program, and they're sounds that the students have learned, and now we want them to apply those skills into their writ-- into their reading, opposed to words that they have to just memorize, you know, because the English language has, it has sounds that don't always follow the common phonics rules. Um, so it is part of our big six and our initiation with, with the science of reading. Thank you. It's like the old, like, like Dick and Jane books, like those- Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's an actual book, though. Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Are there any other further questions and comments from the public not regarding the agenda? Thank you. Please come to the podium and state your name and address. Hi. Lisa Darkian, Forty-nine Orchard Street. Um, so, just looking at
088the instructional staff, I'm looking at Cherry Lane and Rushmore, and I'm seeing that the school counselor is-- and social worker are-- They're not even there full-time. So I was just wondering why, especially at such a young age, I feel like there's probably a lot of need for them. And then I also noticed that, for Rushmore, there's not even a social worker there at all, and the counselor's only there part-time. So I'm just, I, I don't know if it's how it's broken up or whatever. Maybe it's a couple of hours there, or whatever it is, but I, I noticed it. I can imagine, and just having kids, that there's a need for that more often, especially, with the, climate of today. Um, so I'm a little worried about that, just in terms of even kids and
089how that's broken up and, how that works, and if there's consideration for adding more of that. Um, and then as far as, teachers, it seems like-- So we're taking away three sections of math is what I think I heard. Um, and we're adding it into business or whatever we're doing. To me, I feel like adding more teachers is what we need to do, because every classroom that I sat in for, for a faculty school night in the high school, every single class was, like, over. A lot of the teachers were saying, "Oh, we don't even have a seat at this class. It's the fullest class I've ever had." That's true. And we always pride ourselves on having smaller class sizes, and I think that when you all made the presentation, the presentations were that everybody
090prioritized small class sizes in the high school. It seems like some of those class sizes got really creeped up. Um, and then taking away planning math classes really concerns me. So I'm just curious as to where that comes from and why, and how that's all broken up and what we're doing about that. Because it, it concerns me that we're taking away three more when we already have large class sizes in a lot of classes. Mr. Poore, are we taking away math classes? No. We are not. It's- Right. No. What, what happens is based on projections and course requests for the next year, we're able to see what our numbers are per course- Mm-hmm ... and per certain levels of math. So what happens is, based on projections and course requests, then we allocate, and we--
091and we already started doing our master schedule, looking at all of our classes, the demand. Cl-- This is not going to affect class size. This is really just reallocation of somebody within our staff that's also business certified that can help us with this new initiative. That's all it is. It's, it's- It's not taking away classes. It's not taking away classes. And it's, it's pretty normal to have teachers who are dually certified- Yeah ... and to deploy them differently from, from one year to another. Uh, yeah, I understand that, but I feel like we're pretty steady for the most part on the quant-- on the sizes that we have of, of classes, of students. So I'm just kind of concerned with taking away from- As you get to the up-- upper levels- Yeah ... and you
092probably know this- Mm-hmm ... the demand for certain courses varies. Right. So it's not, it's not like we're, we're changing Algebra Nine. It-- This is really we're changing things as we get to the higher levels, and the demands change year to year. And, and I, I wanna add one more thing that's- Yes. With the, the less-- I'm sorry. How about- With the less kids-- I'm so sorry. Can we- No problem ... can we have less kids coming up is what you're saying? Or just like-- Or maybe kids aren't taking certain courses anymore. Is that what you're saying? So I, I wanna add one more thing that I think will help answer your question, right? You know that different cohorts are different sizes. Sometimes you have a class that's got a hundred and fifteen students, and
093sometimes you have a class that has ninety students in it. Mm-hmm. That can affect your number of kids who are taking a course. Mm-hmm. Right? Right. Some courses you must take, so everyone takes them. and other thing that's happening, I just wanna make sure everybody who needs to hear this is actually listening. And other thing that happens for us is we are getting better at scheduling. That was something that I tasked the middle school, high school administration and our director of guidance with, because when you schedule more effectively, you use your personnel that we are all paying for, that all of our- ... taxpayers are paying for, you use them more effectively, and you can open up opportunities for students. And this ability to reapportion comes from more effective scheduling. The last couple pieces that
094you asked about were social workers and counselors, right? For our younger students in primary and elementary school. I'll give some answer, and if we need enhancement, I will look to my colleagues for that. The-- Mental health is one of the most important things for kids, right? Right. Kids are under different and more stress than they ever were before, certainly from our time, right? And we pay close attention to that. And when I think about our colleagues who handle the mental health aspects of things, our social workers in the younger, our social workers in the younger grades, our psychologists and guidance counselors in the younger grades, they are shared between the schools. And right now, we're finding that they're able to get the job done. Um, is it perfect? Nothing's perfect. I think if we had
095an army of mental health professionals, it might not be enough. Ms. Moriarity or Mr. Strano or Andrew, you wanna add something to what I said? Yeah. I wanted to point out in the tables, for Cherry Lane, it says school counselor, so alphabetically it's in S, but in Rushmore, it just says counselor, so it's alphabetically C. Um, they're-- they alternate. So there's always one mental health professional in each building. Okay. It's either the social worker or the school counselor. And that's in addition to our- That's not including psychologists Psychologists. School psychologist. So we have two overlapping people in both schools. Okay. So there's somebody there all day. Two people- Yes, two people ... all day. Yes. Okay. All day at both schools. Horrible conditions. Okay. That's-- Just the way it was written, I wasn't sure. Is
096there only somebody there for a few hours? Like- Fair enough. So- There's-- Good question. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from the public not regarding the agenda? No. I am now going to close the public session. Ma'am. Oh, sure, of course. At this point in time with the impending election and the budget vote, I'd like to make a statement. I wrote it down because I'm a little, a little nervous. It has been a pleasure being a member of the Board of Education of the Carl Place School District for the last twenty-six years. At this time, I have decided to retire from the board at the end of this fiscal year, which is June thirtieth two thousand twenty-six. Twenty-six years is a lifetime. Some marriages don't last that long. I had
097a life-changing event almost twenty, twenty months ago. And I have learned to move on from that, and I am moving on from that. This decision is part of moving along to, to the rest of my life, which I want to enjoy without having to worry about school issues, reviewing packets, and attending meetings. However, the sad part for me is that I do have a lot of history, a skill set, education, and experience that is not common for board members. I would like to thank all of the residents who have taken the time to vote for me over and over again. I have no idea why, but that was always an incentive to me to continue doing the best job possible on the Board of Education. I love the business of education. It is a business,
098and I love it. It's great. I look at all the staff members here. I've hired you all. Not just me, but the boards I've been on have hired you, and you're all great. You, you really are good. This is a hell of a school district, including coaches and teachers and staff. You're all, you're all wonderful, and I've been very proud to be part of this. Therefore, there will be three seats for which the residents can run for the Board of Education. This is my hope. My hope is that whoever runs, runs independently and if and when elected, you remain an independent thinker in executive and public session and not just a person who agrees to go along. If you have children in the school, please keep in mind that there are fifteen hun- fifteen hundred
099other children at Carl Place. I'm glad I got this out, and I will miss, I will miss this. This has been part of my life for a long, long time. But there comes a point in time when you, you know you have to leave, and this is my point in time. I want to do other things. So I'm sorry if I disappointed anyone, but I have to do what I think is best for me. Thank you for listening. Thank you. I am now going to close the public session. Can I have a motion to close the public session? So motioned. Second? Second. All in favor. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you for attending. And I normally would understand. Yeah, that's true. I believe you can. On, on arrival residence, residency.