Board of Education meeting February 10, 2026

001Great. Uh, this is the, uh, Tuesday, February 10th, 2026 regular board of education meeting for the Eastora Union Free School District. Uh, please join me in the pledge to the flag. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. May I have a motion to ex enter executive session to uh discuss the superintendent's evaluation matters relating to the promotion or discipline of 12 uh particular employees uh and negotiations with these heroric faculty and civil service associations and matters protected by Moved by Mr. Danu, second >> second by Mrs. Witzel. Uh discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. And that's passed 6. >> Good evening everyone. Uh we are returning

002from executive session where we discussed uh matters relating to the promotion or discipline of 12 particular employees. Uh negotiations with the East Bora faculty and civil service associations and matters protected by and we are back into session. Uh item four. Do we have any agenda changes? with no agenda changes. Uh and we do not have any time for reports and discussion items. Public one uh community member comments. Uh my understanding is we have no community member uh cards. But what I will do is just check in with the board on emails we've received since the January 14th meeting. Uh on January 21st, we received a message from Patty Gunner with regards to community education uh for the SER hold and also uh Roxan Perry uh on the 28th in regards to educational foundation. Just want

003to confirm that you all had a uh received those and had a chance to read Uh I will also note that um I received today an email from a candidate for uh the Boseis board and I have a letter here as well from uh David Loward. Uh so both of those I will get to the board as a whole uh in the coming days. With that, we're going to move on to um item seven of the superintendent comments. Um yeah, I just wanted to share with the board uh want to thank Mr. Cumins and his entire crew. Um the musical Frozen was, you know, absolutely fantastic. I think one of our board members was a member of the cast as well. So that's kind of new for us. We don't have many more members appearing

004in our music. So congratulations. She did a fantastic job. Um, you know, our kids are just so talented. It was so much fun, set design, um, the whole family, orchestra, Mr. O' Conor, beautiful job with the pit. Uh, so I had the chance to see Mr. Cumins on Monday to thank him for the months and all the effort, uh, all the behind thes scenes things that happened. I mean, honestly, I think, um, it just gets better and better every year. Some really super talented kids and, uh, it was just a great event. So, just wanted to Thank you to all of them. Um, and thank you for all your hard work. Uh, it was really uh moving on to uh item uh administrator comments. Do we have any administrators who have uh anything to share?

005Mr. Lardo. >> Yes, sir. Um wanted to alert before Friday we are going to just honor going back home. Um we're going to unveil the state championship banner for the boys. It actually was going to be last night. That game got postponed to this Friday game. A little brief halftime ceremony soccer. Um just real quick update as we're we're in London obviously in the winter season looking at seeds for basketball boys swimming won their division and their 10th straight small school CIC title titles for countless so go um we do have some fall updates from earlier this year all of University of athletes were chosen. We had four athletes. Um Luke Wright from boys cross country, our very own Sam boys soccer. Um we still are looking for a recount on that specific meeting. Um

006Kylie from field hockey and for girls. Um two quick updates for Fall 2026 everyone was there today. We are applying the BCIC for soccer team to be independent. This is simply a competitive balance with the division we play in our feds. Um it allows it allows those schools to play two other teams um that they might rather play versus us um as they make their schedule. and it also allows our soccer team to play a little bit of a higher level schedule. So, we're hoping that kind of goes through with section six. And the last one is we're continuing that process. We're looking at rearranging our football model just a little bit. Still have our varsity team, but moving the modified 79 to the G. information and talk to the section that just want to

007kind of open. >> Thank you, Mr. Anyone have any questions for Mr. >> Mr. Lombardo? How soon would you hear about whether or not it would become moved to independent for the soccer? >> I there's a lot of discussion right now ACI via email. Um we actually like to be in a higher division that they the next step. I'm hoping we have answer tomorrow, but we for sure we for sure would have the first Monday of March. That's formal meeting. >> Thank you very much. Any other administrators? Mr. very far away. I want to thank Mr. Phenomenal to enjoy it. Although lots of whe And then and then finally I don't think I've ever recognized this in the past but it's worth addition are math lead participants right so they compete every month and they

008for the first time our advisor the math teachers. She's not available and students complete problems after school. They're graded and then the statewide system for the first time ever. We are ranked in the state uh competition top three. We are thrilled to be state. Our math any math league participants in the world tonight. Congratulations to your math department and our >> Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks for uh thanks for sharing this. And and Mr. Alberto, I'm not sure why, but when I saw Mr. Roberts uh stand up. Can you let us know? We did pretty the the district did pretty well in its fundraising efforts, didn't they? >> Well, the district raised over the $2,000 required. That's why Mr. Roberts is support,000 total between Maybe we can get Mr. Roberts. >> Looks better on him than

009Jackson. Jackson. >> I saw Jackson. All right. Great. Thank you both. Uh any other uh administrator? Okay. Thanks all for being here. Uh we are moving on to item nine board presidents and board member comments and uh committee reports and I am going to uh defer my time Um Marie and I both went to the district parent coordinating committee and there is so much going onto and I just want to say thank you to the volunteers who are leading home effort because it is so much underrecognized really hard work and they're so dedicated is very clear in this conversation. So thank you to them for all the efforts. Also last Friday, I went to the New York State School Boards Association capital conference where the half day of all sorts of sessions about legislation and

010policy, but the really big takeaways that are important to us are first the electric bus mandate timeline still a huge concern all across the state. Uh but there will be waiverss available. So, that's some good news that we might get an extra couple of years to kind of work through that. Also, the state budget appears to be in better shape than they were expecting. Um, you never know until it's really all through, but this was the most positive I've heard on any of these sessions since they started planning uh earlier this year. And they also said that the budget, state budget is very likely to be tied this year election year. people are motivated to get it together so they should go and campaign. So that is also good news for us. And then the

011final thing is that UPK for four year olds and universal school meals are main priorities for the education budget and there is a proposed mandate on providing meals to pay for to those who ask in the future maybe in 2029 but that is just a proposal. And then also I Thank everybody. Um so yes so earlier in the month and after our last board meeting we all we attended um the DC meeting and like you said the the PTO's specifically of Parkdale and the middle school and SESA um the are are involved in I would say mass community um building projects everything from the book fairs to the kindness parks that they're doing um the holiday cheers. They are um the holiday markets um and they're trying trying to not only you know fund raise

012to give back to the students and the families but also to just bring more people together and um show the the students, the staff, the faculty um how much they're appreciated. Um we did not have representation from the high school at that meeting and I would encourage anyone in the high school who is interested in helping even when you get to high school you're we need parents to help as well. Um then following that I got to attend the facilities um meeting which I won't discuss because I know we're having a discussion about it but I was very privileged to um be the substitute for Mr. Brunson. Um I felt like I had to be very prepared on a subject that I was not but I learned a massive amount and it's kind of exciting

013what's going on with all of that but we'll hear about that later. Um so I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of that. Um then we attended Mel and Slimes and I attended a um today curriculum and textbook meeting with um Mr. Shalley and Mr. Henson for the sustainable agriculture course. Um, one of my favorite jobs is when I get to read a book on the boy to bed. And I sad I didn't have enough preparation time to read the entire thing, but I am going to finish it. I promise. But the book that they read and we approved that they would like to use in sustainable agriculture is um, the last hunger season, a year in an African farm community on the brink of change. Um they requested 25 books at approximately $10

014each. Um the books will be part of their um their course and an understanding of global food um growth which is important. So, we discussed that then. Um, oh, I got to help out at the snowball, which was recent the weekend before musical and that was super fun as well to see everyone dressed up and and just to see the fun that they had and to to help there. Um, and I encourage any parents who would like to help out, um, you should help out. Thank you very much. Then, um, we attended a board retreat since the last meeting as well. And I'll let someone else discuss the board retreat. Um, but I would say that that is always a nice opportunity to learn that much about new initiatives. Um, Zen think that's about it.

015Oh, and then I do want to say it's super fun musical and um it was as as usual well done, but it was also just privilege to be part of that as well. >> Thank you, Dr. Mr. Flowers. the budget and finance committee meeting. Topics discussed in the meeting included payment update based on the governor's proposal as well as identifying strategies for the balance 267 budget. The strategies discussed including identify appropriation savings deficiencies retirement breakage manage funding revenue state budget discussion we've been talking discussion centered around two priorities. One priority just 26 27 impact program the other priority reserves. balancing the budget will no impact programming preservation administration. This challenge just another Thank you. Um, I appreciate the opportunity. I'm not here to fill Jess's shoes. I'm simply here to offer kind of because I've

016had nine budget sessions that I was able to be part of this years and um maybe it's good to remind you all of it is. So that's the good news. Um I I just really appreciate the gap that we have some students on the board now. That's something I advocated appropriately and I'm so glad to see you and I love seeing every one of you here and I know it's a requirement and for credit but you are observing processing processing that's a valuable lesson maybe you won't take much away from this but it will be valuable for you down the road I'm just grateful to see you here every time that we happen to meetings it's a blessing I have not enough meetings and receive your very >> Thank you and welcome Mr. Nice to

017have you with us at the table again and thank you Mr. Blowers for your excellent report on the budget finance committee. You did a terrific job taking notes others of us that were there what actually happened. you're my extra memory. I appreciate that very thank you for attending the committee facilities committee meeting and I look forward to hearing uh an update in the next few minutes and that's all I have. >> Um so recently at the high school cancer damage we received a how it went out, but it was pretty it went pretty smoothly. Thank you, Mr. Russ, for coming at the end. Robert's head and thank you, M. Jameson, for updates constantly throughout the day. Uh, but it ran quite smoothly. I thought these were created a lot of hype was really fun. I

018think our speaker was really well, too. Um, and I thought the games were really funny as well. Very exciting. Um I think all the kids liked it too and just the games in general really fun. All everybody was in white but um teams were in white. So just like you could tell who we at EA was just very very exciting having everyone together and also snowballs that weekends game that night. So we put on the TV at the snowballs and that was another way to get people to go there and that was all grand. >> Yeah. Um for the snowball, we also just want to thank um PTO. That was great. And also all the shadows that uh took time out of their night to come out and support. Um and then right now um

019a few members from our unified club, the high court in Washington DC representing New York State at a conference very two students, two teachers um satis there from Sunday to tomorrow. So and then coming up, I'll talk about more of their next meeting. Um the St. fundraiser last year. Um we haven't yet this year so that excites and uh it did have one thing uh my standard uh uh pitch to everyone that if you're not subscribed to uh BDTV on YouTube uh subscribe. Uh not only will you be able to watch this very meeting uh once it is posted. Yep. Uh you'll also be able to uh watch some live sporting events uh see uh other special things including the uh the podcast that has been uh uh released lately. We've had the the foundation

020uh I know we also had a set of one and uh we had one for the musical as well. So, uh, lots of good content on there and if you subscribe, you can set up so that you get notified when that gets. >> Oh, I did not see it. Great. Um, moving on to item 10, uh, legislation. Do we have any legislation? Uh, moving on to, uh, item 11, uh, casual facilities project. I just want to welcome Steve Showski and Amy Jord. Uh they are part of our team and they're here to give us an update on how things are running with the current project. >> Evening everyone. Um hope you guys are all doing well. It's good to be back here again. Um feels different being on this side. You don't have to get

021up and move for me to present like we normally do. So uh maybe by the fall. I think by September we won't have that issue anymore when we're upstairs in the new space. Um, so tonight I think that's really the big uh topic is sort of give everyone an update on where we are with the capital construction project. And then I do want to hit briefly on the building condition survey. Uh that is the 2026 survey that the district has to have mandated this year that will be happening in the next two months. So in terms of the capital project um some smaller work that's been ongoing. Uh last year, if you remember, the capital outlay project, those $100,000 expenditures, successfully did a masonry project up at the high school. We recently bid out what

022I would call phase two of that. This year's capital outlay project uh very successful with six biders uh participating. We were able to do all four elevations of that south pod, that's the athletic pod of the high school. Last year, the budget only allowed us to do three sides of the other of the north pod. This year, we're able to do all four. So very good and productive turnout that should start around April break give or take really depending on when the weather turns if it ever actually turns. Um in the capital project we are getting very close to the finish line. Um you know going back to the vote in 2022. Uh it's been a long road to get here but this summer should be the final end of construction for this project. So

023that really wrapped up last summer with work at the high school. uh finished everything up at that campus and now we're sort of moving on to the finishing touches here at the middle school campus. So, uh right now ongoing are some PA system upgrades that should finish next week uh or in the next two weeks at at a minimum that started over last summer as well. Uh that's wrapping up right now. There just been some delays due to uh contractor availability to actually wrap up the sets. The heavy work that's happening right now is obviously in the library and the family and consumer sciences classroom here. Um we were able to get a really good jump start. So a massive thanks to the staff here at this building, you know, and uh Brian Merzoff and

024his crew uh for allowing the contractors to get in over December break um and really start heavy construction. Got a lot of the demolition done when there was no one in the building to avoid making, you know, a ton of noise when students are around. Work's been ongoing on second shift for the last I would say month and a half now and we're going to be transitioning to first shift work now that the bulk of heavy demolition is completed. So if you haven't been in those spaces yet, they're wide open. Um the family center just across the hall here, everything's been demoed. There's a temporary wall on the hallway side. Uh the space is completely wide open right now. contractors are starting to rough in mechanical work and electrical work before new walls and finishes

025go back into space. And then the library um everything was exposed on time. Um and we were very fortunate to not really find too many unforeseens in these spaces. Uh we had always expected a few small items, things like pipes buried in walls, two layers of drywall when there was we thinking there was going to be one. Um, so minor bits of extra demolition were needed to get to where we are now. Uh, but things have been going very smoothly. We're actually starting to see the picture on the right there, new walls are going back up in the space already. Um, so if you look in from the street, especially at night with the lights on, you can see those nice shiny new studs already in place. Um, it's taking progress uh, taking shape quickly.

026It'll probably stall. There's a lot of electrical work, duct work, piping, things like that. Doesn't look as noticeable as when the studs start going up. So, it's going to look like nothing is happening probably for the next two months and then all of a sudden drywall will be up and it'll look like a completely different space almost overnight. So, again, brief uh overview of what this will look like. So, if you think of that image on the right here, you're looking up or even here, you're looking up towards the front what used to be the uh the stage. This is what it's going to be when all is said and done. Um, so as it starts to come back together and the plaster work gets repaired, we'll be able to share more pictures and new

027updates. Some other images of the various space areas that we use around the space. These are all things that everyone's seen before. We're happy to share them again. Um, and then the family center. When that gets done, uh, it'll have a completely different look than those wonderful yellow countertops and cabinets they got ripped down over December break. The last major component of this project will be the hallways here at the middle school. That work will not start until later in the school year or even over the summer. It's just too invasive to do that actively when there's students in the building. This building really will be closed for all intents and purposes over the summer to allow finished construction to happen. So all the hallways are going to get demoed out. Floors, ceilings, lights, lockers,

028wall paint, everything's going to sort of be an updated refresh. So, where does that get us to on the budget? Um, considering everything that's happened with the bidding environment over the last few years, the district obviously did have to make some sacrifices in terms of alternates from what the original project intent was, but we're in a very healthy place right now for this project specifically. We're still carrying over $300,000 in contingency for unforeseen. Likely a good chunk of that will get used up. those pipes and things like that that I mentioned, they still have to be removed and paid for and and cashed and put back together. Um, but in addition to that contingency, there's about $230,000 in available funds at this point to be allocated towards additional work. What we're targeting to do is

029try to work back in some of those alternates that were pulled out of the project on bidday to get as much done for the district as possible. So among those, I'll just hit a couple highlights and I'll go through our process of how this works. Um would be creating an office for Mr. Mebr. Uh that had been part of the original plan on the first floor. What we're going to be trying to do is build an office on the second floor adjacent to where the library is. It was an unused sort of open functional office space in the design. Um that's going to have be subdivided into two spaces. Um, additionally finishing some of the hallways near the district office down this hallway behind us here. Uh, facelifting the conference room on the first floor.

030Uh, just that room across from Mr. Ross' office, making that look like it doesn't have carpet from 1950 in it anymore. Um, additional roller shades to improve solar ecan in the building, especially in offices on the first floor. Some structural repairs. I've identified that in red. Um, I have a separate slide I'll go through on that in a second. and then some camera system improvements as well to improve security uh in the building and in the district. So, how this works now, obviously the contractors had already priced everything up. They had a firm bid number for the work. What we've been doing is we've been recreating new construction documents, pulling apart the documents that went out to bid, creating new sketches, new designs based off of these revised scope of work, getting them back out,

031and Buffalo Construction is assisting with getting fair pricing from the contractors for all of that. Once we have numbers, those numbers will be brought back to the district administration to the OACM meetings for final vetting before anything is actually proceeded with and done. So, I mentioned I'd hit on the structural repairs. So, we did uncover uh some issues with an aging building. Um the area actually right behind this wall, there's a low roof outside by the loading dock. That used to be an old coal room. It's off the boiler room in the back. Uh while the contractors were wandering around the site looking to measure some things underneath the family center, they went into a room that people normally don't go into. Drew attention to uh roof leak in that area. Some water was getting

032in. Um Brian and his crew were brought in into consult. Our team was brought in. The water has caused some significant damage to some of the steel members down in that area that really need to be replaced for long-term, you know, safety and and function. You don't want to leave something like that sitting. Uh the roof was already patched. Will probably need to get patched again. Uh it was under warranty, so that that's under partial warranty claim, but there is some steel work that needs to be done. Our team is currently working on designs for that and what the steel is going to need to be and then we'll have a better idea of what the cost impacts of that will be probably in the next month or so. Um it won't be cheap start

033with that. We're talking steel beams 20 30 ft long and some steel deck that needs to be repaired. We're going to do it obviously as economically as possible but one of those things that just has to be done right. So, that sort of wraps up the capital project update. Um, where this transitions and leaves us to, as I mentioned at the beginning, uh, this building condition survey is a state mandate. It's every 5 years. East Aurora's year is 2026 that that has to happen in. Um, so what that entails is a full review of all your buildings. We did this in 2021, if you recall, and a lot of the information that came out of that helped build this last capital project. items that were needed, deficient mechanical systems that needed to be replaced. That's

034going to happen all over again here. We're going to go back in, re-review everything, evaluate where it's come in the last 5 years, if condition has changed, and our team will go and look actually at a series of items above and beyond what the state education department mandates. So, they ask us to look at around 80 or so categories. We end up looking at about 40 additional categories that are more heavily involved with programming. And we'll also turn out a document uh that'll be updated that identifies various systems based off their age and where they were in the building. So this is obviously not an historical building. I just showed this as an example. So when we're reviewing windows, you'll have an independent record record and review of windows from every era of construction in

035your building. Really allows us and the district to pinpoint areas of needed maintenance, repairs, renovations, etc. in terms of planning. After that, we'll have the building needs side sort of established. So, the building condition survey is going to take place in March um where our team will be on site at all the buildings for a period of about 3 weeks. Starting this Thursday, our team's actually going to be walking with Mr. Merzoff to create a facilities needs list and an additional list of things to focus on on those walkthroughs. We'll be back in March, probably back again when there's no snow on the roofs, and then uh turning over the report to the district either June or July, so early summer. Um and that'll sort of round out this building need side of things, similar

036to how we worked from 2021 to 2022. Um we're going to have to take a look at what the plan is there moving forward. And that really circles around working with facilities and staff needs, program needs in various spaces. what might need to be built into a long-term plan. I've shared this slide in the past. It's a living document that we work with the facilities committee and bring to the OACMS. It's a list of all the work that's currently going on in the project. A list of all the work that didn't make the cut, so to speak, in the last job. And then things that come up on day-to-day basis every time something gets mentioned in a meeting. Oh, hey, we should take a look at that. We're having a problem with that system. It

037gets added to the long-term plan. The new building condition survey will help round that out. And what our goal will be is to build really a 10 to 15year comprehensive plan. We know not everything can be accomplished in one project or one set of two or three years, but you start to build a longer term road map taking into account everything we've accomplished so far and looking out over a series of years of what might need to be done in the future. So, what that might look like and what what I'll say in general is we always recommend capital projects around every five years. Um, think of it like your home. This is the speech that I think I gave to you guys four or five years ago. It's a speech we give to the

038community. Roofs only last for so long. Boilers only last for so long. If you don't continuously invest in your properties, things will deteriorate to a point where you have to do emergency repairs. You never want to be in that spot. So we recommend a 5-year rolling clock with projects that aligns perfectly with the building condition survey timeline of 5 years and it align aligns with financial resets from an MCA and incidental standpoint the way the state chooses to aid buildings. So the last project is 22 somewhere around 27 is likely a good time frame to really consider the next capital investment and then where does it go from there? Is that a project that is a small project? Is there a different project? What are the focuses? That's what the building condition survey and meetings

039with the facilities department, with the staff, and with the community will eventually entail and develop over the next 6 to 12 months. >> Questions? >> Building condition survey. So, you've been on site here now for several years, whatever. You started taking notes at that point or you actually had to start fresh. >> So, both. Um, so our team, we have we actually bring out so many different people to do the building condition survey. acts as a fresh set of eyes. So, I'll be offsite to do part of it, but I when I come on site, I'll be looking at one thing. They all be on site all day just looking at your roofs. Someone else will be on site looking at your windows, someone else on site looking at your doors and your floors. So,

040we have a rolling list of the big [snorts] ticket items where we know, yeah, that's got to we got to keep that high on the priority list. Like, we know the mechanical systems of the high school are 25 plus years old already. They almost made it into the last capital project. it just was one step below on the priority list at the end of the day. Um, so we know that, but at the same time, a fresh set of eyes sometimes reveals something we weren't expecting to see. Um, and it's not just the architects that come out. We have a mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, plumbing engineer, and a site engineer that's come out from the various components of building. Just as a refresher, can you remind us what the capital funds project is compared to

041like why that's considered separate funds? >> Vote separately on that if we needed extra money for it and what can you tell me to explain that? >> Um, I will try to um so if I start veering off course, stop me and I'll try to redirect. Um, the state gives money back to school districts as long as it's considered aidable for what are called capital improvement projects, capital investments. That is money specifically allocated towards maintaining and improving and upgrading your building facilities. It's separate. It's a completely separate pot of money from anything that deals with your day-to-day operations, teachers salaries, books, even separate from heating and cooling costs or utility costs. Um, so that is money that the state funds independently. There is a requirement that school districts pay a certain percentage of those capital

042projects from what is called a local share. So every school district is allocated a certain percentage of aid from the state on a 5-year rolling clock. Um, hence the 5-year time period. Um, but so say your aid ratio was 80 cents on the dollar, a little bit lower than that, but it was 80 cents on the dollar. For every dollar you spent on a capital project, the state would give you back 80 cents. Um, you'd have to have 20 cents locally to pay for that. And that 20 cents could come from a capital reserve. It could come from a tax levy. It could come from debt falling off other revenue sources. that there's a variety of ways to fund that local share, but that's the very very brief overview of how that's super important to

043us. >> There was a discussion at the um the committee meeting also um an update on the um pipe going up. >> Yes. Yeah. So, there was uh there was an issue with some lines going out to the street here on Maine. Um where utility companies and contractors had to be brought on site to do some emergency repairs. Um the total cost was the general neighborhood of $30,000 give or take uh for that work to be done. It was an emergency repair. It did have to be done. Um the contractors that were in the building already doing all the other work were the ones that ended up being hired to do that repair. Um right now Buffalo Construction is working on breaking down the costs and help getting those costs to the district between labor

044and materials because there's an element of responsibility. Is it a utility issue for on Main Street or was it a district property maintained line? Um, so that's as yet unresolved as to where the liability will fall. Um, but yes, that work did have to get done and as of right now was chewing up part of that contingency. Um, which is fine to the point. Um, but ideally everyone have a good night. And uh before we move on uh to item B, I want to let our senior friends know that if you want, you've met your duty and you can leave or you can stay for the rest of the year. That is a totally acceptable thing to do and something that I would highly recommend, >> but you're free to go. >> Did I confuse

045you? No. Okay. Where do you want? >> Oh, you got it there. >> Oh, yeah. I have ready. Okay, >> cool. >> Do you have a soundtrack at least? >> Are you going to introduce your team or do you want me to show? >> Um, no. I can do it. Be glad. Are you good? Okay. I will just let you go. >> Okay. >> Are you part of the music department now, Jess? [laughter] >> Can I bring a chair over for you? >> No, I just I was just telling the flowers. I am so happy to be able to do this. >> Okay. >> I of course offer my chair. >> Yeah. That's fine. That's the only way I know how to do. >> We're just moving one for >> he took off the high

046schoolers. >> He took all the high schools. He took >> you. just blended in with [laughter] >> I told them multiple times they didn't have but they're they're very kind. This is where I normally play the Jeopardy theme on the piano while we >> should you should have brought some [clears throat] construction She's He >> combination of an u and an e. >> It's an umlau, a Swedish umlau. All right. You know what? We're gonna we'll move on to uh item 11B, the music curriculum review. >> Yeah. So, this year it's music's review year, art and fizz and health, which we pushed back one board meeting, so it wasn't all jammed into tonight. Um, so Paul Blackwell will present music here and I'll let him introduce pretty much his entire department came here tonight. So

047I'm not sure what he bribed him with. He says he didn't have to. >> I told them they didn't have to be here and I really really appreciate their support and them being here tonight. We got Jeff Wilmore, Alyssa Ayorio, Paulo Connor, Nicole Lee Boy, Liza Schaffer, and Ben Davis who is about two blocks from here directing Murder on the Orient Express. So, I'm very very thankful that they're there. And this is the second time now that we are at the same meeting with Art. Six years ago, Art went first and we went second. And I think this is completely unfair because they have 100 point advantage when it comes to their slide presentation and everything else. And if you remember 6 years ago, I think the way that we can even the playing field,

048and I think this is a fair ask, is that the members of the art department each sing a vocal solo for tonight's [laughter] meeting? And then we're going to equal it out. Now, if you don't want to, you have 10 minutes to make your presentation look worse. Okay? [laughter] >> But on behalf of the uh police department, thank you for allowing us to present what we do and some of our suggestions for the future. Here's our philosophy and I'm just going to skip through the highlights. Music offers a unique opportunity to challenge each student cognitively, effectively, and physically. And if you go down, it explains it more, but I think the real advantage of that is that we can meet each student to their own needs. Right now with the middle school keyboard class, if

049the kids have never played piano, they can play at their own level. If the kids have played, they actually become my piano teachers and they teach the other kids. or if they're allowed to bring their piano books from home and play at a level that's going to be appropriate for them. Um, this philosophy allows someone such as your daughter to do all county vocal jazz or Will McGary to make all state course, but it also allows my special need kids, my buddies to be in my courses or to be in the middle school musical. If I can just give you a real real quick story, we had our two kids that were going to be part of the Little Mermaid and they were going to be under the sea and we just wanted them to

050blow bubbles, right? And they said they saw these other kids dancing and they just threw those bubble things down and no one puts baby in the corner, right? >> So they just started and they were just part of the show, you know, and and just added so much. It's really one of the highlights of my career having those kids part of our experience and part of our program as well. So everyone is part of the team and everyone can perform at their own levels. Parkdale. We have now paid prek music as well, right up to grade four. And they have that two times in a six-day rotation. We also have our band and orchestra program in grade four. Concerts at every grade level plus all the other things that we do. Again, this is going

051to be sort of the short short version. Um some pictures there. Both in Parkdale Middle School in terms of our general music program. We do try to tie it to the curriculum that's happening in our schools, whether it's math or science or social studies. Of course, kids are always bored by social studies stuff and I don't care. Okay, some more cute [clears throat] pictures of our very, very talented kids. For the size of our district, the talent in this district is pretty amazing. For middle school, we have general music. We have 20 weeks of grade 5 general music, 20 weeks of grade six general music every other day. Um, I'll talk about some of some more things that we do with middle school general music in a few slides. We have our band orchestra course

052plus ensembles such as the jazz ensemble that meet after school. And just real quick, some of our highlights, the Dair Lake Festival, um the orchestra um trips that they do. Um we now have a string recital that I'm looking forward to being playing part of. That's a new thing this year. And because of our educational foundation, we have a very special guest composer, Brian Bellages. Am I saying that? We don't know. Okay. Brian Bellen Agents will be coming in and he wrote two original songs tied to Easter and he's going to be working with the kids for a week and they're going to see a real life composer interact with kids. So, thank you for the educational foundation for sponsoring that and giving that opportunity to kids. Some pictures of what our kitties do. I

053don't know that 67 is just going to haunt me. I can't believe it. Okay, there's our band program. Um, in terms of general music, again, we have these keyboards so every kid can play um at their own level. Uh, we have this wonderful, wonderful online program called Soundtrack where kids can create their own songs on their own. And it's really amazing the creativity in the fifth and sixth grade levels. What Soundtrack also allows us to do are podcasts and these kids have created personal podcasts and it's really really amazing these personal stories that these kids have created. It just astonishing what they can do relating to other music curriculum such as English history etc. When we do our Broadway unit I'm the means teacher in school cuz I make them capitalize the names of the

054songs and the names of the performers and they go up. Okay, here's some band performances here. and our new pianos. Thank you for the Easter educational foundation for providing us with these new pianos that now hook up to our Chromebooks and we are allowed to play with Soundtrack Trap. They can play on these red keyboards and Soundtrack Trap will record their playing which is really really neat. Our high school program highlights we have band orchestra course that meets first period in the morning plus jazz ensemble that meets period 3 and my beginning guitar class as well. We have had multiple kids make all county which is our ACIC's our area all state which is the section six of music and we've had multiple kids be state champions make conference all state and it's I always

055say that we have one of the three hardest all states in the nation to make it is very very hard to make conference all state and in fact we've had so many kids from east make it throughout the years this year we had a double state champion I think the first time ever we've since Garrett Fulier will made it in both violin and course, which is just so impressive. And again, he's a two-ear state champion because he was in chorus two years in a row. Plus the other things that we do, we have the strings that play in the East Roy Chamber Festival. We have Mrs. Okconor and her annual concert with the Kuanis um going to Mercy Hospital, which is always fun. And a big big thank you to Mrs. Okconor who has done

056the yman's amount of work. Because of the work she's done, we have made NAM the National Association of Music Merchants, Communities, Top Communities, and Music Education two years in a row. Correct. Yeah, it's a lot of paperwork on our end, but that's really real impressive and we're very happy of that um award. Um just real quick, we have hosted the ECMA well give all credit to Miss Aorio and Mrs. So Connor who have hosted the all county for south grade 7 89 the last two years and we're doing it for a third year now um showing our facilities and stuff to the southern half of Erie County and PC is very appreciative of that in terms of suggestions for the short term while my voice goes okay we can do this um obviously sheet music

057increases over time instrumental costs increase over time Um, we need some additional cello racks for storage. Park tail acoustical panels, new perks for auditorium, uh, drumming instruments, stand racks. Your son is playing on tonies that I think are about 50 years old and I don't know how much they're going to last. And a new set of Tony cost $13,000 unfortunately. Um the one thing that I did want to point out is we are very very lucky that Boseis now has an arts coordinator. His name is Dan Lynch and he has saved Easter a lot of money because of this poster. He pays for the ECNA costs the NISMA costs the cost for Will McGary and the Shakar to go to all state. When I applied for the middle school musical or the high school musical

058that pays for half of the cost. So this gentleman has saved a lot of money. And the reason I bring that up is when we talked to him about two years ago, he brought up that in other parts of the state there is a separate coser that will pay for half of the cost of musical instruments. Why it exists in some parts of the state and not in Erie County is a question above my paper. But if we could get that, I think that would be a real game changer for East Aurora because again, a lot of these instruments are just at the end of their life spans. And some of these band instruments are unreparable at this point and they just need to be replaced. Tony being the first of them. Again, when we

059have our ACMEA, we have to borrow Tony from Lancaster because they they just don't hold up, you know, and it's that it's just the life of being a part of a music program. If you look at where Easter ranks compared to the most, I'll say normal schools in Erie County, the one thing that is our glaring deficit is having a full-time high school coral teacher and a high full-time middle school coral teacher. Right now I teach high school course and every other day I have to run because I do middle school general music. The other day I'm there half a day and that is such an unusual outlier that I'll show in the next few slides. Um we have I think about 27 districts in East Aurora and there's probably three to four. Thank you.

060Sorry it's been a long day. Um three to four out of 27 that don't have a full-time coral at the high school and a full-time middle school coral. And that allows us to do a lot of different things. Um, obviously we could have additional high school classes or I could have another course class maybe in the middle of the day and I can throw them together the day of the concert allowing more kids through the concert. For example, some of my special buddies aren't doing course anymore because they're in quarantine which is really good for them. I love to sing, you know. So, if I was there in the middle of the day to work with them, um, that would help greater flexibility and it would make Matt Lirock's job so much easier if he

061had a full-time high school, sorry, full-time middle school course person doing general music rather than every other day. It just makes his schedule so much easier. We have a full-time art person at the middle school. We have a full-time health teacher, full-time tech teacher. We could have a full-time middle school teacher as well. Um, Mr. Wilmore and Miss Levoy have been so successful with their band program, Mr. Wilmore's numbers are increasing. So, if we could give him additional lesson time rather than him doing general music, first and second period, that would help out the band program and the middle school musical program. I've been doing it for two years. I'm already looking forward to next year. I have plans. And I don't know how to say this any other way, but I'm nuts. Um, the

062fact that I do middle school musical, high school musical, and then the high school spring play is a lot. You know, when I talk to our middle school drama kids, what to do with the money, the very first thing they said, we want a talent show. We want a talent show. Between these three things, you know, I don't know. I'd like to remain married by the end of my career, you know. So, if we had just a middle school person, I think the chances of that having are a lot lot better and sustaining this middle school musical program that we've started. Um, I've sampled some other schools just to give you an idea. These schools on this should be around our size. And just to give you an idea, Pioneer has two full-time middle school

063coral and general music people. Um, Mville. My niece goes to Mville and uh, in seventh and eighth grade, she had vocal lessons at the middle school. I can't even begin to imagine how cool that would be if we could have that at the high school, much less the middle school. Um, and here's some more schools. Eric, Williamsville, Clarence, Star, Hamburg, Georgia Park. You know, you could go on and on and on and on. This would not this would make us normal rather than, I guess, the exception in Western New York. The other thing that I want you to start thinking about, speaking of facilities, is space. I will argue with you that if and correct me if I'm wrong, course is the only academic subject in East Aurora that doesn't have a dedicated room. And

064I think the kids sense that even on an unconscious level. At the middle school, we don't really have a course. We have a multi-purpose room unless there's a board meeting or unless there's a facilities meeting. And I know you're done by the, you know, by 12. Sometimes the tables are broken down, but sometimes the custodians are so busy, we have a coral rehearsal with a square table in the middle of our room or there may be a book fair or there may be an assembly. Can the kids sing after school? No. Cuz I run up to the high school and after school then there's web meetings, then there's student council meetings or then there's a faculty meeting, you know, and it's not a dedicated space. at the high school when we redid our high school

065music suite. We used to have a course only room and a band only room and a I'll say high school marching band uniform storage room. It was a closet that we used and we decided then that we should have a a band room and we should have an extra roof and that was the right choice. We have tens of thousand dollars worth of spring instruments that need to be protected. Um, but as part of that, we also asked for a course room and that was taught as part of that expansion suite. And again, right now we're in the auditorium unless there's an assembly or unless there's a Bosey's graduation or unless there's pictures or unless there's a study hall because the APs are happening for two weeks, you know, or unless the band wants to

066come in or the orchestra wants to come in. So, my kids move about 30 to 40 times a year. And there's probably a reason why we don't teach AP cal in the auditorium. With all due respect, it's probably not the best classroom to teach it. And to have I think one room K through 12 just for course is a fair ask down the road. Just as some things you can think of. If we had a music suite, if we had a dedicated room, I have kids that want to come down every period and play piano just to play. And if we had some electronic pianos and headphones, they could come down. If we had a full-time course teacher that was there all day, and if we had a dedicated room, we talked about kids who

067want to get into music production and making their own songs and stuff. We just need room. I always say, you know, I really appreciate the fact that you always do that survey for the teachers and what we need. And I always put our number one thing is room K through 12. Some schools have a music lab where they just have pianos or you can have a guitar class that's a dedicated room. Um, and I again what I'm asking for is not Taj Mahal. This is Taj Mahal. This is the Pioneer School District right here. And this is their course room. And if you look, if you see this line, they made their course room the exact size of the high school stage. So they can have rehearsals in there, you know, if they have concerts

068or what have you. And if you look at this wall, they have mirrors for dance rehearsals. Imagine that. That'd be so cool. Um because Mr. Cummings has done such a phenomenal job with this drama production, many many schools such as Lancaster, Packin, what have you have a blackbox theater just to have this extra room at the high school too. Whether it's study hall or just a place to gather kids if you have your fourth grade rather than going all the way to the cafeteria if this is just right, you know, down the hall from the auditorium would just be wonderful. Um, right now we're doing Clue for our high school spring play. If we had a more intimate theater, um, I think that would be advantageous for us as well. Real quick, the one thing

069since we had facilities here, um, besides storage space, I just like to talk, this is just a few notes that I talked about. When you think about our high school odd, our high school is built with the high school about 1974. Does that sound right, Mr. Brunson? 74ish. Okay. And I would say most of that infrastructure in the high school audit is from that era and it really is showing its age after 52 years. The ropes, you know, you can only keep ropes under tension for so much time. They really need to be replaced. The risers, the winter risers are not usable anymore. So, we always six times a year have to get them from Parkdale. And he's asked me to buy them. And I don't mind buying them. The problem is we have no

070place to store the risers cuz we have no room. The lights are at least from the 1980s and now we have the LED lights where they won't be hot anymore. The curtains are worn to the point where they just can't be washed anymore. Uh the chairs, Mr. Russ knows this, we tried to oil the chairs cuz they're so squeaky about 3 or 4 years ago and they're similar to an iPhone. They are unfixable. They are. We tried to take them apart and I think after 52 years I think it's time for new chairs. Bathrooms. The reason we were so delayed Sunday between act one and act two is we have a lack of bathrooms. You know, besides the fact that backstage we have about 110 people that have to use two single bathrooms, which for

071us old people is not that easy. >> There was a sold out. >> Yeah. Um storage those beautiful, beautiful, whether it's high school or middle school, we don't have any place to store them anymore. We just don't have the roof. So, if we had some things, you know, when you're thinking about the capital's facility project, I think that's something to think of down the road and it probably won't happen in my career. You can call it the Paul Blackbell Memorial Music Wing. It's all good. But, you know, I think it would be real very advantageous for the talent that we have here in East Aurora. Um, last thing and again, thank you for your support. My my dad is a pastor and when he had his 30th anniversary as of this ordination, he said the

072greatest gift in 30 years of being a pastor is being 30 years of a pastor. And the greatest gift in my 30 years teaching has been teaching for 32 years. you know, when we're waiting for the high school to go with Frozen and you have those kids that are playing Chicago and just that type of stuff, you know, I got my um pop concerts were coming up and my officers wanted to do Broadway again and I was just going to do a small snippet of doc and I found that only maybe four of my fifth and sixth grade course had ever seen the movie which is a crime against humanity. So, we watched the whole door unique clip and now my plans for world domination is that I'm going to have a high school kid

073be Maria and I'm going to have seven fifth and sixth graders, you know, and I'm going to have and I said this high school girl, she has to go, you know, and she had [singing] right. She has to do that. It's that type of winning, for lack of a better word, that that makes teaching here so much fun and so rewarding. I am so appreciative of working with colleagues that I do and I appreciate your support and working with your kids. It really is a blessing. So any questions questions >> I have so much I could say but I >> I didn't do it. Okay. No, no, but I but I but I will echo that um just having um helped with the the costumes for the the musical to see all of the music

074program teachers there playing or conducting or just every single day. And I I I was tired and I didn't start my day at 6 a.m. there or 7 a.m. there. And I and I just don't know if enough people to know about the amount of time and effort that that huge majority of our faculty staff. >> Thank you. >> I just remind me because I'm just going back years and years to the you were talking about replacement of instruments >> and so Now, do you know I know when my girls play they eventually have their own violin or whatever it would be, but do they do you still rent? Do the kids rent as they go through or how does it work or do we supply them and then eventually they >> question? >> Yeah,

075I was just sort of curious in terms of that talking about replacing instrument. >> I'll take this one. Uh so they can't rent. Many of our families do um rent, but the bigger instruments, you know, from tener sacks, berry sacks, tuba, baritone, trombolan, uh they're getting to the point [clears throat] where the repair bill is more than a brand new one. And I tell myself that's not a good use of money. So I just put it aside, take all the parts, and I take the parts on. Then if another instrument happens to break down, I can fix it. I can rig it up to make sure it works. then I'll do that. But it's mainly for the school instruments for the bigger instruments. A lot of smaller ones like like flute, trumpet, clarinet. Most of

076the families either have one because mom, dad, aunt Susie, you know, Uncle Jim uh have one or they rent it from either Twin Village or or Music and Arts. And I'm sure the same with strings as well. They rent. And then I know a lot of their >> cellos and basses just some of them from what I hear uh Mr. from Monaco. Some of them are what his dad used to work on and they're just, you know, beyond, you know, putting any more money into. So, it's just, you know, it's it's one of those things where, you know, you want a program to grow and you want it to be successful and then there's going to be costs on that as well. And, you know, we do our best to make sure that every kid

077has an instrument, but sometimes some of them have duct tape around it or like a paper clip instead of a screw wrapped around it so it, you know, it'll work and things like that. So, it's just, you know, one of these things we'll always be talking about is just we [clears throat] do our best with what we have, but you know, a little bit more is always better. But, yes. >> Is there a difference between renting a flute, for example, versus renting a like if you were to go out of like rent out out of the school, renting a flute versus renting a a bass or trombone or >> so that some students Yeah. So, that depends a lot of time on on where you rent from. Um, a lot of times the bigger instruments

078cost maybe $5, $10 more a month to rent. Is it more than that? Yeah, I could I could imagine that. Um, but a lot of times when they get to the bigger instruments, in order to get them to play the instrument, we supply them because they always want to play, you know, clarinet trumpet, but Johnny Q can't hit those high notes and be like, "Hey, how about baritone? going to be more successful on it. That's part of our job. And in order to get them to do that a lot of times is just we'll supply it, you know, I'll supply it. I'll supply reads for a year just to get them on these instruments, you know, that they're going to be more successful at it. So, um there is a little price difference and is

079the school does charge a a $50 fee um if the if the instrument does go home um for rentals. Um but if the if it doesn't go home, then it it's I mean, I don't charge it if it doesn't go home. if it just stays in in the locker room and they just use it for band or for lessons. But if it goes home, then the district does um charge a $50 fee for that for the year and then 25 for the summer. >> And then when you get to a certain level, some of the >> Yes. Then you get intermediate instruments and Yeah. Yeah. Prohibitive students. >> Correct. about the coaster. Do we know what that is? >> I don't know. Um, again, >> I can ask Dan. >> Yeah, he's been very very

080and that sort of hit us like a ton of bricks when we heard that. >> Where you been? >> Yeah. And again, I really appreciate Dan cuz he saved money for this district, you know, with this coaster. Um, I just wanted to go back to the um commission survey. >> Yeah. >> And so in not this project but the project before this we actually had uh the addition at the high school for the fine arts center music and band orchestra chorus. But unfortunately um any kind of addition is very costly. We had to back off and that's what we did the remodeling of the current spaces. >> But that's what that condition survey is all about. It's not just, you know, replacing groups of boilers. It's about what do we need instructionally to support our

081students. And like you said, we've got a lot of students participating in these programs, right? They they love um they love singing to dance, music, being various music courses. And so when we have good facilities, then it it becomes even more attractive. So if we wanted to to support the program and to grow as well, uh that's something that we can discuss as part of that process. And like I said, I appreciate that you're serving the US. >> Great. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. >> This is hers. Sorry, I only prepared for 10 minutes. >> Okay, turn over to Ron and half of his department is here and I'll let him introduce Aaron. >> Hi, Ron Van Ostrand, chair of the art department. Um, not here tonight

082is Tom Tendler and Michelle White. Um but uh with me today is uh Aaron Conlin who's our new hire uh for the middle school this year. And um uh they were given the option to um you know let me do all the talking uh which is fine with uh Tom and Michelle. Um but I thought it was important that uh Erin show up here uh as uh this is something that has happened within that past five years uh is uh playing to the state of uh department. Um, and she's also here to answer any questions for the federal schools. >> All right. So, uh, Tom is, uh, of course our, uh, video guru and, uh, we all pitched in with some footage. Uh, and, uh, most of my presentation is going to be handled by

083the, uh, video. Um, then we'll go through the slides of our, uh, challenges and such afterwards. department is proud to share and celebrate art education within our schools and community. Our goal is to expose and nurture within students the heart and soul of culture, the visual arts. We believe art is a conscious human expression in visual form. It has been, is, and always will be the means by which each culture records, expresses, and interprets the world around them. [music] Art is a visual form of communication essential to the understanding and participation [music] in our increasingly complex world. Art addresses the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual [music] needs of our students. It promotes self-awareness, self-exression, and well-being. It provides opportunities to develop higher levels of thought. We aim to foster an attitude of respect for individual

084differences and cultural diversities, as well as develop a lifelong appreciation and understanding of art. At Cartell Elementary, the [music] students currently take a 40-minute art class in a 6-day cycle. Art is so much more than a child proudly bringing home a picture for display in the home or office. Although as parents, [music] we have all probably looked forward to that moment and have made an effort to display our child's accomplishments. We have a strong elementary art curriculum that continues to evolve with the guidance of the [music] New York State and National Art Standards. The curriculum is also aligned with our school district's mission to provide our students [music] with the best possible opportunities and promote learning in the context of common sense, hope for a better future [music] and deep respect for humanity. In the

085art room, students are exploring artists, learning art techniques, and have the opportunity to work with a variety of different mediums. >> [music] >> They are learning how to respectfully care for materials, develop fine motor and critical thinking skills, [music] and most importantly, they are developing their creativity and expressing independent ideas. At the middle school, students take art as one of their three rotation classes, technology, facts, and art. We offer art education to grades 6th through 8th. Sixth grade has art for one 20we semester, while seventh and eighth grade has art for one 10-week quarter. Each year, students experience a wide variety of visual art activities in a climate that encourages and nurtures creativity, critical thinking, and individuality of expression. >> [music] >> The elements of art, the principles of design and interdisciplinary topics are incorporated

086in many art lessons. By guiding students in the development of their artistic skills, knowledge, creativity, [music] and values, we will enable them to realize their artistic potential and make informed [music] aesthetic judgments as they become consumers. The high school arts department boasts of one of the most well-rounded, comprehensive, and exciting course offerings of any Western York public school. Every student will find at least one class that appeals to their interests and abilities. Students should never feel intimidated about taking an [music] art class because they cannot draw. Talent, as with other school subjects, is a skill that can be developed [music] with practice and effort. The introduction classes, studio and art and global leadership academy art lay a foundation for art knowledge and provide students with a variety of art projects in two and [music] three-dimensional

087art mediums from drawing and painting to clay and printing. The projects are often tied into [music] historical and contemporary art movements to provide students with cultural context. Students may also find an interest [music] in pursuing one or more of our advanced course offerings during their 4-year high school journey. These outstanding courses include drawing, painting, [music] animation, cartooning, digital media arts, jewelry design, [music] digital photography, sculpture, ceramics, yearbook, [music] Aurora Production Academy, and AP Art. Our facilities and equipment are second to none, and our teaching faculty is dedicated and nurturing. You will learn to [music] appreciate and look at art and the world critically. Students planning to pursue a career in the arts have an opportunity to develop a professional portfolio ready for college application and presentation. Art education promotes joy and [music] intrinsic value of

088the aesthetic experience and expression. while educating the child emotionally and intellectually through a variety of learning styles. To find out more, visit our website at east auroraschools.org. All right. So, uh we uh set up our lessons uh with uh the New York uh learning standards uh for the arts in mind. Uh a large part of it is uh creating. We also do uh presenting um through uh critique uh and through art shows uh responding um critiques are not just uh getting up and uh talking about your work but a lot of times there's a dialogue that takes place where students uh learn the language of art criticism and uh connecting uh bringing some uh real world uh issues and such into the artwork um is another one of the standards that we also support. >>

089So, currently at uh Parkdale, um our successes uh uh are a lot like what they were before. Uh they they we continue to have a very strong uh program. Uh the budget is uh adequate to uh um allowing us to offer a wide variety of opportunities to the students. Uh contact time uh currently uh is a challenge uh in that uh often uh the teacher only sees them one uh once every six days. Um which is a long gap for when you're trying to build these uh uh you know these skills uh to have in between. uh we understand that it's uh based on the uh uh scheduling needs uh of the elementary program but it is a challenge for us. Um there's also uh some uh professional aspects uh that we have to keep

090in mind uh for that program in that uh one grade may be doing uh one project another one another and there is uh a need for time in between in order to um get the the u materials out for the students and they're not the the cleanest working. So there's also between uh another challenge is equitable art show participation uh which we're working on as a department. So at this time recommendations uh we we suggest continuing the level of funding uh for Parkdale so that they continue to provide these opportunities. The middle school uh program there is a gap in that uh fifth graders do not get uh a chance at art. We do make up for that a little bit in that the sixth grade has uh a double amount of time. Um and

091that again is a scheduling issue, but we would like to see at some point in time uh that uh fifth grade get that opportunity. Um uh several 2D and 3D work displays throughout the school. Uh success uh the budget again adequate to uh our needs. Um ample storage space uh from the last uh uh facilities uh project. Um and uh interdisciplinary lessons uh collabor with collaboration with uh other um uh grade level teams. Uh Aaron often works with uh uh them to bring some art into the classroom. uh aside uh challenges uh lack of flexible uh seating. Uh some of the metal stools are not the best. Um there's some broken tables. So thinking facility project uh they just need some some furniture upgrades uh going on there. Uh as well as some uh technology

092upgrades. Uh the high school uh Tom and I with our own money have purchased a document camera kind of system and that's something that uh we would like to see. um continue uh at that level some recommendations uh again it's the seeding um and acquiring that hard work. I jumped ahead on my slide there. high school. Uh we continue to offer a robust uh um offering of classes. And the way that we uh we've done this is to offer some every other year so that uh students uh with these higher level classes have uh one or more than one opportunity to uh take some of those classes. Uh as a result, the ABR class sometimes it's juniors that are taking it and sometimes it's seniors. So that fits in as a capstone to the program.

093um having a full year of uh ceramics um and having them have access to the wheels is great. Uh the educational foundation helped us with a couple purchases of uh wheels there and uh it's it's quite popular. Um challenges uh we we still haven't made it into that steam component at the high school and uh we're hoping at some point uh that does happen. Um we the last time that we had a real facilities upgrade was um 25 years ago. Uh about 15 years ago, they put in some walls because I'm a loud speaker. Uh and uh they kind of broke up the the sound problem that we had. Um and we finally got an office. Uh but aside from that, our our furniture uh our our drawers, I had a drawer that uh Buildings

094and Grounds uh had to repair. um uh the other week uh they're starting to deteriorate. Our sinks are delaminating. They really should be stainless uh sinks all the way around uh around the uh with the surround, not just as proper. Um and the computer lab counters are now sagging uh there's just too much space in between. So we we're really looking at uh in and the next facilities project uh having a reconfiguration of our space uh so that's more effective uh for the computer usage uh and upgrades to the plumbing uh and such and uh some furniture upgrades. That's pretty much uh what my recommendation slides are all about. um as a uh districtwide uh we we were always pushing to be included in that uh that scheme. Uh it's happening in some buildings, but

095it's still lacking a little bit uh at some levels. >> And we'd like to thank you for your continued support of our arts program. Is that 10 minutes? >> 10 minutes. >> Got any questions? question. >> Is it all in the elementary school? It's all grades, one one day in a six day. >> Correct. >> Um, one of your comments was you wanted to have more have it be more equitable at Parkdale in terms of the art and I just was trying to understand what you meant by that. >> Yeah. Um, Michelle, slip that one into the slide and then right talk to me all the way. >> That's okay. Um, >> but I I don't know whether she needs more space in the district art show or um uh the fact that uh she

096has uh um so many students uh compared to uh uh Tom and I at the high school select from because uh we're an elective there. We don't see the entire student body whereas she does. So I think that's what she's uh she's talking about. >> There's seven students that she sees All right. I guess we did a good job with that video. >> It was a great video. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you for being here. >> Lots of visitors. I say based on the the output and especially the elementary school and the middle school I'm using I guess I didn't realize what they were even more but I'm really impressed >> at one time there there uh were more art teachers uh we're just four in the district uh two at the

097uh high school and one in each of the other buildings. >> Thank you. The uh technology presentation. Um so I haven't presented on the technology plan in the past. I've just sent it for approval. Um but uh every three this time four years, New York State asks that every districts submit a technology plan um that accomplishes a few things. They would like to know about the um standards that we are following and adhering to. They want to um ensure cyber security is addressed. They'd like to understand what the curriculum and integration expectations are going to be and goals for the district and also about um costs and uh infrastructure. So when I came to the district back in 2021, it was the perfect time to write the new one. Um, and this is the second

098iteration of technology plans that I've been able to participate in at East Aurora. Um, the the expectations for the state have changed a little bit. They don't need such a robust um written document, but since we have already been on that path, I continued with it. So, if you did take a look at it, it's 100 pages long. Um, but there's a lot um including uh information about all the software that we maintain. Um we determined as um the leadership team and the building technology uh committees um five main goals. We really kept them very similar from the first iteration of the plan to this one revolving around five main topics. Um and then within each of those topics having a number of different steps and action plans to hopefully accomplish accomplish over the next

099three years. um some having the cost associated with it, some maintaining um experiences that we've already got in in um place at the district and some um having uh no cost, just a change to practice. Um rather than go over page by page 98 pages of this, I had um our AI tools make a short little video. So, it'll go over nice five um uh uh objectives. Um talk a little bit about money. Um and um I'll play it out. Welcome to the East Aurora Union Free School District's technology plan for 2026 to 2029. [music] Our vision moves beyond deployment to transformative learning. Focusing on personalized learning, strategic AI integration and digital accountability. [music] The district's mission is to help students prepare to live in society as a contributing, self-fulfilling, and [music] caring citizen. We

100serve our students across Parkdale Elementary, East Aurora Middle School, and East Aurora High School. [music] Our strategic framework is centered on student success with five key goals. Curriculum [music] and instruction, robust infrastructure, data privacy and security, communication and collaboration, and access and opportunity. Goal I focuses on curriculum and instruction, [music] aiming to empower students to become technologically literate lifelong learners. Key [music] strategies include AI integration, a new coaching model, micro PD, [music] and developing grade level frameworks. Goal two, robust infrastructure, aims [music] to maintain the technical infrastructure to support all learning environments. This includes the device refresh cycle, server virtualization, network refreshes, interactive displays, [music] and generator infrastructure projects. Goal three is data privacy and security. Our plan includes NIST framework alignment, endpoint security procurement, [music] regular testing and drills, and policy compliance governed by

101board policy 3040.03 [music] 03 digital environment. Goal IV focuses on communication and collaboration, aiming to improve data management and [music] connection with the community. This involves crisis readiness, interactive resources like an AI chatbot, visual quality upgrades, and unified platforms. [music] Goal V is access and opportunity. The objective is to provide adequate and equitable access to instructional technology through a onetoone student and staff device sustainment plan, a connectivity bridge, device reliability, and audio equity. Our integrated digital accessibility plan supports an inclusive ecosystem for all learners, [music] including specialized software, physical access solutions, and real-time translation tools [music] and visual content for multilingual learners. The professional development strategy includes AI and datamies, instructional coaching [music] for personalized support and dedicated time for technology planning and policy mastery. [music] Our administrative management and support structure ensures strategic leadership

102and operational efficiency [music] with roles covering systems administration, data coordination, and classroom assistance. [music] The budget and investment roadmap outlines annual recurring investments totaling approximately $455,000 [music] and strategic capital projects with a total investment of $1,890,000. [music] Monitoring, evaluation, and governance involve an evaluation cycle with annual feedback, Danielson [music] framework observations, and physical audits. Compliance is ensured through SEIPA, DASA, and ED law 2D. The future graduate will be proficient in modern workforce tools, ethical in navigating AI and digital citizenship, [music] and innovative, ready to lead in a global economy. So they make it way more interesting than I do. But um these are the goals that um our district teams have put in place to help us continue to move forward, ensure that our students are well prepared for college and career and ensure their

103staff and facilities have what they need to continue operation on a daily basis. Hey guys, >> she talked about gold feet which I think >> and you know I thought >> well so slightly impaired AI person. >> Yeah they read it. They read it as they read it. >> Which is a good lesson. Oh yeah, >> I did read the entire document. Thank you for putting that together because it was one of the better plans I've seen. it was um like clear what your steps were, what you're thinking about budget, and it all really like that. There were a couple things that struck me that I think people in the community will want to know more about and they can read the plan because it's in the agenda so they can dig into it. >>

104Okay. And and one of the things that struck me was, you know, people there's a lot of fear of AI. And what I saw in your plan was really about teaching staff and students how to use it ethically and how to understand when something is AI or isn't AI. It was really well thought out like let's just do AI. It was really with purpose and I appreciate that. The other thing I'd like you to spoke to a little is um the devices for younger There's been some conversations in community about how is that implemented with the younger grades because there's some concern about what time they might spend on devices and is that hindering their learning or helping their learning. Can you speak to that a little bit? >> I'm glad to see all appreciate

105the opportunity. Thank you. >> Sorry. Um actually um AI has been a major focus for the district across the leadership team and with our staff this year. Um Jessica um Lions and I have developed and she's really taking the lead on this incredibly um putting together an AI strategic planning committee. We had our first meeting about a month ago with teachers and administrators from um a number of different grade levels and the buildings to all come together and talk about various uses for AI concerns strategies for implementation functional uses as well as ensuring that it's used um reliably and well as well as helping our staff and our students understand the pitfalls the um issues because identifying when is the appropriate time to use it versus when is creativity and um independent critical thinking is

106more important. Um we don't want our staff or our students become too reliable on it but it can be used it should be used as a timesaver. Not to mention it is going to be in our future careers. Our students are not going to enter this workforce without it being a part of their day-to-day. So learning how to use it well teachers learning how to use it and still complement their instruction versus um replace or students cheating tool. It it is easy to cheat with it. Um so our staff what we heard from some of them is also how do I know how do I how am I going to determine are there tools out there? There's subtly they're not that great. Um so there's there's so many questions and I think and just I

107don't mean to take from you. I heard so many different viewpoints especially English teachers with their concerns and math teachers with their concerns and elementary teachers of I'm not going to use this yet with my students, but I can use it in other ways. It was it was eyeopening and welcoming and even to the point where we said, okay, we need a couple more people who are even more ingrained with specifically teachers that um are going to teach those digital citizenship skills even at the younger ages to help them say when is the right time to use it, how should I use it, when shouldn't I? Um and and determining good versus bad concept as well. Um so it is please jump in. Um that it it is part of our future and the district

108would like to get ahead of it. It's not going away. Rather than set any strate formal rules of can you can't setting up guidelines and um identifiable learning paths to help our staff and our students utilize these tools in a robust way. Um for if that was okay, I'll I'll jump over to screen time. Um this actually just came up at our most recent cabinet meeting as well. We are seeing this out in the community. We are hearing about it from our peers as well. And our administrative team had a really good discussion. I thought concerning that to a lot of people screen time is just in front of a device where in an instructional setting that screen time is in front of a device complementing their learning. They're engaging with content that very often

109is personalized for them, that is differentiated for their skills, that is appropriate for their grade level, their reading level, their ability level. It's hopefully reinforcing the content and materials that they just learned from their teacher where very often the the bad look that screen time gets as a kid on YouTube scrolling or a student on social media scrolling where we're not having that kind of time when we're at school. When a student's in front of a device, it is instructionally based. There's objectives that have been determined by the teacher to make that tool better than the paper and pencil it could have been. It should definitely never be a substitute for what we could have done in that classroom if we didn't have it. It should be augmenting. It should be modifying. It should be

110ma doing work that we couldn't have done without that tool. So, it's really important that we're spending our money. Well, you saw the cost. It is high for us to maintain a onetoone program. It is also very hard for us to maintain all the tools in cyber security to keep our kids safe and our staff safe and the data safe. But if they're doing it with agency and they're doing it with planning and consideration, these tools should be helping those students to be even more successful than they would have been if we didn't have them. And that's what our goal is all the time. So, I would love to continue that discussion to prove and educate and empower our families and our our parents to know that we're not just putting in front of the

111device to scroll. We're giving them the opportunity to get more focused instruction that a teacher can't give to every single one of their students individually, but that computer or that Chromebook or that iPad, do you have those in the younger grades? >> Sure. >> It's good to get that message out. I know somebody who does a podcast. >> We do. We do. >> She's very good at it, too. >> She is. >> Um I to jump on that as well. think that that is one of the main concerns that came up with um some parents needing that sweat on that wrap is that that younger grade and you know we were able to say what you said but um that might be a great message also for you know maybe one of the podcasts because

112I I I think so many parents really don't know they know everybody's got a Chromebook >> so they must be using it all day long every day which we know they're not >> but they they don't even if we've said it, I think that's a message that's worth um >> reinforcing. >> Yes, absolutely. >> I agree and I appreciate the um uh questions and the fact that you're hearing this, we are just reinforces the need that we need to communicate that better and I think Congress is a wonderful starting place. Another another as I look at it is the challenger which goes out to all of our community you know a little a little section we can have talk about that that's sometimes raised in other communities how we're addressing Yeah. >> Um, yeah. I

113just wanted to just just to mention, you know, so we've been focusing on AI because of of the need, right? Because we know it's here and um you know, let's be honest, I think our staff's been really cautious and concerned about how does it look and how do we make it useful as a tool for teaching and learning and how do we help to to um you know, introduce it appropriately and developmentally uh at the right times and you know, how do we help to to teach our kids and most importantly how to use it ethically, right? I said there's temptation it's easy to get answers do everything so it's it's it's really quite powerful but I just want to uh to thank myano clients and our building administrators for stepping up I think they've

114done a great job with our steps plan teach is an AI tool uh that our teachers have really taken to so there was a lot of caution around it but lines how many teachers are utilized in 25. And how many are talking now? How many more do we have to be able to set up? >> Oh, there's like probably 12 25. >> Okay. So, so already we got 30 or 40 people that are using it as an evaluation tool. So, what it does is it listens to your lesson. You you give it the information what you wanted to focus on and it's providing really interesting and rich and important feedback to them and they have loved it. And so, um, we've got a really great response. Those are the types of things we're trying to

115do to nudge people along to see how effective it can be. One teacher who needs to know that again technology may have not been the central instruction. It's using chat GBT as a debate tool with their students around topics in their class that are controversial. So they're debating against uh each other and then against uh the AI tool which again just makes it really interesting and it just was a great experience for the kids. So do those things work perfectly? No. you know there's tweaks and things like that that happen but we can see the more and more that they do the more and more they can see it as an effective element of what they teach and again I think like what we're talking about using of technology and gentlemen probably you know tested

116this you know that teachers use it as a tool right it's an enhancement to their instructional models reaching for resources that aren't readily available and so I think that they do a really nice job at modulating that and I think getting that word out is really important just so I know we're modeling it at our level. Um, you know, Cindy inspired me to try a movie. Um, hopefully you see that I couldn't have made something that good with the time I allotted to it. So hopefully the staff see the same that this is a time, this is something that can augment and modify and make better some of the basic work that we would do. So in the same manner, I hope our students from our staff and our second. >> Thank you very much

117reading through the plan. I remember the previous iteration and going through how uh detailed it was and I I truly appreciate the work that you put into this. My team and I do review it every year to see are we on pace with where targets were to adjust confidently. We've been able to We reached 95% of the goals from the last plan which we're thrilled about. So we hope the same. >> I'd like to just as you can imagine the state's process is beyond tedious and so numerous iterations and we don't like this little bits and pieces many many changes. So congratulations to item, which is our business office. >> Hi, good evening. Um, first before I dive into the financials, I just wanted to show you a couple things that are left on the

118table by you. This is um a synopsis of what the governor wants to do with and what she included in her budget language. and I read through it to try to make it easier for you. On the back, I highlighted, I underlined and read the important pieces if you didn't want to read the whole thing. And I have an update from capital markets. And I thought this was important to give you because at the very top it says spend holds rates at January meeting which will be important when we discuss budget revenues um and our interest earnings. And then the last one, this is our analysis of the governor's budget compared to what we budgeted this year. And I want to apologize for the finance committee meeting members. Um I had a um totaling issue.

119So when we met for finance, I thought it was a 34,000 but it's actually 150 plus,000. So I apologize for that u formula issue I had and that'll be important when we go through the power on today's financial um reports are as of the end of December and our general fund on cash in the bank was $21.5 million. on and that balances to our cash flow and our cash flow still looks strong. So, we'll have no issues over the summer. Um, we had expended approximately 38% of our budget and we're tracking to expend 98 to 99% of the budget. When we go through the thread, that's not 100% uh shown in the grid yet because until things happen, I need to get my uh January and February I need to get certain things before I

120put it on the grid. We also received approximately 73% of our revenue budget and we're tracking to receive between 100 and 101% of our revenues. in our cafeteria fund. Um revenues finally outpaced expenditures um to the good of about $91,000 and we're tracking to increase fund balance in the cafeteria fund by about $150,000. Um and that's something that we discussed in finance committee. What um what salaries and benefits could we shift [snorts] into the cafeteria fund because they're actually working for the cafeteria. So, we're looking at different options to try to relieve pressure on the general fund and find other sources. Um, in our federal funds, our revenues were $364,000. Our expenditures $696. Um, and the treasurer has done a draw down for $225,000. We should be receiving that soon. In the capital fund, I

121remember so much of the capital fund. Um it's a big project. Um so far as of the end of December, we've spent um $3.7 million on mostly in the library and the max room and our capital outlay. We've expended about $8,200 which are our incidental costs to go out to bed to do all those things. We did receive our bed and I believe we're awarding it tonight. Indiana questions. >> I just wanted to um just to talk about the capital outlay. So you may see where the high school is in really rough shape and that has worked out really well for us. We've gotten a lot of work done and the vendors that we've been working with have done an excellent job. So, the work itself was of high quality and it's fit into our

122budget and we're actually getting the whole building done. So, it's been a a good expenditure for us. It's a really important thing to get done and I'm glad it's coming. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Miss Lions has distributed the grid. Uh at this point in time, I'm showing expenditures to the good at about 164,000. I believe that's going to be a higher number. Um but as I said, I'm hedging still because I haven't gotten the winter utilities. Um, we're still getting this. She had um once I get those when I report again, it'll be a more accurate number. Um, salaries are trending to the good by quite a bit and that has to do with late retirements. Last year the budget was already adopted and we had late retirements which is causing a surplus. Plus

123there are several um uh leaves of absences unpaid and then we're only paying for longterm sub at a lesser rate. So a lot of those things are impacting that. And there was one long-term sub that we couldn't find somebody to fulfill on our payroll. So that's a contracted service. So all these moving parts, um equipment, we're projecting to spend all of it and most of that is going to be for the capital project to furnish the library, to furnish different areas, conference rooms associated with the capital project, the back room. Um supplies and contractual are trending to come in slightly under budget right now. I plan on doing a deeper dive the next time I do the board grid into the individual contractual areas. Uh that'll give me a better number for that. Uh textbook

124library tuition is coming in slightly under budget. Um transportation is coming in over budget. I put a a lower number than I think right now. Um but I need to do a deeper analysis of that um which I'll have in the next. Uh debt service is over budget and that has to do with the judgment that settled after the budget passed or was adopted last year. Um and we borrow for it. So debt service on revenue at this point on it's 374,000 to the good on taxes the penalties and interest about 18,000 to the good. State aid is coming in about 175,000 to the good and that's mostly in Bosey's aid. on sales tax. When I compare two quarters from last year's two quarters to this year, we're up $81,000. Um, and in other revenue,

125we're up about $100,000. And that is associated with interest earnings still. And that's why I handed out the capital markets one because as we move forward in planning revenues for next year, it's important information to have that uh the feds aren't dropping the rates as quickly as we thought they were. So, it's just something to to think about. Overall, we're about 538,000 to the good at this point in time. And just as a reminder, in the current year we appropriated 707,000 in fund balance to balance the project. Thank you. Thank you, M. budget. Yep. So, um I have another presentation for you. Some of the ability to repeat a little bit we talked about last month and just to uh we don't have that much information yet, but hopefully by March we'll get some more

126details and more to share. So, [music] >> oh yeah. >> Yeah. So, here's the agenda for for tonight's presentation. Um, you know, so we'll go through this. Seems like a lot, but it's pretty concise. Um, again, values. Um our values rose kind of generates um you know all the ideas that kind of guide the budget and pretty much everything we do regard technology curriculum instruction or AI uh this this is what really drives us in our decision making. So the adopted revenue budget again um >> I don't know is this the right one? >> Yeah, this is our current year. This is our >> the slide. >> I don't know why this slide. >> All right. Well, just we'll just go with it. So, um yeah. So the adapted revenue budget >> the numbers are

127right the format you saw and it's because okay so let's go we talked about the adopted um revenue budget from last year for 25 this school year excuse me 2526 uh there was a dollar change of about $1,774,000 which is just a hair under 4% increase over 2425 school year. Here's the appropriation uh where we spend our money. You can see again for most of us uh salaries and benefits um are where we spend the bulk of our monies. But then there's equipment, supplies, contracts, and so on and so forth. Uh those are all the larger categories that make up our budget each and every year. And you can see the U 46 million881860 matches the 46 46 million881 860 on the revenue side as well. >> So here it is uh for the projected

128uh levy limit. Miss Georgia take us through this. This is the calculated tax cap comes to 3.36% year-over-year and raises um $942,000. Uh the CPI factor for this year is 2% and our local growth factor increased from 1.089 to 1.014. Those are the things that are impacting the percentage. Um, again, I showed this slide last month. Um, and I'm just playing in a software system that gathers data from all over the state. And I had to pick a peer group. So, I chose on Amherst, Clarence, IO, Lancaster, Orchard Park, and Williamsburg to compare ourselves to. And what this slide shows is the historical year-to-year growth in our assessed value. So, Easter's assessed value grew 74.4% since 2013 up to this year to 2025. Um, again, this came out of that software. I wish I could

129make like things bigger so that you can see it better on the slide. East Aurora is the third set of green lines in and it's our equalized tax rate per thousand and again it's compared to our peer groups. So you can see Amherst is a little higher than us. Clarence is a little lower than us but they have a bigger tax base than us. So does Amherst. Um Irakcoy is a little lower than us. on Lancaster were pretty close and then we're two parties higher than us. So it just shows relatively where we are on our rate per thousand equalized on this slide again to our peer groups. It shows the makeup of our state aid. So the mo majority of all of our state aid in our peer groups comes from foundation aid. But

130then you can see how much state aid um other districts get compared to us. East Aurora in this slide is showing all the state aids together on $14 million. Um where Lancaster gets $57 million in state aid. And I find this to be interesting on because when you look district to district, some districts rely on state aid more than they do on taxes. East Aurora, we rely more on taxes than we do on state aid. >> George, could you explain um to us once again what how state a determined? >> There's so many factors. So there's a huge formula for foundation aid. So that um I have a packet about this thick to explain how that is. The other aids, transportation aid is considered a categorical aid. What you spend you get x% back in

131aid the following year. Um Bosey's aid is a categorical aid. What you spend one year, you get x% back in the following year. on building a is the same way, you know, um based on your debt service, there's a calculation and you get X% of building a back. Does that help? I know it's a question that comes up in the community and they see the graph like this and they say, well, why is >> it's based on tons of different factors. So, it's based on enrollment. So Lancaster has a lot more enrollment than we have. Um Clarence has bigger enrollment than we have. I would say compared to we're pretty close in enrollment. Then it's based on um economic factors, free and reduced lunch rates. So even though we're universal meeting, uh Mr. have already

132did a great job of promoting still filling out your free and reduce because it's a factor that's that impacts even though everybody's free now it's still a factor that determines so it's things like that does that help and that's something the senator about as we do preparation is that they've changed it to now where all students receive a free and lunch, which is great, right? But they're still using a formula based on free and reduced lunch, so it no longer applies. So trying to get people to fill out their free and reduced lunch applications when they already get it for free, it is a challenge and it doesn't really make sense. So those are the types of things that sometimes the state is ahead of it and they forget that, oh, we're going to change

133the formula or the mechanism, >> right? Just like with excess cost with um a mechanism for um We have a mechanism to aid um high need students through the age of 21 but the state has changed it to the age of 22. So now for a year we get no aid back on those students while they attend until their 22nd birthday >> because they haven't adjusted for to meet the new requirement. And so we talked about that with them last year and we're hoping to see some progress and actually Mr. whether or not you worked with his staff to help them to understand because again, you know, they're not dealing with this on a day-to-day basis is one of a million things that they're taking care of in the legislature. And so when I he

134spoke about it, um I should reach out to help them to understand why it's um so the state aid runs like it this all starts in November and January. The governor comes out with her proposal that you're aware of. Um but what will happen in February uh is is really important because we'll start to get updated meeting projections and that really helps us to solidify the process. We have a much clearer idea. So when we get into March and April uh you'll have a lot more clearer data uh to work with and we'll have a much better idea what direction the budget is going to be. So, the governor's proposal, we've talked about this and again, um, you know, we had a small correction, so it looks like we're about $115,000, which could uh, you

135know, toughing for us is like 1% on our foundation aid because our foundation aid is, like you can see in the foundation and many other school districts, and that happens for a bunch of reasons, but for us, it's just a hair under $80,000, which makes it really difficult. We talked again about the fact we're increasing costs and inflation and those types of things and when they're increasing donation in 1% it's just not keeping up with the expenses that school districts are experiencing across the state. Um you can see some additional um uh variances state aid and transportation a little less on building aid and that that happens for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's related to our debt service uh as those things are you know owe less uh we get less in return. Uh

136and that and that number is kind of offered now. We have to wait until we get updated numbers on some of these areas for sure. Uh you can see some additional aid in OCE and that's again related to usage when we use OI services that we get back next year. Um excess cost a you can see there's actually a reduction and that again is related to some programs like the programming programs that we have for specific students. Um hardware small adjustments and the same thing software as well. also protected revenues like this is really um a very um initial look at what revenues will look like. So you can see um what this judge will do is a lot of times she just carries things over because we're really not sure of how it's been

137it's going to change sales tax like she talked a little bit earlier looks like it's going to come in a little bit more positively than we thought. Um, I mean, we've been saying that for gosh, five years, you know, but like people continue to spend, although I did hear a report this week that uh spending was kind of flat across the state. So, we'll see how that impacts sales tax. Uh, but we've been thinking that sales tax was going to fall off and it hasn't. So, that's been a positive thing for us for sure. Uh, interest earnings is another thing that's again I think something we're going to have to watch closely as the Fed adjusts their rates that impacts what type of interest rates we get on our savings. So, you know, as the

138Fed rate drops, which is really great for mortgages, but it's not great for our savings. So, uh, want to keep an eye on that as well. Um, uh, basic, uh, aid for foundation transportation. You can see it's a small adjustment, uh, downward. We talked about excess cost aid. Um, let's see what else is there. Again, some of these things are are are still up in the air, so they'll be changing over the next several weeks. And so, we'll see what that goes. just analy you'll see a decrease under state special tuition. Um that is because that again is aid that we get the year after we pay the tuition. So um this year we got a we're getting a reimbursement on a whole year's tuition um in revenue based on last year's enrollment. We had

139a student pro for 10 months last year. So, we're getting a full year's aid based on tuition. This year, we have one student, but they're only going for four months out of the year. So, we're only going to get aid on four months worth of tuition. So, that's why there's a big decrease. And again, down in other state aid, prek with a disability, we have a class, a new prek class that is integrated with the county and the county pays us for the kids the three year olds who come into that classroom and four year olds or just three >> oh four year olds who come into our classroom from other places in the county currently this year I think we had four students from other districts we're projecting for next year to only have

140two students >> they're Easter >> Oh they are Easter we get because it's CPS. >> Yeah. >> So, as we were saying for CPSC accounting those expenses for us, that's what we uh so here it is. Uh you have appropriated fund balance. You know, just again, we talked about this because it's kind of going over the last five years as you can see. you know, was part of the team for a number of years and, you know, the budget has grown so the appropriated fund balance can go along with it a little bit, but you know, we were up to like 77,000 this last year because, you know, we're we're um having some stressors in the budget. So, we decided to incorporate more funds. So that's something that you just want to keep an eye

141on like what's the what's the um probability of continuing with 77,000 incorporating more to appropriate less to be a little Right. So if we don't have $77,000 at the end of the year, we would have to find another source. Um so the capital outlay project for 2627 is a camera system upgrade at the middle school and that's going to include upgraded license upgraded device or accommodation both. So just working through that process right now looking at suggested for the use of the technology reserve. And we put this up before. These are $75,000. Cover some expenses. A lot of this is related to Chromebook replacement, uh teacher laptop replacement, those types of things. Um budget development. So, um some of the things that we we currently know, there's um our tax levy cap will be about

142$942,000. Something new to this slide is that we found out that there will be an increase about $17,000 in our electricity budget, which is was sort of unexpected, but um Miss George has been working with our provider and she just met with them maybe today or yesterday. Yep. And they are saying that that might come down slightly. Uh so they're working on a few things to see what they can do to help not only our district, you know, set district across the region with the same thing. Uh let's see what else is in this line. I think most of it was pretty similar to what we talked about last time in January. And here's the rest of the budget development calendar. Like I said, you know, we do various budget workshops. We'll come back in

143March 4th and the 18th to um meetings in March and by then we'll have a lot more information. Especially by the 18th, we should have more information for you in regard to what the numbers actually look like and clearer picture of, you know, what we may need to adjust. So, we'll start talking to you more about how the budget's going to impact our programs, um, you know, our staff and those types of things on March. Um, thinking back to the presentation we heard tonight from the music department and the art department and I'm reminded of the fact that every five years we get a report from each curriculum area and every one of those reports has a component in it called recommendations. Uh what we used to do when we had our agendas in a

144book rather than in this uh we used to put those recommendations in the back because then you had it with you all the time. It was just one page from each each of the departments. There aren't that many department. But but it's it's worthwhile when you're doing the budget to look back on the recommendations from our professional staff and ask ourselves what could we do to help implement some of those because it's nice to hear the report tonight, but the challenge to us is to respond positively and creatively in helping to deal with some of these things. And I'm not saying cart blanch do every recommendation because obviously just like any other aspect of the budget there are priorities. We have to determine what the priorities are. Uh but uh but at least if we

145if we remind ourselves what those recommendations are as we're doing the appropriation side of the budget. I'm not talking about the revenue side. I'm talking about the appropriation side. We might decide to put a little more money in equipment to buy musical instruments for instance. You know, in a 40 some odd million dollar budget, you know, we might be able to spend an amount on musical instruments that will help address some of the things we are talking. So that's just one example. But I think we we we should challenge ourselves to do the best we can to uh to respond to the recommendations we hear from the profession. >> I just myself dedicated. >> Yeah. Well, we did it for the technology. I didn't mention technology plan because there is a dedicated source. you created

146a a a reserve, you know, and you can go into that reserve and buy Chromebooks, but you can't go into that reserve and buy cellos, you know, so the cellos are falling apart. We So, so that No, I I agree with that's where It's so enlightening to have these to have the professionals here presenting to us because they also bring up these other sources that we can explore and ways to help the projected revenue. It's just a projection carry some numbers exactly that's going to be your budget upside when you look at this the way it is right now. That's just it's all being funed by tax. If you look the tax 942 total 97 tax is that correct? probably check >> that's a good number to look at. Talk about tax cap in terms

147of percentage percent. Sometimes I don't feel that question. series up in see what kind of dollar position I don't offer a little more aggressive right we know this talked about where we were. those years at least played out which I agree with but I think there's other uses balance of fun thinking that probably something else which is fine again percentages 4% we still had 1.7 back just for now we can give them the options possibility. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure I see here without having >> We will have a balance. We're required to by law. >> I just I forgot what the number of the appropriation side revenue protection. >> Miss George, at our last meeting, you had commented I think if my notes correct that that capital tax lobby

148exclusion for the year. you had that 2 million number and you said that could change >> uh based on building >> based on our building ratio from he's always looking for updated building name ratio we still don't >> so I think it's going to be what it is >> and um yeah there's all kinds of things we don't have from the same >> and so we just don't know where that's >> and we have so transportation we get a certain percent of transportation we know that one of the problems not problems but one of the areas that we have to address with the increase in gratification costs from last year to this year. Now, when we get a percentage of that back, when does that come back? >> That's all part of if you go

149to the governor's slide, transportation aid is carved out. That's part of that's >> Yes. And then when you go to the revenue slide, it's all built into basic state. It's a it's a system. Um, we're here to move around to 12ensus items. Uh, are there is there any board member wishes to withdraw anything from the consensus? 13D. Okay, we will take 13D. consensus and move it to >> 18 that after the results. Anyone else? All right. Hearing none. Uh is there any board member who wishes to add anything to the consensus? Hearing none of the candidates in the Sorry. >> Yeah. >> What do you want to move? >> Yes. >> 13 13 just the >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Uh, so may I have a motion to approve the consensus agenda? >> Moved

150by Mr. Brunson, second by Mr. Blowers. Discussion. All in favor? >> I opposed abstensions. That's pass 70. Now we fast forward page 12 or 14. Item 18, the superintendent recommends that the board of education approve the following resolutions with regards to capital outlay project 202526 masonry bid results uh as detailed in the agenda. May I have a motion? Moved by Mr. Brunson. Second second by Malis. Uh discussion. >> All in favor? I >> opposed abstensions. That's passed 70. And we are on the new 18 15. May I have a motion to approve uh the attached list of spring 2526 portions of performance? Moved by Mrs. Danny, second by Mrs. White discussion all in favor >> I >> opposed abstensions I >> and that is next 5 02 Uh item 19. Uh are there uh new

151business? Any board members have any new business before the board? cancel due to schedule program this month. >> Great. Thank you very much. Thanks for attending. Uh item 20 uh the list of upcoming meetings including our next regular board meeting scheduled for March 4th right here 45 existing session. Um item workshops and conferences uh There we are. On to item 21 adjournment. May I have a motion to adjourn moved by Dr. Second by Mrs. Daniel. Discussion. Just want to thank you all again for being here and thank everyone for the work that we've accomplished. Um all in favor? >> Opposed? abstensions that has passed 70 and we are ajourned. Thank you.