001surv day good evening welcome to Pon Central School Board of Education meeting for March 18th 2025 we start every meeting with the pledge of the flag join me to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and so Mr Johnson is on a well-deserved vacation tonight so I'm going to uh do my best to fill in I appreciate patience and uh any Help from My Friends getting through um luckily we have a very straightforward agenda tonight um we'll start with the approval of our consent agenda the adoption of the consent agenda upon motion and second um approves every item as designated um however prior to the adoption of the consent any board member May remove an item um from the
002agenda um we do have one change tonight we um have removed the need for executive session so do I have a motion or consent second yes thank um would anyone like to pull anything out okay all in favor okay next up is our first opportunity for public comment um the board has reserved this time to hear comments from the audience those wishing to address the board are asked to stand give their name address limit their comments to five minutes concerns and comments during this session should be directly related to the items listed on the agenda audience members seeking a response should complete board correspondence sheet and return it to the district clerk do we have anyone that would like to address the board from this big crowd that we have tonight no comments okay all
003right so uh first up approving the minutes from our regular meeting of March 4th 2025 as submitted can I have a motion second thank you any comments questions all those in favor um next up we have our financial treasurers report that first Mr you no when we get to the treasury okay so U take about the dashboard um in the month of February we had $112,000 come in in scheduled tuition payments 21,000 in interest in earnings and 80,000 is scheduled Lottery payment so I did adjust the estimated Revenue page slightly for the increase in the interest revenue and then on the expenditure side I did go through and kind of match things up a little more utilities and transportation so there are Minor Adjustments there as well otherwise we seem to be tracking about where
004we've been the last two months in terms of expenditures investment report we continue to have good rates despite all the changes federal government um right now we received 170,000 in interest earnings for the year and the rates are dip slightly but not a great deal they down from 42 425 to 4.15 4.18 so not a great change there which is good for us for the rest of the year collecting interest on that and then the treasures report will a motion for approval of that questions fav great we do have a contract to approve tonight we have a one-year contract renewal with the management Advisory Group serve as a consult on District Personnel regarding um our stack and Medicaid forms this would be effective July 1 2025 to June 30th 2026 um cost 8,140 uh for
005the year U for stack and 12163 a month for the Medicaid services and I have a motion yeah like Mr Forbes chime in on anything I might uh Miss so um you know one of the things that sometimes uh is not noticed or goes under the radar is that there's a way um through the state um to collect Aid back on services that we offer students um that's applies to a couple different categories across the district and when you start thinking about schedules and timing and what that looks like over the course of the school year we recruit a little help for this task and um it also makes sure it's done correctly but it also maximizes um the returns to the district um for those services that are rendered so um this contract helps
006us manage that and uh in terms of bang for our buck it's very positive um that uh we get good return on this investment and uh it just cleans up any internal um tracking that we might along the way Mr fors anything else that pretty much covers it I do want to point out that we do use management advisory and other capacities during the course of the year so for example yesterday I had a conversation with them regarding some high cost special kids that have moved in this year and what the changes in Aid might be so we can figure out what the projection would be the state wouldn't have that information yet in their projections because they don't know the kids are enrolled here so different things like that during theity were able to
007use them as part of this restruct I know this is something that we we had in previous years do we have any comments or questions from the board great all those in favor okay well it is my luck and distinct honor to actually have a 10-year recommendation on the agenda tonight so very excited um upon the recommendation of the superintendent for Rachel Kibler um who holds a professional certification in childhood education and professional certification early childhood education to be Rec commended for um her tenure area effective March 28th 2025 so bring that to the table so yep uh Rachel thank you for attending tonight Rachel is definitely a a positive contributor to everything going on at the elementary school you may have noticed Mr Dinger is not here tonight due to a family commitment um
008but he wanted to share a couple comments regarding Miss Kibler um who he said is a lifelong learner who was always eager to try new strategies to enhance student uh engagement and achievement she prioritized building strong relationships with her students families and colleagues creating a supportive and welcoming classroom environment her positive solution focused mindset makes her a valuable asset to our school Community we are grateful for her commitment to Excellence and look forward to her continued impact on our students and families um in my laps around the building I have a chance to stop in Miss Ker's room here and there and uh I just want you're very visible um but you get a sense and I definitely want to Echo um the the welcoming environment um that her uh classroom definitely projects to anybody
009who's in the um vicinity there's also a lot of um students interacting with each other talking with each other um being active in their learning which we greatly appreciate as well and just the um General energy is very positive ofbe optimistic and I think uh she does a great job relating to the students that they can be successful and it's just a matter of some hard work and dedication to what they're doing and uh let's have some fun along the way abolutely so thank you for all that I don't know if anybody else wanted to chime in I the opportunity to observe Rachel the last couple of years for her second formal observation and I agree always welcoming the kids are engaged they're happy they're they're playful in a way that they're learning so it's
010always a pleasure to go to Rachel's classroom well deserved thank you to approve first or would you like to share some some thoughts any anything that you'd like to share yeah absolutely no just I um am so grateful to have found my home here at fonia coming here four years ago um I wasn't sure quite what I was getting into and it ended up being one of the best decisions of my life thus far of my career I can say um and so I look forward to many more years of spreading that positivity and helping my students grow and really making an impact so thank you for your kind words and your kind words as well it's greatly appreciated so happy to serve all those in favor congratulations we know that all of our teachers
011are busy with a variety of tasks in the evening if you need to step out we won't be offended but thank you very much for congratulations have a wonderful evening okay so moving on to new business um we do need to approve items pertaining to our 2526 budget vote um as presented the legal notice um can I have a motion to bring that to the table second thanks Brian thank you um Mr aldri we've known each other a long time true um I'm trying Dr Zulo um I'll make a couple comments and turn over to miss Hines Morrison if she has any um comments but um basically this is about timing of when we need to um approve this notice and then when we have to get in the newspaper it just basically lays out
012the plan for our budget vote which will happen um in May and that's the 2526 budget so we'll be looking at um what our finances look like for the following school year uh more information will be coming um to the board as well as here in public session um about our plan and then um just to tie in the second resolution just basically says if something were to change which is pretty unlikely but if it were um we're authorizing Miss Morrison to make those adjustments as needed anything I missed no that sums it up quite well essentially this is one of a couple of legal notices that will happen before the actual vote this is the legal notice that lets us start everything rolling so will appear in The Observer as of April 1 great
013so this first motion is for the legal notice all those in favor great um and then for uh Dr Zak's comment we also need to authorize uh the district to clerk to amend and publish if we do need a revision um so can we bring that to the table thank you all those in favor I I great okay and then we have the review of the ballot for the Sho County School Board Association executive committee members um each member School District Board of Education May cast um their votes by the Constitution we have the opportunity to vote for four candidates we're lucky we have four candidates on the ballot um can I have a motion to bring that to the table second thank you um any comments about our candidates our vot okay all those
014in favor I so moving right along um our second opportunity to hear from the public has anyone changed their mind from the first no comments all right Dr zilia superintendent report uh yeah just real quick I was going to just touch on our our plan for the budget again we uh will have a um series of presentations here um kind of explaining um those different U portions of the budget what that looks like from year to year what that has looked like this past year what we're projecting uh for the following year that will include some potential adjustments in Staffing um as well as a variety of other items in terms of supplies and equipments and then just those other increases um that happen from year to year in different categories like uh health insurance
015Transportation um special education needs so on and so forth anything else John for tonight we want to touch on okay so more to come and uh sit tight we have that information ASAP great um I was thinking that would probably was right but do sorry do I the next regular board meeting first I think so okay the next regular Board of Education meeting will be Tuesday April 8th at 6: p.m. in the High School cafe or High School library so right here um so definitely would have we have any comments from our administrators any info to share One S oh sorry sure sure um for the budget so are we having our first presentation next meeting is that yep absolutely um that meeting there was a suggestion from um Mr Johnston that perhaps we look
016to incorporate also a budget Workshop so that's in the mix as well which um we haven't done in the past but I think that would be helpful but um that more information will come um in the uh weekly update okay great thank you any surprises um we're just working through the system right now you lot of surpr like any like any good business administrator Mr Forbes is a little um hesitant in the moment and uh you know is uh kind of calibrating his brain around a variety of factors but as always we get to a place where we uh we have a budget that we think is going to work for our district as well as one that's respectful of the taxpayers working on it Mr pashy thank you um just quickly to our seniors
017you guys won the lottery this may be the shortest meeting I've ever attended in my entire life so you picked a good one over with that's true I I my part will only take about 47 minutes at time uh just just relatively quickly uh just just some really cool things that have happened at the high school um I wanted to to thank uh Lori Addington and Lor Pew who worked with a group of students that they took to a shark tank team uh and we won third place out of 13 schools um I just wanted to recognize students who attended this Kevin Brown Malachi Hall Michael amid Gian Elli the senia Santiago Ellie Saunders julan Mard Torres uh London Wilmont and Brianna Whitfield so congratulations to them also Ryan Kelly was the first uh bowler
018ever to be selected to go to States and uh he on his very first shot is on the winning team so they took the State title for bowling uh so congratulations to to Ryan Kelly um also we had a group of students go to Westfield to compete in the battle of the books um there were six schools involved foron took first place I also wanted to thank cassida for helping us with transportation and getting there U but congratulations to the team Jo bowza Rosemary Gino Cecilia tanelli and Isabelle Horowitz W first place so congratulations to all of them tomorrow we have our our musical assembly and we'll be getting the preview uh for our high school students of the musical which is going to be playing this weekend so we're excited about that thank you
019so we've been having lots of shenanigans and we lock this week with all leecha action we have been can school dance Irish dancers came and perform for us yesterday and was a good time I want to put cudas out to Cassie frell and our Lighthouse team for leader and me they are working on on the the proactive habit right now and the staff is really into it they're actually kind of competitive about how they're being proactive and sharing that so they're embracing that and I'm proud of them so they're doing great um we have the egg literacy week this week so we have readers from Cornell property extension with us this week coming in doing activities with the students and reading a book and then they donate the B to the classroom so lots of
020fun you um we en very very much enjoyed the culture Fair a couple weeks ago and it was just so well attended and um the students who created The Works to share their culture and Heritage um and others that did the research on it and with so many adults and volunteers that came to celebrate so that was very exciting um we are concluding our uh prek 3 literacy instructional best practices meetings with all the grade levels from upk through um sixth grade including special Area Teachers this is a new requirement by the state education department that is required of all public schools to attest to what the literacy instructional practices are this is brand new um and the state had said that they would release what that rubric is um mid-February so they didn't so
021we kind of kept delaying the meetings to kind of they still haven't released it so we decided let's have these meetings and go forward um you know with the understanding that we're not quite sure what the actual requirement is but we know we can talk about what we know so far so we've had those meetings great discussions and what's um exciting as I know Mr draer had shared previously when he myself and Andrea Marsh the assistant principal for the middle school attended this um in early January is that for the first time ever they're looking at instructional practices embedded in what they're calling the science of learning which really is leader meal social emotional learning it's are we creating the conditions for students to acquire learning first and then what are our instructional practices second
022so as a former elementary teacher for 19 years it's very exciting to hear them actually want to know what are we doing to create these things because we know as elementary teachers and all teachers that that's critical if you don't have that first step learning one OCC so we've been concluding those meetings um we're we'll finish that up on Friday and um being March it is a near midpoint of March now is the time to start summer planning so conversations will be starting to happen about summer um and particularly looking at our grant funding and what that looks like to support our literacy initiative and other initiatives that we have going um and then speaking of professional learning this coming Monday and Tuesday is the final targeted professional learning to support our enVision Math curriculum
023lift um and that is going to be happening in the El elentary school for grades 1 through four it's half a day for each grade level they fill out what they need PD on and then the facilitator targets that directly to that need um and one of the thing which is nice to see is everybody data they're interested in interventions data both interventions to support struggling Learners as well as data um interventions to support enrichment so that's going to be um happening Monday and Tuesday and then um probably in the near future will be for middle school so yeah so we're continuing to chug along always LS always just a couple things to add uh Mr drer again couldn't be here tonight but he did mention the Invision training that Dr Wright was just speaking
024of um he's excited to uh get that underway and he also mentioned a couple times here the Pack's good behavior uh game um that was part of a grant this year and um that will beginning in April so we look for updates from Mr joh about how that's going which is really just um you know kind of getting in that mindset of rewarding students for positive behavior and really um focusing on um positive um characteristics and positive approaches um by our students throughout the school day uh Miss paulus also couldn't be here she just wanted to mention uh real quick they've done a nice job uh reinvigorating sort of the focus on uh the pride characteristics in the building which they're calling Pride Madness um kind making some connections to the basketball tournament and uh
025yeah students have the ability to earn tickets and then earn prizes and different things that um are motivate Mo motivating them um to behave positively within our buildings also um kind of piggybacking on What U Mrs Piper was saying the Middle School Leader in Me team is also moving forward having a lot of good discussions and they will be visiting Sweet Home Middle School um next week um who has been involved with a leader me previously and get a little insight into what that looks like in the school that's been up and running for a few years so just wanted to share um input from both the elementary and the Middle School great thanks do we have any comments from the board tonight coms coms okay well I make a motion make a motion okay
026any second for that okay all those in favor aour just for the record 23 minutes