001right good evening everybody thank you for coming here and online call meeting to order I pledge Le States I turn it to you thank you I'd like to ask for a consent motion for item 1.03 on the recommendation intended to approve March 10th 2025 regular board meeting agenda second any questions on tonight's agenda all right hearing all in favor any oppos so move I'd like to ask for a consent motion on item 1.04 on the recommendation of the interim superintendent to approve the minutes of the regular February 24th 2025 Board of Education meeting minutes second any questions all in favor I Mo well we uh do not have Gian tonight so we have someone I pretty I know pretty well Charlie the uh student body report is up to you see your wearing an interesting
002strir yeah I am um I'm Carly if anyone doesn't know me I'm a senior I'm giving the report for Tiana tonight so um starting off we uh Miss Harvey has uh put together a career day which is March 20th from uh 8:30 to 11 so the first half of the school day uh grades 9 through 10 are um hearing from Professionals in all different job areas just to kind of get an idea of where they maybe what they want to do in the future um and then 11th and 12th grade ERS are going to be hearing more of about the skills that um like you're going to need after college so like aside from all the core class stuff you'll be hearing about financial stuff and career Readiness and the Civil Service civil service exam
003so a lot of stuff um just Necessities for After High School um next up is the nghs activities so firstly um they had put together a Hershey Kiss fundraiser um during Valentine's Day week um they had a big success um and then at their next meeting njhs is going to vote on which organization they're going to donate their profits to so it's going to a good cause um they also designed and distributed Valentine's cards for the residents at Morgan Estates and then last I believe it was Friday last Friday njhs and NHS put together a blood drive that they do annually um where students faculty admin community members they all participated and it was a big success um and then finally for n NHS and JHS um is the penny wars we're doing this month
004um so there's sixth and seventh grade is supporting Livingston County Dog Control eighth grade is raising funds for chances and changes ninth and tth is also supporting the dog control of Livingston County 11th grade is supporting jio grovin food pantry and then the seniors were um fundraising for the Teresa house so basically whoever gets the most money in their jar at the end of the month that's where all the pro uh profits are going to go too so awesome um next up is Middle School Mathletics they had a very successful year this year they placed first in all three meets um this year scoring 384 points in total they are also the southern division Champions which is the third consecutive year that they had gotten that title um and we had a top scorer David
005West he was the top scoring eighth grader in the southern Bose's region so congratulations to all them they did very well and then finally uh middle and high school ski club was a success this year Ski Club had a great season with 25 skiers this the conditions were pretty rough this year very cold but despite the weather there was no injuries so that's overall success and they they learned how to ski and snowboard um thank you to the chaperons miss prinzy miss bchi and Mr laughland um just teaching and guiding the students during ski club and a thank you to the transportation who took them there and back um so that was success as well so we're seeing lots of participation and good things happening in the school so awesome well done thank you is
006the steam update so we have Ashley um Sarah and John and Sarah welx come okay Sarah so give me one second so about a month ago or so we were talking about the different uh presentations that we were going to have for the Board of Education and um chrisy had talked about Ashley coming to talk about the K5 steam program so I I I asked would it be okay if we did a full K12 steam presentation at that meeting so um Sarah Frenzy and and Sarah wot are both working on their administrative certification and they're both excellent technology so they've been helping me out in the technology office we had a technology meeting so I asked if they would come to present on on this component as well okay great so um Ashley I think
007you're going to start do you want me to Advance or do you want me use the clicker for um go ahead it's just a couple of things um so I've talked a lot about the program that we've been building in the elementary school and tonight I wanted to share with you a couple things we've done um that have really either become new in my new room or have like greatly expanded in my new room because that room is just lovely especially when it's sunny like today oh my god um so if you've never been down to my room it's really divided into there's two sections on each end and then a big open area in the middle and one section we call the play place um but it's full of things that anyone K through
008five can use kindergarteners spend a lot of time there um intentionally but it's all open-ended creative big play materials things that they can build knock down build again there's shared Lego table shared puzzle table um and that's been a great thing that we don't always have to put away at the end of the day so kids will build Legos and then other kids come in and build on top of those and and um it's been really nice to have that area separate the other side is the maker space which has every tube straw pipe cleaner that the district has are all out in my room kids can use those on their own projects or can use them with things um those materials with stuff that I do uh one class Mrs zlocki Ed teaches this
009a11 class um they made little cardboard houses and then we lit them up with wires and batteries and they decorated those um and I had fourth graders that we're learning about circuits so we used this Makey Makey device and tested different things in the maker space uh for what was insulators and what were conductors so those two areas in my previous space were so cramped and Tiny and now they're really open and accessible and the kids just love the things that they can do in there so that's been a huge huge Improvement for us I think um to connect to that I I like when I tend to connect to what um students are doing in the classroom so first graders learn about sound waves in their science class and then we use that to
010create instruments that vibrated in some way so again all those maker space materials uh fifth graders on the opposite end of the you know grade level Spectrum learned about force and motion in their classroom so then we did the classic create a device to keep the eggs safe um eggs were not that expensive when I started their project in December so we are we are being real cautious with our eggs um but both of those are things that the kids could build for consecutive weeks and I have the room now to store them to keep working on and we could go through the engineering design process go back and um fix things and change things that we needed to so that's been really helpful as well and then the last little bit um just what's
011new in the world of coding and Robotics so everybody first grade and up learns how to code and learn some level of Robotics and I know I keep saying I have the room I have the room but now I have the room to do a lot more with these so these are just two of the robots that we use at second and third grade um but the kids can really move around with them they can create programs on the floor they can put them on the computer screen but then watch the robot do them on the floor the third graders love to they call it take their um robot for a walk and if you've ever been down by my room it's like a perfect square so they take their little robot like little dog
012around the square and can use uh what they've learned from that to write programs and troubleshoot their codes and everything I think that I wanted to do in my previous space now we just have the room to do it we have the space the storage um the kids love it I could take the fifth graders outside to drop the eggs so it's just been a wonderful I think Improvement to the program that we've already been building actually also deserves credit because she's been doing live announcements now um with the help of Mrs new they we were originally just aiming for Friday but now we're kind of hitting like a Wednesday Friday stri by June I bet we got five days of live announcements but like you know the fourth and fifth graders and what an
013excellent opportunity to practice their speaking and listening skills and it's not that scary because you're not in front of a live audience you're kind of talking to your computer but I thought that we should mention that you're doing that as well because that's something you never could have done in your space before yeah thank I remember going in and watching Ashley's class when she was doing the SPO ball programming and there's no way it could be contained in that space so would always end up out in the Halls which was fun to see the kids these really distracting to everyone else very distracting to everyone else so um it really is another reason why we wanted to do the presentation now because now we've we've been in that space for a full year it was
014really March that we open the the new space down there and this is not a full K12 steam um curriculum type of presentation where we wanted to Spotlight how we're using the news space and some different steam initiatives that we have um in there so I'll mostly be speaking for Dave taser who is um teaching uh a sixth grade class in the steam room for all sixth graders um and these are some of the projects he's been doing um I was excited to share about this one Alan Turing if you know who that is he um was coding for um Britain during the uh during World War II um fighting against um you know the Nazi attacks on um London and so this game looks at some of the basics of coding in in a
015very you know kind of like an essential way where the kids can start seeing the logic behind coding there's another course I did a different format I have paragraphs so they learn about basic switches um in Gates see that again the how did coding start um it actually you know kind of started with um games that could show like The Very Basics like this even um looms have kind of like a basic um format for how computer coding came about all started in Britain um so little historical connection another piece with that I love the idea that they are learning to code even at the earliest grades kindergarten and so on without computers you know what I mean they're learning a a basic problem solving type of structure you know to their thinking and and
016this is a new class that um Dave's teaching this year so it's nice to have every sixth grader experience that as they're entering middle school and um and it is nice to see also um how the coding is building um as Ashley mentioned at the elementary level and then um this one uh yeah you just kind of Click through um so they're flying drones using a a controller but there is a a block coding program again continuing to build on what they learned at the earlier levels and I think there's another paragraph there um and so they build on the 2D coding they learned at the elementary level up to the 3D coding at the middle school level and once again the space is so helpful there um when we first uh tried to fly
017drones we're flying it in here and um not my finest moment but the first time I tried to fly one I impaled it in the ceiling Gad up here there's not a lot of space so we actually have to get the ladder out but um that space down there they can actually go the entire distance of the room and and you know like Sarah said taking that program and from a two-dimensional space and Robotics to a three-dimensional Space is really um where we wanted to get to and I'm going to tag Sarah willox to talk about AI she has more of a background of that one yeah so AI I think is a really big buzzword right now going around just the community in general schools I think a lot of professions uh and we
018know that AI doesn't um or does sorry generates new ideas and data based off of what we feed it and program it so what they've been able to do is they've been able to use code.org to use AI to make book recommendations so if you put in your own information it will then spit out based on that information what it should be recommending for you so they use like the flowchart model to be able to understand how the coding goes for that so that they can understand what their outputs will look like so getting into how the high school has been using that class um I I don't remember if they started right out of the out of the gate with this at the very beginning of the year but pretty much they've been using
019it as a morning announcement uh uh room since since was it the very beginning Carly that you guys started start day one was it even yeah that's impressing came over in the summer and and honestly the equipment they're using is rudimentary it's not it's not like a lot of high quality video production but to actually get it started and um it is truly a team effort to get the whole production started so that that really kicks off the day um you know with our I think it's all seniors or at least mostly seniors but um broadcast around the school every single day um this was a new class that Megan Harvey's teaching this year we wanted to Spotlight some different uh types of programs in a space like that so like I said this is
020not touching on all the different K12 steam area we're not talking about the the the traditional technology classes but a class um called emerging careers is was a 20we um exploratory class for our high school students um where we really wanted to take it to spots where um you know students could picture their careers down the road um different components such as Optics were learned in that class we um linked up with a professor at MCC so students could get Optics credit for the class um none of them did take it to that level to get the credit for it but at least opening up their eyes and getting um their hands on that curriculum was the starting uh uh place for it you see all the three-dimensional um printed um hall passes that that
021was a a project at the beginning of the year and they're they're not even super high Lev 3D printers but the idea was to engage students in something that was going to be um interesting to them um they learn how to do some basic design but they could you know literally put their hands right on it um right out of the shoot they took coding with drones I remember going into that classroom earlier um in the year for an observation and literally they had drones taken apart they had cut sheets on it they were trying to figure out what was wrong with these and they were doing problem solving on how to put them back together that could still be used in in another um in another class um climate action kits we got a
022couple um different and it's very similar to the the Lego type of programming where you're building blocks together um and then you could build things like windmills or solar powered um uh devices um with electronics in it so you could actually get data from those those pieces and the idea was to open those up and then TurnKey um teach or or work with some of our Elementary uh students didn't get to that level but we at least have some of the gear um in place where they could actually see where that's going to um last slide that we have is a couple of um exciting grants that we were um hoping to get on the left Beth Ward was able to secure a um Grant from uh Cornell University it's called grow with us where
023they are getting these uh Tower Gardens for aeroponic am I saying that right systems and all the tools that go with them so the idea was inside or outside they could um have grow stations with um micro green and there is K12 curriculum that goes all the way through it so three of those portable stations the the facility downstairs is perfect for it you know what I mean so we have wanted to get some type of agricultural component into our technology program and and this is a great way to do it um the other one on the right hand side Megan Harvey was able to secure a grant from um Plug Power which is a company in in Rochester um called H2 Grand Prix um it it was basically um set out for uh school
024districts that were in need of engaging students but also economically in need of of um engaging students in different stem types of activities um these were hydrogen based hydrogen powered cell uh uh remote control cars the students would be able to build um we had our initial kickoff meeting and uh we were excited to get going with it because the cars are amazing like when I think of like Odyssey of the mind and how fast they go um these hydrogen sell cars are like not only is the technology amazing the actual speed of of of what they can you know how they can perform is amazing um the idea was to try to get some kids that are hooked into engines and and and building cars um into an emerging type of Technology like this
025unfortunately and honestly each one of those units is a $7,000 car and and and we were all set to get that um in the current political like zeitgeist were're in unfortunately that was a ferally funded program so that one was pull from us but we at least have these uh connections with with Folks at plug power and they were excited that we our students were going to uh engage in it but at least temporarily because it is a department of energy type of uh grant that was pulled so we we never actually were able to secure the equipment made some connections and they they want to work with us on lunch and learns and things like that and um hopefully down the road we will be getting um some of these uh cars into our
026technology program um but the idea would be take them in in competitions all across the state and it's really International so um making those connections was a good thing unfortunately it's going to be on pause for right now but um honestly that was that's a lot but we just wanted to do a an overview of how we've used that space so far and um use some time for questions if you guys have any well I'll start with a comment but thank you so this is really good it's great to hear John and I've been talking a lot about you know different things that you're doing and just felt to be good to to have you all come and kind of lay it out uh it's really really positive and I'm happy for yourselves as well
027as I'm glad the space works and and I I the next question always comes back to what else can we do but what else can the board do as we go through the budget season and and steam stem Steam is is high on the list but we don't quite know what that means just yet from a budgetary standpoint so please you know help us in that regard what can we do because we really feel confident that this is um not only important but we're looking for something that kind of gives genio that steam personality these are all great programs what does that mean we need your help to Define that I think for sure teach speaking from the teachers perspective is continuous ability to access PD because the technology changes so quickly for sure and
028you know genesio is a member of the Jesy region Tri County teacher Center and we are a district that participates the most of any of the districts that are enrolled currently so continuing to have access to that for sure as a teacher is something that we want to be able to hold on to to access the blad as PD okay I would say to piggy back off Sarah um I in pared a bunch of my robots and already I have some that are no longer made or they don't get updates anymore and so I'm lucky to go to the GB BOS Steve cohort um which is a great networking opportunity and an and and sort of like an informal PD because I can see what everyone else is using and we can try out each
029other's stuff and I need to think about sort of like a replacement schedule of my own technology because things die and things aren't carried anymore and um to in order to keep up with what is good and new and useful I think I need as much information as I can okay and to piggy back off of that um this PD is very relevant I think to all content areas I mean I I was amazed as I looked through these how many different subject areas are are connected in with steam um and you know again being a social studies teacher um and English teachers in the room AI very relevant um so as much PD as possible MH okay great thank you very much anybody else have questions any other I just had one question for
030K 5 is it a a schedule time for those kids or is it something where the teacher just says I'm working on this right now in my my classroom can I come and going with you to do a project so it's both of those and a third thing too um so the kids come the classroom teachers come on a schedule it's an eight day rotation so on average I see a class like two to three times a month for a 45 minute period um at every every grade level I take uh small groups of like eight to 10 kids for three or four sessions to do some targeted um computer Foundation skills that we're missing um word processing and slide presentation things like that and then if teachers have something else that they want to
031do we can sometimes find time to collaborate and do that too so fourth grade had to do a uh state required investigation it's called building circuits and testing circuits um and so I pushed into some of their classrooms prior to that and we looked at different surgry things and tried different tests and just sort of supplemented what they needed enter materials can be a resource for me as a classroom teacher if I say I want to do this project but I don't have these supplies I can go to Ashley and borrow them from her almost like a resource Library so that if I have my own idea of what I want in my classroom but maybe don't need Ashley's help I can use Ashley's materials sounds really good thank you so much well honestly the
032intent is to get it into the classroom like not to look at steam as a standalone Place go to a room it's not just going to be in the technology room in the high school um there's a lot of like even like the digi type of competitions that people are doing in their classroom with the students with the technology that that's the natural type of progression they wanted then having the space just gives us a lot more options so we're we're we're we're liking what the first year looked like and we're excited about work can go from here you could help go k of Baseline too so I can say pretty confidently that all kindergarteners get or all third graders get why and I think that's nice for classroom teachers to know what the kids
033are cap a baseline absolutely thanks thank you very much Christie here Flo is yours so before I um an update on ubk kindergarten and um summer program I just wanted to provide an update for elementary just verbally um I know I'm not going to be as exciting as our student council Representatives that are here every other month but I'll try uh last week we um had read across jio week and we had our very first family night that kicked off on uh that Monday night so it was again another way to open up the doors to the community to bring them in we had um professors from Sunni janio from the astronomy Department because uh the theme was um again it was astronomy and space um we had our very own astronaut named Mrs Wilcox
034um who ran the Star Lab which is festic and the reading department just did a phenomenal job at organizing events not just on that night but throughout the week we then wrapped up the week with having um a number one best-selling author come and visit all students k12 and that was in thanks to um Mrs Curly's connections and helping to make this happen um if you have ever had the opportunity to learn about noodle noodle became very famous uh during covid noodle had either no bones which means he just flopped into his bed and didn't feel like getting up for the day or he had bones and he stood up strong and he was like I'm going to go for a walk so in those Co days he really developed quite a following um so
035his first book was uh bones or no bones and then this was his followup that just came out my goodness we had kids I mean from kindergarten crying because he wanted to go home with him to be as like it was the sweetest thing we had Star Struck um fit Raiders we had lunch and learns at Middle School in high school and they learned that he is verified on Tik Tok and Instagram so that really spoke to them um with his four and a half million followers um just fantastic and we were so lucky um that he actually volunteered and donated his time to come and visit um so I just want to say thank you to Mrs Curley for helping to make that happen um thank you to the um teams who helped support
036and create um just a memorable event for read Across America and writing all the kids want to do was right when they left I went we all yeah we all wanted to go home and just become an author so it was very inspiring just wanted to share that um and then as we move into this week um I Heard the update from um uh middle school high school from Carly and she uh spoke about career day um Elementary has a career day um a job fair on Friday so we're looking forward to welcoming again many members into the community um Noel Hensler and the second grade team does a fantastic job in creating um these experiences for students that just gives you just a snippet of what's Happening um throughout the halls of the elementary
037school just providing again very brief updates on ubk um so both Dr Hunter um Mr Vans and myself we have been working on um creating a very clear guideline for in Timeline to support upk families who are interested in joining first that was the first step um they had to submit their interest very quick easy form we even outreached we would provide an Outreach and call families on the census and said are you interested if so we removed that barrier of saying you have to send in all this paperwork um so Mrs Ford did that we added it to the list and they are now a part of our um like our Lottery our ubk Lottery um a live ubk Lottery invitation was sent out because we have more um families interested than the number
038of slots that we have available which is 24 so um Mr Vans and Dr Hunter collaborated on that and our live Lottery will take place on Monday March 17th at 3:30 in the steam lab we're going to go popsicle sticks you know and uh generator of numbers and uh but it's all going to be very transparent so everybody knows whether they got into the lottery or not before they leave um and we will uh Mark everything um again on the order you'll know what your line order is after leaving if you didn't make it in the library or the lottery excuse me um then you'll know what opportunities you have so if you happen to fall 28th you would be looking at four people to drop out um and uh then you can bump up
039in that line one question we had is it too late to express interest no just reach out to us um we'll add you but you just um end up going to um the end of the lottery line because our interest forms have already been accepted so only those families who Express that interest will actually be in the lottery but we can add you to that list that's been created after the lottery just never know what's going to happen um every all the packets are due by May 15 2025 again that was in that letter um to hold your spot if we don't receive it back we reach out to the next person in line and then we have a due date for that um and then then we will turn the packets over to Pride
040and Joy um in the end of May of June and we will have an open house schedule for new families and pride en Joy at this point in time how many more students have expressed interest at we are currently at 35 34 34 so yeah which is good kindergarten registration um packets went out last week um we currently have 51 families in our census lower much lower number than last year um but all of those packets were mailed out packets are due back the beginning of April and then we have our screenings set for May 7th and 8th question was that number 51 51 now that I'm sure we'll have additional students we may not have reached everybody but we really tried to work with all the local um preschools um to gather names along
041with the census um but certainly that that number May fluctuate all right and then yes we're planning next year also think about summer so we're excited uh this is I'm just speaking to the general education summer program uh the the um special ucation offers an extended school year program at six weeks I'm just speaking to a 4-week boost um to help prevent regression for students um general education students or Andor students with IEPs who would not qualify for extended school year very similar to what we've done in the past um So currently um we are work all the features are working together and using data um to reflect on and drive the recommendations for students participation we have our March conferences coming up our spring conferences and the first initial invitation and the recommendation to
042take part in the program will take place at the spring conferences we will then receive a verbal yes I would like my student to attend um or no we traveling all different reasons they might not attend um but again the goal is to help support consistent attendance social emotional um math and literacy uh needs and uh Mrs Curley again she did her administrative um internship last year um so I can speak to that just knowing that every day there's every week there's something exciting planned for the kids the goal is we want them to come and they doesn't feel like School per se but it's just a summer program summer camp with a lot of learning um that's purposeful so again I kind of went through this already um but the we will provide the
043main office will provide registration informations in April then we send out program letters that kind that provide um food information we will provide breakfast again um a bagged lunch that would go home with the students Transportation classroom information and then the program would actually run the month of July um Thursdays um Monday through Thursday and half days total of 16 days just to click overview um and I spoke to a few of the pieces already and um again we're going to continue to use our uh comfortable and familiar resources to in instruct the small groups um so again character strong lessons um intervention type lessons could support uh social emotional learning we have really great reading collaborative classroom I ready instruction um but that we will those teachers are fantastic about maintaining um really close
044eye uh and pro and monitoring the progress of the students throughout the summer and then providing a priv report at the end of um The Experience so in order to um service hopefully um upwards of 80 qualifying students um we are program budget is uh about $33,000 plus Transportation um it is eligible for grant funding through our coer um our staff will be required to participate three hours of professional development in order to qualify for this coer as well as curriculum Council which Casey attends already and um and then our students will receive breakfast and a bag lunch at no cost to the families which is an important key component of the program and thank you for making possible thank you thank you any questions I don't okay all right thank Youk very much um
045you are Mike and John yes I'm I'm actor Hunter and E today so uh I do want to start off I attended last Sunday and Monday many meeting sessions on New York state budget as well as other priorities out of the governor's office so tonight I just want to highlight some things that maybe can provide you a little bit more information on some topics that you'll be hearing a lot about or probably have already heard a lot about the first uh slide relates to the current numbers that came out in January there's still only projections uh April 1st we will know it's anti ipated but recently Governor's uh budget has been online and we we should hear something by April 1st and on time so that would be good that's where we'll get our final
046numbers the governor's proposal currently has a 4.8% increase in the total budget the foundation Aid recommendation is for a 5.9% increase that's not just genal that's Statewide numbers it was expressed and shared at the meetings that the current New York State fiscal position is very strong but the Outlook is uncertain moving years ahead a federal funding outcome could have an impact on the New York state budget there was $160 million allocated to fund Universal School meals 64.6 million recommended for college and high school programs which 12.2 million will be allocated for new dual enrollment opportunities as you know that's very strong at genal Central our students often come out of genal central with with many college credits which accelerates their graduation in college and uh saves families a lot of money as well one of
047the highlights of the governor's proposal is that there shouldn't be any District that will receive less than 2% so bottom line is most districts will be a little bit higher but nobody will be under two % so there's two parts there's four parts of the overall formula but there's two parts that I want to highlight and the first one is that many of you are aware that the formula was updated and one of the biggest areas was the updated Regional cost index and that's the biggest change in the formula that formula has not been changed since 2000 census data so that's a big adjustment in that area which was obviously updated 25 years ago from here on out it's going to be updated on an annual basis how do that impact GCS the revision to
048formula produced a positive adjustment for our district 25 years ago compared to now now the wealth index and all that is is certainly much different within the community this could possibly be a one-year sign ific jump but eventually it will level out as the years go on this is something that we we'll have to closely monitor on a year-to-year basis the other big part of the formula that I pulled out because it did impact us as well in a significant way uh relates to what they call Total Aid Foundation pupil units and that really relates to your special education population and that offers districts a weighted pupil count so what does that mean so for enrollment a student in a traditional class would just count as one person if there's special programming of a student
049whether it's out a district or in a different placement that becomes weighted so a student could count as a 1.6 1.4 depending on the amount of services they get outside the district this has been a real positive outcome for GCS because we've had a significant increase in the number of students receiving special education services within our district by positive outut you mean financially correct okay yes it's positive Financial that has impacted our numbers which could increase our Aid other New York state aid projections um to be aware of the recommendation has 131 New York State school districts benefited from the updated poverty formula 24 districts receive less funding districts in the New York City area seem to be negatively impacted the most that is getting much ATT attention from the Senate and assembly more to
050come on that zero emission busing uh say through many sessions on this this is a real Hot Topic across the state there were a recommendation from a lot of districts leaders communities is that New York State look at funding to install charging capacity infrastructure and buses themselves purchasing them support funding for additional studies to determine if zero Mission busing is feasible given geography weather conditions and charge duration verify range limitations where schools are obligated to meet the state mandate and determine if hybrids are an option what are some of the concerns uh companies have increased pricing of their zero emission buses obviously anticipating a big demand so the pricing up electric costs are currently higher than fuel costs another big concern that districts have and it really has lacked a comprehensive study perform to this
051state and that that is really problematic um if school districts are forced to get into an area work the study hasn't been thoroughly completed there could poent that could potentially impact all districts in a negative way as well so basically right now uh speaking to many colleagues across the state districts are kind of on a holding pattern pattern until we learn more and hear more of what's coming next with the zero Mission busing zero emissions in itself is accepted correct it's not so I learned a lot about that yes so maybe less but it's not zero so at least at the present time we're still on the same schedule until they make a change in terms of delaying it to correct right now we're just in pattern I think you're going to hear a lot
052more in the near future going even into next year this there's really a lot of push back on this so there was no specific date not right now changed okay there's there's Federal push back to the governor specifically from colleagues Senate advising her to okay remove the Mandate and the governor has backed off a little bit hasn't said what she's backed off at but this was a really big initiative you remember a year ago and the fact that she didn't even talk about it in her budget correct is a a big sign yeah next big thing Mr D's here he'll be passing out something for you but the ban on cell phones that is coming and uh ail after April 1 will learn more but districts must have a board of education policy in place
053by July 1st of 2025 Mr are required to post your policy on the web page part of the policy has to include one or more storage methods that we have to identify policy needs to consist of the bell-to-bell Restriction there will also be a mandate that districts have to provide a yearly annual report to identify any demographic disparities within the policy so those are basically some of the elements and again we're going to learn more what are some of the concerns I heard about during my sessions um we'll have to determine what exceptions are allowed for instructional purpose purposes IEP 504 plans for any medical emergency consideration so those are all things that have to be discussed the cost of purchasing a storage method there are a variety of different methods out there some use
054like lockers some use pouches that each student gets all that will come with a cost Staffing considerations to collect phones before and after school again potentially another cost if you have to have people there to do that repeat offenders could be a big challenge as well because now that falls into your discipline code of conduct and how are we going to manage headphones smart glasses and watches it's much more than just cell phones I don't think anyone is against in our school reducing amount of distractions in the classroom and cell phones certainly create a major distraction in the classroom how do we get to this um we're basic going to be told what we need to do and then we will develop our own policy to make sure we meet the mandate to the best
055of our ability any questions as it relates to the they discuss if if nispa or anybody else is going to come up with the template policy you'll see a variety of them out there I think through the bosies of each region we probably come up with a template but I also have to share that a lot of schools want to create their own I thought that was something I heard loud and clear would be just a baseline y then how do we draft or design our own policy to best meet the needs of our students and our school while also adhering to the law so are districts required to have more than one storage method you see the wording and that question came up and and I'm going to give you the answer I got
056well it depends what the first one is so I think if you go to the extreme of pouches lock cabinets whatever it may be that should be sufficient but there's also possibility of you're saying okay every student has a locker Y and then the difficult years you you have to check to make sure that every student's putting their device in their locker and that could really be problematic and we all know that schools that have purchased some of Apes they listen to presentation by one of the companies U that designed them and they said of course there's going to be some students that put dummy phones in there but that's where you really have to stick to your quote of conduct and make sure the consistency is there with any policy any rule the consistency
057is going to be the most important aspect of proper enforcement that's what yeah might be moving forward there's not going to be a choice there's going to be a choice you're right and what is the like the leadership team between mental health and your Administration rolling out a plan that's as comprehensive as it can be between we'll do the policy pieces but then what I think the education component of it is going to be very important and when I say that it's not just the district it's not the board it's not teachers uh we really have to get parents involved and then some of our community agencies right one of the biggest concerns you'll hear back from your parents is in case of an emergency I need to get in touch with my student so
058we'll have to reach out to the local police and sheriffs state troopers and we should have them presenting information how that's exactly what they don't want to happen in a case of emergency is everybody on the phone you can talk of get your government leaders and to give presentation it really has to be everybody having a good understanding of why this is this is a proposal that that benefits students and learning well it's also tied to funding it's tied to funding and the data is alarming so I think once parents and students really start to hear the data the specific components of the data how it's impacted Mental Health Across the Nation those are powerful statistics that I think everybody needs to hear so when we're planning I think we really have to look big
059picture and not be on an island alone because that's certainly won't won't be as successful to bringing everybody in to sharing this and I know it's big in the community and you'll hear a little bit about that for Mr D that is not why I brought this up today they contact me for but but it is something we really have to plan properly for I think as Mike said before with uh the SC tell us how we can help yep that' be great any other questions all right there are some other issues on the table um some of the recommendations that districts would like to see is it increase the capital outlay limit from the current $100,000 to $250,000 a lot of districts feel that that $100,000 really in today's society where costs are pretty
060extreme doesn't cover what a lot of districts need uh allow districts of bond finance payment of claims arising from Child victims act uh over 30 years currently it stands at 15 so if we can bond that if if you do have a claim and you have to pay that claim PID over 30 years instead of 15 years increased funding for Career and Technical education opportunities again another big push um where schools are starting to see more and more students really interested in those programs uh continue waiver from the 35,000 limit on earnings for retirees this is this is another topic that we heard about quite often in our sessions was there is a tremendous shortage of teachers we see it here at genesio but there are districts across a board that are in much worse
061situations where they cannot find certified teachers as many of you may be aware of right now you can hire a teacher back at a full salary and they can also collect a retirement initially the governor said there's no way she's approving that waiver one more time last weekend I heard some positive results from that that it looks like it may be something because schools are really getting nervous they're going to staff their buildings and and you want the most qualified people doing that and if you do not have the highest qualified people that impacts student learning so that's something we'll really have to keep a close eye uh there's talk about pool reimbursement to districts for special education students placed outside of District obviously districts burden those costs right now how can the state help
062offset some of those costs um and then restore any monies that a district May or should have received in years prior but there were adjustments made to their state aid if they pay you too much they come get it right away but if they owe you you don't get it so hopefully that is something that gets accelerated as well last topic has nothing to do with last weekend or the meetings but uh the end of the year schedule met with GFA as many of you know that we had two emergency school closing days this year that left us with two additional days available to use elsewhere of course I want to highlight that we have two but if we have to close again due to emergency conditions whether it's power weather anything water main break
063then we don't have two left so what do we do with those two days if you recall on the onepage calendar said well May 23rd that's the Friday before Memorial Day we don't use any snow days then students and staff will have off on that day we've obviously use two so that thought is not out there anymore so what we decide to do instead of using one of two we have left on that day because you're really taking a risk if something were to go wrong and you have a power outage for two days or more you've given back a day and you can't count that as a day of instruction there is emergency regulations from the governor but that's not when you can't do that if you've given a day back so we will
064give June 26 and 27th as it stands right now where only staff will report that communication will be going out to families but I want to present it to the board just so they're aware of if you hear why why are we not doing that Friday before May uh we did have to use a couple of snow days and to take that chance especially with an older building and those that have been around a long time though we've had a close in the past whether it's a water main break or electric outage that's where we're at and E what everybody else is we appreciate your consed support and all you do for our school so thank you thank you Mike um just in with Dr Hunter not here I'm going to give a quick update
065on a couple of topics the first is uh related to if you notice we haven't had a clerk SL secretary for the last couple of meetings we had uh we've been we've conducted a search for the U superintendent secretary SL district clerk we had 14 candidates apply that was narrowed down by an internal team to five there were five interview VI I believe I'm now four have been done one more do um and then uh we'll be that team I guess will also be narrowing it down to the top two I expect by Wednesday of this week we may at least have an interview with one of the top two and possibly two on that day but the second one there about few days later so by this week we may know who the candidate
066is on the 24th our board meeting on the 24th we should uh should be on the agenda to approve the candidate and hopefully we'll have a chance to have board members meet whomever that is between now and then that's on the clerk secretary additionally uh we are proceeding in the Board of Education met tonight in executive session to for the first time to look at the candidates for superintendent we had 21 initially apply uh three took their themselves out of the list we have narrowed I think we've narrowed it down to eight maybe nine and over the next couple of weeks through this month our consultant will be working on the scheduling looks right right now by April 20 22nd 23rd and 24th there will be uh a number of interviews taking place during those
067three days and then we will have two constituent I want to say constituent committees that will be made up of Faculty students community members uh that will conduct interviews of the top three candidates at the end of April the 28th 29th and 30th of April and by the end of April we may have a candidate selected so that's a very quick update update on both the district clerk secretary and the superintendent searches any questions on any of that at this point we did have one signing for community relations Mr denil you're outk Dan brought goodies I did I brought you goodies I want to say uh I'm I'm Dan Del I we my wife and I sue realize that we've lived on Highland Road for 50 years now together we've taught at genesio Central for
068about 45 you know and overlapping that we we always we're so grateful to have landed number one in jenal and number two for our our time here at school was is just been a gift you know so and I read I read your agenda before the meeting and I said oh this is this is a serious group here and uh uh I I I appreciate that and I thank you for your time and efforts for this school because I'm going to ask you to do a little bit more and I realize what the what the ask is anyway um I have some books and let me just distribute them quickly this looks like homework so I already own this book so if you could yeah okay okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so earlier this
069year uh my friend Rob Christie fellow swimmer uh said uh he liked this book he recommended this anxious generation how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an EP epidemic of mental illness it's a book written by Jonathan hate Rob and I are giving you this book uh to help provide background so as to support the development and an effective School cell phone policy so it's pretty it's pretty well timed actually um I like the book The Writing is clear it's easy to read um the book is less than 300 pages but it has 65 pages of notes and references and so I think it's it's really pretty well researched um at the end of each chapter are some bullet pointed summaries see you know if you forgotten what the first part of the chapter
070was you can pick it up at the end it's wonderful so um the problems observed in young people started in 2010 the smartphone came in in 2008 the problems uh that that started were an increases in Social deprivation sleep deprivation attention fragmentation and addiction the central theme Here is we've been overprotecting our children in the physical world while underprotection and ideas how to reduce and to work to eliminate these negative outcomes so it it you know it goes through the full gamut it's very helpful I thought it seems to me it seems like a legitimate problem this is a health issue clear and plain and and and simple it also seems like a problem with an understandable and doable solution or sets of solutions um I was listening to David Brooks give a lecture uh
071earlier last week and he said basically when we're confronted with serious issues serious ious problems and stuff like that whether it's personal or or cultural or whatever that we can some something's broken it can remain broken we can remain broken with it or we can be broken open and I like that idea of being broken open as being a bit of uh optimism so I think of this as an opportunity for the entire School Community to learn something about how to protect and nurture healthy childhoods the goal is clear work to enhance a play based childhood not a phone-based childhood to enhance a childhood that will result in the transition to a healthy adulthood parents students teachers staff members board members community members need to create opportunities let us be broken open and understand the
072learnings that come from a play-based childhood and the dangers inherent in a phone-based childhood so there are some easy fixes not all but we hope this book will provide a reason to put some time and energy into providing opportunities uh for young people to have be become more resilient stronger adults um so that's that's what I wanted to say um I'm really happy to hear I'm a little nervous about uh July 1 having this done quite frankly I was think thinking well you could have meetings with people you could bring people up to speed with it and stuff like that are there questions that you have for for me on this a wonderful yeah I read yeah yeah um if you could give it back to Mike when you're done okay and then were the
073idea that Rob and I thought well then they could you could begin to start to distribute them to faculty members faculty members I think need to um need to have a good understanding of of this so than you very yeah you're welcome app thanks for being patient with us tonight no it's fine it's fine big night for me uman you hav meted I believe we need before next okay next your next meeting is the 24th okay great Kev update on policy have work yeah so you poliy by July 1 yeah mik anything on GCF we met last week we're looking at enhancing some of our procedures for staff the fou and applying for grants in different funds the committee was also very generous realizing that today's day age costs are more extravagant for so for
074school initiatives whether it's going to see a show or going to see a science experient somewhere that they're going to raise from $500 to $600 Max which is a good thing so right look more to come good thank you all right with that nobody else was okay Kevin I'll turn over to you and for policies I mean s excuse me Personnel under the Personnel session I to ask for a consent motion for items 8.02 through 8.07 second any questions on any of the personel matters substitutes maybe softball coach bus drivers pleas [Music] absence hearing none all in favor I I anybody for okay so moved new business under new business like ask for personal cons motion for consent for the regular board meeting agenda and final recommendation superintendent through the C me minutes for the
075students okay so approval of 9.01 CSC minutes second any questions in favor I the business off like ask for a motion to consent for items 10.02 1. 10.01 to 10.02 second okay that's the Appropriations the revenue status report at this point any questions all in favor all right any post so I would just like to truly thank Stephanie for putting those together for it very informative and as a new board member I really appreciated the information to try to understand the I said she's she's better at pre je very I agree thank you is there anything else that for the board do anybody else have anything they would like to bring up before we close the meeting app looking no no okay with that like to ask for a motion for adman at 807 put