001meeting. If I could have everyone rise for the pledge of allegiance, that'll be led by board member Seaman. And if I could have everybody, some of you may notice our superintendent isn't here this evening. His uh mother-in-law suddenly passed away this afternoon. So, if you can keep the Smalline and Ricotta family, his mother-in-law's name was Patricia Ricotta. She passed away today. So, if you could keep the superintendent's family and the Ricotta family in your thoughts and prayers, that would be much appreciated. Thank you. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. [snorts] Can I move the agenda to the table, please? Moved by Vice President Stencil, seconded by board member Seaman. Any
002comments, corrections, additions, deletions to the agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes nine to zero. Bailey, you're up. >> All right, joke of the day. What did the tree say after a long cold winter? What a relief. [laughter] You're killing me, Bailey. You're killing me. [laughter] Thank you for that. I appreciate that. All right, now we get to our union comments. Uh, first up we have GTA, Mr. Thornton. Welcome this evening. >> Yeah. So, uh, obviously on the behalf of the GTA, we want to wish Mr. Smalling and his family um, our deepest consol condolences. We didn't know. Um, so obviously our our hearts are with him. I'll make this relatively quick. Um, we're excited. We start our uh GTA food drive this coming week to benefit the um, Greece food shelf. We
003know that we have our food shelves in the schools, which we love and support. We do other food drives for them. Um but this is a long-standing tradition and a partnership we have with uh Greece food shelf um for the greater community where we take the day collect food um we do monetary donations which they then can convert into food link um finances. So um it's a really good benefit for the community and obviously um the the food bank. Also, just wanted to plug real quick the nice fix tier six rally that's coming up. Um, for those of you that don't know how many of our teachers are tier six, um, or don't know about tier six. Tier four was retire at 55. You pay into the pension system for 10 years. Tier five got
004a little bit worse, but not too much worse. And people kind of rallied together and they made a couple changes. Tier six is teach tier 63, pay in the entire time at a higher rate, and instead of 2% of your um pension, you get 1.67% of your pension for the years. So, we'll have some Greece teachers that are currently with us teaching for 41 years. I don't know if you know how technology changes as quickly as it does, but I will say for me in particular, the box light was something that was like, "Oh, great. Another change." And I still have 11 years left. Um, so there's a big rally going on in Nice to try to um motivate some of our um legislators to take a look at I mean just making it a
005little bit more equitable across the thing. We know that starting at 42 $43,000 a year and then getting 4% would be a great number. You know, 5%'s amazing, but if you did that math over 40ome years, the with master's degrees, it's definitely something that we need to look at as a greater union as well as the GTA. So, on Sunday, um a day in March, I believe it's March 8th. I apologize, my phone turned off and I don't really feel like looking at it. Um, but somewhere around like the March 8th, there's a bus leaving Greece on a Sunday to go to Albany um with Greece teachers to to advocate for those changes. So, anything that the board can do to help with those, that'd be greatly appreciated in in your channels. So, again, condolences
006to Mr. Smalling and his family. Um, obviously all of you are very close with them, so our condolences go out to you as well. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Thornne. I'm going to ask two questions. >> Please don't. >> Um, >> isn't this [laughter] isn't this like a no question time? I thought that was a thing. >> I'm going to put you on a spot since you What are the specific fixes for tier six that to your understanding? >> Well, so I mean >> that they're proposing I guess that Nice fighting for >> a lot. I mean, so right now they've got it down to um it was your final average salary for five years. They got that turned back to back to three years. Um that that was a big win, but I mean
007they're trying to move it back to 57 instead of 63. Um, and they're they're just trying to chip away at it. Um, and when this happened originally with tier three and tier four or no, tier four fought for tier five. Um, it took a huge movement to make that roll back. Um, and that's basically what they're doing again to try to get the pension system back in. Obviously, we're not getting very many teachers into the field. Um, and with the delayed compensation that a pension is, it'd be very beneficial to to move that to get some more people enticed into the profession. >> So, I as far as specifics as to like what their goal is, I I feel like NICE will push as hard as they can until they get 55, but they'll, you
008know, they're trying to make some incremental changes because unfortunately till 63, they got a little bit of time. >> Yeah, a little bit. All right. Well, thank you. >> That was only one. You said two. No, there was going to be a follow-up one, but >> All right. >> You didn't have enough specifics, so I can't ask the follow. >> All right, Cassa, Mr. Ferris and Miss Lampman, welcome. [snorts] >> Everyone, thanks for having us. >> I'm Kelly Lapman. and I'm the principal of Longidge. >> I'm Mike Ferris, principal at Autumn Lane. >> And we have the honor to represent GASA and give some updates. We are at that midyear point and everybody is checking in on their school improvement plans. So, we have a lot of schools that wanted to share and so we're
009going to move through all of these exciting uh celebrations that everyone has. Just to remind everyone, you're going to see some um you know us going over some of the SIPs and the progress that they're making. one goal one was around instruction goal two PLC and three was behavior anything you want to I'm gonna start with the long ridge very exciting um and we are working in wig one to improve our reading proficiency using I ready as a measure and one of the fun ways that we get everyone involved is to get the kids excited about using their lead measures and really scoring and improving on their um I Ready diagnostic and so when students grew they got a sticker for ELA they got a sticker for math and then they I got to pick
010an administrator that they wanted to get um a pie in the face and so did a lot of campaigning to make sure it wasn't me. So [laughter] I was like please no. Um but Miss Watson took a pie in the face on Friday in front of the whole um school and it was just a really great time to show students that like learning can be fun and we can grow and still have a good time. >> All right, we have Petty Hill Elementary whose wig was focused on um finishing the ARC unit. So as you can see they were looking to reflect on some of the results there. Um the results of the post assessments are are a data point for SIP goal one which is to increase the percentage of their students scoring proficient
011at the grade level ARC unit writing rubric. So their focus is heavily focused on writing and you know the ARC core curriculum has been an uh an improvement there. >> At Brookside their staff was using um I Ready Diagnostic. They're analyzing and really using that information to differentiate instruction during their win time. >> All right. Pinebrook Pine Brook continues to monitor vocabulary growth like many of our other schools um through their I Ready diagnostic data. Students have participated in a literacy night and after school academic events, the explicit teaching of explicit teaching of routines and hands-on vocabulary experiences through inschool clubs and lessons. Oh, hey Autumn Lane. >> Hey, Autumn Lane is back. All right, so um it it's much easier to talk about your own school, I'm sure. As you can imagine, we are
012we are fortunate at Autumn Lane to be focused on our w wild widely important goal of increasing proficiency in reading. We're highly focused on our vocabulary growth for our school. And we've used a couple lead measures to get there. We're trying to get our school to to learn our students to learn at least 10 new academic words per week. And and in doing so, we're tracking them both within our our uh student trackers and our classroom trackers. And we have a schoolwide vocabulary train that you're going to see as you walk through the halls of Autumn Lane that is going to grow exponentially over the next couple of weeks. We are focused on I Ready vocabulary lessons. We're expecting that that's going to drive vocabulary instruction um that is going to be differentiated for our
013students. And finally, and you'll see a theme throughout um over the next few is that our PLC's are really focused on looking at that data to unpack the the data during those PLC's in order to differentiate instruction for our tier 2 and tier three students. And Otto is not the only school to do that. >> [clears throat] >> Yeah, ELC they are really looking at their um increasing their afterchool phonics instruction for their pre-K students. Um giving a lots of expanded learning opportunities. They're leveraging kids care programming which is really exciting because a lot of our schools have that using their community partners and family engagement to support that progress towards those benchmarks. >> That's another theme you'll notice is family engagement. And as community schools, we're really proud to be able to engage our
014families at Homes Road. The engaging data chats with administrators, interventionists, and counselors are happening happened in January. And they're analyzing reading and math unit assessments as well as looking at bench benchmark accessess assessments looking for growth and overall performance. And lastly, problem solving for students at the data chats and plan possible interventions. English Village is providing monthly take-home reading activities for their students to promote that literacy and family engagement. So, you're seeing that connection again to families at home. >> You can notice in the themes, right? >> All right. Um, Brandon wanted to give us a dissertation, so we decided [laughter] So, I'm not going to read that all to you. I'm going to point out the bolded parts that that's what I found pretty like super important. So, we're going to go there. They
015are excited. Uh we're excited for Brandon and their team, but that they are excited for the progress that they're making, especially with their PLC goals and what their PLC at their staff meetings, excuse me, their assistant principal for instruction and support and assistant principal for student support services, which are also here. Um have been leading professional learning focused on vocabulary instruction and its connection to the PLC PLC's for questions of DEOR. Oh, Arcadia too. Look at them. Um, they are reflecting on in their first semester. So, through a collaborative design process, staff is developing specific high impact action steps for February through June cycle and making sure that they align with our district goals. And so, they're ensuring that students are um that there's measurable growth for all students. And they're using really great instructional
016strategies to remain responsive to the evolving needs of all of their students. >> Good. Yes, >> our DCIA team sent um some information to us, the math department. Many of you might have been um aware that they had um they hosted a Candyland themed math night just recently and so for those that were present, thank you for supporting that. um that was at Marcadia Middle School and it was focused on uh the diff districtwide instructional tosses and their elementary math interventionists were there to support um providing games activities for approximately 550 people. So that's a home run right there for our math team. So thank you for providing that. Audrey and her team >> and that's it. >> Thank you. [laughter] >> Thanks >> [applause] >> All right. I have nobody from Gus, nobody from
017ASAP, and nobody from Teamsters, and I have nobody signed up for residents forum. So, we'll move into staffing 2.01. Can I move somebody move the staffing to the table, please? Moved by Vice President Stencil, seconded by board member like. Any comments, questions, or concerns on staffing? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes nine to zero. Assistant Superintendent Larson. Thank you so much. I'm very pleased this evening to welcome our new director of instructional equity and innovation, Mr. Brandon Jones. [applause] Brandon Jones has been a member of the Gree Central School District since July of 2017, where he joined as an assistant principal at Odyssey Academy. His career in the district is defined by a steady trajectory of leadership. In 2021, he was appointed principal of Craig Hill Elementary and in 2023, he transitioned to
018principal of Olympia School. Before working in Greece, Brandon served the Rochester City School District as both special education administrator and teacher. These diverse roles have provided him with invaluable lessons that continue to guide his professional practice today. Throughout his career in Greece, Brandon's mission has been centered on elevating student outcomes for all learners. He is a staunch advocate for high-quality teaching and learning specifically focused on addressing educational disparities, excuse me, through research-based instructional strategies and innovative creative approaches to school structure. Brandon is eager to scale this impact, bringing his passion for systemic improvement from a single building to the district as a whole. Brandon would like to give special thanks to the Olympia community. It was at Olympia that he felt empowered to innovate and lead with a fresh perspective. He expresses his sincere gratitude
019to Olympia's students, staff, and families for providing grace and trusting him to lead. He is proud of what they accomplished together and looks forward to finishing the school year with strength and purpose. In addition, Brandon would like to give a special shout out to Dr. Michael Zapitz through consistent encouragement, constructive feedback, and unwavering support. Dr. Zapitz has been instrumental in Brandon's professional growth. By fostering an environment that allowed for creative problem solving and innovative mindset, Brandon was able to address Olympia's needs. Brandon recognizes that his success at Olympia would not have been possible without Dr. Zafet's support. Brandon would be remiss if he did not acknowledge the sacrifice, struggle, love, and kindness that his grandmother, Patricia Shields, and mother, Tracy Jeff, provided over the years. To honor their memories, Brandon commits to bringing his best
020self to work every day. Lastly, Brandon would like to thank the board of education, Superintendent Smalline, and his cabinet for their confidence in his ability to help lead the district into its into its next chapter. Congratulations, Brandon. We're very excited for you. [applause] >> Hey, you're the first person I haven't had to tell. That's what I'm impressed about you, Brandon, all the time. You got it down. So, first it'll be cabinet, then it'll be your Olympia team, and then your two special guest stars that came back to Greece. Thank you. Let's go. Sorry. >> Get up there. [laughter] It's a happy moment. We like happy moments. [applause] >> Thank you everybody. Thank you for coming. >> All right, moving on to 2.02 tenure. Can I so move that to the table, please? Moved by Mr.
021Butler, seconded by Mr. Falserano. Any comments, questions, or concerns on the tenure? Oh, >> board member like I would just like to thank the principles um who have written these tenure um you may not think that people read them but I really do and I think they've just improved um exponentially over like the last year. So I do appreciate them and I know the time it takes to write them. So thanks. >> Any other questions? All right, seeing none. All those in favor that passes nine to zero. Moving on to 2.03 03 the non-unit rate can I say move that to the table please moved by Mr. Maloney seconded by Mr. Butler any comments questions concerns on this seeing all's in favor that passes nine to zero 2.04 the teamsters MOA can I have Sony
022move that to the table please move by Miss Seaman seconded by Mr. Malone. Any comments, questions, concerns on that? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 9 to zero. Moving on to Augustus MOA. Can I s move that to the table, please? Moved by Miss Farmer, second by Mr. Maloney. Any comments, questions, concerns on that? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 9 to zero. Moving on to 4.01, the 2627 state aid proposal presentation. Deputy Superintendent Fleming. >> Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to ask our assistant superintendent for finance and administrative services, Mr. Romeo Koly, to please come up for our presentation on the executive budget state aid. >> Thank you, Mark. Uh Sean, do you wish to clear out the room before we start [laughter] for this meeting? I give you
023that opportunity to >> No, they're all enthralled with what you have to say, Romeo. So, this is good. >> Look at the bright side, you know. [laughter] >> Thank you very much. So, we're going to talk tonight about uh the executive budget. Uh on January 20th, Governor Hokll presented her uh budget for next school next year. Um in there uh were a variety of things. Um I'm just going to highlight some of the items that kind of particularly relate uh to school districts. Uh first, it's the highest ever school aid total. So, there's approximately $ 39.3 billion allocated towards uh school aid for next year. That's a a $1.6 billion increase or about four just over 4% increase over last year or the current year. So, significant amount of money. Two, foundation aid increased about
024uh $779 million or just under 3% for a total of 20 just over 27 billion. Um the proposal provides a 1% minimum increase to all districts who who would have been held harmless and there's no changes to the formula. So one of the things I'll talk about in a moment I can elaborate a little bit later. Um it's a significant change for the district over the last five six years going into 2627. We have always been on formula. We've always seen a u a a decent increase in our foundation aid and then for this year for a variety of reasons uh some of which we're looking into and trying to advocate for uh we're only seeing a 1% increase. We are one of those 1% do minimum districts. Um there are 460 other districts in
025the same boat. So that is a change for us. Um but that's what came out in the governor's budget and that's what we're dealing with at this time. All our expensebased aids uh transportation, building aid, all those things where we have to spend money uh and then get reimbursed are fully funded with no changes to the formulas. All the cateor categorical grants are funded uh under current law. The executive budget provides about $395 million for universal school meals, similar to what was done in the current year. So, all students, regardless of income, will receive uh breakfast and lunch at no cost. There's about $55 million allocated towards that. And this free summer programming food program will also continue. Universal prek funding has it saw an increase of about $431 million to about 1.5 billion. Um
026it's to make sure that by 2829 all four year olds who wish access to UPK have access to a UPK program. Um and a significant item is the the budget increases for most districts and we are one of those districts the UPK funding to about $10,000 per student. Next, the governor's budget also provides uh funding for college and high school opportunities which include the items shown on the slide. Smart schools, smart transfers, technology pathways, high school students interested in a teaching position can earn college credit in relevant subjects while they're in high school. That is a good thing. back to basics in math, similar to literacy, uh was an emphasis point. Uh there's $2 million provided for teacher training and best practices. High impact tutoring, $9 million to support targeted literacy and math tutoring of
027students in high district highne districts. Um, additionally, the governor's budget has a recommendation in it to eliminate the prior year adjustment Q for all payments prior to 2526. Um, and there's no funding to pay that off. So for uh the prior year Q for all districts in New York State, it's about $18.5 million that is owed to districts throughout New York State. Uh that uh her proposal is to not pay. Um for us specifically, it's just over $700,000 that is owed to us over a period of time that we are unlikely to see. And then lastly, there's no no new proposed changes to the zeros emissions bus mandate, which was a surprise to many folks, but the mandate as originally uh articulated is still in place, which means that uh you can't you cannot purchase
028any new school buses um that are gas or diesel without a waiver starting in 2027. and you have to convert your whole fleet to a zero emission by 2035. So, what does the governor's budget look like for us for the upcoming year? Um, traditionally, there are uh fewer columns on here. There are two on the far left because we adopted our budget in April of last year, but the state budget didn't come out to May, so I included both. And in the first green column is the executive governor's budget for state aid and then a variance and percentage change on it. For foundation aid, you'll see we increased our um foundation aid was increased by 1,214,000. There's literally just 1%. And as I look at that 1% knowing that CPI, consumer price index and inflation
029is going to be 2.7 2.8. It's a third of the inflation factor for 2025 and we're only getting 1% uh to meet the needs of all our students in a a very tough environment. Um, as [clears throat] I mentioned, there's 460 districts in the same boat as we are. Um, looking down a little bit further, our building aid is highlighted here. Uh, right now you see a decrease of about 556,000. We believe that number should be a little bit higher. We will confirm that uh next week when we meet with our uh financial consultants. Uh we filed what are called final cost reports at the end of December that we believe are not reflected in here and should raise that amount in the February database run. Um so that is one item we're keeping our
030uh eyes on. Um we received uh 7.4 million or 7.4% 4% increase in transportation. Uh universal prek uh is at $2,980,000 is the max that we could receive in UPK given that we could fund uh and and provide programming for every kid that wants it. Public excess cost and private excess cost. Uh some modest increases in there. Um and then we get down to Bosey's aid. Bosey's aid again is highlighted because we believe that number should be higher as well given the expenses that we incurred that we will incur this year that may not be reflected in there but again we'll confirm that at a later time and bring back that change to the board um when we're when we know what we're going to do with it. Overall, um, our b our state aid
031budget that we are using in the initial budget in for now is $170,144,000, which is just under 1% increase in our total state aid, which again is very different than what we have seen in past years, but we're going to need to go with that number until something changes. questions. All right, moving on to 4.02. Deputy Superintendent Fleming. >> I'd like to ask Mr. Janine Kum Kushman, excuse me, our executive director for budget and strategic planning to please uh join Miss Romeo Killy at the podium. Uh together, they'll be sharing our initial budget update of the budget season. >> Okay. So this is our traditional first pass um at our uh budget for 2627 and then all adjustments will be based on this. Primarily what we try to do is what would it cost us
032to do everything we were doing this year with the staff that we have. What would it cost us next year to do the same thing? There's two sections to this which is well three revenues. I'm going to do the revenues. Janine is going to talk about the expenditures and then we'll uh show um the board what the gap is and talk a little bit about our plans for that. So on the revenue side um you can see here our our revenues uh for the current year 2526 at the bottom we're about 318.5 million uh million dollars for the current year. Um, as we've looked at some of the sales tax and pilot agreements, we've made some adjustments as you can see here. We'll put the variances. I'll show you those on the next slide. We're
033looking at an initial pass at revenues for next year at $324.8 million, which is uh $6.3 million more next year conservatively than we're getting for this year, or just under 2% increase. just for some of the larger numbers. Um the state aid, we provided some breakdowns uh of what the variances are. So the state aid we just talked about, again, it's at the due minimum of 1%. Uh we'll see if that changes over the next couple months. Our preliminary tax cap calculation for our tax levy is uh about $2.8 million higher next year than it is for this year. There's small adjustment in our pilot payments. Sales tax, we've taken the 90% of the last three-year average. Again, trying to be a little bit conservative because we just don't know what could happen uh with
034inflation or any type of environmental movement where we won't get the sales tax that we received in previous years. So, we've kind of flattened that out a little bit, but increased it by about $500,000. interest earnings. Um we've increased about $500,000. Um we've locked in some good rates for the next 12 to 18 months, but with Fed cuts potentially coming to rates that could change quickly. We don't want to be overly aggressive on that and then find that we're under on interest earnings. Um and we banked on it to pay some expenditure. So conservatively we've increased that $500,000 and then we've increased almost $800,000 for some revenues for our kids care uh prior year Bosey's uh services in health and welfare services. So, in general, in the more traditional look, our state aid, again, as
035we saw in the previous uh presentation, $170.1 million. State aid right now makes up about 52 to 53% of our total revenue. So, we're pretty reliant on uh state aid. So, when that number is only at 1%, uh that makes a difference for us. Tax levy again uh at about $131 million. And you can see the totals again coming back down to a revenue increase of about $6.3 million at this point in time. Thank you. So, as we've shared in the past, um our budget process starts early in the fall where we meet with the superintendent and cabinet, buildings, and departments in order to build based on their input, their budget projections to sustain current pro programs as well as initiatives that they are looking to advance. The budget that we're going to share tonight
036is the budget that sustains current programs based on current rates that we expect and any necessary changes and resources that need to be put in place to sustain those programs. So when we look at this, I want you to reflect on the fact that we have over 3,000 employees and 48% of our budget represents the salaries for those employees. Another 9% of our budget represents TRS, ERS, and social security uh payments for that we are obligated to pay. And another 16% of the budget, excuse me, are the health, dental, and other benefits. So there's a great deal of our budget that's already locked in regardless of anything that anything else that we do. So in looking at the variances, we'll see that at 48% of our budget is increasing $7.8 million based on the contracts
037that are in place. our current staff that we are uh supporting that are supporting our kids and all the other individuals that support the operations within the district. ERS is increasing based on the salaries that are eligible to be covered as well as a significant portion of that increase is because a rate increase from ERS for district contribution increasing from 16.5% to 17.6%. So that's increasing about 9%. It's 9% of our budget. And then equipment, supplies, contract services represent 10% of the budget. The increase of 2.1 million dollars there is contract transportation, security, and utilities primarily. What's not reflected in that are adjustments for contract services that we take from that number and move to Boseies. So our Boseies increase that you'll see of 1.6 million represents new services or expansion of services on Bosey's
038programs. Bosey's coasters that we enroll in that generate aid for us. Romeo talked about our Bosey's aid number is probably understated. So we'll be looking at that. So we look to move any services that are within those eligible BOSEIS programs into there so that we can generate aid in the upcoming year. And then the other major variance, excuse me, is health dental driven by our staff enrolled in various whatever health programs are in and the district contribution that we're expecting to go up 10% in the next round of uh increases for January to June of next year. So, as I said at the beginning, our initial budget is current program only other than adjustments for costs and necessary resource changes. What's not included are new initiatives or expansions by expansions advocated by buildings or departments,
039adjustments to additional addition additional crests and staffing to enrollment or other staffing adjustments which will then be reviewed by uh cabinet as we go as we continue to go through the process. Rom is going to take it over from here. All right. So, we've seen the revenues, we've seen the expenses, and they're listed here. So, we have a gap, an initial gap right now of almost $12 million, which is about three and a half% of that expenditure number that it's 3 and a half% of that 336 um million dollar budget. So as we looked at this um from 2015 to about 2020 we were ex exactly in the same place as we are now. We've always had experienced a budget gap in the initial rollover. Then from about 2021 to 2025 um we had the
040full implementation of the foundation aid formula. Other things were in different places. We saw we didn't have any gaps. This is year one of what we project to be going back to the precoid days of having a gap and having to make adjustments within the budget. As we looked at it compared to previous years, the range of the gap from 2015 to 2020 was as low as.5% or as high as 3.6%. And that 3.6% was in 2015. and the range was somewhere around 2.8 2.9% is generally what our gaps had been. So this is a little bit higher but it's not surprising to anybody because we were expecting this at some point in time and that's why we put monies into the reserves when we could for all those years knowing that this was coming
041up. However, this has come up a little bit sooner than we thought it would be coming up. Um [clears throat] so next steps so the finance team will continue as Janine said continue to look at expenditures and revenues and operating efficiencies as much as we can for potential adjustments without impacting any student programming. That is the key uh without impacting programming. Two, we've got reserve funds and we've [clears throat] got and we have appropriated fund balance. Reserves andor appropriated fund balance will be used to help balance the budget for next year after we make all other adjustments to the budget and bring them here for cabinet uh to review and approve in the adopted budget. But at the end of the day, we will use part of our reserves to close the budget. Lastly, cabinet
042finance, human resources will be talking to schools and others will review all our budget components over the next 14 months with the goal of having a balanced budget by the 2829 year without the use of reserves. Now that is going to take a little bit of work and a little bit of time but luckily we have reserves available to us to bite us over for 2627 2728 if we need it but by 2829 we believe we need to be in a different place than we are now. [clears throat] Um realigning the budget uh is not something we can just do overnight. It's going to take a little bit of time and as Janine had alluded to earlier, 75% of our budget is staffing and benefits related to that staffing. So we want to be very
043mindful and aware of any staffing adjustments that take place, what the impact is not only immediately but downstream as well to student programming. And to do that, it's going to need time rather than trying to make a rash decision that we should adjust here or adjust there. We want to do our best to think about it and make sure that any adjustments needed to staffing um are purposeful and intentful and and have likely have the intented intended impact uh where we want it. Again, for next year, we do not anticipate any layoffs for 2627. However, that doesn't mean that a a vacancy or uh a vacancy by attrition or some other adjustments may not may take place. It it may, but no physical person, no physical body will lose a position uh for next year.
044It's not our intent. everything we'll be working towards. How do we continue to do more with the staff we have while addressing the budget concerns as well? >> Mr. Butler, >> thank you. And uh thanks uh Romeo and Gene and the whole team for your uh um your work on this. Uh we spent our retreat on Saturday uh going through this in great detail. So, I think we got a lot of our uh questions answered at that time. I did have two uh that that came to mind. The first was um on slide five, there's a uh 2.7% increase in uh special education, private placement, and charter. I wonder if you can give me any sense of how that breaks down. Is there one piece of that that's making up for the bulk of that
045increase? >> It's primarily charter. >> Okay. >> It's primarily charter. Uh but we do have some modest increases across the board with that. >> Uhuh. So are the charter expenses uh more students or higher costs per student? >> Yes, both. >> Both. Okay. >> We have more kiddos there and each year we see um anywhere from a $500 to a $700 increase in the tuition rate. Um the increases in the number of charter students has slowed, but we're also seeing new a few new charters coming on board. And traditionally, their structure is to start with a couple of grades and then add year after year. So we may likely see another blip in enrollments at the new at the new sites. Okay. going forward. >> Vice President Stutzel. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I
046just want to echo Mr. Butler's comments. Um, and give you your entire team a huge shout out. Everything we've gotten before the retreat, the retreat we just had, and now your team is so thorough and dedicated to what you do, the projections you make. It really informs us as a board about what to expect, where we're coming. You've got the most up-to-date information. You're always communicating with us. So, really just want to express true gratitude and appreciation for all that you guys do and everyone that's behind the scenes that works with you. Um, because I don't think a lot of folks watching at home truly appreciate or understand like all the effort that you put into it. I certainly didn't before I became a board member and you know I'm still digesting a lot of
047it even in my second year. But I really just want to say you guys knocked it out of the park. So, thank you so much for all you do. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Mr. Maloney. on page seven. Um the Bosey's uh extra there, the 1 646 million. >> Yep. >> Is that existing that it's not adding any coasters to that? It is an expansion of community schools and it is a reflection of shifting um community schools leader and me and arts and education which would have been building based expenses that are now running through boseies that will generate aid to assist in sustainability of those programs. So when we would send kiddos to um JVA or to the strong museum or to RBTL or to the zoo, those dollars would just be spent
048going through arts and education. We spend those dollars through Boseies, but get aid then back on that that adds to the sustainability of it. So we'll be getting aid back on the on the 1,600 >> back on the whole most most of the 20 well the non-special ed because special ed is aided differently because we stack those kiddos but the service the services that we run through Boseies will be aided back at 75%. >> Okay thank you Mr. Barora, >> I'll quickly echo the same sentiments. You guys do a remarkable job and and are have been very creative with the use of our resources. So, thank you for that. Um, I uh I'm wondering if there are I don't know if you can even identify it now for us, but are there unfunded mandates that
049are kind of new or just continuing to grow that that the the budget uh aid is not even keeping pace with there? And I I can think of some things in my own mind, but I mean, are there things like that that would kind of point to an inequity in in the state's uh ask of us or demand of us? So certainly speaking from the perspective of and listening to Stacy Brendesy's concerns over um providing mandated services to our special ed students, our ability to continue to support that because we have to go outside to provide pro to find providers for many of those services is increasing those costs in ways that are not um immediately addressed. Those children could be stacked and and aid would be generated on it, but we're not going to
050ever get the full impact of that. And it's shifting the costs from salary costs to contract costs. Um, and we're not going to Boseies because they're not providing us with the opportunities to support our kiddos that we would would hope. >> So, that's just one. >> Um, charters, we that is just increases at a rate that I think is ridiculous. Uh >> charters >> and we have no choice >> is probably a good one because we don't get much back on that one. >> Um but new ones in the last couple years having a little difficulty identifying, but I'm sure there are on the program side. >> Yeah. >> I just can't think of them off the top of my head or what the the the what that dollar amount might be. that's impacting us
051that we're getting no funding for but are required to do but it is probably something we could >> get our hands around if it would help the board. Mckin Vento >> Mckin Vento there's no additional that's it's I wasn't thinking of that because it was it's always been around but Mckin Vento for sure we we've got you know >> it's the inherent growth that's embedded in some of these >> and that population is growing uh for homeless students. So as that population grows that's money we spend that we really don't have much put much funding coming back for. It's strictly cash out and we have to do it by law. But anything like brand new for the the last couple years. I'm I'm falling a little short. Uh but there are a variety of mandates
052out there that impact us heavily. >> We can put that together if the board likes. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Miller. Thanks. Uh my second question was around also on page five was around the uh growth in health and dental expenses. Um, I want to be clear, I'm not interested in reducing benefits at all, but I do wonder what we're if we're looking at strategies to reduce the growth of those costs. I know some large organizations uh go self-insured, um, health buyouts for people who don't need the insurance, but uh, um, would be happy with a with a buyout, which would cost us a whole lot less than providing the insurance. I just wonder if those are things that you know in your upcoming exploration you're going to be doing uh looking at getting us
053to sustainability is something that you're going to be looking at in the in the health and benefits category. >> So we we are part of a health consortium that is self-insured. Okay. Um, we are we our number that's here is based on current contracts and what we anticipate open contracts that we'll be settling shortly to likely settle at. But it is based on the enrollment of our current staff uh in the various programs and um this represents the district contribution to those benefits. Todd, one one one thing that I would add is Janine mentioned, we're in a consortium called Rash. So I'm on the board there, [clears throat] excuse me. And every district's experience is same thing. So one of the things that's going to be happen on more of say a county basis. We're
054always looking in in in-house to how we can still provide excellent benefits for our staff at a little bit lower cost. Sometimes it gets tricky, but we're always working towards that. on a more global basis. U there's the health care and then there's the pharmacy benefit, right? The the scripts. Um, the consortium is going to be going out, I believe, at this year sometime with an RFP, a request for proposal for possibly a new pharmacy benefit manager, which my understanding that number has grown to like 50 of them out there in in the world now when it used to be a much smaller number because there's so much to be gained in that pharmacy business. So, we will be doing an RFP for that and hopefully bring down the cost of our scripts from a
055different vendor who than we currently provide. That could see savings as immediately as July 1, I'm sorry, January 1st of 2027 >> if it can go out the door and come back and be analyzed and approved by the for before December. >> Um, so that's probably the major one, but in house, we're always looking. >> That's a great example. Thank you, >> Mr. Veraggorio, you used a phrase u about doing more with the same or possibly fewer people. In another venue, we've been having conversations about the the lack of of resources of different types, including the people. Um that [snorts] we all know the pain of that. Um I I I >> maybe maybe a better word would have been differently. >> Well, I I'm >> only because I hear what you say because we
056hear it too. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It's just more and more and more we got to find a different way to do it. >> And and and along those lines, uh a question came up in another conversation about um the use of of volunteers. And I think, you know, probably another area to look at and, you know, including um the possibility of parents helping out in classrooms and things like that. It's just an incredible amount to ask of our staff. And one one thing we've talked about at cabinet is uh that I failed to mention is that even though we've got this gap and we will be working to reduce that and to do things differently over a two-year period, there will still be ads to the budget as as the school year goes around
057because needs will change. We will find ways of doing things differently. There may be nothing being done any differently, but we need more staff in a particular area. Those will be coming back to the board. Even though we have a structural deficit in the budget right now, we will be adding not to the tune that we had in the past, but we will coming back because there will be a need that needs another person in order to do with it and we'll note it and take that into consideration as we look at how do we adjust this going forward in the next couple years. Um, so I didn't want to imply everybody's going to do more with less, but if we need to add staff or we need to add services, contract, we will come
058back to the board and make those adjustments requests. >> I know we're conscientious to those concerns and and uh thank you for, you know, just bringing it to our attention. Um, but yeah, we need to find Thank you. of some solution. Thanks. >> Thank you. Thank you everyone. >> All right, moving on to 5.01 non-district transportation requests. Can I move that to the table, please? Moved by Vice President Stencil, seconded by Mr. Maloney. Any comments, questions, concerns? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes nine to zero. Moving on to change order. Okay. So, I move the change order at the table, please. Mr. Maloney, seconded by Mr. Butler. Um, that change order amounts to $14,24. Anybody have any comments, questions, or concerns on that? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 9 to
059zero. Moving on to 5.03, the building condition survey award resolution. Can I Sony move that to the table, please? Moved by board member Seaman, seconded by Miss Farmer. Any comments, questions, or concerns on that? Seeing none, all those in favor? That passes 9 to zero. Moving on to the consent agenda. Can I so move that to the table, please? Moved by Mr. Butler, second by Miss. Any comments, questions, or concerns on that? Um, I would just like to thank the extra classroom activities funds at Arcadia for their donations, Athena and Olympia. Um, I'd like to thank Kenmla Trob for their donation. District office employees Aaron Defendorf, John and Nicole Siki, Dave Phelps, human resources employees, and Kelly Sperdudo. They all donated gift cards for the holiday gift giving for secondary students. So, I'd like to
060thank all of them. With that, all those in favor of their consent agenda. That passes 9 to zero. Moving on to 10.01, nomination of the Boseies board member candidates. Can I so I move that to the table, please? Moved by Vice President Stencil, second by Mr. Butler. Any comments, questions, concerns on this, M. Do you have your hand up, Bill? Oh, okay. All right. No questions. All those in favor? That passes nine to zero. I want to thank every I'd like to take a minute to thank Chuck Phillips who served as our Boseies 2 board member for probably almost 40 years. So, I'd like to thank him for his service. He's stepping down and we just appointed our former colleague uh Terry Malor who will do an amazing job representing Greece on the Bosey's board.
061With that um we're moving on. I'm going to take the board of egg code of conduct committee report since our next action is based on that committee. If they could give a report Mr. Bonagorio. >> Thank you Mr. President. The board code of conduct committee was made up of stakeholders with differing perspectives. In addition to board members Butler, Fzerano like, and myself, we had four district representatives, Deputy Superintendent Mark Fleming, assistant superintendent Christine Baker, Athena High School principal Jason Falkerson, and Autumn Lane Elementary School principal Mike Ferris. In addition, we had three members representing various teacher voices. GTA President Brian Eerts, Athena Middle School teacher Dan Neville, and retired teacher and active substitute teacher Holly Stetner. Finally, we had two members of the Greece community whose children are current or future Greece central uh students,
062Mr. Gerrell Bowens, who is an assistant high school principal in Brighton, and Miss Kartney Code Cardau, a special ed teaching assistant in the Spencer Port District. I would like to thank each of them for their commitments of time and service above and beyond their regular working hours and volunteer hours. I see several well several out here and there were a couple out there and still one out there. Um in all there were 13 of us participating on the board committee. We generally met twice a month since the committee was established this past summer. 13 is quite a large number for an active board. We realized that that in itself would pose a challenge. It was my desire that all perspectives would have the the opportunity to be heard and quoting from our report various opinions
063were brought forward to the committee. The major themes that emerged as possible areas of focus were as follows. clarifying the use of restorative and traditional disciplinary responses which is New York's safe schools against violence and education act safe and orderly learning environments consistent application of progressive discipline review of data discipline matrix resource review and professional development we sought to achieve consensus on recommendations end quote and I'll add that frankly that was a challenge In the end, the committee could agree only on the one main idea area that we thought could meaningfully strengthen the code and improve its effectiveness in practice. That being clarifying the use of restorative and traditional disciplinary responses. Our consensus conclusions were that quote, "The code of conduct emphasizes restorative practices without sufficient clarity that restorative practices are to be used in
064collaboration with traditional disciplinary interventions. and that clarifying expectations around the use of both restorative and traditional disciplinary interventions and refining the range of available responses may promote greater consistency, transparency, and confidence among staff and families." End quote. The committee made seven recommendations within this theme to bring greater clarity and balance to the language of the code of conduct. One, to explicitly state in the code of conduct that restorative practices and traditional disciplinary responses are complimementaryary and can be used concurrently. Two, to revise code language to ensure balanced treatment of both approaches with specific sections of the code referenced. Three, to remove a relationship styles chart that mischaracterized traditional disciplinary responses. Four, to provide clarity around more consistent progressive disciplinary responses to repeated behaviors. Five, to evaluate through the RTI process a structured decision-making framework leaving
065linking behavior severity, excuse me, linking behavior severity, frequency, and prior interventions to disciplinary outcomes. Six, to evaluate the impact of disciplinary practices on individuals affected by misconduct and to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. And seventh, to explore ways to evaluate the impact of negative behaviors, for example, through lost instructional time. Some of these recommendations reference specific sections of the code of conduct for review. Others are more general and convey an aspirational sense for further revisions. I would like to say that there was vigorous but respectful discussion around these points as well as significant areas of disagreement. So much so that we couldn't even agree to these modest recommendations without including a disclaimer statement at the end of the introduction. Beyond these recommendations that revolved around a theme of greater clarity and balance in the language
066of the code of conduct, we discussed numerous related issues, but were unable to achieve consensus on the need for further review, let alone to adopt specific recommended actions and be submitted the report for the board's review. >> Thank you, Mr. Bagorio. that I'm going to discharge that committee. Um, thank everyone who served on it for their service. And now we'll move on to resolution 10.02, the board of ed code of conduct report resolution, which is adopting the report that the code of conduct committee um came forward with it. Can I get a motion to adopt the report? Moved by Mr. Butler, second by Mr. Felerano. Any comments, questions, or concerns? Mr. Butler? Yeah, I'd just like to thank uh as uh board member Baronagorio did the the folks who uh gave so much time to
067this this effort. Thank uh Mr. Baronagoro for his leadership of the of the group and thank especially our community members who uh turned out to participate in this and shared uh their perspective on all of these issues and uh uh without without that we wouldn't have been able to do what we did. So thank you for for that. Any other comments? >> Um I I guess I have a question for the committee. Um I guess what else did you do? I mean it's been seven months. I mean a lot of staff hours, a lot of volunteer hours, a lot of board member hours into this committee. I mean I guess what did you guys discuss that we couldn't reach any form of consensus on? I mean, I guess at this point I'm horrified by this
068report after seven months that this is the best a board of education committee could come up with. I mean, I'm embarrassed for the board. I'm embarrassed for our community. Um, I I I'm almost speechless, which doesn't happen too often for me. So, I guess it's um it's pretty disappointing, I guess, when I think about the amount of time and effort people put into this that there wasn't some type of formal resolutions, formal recommendations. I mean, we have a generic report that seems to be a huge waste of time. I could have typed this up before you guys met and we would have been all set. So, I guess I don't understand. I guess that's where my confusion or my lack of understanding is is what else did you guys discuss that we couldn't reach? I
069guess any four of you that are on the board can answer this. What did you discuss that you couldn't have a conversation enough to reach some form of consensus to come back with some recommendations? I mean, I look at the code of conduct, and this is just me going to spout off is there's a whole section at the beginning of the code of conduct that references philosophy, which is a lot of Yeah. I mean, I look at the code of conduct as more like a should be our rules and regulations, you know, our discipline matrix, things along those lines, and there's a lot of philosophical language there that I think would have been an easy tweak, removal, shorten a document, etc. So, I guess I'm just confused to what you guys truly did. So, I
070guess that's my question to you. If somebody would like to answer, I'd be happy to hear it. Miss Lake, >> we had some I thought very productive dialogue about different areas of the code of conduct that we felt as people would express what they felt was needed. Um once the resolutions were written then it became really an ideological um divide and so settling on the language was something. So resolutions were written, they were rewritten, they were written again, they were amended, and yet still we couldn't come to an agreement on proposing this um to the board. Um so that's I think basically um what I felt happened through our committee. Um I don't remember exactly. I know one of the things that was on our our list of themes was deans of discipline. Um so
071that was one of the things one of the topics that we um had conversations about. Um another one was as as Sean just mentioned um lengthy paragraphs explaining a philosophy um that we felt um kind of muddied the water. And we're looking for clear distinctions between restorative practices and progressive consequences and how they work side by side. Um something else that um some of us felt was important was that um as we collected data um to be able to share that data um with the board because a lot of that data was why we originally asked for a board committee. Um when we looked at the percentages of students that were responsible for um a great many of a great very [clears throat] high percentage of the um the referrals um and how when we
072looked at um different schools and different means of discipline um sometimes we weren't seeing that progressive the progressive consequences that we we thought we might see. Um, I don't remember the other themes that we did talk about. >> Thank you, Mr. Lake. Mr. Bonagorio, >> first I I can assure you there was significant conversation. We began the the process early summer, I guess, after after the new board convened. And one of the uh first uh assessments that we took was regarding u what is what in the code of conduct is strong what is not so strong. Uh some of the some of the responses that came back were some of the things that you've mentioned. I had some I've been talking about this for four years now. I had some serious concerns. Others felt that
073everything was fine just as it is. So there was a divide. Uh overcoming that divide was was pretty challenging. We had we put together a list of uh seven seven thematic um options to deal with. uh restoring balance, listening and problem solving, the use of SAVE, maintaining instructional space, use of progressive discipline, suspensions for serious infractions, and then through all of this process, the the conversation of resources kept resurfacing, which was something we thought some of us thought ought to also be added to our our list of recommendations. We had numerous suggestions within within each of those themes and I'll just mention a few of them. We weren't just twiddling our thumbs. I can I can assure you of that. Uh two two of our committee members um wrote a a uh an an enhanced
074an enhancement to strengthen the language around save. uh we we had a a thorough conversation of that about that and couldn't find the the support in the room to to sustain that. Uh there was a lot of conversation around maintaining this whole thing comes up out of the the need to provide a safe and orderly environment not only to protect the the needs of the kids who violate the code of conduct by law. We have to do that and we want to do that but we also need to pro protect the environment for the kids who are there to learn. And so this was one of the other areas of of discussion strengthening language to support removals and and and access to alternative supports for th for the kids who might need to be removed
075so that we could protect the the uh opportunity educational opportunities for the remaining students. staffing accommodations that should be me that would be needed to ensure that those students whose behaviors are most challenging are are being addressed by people with the the needed skills. Um, under the the considerations of progressive discipline recommendations to define thresholds for chronic repeated misconduct that require escalation because we often see situations where students with repeated violations, numerous, tens, 30s, even over a hundred. We don't see any significant escalation. And yet we we theoretically uh subscribe to progressive discipline. Um ensuring narrowing the ranges of of available responses. couldn't get couldn't get agreement around that in order to provide definition regarding how uh how we might clarify for a district that's made of 18 different schools and 18 different principles and
076even more assistant principles who are dealing with these issues. Uh establishing an oversight mechanism. We talked about the possibility of deans of discipline or different responsibilities for assistant principles to ensure consistency across buildings just to bring forth some ideas. There was a proposal for the district to bring to bring up a a plan or or a model before the board for further consideration. Couldn't get support around around that idea. um using it using a more clarified district mat um discipline matrix and even even even around the idea of resources and professional development to to ensure that we have staff properly trained for deescalation and classroom management. Somehow we couldn't find the u the cohesion to suggest that that we that that should we should bring that back for further consideration possibly because it wasn't necessarily
077specifically in the code of conduct that it might be a reach. But even more to me frustrating u and I do share your your disappointment uh we I thought we had significant significant consensus around the idea of of balance and and the excessive language and way too many pages in the code of conduct. Uh we we could barely get that through without it being watered down. It comes down to quite simply there's a lot of people with a lot of ideas. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Felon. I do want to reiterate um it was a challenge to work with a group this size on um a topic that really started at ground zero in terms of what is restorative practices versus traditional. So, we've really had to anchor ourselves in around that understanding. And that
078took some time. Remembering too that it is not one or the other, it's both. And I think to the degree that people on the committee were viewing it took some time and and I will say at the end, I was pretty happy with the fact that we reached consensus. I I don't think it was as bad as I'm sorry, Mark, uh, board member Mark. It was better than what you shared. It it really it did come out in the end that we could live with this one piece remembering too that there are many laws that we are bound by. So ideally I don't disagree with much of what has been said. However, we have to be realistic within the confines of what is required by law in terms of student behavior. the percentages that um
079Mark mentioned, yes, but it represents a small group of students, the smallest group of students who are struggling and that's where the productive conversation came around. Well, how do we resolve this? So, we were really being generative but realizing that that really wasn't what we were charged with. And then in the end um you know we came up with one key um resolution that we thought the code of conduct the district code of conduct committee could actually manage with the time that they had available. So I think ideally if we had lots of time and we could spend more time and and get people to agree or come [clears throat] to consensus we could. So having said that um the document that we're putting before you here is um is our best effort from a
080group of 13 people who who shared their views. I think everybody's views were shared very um respectfully and I I do want to um acknowledge that everyone on the committee was an active contributor and we heard all the voices. So I think at this time um what may appear to be not [clears throat] a lot of work really to echo Mark's comment it and Mary too it was productive to the degree it could be productive. Could we have done better? I think so. But we are where we are and and that's what we we have before us. But we did have other limitations that I think came into play that should also be acknowledged. It wasn't so much that we couldn't agree. I think we realized that there was just not everything we could get
081to in that to that depth that every you know we were looking for. >> Mr. Butler, >> thank you. Uh and thank you for your question. I think there may be other people who share it. So I appreciate the question and the chance to respond to it. I think um given the structure of the committee with one-hour meetings uh often time and the and the complexity of the issue that we were dealing with oftentimes we would uh run out of time before we ran out of talk and uh in in the meetings and uh we also I think spent I would agree with board member Falerano that we spent a lot of time learning about the way the code of conduct is is currently implemented and we learned about that from uh the administration team
082who uh often would uh teach us things about uh well that I understand where you might be coming from there, but here's here's a piece of that that maybe you don't understand. And I think I'm a big believer that you got to fall in love with your problem before you fall in love with a solution. and uh and if it would have been really easy for us to come come back with a a long list of uh changes that we think uh ought to be made. But I think we we learned a lot in the process and realize that there aren't quick and easy answers. If there were quick and easy answers, it would have been it would have been taken care of by now. Your specific question about the length, I think, is addressed
083in the second bullet. uh the intent there and and it also uh we recognize the fact that there is a code of conduct committee that has uh a non-board of code code of conduct committee and we were very uh um careful to not overstep our boundaries and to disempower that group which is going to continue on and continue doing their work. And we didn't want them to feel like the board comes in with li very limited perspective and experience and thinks it knows better than the people who are in the classrooms every day and in administration every day. So I uh um I think uh there's so much more gray than there is black and white on this topic. And um and I think the the short a shorter letter is often a lot harder
084to write than a longer one. Mr. Bagoro, I don't know if I would be able to put this in a in a vote comment, so I'll I'll ask it now or I'll state it now. Um that this could have been an opportunity to bring things to the board for further discussion. That's my my biggest disappointment in it. Whether we would have ultimately had be ended up in the same spot not advancing things, it would have been a good opportunity to bring things forward and for the entire board to have the opportunity to learn and uh debate the issues. >> Thank you. >> All right, I'm going to make a last comment, then we're going to do a roll call vote on this. Um sitting here listening to the four of you that served on the
085committee, um I came up with four resolutions. Pretty simple, pretty easy. Number one, direct the administration to look at deans of discipline and report back to the board at some point. Is it feasible? Is it not feasible? We have a pilot program in Olympia. That was one recommendation. Number two, define the difference. Ask the administration to more clearly define their difference between restorative and traditional discipline. I know in my house with my children, there was traditional discipline. I grounded my children, but I also did restorative and explained why they got grounded. Or why my son's PlayStation got taken away from him. There was an explanation. They are tied together, restorative and traditional, they're meshed. So I don't understand the issue with that. Directing the administration and another resolution to look at ways to more consistently
086enforce the document. What ideas could the administration come up with? And then finally, shorten the document. Make a recommendation to the board of code of conduct committee to shorten the document. So I mean I'm hearing a lot of excuses why any work didn't get done when I just came up with four pretty easy that could go to could have come to this board for a discussion that were fairly easy innocuous didn't tie anybody's hands didn't change the direction in the district was asking the administration report back to the board of education that's would have should have what happened with this committee with that we're going to move into a roll call vote Mr. Butler >> yes Mr. farmer. >> Yes. With reservations. >> As a board, one of our primary responsibilities is to approve the
087budget and to oversee the allocation of resources. After reviewing data for student referrals other than those issued for skipping and truency, we requested a board committee on the code of conduct. After meeting twice a month for several months, this resolution is far from what I believe is reflective of a strong message needed from our board. It is my belief that disruptive behavior by a very small percentage of our students has a negative impact on the academic performance and social and emotional well-being of a very large percentage of our students as well as the well-being of many teachers and other staff. I had hoped that our committee would lead our district to an honest evaluation of this impact of chronic disruption by a very small number of students on the culture and climate of our schools.
088This resolution falls far short of that, but I cannot negate our effort by rejecting it. So, I will say yes. >> Mr. Felron, >> yes. Yes, >> Mr. Stencil. >> Yes. Vice President Stencil. Sorry, >> Mr. Seaman. >> Mr. Baragorio, >> I'm going to say yes with an explanation as well because this did fall very far short of what I had hoped we would achieve with it. However, I do believe that the the specific recommendations that we did present will, if faithfully applied, um remove the bias that some of us see in the document, will improve the document's clarity, and will enhance the use of progressive or escalated responses for students with multiple referrals, and will foster critical evaluation of the codes efficacy as a tool to make our schools safer and more productive. So,
089I vote yes, >> Mr. Maloney. >> I'll vote yes. >> All right. And I'm gonna explain my vote as well. Um, [clears throat] I guess I've never been as embarrassed, disappointed, and angry on this board of education as I am right now with the poor work product in my opinion that came forward in this document. I think people's egos got in the way. I think there were too many people that decided they were going to dig their heels in and they couldn't. And this is one of the issues in our country is that people can't have a conversation and reach some sort of consensus. Give a little, get a little. I mean, there were easy things here. There was lowhanging fruit. When this committee was started, I saw the lowhanging fruit. And it's just I'm
090embarrassed that this is the product that we came out with after 7 months of principal, staff members. I feel worse for our community members that volunteered on this committee that took the time and the effort. And this is a document that comes forward. I mean, this is I'm horrified by this. I am truly horrified and embarrassed as a board member for the first time in 18 years, 12 as president. I've never been more disappointed in this board in this for the lack of you guys are leaders. You should have led and I'm disappointed that there couldn't be a leader amongst you. We couldn't give. We couldn't take. We postured. I'm horrified by that fact. I'm voting no. Moving on. So vote passes 8 8 to1. Moving on. District 11.02 shared decision-making. There's no report because
091the meeting was cancelled. 11.03 03 graduation committee report. Board member Fazerano. >> Yes. The uh graduation measures committee um led by assistant superintendent Mike Zapis met on January 20th. There's not been significant additional information released from the board of regents on the New York inspires initiative. However, our district has begun to do some work based on the portrait of a graduate guidance we received last fall. Based on that information, we are taking a two arms of work approach which focuses first on the required direct instruction skills and attributes and then also look at the core curriculum to see where there's integration um with our current assessments and programs. Executive Director Todd Smith has been proactive by conducting a crosswalk of the state standards to help identify where the recommended skills and attributes are currently being
092taught. And we are learning that our students could possibly meet the requirements in a variety of ways in different academic settings and once we receive some state rubrics on the assessment component particular we will become more clear on what the next steps will be. >> Thank you Mr. Felero. Uh Monro County School Boards District Operation Committee there was no report and parent advisory leadership council committee report board member Seaman. Yes, I was unable to attend the meeting on January 21st. So, I have no updates at this time, but next week I have a subcommittee meeting um formed out of this um out of the parents advisory leadership. So, next >> we look forward to it next time. Thank you. Moving on. Deputy Superintendent >> Fleming. I almost called you Smalline. >> Deputy Superintendent. >> I'll
093allow it. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I just want to begin first on behalf of um my friends and colleagues on the cabinet to express our heartfelt condolences uh to our friend and colleague uh Jeremy, his wife Sue, his daughter Lexi, and uh his son Owen. Uh we are uh our hearts are heavy tonight uh for our friend and and we know that they've experienced a tremendous loss. We just want him and his family to know that we are thinking of him tonight. It is now February uh and we are excited here in Greece central to celebrate Black History Month. Uh this is our time here in the district to honor the history, the contributions and the profound profound impact uh that black Americans have had in our community in our and in our
094nation. Uh there are a number of celebrations going on in our schools. the district will celebrate as a whole on Wednesday, February 11th. That is a week from tomorrow at the Gree Central Performing Arts Center from 6:30 to about 8:00. We're going to feature uh student artwork, uh spoken word, musical performances. We're also going to honor uh the Rochester Urban League 2026 Black Scholars. Uh so we invite the entire community to please join us at the Performing Arts Center next Wednesday at 6:30. Uh this past Saturday night, my wife and I and some of my uh teacher colleagues uh were so thrilled to go and see uh the performance of The Sound of Music, which featured uh someone who's sitting up here. Spoiler alert, it's not our president, Sean McCabe. >> I can't sing. [laughter]
095>> It is. I'll tell you who can sing. And that is student board member, Miss Baly Cina, uh who stars in The Sound of Music. Absolut Yes. [applause] an absolutely phenomenal show. I know a lot of board members are going to echo these comments because I saw a lot of them uh there uh last weekend as well. I know they took in the show and just uh Tessa Bailey, you were phenomenal. Uh the entire cast, the ensemble, the pit, the crew, the parent volunteers, um just made that show just absolutely stunning. Uh and it's really a testament to the uh high quality of arts programs we have at Athena and at all of our schools. So great job uh By uh also on behalf of the superintendent just want to thank uh the community for
096the great turnout that we had last week at our partners in progress uh event. This is our event in which we brought community members, board members, uh parents, teachers, students uh to come in and really talk about what our portrait of a graduate needs to look like as we embark upon our next strategic plan. So helpful to get their input. but we had a lively dialogue uh and just really grateful for everyone who came out. We'll have another session in the spring. So, please be on the lookout for that uh invite. Uh and then just finally uh on behalf of Jeremy and the entire cabinet, just want to touch a little bit on uh the presentation that Janine and Romeo led. First of all, thank you to you and your team uh for those presentations.
097Um we in on this cabinet uh we've been in this district for a long time and we've seen uh some challenging budget years. Um we want everyone to know that we are going to be very very thoughtful uh in making sure that we get through the challenges that are presented before us. We have full faith and confidence uh in our our finance department uh and do know that we are working on ways to really address um some of the gaps that we are seeing right now financially and we're confident uh that we can still maintain the high quality instruction uh for our students uh here in this district. So, thank you >> Bailey. See if you can brighten my mood. >> All right. Hey, [clears throat] I just wanted to again say my condolences to
098Superintendent Smolen. We're all thinking about you and we're so sorry for your loss. Um, I also want to say thank you to all the board members and cabinet members who attended the Sound of Music and everybody in the community who support the arts. Um, it means so much to us students and especially a big thank you to Mr. Joe Sweatz who is somewhere in the room. Um, he is the heart of everything we do in Greece central. So, he this show wouldn't happen without him. A bunch of our events in Greece central wouldn't happen without him. So, thank you to him and everybody who has helped put on this production. If you didn't get a chance to see it, it's this weekend as well. Friday and Saturday at 7:00 p.m. and then Sunday at 2
099p.m. You can get your tickets at the door or at cure8.com. That's curtheumber88.com. Additionally, Odyssey has a production of Susicle over February break. Um, the dates for that are Friday, February 20th, Saturday, February 21st, and se uh Sunday, February 22nd. So, make sure you go support them as well. Um, Olympia and Arcadia are both well underway with preparations for their musicals. Um, Olympia is doing Legally Blonde and Arcadia is doing Mean Girls. So, kids are building sets and rehearsing. So, lots of exciting musical productions coming up. Um, again, just kind of echoing what um, Deputy Superintendent Fleming said about um, Black History Month and our celebration coming up Wednesday, February 11th. Um, later in the month, there will be a black scholar recognition for all 11th grade and 12th grade black and brown students who
100have received an 83% or higher average in their core classes. That's very exciting. And I know that all of the high schools, their black student unions are putting on many celebrations this month. So, looking forward to that. Um, another big celebration coming up is the J-Max celebration celebrating 20 years since the legendary game. Um that is Friday, February 13th at 6:45 p.m. in the Athena High School gym. So great community event for great person and a great game. Um also want to give a quick update finally about the student perception survey that has just been sent out to schools and there's also a parent perception survey and a staff perception survey. So as of last Friday, just want to preference that um many of the schools are still sending them out. So um some have
101higher rates than others just because of when they were sent out. So, um, Athena Middle School is currently at 83% students who have answered. Um, Olympia is 66%, Arcadia Middle is 70%. Um, Athena High is 54%, Phoenix Academy is 33%, and Odyssey Academy is at 1%. They just started. [laughter] So, Odyssey will be on their game soon, but I just want to encourage everybody to do those perception surveys because they really do a lot for our district. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you, Bailey. Board member comments. Mr. roller. >> So, I want to start uh by echoing my uh condolences for Jeremy. Uh and I I know family is the the most important thing to him. Uh and so this uh is such a tragedy that they're experiencing and so my my heart
102goes goes out to them. I want to say congratulations to Mr. Brandon Jones. Uh we are fortunate to have your leadership in this district and uh I'm very excited to see what you're uh going to accomplish in this newly expanded role. Um the Girl Scouts say make new friends but keep the old. I'm sure you will leverage all your past friendships to uh to uh to accomplish great things going forward. And related to that, I want to thank the administration and the board for their continued support uh for the importance of instructional equity. Um it was a a unanimous vote today and I was I was proud of that. Also thank you to the community members turned out for partners in progress. It was a great event. I think there must have been 60 people
103or more there. Um so we got great input from the community about what their vision is for education in Greece. Um and uh um more evidence of community engagement. 550 people. Did you hear that? At a math night for God's sakes. Um, that's an amazing accomplishment and uh I think it's a testament to the trusting relationships that the district is making with families and it's a testament to the interest that families have in their children's education. So, keep it up uh district and keep it up parents uh with making time for those those kinds of opportunities. So, thank you Mr. >> Arber. [clears throat] Similar sound of music. Um, Bailey is Maria. Her her her her just her aura is is Maria. And I want to thank Jul Julia who I emailed and got back
104to me immediately for tickets. Um, the beautiful, incredible singing, the acting, the puppets, movements were perfectly synchronized. It was so amazing. It could have been on Broadway. And again, I want to thank um I want to congratulate Brandon Jones. I look forward to his um his role and and increasing high expectations for our students. And then I want to just say I'm a teacher. In in 1976, the 200th birthday of our country and the year I graduated from Greece Olympia High School, President Gerald Ford officially recognized February 1st as the first day of Black History Month. He asked the public to seize the opportunity to honor the two often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout history. Our nation continued to move forward with justice at the forefront of who we
105are were as a nation. Dr. Carter G. Woodson um he was a historian born to formerly enslaved parents and he is known as the father of black history. He established Negro history week in 1926. championed the idea that black history was integral to American history, not separate from it, challenging narratives that ignored or minimized black achievements. He most famously said, "If you can control a person's thinking, you don't have to worry about their actions. For when you control a man's thinking, you don't have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his proper place and will stay in it. You don't do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for
106his special benefit. His education makes it necessary. The importance of critical thinking skills that are often overshadowed by standardized tests. This underscores his belief of the importance of education, self-nowledge, and empowering individuals and and communities. 30 years later, we had another great black leader, Ella Baker. She was a towering behind-the-scenes civil rights leader and strategist known as the mother of the civil rights movement. She championed grassroots group centered leadership over top-down approaches, believing that education serves to create independent thinkers who can solve problems without relying on a single strong leader. She played critical roles in the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee known as SNIK. She famously stated that the movement made Martin rather than the reverse believed in empowering local communities to lead themselves rather than relying
107on charismatic leaders. So just a little history as to Black History Month and how we how it began and how it continued over the decades. And thank you and to Jeremy. I my heart goes out to you Jeremy. Thank you. >> Do you have comments? Miss Lake. >> Our theme for this year is Greece proud. That seems so appropriate as many Greece residents are probably walking around with a lighter step humming climb every mountain. The sound of music is nothing short of extraordinary. And we can only wonder where Bailey, whose talent is only overshadowed by her heart, and other rising stars will go after they've already garnered standing ovations. Congratulations to the many people from the Athena family who made this possible. We in the Greece school district provide many opportunities for all of our
108students to shine, to find their passion in one of many areas and have excellent support and nurturing until graduation when they can further their dreams. But tonight, I would like to speak to a different group of students. To those of you who, for a variety of reasons, don't like school. It takes an effort to go. And if you find an excuse not to go, even better. You might struggle with one or more of your classes. You might not not like some of the kids in your classes. You might have things going on outside of school, but you come and you follow the rules. I appreciate that more than you know. My mother used to tell me when I was having an adolescent pity party, "These are the best years of your life. You have no
109responsibilities. you have nothing to complain about. She was wrong. Once I graduated, I got to decide everything about my life, what was important, and how hard I was willing to work to get it. I found many more people who shared my interest and my new my viewpoints, and I seem to be getting smarter as the years go on. You are the main reason I am on the school board, and I'm especially proud of you. I want a place where every student can learn and work hard to be excellent. A place where you feel safe and respected. When you graduate, I want you to be able to read any textbook, solve any math problem, know the history of our great country, and to understand your rights and responsibilities as an American citizen. And to those of
110you who have checked out and given up on us, please come back. Learn what you can from every teacher you have. I promise you, you will not regret it or say, "If only I felt >> um I'd like to begin by thanking Gassa for the update. Um you know, mid year, you know, September, everyone's, you know, brighteyed and bushy tailed with plan um and what we're going to accomplish. and it was great to see um so many of our buildings able to report what their initiatives were around their goals. So I appreciated hearing that from our our schools and um and gas in particular. I I want to say thank you too to English village community for their carnival that took place on a Saturday cold snowy day but the thanks to the staffs and
111student and volunteers. We had student volunteers from Arcadia Middle School helping with all the carnival games and the families had just a wonderful time and I appreciate the opportunities that um our schools are creating for families and children to come together on a cold snowy you know Saturday morning. It was wonderful very well received. Um I also want to echo uh thanks to and acknowledge the uh partners for progress event that we took place last week. I think it's critical that we have um our stakeholders have input as we plan for our envision our future um for our children. So, I thought that was amazing and we're looking forward to the next event. Um I believe it's the 29th of April. So, any families or folks who have not yet joined um please be on
112the lookout for those notices to come join us. Um and finally, I can't I cannot um not acknowledge the sound of music. It was absolutely there were no superlatives for the performance and we have Maria right here. But even more specially was the fact that there were youngsters. We had students from our elementary schools on stage and the discipline that it takes to be on stage and perform to that level was just nothing short of amazing and so inspiring. And again, um it's just so important for us to be able to offer these programs to the arts and sport and all the things that make school that great place. As Mary has said, you know, come to school. we're going to make it, you know, engaging and fun for you, but you need to come.
113So, uh, thanks to all who've been continuing to do these great things for our kids. And I will close by again offering condolences to the Smallian family at this this very sad time. >> Mr. Margaro, >> I I will join that uh offering of condolences to the Smalline family, the Ricotta family. Um, and uh, yeah, our hearts are with you all. And I, my wife and I are going to see The Sound of Music on Friday, so looking forward to it. [clears throat] Excuse me. You can pass this down. I I am sharing with my board colleagues uh, a summary of behavioral data that was shared with the the raw data was shared with with the board previously and and this analysis was shared with excuse me the board code of conduct committee. Uh the
114data indicates that a very large majority of our students comply with behavioral expectations and contribute positively to school environments. During the 202425 school year, approximately 70% of our of our students, 10,000 students in our district, approximately 70% of our students received no office disciplinary referrals. An additional 10% of our students received one referral and approximately 11% received between two and five office disciplinary referrals. Collectively, these groups accounted for 91% of our enrolled students, about 9,100 roughly, but only 26% of total referrals. Students within these ranges either don't need or generally respond well to disciplinary interventions. The remaining 9% of students accounted for 74% of all referrals issued within this group. Fewer than 2% of students, each receiving more than 20 referrals, accounted for approximately onethird of all referrals. And fewer than 1% of students accounted
115for more than 19% of referrals. We looked at some of the histories of of the students who received the most referrals and one student in particular, don't know his name or her name, don't know. Just going to read some of the responses to the some of the first 24 violations. Teacher resolved. Teacher resolved. Teacher resolved. Detention. Teacher resolved. Teacher resolved. Lunch detention. Teacher resolved. Talked with student. Talked with student. It goes on. After 24 referrals, there was a suspension for disruption. At the end of 72 referrals, the student had three suspensions. This concentration of referrals indicates that a small number of students demonstrate persistent patterns of behavior that have not been successfully addressed by existing interventions and that significantly affect school operations and academic environments. This is why some of us thought that a board
116code of conduct committee was important. It's why I'm personally disappointed. But this is data that I think is important for our board to have access to, be aware of, and I hope down the road still consider because this this problem isn't hasn't gone away. Again, I thank my colleagues for their their efforts with us with me in in that uh effort. Thank you. >> Do you have anything, Mr. Malone? just that I want to adjourn this meeting. Mother N. [laughter] >> I did. I did. >> Ask for that. >> You know, I between you and Bailey, you guys brighten my mood. I got to say. All right. With that, I'm going to go board president comments and I probably said enough tonight. So, Mr. Maloney, it's your turn to shine. [gasps] >> Uh, Mr. President,
117I would like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting. >> I'm going to second that tonight. All those in favor that passes nine to zero. Good evening everyone.