GCSD Board of Education Meeting - February 25th. 2025

00125th 2025 Board of Education meeting if I could have everyone rise for the Pledge of Allegiance that'll be led by board member Bill Maloney and I have a whole list of moment of silence to remember um if we could remember belel toe in a moment of silence she was an aesty an odyssey student who passed away unexpectedly B brel was deeply connected to our school Community serving as a Treasure of the oi black student union a member of the flag football team her bubbly personality great sense of humor and warm and welcoming Spirit made her a friend the money Brielle was also someone who was deeply refle reflective always striving to learn and grow a true scholar she was on track for early graduation and had already been accepted to her cop to to her

002top college Belle's determination and drive left an indelible mark on those around her and she will be deeply missed our thoughts are with B's family during this difficult time Cory law the son of a Greece print shop employee Petty law and the son of retired fa facility operations employee John law passed away after a brief brief illness our thoughts are with the law family um Brian clicker O'Donnell recently passed away Brian was a longtime accompanist for The Arcadian Athena music departments during the years 2000 to 2014 our thoughts are with Brian's family during this difficult time I would also like to remember Bob Brown who recently passed away he was a long time employee in facilities operations and he will be deeply messed and Del jandrew who is a longtime Athena business teacher he passed

003away recently so if we could keep the jandrew brown odono law and toe families in your thoughts and prayers that would be much appreciated I Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible Li and justice for all thank you all right can i s move the agenda to you please move by Mr baller second up by Mr aloney any corrections additions deletions to the agenda Mr Maloney yes I would like to move uh 1302 the veterans tax exemption to 4.3 if possible yep it it'll will say 13.02 but we'll move it up to be followed after 4.0 to anybody have anything else all right with that all those are approve accepting the agenda as amended that passes 7 to zero also just

004of note board members bagorio and like are excused this evening and with that we will roll into our student leader comments from Olympia midal school right olymp woo good evening my name is Lyla Sanford I'm in the eighth grade and I go to Greece Olympia we are proud to share with you some of our some of our school year highlights as well as some of the stuff that we're looking forward to presenting with me tonight is lon SMS 8th grade Fuji 8ighth grade Jack amering seventh grade Maya green sixth grade at the beginning of February our administrator shared student data with us as well as continued expectations of the students well in the building we discussed grades behavior and other important information to help us find success at school for the rest of the year

005our middle and high school rise initiative has continued students and staff has been receiving monthly Awards complete with a t-shirt dut and certificate from showing responsibility Integrity respect and empathy students and staff can nominate each other when they see others showing these attributes the Olympia extended-day program continues and has a strong attendance of over 50 students enrolled during the fall and spring sessions students that enroll stay after school get a quick snack and then work on math and Ela skills in a smaller group setting with their teachers Mr Jones and the in the admin team have continued their Community Learning meetings with the whole staff by focusing on different topics on different different excuse me my apologies on differentiation in the classrooms student teacher conferencing and other topics related to increasing engagement in the classrooms

006as you guys can see on the image on the left Mr Jones is doing his favorite part of his job and he brings joy and energy for the staff on his on his Tuesday Community meetings in the oh sorry in addition to the Community Learning meetings the assistant principal have led professional uh learning as Choice PL Mr pasel Mr Tan and Mr lay provide extension learning on Mr Jones clms as well as instruction on topics that are relevant to student engagement and behavior the middle and high school had their own dances during the winter the high school winter ball was a hit for students in staff in the Middle School Red Carpet dance had students and staff showing off their best outfits as they walked the red carpet and had their pictures taken like celebrities

007for Black History Month this February Olympia and miss Nick Our Community School site coordinator is taking opportunities to celebrate black history with events like the black scharler luncheon which had speakers in student made food as well as the celebration of black Excellence at the gpac on February 15th we continue to celebrate Black hery month through the month through the end of this month with the spirit week this week and other celebrations Olympia held its seventh annual prism concert on February 12th showing the Excellence talent and hard work our students and musical dep Department offers at the end of March Olympia musical theater will be showing Matilda shows will be in March 21st 22nd 28th and 29th get your tickets for what is bound to be a great show as a sixth grader here are our

008favorite things about Olympia cafeteria food the energy teachers and new friends and more Independence as the year goes on here are some things we are looking forward to field trips new programs and extracurriculars seab breze and end ofe trips musical concerts and performances and musical plays as you guys can see Olympia has been up to a lot we are looking towards a bright future for our school Mr Joan brings his joy and excitement to our school helping everyone with what they need he also was a great example to our rise expectations from earlier and turn everything off I wanted to thank everyone for allowing me and my team to come out today and tell you guys about our school and I also wanted to thank that at that administrators support staff and the board of

009education for allowing our school to do such spectacular things thank you have a nice day thank you guys we're gonna have you come up along with the Olympia staff and Dr zitz Deputy superintendent Fleming and superintendent small and the board and we're going to a picture okay that's all right I'll get it from [Applause] stand up stand up are we ready thank you [Applause] I'd like to invite assistant superintendent kup to do the veterans tax exemption presentation good evening everyone welcome uh I am going to uh do this presentation in conjunction with my uh Team colleague Megan Bradshaw who who is our Director of Finance here at the district so as uh again we're going to present some information um to the board and to the public uh regarding the veterans tax exemption and how

010it pertains to the school property taxes as we all know there was a request made to the board uh to review the veterans tax exemption and then subsequently uh make a positive decision to go ahead and Implement that we're going to share some information again on how it pertains to the school district what the impact is to all taxpayers within Greece and then gather some information at the public hearing for the board to uh entertain and then help make a decision um later on in the program wasn't that quick so why is the board considering this um to recognize and support veterans with our within our community and to provide the tax relief uh to those who have served our country um so what is you know the veterans tax exemption what does that mean

011uh similar to most exemptions this is a reduction in assessed it would be a reduction in assessed value for qualifying veterans meaning meaning um their school they would uh pay result in a lower school tax bill um for them this shift in the tax difference um would then go to non-qualifying property owners in this just to be clear the school district would remain whole um currently in the town of Grace uh the Greece Central School District boundy boundaries there's 20 around 2600 properties that receive a vener exemption for Town and County taxes this is the taxes that are due in February um this hearing that we're talking about concerns an addition of a separate exemption uh for school property taxes that um could apply beginning in September of 2026 so I said qualifying veterans before

012so who qualifies uh generally veterans who served honorably during a period of war in New York state defines the uh period of War I won't say them out they're listed there um would qualify you could also qualify if you're uh the spouse or an unremarried surviving spouse of a veteran and you can only get this exemption on your primary residence so the board is considering um levels at the Town of Greece levels currently in place there are two types of exemptions that uh folks can be eligible for one is the alternative veterans exemption and the second is the Cold War veterans exemption you would either qualify for one or the other but not both on the alternative veterans exemption uh you have to has to be your primary residence you have to have served during

013designated period of of war or received an Expeditionary Medal those periods include uh the the U levels or the amounts of the exemption are listed below if you have a wartime service exemption you can obtain 15% um of your assessed value up to a maximum of $36,000 Exempted from tax if you qualify then for the combat zone uh service it's an additional 10% or an additional up to $24,000 added to the wartime service above and then there is a third category for service connected disability which if you qualify for that you could receive up to another 50% uh assessment reduction or up to a Max of $120,000 on the Cold War exemption uh small difference is that you have to uh your primary residence has to be that of a person who served during the

014Cold War you'd get a basic reduction of 10% CT at $8,000 and again if you qualified for the service connected disability you'd get an additional up to $50,000 or 50% or up to $40,000 those are the the two exemptions and the levels that folks may be able to qualify for however there's been another factor that we wanted to point out uh for this evening that impacts the total value of that exemption and that's the equalization rate which we have discussed uh over the last several years so what we showed here to kind of Drive the point home is back in 2022 um the district the school district within um the Town of Greece was all our homes were assessed at 100% which meant if your home was assessed at $1,000 you could probably sell it

015for $100,000 in that scenario if you were qualified for the wartime exemption the max was 36,000 you would have received $36,000 reduction in your assessed value for the wartime exemption however in 2023 that Equalization rate changed to 86% which reduces that 36,000 down to almost 31,000 in 2024 the equalization rate changed further to 75 0.12% so now that 36,000 is worth 27,000 off your assessed value and currently and we're estimating because they do this the uh the equalization rate for the prior year in 26 we're estimating that the equalization rate will remain at 68% which means the $36,000 assessment will be worth 24 almost $25,000 as that Equalization rate decreases so will the value of the exemptions and should the equ ization rates continue and make their way back up it will grow again back

016to a maximum of $36,000 but that will only be overtime and per the Town of Greece here we're talking about the impact for non-veterans um just for this data that I just want to say thank you to Lauren Beth Rebecca from the Town of Greece assessor office they're the ones that provided this data um answered the questions that we had on on Veterans exemption so again this is based on the town of Greece exemption levels um if the board were to adopt this then between 86 and 87 million of taxable assessed value would shift from exempt properties to non-exempt properties resulting in an increase um to the tax rate of about 45 uh per $1,000 of assessed value or 1.8% so if we just walk through an example a home assas at $225,000 would see

017an estimated increase to their school tax bill of about $102 um for for a non-veteran the savings for qualifying veterans would mean um a savings on their school taxes of between $136 and $ 5,123 you know depending on the individual qualifications that Romeo talked about uh the school and then just to reiterate the school district's total tax lby collected would remain the same um so I just the data that was on the previous slide is based on the 2024 data it doesn't factor in any additional changes um that could come out as part of the budget development process or future changes in law or eligibility um it's only on that data that we had from the 2024 tax Ru so if adopted and a veteran currently receives a tax exemption for their Town and County

018taxes they wouldn't have to do anything they would receive a tax exemption for their school for their school taxes um those who moved or had a status change would need to reply that's how it currently works you would work with the town of Grace assessor's office um and submit that status change for an updated exemption amount uh the deadline for this again would be for the 2026 role so March 1st of 2026 for again if adopted the September 2026 tax roll and then really any questions on eligibility the town of grece assess assessor's office they're the experts in this they're the ones that process this exemption and they know this detail so just closing up with some next steps um we'll have the public hearing um and comments will be taken into consideration by the

019board the board will make a decision um on a resolution that is in front of them for this evening and if adopted we will send the proper notification to the town AG Greece to have this in place uh for September of 2026 thank you I will now call the veterans tax exemption public hearing to order um each speaker will have two minutes to speak at the podium and I'll be a clock up on the screen our first Speaker this evening is Mr Timothy Smith classes good evening everyone my name is Tim Smith I have been a Greece resident and school taxpayer for 31 years I'm an army veteran with a turn in Vietnam and a member of the American Legion Greece post Force 68 in 2013 New York State amended the real property tax law

020458 to provide for a veteran School tax exemption unfortunately New York State didn't mandate the school tax exemption like they did the veteran Town and County so New York State unfairly put that burden and responsibility on the board of education of each School District currently 50% of the New York state school district have adopted the veteran tax school the veteran School tax exemption in Monro County just four districts Gates chai Brockport calonia mford and city of rer we are hopeful that Greece will be number five let me be clear this is not a full tax EX mtion only those combat veterans who qualify for the existing New York State Monro County guidelines and Veteran tax breaks will receive a partial property tax reduction men and women combat veterans who served in World War II Korea

021Vietnam Iraq Afghanistan the Middle East and other foreign lands they left their homes and families to risk their lives and serve our country this issue is not a veteran versus non-veteran versus whatever debate debate every year the gree School Board When developing a $344 million school budget has numerous issues to consider and understand how they affect all Property Owners it's never an easy task the 3,829 registered Greece combat means paid about $10 million into last year's $125 million School tax bill 50% of these veterans are over 70 and on a fixed income other 30% are over 55 and looking forward to retirement so these tax breaks will help our senior citizens with their household budgets the veterans in Greece support their community in many ways the Thousand members of the Legion families of Greece post

022468 with the PO plunge event in the last few years have raised over $150,000 for the New York State Special Olympics and year after year we eagerly donate food clothing school supplies toys and gift cards to those in need Mr we happily support the Greece American Legion Baseball team who are two times St chance I got your time I got one paragraph can I finish no I'm sorry I got to be fair to everybody so you can finish aot you got a lot thank you Mr Smith Mr Ostrander good evening for you [Laughter] yes there we go can you hear me this isn't made for tall people so uh Megan thank you your words that you said at the last meeting resonate with all the veterans that are here and your passion for your family

023that served so we thank you and salute you and your family as well as we salute all the veterans that are here today um we talked last time about finding honor finding courage and finding commitment that was a great presentation that you put on um in regards to the tax and the effect that'll have on those that don't get it um but just asking everybody here to find the courage say thank you okay and and be mindful that most of us here are over 55 on fixed income so every little bit that we can save uh is is is worthy but also but also as as we left our homes and left our families to go serve in lands that weren't really the best um with brothers and sisters that we lost and brothers and

024sisters that we've remained friends ever since um we're the ones that run to the front line everybody runs away Bill Marine somei brother um but just ask you to find the courage and the commitment in your heart to give us this break okay and continue uh our I can't think of the words I'm losing my track here uh let us continue our uh uh fining School District the kids that we had here today um if that's any indication of the students in Greece were going to be in fine shape here uh with the future because they were great young men and women so to everybody that served I salute you and to the board uh please uh vote in favor of this resolution and uh it's much appreciated thank you Mr Perna he's taller than

025me okay um ladies and gentlemen of the board uh thank you for Prov providing me with this forum my name is Daniel Pera and I am the commander of the American Legion Post 468 in Greece I oversee one th000 veterans and families at that post who are from the Town of Greece I'm a disabled V Vietnam veteran who is here today in support of all veterans in the gree School District I'm here tonight requesting that you members of the Greece Board of Education resolve this partial tax exemption on school taxes with a subsequent vote of yes if approved this exemption would definitely help many qualifying veterans and fixed incomes those with disabilities and also their surviving spouses right now approximately 3,661 veterans reside in the town of Greece but not all are property tax owners

026of that 3,661 veterans 3 1,320 are Vietnam veterans over the age of 70 we are as well as World War II Korea and well as the golf War are a diminishing demographic believe it or not we are losing more than we are gaining I created a petition at my post uh back in November that I believe Mr Maloney gave to the board and we had a couple hundred signatures but but the point I want to try and make that four members who signed that petition have already passed away all right how many veterans have we lost since 2013 when the real property tax law was expanded in Monro County the school districts of the city of Rochester Gates Chilai calonia mford and Brockport as well as a large number of school districts across the state

027already in gratitude provide these veterans exemption let's mean thank you for your service and provide all present and future qualified veterans this partial School exemption thank you thank you Mr perno Mr Dan Clump clumper clumps sorry I don't know if it's my eyes or you're writing hi I'm Dan uh uh I also claim marks left over 13 seconds uh I was in the uh us submarine Force for seven years from August 63 to August 70 I see I have two other brothers in here submarine Sailors we were all in different times so I only speak for myself we made patrols to prevent the Soviet Union from launching all of its nuclear weapons against the United States and forever changing my way of life so I didn't fight on the ground I fought underwater I was

028underwater pretty deep when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon so all I'm saying is uh we sacrificed a lot a whole lot 10 weeks underwater when you get near the end it doesn't smell very good we're running low on food most of the the fresh food lasted maybe a week or two and everything after that was whatever so we weren't just a bunch of young people out there with a very expensive uh Toy we were doing something that had to be done or this this country wouldn't be this country so I only want to say my intention was when I get home and when this is all over which it was by the way in 1991 when the Soviet Union collaps I want to be able for everyone in here to go to church and

029any church they want to go to on Sunday I want the teachers to be able to teach teach not from a syllabus handed to them by a state official that stood in the back of the room and made sure they didn't deviate from it I wanted to be able to do this stand in an open form and speak my peace in a free country so when you consider your vote consider what you have and what you haven't lost it's a whole lot of things that we take for granted thank you thank you sir Mr Hitchcock Taylor Hitchcock Mr Hitchcock sorry hi everyone my name is Taylor Hitchcock I'm a new member of our local gree post 468 um who has been able to learn some of the great sacrifices of our Local Heroes have made

030for us and in our country when you hear support our troops most people Envision them on a battlefield but why stop there our troops eventually become Local Heroes who we support with multiple services on their return home this helps them adjust a civilian life find a job maybe even start a business find a home find a and have the ability and capacity to start a family we are one of the largest towns in the state and it's really sad with a multitude of towns already offering this break to our Local Heroes why can't we why can't we offer this token of gratitude and support to our Local Heroes so please vote yes thank you [Applause] Mr Mark henin my name's Mark henin and I'm also a lifelong resident of the Town of Greece the internet

031says there are about 4,500 veterans in Greece less than 4% % of our population their average age is over 60 and that number is dwindling rapidly year by year most have not had children in the school system for 15 20 or 30 Years yet continue to Faithfully pay school taxes I served in Wartime but not in combat I cannot speak for those that did but I do know that I had friends who returned under an American flag so they can't be here to speak for themselves they and we served so that you and your loved ones would not have to just wondering what price can you put on that when you consider that the military is not a 40-hour a week job but 10 to 12 hours a day sometimes seven days a week many

032of us served for about 10 cents an hour let me ask the non veterans what are you making an hour to sit here and decide on our request and what have you given up to be here two 4 20 years of your life where's the money going to come from for to fund this request where did it come from to fund this huge Transportation facility or our state-of-the-art town hall complex which is the Envy of most towns in America I do know that the planning board has requests for hundreds of new homes which will generate millions of dollars in new taxes more than enough to make up for this small shortfall provided adjudicated properly I'll get to the second page here and the community continues to grow our numbers are shrinking at an alarming rate

033this beautiful town would not be possible without the sacrifices made by the veteran Community plus we veterans make up a disproportionate amount of those who volunteer their time talent and money again selflessly in the betterment of this community please seriously consider this request yes a skate park waterwork and pickleball courts are great for the younger generation but give serious thought to consider the sacrifice this town's aging veterans have made to get us here thank you adward warak thank you my name's Zed warak I'm P commander of the Greece American Legion post I've raised two children in a gree Central School District both went on to Advanced degrees my daughter is now one of the Chief Financial Officer for the flam ey Institute at the University of Rochester my son is a practicing attorney here in

034Monroe County in 2013 New York enacted the alternative veterans exemption which allows school districts at their discretion to give veterans an exemption on a portion of the properties of their school district tax prior prior to that time the alternative veterans tax exemption was applicable only to County City town and Village taxes since a law was enacted 254 school districts about 41% of the entire state of New York have adopted this exemption 85% of the districts on Long Island adopted the alternative veterans exemption this includes 93% in Nassau County 79% in salal county and communities just north of New York City also had a large proportion of school districts adopt the exemption for $102 increase for um the new assessed reassessed value that's less than $10 a month we're ask asking non veterans to pay for

035the entire sacrifice that most of us that have made here and some who can't even make that sacrifice because they're not here anymore what thanks do we give them maybe it's about time we did something for them it's a small price to pay so everyone gets an equal shot who did so much for this country and this community thank [Applause] you and that concludes our public hearing on the veterans tax exemption I declare the hearing closed moving on a 4.01 staffing can i s move Staffing to the table please moved by Mr stencil seconded by Mr Malone any comments questions concerns on Staffing seeing none all those in favor that passes 7 to zero moving on to GTA Mo MOA additional FTE can I move that to the table please move by Mr Butler second

036by miss m any comments questions concerns on that sing none all those in favor that passes 7 to zero moving on to 13.02 the veterans tax exemptions can I saw move those to the table please move by Mr Maloney second by Mr Butler any comments questions concerns on this all right we'll go we're going to do a roll call vote um I'm going to declare my interest I didn't know you were starting with me yes I I declare my interest uh because I'm a United States Marine Corps veteran and I vote and I vote Yes okay Mr Malone we start with you voted yes Mr Butler uh I'll vote Yes Miss Mar no Mr stetzel yes Miss Farah With Honor yes vice president farmer yes and I'd like to say something um thank you for

037giving me us the opportunity to hear you tonight um I'm voting yes and my hope is that our VA hospitals continue to give you the same service that my father had and I was so privileged to go with him and meet his his providers so my vote is yes thank you and I just want to thank all of veterans um and as with having a son that's an active service member um I truly appreciate the sacrifice that you made in the past and that our current soldiers across the world are making on our behalf um every single day and I'm I'm glad gree Central is one of the largest school districts in the state is going to pass this veterans tax exemption for you um um we appreciate your continued support and everything you do

038for our Greece Community we wish you well and I'm a yes vote on that motion carries 6 to one and we should be clapping for you not the other way around true well thank you thank you all for coming and speaking it was greatly appreciated all right moving on to midyear strategic Plan update superintendent smallen all right I'd like to call uh Su our superintendent's cabinet up to present so before they start um what I'd like to just say is for as many of you know our strategic plan um is a guiding document um this document drives um as you all know drives our school Improvement plans it drives our budget process it it drives um professional learning that's done across the district and what you're going to see tonight is a a midyear report

039on where we stand as of right now as we get to about the halfway mark of our school year some of the metrics that are in our plan um we can't report out till the end of the year they're annual uh metrics that we don't have that till the end of the year so what you'll see today is some of the metrics that we're able to measure around the January February time and each of the cabinet members will share their portion of what they supervise in today's presentation thank you thank you superintendent sming good evening uh ladies and gentlemen I'm pleased to be joined at the podium tonight uh by my team members uh Dr Baker Dr zeitz uh Mr Smith and uh Miss Larsson uh and we are delighted to share with you uh

040the our midyear Report with regards to the Strategic plan uh to share our progress towards the goals that articulated within that document as you all know our strategic plan is entitled reach 2027 this is a fiveyear plan it presents a very clear mission and vision for our district specifically uh this document articulates how we are ensuring that all students have the resources the access and the support that they need to achieve academic excellence in order to flourish as responsible empathetic and engaged citizens now within this document we have articulated three specific commitments commitment one is ignite learning commitment two is cultivate trust and commitment three is expand opportunity our strategic plan lists the processes and metrics that we use throughout the year in order to achieve our mission our vision and of course these three

041commitments infused throughout this document as well are the core values that guide our work each and every day and you can see those core values articulated at the bottom of the slide in front of you resilience and respect Excellence with Equity agency and affirmation courage and collaboration and humility and honesty thank you very much good evening so I will start us off with commitment one ignite learning um so tonight we're going to be updating you on five of the six aligned progress measures for this commitment including professional learning inclusion for students with disabilities and Ela and math achieve achievement and annual growth we'll report on the credit acral metric at the end of the year as as uh Mr Smalling shared this is a mid-year report and we don't have that data quite yet so

042starting off with professional learning hours so this progress measure aligns with the GTA contract which mandates 10 hours of choice professional learning for each of our GTA unit members this graph shows progress towards the goal uh total professional learning hours indicate the number of choice professional learning hours conducted by GTA staff throughout the year this data is pulled from Frontline monthly and it's updated um as you can see we've made really great incremental gains over the past three years since we put this into the contract um now that staff has a better understanding of what the offerings are and what their options are so the hours that were outlined on that graph um are only inclusive of the hours that were completed outside of the work day and again these are the choice professional learning

043hours that the employees have chosen for themselves our teachers and other staff participate in PL yearround uh during the work day after after work on weekends and over the summer um you'll see listed here some of the various ways that our leaders are developing meaningful professional learning for our staff the offerings for Choice PL hours have increased significantly over the past three years now with many principles and school teams aligning their Collective work with additional opportunities to expand that learning um so there's definitely some overlap between what they're doing in the building and the choice PL that's being offered so that things are um aligned and consistent as a district we've also dedicated full time um on full day release days to focus on plc's as well as data Dives which allow school teams focused

044time to dig into their data and strategically plan next steps the second metric that's associated with this particular commitment is the percentage of special education students who are integrated into general education settings throughout the year so why exactly are we trying to promote integration so this notion of integration is having our students with special needs and learning disabilities learn alongside their non-disabled peers it helps to Foster an inclusive environment it presents opportunities for those students to learn from one another and really does contribute to the academic Excellence not only of our students who uh have disabilities but also for our non disabled students as well ultimately resulting in better outcomes for all students so if you look closely at this metric you'll see here at the midyear point we're a little bit off track in

045terms of the integration of our students based on where we were from last year but not too far off this graph uh captures roughly 200 of our kindergarten through fifth grade level students uh part of the reason why we see a little bit of a drop off uh this year is because we're reestablishing that Baseline each and every year so uh the students move on to a new grade level and then we're using our response to intervention our RTI process to really determine what are the appropriate integration opportunities for those students how can we maybe move them into a general education classroom be it math Ela science or maybe some other type of uh general education setting like an extracurricular activity to really again create those opportunities for our students to interact with their same

046age peers so next we have our um Ka achievement data from our Universal screeners um so before I dig into the data I want to clarify a few things because this data is always a little bit confusing so um first of all prior to this year at the K5 level we did have the I ready diagnostic um but at 68 we were using something called the reading inventory or the ri well that's no longer offered so we shifted this year 68 is also giving I ready so there that little Cav at another note about the winter data um in the fall we don't require our kindergarten students to take the diagnostic as they're getting ready for school so the winter time for a lot of our kindergarten students is the first time they've actually taken

047this diagnostic so affects growth in their levels and same thing for 68 this is our first year our 68 students in ela are taking this um so to try to kind of balance how much we're assessing students we're only requiring it in the fall in the spring um so that being said I just want to talk a little bit about what the IR ready diagnostic is because it's a little different than a traditional assessment it's computer adaptive that means as students get questions right the questions get harder as they get them wrong it gets easier and it finds that just right fit I always used to explain it to students it's like trying to find that right shoe size right sometimes it's too big sometimes it's too small we're finding what that level is for

048students um but it also does that by domain and by that I mean in ela it assesses them in phonics pheic awareness vocabulary and comprehension and it combines all that to place the students at a grade level so when we see that 55% at the end of last year that means 55% of students scored within their grade level standards when they combined all those scores together now you might look at that and say well why did it drop all the way to 24% so when I think about that let's you think about that at the end of last year 55% were scoring within their grade level now they've shifted to a whole new grade so at the start of the Year 24% are already scoring in their new grade level standards so in a sense

049that 24% is kids who are actually ahead of the game a little bit um and then by winter we're up to 40% and then we're hoping to begin to see some acceleration in this Ela data with our roll out of our core and all of our training and coaching we're doing for our students and uh staff in math you can see the math achievement um on these screeners is a little bit lower than Ela um but we do see an upward Trend which mirrors what we're seeing in the state tests um another question I've often gotten is why is the start of the year so low for math relative to ELA um and part of that is the structure of the standards so in ela the standards are more continuous um so it's a little

050bit easier to access the next grade level because it's just increasing in complexity but in math when you go to a new grade level you might have completely new topics you've never seen before the example I always give is third grade um in third grade there's fractions and multiplication and division students don't learn about those at all in second grade so when they come to third grade it's a little bit harder at the start of the year to score in my new grade level standards because I might not have learned about those topics whereas in ela it's a little more continuous but what we really try to focus on um even more than just achievement is also growth right so combining those two things together so this shows the typical growth the median typical growth

051so what is typical growth in IR it's individualized for every student in our district every student based upon where they place in the fall get a average growth metric that I gives them that represents onee grow growth what the typical growth is for that student so 100% would represent oneyear growth so at the end of last year our median growth level was 119% that means half the students got more than that and half the students got less so half of our students are getting 119% or more they're really accelerating and getting more than one year of growth but half was also less than that um and some of that half that's less is still over you know 100% but some is certainly even below that and so that the beauty of this system is it

052allows us to dig in student by student and see who is getting low growth and what can we do differently for those students and really Target in in math you see that growth going up as well um one note that's kind of concerning is that the middle of the Year growth is actually going down and so why is that as we've dug into that to try to understand it um again some of it comes to those standards in math at the start of the year as we continue to refine our curriculum we're really trying to build that solid foundation at the start of the year so we can accelerate growth later on but that means maybe we haven't gotten to all of the topics students might not have even been exposed to some of the

053standards but as they do in the second half of the year we begin to see that acceleration at the same time we clearly still have a lot of work we need to do um so we're really digging into the standards um looking at what we can do differently um for our students our new math director Audra all is exploring new intervention programs to ensure we're providing targeted support for our struggling students um and at the end of the month hopefully actually on Thursday New York state is releasing numeracy briefs uh similar to the literacy briefs that we saw a few years ago in ela so we're looking forward to digging into those and see implications for us moving forward commitment two is cultivate trust uh and as it says at the bottom of the slide

054there we're really committed to creating a school district that acts with honesty and care and one that's really aligned with the core values that I alluded to to earlier in this presentation this particular commitment measures uh a couple of different goals that we are working on uh goals around staff retention and Equitable hiring practices which uh really aren't appropriate for a mid-year uh update we tend to share those at the beginning of the school year uh Miss LaRon and her team will report on that uh later this calendar year uh we also focus on perception survey data from students family and staff you'll hear from Dr zapis momentarily on that uh but also this commitment really focuses on the notion of shared decision-making and cultivating those trusting relationships and that open communication amongst all the

055stakeholders with in our district So to that end a data point that we want to share with you here is our shared decision making committee makeup uh you can see two separate sets of bar graphs here on this particular slide uh building level School Improvement teams uh we measure what um the number of teams that have at least one staff member a parent and or a student on that school Improvement team uh the students are not really measured uh within the school Improvement teams not necessarily appropriate to have students on our school Improvement teams but you can see that we are making gains and making sure that we have uh parents uh as represented stakeholders on our school Improvement teams for our district committees we have that same standard that same metric where we want

056there to be staff members we want there to be parents and we also want there to be students and we're proud to report that 100% of our district level teams and committees have a member from each one of those stakeholder groups shared decision- making is something that we've worked uh uh actively on you've heard uh quite a bit of presentations on the work that we've been doing over the past uh two years uh just last year we committed to four full days of release uh in which buildings and their school Improvement teams uh were invited to training with the teacher Union reform Network to really articulate the ways in which we can ensure shared decision- making is happening within our buildings the culmination of that work was a formalized shared decision making Charter that was

057created in each and every building that aligns with our district guidance on shared decision making we continue to recruit parents on a recurring basis to make sure that our committees all have parent representation uh and this year in our second youth Summit uh the plan for this spring is to utilize that opportunity to have our district committee present to our student groups our student leaders from each of our middle schools and high schools to uh hear from them about the ways in which we can make sure that our district committees are uh are working towards the goals that they as students have so we're going to cultivate uh that that exchange of ideas between committees and uh committee members and students at our youth Summit this spring good evening everyone um our perception survey our

058annual perception survey is a one data point that we use that we believe is a reflection of our stakeholder perception of trust using different types of questions to try and capture that accurately the survey is given every January over a two-e window to students on grades 3 through five um and 6- 12 staff and parents students and staff typically have time allotted during the work day and parents are encouraged to fill out the survey um using newsletters reminders at school events we also have several parent exchanges happening at every school which give us the qualitative data to use for improvement but also provide a space for parents to complete the survey for that school our questions are answered on a fivepoint ler scale and these charts measure the positivity rating of the responses um neutral

059responses don't factor into the positivity rating as for our uh response rates for 2025 for 20242 excuse me this year we had over a thousand teachers respond to the survey 5,000 plus students and nearly 2,000 parents respond to the survey this year um and the survey results um for the both the district and the school buildings are integrated as one of multiple Improvement measures in the school Improvement plans and uh the state or School comprehensive education plans as required through Essa um for our identified schools so some sample questions that fall into the bucket of cultivate trust for families staff at the school care about what families think the school communicates how important it is to respect the practices of all cultures for students in grades three through five my teachers care about me 6

060through 12 teachers at my school understand me as a person and for our staff the school inspires me to do my very best uh to do the very best at my job and school rules are applied equitably to all students just some samples of questions that fall into that cultivate trust uh bucket that was measured in the survey also wanted to touch on restorative practices as one of our um talking points tonight something that we've come to before the board and spoke on uh a few times a common misconception about restorative practices is that they're used to substitute for traditional disciplinary consequences in reality restorative practices are integrated into our behavioral response system to work in partnership with traditional consequences to support and teach our students you've seen examples of this in our highlights of

061our peer accountability Council and peer mediation initiatives in addition the great majority of restorative practices work is to proactively develop relationships and Community when successfully integrated into school's culture restorative practices create safe and productive learning spaces where students develop relevant skills and positive relationships examples of this work can be found districtwide through our leader and me program the Olympia rise initiative which our students spoke about tonight and our two-day professional learning series on tier one restorative practices for staff we strongly believe that these initiatives and more have all contributed to a steady rise in this trust metric over the past few years and thank the board of education for your continued support of our restorative practices work moving on to Commitment three this is our expand opportunities commitment um committed to ensuring that schools receive

062the resources materials and Personnel necessary to provide students greater access to rigorous and enriching opportunities there's several metrics that we're going to report out on tonight for the mid year um I have the first one here with our seal screener uh the positivity rating again is very similar to the perception survey and that this metric measures student positivity ratings on five on the five SEAL competencies of relationship skills self-management social awareness responsible decision- making and self-awareness these charts show the percentage of survey respondents who answered positively in each of theal Competency categories as it relates to their personal capacity students in grades 3 12 3 through 12 fill the survey out themselves and teachers complete the survey for their K2 students screeners are given once every fall and a second optional window is open midy

063year for schools who would like to progress monitor as a result of their school improvement work similar to the perception survey I'm just going to go through a few samples a sample question for self-management for students is how often did you get your work done right away instead of waiting till the last minute sample question for relationship skills is are you able to help your peers who may be in conflict and encourage finding a solution for social awareness how much did you care about other people's feelings for self-awareness I am able to identify recognize and name my emotions in the moment and for responsible decision- making when things go wrong for you how calm are you able to remain we've done a ton of work to build student capacity and understanding of the competencies seal

064competencies are taught and assessed in our elementary schools largely through leader and me and conveyed to parents on our report card we've done work to try and integrate explicit skill-based lessons into our secondary schedule as well through our district created resources and online respons responsibility lessons primarily targeted at cyber bullying through win at Social skill-based instruction is also woven into our Pathways and New York State EMP employability profile our strategies for success class and the senior portfolio project invites to that will be coming shortly uh for um a little plug there research Echoes what we have heard in our own community that skill gaps in the workforce continue to widen all stakeholders identifi these competencies as Target skills we are still working at aligning oural instruction with the degree Central profile of a graduate that

065is explained in detail in our reach strategic plan and anticipate that the forthcoming Board of Regents adoption of the New York State portrait of a graduate will serve as a lever by providing a road map to further integrate these skills into our core instruction we strongly believe that a focus on these competencies will allow us to achieve our strategic vision of empowering students to flourish as responsible empathetic and engaged citizens okay so one other metric that we have been tracking is the number of Elementary extracurricular clubs that students are engaged in um the purpose of Afterschool clubs is to engage students and to increase their motivation we also have Community um School site coordinators that are intentionally embedding um more academic focuses into the after school club such as vocabulary math and reading skills that

066help support each building's School Improvement goals and um also Project based learning so you'll see that the number of clubs has increased as we start to find out what students are interested in and also offer some of those extensions that will support uh the academic learning the uh last is around the number of leave innovator Partnerships we Define lead innovator Partners as those that have a mutually beneficial partnership between a community- based organization a faith-based organization or a business and that also supports our strategic plan outcomes and that has been in place for longer than a year so we believe that quality over quantity is what is important so you see that we haven't necessarily added additional Partnerships but are really focusing on sustaining the Partnerships that already exist and the last slide just sort

067of highlights the multitude of diverse Partnerships that we have and I know that Kelly sputo um meets with these Partnerships quarterly um through a Community Partnership um quarterly plan um where they're talking about making sure that the Partnerships are U mutually beneficial and talk about next steps so those are all of the updates for the midyear report are there any questions Mr B um so I want to start by saying uh you know one of the ways that we build trust in the community is by not just talking about when everything's going perfectly but when we look at a dashboard like this where there's some areas for improvement and I think it's the the philosophy of we either win or we learn and I think that I'm I'm proud to be part of a district

068that really looks at these things closely and and looks to improve where there are opportunities so I had a um a few questions about some of the slides and I can take them one at a time Sean if you want sure that way everybody gets a shot that' be great great thanks um so uh working from the back of the deck forward the the first one I had was around theal screener um positivity rating where you know the uh Trend does not uh look like we're on track to hit our goal at the end of the Strategic plan period and so I would love to hear your thoughts on why that might be and what we're doing to CL correct yeah we've talked about that quite a bit um before we talk before I mention

069um some of our thoughts on why we may not be making a ton of progress there um I just wanted to Circle back to the upcoming work through the state of and I guess it is really related really the effort coming from New York State and everything we're hearing is that seal skill instruction can't exist on an island um or in a bucket and in a lot of ways especially at the secondary level that's been our approach has been to try to carve out time um to really dig in and explicitly teach students seal skills and a lot of kind of the research that the state has been going through about successful initiatives has been about really integrating that into our core instruction which we've see at the elementary level through leader and me so

070I in the future a lot of that work is going to be to try to do that to try to integrate those things and we you know anticipate that that could be something that could be a lever to to move those in the right direction um we've also talked about the fact that the more that students learn about what capacity or what Proficiency in in one of the um competencies really means that they may understand that they're not necessarily at the level that they thought they were uh previously so that could be that's one hypothesis as to why um the indicators have remained rather flat rather than than increasing so those are some hypotheses we're trying to still kind of get creative and figure out different ways of embedding explicitly teaching and assessing theal competencies

071and we've definitely heard um through the graduation measures initiative that that's something that we're going to be um it's there's going to be a framework for that through the state that's coming in short order so we anticipate give having an update on how we can do more of that work thank you Mr Maloney I think it's page nine was a graph on page nine uh it's the it's the K8 I reading it seems like it's is it working I mean it it it seem you take a look at the graphs over the last four or five years and it kind of in the beginning it's close mid mid Midway through the year it kind of looks like it's doesn't move the graph doesn't move that much so you're looking at the uh reading k i

072ready reading yes and on page nine yep um I just don't have page numbers on my document sorry so this is our first year full implementation of our core um so even our end ofe numbers at the end of last year um was only partial implementation so okay as with any new program it takes a little bit of time to get everybody trained um as part of that implementation so as we we are closely monitoring the data at all levels not this just this data we have multiple different data points that we're looking at um we do feel it's being impactful Street data from teachers um as they've talked about students who received our core instruction last year are now in their classrooms they they say they're seeing a significant difference um in what those

073students can do so we're excited to see as that grows year after year and the students are in the program for multiple years to accelerate that growth so we are seeing positive signs um but I agree it might not be showing up here yet um this is what we consider more of like a lag measure that's going to happen over the next few years okay thank you thank you Mr M M Farah thank you guys for doing this I kind of want to uh reiterate what my colleagues have said here on page so we say it all the time um and we kind of hit that a couple months ago regarding the 4% of personal growth kind of goes along with what uh Mr Butler and Mr Mr Maloney we saying you know if we're

074not get seeing the positivity rates 4% of growth I would think we would want to strive just a tad more 4% seems very low on that can you kind of give us I know you're working on more initiatives I know it's a seven-year strategic plan but we're already more than halfway there if we're not going to reach those goals mid year are we trying to look at other options I know you kind of did but can you hit anything more on this um so yes the 4% growth over five years is based upon how New York state uses their Essa growth right looking at 20% growth over a 5year span so we agree we want to accelerate even more than that though um and so again I'm not just looking at the mid years I'm

075looking at those end of years and you're right we're not hitting that 4% every year so that's why we're doing intensive training we have about a 100 PD coaching sessions for ELA our core this year to try to drastically overhaul our Ela curriculum and provide tons of support for our teachers our administrators and staff as we're really digging in so that is throughout this entire year it is a deep dive and we're looking at it so we're in the middle of that change right now and that's the hard part when you're in the middle of a change right you want the results to be instant but sometimes you got to like continue through that to see the results of that change so but we're always always looking at data getting feedback from students staff and

076this summer I know there will be heavy curriculum work uh we've already gotten some feedback about the writing rubrics and how that aligns to New York State and how we might beef that up to adjust for students so that is an ongoing continual process to keep improving thank you vice president farmer just to follow up on uh Mr Butler so the seal work how they're uh looking at integrating it throughout the day I was not in this District but in other districts I was um a a contractor who was using a tool for that exact purpose so we would go into the classroom teachers were volunteering um I think we might have had a couple teachers from here who did and what was so um to me at least which what what I thought was

077so um powerful about this tool is there it's little teeny tiny things that you can do during the day High School included I I visited High School classes and it it allows the teacher the educator it's just good stuff that we do with kids but when we tend to put it in a box sometimes it doesn't make as big I would say most times it doesn't make as big as of an impact as it does when it's integrated into our instruction so thank you I'm glad to hear that about the um up and coming yeah Mr Butler thank you um so I had a um a question on the uh on slide seven which is the percentage of special K5 specialed students integrated into academic or special area general education settings and um I I

078got two questions one uh I'm not sure um if there is a goal for this I I hear what you're saying that and I understand like the the the denominator changes every year right so that because you have a different cohort of students so that makes that makes sense to me do you establish a goal every year for like this cohort this year we think that an appropriate percentage is this number um or not so that that's one question and and are you concerned at all about the I know you want we'd want this to be you know always want everything to be a higher number but do you feel like the 10% or so decrease that we see from uh 23 24 to 2425 is a uh is a like what you would have

079expected so the first the to answer your first question I'd say we're striving to get 100% we really want to see all of our students have some type of integration opportunity so that's going to look very differently for each and every student it might just be this student is really just ready to attend this Afterschool homework club or this math club so that's going to be their opportunity to not be just within their self-contained uh classroom with their their peers but to now be with general education students after School in that particular club for another student it might be you know what they're ready to to dip into that second grade general education setting uh for math time half an hour a day every day it's going to vary based on students so the message

080that we've really been giving our building administrators at the K5 level is we want to shoot for 100% uh last year we were really intentional about using our leadership time to provide some really concrete specific professional development for all our administrators K5 on a monthly basis with uh around integration uh and for some principles this was old hat this is something that they've been doing it's part of their RTI system it's something that's really infused into their building culture for other buildings it was some new learning uh and really kind of opening their eyes to the various ways in which you can make sure integration happens uh truthfully in the spirit of honesty and transparency I think we were a little surprised that we did see a little bit of a dip uh from last

081year in talking through it with uh our um uh our department our special education department and and as a team we really do think it's it's probably part of that RTI process so response to intervention you're having weekly meetings to discuss students and their needs uh and so our our hunch though we haven't confirmed this is there might be a little bit of a backlog in kind of cycling students through a formalized RTI process where we can look at data and say say you know what this student is ready for that math time during the school day or needs to just go to that after school club so we're hopeful that between now and the end of the year we're going to see that metric go up and hopefully surpass our end of year uh

082number from the 2324 school year but yes we're a little disappointed that it did drop off a bit in January okay thanks anything else y sorry go ahead um great thank you for that uh the um uh board member Maloney uh brought our attention to slide nine and uh I I the same initial question is around the the goal um because it says um you know it doesn't have a a metric that we're shooting for or a Target there so I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that I think the trend line Looks you know like it's trending in a general positive direction so I feel good about that but I'm wondering if there is a goal I also wonder if and this these questions apply to ELA and math I wonder if you disaggregate

083that by grade because this is I the way I read this it's I it's the I ready score for kindergarten through 8th grade which is like a feels like a huge uh group of students and and I'm and I'm guessing that disaggregation gives you a lot of opportunities to to improve that's a great question um that's actually part of the role I do is I provide every building and um with targeted data so all of this is broken down not only by grade but every demographic so they can look at just special ed students or um by race or by gender and all those types of things and so we really dig into that and then we can drill in and find out exactly who those students are and so we're looking at hey this

084group of students is getting low growth um what's going on with them do we see any Trends what can we do differently or these students are getting high growth what's what's helping them be successful so we are certainly looking for that when you say um um a Target goal for what we're I is not the only thing we look at right on a strategic plan we can't have too many metrics um but also in Reading we have our eara scores so um it's something that comes with our core program and that gives those very specific reading levels um and that allows us to diagnose anym even more and we're really trying to see are we getting students up to that reading level so we're looking at multiple data points together to try to really hone

085in on what we're doing so um I if that answers your question yeah I I appreciate especially the first part of it I guess the question about the about what the target is it still remains a little bit for me or do you look at like the trend line moving in the right direction until we hit 100% we're going to be hoping that the trend line is moving in the right direction or it should continuously keep going up yes um all of our students should be hopefully scoring within their grade level standards so um but we do kind of internally have that from our Essa kind of from the state thinking about 20% over 5 years um is kind of a a goal but to me even that's not good enough right we're always just

086trying to do better and better but um when I'm only seeing one or two% growth in a year we're thinking we want to do better than that so um shooting for at least that 4% if not more every single year great thank you anything else Megan's got one and I I have just one more I promise okay go ah Mr okay just make that quick I know we were talking about ready with reading we kind of kicked off the science of reading and pheic awareness phonics things like that do we see anything coming down the pipe with science of math I know that was talked about will this help hinder are we going to see more maybe yes so I actually think it's Thursday New York State's coming out with their numeracy briefs right so

087the science of reading was very much tied and brought out in those literacy briefs um that New York State released I don't know two or three years ago math um New York State coming out with them for math I believe on Thursday um and so our math director Audra is going to bosis for that presentation and we're interested to dig in and see the implications on that for our overall program and instructions for PD and curriculum work and all those types of things so good to know thank you we're looking forward to that yeah Mr Maloney I guess I I'm I'm a little confused and the confusion is Page seven and page nine all right the ik reading and is special education integrated I mean integrated special education is that uh included or not inclusive

088of General Ed scores how do I how do I put this in a nice way um you don't have to be nice that's okay I mean all of our children are together I is that the the score of everything whether it's General Ed or whether it's special ed or or the inclusion piece is that why these graphs are so are you referring to the graph on page nine with the I ready and also with that with with the with special ed scores that U my colleague here mentioned um so if I could clarify graph seven yeah so that's the percent of students out of roughly 200 197 to be exact exact K through five students who are not who are in a self-contained setting so like our 121 ons for instance okay that's the percent

089of those 197 students that have had an opportunity whatever that might look like to be in a general education setting so it might be as I said earlier a half an hour of math in a general education class they leave that self-contained classroom and they're going to go challenge themselves quite frankly push themselves in this General general education setting because through that response to intervention process that we have the teacher said you know what this student is ready for that they're ready to be challenged a little bit this is going to be really good for them to help scale them up a little bit it might be that they go to math for half the day every day it might be that they just go to that after school club it's going to by student

090but as of January in this year this school year 51% of our special education students of that 197 have had that opportunity that's what that particular graph speaks to and Bill maybe I could clarify because you mentioned nine assessment nine that that that that's an assessment data that does include all of our students cor special ed gened students are included in nine when it comes to the reading scores that's that's what I wanted yeah two different grab yeah Mr Butler and this the last one I promise um so uh and this is uh a bunch of Kudos so I think the fact that you got a thousand uh employees to take the survey is amazing um Take a Bow Gina um I think the the fact you got 5,000 students to take the student perceptions

091survey I'm sure they had some incentives to do that in class time and that kind of thing but it's still great that 5,000 students like when people are doing market research and they have a total population they get like almost 50% of that population that take the survey first of all you got really projectable data and and second of all that that just those response rates are are remarkable and the fact that 2,000 parents who were who've got a lot going on in addition to taking a a school survey took the time to complete the survey that says something uh about the the level of Engagement that you've got from all three of those audiences so I just I wanted to give a Kudo on that yeah I'll just offer a quick comment um we're

092definitely very appreciative of all the parents who completed the survey um our number has been steadily growing I think that's due to some efforts on our part but also you know parents going the extra mile to take the time whether they have one two three kids in the district to complete their surveys um so we really appreciate that um and to your comment about the um something that you said just jugged my memory of the the questions and the reliability of the data um the sample size you were talking about it also um we are seeing that the questions year-over-year there's incremental changes they tend to be improvements there's also some that have gone the other way but um the fact that there's not no wild swings in the data kind of goes along with

093that reliability piece too um yeah on the scale and on on the questions themselves right just one other note I wanted to mention on the perception survey it's kind of very closely related to our to theal work um that I spoke about a little bit on um commitment 3 and I just wanted to reiterate that um student perceptions and student seal competencies are in our opinion very closely linked and that's why we put so much effort into trying to find the right way to promote those skills in students um in large part uh that's the beauty of the leader of me program that we have um because when I said earlier that we're looking for ways to integrate it theal skill-based instruction into our core instru it doesn't discount the explicit teaching of those competencies

094um so there's the D the direct instruction of those but also integrated um the direct instruction is integrated throughout the day and not a standalone we believe that is going to help uh and has helped with both our perceptions our student perceptions but then also their their competencies as well great so my uh one question on the perception serve which I wanted to celebrate that too because great success on that so kudos to the whole team for that um I'm curious as to why it's just instructional staff and not uh not all staff so I assume that includes you know everybody who's not in the classroom is is not included in that number I assume we're surveying those folks too we survey so for this particular perception survey it is just teachers I remember having

095the dialogue years ago do you can you articulate that anyone is welcome to take it they could just skip there's just a lot of instructional questions that not all staff may be able to answer so if anyone can take it it's available and they can skip some of those those questions but the questions are more geared towards those who are in the classroom I mean it's interesting right because we look at every month when we get the status of open positions we don't have a lot of open positions in the in instructional staff we have a lot of open positions in the other areas so it seems like maybe an opportunity to to think about maybe be being more thinking about a survey for for the non-instructional staff as well uh so I think but

096Cuda the not not notwithstanding kudos to the team for that and my last two Kudos are on the the progress towards typical growth we aree well ahead of our end of the strategic planning period Target for that so kudos to the team on that thank you moving on to 2526 budget update superintendent Smalling yes and I will call Romeo Kil up to for this presentation thank you well thank you again uh Megan and I are again going to uh split this presentation um so one of our goals this is again year 13 I believe uh of the tax cap calculation we do this annually with you to review the calculation Our Hope again is to provide the board with a better understanding and board and the public with a better understanding of how the tax

097levy is calculated it's not a number we pull out of the head it's not a number we just say hey we're short we have a gap the Lev is going to be this to close the gap it's a calculation and hopefully uh with some information here tonight you'll have a better understanding of how this is done the tax cap again uh is not uh is a a calculation that sets the tax levy uh for the school district it is not the assessed value of of uh the homes or the homes in the district it is not the tax rate for 2526 it literally just establishes um the tax levy that we're going to use for the upcoming year and each School District that goes through the calculation has a different outcome depending on the situation

098and the variables in their calculation so this first Factor we're going to look at is the tax based growth factor this is provided by the Department of Taxation and Finance and it's really it's the new construction um Home Improvements any sort of capital Improvement that brick and mortar um uh growth within the district um it doesn't include new pilots so we a to talk about pilots in a little bit we've had a lot of um senior housing facilities in the um that have been built in in the district those would not count towards um our growth each year so the tax based growth factor for grease Central in 2526 is 1.21 this chart shows um the the tax based growth factor over the years for Greece you can see um it's really volatile uh definitely

099um not predictable I would say so it can be as little as has zero growth like we saw in 1314 and then as you can see in 25 26 we did dip from last year um to the 1.21 and then we always Char our tax Bas growth factor against the other school districts within the county we're typically in the middle half I would say um year-over-year this year we're a little bit on the lower end um again but that changes the average for the county was 1.58 and then just to say the highs and lows Penfield had a high of 1.036 and uh Gates try did not have growth this year so they were the 1.00 Z okay second factor is the pilot payments that Megan just spoke to the term pilot is an acronym

100for p payments in Le of taxes this is determined through the Ida and the commuta the County of Monro Industrial Development agency basically there are agreements that are made with the town town and the county um to um obtain some tax breaks uh in exchange for other community benefits and jobs uh within the area and typically they're set at a fixed schedule so they may say for a 10 or 15E period uh rather than paying tax on the full value of the property we're going to pay a fixed amount each year or amount that changes each year or we're going to have a percentage off the assessed values typically it starts at maybe 100% And then goes down 10% a year and then 10 years later or 15 years later they go back onto the

101tax roles um we don't have any control over those we're normally asked about them if we approv them or not but in reality uh they're approved by the comma and the county we don't really have what to say but we are at least notified of them so that we can at least be aware of them and include them in the calculation current Pilots um we thought we not a couple large ones here we've got this life cycle North American North America Hub on mclen road mofen road um this is a lithium ion battery recycling plant it is a large footprint um it's going to be in the neighborhood of a $500 million building uh when it's completed um they have been having some financial and legal issues uh with this plant so you've seen construction

102go on and off on it um but it is at least moving forward it's currently assessed at about 45.2 uh million do and um right now we are taxing them at a kind of a tax roll Pace uh but we're expecting the pilot to be coming through for this at any point in time we have a new pilot coming on that we spoke about a couple board meetings ago called Clear Choice building they're a Hearing and Balance uh headquarters about a 30,000 foot facility worth about 1.5 million right now on Canal landing and we have a future pilot uh going in called waffer um which is an LLC it's a Wester Drome it's the Elm Grove Plaza our understanding is it may replace what's currently H what the currently resides in the Sam's Club uh

103portion of the Plaza at the end there uh it's a food manufacturing and cold storage facility um right now assessed at about almost $5 million and I did kind of look it up and I'll just say this for for for some last but uh they're currently able to produce up to 840 million waffles per year so it is quite the operation out there that will be located in that building um the next factor is the allowable growth factor this again is provided by the Department of Taxation and Finance it represents a lesser of 2% or CPI CPI being the Consumer Price Index which is really the inflationary change over year um we get this factor in January which was 2.95% so the allowable growth factor for this year that we'll use this calculation will be

1042% because it's the lower of 2% or CPI which was 2.95 um this is what this is the factor that people think about when we talk about tax cap they think we're capped at that 2% but as you'll see um as we've seen over the years that um there's a lot of different factors that go into this calculation that could put you above or below that that 2% this chart shows the um the line on this graph represents actual CPI and the uh the the chart portion I guess the bar chart represents allowable growth factor so where these two inter intersect or overlap would be when CPI was at or below 2% um you can see the numbers over the years have um you know gone significantly up in 23 24 was that 8% but

105again we're still capped at that 2% so if we wanted to go anything over that um we would be outside of the tax cap calculation and you would really need a super majority to to pass one of the final factors is the capital cost exclusion and we talk about this a lot but basically what it says is uh it's the difference between what are we paying out in debt Serv how much are we paying out to pay off our debt for the year minus what we're getting back from the state that difference is added to um the calculation to get to the final Levy we've for years now have had two portions of this the first portion is the tax levy to pay for the local costs for the Greece exclusion and then three or

106four years ago the state allowed Bosey Capital cost to be included as well so now there's that portion as well um the Bose Capital portion we actually pay expenses we contribute to the Bose's capital projects that they have going or are saving for and therefore we get Aid back so similar to our calculation what's our debt minus our Aid it's the same thing with bosis how much are we paying out how much are we getting back and that difference again is an allow aable exclusion to calculate The Debt Service Megan I'll run through the numbers just real quick yes so on the top left there's our debt service number the what's in there is really the principal and interest that we pay on debt and the transfer to capital for the smaller projects right under

107that is the projected building Aid that we um that we are anticipating and under that is the projected Transportation Aid um to give us our net local share so each year we talk about how we work with our financial advis advisers to manage this exclusion um to that 2.7 number so that number right under um the net local share is the transfer from debt service so we're strategically using Debt Service fund um to to reduce that that Capital exclusion to that 2.7 that we've been managing to and then this portion of the capital um the capital exclusion is really for bosis so we start with the district portion and then as Romeo noted we add in the Bose's expenses our portion of that and then subtract out the Bose's uh Aid leaving the you know

108around $3 million of the capital exclusion for the current year then this is just a summary putting all these factors that we just talked about together the Top Line um is this is the prior year levy on line two we add in the tax based growth factor that 1.21 we first talked about we multiply that um we add back our prior gear pilots and remove um our prior year Capital exclusion that gives us our adjusted prior year levy on line six um we multiply that by the allowable growth factor again this year it's going to be 2% 2% or CPI and we subtract out our current year Pilots to give us our tax levy limit this next slide is just bringing over that tax levy limit before exclusions and then we subtract out the um

109the current year uh Capital exclusions that that we just went through that leaves us with our maximum allowable tax levy for 2526 of around 128 million that's an increase of 2.6 million or uh 2.0 7% increase and we will submit this tax cap calculation there's a requirement for school districts to submit that to the New York Office of the State comproller by March 1st any questions Mr Butler just just to test my understanding because I always feel like I'm hanging on by my fingernails with with these uh conversation so we have the 2% tax cap and to go over the 2% tax cap we would need the super majority vote the reason that the number at the bottom of slide 14 there is 2.07 is because of all those exclusions that we just talked about

110so can actually no damn it a little bit in this yeah I thought I had it the um this m this line 14 this maximum allowable tax levy that if we stay at that level or below we need 50% plus one vote if we go a dollar over that or a million dollars over that we need a super majority in past years this maximum allowable tax levy could be 2 and a half or three and a half or 4% but it's still the maximum allowable Levy it's just so as Megan said it happens that this happens to be 2% okay for this year in Prior years that maximum allowable tax levy when and some folks may remember when um uh the mall came off the pilot and went back on the tax roll we were

111up in the four or five% was the growth in the levy but we still only needed 50% plus one vote because we were under the calculated Max so they're related but they don't tie and correlate directly okay it's this number line 14 number is what drives 50% or super majority anything above that number regardless of whether it's a 2% 1% % or 7% increase dictates 50% or super right okay thanks that help anything else I think I have a question oh boy Mr Malo I'm sorry I I I gu I'm trying to I'm trying to wrap my head around this the allow allowable growth factor on page nine I think it was on page nine it shows in 20 3 24 24 25 it was 8% is that is that inflationary yes that the CPI

112is the inflation rate and we can't compensate for that no so when in those last four years um when uh going back to 2021 on this chart yeah CPI was 1 Point uh was 1.23% yeah we had to use 1.23% the next four years it went to 4.78 4.12 and 2.95 and we only could use a maximum the max were capped out it is 2% thank you I guess thank you yes all right moving on to bus replacement proposal super n small you could just stay up there Romeo I'll make this semi quiick so again um similar to uh the tax cap calculation we traditionally have been doing uh bus replacement each year to keep our Fleet up to date kind of surplus and get rid of those buses that are either old have a

113lot of mileage and or are maintenance issue for us for us so we constantly in past years have been replacing between 20 and 25 buses each year we wanted to talk a little bit about this year's um bus replacement so just a quick history in process uh there each year annually there's a committee um of stakeholders traditionally includes the garage some Finance folks Transportation Administration drivers attendance to get together and talk about uh what bus bues maybe we need to get rid of what kind of buses do we need going forward what should we what it what should it look like they're charged with determining a recommendation for the number and the type of vehicles that we want to replace as well as which vehicles should we auction or trade in and we've auctioned and

114traded in um on and off in different years I did need to bring up this electric bus initiative uh here um in at least a sense um current law status in the timeline per the Mandate two years ago or three years two or three years ago now is still in place so technically we're still in the process of come 2027 if we buy any new buses they have to be electric and come 2035 the entire fleet has to be electric however there's a number and you'll see on the slide here there's a number of consider ations and issues um that have been discussed since the initial uh law was put into a place was put in place um things like what happens if your vote fails um um how about infrastructure redesign of garages to

115accommodate some you know similar to us buses are stored outside some places want to talk about building overhead garages over these is that going to be an able project the availability of buses the expense there's a lot of things that have come up since two years ago that we're hearing there could be some changes forthcoming shortly but we don't know that yet and we have to make this determination now there could be some change we're uncertain but what we are um looking at and again I've got this under trans phase one Transformer and Chargers if needed it's been a long process in conversations with rg& um trying to understand what kind of power and again on the assumption that we do need to continue to make move forward what type of power do we need

116what can we do for a phase one it's taken a long time we finally have gotten a response from RG on a cost to add a new Transformer um we've got Cordis technology finishing up a review for us about how to phase this out over the next uh several years years and with this Transformer that we still need to discuss whether we need to do it or not or if things change or not or if it's delayed or whatever the situation is going to be this new Transformer would power up to 20 buses uh for us as our first attempt at getting to electrification of the buses should we have to continue down that road um it would it would go kind of where the charger is now near the fuel islands in the back

117of trans a there's a cost to put that in then there'll be a cost to put in the Chargers we'll have to have a vote for that there's a lot of things that have but we're ready should we need to go ahead and continue my gut says we may hear something in the next couple months about uh this whole project um but we're not sure what that's going to be so with that in mind as we we've been kind of talking about this our our strategy was going to be if if this is going to stay in place we are going to over buy 10 buses in 2526 over buy and purchase 10 additional buses in 26 27 and then if we had to wait two years a year or two because we're waiting for

118the dust to settle and what's happening with this whole initiative we could go two years without having to buy any buses and our oldest bus would only be 12 or 13 years old which is going to be manageable at this point we're sticking to that until something comes out that makes us go in another Direction so with that in mind we are looking to um purchase 35 gas or diesel buses during 2526 to prepare uh for what may be coming down the law we're going to buy 10 extra buses versus our normal replacement cycle of 25 and then we're going to auction in auction or trade in 35 n buses to repl you know as The Replacements for the 35 that we're buying plus around 23 older buses other buses to shrink our Fleet down

119to 190 is a first step again driver shortage we've got more routes sitting with Ontario bus we're not only us but everyone is struggling getting drivers we've had a fleet of about 220 I think we're down around 2115 213 we're going to get that down to 190 because we don't need all those buses but we probably feel 190 is a good number to start for this year get us down to that we still need to have buses um for DOT reasons and inspections we've need spares that are out there we've got buses that break down you can't get parts for so we 190 is at least the first step that could come down further in future years but that's our goal for 2526 just a listing of the uh buses that we're looking to buy,

1201570 passenger large buses for about 180 Grand um 1070 passenger buses with cargo for about 182 26 I'm sorry 226 passenger wheelchair buses for $40 140,000 a piece and 83 30 passenger small buses at about 105 interestingly um the large buses two years ago we didn't buy any large buses last year but in 20 um 203 24 that same bus was $164,000 it's now $180,000 for the same bus up about N9 or 10% the 26 passenger wheelchair buses we bought some last year they were about um $132,000 each they're now 140 and the small bus uh we bought some last year they were about 100,000 they're now about 106 so those costs are going up 6 7% each year electric buses are getting more each year um we'll have to just see where things go

121in aggregate we're looking to buy 35 buses for 5.6 million again as we've said in previous years Debt Service payments will begin in 25 26 we'll get Transportation Aid on those buses over 5 years we're going to use about 1.89 or almost $1.9 million out of the bus Reserve to pay the local share and therefore there there will be no additional local share added to the levy to pay for these new buses and then we'll match all the payments with the debt that we have and after five years those buses are paid off no no sorry you can't you can't ask the question no ma'am you can put it in writing to me that's fine anybody have any questions um I have a couple just to go ahead Mr Farah no that's fine I just

122have a quick question I know a couple years ago the board we talked about this when the bus mandate elector bus mandate was going to come around we were talking about writing a letter to our official which would have been Senator Cooney at the time uh we didn't do that although we said we were now that we have it's a new year are we looking to do that or continuing that conversation I did have an opportunity to speak with Cooney on Sunday um and them we had the same things we talked about we just spent millions of dollars on the T Transportation Center how do we go back to the taxpayers and ask them as we have to rip up the parking Lake like you mentioned um what what's going to happen are we still

123continuing we have a lot of safety issues regarding the bus issues um battery issues cold I know we talked about putting roofs in other areas and towns and districts doing that um indoor kind of feature but we know in Greece that we're a very large district and to shrink down our buses this has been a Hot Topic obviously for our district where do we see that letter going to our officials I'll answer that basically the letter got delayed pending the study we've been doing with ARG we wanted to get that information back so we contracted with the company to do this bus study it's been a long process Within AR Genie once that study comes back and we have some information then we're going to craft that letter and send it Forward at that time

124okay I appreciate thank you and just to add to that that study should we're hoping will get done shortly one of the glitches in that delayed the report which should identify all the phases timeline and total costs which is what the board members were interested in it was this letter from RG um on what the C what their cost may be so now that we have a portion of it we're going to touch base with Corney technology to see if that's sufficient enough for them to do their projections and lay things out for us so hopefully we should see that relatively soon okay I just have a couple things so you said it but I just want to make sure it's clear that there's no cost to taxpayers with this bus proposition correct thank you

125number two we're not doing anything with electric buses currently I know you had a slide about electric buses but just so the community is aware this bus resolution will have nothing to do with electric buses electric bus infrastructure anything along those lines correct correct and last just from a curiosity standpoint I see do you have a breakdown or maybe you do Mr Richardson on the a 70 passenger gas or diesel bus is approximately $180,000 we have any idea what an electric bus currently for that same size is half a million 460 yeah so about $300,000 more give or take and the state currently has these voucher programs for about 200 or 250 but that's another big question mark is how long is is that going to be around and sustainable thank you all right thank

126you very much thank you all right moving on to extra classroom activities report can I ass move that to the table please move by m m second by Mr stencil any comments questions concerns on this sing none all in favor that passes 7 to zero moving on 8.02 standardization uh football helmets and shoulder pads District y can I move that to the table please move by Miss fah second by Mr Maloney comments questions concerns on this sing that all in favor that passes 7 to zero M Farah oh okay I just want to make sure 7 to Zer 9.01 budget status report it's written information only is anybody make questions all right moving on to 10.01 to consent agenda Can I some move that to the table please moved by Mr Butler second by Mr

127stencil any comments questions concerns on that I would just like to thank the extra classroom activities funds at Arcadia Athena and Olympia for the donations they made to a various host of things across the district I'd like to thank art member for Their donation of art supplies to Patty Hill can Maly TR for the donation they made to the district and the New York State educational media technology Association for Their donation to Arcadia High School for media literacy with that all those in favor of the consent agenda that passes excuse me 7 to zero moving on to 11.01 student trip approval can I have some move that to the table please move by Mr Miss malora seconded by Mr Maloney any comments questions concerns on this singing all in favor that passes 7 to zero

128moving on to school calendar can I move that to the table please for 252 moveed by vice president farmer seconded by who had a second there Mr stel um any comments questions concerns on that sing n all in favor that passes 7 to zero 13.01 second read of policies can I move those to the table please I would like to make a motion uh that that we consider them all in one and not uh read them separately please sure is there a second on that that second by vice president farmer um any comments questions or concerns on that seeing that all is in favor of moving them all is one that passes 7 to zero now we're on to policies all those in favor of adopting the policies that passes oh yep nope I got

129to get a motion on that can I get a motion on adopting the policies mve by Mr stel second by Miss farmer or miss m um with that any questions comments on those all right sing on all those in favor all right just that passes 7 to Zer let me enjoy my stroke and um can I get a motion Mr Maloney I'd like to get a motion to adour a meeting please thank you is there a second Mr stel all those in favor that passes and just of not anybody listening the um School Board petitions will be ready with our district clerk next Monday March 3rd so if you're interested in running for the school board the petition packet will be available next Monday thank you everyone have a good evening for