001right yeah is thank you so much good evening I'd like to welcome everyone to our Tuesday September 2020 2022 Board of Education meeting I would like to have everyone rise for the Pledge of Allegiance led by vice president milora and I'd like to issue a special thank you to principal on special assignment Mr Mark Fleming who found a flag for us which was much appreciated and after we say the Pledge if we could have a moment of silence for the Mancini family Melissa Mancino's a Paddy hill teacher and her mother and her sister also are employed by the district she lost her husband the other day and so if we could keep the Mancini family in your thoughts and prayers that would be much appreciated thank you the United States of America and to the
002Republic for which stands one nation under God the indivisible with liberty the agenda I would just like to make a slight Amendment under 7.02 followers that passes B to zero moving on to the humidity income good evening everyone it's not so much an update as it is just a revisit um of basically what we looked at the last board meeting in order to hold the public meeting that is required if we're looking to go ahead and change the income thresholds to our current exemption policy so as we know New York state has basic income exemptions for qualifying residents it is currently up to fifty thousand dollars that was recently passed however what we're working under is the Assumption of the 29 000 maximum limit for um a 50 reduction there's also a sliding scale option
003that if you earn more than the 29 000 or the threshold determined by the board you can get a sliding scale exemption from 45 to 20 to 5 percent depending on the income levels that you wish to have that's also allowable in the law there are two income exemptions we're looking at one is the limited income senior exemption and the other is the limited income disability exemption both have requirements for The Limited senior 65 years of age and uh meet certain income limitations same thing with the disability exemption you've got to have documentation to support the disability and also meet certain income restrictions as well uh the one note on the bottom of the screen is that if you have a child in that household that is attending a public school you're not entitled to
004that exemption even if you do qualify because that is a disqualifier for you this is just a graph of what our current exemptions look like the blue line on the bottom is our current exemption thresholds so the more you earn the less the exemption that you receive the top orange line is currently the Town of Greece Which is higher than what our thresholds are but are in generally the same pattern and the green line in the middle is the proposed income thresholds that the board is looking at for approval this evening looking at it a little bit uh more detail what you see here is in the First Column the grease maximum current maximum limit is twenty thousand dollars to receive a fifty percent exemption uh for either type up to you can earn twenty
005eight thousand four hundred dollars and still get a five percent exemption however in the town of Greece side you can go up to twenty nine thousand dollars and still get fifty percent and you can go as high as twenty thirty seven thousand four hundred dollars and still get a five percent um the mid-range proposal that you have in front of you for this evening kind of splits that difference so we go from twenty thousand to twenty four thousand five hundred for the fifty percent exemption and then sliding scale we would go from twenty eight thousand three ninety nine to thirty two thousand eight ninety nine and you would still be entitled to a five percent exemption if you qualify for either one just a quick summary on the numbers I'm currently under Greece our current
006exemption our current thresholds provide for 985 folks households that qualify for the senior exemption the county qualifies 1587 under their threshold our proposed mid-range would increase us from 985 we estimate would increase us from 985 households to 1250. same with the disability exemptions we would see an increase of approximately nine or ten the assessed values are below each of them so if we go from our current schedule which now has 43 million 43.6 million dollars worth of exemptions we would go to 65.1 million dollars worth of exemptions as an estimate and all in all uh what you're looking at at the bottom is the current rate for this school year is 24.84 if we go with the proposed mid-range proposal we would go to 20 this year had it been in place we would have
007go to 24.95 an increase of 11 cents or about 0.45 percent would have been the addition to the tax rate for this year foreign s to consider primarily provides exemptions for limited or fixed income or low income households it's spreads so the district itself the levy will always remain the levy whatever the levy is established at the district is always made whole what this will do is shift that 11 cents from those who qualify for the exemption to those who do not qualify for the exemption it just shifts the cost difference amongst everybody else who doesn't qualify and again the last bullet we're not sure what the town and the county are going to do recently got moved up to fifty thousand dollars we'll take a look at that when they make their determination over
008the next several months and then excuse me revisit this with the board again in the future so our options quite simply eliminate the exemption which is uh really not a an option leave the current exemption schedule and place the way it is revisit it in three years or change the current exemption to the proposed thresholds for 23 for the 23-24 school year or the 24-25 school year the only caveat there is that you need to we need to provide the town with about a Year's notice before we do that so if we were looking to implement this for 23.24 we would notify the dish the Town of Greece next month and it would be applicable 20 for the 23-24 school year tax bills and again you can see that on the next bullet and then
009the public hearing is required which is what we're doing this evening thank you Romeo thanks all right I'm going to call the limited income exemption public hearing to order I have no one sign up I'm going to take a motion to close the public income moved by Mr Maloney seconded by Mrs farmer all those in favor any opposed proposal itself nope that's later in the meeting this is just on closing the public hearing are you okay and it passes eight to zero okay moving on to Staffing can I Sony move the Staffing at the table please move by vice president Laura second by Miss Flores any comments questions concerns on Staffing seeing none all those in favor that passes eight to zero Mr Smalling good evening I'd like to introduce Rachel Hawkins as the new
010assistant director of Phoenix Academy and Alternative Learning Rachel completed her undergraduate degree in education as well as her graduate degree in special education at Oswego State University she then attended St John Fisher College to complete her graduate degree in educational leadership prior to Greece Central Rachel worked at monroe1 BOCES she taught at Monroe one for six years and has been an assistant principal at Monroe one for the last for the last six moving into her seventh year Rachel truly enjoys supporting students in their journey toward High School completion she is past she is passionate about supporting students to find success in overcoming challenges Rachel also enjoys collaborating to support students in finding success and feel welcomed in their environment Rachel's looking forward to continuing to grow her skills in supporting students to find success in
011the areas of alternate programming and learning she is also looking to continue her work in creating learning environments and programming that are reflective of diversity equity and inclusion we're not at work Rachel loves spending time with her family she has three young kids ages five three and seven months as a family they enjoy getting outside as much as possible swimming hiking and so much more congratulations and welcome to Greece I'm a Navy come up Rachel for a picture with superintendent growlman and assistant superintendent's efforts welcome to Cree Central and I want to apologize to you for making your way to your interview okay moving on 3.02 can I swim with the tinier at the table please move by Miss floor so I can buy Mrs farmer any comments questions concerns on tenure saying that all's
012in favor any opposed that passes eight to zero when we got to the nine unit rate sheet can I suddenly move that to the table please moved by Mrs farmer second by Mr bonagorial any comments questions concerns on that saying that all is in favor any opposed that passes eight to zero moving on to the teamsters Memorial agreement can actually move that detail please move by Mr Malone second by Miss Flores comments questions concerns on that seeing that I was in favor any opposed that passes eight to zero moving on to 4.01 opening up schools update superintendent groutman yeah so I it says oral information and that's what I said but I put a few slides together so I'm gonna actually go up to the podium to do this I have to be at that
013one I'm new to this okay so we have had a great opening to school you can see here um obviously everybody in the room knows that our theme this year is around embracing joy and what I wanted to do is just go through a couple of sort of high level areas that I reflect on every year in terms of how we open school and just to give you just a little bit of information so the first area that I want to talk a little bit we're going to be talking about schools and operations Transportation Athletics and extracurriculars and then just overall learning so um you see down below the picture of people in their t-shirts we've got a great deal of support and excitement around getting staff back in schools which has been great and
014they're really excited in terms of schools and operations there is a number of things that probably people have heard about um so the biggest being the Yonder rollout so there's some bullets on here but each of the schools worked incredibly hard throughout the summer to bring teams together to ensure a smooth rollout for Yonder and the cell phone pouches that started through the summer Mr Fleming Mr and Dr zafets worked really hard along with Dr collicchio and the school principals to ensure that but that is going well so outside of some folks still not liking it overall um what we're seeing is procedurally we spent the first couple of days getting kids in going through assemblies and class meetings to make sure everybody understood the expectations and how that would look in the schools and
015then we we got it implemented the first full week of school you'll see some things on on social media I will say kids are getting to class on time there was one photo that was taken I think on the second day at Arcadia with kids going in and they're being aligned I want to be real clear kids are in and getting to school on time the ones that are late are usually getting dropped off late so we have had some a few delays with Transportation with late drop off with late drop-offs but by and large the procedural piece around entering and leaving has gone really smoothly um we do have work construction work so I know our board is well aware of where we are with much of our construction and some of the challenges
016we've had with supply chain and with labor shortage so we do still have some work that's continuing at Odyssey and some other smaller things at Long Ridge the ELC and Buckman Heights but by and large the buildings look beautiful and like I shared before our custodians have done an incredible job of working with the facilities and planning department and the folks that are in and out doing that construction work on B shift they've been amazing so the schools look great um schools are already started with professional development there's a lot of mandatory things that we get going very early on so there's been safety Steve's been around to all the buildings meeting with safety teams and actually doing um staff meetings around certain procedures active shooter training those kinds of things but then schools have
017also started to really dig in to using their Tuesday time to get their staff learning and on the same page with their school Improvement plans um you'll see food service is up and running we've had some questions this year so this year in particular you may have heard people wondering about free meals so we're coming off of the pandemic which we were everybody got free meals during the pandemic that was done this year um and then what complicates things is some of our schools in Greece are eligible for Community eligibility which means free meals for everybody in that school but not all are um so I put an explanation in your memo just so that if you do get questions around that you can explain but I've I've done that with families that email me
018or call just to try to make sure everybody understands we're really trying to make sure people fill out the free and reduced form though because we do think that we under um like we don't necessarily get all families filling that out and that number matters in terms of our community eligibility status um and also making sure just that families are getting what they need um you'll see our custodial positions we did work this summer in terms of Recruitment and have filled all of those positions which is huge and making a big difference in terms of just the general upkeep in schools as well as even some having some subs but we also have had increased need in terms of with the usage of our Fields we're finding that taking a toll on our employees so
019without having four large fields that was less to take care of and just sort of different needs but those are things that we're working on right now in terms of right sizing and Staffing and hours in those pieces so that just gives you a sense of some of the major areas related to school operations in terms of Transportation you'll see that's Craig Hill on the bus I'm coming to opening day too and transportation did a recruitment event and were able to get some drivers from that so we are we would say and I say this really with caution we're fully staffed however there is we know and you know just from last year there is that's a tenuous balance we have eight folks that are in driver training that are sort of in the works
020for us but that takes a little bit of time we're hoping that those work out and that that we remain fully staffed but it's still in this case I'll give an example with Collins um on any given day we're still having to tap into some of the office staff to drive so even though we we appear to be fully stiff there's still strain on the department so there's still some things we're working on and with those eight additional drivers that should help um one of the the big things that I have gotten a lot of feedback and I know you as board members have probably heard this as well as and as well as the people in transportation the deadline change in terms of that July 1 change really has impacted people the hard part
021about that is that if we um if we made Exceptions there was about 200 people that wanted that exception to be made in terms of us to be able to transport or create a stop when we calculated and really looked at what it would take it would require about um 10 more drivers so just to kind of put that in perspective the reason we went to that change through a lot of study was so that we can build efficiency with bus stops and our drivers so that has been tough but I do also think that as as the years go on people will make sure I mean I think people will comply with the the deadline and then we could actually get the the routes done for them um you'll see our we've had higher
022than normal requests related to private parochial and Charters those numbers are up a bit um and you'll see one of the things that is always a struggle and having been a Elementary principle um the confu I don't want to say confusion the challenge around getting hundreds of kids out to buses when we have maybe 20 to 25 buses showing up at a school kids going on all different buses little ones so there was a few kids put on wrong buses which happens every year and I don't say that lightly because um that's never good but with radios and communication um we we don't lose kids just sometimes there's confusion and sometimes that's because of last minute changes that a parent has made sometimes it's that the system hasn't caught up but that's something that uh
023Dr Payne and myself and Mr Richardson debrief about every year and actually um have some recommendations for our principals going forward and then you all know just the concerns related to parking at this building so I just wanted to make sure that people obviously we had some folks talk last at our last meeting we're working on that that's um it sounds like a simple thing parking but when you really get into it it's a fairly complicated issue so I know Romeo and myself and a few others have been working around a plan to address that and bring folks together here at this building so that's in the works um Sports Athletics and extracurriculars are up and running um so we have um you can see the marching band picture there our marching band is once
024again um absolutely absolutely incredible so um we have a home show that's going to be coming up I hope people make a priority to get there because they're really really amazing but the teams have also done a really great job so teams many of our teams are finding success one of the things that the ads have talked to me about is the importance of the team meetings that they're having the tosas and the athletic directors are meeting talking about expectations around spectator behavior and so far discipline issues are down teams seem happy and doing well um and and some of our programs are new and young but they're working hard um you see we have a new strength and conditioning program next level of performance that we're using with our teams and then we've also
025made adjustments specifically with teams where we've needed to either combine or add teams so I say that because if there's a enough interest we will add teams if there's not enough interest so like Odyssey had an example with modified soccer with only six girls so we've been able to combine them with a different team so some of those things that's a nice thing about a large District in many places kids would just not get that opportunity here generally we can um uh be creative I guess and find ways to get get students those experiences and then you can see uh band course Orchestra musicals are like the schools and the music directors are just finalizing their picks for the year um so we'll start to hear more about that but there's a lot going on
026and a lot of Happy Kids engaged which is nice this I couldn't stand this picture of the um I met her on the second day of school but this is was at our Early Learning Center so kids are in we have about 130 new teachers so I say that because there's been a ton of effort that's gone into supporting new teachers because anybody coming in we want to make sure are clear around how we do things operationally but also what are we about from a learning perspective and how do we make sure that they have the resources the materials and just even that just that Network and support that they need so there's been a ton of work that's gone into really just supporting that our Focus this year we the culturally responsive sustaining framework
027from the state as you know was was released couple years ago now we are really taking on the pillar of rigorous instruction as our Focus for this year and really how do we raise the bar to ensure that kids are getting really good instruction but also instruction that's keeping them really in that zone of proximal development that's a high priority for us and it's nice to see that at staff meetings and some of that PD that's being talked about so we're excited about that we have professional learning communities that are up and running we have more support in terms of things like language development teachers and our social workers things like that that we're really happy because the schools are very supported um and and in turn the students are very supportive and that's it
028those are sort of my four key areas but overall um as I said to I was at a conference this uh past weekend the the whole vibe and feel of school feels differently this year so to start last year after the full year of covid and then having kids come back masked just didn't feel the same and I also think um the impact of coved was felt really significantly right as kids returned last year this year I will say and this is my perspective having been everywhere but all the schools is a much lighter feel um you see seeing the smile seeing kids back we've had much less discipline um than if you compare last year or the year before or not really the year before with with covid but in previous years so it's
029been good as long as you're there I'm gonna call on you to introduce our next um presentation the recruitment hiring and retention yes so um I'm gonna have Jeremy come up and do this presentation this is um a significant undertaking and body of work that Jeremy has been working on with his department so we're really excited to share it's a key part to that we talk about a lot with recruitment you hear about it related to some of these departments and needs and the work that Jeremy's doing with this team is is impressive so I'll let him come up and talk about it foreign I thought so yeah HR is this side and finance instructions this side there's rules I don't know oh see how you're oh you were you were making points Jeremy there
030you're going down quick change okay pardon all right well good evening um Gene and I are very excited to share some of the work our department has been focusing on in the area of Staff retention and recruitment so uh one of our goals or Focus areas for this year for our department is focusing on recruiting hiring and in retention what we have learned um and going through this especially in the wake of the pandemic is that you really do need to be data driven and very targeted when it comes to looking at strategies to best recruit and then to retain our employees um I think what's different if you go back a few years really when it came to recruiting you could put a posting up on your website you could put it in the
031newspaper possibly maybe a couple tweets and people just came to you we feel that that time has dramatically changed we've also learned that recruiting and retention go go hand in hand with one another and to effectively recruit you have to have a culture and systems within your District that are attract the best candidates that are out there and if you do have those systems in place and the culture within your District you then have to be targeted with your Outreach to to recruit because we know what the job Market's like and everybody is looking to recruit the best out there so you do have to be very targeted data driven when you're looking to do both of those so here's some celebrations over since this data is from July 1 through just last week so
032we have 193 new hires to Greece since July 1. and when I say new hires these are these are new people to Greece that does not include some current employees that have moved into different positions or promotions but 193 new hires to our district that's up about I think 85 from last year during that same time frame where I think we're at about 105 so we've seen that much of an increase in just one year some of the attributes that we put to getting 193 new new candidates and I think our contracts made a big difference we are competitive now in all of our areas when you're looking at these vacancies we now compete and um and actually do much better than some of the other surrounding districts so that has made a difference I
033would also say that candidates want to come to Greece that is consistent feedback that we hear in the interview process um and and that's either when we're making a job offer and I will actually say when we're calling back candidates that maybe weren't the recommend recommended candidate but when we're giving that feedback following our interviews we continually hear to you know that they are what other opportunities are there or what more can they do to come and be a part of Greece so that is some of the Soft Data that we are continually hearing throughout this interview process there are some areas in need though um right now we we are looking for teaching assistance Child Care Associates special education monitors those are positions that continue to be very difficult to to fill we have
034looked into some different um incentives for our candidates to come and work with our population special education students I will say that one of the reasons that we've seen is these are positions where we see a lot of career ladders so you see a Child Care Associates move into teaching assistance which now creates a vacancy and Child Care Associates we see teaching assistants that are becoming certified and are now moving into GTA which obviously make more vacancies in the area of for teaching assistance so as Jeremy mentioned we did settle all of our contracts last year so we were very excited about being able to offer some higher wages but we just weren't getting the traffic on our website and the applicants that we hoped for so with the leadership of Kurt Keller in the
035facilities and operations and Dave Richardson in transportation we offered two recruitment events this summer we offered evening hours in hopes of increasing access for our community members because that was some of the feedback that we got and we had staff on site to help with not only filling out the applications But to answer any questions about our contracts and benefits that we offer I was really a great success not only the evening of the event but in the follow-up the word of mouth and the additional applicants that we got since since the events occur and if you've run into Curt since then I think he's still smiling and I think the updated information that we got just today is that he was able to hire 30 people from the event and from what occurred after
036so again that was a huge success um as Jeremy mentioned we still do have the high needs area of special education that includes special education teachers teaching assistants Child Care Associates and special education monitors so we are planning another event to kind of follow on the footsteps of these two successful events that's going to take place on Thursday October 6th from 4 to 6 30 will happen right in this room and again we're going to be partnering because the office of the Department of Human Resources can't do it alone we're going to be partnering with the Department of special education as well as some of our building leaders to be here on hand and hopefully welcome some new candidates to fill those positions so those were some of our celebrations so we want to talk
037a little bit about our Focus so as you know our new strategic plan outlines a number of strategies to help us actualize each of the commitments you'll see in commitment to cultivate trust there's a strategy dedicated to the work of our department attract develop and retain a highly qualified culturally culturally responsive Workforce that reflects and appreciates the diversity of the community and is committed to practices that are responsive to the needs of all students and Families within superintendent groutman's goals and even more narrowed focus is called out to help create accountability for working on our strategy so Jeremy's going to talk a little bit about how this committee has already started to come together we're pretty excited so we're currently calling it recruiting and retention committee we will work on a better name for that
038but right now that's a that's where it stands I wanted to call out our members that are part of this so as you saw in superintendent groutman's goals it talks about a just a variety of stakeholders to be a part of this so we do have one of our two of our members so three of our members here this evening Sarah Titus who's a tosa who's here this evening Mark Fleming our principal and special assignment and Cedric as well here just to hear a little bit about our presentation but this committee what's great one of the strengths of this committee is just the very unique perspectives that are helping us take a look at some of our current practices and then looking at some new and innovative ways that we can recruit and retain so
039um them not being a part of Human Resources actually allows some some questions of some systems that have been in place for a while that maybe need to be changed or tweaked so their perspective has been great in just the few meetings that we've had and we're looking forward to you know our future meetings coming up shortly so the charge of this committee there's a lot of work that we that we're looking at but there's some key areas that we wanted to take a deeper dive into and one of them was looking at our we're going to focus on GTA because there's a lot of areas that we could focus on and we figure we start with our teaching Association and one of the key areas that we're going to look at is just screening
040we call it screening in candidates so if you're familiar with the hiring process you have to use our a platforms called Frontline and people apply what typically happens or we hear a lot from some feedback is their application goes in and unless they actually reach out to one of us or somebody refers them it sits in that database until somebody actually calls them in for an interview we feel that if we can proactively screen candidates in number one that turn around time and we also feel that we lose candidates as they sit and wait and then other jobs come up so through a screening process a short 15-minute interview face-to-face where we could screen candidates and vet candidates and then now have a pool of preferred candidates to hire our hiring managers could go directly
041to a database identify candidates for their building and then come off of that versus going through front line so that um that will be a big effort it's going to take a lot of Manpower but we feel confident that's something that we're going to be able to do additionally we want to look at a way to develop a system for referral process for potential potential candidates possibly coming from our community members we have several Partnerships that you're aware of people that are without work indirectly within our district that know people that are out there that could be a good fit for our district so developing a simple process that will allow somebody to recommend a name with just a little bit of information that then will allow us to make that phone call and have
042contact with somebody to get an area get an idea of what what are you looking for do you want to work in a building are you looking to work with students are you looking looking to work with facility operations or Transportation but a simple easy system to allow people to be recommended especially from the outside Community which will also be an opportunity for people within our system to make recommendations as well parent involvement in training we are very focused on having parents be a part of our interview process but to do that we feel that there's a lot of learning that they need to understand with how are looking at hiring bias and looking at the system or the process that we used to interview we've gone to a behavior-based interviews and that takes a
043little bit of learning so we wanted to develop a way to bring parents and give them some training about this process so that they can be readily available to sit on different interview communities as needed when sometimes when we do struggle to have a parent show up sometimes it's simply scheduling that's that's difficult for that so our first goal our immediate goal is to give them training within our interview process but we're also hoping is a way to build some more recruiting and ways to get the word out of our vacancies by using some of our parents that want to be a part of this process we're excited about that the other area Focus for our committee is just to really take a deeper dive into our current systems that are in place now taking
044a deeper dive into our hiring process getting some other perspectives on what are we doing well what can we improve uh job postings typically job postings are just repeated from year to year but we know that we could do a better job revising them to really highlight the work that's going on in the district so we're going to look at job postings that will attract the best candidates that are out there we also want to take a deeper dive into looking at our employee demographics and then getting out and getting some feedback from candidates that are new to our district that or have been here for a number of years of what are we doing well why did you stay what brought you here what has kept you here and then starting so we could
045get in front of some of that turnover before it happens and then in addition to that trying to um for our candidates that do leave how can we get some exit interview information to know what we could do butter on we know that exit interviews are difficult a lot of people don't want to meet with HR they don't want to meet with their supervisor but if we could have possibly teachers Cedric was looking at doing some of that work or even some parents possibly together some of that information we feel that that would be extremely available available for us another area of focus is trying to get a better do a better job of monitoring staff retention I talked about this a year ago and we're hoping to do more work going into this year
046now with the work of the committee but trying to have a better understanding or differentiate between the different types of turnover we did some research and there is a different types of turnover that the next slide will identify but how can we get out and understand if people leave why are they leaving again what could we do better and how could we get in front of some of the turnover that we have seen over the past couple years this slide shows the different types of turnover so when you look at turnover really what this breaks it down into is there's a voluntary trans a voluntary turnover and there's involuntary turnover and when you look at involuntary turnover that's usually layoffs reductions possibly terminations and then underneath volunteer and involuntary there's functional and there's dysfunctional turnover
047so when you look at voluntary those are people that are resigning or they're retiring but then when you look a layer down from from voluntary turnover you have functional and dysfunctional not all turnover is bad so if we are losing somebody that's that is effective effective staff member we see that as dysfunctional turnover we want to know what led to that turnover why did you leave when it's functional let you know sometimes that's losing a less effective or less effective staff but what we really want to do is look at that highlighted area of avoidable voluntary turnover wider people why if they're here why are we losing them and that's where we want to spend some of our time Gathering their data so we can make those adjustments either within the building or across the
048district to offer the right supports for our staff once we do all that work to attract them here to the district so Jeremy used the word data quite a bit and we are constantly looking for ways to be able to collect more data from our employees we're fortunate to have Julie Riley our assistant director of human resources on our team because she's constantly on the lookout for new and interesting ways to gather and track data energage is one great example of an opportunity that Julie found for us and we're really excited about it so energe is the company that hosts the surveys that allow organizations to compete for the top workplace awards that you've probably seen posted on billboards and in magazines and online we are excited that we're going to be partnering with energe
049not only to compete for a top workplace award but also to have the opportunity to gather this type of data from our employees so we are going to be sending out the energage survey to our employees next week Wednesday September 28th and that'll be open for two weeks the survey is completely confidential and it will go to all of our employees so all three thousand employees we're hoping that the Benchmark data that we get from the survey will help us to learn from our employees what is it that you really love about Greece again to Jeremy's Point what keeps you here like what are the great things and as well as what things could we be doing better we'll also have the ability in the future you can see the pulse surveys we can send
050out many surveys that are either aligned to The Benchmark data that we collect so kind of as a check-in just you know maybe one or two questions that align or we can choose something completely different just as a hey we're thinking about this new initiative what do you think and send those out it also gives us an opportunity to do some branding that we can use social media on our website on our job postings and um and inability to get some mini Awards I want to give you some visuals for that so here are some of their ideas for Branding so you can see in the middle those are words that have come directly from either the pulse survey or the original survey and if you've ever seen these type of wordles the larger words
051are the words that come up more often the smaller ones are the words that don't exist as often so we could take that entire thing Splash it up on our website or in social media over on the right we've got those are some direct quotes that came from employees and over on the left that's something that we could put together again on a job posting so those are just some of the examples that we could use so we're really excited about that we're working with our unions to help us push this out as well so we're hoping for a large enough response rate from our employees to be able to qualify for that award so proactive hiring and recruiting is just another example of some Creative Marketing that we're working on so this is a
052job board that links directly to our current Frontline system and by partnering with them we're able to be seen by prospective employees that may not have gone directly to our website so this is a job board that is for K-12 positions and oh it has over 1.4 act million active users so this is folks that might be outside of Monroe County they might even be outside of the state or and looking to relocate so they go and they look for a job all of our jobs are linked to it so when they click on a job it brings them right to our website so this is just another way to get them to come to our site maybe they've never even heard of Greece but it gets them to our site and investigating around so
053hopefully that will bring even more folks right to us and last this is something that we're very excited about so Frontline is the system that we're currently using for absence management professional growth and recruiting and hiring Frontline Central is the product that electronically ties all of these systems together so one of our goals in the department of human resources which is tied back to an audit that was completed a couple of years ago by Gallagher is to really streamline our systems and processes for not only our department but for our employees so Frontline Central really helps us shorten the time frame from the time an employee applies for a position to the time that they start so we're really really excited about what this brings to the table our department just started sending out our
054first electronic in processing which you guys don't seem as excited as I am but it really is a very big deal because normally it's a packet that's about 50 pages long that we either have to leave down at door five for somebody to pick up or we put in the mail and people get it four or five days later and then they bring it to their in processing package so now they're going to get it instantly they fill it all out and for the employee on the on their side every page already has half of it pre-filled out so they're not writing their name 15 times they're not writing their address 15 times so it is actually very exciting um so we're also excited about adding additional forms as you can see the confidentiality statement
055the ID badge request we've got some benefits forms that we're going to be adding and those are going to be coming soon so so those are some of the things that we're excited about working on in the area of Recruitment and Retention and I think that's it for now question any questions questions Mr farmer can you turn your microphone on please state workers um I don't know if this isn't plugged in when it was so Greece shows up is there anything within that our that um kind of talks about our area and what kinds of things they could expect in Monroe County Greece you know that whole thing do we have anything like that that might pull somebody in without them having to say oh let me check out what Greece New York's you know
056so go another place it's funny you asked that uh Dave blowitz he's on our he's on the committee um recruiting and retention committee that is an area that is a high interest of him that he is actually working he's going to uh currently he's working with um one of the real estate companies locally to see what they've already put together but we do want to advertise just the area so when you're looking at Rochester you know highlighting restaurants social events you know things that are nearby as a way to attract people and we could customize that landing page for the proactive recruiting to some degree but not to the top that I think that you're looking at so that is one of the areas that we're already dipping into right now before any other questions
057Mr bonagorio the um the survey um is really interesting I know there's been a lot of interest in in trying to for staff providing feedback I'm wondering if the survey questions will even tap staff for what kinds of things they'd like to reflect so I mean you know we can we can set up a bunch of questions that they'll respond to but are we looking to them for what those will include so there's two so um there's the top workplace that is standardized that that goes out and I ask I could we could give samples of that but that is standardized what's really nice I think that what you're referring to is the pulse surveys so the Paul surveys allow us to customize it's broken down by unit so we could look at Transportation unit
058or our teachers unit so we could you know it doesn't have to go to all three thousand employees those questions could be customized um any way we like to get that that perception data that we're looking for to get a better again a better understanding of what are we doing well and what could be some of those areas of focus so that can be customized sure so those pulse surveys are those already in place or no so typically what happens is that window that Gina mentioned for the top workplace and then when that's done um they kind of give us some guidelines of when you want to when you would start looking at the Paul surveys one thing that we want to keep in mind are the amount of surveys that already go out to
059staff we know that we survey quite a few in the buildings we haven't really reached out to some of the other unions or employees that are for example team Source comes to mind I don't know how often we've reached out to them through the surveys I mean but we we do have to be mindful of that so that we're getting people responding feedback Doctor Who two things one's a common and one's a question the first thing is uh in response to what Tracy mentioned in terms of whether or not you will have information about what the area offers one suggestion that I have is as you're building that out maybe linking with our local Chamber of Commerce page they do a really good job of identifying what exactly we have here in Greece that might
060be attractive so that's just an idea number two which is a question may I thank you with the TA teacher assistant child care associate in special education monitor event that you're putting on I just wondered for anyone that might be listening are there special credentials that you need for those particular positions are we looking more so for entry-level folks so there are special credentials for each of those but we invite all community members who are interested in working with students to come in and we will have lots of people on hand to talk through what their qualifications are and then we can make suggestions for what they're already qualified for as well as you know what would be needed to move up to the next level so any other questions it's fair I love this
061thank you I specifically love the parent involvement in the training I can't wait to see that I hope you'll keep us informed more with us uh we've got to the screening process so I that is great um can our board members can we see a copy of the surveys is there too many questions to I'm just curious as to see what they are and what the detail that you get back that would be great yeah 100 awesome thank you any other questions more um when you talked about training parents how do you go about finding parents to be on Commit interviews I do have a process sure so last year we started by working with luva Alvarez who I'm sure you're all familiar with through plti and she reached out started by reaching out to
062a group of parents who were just interested in volunteering so we started by reaching out to those parents and said hey we're going to be doing some administrator interviews are you interested in coming in so we had a bank of probably eight to ten parents who came in and joined us for administrative interviews and they came in they joined our teams we walked them through the same training that we had for our teachers and other administrators and then Cedric and I did a debrief with a number of the parents afterwards and it was wonderful and a ton of really rich information came out of it one being hey you all speak a different language than we do because you speak educator speak and we speak normal person speak so what came out of it is
063that we would be able to reach a lot more parents if we did some front loading of this is what the process is and and really preparing them for coming in so that they would feel more comfortable and really feel a part of the team as they came in so we're going to invite that same group of parents and kind of bring a friend as well as reach out to all of our parent engagement coordinators and invite them as well as any other parent that's interested any other questions just to follow up on that a little bit I would ask this question of any of our committees but maybe just your specifically is there any ability to schedule things so that more types of of parents can be involved I know a lot of people
064can't make daytime things because of work people you know in the evening is also hard but is there a way to juggle that to be to get more representation in it for sure so there's actually two goals that we kind of have to go along with that one is to schedule this training either in the evening or on the weekend and we also talked about having some child care there we have a lot of students who are looking for community service hours so that would be one thing and then also hopefully getting to a point where we could even have some of our interviews in the evening hours and we would be able to send out a schedule ahead of time to parents to say you know these are the hours that the that the
065interviews are going to be who would be available during those times so it's really about being proactive in our planning and not you know hey we have an interview tomorrow who's free so a couple things to work on sure Mr farmer microphone um PT essay is that what so those are in the evening correct the the meetings with PTA at schools okay so parents always have the opportunity to attend those in the evening and so it's not quite as in-depth as I understand you to be talking about if you want to focus on one specific but it's a great start and you can begin together and you know whatever it is that needs to be uh talked about if a parent wants to come in so I'm thinking just wanting to say that there are
066other times in the day where people can participate if they want to and starting at the school is a great spot where your kids go any other questions moving on item 5.01 additional funding of the workers compensation Reserve fund can I so I move that to the table please by Dr treywick second to buy Mrs Flores any comments questions or concerns on that saying that all those in favor any opposed that passes eight to zero moving on to the limited income exemption approval account so let me move that to the table please move by Mr Maloney second by Miss farmer any comments questions concerns on that Mr bonagorio for uh public uh understanding of it um Mr clearly um can you maybe just a thumbnail sketch of the impact of or not of rising uh
067property appraisals on on the um the tax levy which might which would be impacted in in the the question you had earlier yes okay sure um so Mr benagario's question was um regarding um to do the assessed values that we receive from the Town of Greece provide us with additional revenues during a year as a result of the house values increasing from one year to the next the answer to that question is it does not provide us any additional revenues because the homes went up the levy is set through the tax cap formula the lebby is set in February or March so we go through that eight nine variable calculation and I'll use this year as an example and we come up with the levy in March that we get approval from the board because
068we're going to submit it March 1st we cover it with you in February that the levy is going to be 120 million dollars when we get the assessed values in July from the Town of Greece whether those assessed values went up 100 million or 500 million dollars we are still only going to collect 120 million dollars from residents for the property tax Revenue where the assessed values comes in is the levy of 120 million is then divided by the assessed value from the Town of Greece and providing that everything else is held steady if the assessed values go up in the levy stays at 120 then the tax rate will come down and if the assessed values were for some reason to decrease we'd still be taking that 120 dividing by a smaller number and
069therefore the levy would change as well so the assessed values have nothing to do with calculating the levy the assessed values help us calculate the rate at which taxpayers will pay per one thousand dollars of assessed value on their home does it help yeah foreign So yeah thank you for that I think there were I had the misunderstanding that the general rise in uh property values would uh directly impact um that Revenue So yeah thank you not not since the not as directly a since the tax cap came out 12 years ago thanks any other questions Mr barnagario okay uh and and just Also to clarify that uh the the exemptions that would be offered to certain residents that those revenues would have to be made up by Shifting the tax burden to those who
070don't get the exemption it would be spread out amongst the other folks in the other residents in the district that do not qualify for The Limited income senior or disability exemption correct any other questions Mr panagario is there any test on property values that's associated with the exemption there are Income tests low income levels that provide the the exemptions and there are disability tests but are there any uh tests on property values for example someone has a lot of assets little income but a 500 000 home anything like that not that I'm aware of now it's strictly based on the assessed value of the home per the Town of Greece and the qualifications based on the uh the income correct it's strictly do you meet the qualified the income income levels and for the disability
071the disability documentation requirements any other questions Mr bogorio so is there any ability to factor that in so that homeowners who have low income and not an extravagant I'll use that in term property would be the ones who could be benefiting most is there any ability to do that not from our end no that whole instead of violate the real property tax law that is property tax law and it's processed all through the town of Greece we have no uh impact input or or anything to do with that that has just provided to us through their final roles here are all the people that qualified for each of the exemptions that are numerous exemptions that are authorized by New York State thank you any other questions good all right all those in favor any opposed
072that passes 7-1 moving on to the consent agenda now somebody that move that to the tail please move by vice versa or second by Mr Mrs Flora sorry any questions on the consent agenda seeing none all those in favor and he opposed that passes eight to nothing moving on to the student trip approval can I Sony move that to the table please move by Mrs farmer second by Mr Maloney any comments questions or concerns on this Mr bonagorio yeah um I just I know there are some changes going on in some neighboring districts uh I'm just curious about any policies that we have regarding housing of students you know uh in rooms on overnight overnight trips that this is the one is it yeah yeah this is the marching band Cup right so I want
073to make sure you understand your question so someone identifies one gender or another is there a biological we go by biological sex assigning students to Rooms or is there is there is there is that a consideration I've heard of that being an issue in we don't have any neighboring District policy I mean that talks about they're extremely individualistic they're extremely into individual individualistic situations and each are handled as such can you elaborate on that at all that again each each situation is different I can't say if this than this doctor doctor so um microphone please oh yeah as a marching band parent I've my kids have been in the band for now five years that has not come up however um you do have the opportunity all the students have the opportunity to ask for
074specific assignments they choose where they want a room and you can also opt to have a room by yourself if you choose to so I do know those things but I know that that particular issue has not come up as of yet so yeah so that I I guess though the bigger pieces there there is no language in the policy around so there's a lot of if you want to see the policy we can go on and just in terms of student trips that's more of like a procedural in terms of and there's only a few trips where they're overnight um so typically we've worked directly and most follow Dr Traywick what you just shared in terms of like the eighth grade trip for example there are specifics around who wants to room with who
075in those pieces any other questions I'm just going to say it's been a long time since we've had a school trip so this is pretty awesome to see I'm going back to 2020 so um with that all those in favor any opposed passes eight to zero moving on to 9.01 Super hunting goals can actually move those to the table please move by vice president Laura second by Miss Flores any comments questions or concerns on those sorry things and I understand these goals were developed in the last term um is that no that's just for this year this is board for this term but with a submitted previously or no this is our first look at them yes okay uh so I I guess I'm just wondering I see there are some easy measurables in there
076which are great we like that kind of thing I'm wondering if do we have I didn't notice it in there but anything that um specifically targets things like the national assessment for Education progress scores I think there was some language about um meeting expectations but I'm not sure what that what that means is that pertinent to Stage or national standards or our own goals just a little um I'm not sure what you're referring to in terms of that what what I would say the in the um one of the things that I had provided the board at retreat was there was a almost a chart that goes through really specifically they match up with the strategies and goals particularly with the Strategic plan and then my goals because they're all aligned and then there's um
077like measurable progress over to the site in the column which I could resend but that has like really specific things connected to each of the goal areas that that would be what I would want to be looking for or I'd want you to be looking for in terms of like evaluating and there are questions or comments any other questions or comments um I'm just going to say my one comment with the superintendent goals is that I love to continue tie in to the community to Our Community Partners there's so many that tie into our Community Partners which I think are awesome continuing to build those relationships and work those relationships with that all those in favor any opposed item carries eight to zero Mr Maloney here turn to shine Mrs farmer all those in favor
078I'm not going to ask if there's any pose that passes eight to zero thank you everyone have a good evening