001So, we are going to begin our uh our meeting for the evening, our board voting meeting. Thanks everybody for coming. Um before we start, and I'll say this again, um we have a new board member joining us tonight. It seems odd to not kick that off right away. So, um Maline Cardona, welcome to the board. And I'll I'll say that again at 7 o'clock, too. Um so, we welcome you and um we're going to have an executive session tonight. So if somebody would like to make a motion for that, we can go forward. I move that we enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the following employment history of particular individuals. Ongoing negotiations, possible litigation and superintendent evaluation. Second. Okay. All in favor. Okay, that is unanimous. We shall go into executive session
002and we'll be back uh as close to 7 p.m. as possible. Welcome to our uh May 27th full board meeting. Um before we start for tonight, as I did at the last hour, which I'll do once an hour like a a news station, um we have a new board member tonight. I'd like to welcome Maline Cardona to the table. Um, let's see. First item, uh, are there any modifications to tonight's agenda? Oh, I have a couple of discussion items. I have some announcements near the end of the uh near the end of the agenda that won't take long, but also a couple of discussion items that I'd like to pose that are timely because they're um election related. Okay. Do do you have a name? I mean, do you want to name them for I
003don't feel like I want to name them. Maybe we could have a contest. Okay. For naming them. Okay. So, we'll add uh we'll add an item 12.3 to the agenda. Sounds good. Okay. Um election discussion by Jill. Oh, listen. If we have a 12.2 out of discussion items, wouldn't it just go under that? It would indeed go under that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's excellent. Okay. Well, we won't make a 12.3. We'll make it uh 12.2. Other discussion items? Thank you, Karen. Um, okay. So, moving on, we shall see. Do we have any public comment for tonight? Yes. Okay. Uh, how many are you going to be the reader tonight? Yes. So, okay. Um, anybody who's coming down for public comment, feel free to have a seat right over there. There's a microphone. And please speak
004into the microphone so people at home can hear you. Everybody has uh three minutes for their public comment and there'll be a little bell when your time is is up. This is my first time calling out names for public comment. So, if it's your first time public commenting, welcome. Uh Alisa Simons Good evening. Um, thank you for the giving me the opportunity to speak and I am here as a parent of a senior on the varsity boys lacrosse team and a parent of two ICSD graduates. I would like to discuss the recent kurfuffle with the team season. Um, I appreciate the chance that the lacrosse parents had to meet with district leadership and share our thoughts, but many of us left that meeting with lingering concerns. The situation is about more than one administrative mistake.
005It reflects broader challenges related to capacity, oversight, and communication. Assigning one person to both the athletic director and elementary principal roles is a significant responsibility, and it appears that this dual role may have contributed to gaps in key functions like eligibility verification. This is also not the first time eligibility or paperwork issues have affected this team and it's and it's unknown how many other ICS teams have had issues. In fact, this one incident disrupted another team, the the track team. They have to move a a track event. Um that pattern signals a need to step back and examine how we are structuring and supporting key roles. What is frustrating for families is the narrative that this happened due to administrative reductions or budget cuts. This is misleading. This the decision to remove a principal midyear
006and reassign the director of athletics to that role was not driven by financial necessity. It was a leadership choice suggesting otherwise has only added to the confusion and eroded trust. We also believe the community would benefit from greater transparency. To our knowledge, the decision to assign this dual role was not brought to the board publicly publicly and no record appears in the meeting minutes. Given the public impact of what occurred, we respectfully ask for a more open discussion moving forward. In that spirit, we would welcome clarity on a few questions. Miss Little explained changes that are being made to improve athletic compliance going forward. Based on that, who will now oversee this process? Will the district revise the dual role arrangement in light of past outcomes? And how can families, coaches, and students be a
007part of rebuilding trust in ensuring such mistakes are not made in the future. Finally, some families have expressed hesitation to speak up, worried that their concerns might be misunderstood or affect their child's experience. We share this not as a criticism or I share this not as a criticism but as something I hope leadership will reflect on. When families hold back out of fear of jeopardizing relationships, something is not quite right. We are proud of our players and coaches who responded with integrity despite a difficult situation. I believe they deserve a system that reflects the same. Thank you. Good timing. Um, just as a reminder, when we do public comment, we we don't name uh specific individuals. So, uh, public comments have to not have specific names. Oh, next, uh, Mary Beth Inken, please. Hello, my
008name is Mary Beth Aken and I was here two weeks ago and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you again. I have to say I haven't been to a meeting in a really long time. Had I known how the meeting continued, I would have stayed. I sent a letter to the board of education as well to Dr. Brown about my frustration with how the meeting went uh two weeks ago. But I also want to clarify um it's my fault. I didn't know how meetings got went. I I should have stayed. So that's on me. The same token. I won't say his name, but my son was brought up twice in that meeting. And I have to say it he was late. He was 10 minutes late maybe to sign up for that graduation. I'm
009speaking about graduation. Sorry. Um um he was 10 minutes late, maybe five minutes late for that graduation. So I was frustrated with him, but I was going to hold him accountable. But many people in our family and friends were like in tears that they weren't all going to be together since kindergarten, since two years old. They they weren't going to be together. But I was like, I wasn't going to make a big fuss about it because hold the kid accountable. He messed up. But my question to all of you is like again why are we doing two graduations. I will say at around three or four o'clock I got this or I don't know what time my son will possibly get in to the meeting which is fabulous but how about all those other kids
010who didn't make a big stink. So my my question to all of you is please reconsider graduation. It should be one. We are a community about um Exclusivity not really on the works and community and there's nothing exclusive or about community with two graduation. We graduate with all everybody 350. I hope you take a survey in the beginning of the year and find out what students want because I will guarantee they want to graduate with everybody. Who cares if it's long? It's going to be long. You're not going to make everybody happy. You're never going to make everybody happy. If you have vanilla ice cream, they're going to want chocolate, whatever. But what you can do, and what is equitable, is have them all graduate together. Thank you. Thank you, Julia Gorman. Good evening and
011thank you for having me. Um again I'm a parent of uh twin boys that are seniors and they are my only children and I'm here also just about graduation. I'm the one who had started the petition um to go around and you know try to get feedback from people about the graduation and the concept of one ceremony. Um we got a decent amount of signatures. I think it would have probably been more successful if I had given you know direction that we were trying to work towards the five o'clock or you know but but again I I was just looking for some sort of feedback. So I would say the um obstacles that have been brought up is definitely the length of a single graduation um uh the timing because some people because it was
012the two and the 5:00 some people have already made dinner reservations. So now if we did consolidate for this year, what about all that? And then there was a third one. Do you remember what it was? Um, so anyway, um, I I feel good about our efforts to reach out to the community of students and family and I just feel that when the reference to our last meeting and the discussion came up at the very end and there was a accusation of words that I had used that were offensive. I I'm I'm offended that nobody's gotten back to us with some answers. Um maybe I think this was going to be added to the agenda tonight. So hopefully the answers will be there and and that will definitely be appreciated. Um but like Mary Beth,
013I also am guilty of not being at these before. So it's been a learning experience for me. We'll absolutely share it with other people to continue to be more involved in the community. But I do hope that the school district will the administration will not take their own opinions. I appreciate you all have to go through graduation every year. For me, this is my one and only. And it's, you know, very very special to me and I'd like every everybody in their class to be together and I hope that the school will take time to survey, you know, everybody. Um, you can even do it at the open house in the fall. You know, ask the students and the families what what year are you? Are you a student? Are you family? You know, is
014certain time of day? Is there certain locations? I I don't know. some some sort of concept like that and I just feel like that it wasn't even brought up this year and I I wish I had. So I appreciate there's been challenges in the past um that I don't know anything about because I wasn't a part of it. Um but anyway, so appreciate it. I don't really have any profound comment to add to that other than appreciate everyone's consideration. Thank you. All right. Uh Julia Gorman. Yeah. Thank you. Uh Patty Sitman. I have something to share with the um I just chair the committee on short notice. I didn't have to email everything but email. Great. Hi, I'm Patty. I am the um president of the ESP union. And uh I have to talk about
015the pay fiasco that occurred over the weekend. You got my email. You know how I feel about it. Um, I know that at some point everybody will get their pay properly, but I do know that there are some employees who are telling me now they still haven't been paid. They have not been paid yet. I'll sort it out and I'll try to figure it out. Um, I know that at some point either the administration or the banks will make them whole for all the late fees they occurred. But what you cannot make them whole for is the fact that their weekend was ruined. Their weekend that they meant to spend with their families they could not even afford. My employees had to buddy up to make sure that they had enough gas money to get
016to work. My employees live handtomouth and they should not have had to experience this. It was inappropriate and I know that it was an error, but a negligent act or an act of admission still has consequences and you can apologize that away. Um, another thing that bothered me quite a bit is that we all talk about how we talk and we're together and we're a family and blah blah. I did not get a call from you. I did not even get a call from you and I believe every union president was entitled to one given that how how that situation played out. [Music] Um, also our check stubs are woefully inadequate when it comes to information according to the state of New York. On our check stubs, we are required to have the employer's name,
017address, and contact information. Uh, pay period dates which are absent, the rate of pay, which is absent from our paycheck. Those are things that are required to be in our paycheck. You may say we don't have to do that because you're salaried employees. The fact that our employees are defined as salaried is merely a bookkeeping convention because we are uh given we are guaranteed a certain amount of hours. But in fact, our pay is computed hourly. If we don't come into work and we've exhausted our benefit time, we are docked. If we come in to work and work extra hours, we have to submit that on time sheets. in terms of the requirements of making our payubs accurate. We are hourly employees and you are pushing the envelope when it comes to New York State
018uh labor standards. You you absolutely are. I am certain of it. And I don't I don't want to have to go through legal channels to sort that out, but if I have to, I will. It People need to understand how much they're being paid and why. And I understand that the amount of hours you work for a pay period might not translate exactly to how much money you're getting because of the fact that we're guaranteed a certain amount of hours a year, but there's a whole lot of space on uh windcap and in the payubs that are paper payubs to explain that and make it clear. We shouldn't have to call admin to find out what our hourly rate is. And if you look at the payubs that I've redacted, you'll find that a lot
019of information just isn't there. And I am working with somebody in administration. Um they'll just be nameless, but you know, I'm working with them in a friendly way so that we can prepare a memo together uh that explains to employees how to read their payubs. Um and hopefully that will happen soon. Thank you. Uh final is Karen Leface. Good evening. Um thank you for the opportunity to speak to you once again. I was here a couple of weeks ago. My name is Karen Leface and I am a parent of a current junior and I also have two daughters uh who graduated in 2020 and in 2022. And I'm here tonight to talk again about the athletic department. And I would like to echo a lot of Eliza's statements. Um, in particular, I think many parents,
020myself included, feel that having one person serve in two critical roles within the district leads to, at least for athletics, um, a less robust focus on our athletes, the teams, and their ability to reach their goals. Um, I also want to restate that I am aware that there are several families who told me that they're reluctant to come to the meetings and to speak up because they're concerned about some potential repercussions to their student athletes who are younger and still in school. And um I'm somewhat reluctant to even say this, but I feel like there's a little bit of a culture of fear within the athletic department and different parents or or coaches speaking up. Um and I hope that us speaking tonight can be helpful to the district in helping us to refocus our
021energies and support and encouragement for all of our student athletes throughout the district. Thank you. Thank you. Any board responses? Um, we can't ask questions, right? I mean, I'm I'm just curious on your last comment, and I don't know if I'm stepping out of turn by asking this. You can tell me if I'm not allowed to. Well, I think we could ask uh we can't really have a back and forth, but we could you could ask questions that might be answered in the conversation. The question I had is like, have any of you felt like there's been any backlash to you coming or your student like your children, you know, being a part of this group that's kind of stepping up and speaking out. Um because if there is, I mean, that's that's a big
022concern. Um and I get like there's fear based on like, hey, I'm afraid to do this. And then there's the reality of like you you people are you're the ones on the front line. Has there been any um like backlash in any sense? We're all seniors. I know. But still earlier, but I waited till my son was a senior. Yeah. So So currently has has there been like anything? Oh no. Okay. No, that's two weeks. So we don't know. Okay. Well, please let us know if there is. Um, so that was that. Um, I I don't know if we can really speak about the Beverly J. Martin situation or if that's something that you want to speak about. Um but um I I I I don't know how like how much we can say because
023it seemed like it was a situation that was you know really needed and you know the person that stepped into taking that role really saved the school and those are you know it it was a school that needed a lot of help and you know those are our most vulnerable um I think kids and you know it's their formative years and um it was in disarray the person that stepped in really helped save school and again like I'm I'm like walking fine line because I don't want to like over over stuff. Well, actually, no. I we sorry about a can of words. I'm sorry. We we can't I mean, we can't have a back and forth with um we we have public comment, then we have board responses and then we could obviously we could
024email, we could have conversations offline, but it's just not the format of the meeting. So, I'm just trying to maintain the appropriate toorum. I I appreciate. So, um, yeah, I guess I don't have anything to say, so No, it's okay. Um, Jill, other other board responses. Okay, that's fair time. Um I I will just say um that each of these discussions items has been uh looked at by all of us individually and in groups and will be discussed further today. So the fact that you came and and spoke out on these matters are what brings it to our attention and your persistence also is what keeps it on our attention. Um, so you don't ever need to feel like you did something wrong. Um, and the reality is when people come to speak to us,
025that's information that we need because we're not running constant surveys. We're not, you know, um, you know, we get the information we get, but mostly it comes through the administrative team and it's good for us to hear from other other places. So, you know, again, I know it sounds trit, but thank you for coming. We will be discussing the graduation issue later. Um, obviously, as uh I think Todd alluded to, and we'll put the spotlight back on you, Todd. Um, having someone fill two important administrative roles is never something that we wish for. Occasionally, it will happen and for good reasons. And the board indeed was made aware of that. choice. It was done in executive session because it was a personnel matter. Um, and that's I think that's appropriate. So, it won't it won't
026be a matter of course that we will have someone who's both the athletic director and the a principal of a school. That's that's just not going to happen. Um, and it certainly wasn't anyone's first choice, but it it had to happen and sometimes things will happen. So, we'll talk more um about the graduation issue later, and I'm sure you'll continue to have meetings um around the pay issue and the lacrosse and eligibility issues, but that's where I am at this point. Yeah. Yeah. I think going forward that's, you know, not the plan of the district. And, you know, from my my perspective, there is a crisis and to hire someone new, it it's a long drawn out process. it could take months at a time and I there there was an opportunity and um you
027know I personally I felt like it was it was the right decision and I know you guys might disagree but it was a really difficult decision to make and it was a really difficult circumstance you know trying to have that person fill two roles um and yeah it it's just it it's nuance and I think yeah there's there's a lot that goes into trying to hire someone new for the district and um you know yeah that's all I guess I'm going to say about I I just thank you very much for everyone that um provided their public comment and when there was a statement about potential repercussion. I I just want to always stress to the community that we do have a communication protocol that contact their respective leaders of the schools and so forth.
028in this case a program and we also have DAS of dignity for all students that we want to make sure there's no harassment or anything whatsoever with students and no repercussion whatsoever. Just reach out and contact whomever is in charge of the program because that shouldn't be the case. We should be we are here as a district to make sure that we respect each and every student. So there wouldn't shouldn't be any potential repercussion, but if ever as a caregiver or a parent that you feel that there is, please make sure you follow our communication protocol. Thank you. We've taken up a lot of time, so I will keep this short. Um I did though want to follow up, Patty. Uh I I just want to say that I I appreciate you coming and you
029you being here to um speak on behalf of your members and I I sympathize and I can't imagine what a difficult weekend it must have been. Um you're right like you it was a a bank error. I I think that um uh my perspective as an individual was uh I feel like we were getting a lot of updates about it and I um and it seemed to me that the district was um providing like as much information as we could have gotten at the time. Okay. Okay. We uh Okay. Uh I think that Dr. Brown is going to uh speak about it later. So, um I won't interrupt this moment to do that, but I I do really appreciate hearing the perspective and no matter what, um I'm very sorry that that the members were
030going through that and I appreciate you coming and speaking uh about it. Um I also the only other like small piece I was going to say about the dual role is while um it is true as Jill said that that's something that we would talk about in an executive session because it's about a a particular staff member. I know that this is asking a lot of people, so you can kind of like chuckle under your breath if if you want because I probably would have before, too. But we do on board docs, we do post um uh personnel reports that we're going to be approving in a board me in the like next board meeting. Some people like to read those because it shows exactly like who's leaving the district, who's coming to the district,
031whose like um positions are being shifted, things like that. Um, so even when folks aren't like tuned into other things that are happening at the board meeting, they sometimes like to check those out. Um, and it was on that. And so, um, or the people who actually look at those. Um, that that is an opportunity to kind of know ahead of time so that you can come to that meeting even before we have those votes to be able to express any um, concerns or reservations or to share your perspective about anything just so that you um, are aware. Uh, and just thank you to everybody else for coming. Um, just I want to thank everyone for coming and just recognize how imperfect this process is and like we know it's not great for dialogue, but
032we hear you and appreciate you coming. um you know as as far as the graduation that'll be addressed later but I also see uh someone in the audience who probably also heard and you know when you're talking about next fall you know it's I just has leadership that that I will listen not that the current or they always have but you know it's there changes and I hate when I ramble like this but you know people are listening right um Patty yes you're right there there's No apology can make any of this better. I just want to say that I hear you. Um, living paycheck to paycheck and having things automatically deducted and not having something deposited and and then having to deal with the aftermath of the phone calls and all of the things.
033I just I just want to thank you for speaking and everything that you're sharing and you said you're going to send it to us as a board when we review how to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. We will take everything that you have shared to heart as we look to the future to make changes to prevent this. Like we can't go and change the past, but we will look for the to the future to make it better. And I know you said apologies don't matter, but I'm I'm so sorry for what has happened to all the staff that have experienced this hardship. Like especially on a three-day weekend, like talk about sucks. I there's no words. So, thank you all. other responses. I mean just to add in I think it's also
034I mean it's very helpful when parents come and talk. We always want to hear you know from people in the community and we also want to hear different perspectives. Um Dr. Brown's going to be addressing some of the things that came up um in the public comment tonight. I think just one one point of clarification I think what Emily was saying in terms of the uh personnel report and board docs. I mean, some of that some information is only uh because they're personnel matters and they contain sensitive information like salaries and things like that. It isn't all public for everybody to see. Um yeah, so some some of that some of that is is is confidential that only board members can see. What we try to do as a board is we try to make
035major announcements at the meetings so that when we have a big personnel shift, we'll try to say okay, you know, this is this is what's happening and this person is now doing this and that at the same time. So, so we try to do that, but not but not all the information is available. Just I think we could probably do a much better job of that. I didn't I didn't even know that we made those major announcements. So, but apologize for the confusion. Oh, so that's fine. Um, okay. Um, so we're going to move on now to the next agenda item 4.3, uh, which is discussion, uh, and hearing from student reps. Hi everyone. Um, as you can see, our IHS friends aren't here. Um, very busy time for all of us, so I totally
036understand, but I'm just going to read a couple announcements on their behalf. Um, so this week, the first of three IHS ensemble concerts is happening. Um, IHS orchestra will be performing at 7:30 in Culp Auditorium. On what day? I don't know. Um what day do you know? Tomorrow. Yes. Um the IHS band concert will take place next Tuesday. Um the wind ensemble will be playing a simplified version of all the themes in Westside Story. Um and senior speeches and sendoff will happen at both of these concerts. Um and we want to invite the board to come celebrate with us. Um the there is also the seal of biiteracy picnic um happening next Monday to celebrate the seniors who successfully received the seal. And lastly, there is a jazz band concert at Deep Dive um with
037senior feature songs, one per senior senior on June 17th. Um and more info about the timing and pricing of that later. Um okay, other hat on. Now I'm LACS. Um, so our school board rep election um for the reps for next year is underway. Um, as they previously mentioned, we had an ASM where nominated candidates were able to speak to what they feel will make them a good representative um, and do some campaigning. Basically, this was followed with ballot box voting and this has been happening during committee specifically um, and agenda committee will be counting votes and announcing results tomorrow. Um, so I'm really excited to see who gets to sit here next year. Um, I personally would just like to support Mary, Beth, and Julia, um, who spoke about combining graduation. Um, specifically in
038support of the 2 p.m. time. Um, LACS graduation is the same day. If you're not aware, our senior project presentations begin at 6:00 p.m. and IHS second graduation ceremony would begin at 5:00 p.m. Um, most of my friends are signed up for 5:00 p.m. and it's really hard to know that I won't be able to watch them walk um and that they might not be able to watch me walk. Um, so yeah, I just really like to support making sure those things don't overlap because I have people who are really really special to me at the high school. Um, and I would love to see them walk the stage. Um, last thing for me is trips were a success. Um, exploring service, building strength and community. Um, all of those things took place. I went
039to Asheville, North Carolina on Hurricane Helen relief trip. Um, which was a wonderful experience. I'm really grateful to be able to have spent my last trips week there. Um, it was nine of my peers, a lot of whom I'm graduating with, and it was just a really great bonding experience, and three of the staff members that I've grown closest to, um, over my years at LACS. So, that was really special to be able to spend that time with them. Um, and we made a lot of just important, long-lasting connections in Asheville. Our work was really hard, but felt really impactful. Um, and they're people that I really think will be lifelong connections um, for myself and for us as the LACS community. Um, so yeah, we had a great mix of working really hard and
040also um, getting to spend some time in downtown Asheville, took a five mile hike up to this like beautiful peak, beautiful mountains there if you're not familiar. Um, eat yummy food, bunch of great things. Um, so yeah, it was a really great experience. Right. Um, so on that note, that's still left us off on, uh, following our successful trips week and despite the constant rain, uh, classes have begun to wind down. Yes. Um, many high school students have received their marching orders from teachers in terms of final projects and capstone assessments and things like that. That's all, uh, good and fun. On the note of IHS graduation, I want to join Stella in supporting Mary, Beth, and Julia. Um, as well as all those who spoke at the last meeting about a joint graduation ceremony.
041Um, you know, in ICSD, I think it's been pro proven that community is everything. Uh, students should be able to graduate with those who accompanied them throughout elementary, middle, and high. I know I would be heartbroken if I can graduate with some of my closest friends. So, I can't even I can't even imagine. Um and ACS probably stands in support with IHS and all those who want to graduate as one joint class. So um now some senior news. Uh many seniors have begun to schedule their senior meetings which will happen which will happen um within the next few weeks and before graduation. Um and on that note, seniors also start to wrap up their senior projects. These projects tend to be creative and often range in subject matter and topic. Um, seniors are getting in
042their requirements with facing bias presentations next Wednesday in our theater during sixth period starting around 1 p.m. 8ighth grade promotion has been set for Tuesday, June 24th at 6 p.m. with a showcase of the eighth grade projects starting at 5. And the next day on the 25th uh will be high school graduation starting at 7 with senior project display starting at 6. Uh, as for trips, um, I'm really grateful to ACS and staff administration, but most importantly, uh, Kylie Sappus and Deb Patac who really went out of their way to support a small group of seniors, myself included, um, in organizing an independent solo trip. Uh, the trip was completely managed and led by a group a small group of seniors. Um, and due to their support and our fundraising efforts, we're able to take
043many road trips around our beautiful state. Um, it's it's just one of those experiences that I'll be able to reflect on for years to come. All right. Um, we had our first lottery poll for incoming sixth grade students and 7th through 11th grade students and a second poll will happen today for the declined spots. Um, social studies and math pebbats are lurking just around the corner for juniors. Um, presentations are during regents week in June. Um, and we wanted to give a huge shout out to the bus garage, the drivers and the coordinators. Um, it is just amazing how much work they have put into getting all of our students where they need to be during trips week, which is crazy because we had we had so many trips going so many different places and
044the they somehow managed to get everybody there on top of everything else they do. Um, so yeah, we are so so thankful to them and all that they have done for this incredible learning experience. Um, I went on a trip that has been around for like 30 years or something like that. Yeah. 27. Yeah. Um, and we have this longl lasting connection to a school up north, right on the Canadian border, uh, called the Aquasny Freedom School, and that's on the Mohawk reservation there. Um, and this school's mission is all about teaching um, young kids Mohawk and they're like letting them allowing them to grow up in their own culture. Um, and it was just really an incredibly like it was such a cool and special experience being there and doing sort of like little
045odd jobs around the school for them. They're just in the middle of a transition over to a different school. So in the past we like our group has gone and made um sort of like green houses and sort of big projects like that. This time it was a lot of mulching and um fixing screens, stuff like that. Um and then just hanging out with the kids and getting to be there for a little bit. And it's just it's really it was really meaningful to me to be able to see sort of how how much this this trust has grown over these years uh between our two schools. And uh to be able to step into that having like somebody else having put in all of those years and all of that work was really a
046privilege. Um, so yeah, it was it was one of the most profound learning experiences of my life and I am really grateful for that. Um, that's all I have to say. Board responses. I just want to say thank you as always and Emily, thank you for recognizing our transportation department. like yes they work so hard um and for sharing it was very thank you okay thank you guys okay moving on our next agenda item 5.1 is the approval of the consent agenda and I'll entertain motions I move to approve all consent agenda items listed in consent agenda. Consideration of accounts, personnel report, students and minutes of previous meeting as presented. Second. Any discussion, comments, questions? Okay, hearing none. All in favor? All opposed and abstensions. Okay. One abstension. And the motion passes. Okay. Our next
047order of business, we're going to hear from Dr. Brown in our superintendent report. Thank you for the opportunity to share, Dr. Grant Weiss. Uh so much tonight. Uh first and and very importantly, uh thank you for your approval of our recommendation. We have a principal at Layman Alternative Community School. And uh I was hoping y'all would be as happy as we are. Uh yeah, some be careful now. There's some folks who may not be as happy. Uh we have Keith Harrington, who's currently principal at Enfield Elementary, and those are the folks I'm referring to as not as happy. Um will be transitioning over to be the principal. And it was a very open process. uh many many folks participated in the interviews um a robust process at the LACS way and we think we have
048a great person who's going to be your principal and thank you all for your support. Uh a couple other item if I can take a little extra time tonight. I may even invite a guest down. Uh and also a thank you for the folks who came out and who continue to come out. I know how much it takes to come out to an evening meeting when you could be at home with your young people um and doing other things. uh please know that we and I hear you and thank you for pushing us. The questions you ask make us better. It actually pushed me to research a lot and I'll talk about that some today. The questions you ask are great. The feedbacks you give are great and I appreciate you taking feedback from us
049too. Um and like that that I gave at the last meeting. I do want to talk about uh and the survey suggestion is outstanding. We'll get to the graduation in a second, but that is something that we will be talking about. How do we survey young people at the beginning of the school year? um on their preferences around graduation, but we'll come back to graduation if I may. It start with payroll. And again, thank you, Patty. Again, I learned I appreciate the feedback. I should have called you. I should have called other folks, too. I slipped into uh principal mode and managing a crisis. When you wake up at 5:00 a.m. and folks say, and you're the CEO that people aren't going to get paid today, it sends you into a crisis mode. I'm gonna
050get there. I'm gonna get there. Yeah. Oh, let me let me get there. uh because that's part of uh communication and when you call folks and when you put and there were many text messages, many emails that went out updating folks on what happened. Um and let's be clear, this thing went on for multiple days. They followed me everywhere, including to the farmers market and to WGN. So, everyone has been and no one got paid. Let's clear that up, too. Uh the entire organization, all thousand plus employees, no one got paid um on time or in the time that we had anticipated, which was early on a Friday morning. And yes, initially we were thinking, oh, who I don't, let me clarify something. I didn't mess that up. All right, I'm not in charge of
051the payroll. I don't push a button to make sure people are paid. Nor is there any individual person cuz a lot of what I was reading and hearing from folks is they want to know who was in charge or is it just ICSD in general. That just is not the case. There was no conspiracy to not to pay people. There was no effort on some person or person to make sure people didn't get paid on time. That's just not true. So, help me clear that up. And initially we did think it may have been um some errors and if that had happened yeah I'm hoping that we would respond with the humanity that folks who are working hard every single day and as a person who's been here 15 years and have never had a
052payroll issue when I can count on I can all you got to do is look at the paper and see other organizations that have payroll issues and we've never had one and if we had had one that had an individual or a team of folks who have been responsible for it. was hoping that we would have the grace and space to figure out how it happened and make sure it doesn't happen again but also not vilify them and unfortunately I was hearing and seeing some of that which got interrupted which I thought was nice and as we looked into the issue yes um our payroll was in on time and our folks should have been paid on time say it again our stuff was in on Thursday and our folks should have been paid on
053Friday now there are protocols and there are guidelines that banks must follow and I've learned a lot about this over the last four days and some of those weren't followed. So yes, it's up to us to take opportunities in crisis like this. I'll say it was a crisis to learn and be better and we will be doing that. But I need to make make sure and I should have called you managing text messages, emails, communications in multiple meetings, trying to make sure my son is not angry because people approaching me in the grocery store. I get it but I should have called you. And next time I will and I will call other folks too. I don't know what I was going to say and I just put a body to listen to you yell
054at me and that's that'll have been cool too. But next time I will be better about calling you and my team will remind me to do that too. But we spent all weekend working on this issue and we will be better. Our community will be better and we will be bringing some recommendations to the board to make sure the systems are in place to make sure this doesn't happen again. Graduation. Uh graduation. I've learned a lot about that, y'all. Um, and let me remind folks, the graduation, moving up ceremony. It's interesting in my role, I get uh feedback on all of our moving up and graduation ceremon. We mentioned eighth grade graduation here today. You're all going to get invited to fifth grade moving up ceremonies. We do preschool ceremonies. Like, there literally dozens if
055not more dozens of graduation type experiences in our school community. And I get a lot of the feedback on whether people like them or not, as was mentioned here today. And I have to remind folks, it's not a board policy, nor is it a decision that the superintendent makes as far as how an elementary school or even our flagship high school conducts their ceremonies. But it's up to us, like y'all did, to ask questions and to learn more and to provide resources and guidance. And that's what we've done. And we're going to be better. And I don't want to get into the history of how we got to a two graduation ceremony session, but I do want to remind folks there's some outstanding folks in consultation with young people. maybe it wasn't a survey to
056everybody have made decisions over the years and that's why I want to respect them because it's always a decision that no one's ever going to be happy about but they put time in and effort into doing it and we had those ceremonies when this health department was telling us not to and I was here when we had to make the decision to go to two ceremonies and in some ways had to break protocols just to make sure young people were recognized. So this there's a long history around graduation. Uh and what I do know is this is the answer to the first question Todd and some others asked. Can we change now? No, it takes many month Karen's probably going to stop me, but sometimes about a year or more in advance notice to schedule
057the venues that would hold our event. And even then, as we've learned, I won't say the particular year, but a couple years ago, we were called at late notices saying, well, even though we said you may be able to have the venue, we can't give it to you now. So, we were scrambling. Nobody knew about that, but we didn't had it on our own property. When thinking about how we would do a graduation ceremony without utilizing the large spaces that would take a year in advance to schedule. It will require us to think about busing, parking, and other ways to have an event like this on our campuses because I high school as it is right now, we would have to do we would have to plan out months and bring in extra bleachers, figure
058out busing. We would have to do a lot to even think about what a one graduation ceremony would look like. But it's something we're going to we've already started looking at what it could look like next year if that's something we choose to do. But to answer your question, we can't change now. Can we be more flexible and talk about how we can accommodate all the wishes? Because one of the things I was hearing early on is that the graduation ceremon was too long. Um I'm sitting next to someone I don't know so well. Um parents, I was I was getting stopped at graduate. We're too far away. I mean, so some of those things we try to take into account as we allow for young people to sit next to who they wish to
059sit next to. They actually are much closer to the graduate. So even making those adjustments, we realize now that not everybody's happy with those adjustments we made. So this is a long way of saying uh we're taking all the feedback, but we can't change it now. And next year, I anticipate surveys and also we need to budget for it because it's a it comes at a significant cost. Not only are we renting the space, but then we're paying for the security and all the other personnel associated with the graduate ceremony, not on our property. And that is a significant um budget item that we have not budgeted for this year and for next but it's something we can make adjustments for. Karen, am I leaving anything out on that was a quick study, right? It
060was a lot of meetings based on your feedback. I had to learn much more about graduation. And I hope that we are shifting to be more flexible and accommodating folks's needs to be at the ceremony of their wishes. And I also learned that a few years ago, everybody wanted the one o'clock ceremony and this issue was around 5:00 and no one wanted to go there. And I hear that may be different this year. Everyone everyone wants five o'clock and not getting one. Can you anything else you would add there? No. I came in. Yeah. department. I think from the day school started when I was tapped with graduation to the day graduation I've had at least somewhere between I remember Jason probably saying Arnold I can get about 14 iterations of graduation um we did
061get really good feedback about graduation I think that's that was why we are where we are because I got to sit by my friends I got to take Um, we don't we don't know how one ceremony and it's not impossible, but one ceremony at school stadium where we've been really good feedback about how intimate it is up close. Um, and here's graduation saving day. I'm sorry for that oversight. We work really hard as to connect to us on different and then the second here college was in contact with me and said Karen just let him know we haven't had it figured before there um because of the Florida graduations that we have special Olympics this year we will not be able to host you and that happened again last year we did get special feel
062in that this year there will be the special Olympics they are the weekend before it's not the same time so I don't know if that would have made a difference or not also and don't go completely quote me, but when I went into the high school, I was shocked that it was about $20,000 budget for graduation. I thought, how was it cost that? And I was really pretty proud of myself for getting it at the time about $1,200. That was signs and me going to purchase the data to save money. Um, so it's a really huge cost transportation to the facility. I did hear one of the last times at the college um the the sound acoustics went out. It was hard complaints about the harp at high. And again, I'm only hearing this secondhand.
063I wasn't part of it. So, if I have a scroll on, I apologize. Okay. I do wonder what the surveys would look like. We had lots and lots of surveys that we have going out to families and students. And I know we haven't had any recently until we would have a venue. I don't know what that survey would look like to have possibilities. said the one transparent and honest with you. Um I'm not sure because we have the surveys to ask questions to get options. We don't have the options then there's one point. So just want to put that out. No my bad K. Thank you. I should have invited you down cuz look we can't I know but uh all right. Uh that's on the graduation. And then um if it um there's a
064bit of I I rarely use the word fear, but I guess I will use it tonight. Um in how I feel calling you Patty when I'm not your people aren't getting paid. I feel a certain kind of way. That's maybe people call that fear. Looking at people who I've seen and been working with for 15 years who been responsible for one of the most beautiful murals I've ever seen. people that I've worked with bread and who I've seen not just in professional setting but in personal setting to look at you and say and give you um news that probably won't make you happy that elicits some fear. So that is fear. But retaliation is something very different. And I think I need to underscore and say to folks when we use that term particularly when
065we're referring to it an individual or individuals that can be identified it's those that is an unlawful act just for education purposes only. When we say there's retaliation by an administrator in New York State that is breaking the law. And that is very different from the fear of conversations or the fear now we're talking about a lack of playing time that can be that could be seen as retaliation in some ways or some other things or not getting a job that's retaliation in time and those are all unlawful. I just want to make sure as cuz often times even though we don't say names people can identify who we talking about and often I know this personal for me sometimes I'm accused of people being fearful. I hear all the feedback. I don't break the
066law. If you feel uncomfortable having a conversation with me where we can learn and be curious of one another, I understand and recognize that because I have that, too. But I don't say the word retaliation because I don't want to be accusing people of breaking the law. Everybody just want to make sure I put that on the record because oftentimes when we are using that term, we're talking about an individual. I may be one or other individuals who have committed their lives to this community and we're working in community together. And while we don't always agree or always get along, we still neighbors. And I don't think neighbors should be accusing one another breaking the law. But at times it's okay to be uncomfortable having a conversation with people you near. Thank you for the
067opportunity to speak and share. Okay, moving on to our next item. We have item 11.1. We're going to have a presentation from our sustainability advocates, Cindy Kramer, Armen Hurrick, Sarah Brunberg, and others. Is there another graduation? doesn't Adam, do you mind if we just provide agenda? You sure about? I just asked what you can go ahead. Oh, well, I don't know why. We'll do it. Do it. I'm not sure if Yes. Yeah, cuz I just I don't receive. Good evening everybody and um as Adam said we are representing the sustainability advocates for the Ithaca City School District and uh we really thank you for your service to the district and for the opportunity to present to you this evening. Um, some of you have heard some of these uh elements that we're going to be
068sharing tonight at curriculum committee, some at operations, some presented by the advocates, some by students, and just to say we're all here together forming a vision and uh making a plan. So, uh many of you remember uh last year uh the sustainably advocates proposed a climate resolution. I always say a 44word statement uh written by committee. Um and we were really pleased uh that the board approved it on June 25th, 2024 uh establishing acknowledging that the climate crisis is real and that the intention to take action to help mitigate its impacts on the present and the future. Next. So, we've all seen uh data like this or maybe even this graph itself. Um we'll just say briefly just to put it in context. Um I also want to say that we deal with all different
069levels, all of us about what it's like to be part of a school district, all the different levels from mundane to significant. And we're always working in many ways. All of these issues are important and make us who we are. Um so this historical data does provide us with the evidence of how since industrialization in the mid 18th century uh we have seen human behavior primarily through the burning of fossil fuels uh create a climate crisis and that's what we're facing. We all see evidence of that. We're not here tonight to really review those facts but just to provide that as the backdrop to what we're talking about. We uh believe that developing a climate action plan, which is our next step, uh we appreciate the resolution, which was our intentions, uh and we really
070appreciate the board joining us in that uh purpose. Um we're really excited to tonight present a climate um action plan that is representing our next step to follow up on that resolution. We do believe that our students um will feel more hopeful when they notice that the board of education is including a climate action plan among its many priorities. Um, we believe we have the capacity to integrate sustainability into our education and our operations without compromising but in fact enhancing the learning opportunity uh that our students gain and to prepare for the future that lies ahead. Some of you saw these at a curriculum committee uh meeting but we wanted to share again with the full board. Um so education about climate change and the existential crisis it's created we believe belongs in the curriculum
071and some of the data that um we are seeing is that students are keenly aware of the climate crisis and worry about their future. Um the concerns and hopes of young people motivate us to advocate for education for sustainable future across the school district. In this global survey, 10,000 respondents ages 16 to 25 in 2021, um nearly 70% said they were either extremely worried or very worried about climate change. Next, the findings in this national survey of more than 15,000 youth ages 16 to 25 in all 50 states along with DC, nearly 58% say they are very or extremely concerned about climate change and its impacts on people and the planet and 40 close to 43% say that climate change is impacting their mental health. Lastly, we have a snapshot of some students in our
072district. Uh, a survey of Buon eighth graders this past November um had similar responses you see in that first pie chart. But I'd like to highlight that in addition um in the response students gave to the statement actions can be taken to slow down climate change and reduce its effects. Much to my surprise, 96% said yes. they agreed or strongly agreed. So we are very happy that they are feeling hopeful and that a climate action plan adopted by this board could only give them more hope and support. The climate action plan we are proposing for ISCD provides an opportunity to provide to respond to these student concerns u as well as fostering their hopes integrating sustainable practices across the district and educating for a sustainable future. Next oh we're going to stay on this slide
073for a second here. So this might be a familiar slide to some of you. A couple of years ago, we were given access to information uh benchmarking data that's no longer being collected at this moment um where it's analyzing the um energy star score for individual schools in our district. And you might note that uh the national average for energy star score with 100 being the best and zero being the worst um national average is 67 for school buildings. The Northeast in the United States is historically old stock for um buildings. Um they didn't think about the climate crisis because we didn't know about it when this high school was built in 1959 or 1960. U same thing goes for BJM and a lot of other schools in our district. So you'll notice that we
074have kind of an abysmal average score of 41. That's no one's fault, but we need to address it. And our thinking is that part of the climate action plan um will function as a roadmap to getting to addressing um uh decarbonizing our buildings by transitioning over a span of say around 15 years or so. um away from the use of fossil fuel boiler systems to um uh heat pump systems that include um the proposal that you're uh entertaining right now which is groundbased heat pump systems for both uh Boon and IHS simultaneously which by the way will reduce greenhouse gas emissions districtwide by 36% which is completely on on target with what we are advocating for which is an accelerated pathway to decarbonizing our school district which one component of the climate action plan and
075um yeah next. So our climate action plan proposal uh consists of four different categories which we'll talk about right now. So we're just going to go through them one after the other. Sure. Um pardon me. Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. Um the structure holds the other three components. Um the structure outlined will ensure oh um um will ensure that the climate action plan is being acted upon um that it's a living document to reflect our ethos, guide our actions um and so that we can keep updating our plan ongoing. Um it looks to form district committees including students and staff and committee um community members. um which would work with a sustainability advocates group um and collaborate with the central administrators and district directors. Next, uh the operations component is deals with our facilities
076which are the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in the district. Um so that is things like our energy efficiency and our heating and cooling of our buildings. uh our electricity supply, transportation which is not just buses but also increasing accessibility to walking and cycling. Uh landscaping grounds, new construction, um all these things to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and uh this is continuation of lots of the things that we're currently working on like the wellfield or energy audits or the new buses. Hello. Along with my uh wonderful colleague Emily Uford, who couldn't be here tonight, we've had the uplifting experience um and work to envision healthy schools. The healthy schools component of the climate action plan encompasses both outdoor and indoor environments as well as our food systems at all 12 campuses. Healthy schools
077positively impact students well-being, academic performance, and overall development. So outside of schools, we need to expand our safe routes to schools to encourage students and staff to walk and bike more, to have gardens at every school, whether they be tranquility gardens or vegetable gardens for hands-on learning, and to ensure that all students and staff have access to natural areas where they can explore and relax. inside schools. We need to continue to reduce waste significantly by sharing what we already have and reducing what we buy, conserving energy, and improving our recycling and composting efforts. At the center of healthy schools are the students and their mental and physical well-being. A healthy school fosters learning, increases engagement, and promotes healthy behaviors, ultimately benefiting students lifelong health and success. Our education component, our group represents educators from all
078levels, elementary, middle, and high school. Um, under our curricular development, we advocate for educating for a sustainable future across the school district and using a sustainability lens to teach, for example, literacy and math skills, professional development. We we advocate for incorporating curricular development opportunities to explore ideas, approaches, and resources to integrate education for sustainable future across grade levels and subjects. Connection and collaboration with the community. We look forward to forming and expanding collaboration with community organizations and deepening partnerships with local and regional organizations to expand our resources and educational opportunities in the district. Student leadership. We hope to provide opportunities for students leaderships and empowering our students to be proactive and to make change now and in the future. So um to summarize our district uh climate action plan proposal for would function as a
079roadmap to address the climate crisis in meaningful ways. And as you heard just now we're talking about the actual physical plants. We're talking about educational components and we're talking about making the school district healthier for all involved. Next. Here we go. So, this climate action plan has not been created in isolation. It builds on many actions already in the process. Through the climate action plan, we will continue to integrate feedback, strengthen our partnerships within the district, as well as strengthen the community ties for each of the four components of the plan. So, some of you may be familiar that the portrait of a graduate of New York State um includes uh climate education as part of that process and we'll begin looking at district implementation in some form that how it looks is still being
080developed in the year 2627. So, as a forward-looking district, which I hope we all view ourselves, um we think we can embrace now. we can get started or continue um as we've said to build on what we're already doing um and embrace sustainability as integral to our mission. We really see it going hand inand with preparing our students to be skilled, knowledgeable, civically active and having a healthy environment uh to be greeted by. Sorry. Um what relieves uh eco anxiety is action and hope. In our curriculum, we can encourage students to see their strength and agency to take action in many ways, big and little. This ICSD climate action plan will give them hope. Students need to see us show commitment, our commitment to their future. They need to see adults come together to make
081positive change. In this climate action plan, we commit to being proactive, to understanding the urgency, to doing what we can when we can. We hope that you will adopt our plan this year um and commit to doing the good work with us starting next year. You've all gotten digital copies and now we'll give you a hard copy. You may have noticed um that we have long-term goals, also next steps for 202526, continuing the good work that we're doing tying into things that we're already doing. We hope that you'll read our full plan um and have questions. We're happy to respond in an ongoing manner and we hope to come back before the end of the school year to answer any last minute questions and to formally ask you to adopt our climate action plan. Thanks
082so much for coming tonight and um let's have some board conversation, questions, dialogue. I' I'd like to um thank all of you for your hard work and for a very nice presentation. Um it's great to see something like this come to fruition in such a cogent way which doesn't always happen and uh you certainly have my full support and my support um of the plan and con the concept of the plan. There may be some specifics particularly in regards to operations in facilities that I'll encourage the facility staff to look closely at and talk about how it can be translated in a way that's reasonable for them. But again, thank you. I also want to thank you and as I was listening and and you know, you're talking about community partnerships and I'm thinking transportation.
083I um looking to next year with our legislative advocacy work. I can't help but think that one of you can maybe join in those sessions so we can reach out to local legislators and look at like bike lanes and how to make walking safer, easier, one of those things and what other things we can work with our, you know, community partners to to change because it it can't all be here, right? It's got to be everybody. So, I love this. I can't wait to go through with my highlighter. Thank you. Fantastic. Yes, thank you for stating that not created in isolation because I started thinking about um from our facilities committee and other committees and different groups and OACM and how all of these numbers have come together. Now you stated on slide seven where
084the energy star rating and a few of our buildings are low that we no longer that was benchmark 2022 2023 climate data. Yeah. So we no longer collect that data. That is correct and that's one of the remedies that we have baked into our climate action plan proposal that we reengage in benchmarking through either B3 or some other third party entity that will give us a comprehensive like database so that we can dig into that was really helpful to us to understand the gravity of the situation with regard to our buildings. Okay. Thank you. And I just say that I think that um continuing to gra um to gather that data uh gives us the way to share the good work that we're doing. Right. I just want I want to just give a shout
085out and appreciation to our central administrators and board who have supported us from the climate resolution and all year long. Thank you everybody. I'm not going to name everybody. And um we also in a a recent meeting with Mary Grover uh we are ready to start um to offer introductory inservice workshops within a current budget uh starting next year which is pretty exciting and I know lots of other things that are happening with facilities and I I see people here from child nutrition and there's a lot of efforts going on there. So we are just wanting to continue forward and and collaborate. Thank you. Other comments? Well, thank you guys so much for coming. As you know, I'm a I'm also a big supporter. Clap and we look forward to reviewing and and voting on
086this soon. And that brings us to agenda item 11.2. Um, this item is going to be a discussion about a research agreement um that we may enter with Cornell University. Um, Zachman is going to come down and talk about it a little bit. Then we can entertain resolutions and uh potentially vote today. All right. Uh, hi everyone. So uh this resolution is a continuation of several actually probably many discussions that came out of um finance and a lot of our work last year about sort of looking at the long um sort of long-term trajectory and uh sort of demographic need demographic needs that might be in our community. Um, so there was several discussions last fall about putting together an RFP that would go out to um sort of whoever was interested in looking at
087sort of uh basically the district uh enrollment patterns and sort of facilities needs. Uh so that RFP went out um I want to say somewhere in February. It was out for about a month. We had a series of bids and what you have here with you today is the um the winning bid um for your review and um with the board permission you would we can enter into an agreement and uh sort of begin the work on this process. That's sort of the big overview but I'm happy to answer more specific questions that you all might have. Yeah. Um two questions Zach. one is exactly what part of Cornell University is this with? Who will who will be doing the RFP and um how much will it cost us? Sure. Um so the in the
088board documents it outlines a specific department. I'm trying to scroll and find it. Um but it's the I had it up here a minute ago. It's the Oh, I had it here. Well, let me start with the the cost because I have that one in front of me. Um, so the this project is uh should is scheduled to cost uh $93,384. So that that'd be the cost overall. Um, and it's the Cornell. It's the Brooks uh School of Public Policy, right? And there's a specific group in there and I'm forgetting their name and I apologize to you all. Thank you. There you look at that. Sorry, I was I was so focused on the cost. I had that and I I missed the second part. So that's those are your your two answers there. Thank
089you. Yeah. Yeah. Because I have the letter in front of me and their letter stated August 2024 um to us although our RFP went out in February. I think that's a typo in their letter head. I don't think that's a reflection of our timeline at all. No, it might be a reflection of this. Is it a copy and paste? Could be. So, um, is this what we had an a budget amount for? I know we went out to bid and because it's over a certain dollar amount as an um educational entity, we have to go out to bid. So, and is this around what we had expected? Yes. Yeah. I think this comes in where where we thought it would and we have that budgeted and we have funds that we can allocate for that
090because they had stated um several language around significant pro bono um services. So I thought it would have been less than that if it was significant proono. Yeah. I mean without without speaking too granularly about the process I I we got a a range of bids. Um, and I wouldn't say that was there was definitely bids that were much much higher significantly. So, is there any um is there any leeway on the timeline of the RFP? Like I noticed it was going to be done at the end of November they were estimating and I was just thinking I mean it's a little bit arbitrary but end of October would just be so much better because if end of November becomes December the year ends. It's January. It just, you know, we sort of are looking
091for information, but I don't know how if that's flexible. Um, I think there's flexibility. A lot of those things come down to how quickly we turn turn around data. We've already um talked about how we would get them data if we do enter into this agreement. So, on the district side, we're poised to do this as fast as we can and, you know, get them what they need. But um in terms of timeline I I think there could be some flexibility but you know ultimately when we do this work and really anytime we do a a project with a sort of a large scale project timelines are a sort of a guess at this moment in time where when we think we can get it done and so be we'd be hardressed to say we
092could definitely get it done at an earlier date. Well, in in our RFP, we actually stated a formal presentation to the board in November. So, I got time. Um, I just can we do you mind just giving a summary of what this is, what we're asking for folks who are new to this whole Sure. thing. Right. So, we put out an RFP um which was a request for a proposal and we outlined a scope of work. Um, we asked for a demographic study and enrollment projections. um looking out you know five 10 even up to 15 years based on the sort of the formulas and the datas that they would use. We then asked them to do and this went out to anyone that was interested uh sort of impact analysis looking at um how
093that the de demographics might impact enrollments um in specific buildings and um sort of what that might mean in terms of how we configure our buildings and configure our classes and um considering our values that we have now about certain types of class sizes how that might be impacted. We then also ask folks to um re review our district property properties and the infrastructure that we have. So to basically make a determination um on you know here's all of your buildings, here's what we could see you having to sort of invest significantly more in. Here's where we think you're in really good shape and then sort of look at that uh do a sort of a a school building um sort of feasibility and potential uh sort of we'd call it consolidation analysis. So to
094look at based on our enrollment, here's what we think might happen and then based on our buildings, here's what we, you know, our best recommendation would be. Um, and so they have folks um who look at more sort of financial and infrastructure elements and they're going to be joining on the project and they have um folks that look at dem demography data and population data and they'll be joining on that project and um they'll look at both those things. We also in our RFP um asked the uh asked the respondents to sort of keep in mind our district values and our sort of the the things we find to be important and we talked a little bit about that and then we we'll also talk about those when we um work with these teams. The
095reason I say that is, you know, a really efficient RFP could just say, you know, clo, you know, consolidate everything into one giant building and you're going to save lots and lots of money. We're not really asking for that. We're actually asking for more nuanced understanding of the what's going on in our county, in our region, in our state, and making sort of more sophisticated um sort of projections at what we should or could or shouldn't do um hopefully with a a series of options. So, does that answer that question? It does, but just I mean most of us here know this is a catalyst. This came about because of budget considerations last year. So can either you or someone from the finance committee explain for newcomers or folks here who are just hearing that
096the first time the catalyst for asking for this RFP and and why we're doing this and what we're potentially looking at. Yeah. So um and Garrick, please jump in as needed. So last fall um when we were working with finance committee, we've been looking a lot of sort of what I'd call the different financial levers that a district has, right? There's there's ways that we can increase revenue. We can increase revenue by increasing our taxes. We can increase uh revenue by getting more state aid. We can get increase our revenue by having higher enrollment and getting um sort of more money back from the state. Right? Those are there's there's some of the ways we can increase revenue. We can also enter into contracts. there's all these other things. Um there's another option when we're
097talking about sort of our f fiscal management and that's going to be uh how do we potentially save money? So what are where are we spending money that maybe we shouldn't spend and so what that would mean is you know for us to look at well we have you know eight elementary schools, two middle schools, a high school and then alternative school along with a whole series of other buildings. Are there um potential gains to be made there if we were to study what we think is going to happen over the next 5, 10, and 15 years? Look at our buildings, look at how much we think we're going to have to spend to sort of keep them in good shape and, you know, are there savings that can be realized there that will help
098offset any future expenses. So, that's that's the rationale be behind why we we are putting out or went and put out this RFP. basically want to look out and think, you know, are there are there other ways that we could attack this? And let's get experts who know a lot more about um you know, uh population and build certain types of uh sort of building maintenance and cost and combine all that information to give us some um some ideas of what we could do in the future. Right? So things like transportation, things like you know, we're exploring the heating and cooling systems. Other schools are going to need that. So what looking at the cost benefit analysis of everything within the district is what this these RFPs are kind of not everything but most things.
099So this one is specifically looking at um our buildings the state of our buildings and what uh you know what we might have to do to maintain that or reconfigure that if we need to make changes and then looking at our and then combining that with our population projections for the region and enrollment projections. Um it's it could be that they come back and say we also think there could be impacts on transportation services or food services and that would probably be another type of study that we'd have to engage in um you know ultimately because we have probably what six or seven different departments really um finite uh activities and things they need to do that those would all be sort of separate studies or at least separate analysis that we might have to
100do but they're going to give us some of the big picture items. Um hopefully that makes sense. So there's some things like a transportation study would probably be its own own thing and I think we've done transportation studies in the past but that would be a sort of a separate thing but this would just be sort of buildings plus enrollment projections. Okay, last question. Sure. To Adam's point like looking on here I think it said May you know this date into December 30th 2025. So if we get the RFP back and they make recommendations, those recommendations then I mean we wouldn't be able to even move on them until Yeah. following fall or even the fall after. Yeah. This it's nonbinding. It's uh this is us doing our due diligence to understand what and also
101helping our board make you know we always talk about folks come in they have a lot of ideas about what we should do and there's often a discussion of like well what does the data say what do what do the experts say this is us doing our due diligence as an executive team and the board of education to look out and try to figure out some of the key drivers that will help inform our decision-m over the next 5 10 even 15 Yeah. Ju just to use like an example, um we a lot of people don't know this, but we own an elementary school in Dani that hasn't been used in 20 years and we maintain it. You know, we cut the grass, we fix the roof when it gets leaky, we're paying for heat
102and AC, and you know, is that a best use of our money? So, it's like we need data to determine like, you know, what's the value of it? If we were to sell it, what could we get for it? You know, that's like a that's a one-time uh influx of cash. But then what would be the value, you know, if it goes on the tax role because right now it's not on the tax role. So we could bring in additional revenue, you know, if it's assessed for $4 million arbitrary number. If it says $4 million, that's going to bring x amount of dollars per year to the district, which, you know, is more money for teachers, which is more money for or potentially lessen the burden on taxpayers. So we're looking at, you know, potentially
103consolidating buildings, um potentially selling, you know, assets in the district that are actually just a burden on the district that could be um something that brings in revenue. So, um, and in order to do that, you know, we need to be informed. We need to have as much data as possible to make these like really big decisions. Um, and it's great that I think that the board's finally doing this. I think we all recognize that, you know, we we are in a crisis where, you know, we are being overt taxed. Teachers aren't being paid enough. Um, and all the lowhanging fruit is already been, you know, essentially picked. So, we need to make some like significant changes or do things that are, you know, uh, haven't been done before. So, we're looking at every possible
104option and we think that th this could yield some like really positive uh results for the the district and the community. So, um I I'm personally really excited to see what the data shows and I'm excited to hopefully make some decisions that'll, you know, move the needle significantly for everybody. So, okay. Yeah, just maybe the one other lens I might look at this through this is there are short-term decisions and long-term decisions. We made the short-term decisions about this time last year. Class sizes, cuts in administration, cuts of programs, those are things that we could do in the month we had. And this is the correlary to that. This these are the long-term decisions and thankfully we have a fund balance that gives us a couple years to thoughtfully and and well-informed datadriven manner work
105through what are the best long-term solutions. So that's what this is. There's no other discussion or comments. Uh we can entertain motions. Motion to enter into a standard research agreement with Cornell University for the purposes of research and discovery regarding demography, enrollment projections, facility optimization, and asset review. Second. Moved by Jill, seconded by Todd. Any further discussion? Uh yeah, one point I just remembered is that we have our um well we've been in discussion about a capital project that will um will bring to voters the end of this year yet. This is around the same time that we're getting the results of this study back. So we may need to look into that. we may not need to look into it but certain um items from and recommendations suggestions from this study can then lead
106us into how we proceed forward. So something to consider and which we can discuss in upcoming meetings. Other discussion. Okay. Then I can call the question. All in favor? Okay. Passes unanimously. Okay. Okay, that brings us to agenda item number 12. Uh well, I guess first we have any upcoming dates of importance. Anything? Um nothing is coming to mind in this very moment, but does anybody have any dates that they want to bring to anybody's attention? Okay, sorry. I I have nothing. Um okay, we have a few um other discussion items, I guess. Um I guess we can we can start with with Jill's discussion and then we have a few others. Two quick announcements. One um that after consulting with my committee colleagues, we're going to cancel the HR committee meeting in June. I
107think it's June 3rd. So those of you who had that on your schedule should cross it off. We're not going to have that committee meeting. The second announcement is is brief and something to think about and that's that I received a very thoughtful email from a teacher at Enfield. Um the bottom line is that they strongly feel a liaison situation would be of benefit to them. They feel like as a group and certainly this was mentioned to me when I visited there earlier this year um they feel kind of neglected and out of the district at many times. So, um, I guess we should add the Enfield vote for re-implementing the liaison position or at least talk about how we might make Enfield feel more a part of things um, as a board. So, a
108board leazison to schools, right? Oh, okay. Yeah, because you said leison on position. I was wondering what position. Yeah, I meant the board member. In the past, board members have been assigned particular schools to serve as a liaison. And uh this year, we decided as a group not to do that. And I thought I just wanted to share with you that I got a a plea from an Enfield teacher that we reinstitute some version of that. Um for the reasons I mentioned, I've also raised I'd like to raise two discussion items. Um and those both came from emails we received from members of the community. um following the election. Uh the first was a concern about um electioneering behavior by a candidate and um by a candidate specifically who was accused of um flouting the
109100 foot electioneering boundary. And one idea that this person proposed, and one that makes sense to me, is that we include information in our candidate packet about the importance of paying attention to election rules. And and we should probably include those or note to everyone that you're not to be performing any election related behavior within 100 foot of a polling place on election day. So, you know, just to implement something like that, I I'm not suggesting that we undertake a uh you know, some sort of assessment about whether that did or did not occur, just saying that that would be something we could do to prevent this problem in the future. Um the second issue also came through an email and that was that um there was a claim that um one endorsing group specifically
110the village at Ithaca um did an illegal endorsement and luckily none of us here tonight I say luckily so we won't have to stay for a long time but luckily none of us here tonight is an attorney and I've asked asked our our attorney, our board attorney, Kate Reid, to look into whether indeed a nonprofit such as we believe the village at Ithaca is is allowed to make political endorsements. So though that kind of fits a discussion, kind of fits as an announcement, but I thought they were both things that should be talked about at the board level at some point. and Kate has not gotten back to me tonight on her findings on that. So, okay. So, we could we can definitely return to that when we have some more information. In the meantime,
111if anyone on the board would like to make uh any comments or participate in a discussion on that, this is the time. So, not presently. Um, okay. Um, couple of a couple of other items. Um, I'll turn it over to Todd. He wanted to bring something back up again under the o other discussion items. 12.2. I I just wanted to talk about graduation. I I'm I'm concerned that um, you know, time's going to pass and we're going to be in the same situation, you know, next year that we are now. And um I I I I hear that there's gonna be a survey coming out. Um I have reservations about that. To me, I feel like everyone wants to be at the same graduation. I can't imagine um people wouldn't. And I I I just
112don't want it to be like a binary choice between, you know, having a fast graduation and having a graduation where everyone's there. Um what I'd like to see is like how do we make a graduation where everyone's there and maybe make it more efficient, right? maybe make it more um pleasant for people to be at because people are always going to complain no matter what. But I just find it hard to believe that any kid is not going to want to graduate with their entire class. Um you know I I I I personally, you know, I couldn't imagine not graduating with with friends that I grew up with. Um, and then there was a comment too about the budget was originally 20,000 and I forget the woman's name, so I probably Erin Erin said that
113that was was a lot and to me that seemed like a rounding error. It seemed like a small amount and to do a graduation for 1,200. I mean, I can't even do a birthday party for 1,200. So, um, like seriously, I I I think that, you know, these kids go to school for 13 years and I think that they deserve a good graduation. Um and to me like if we have to spend a little bit more money as a board member I would be in complete support of that um in order to you know provide them this opportunity to graduate with each other because I I think it's one of the most um you know meaningful and important moments of their lives and um yeah I I don't personally need a survey to to know
114that. Um so I and I just what I again I don't want to have happen is we do the survey, we wait four months next year and next thing you know like it's too late again. And I I just don't want to see that. Like what I personally and I don't even know if again I think it might be over stuff my bounds. I think as a board member we don't even have the right to say you know what should happen with graduations but what I would love to see is that we decide you know as a district or staff level whatever. How do we actually make this happen you know what are the pain points and then just find solutions for it. Um but I I that that's just my personal opinion. Um, and
115I just I wanted to say something about it because I just didn't want it to linger and I didn't want it to get forgotten about because it's about to be summertime and I just didn't want another year to go by. So that's that's all I have to say. Quickly, if I could add, um, that preparation is already underway as a contingency if that's where we go. Um, and again, we have to reach out to folks, plan for it. We're already thinking about transportation. This morning's meeting I was in was what would it look like to bust young people from the elementary schools here because we won't have enough parking. So, I will say that it's already underway. if that's the option we take and but I and I will give the feedback you just shared
116with Karen and the team of folks at the high school. Thank I was just going to say can't be an aside because I've got the microphone but I would make an aside to Todd to say if you want something to happen one thing that we really have that's a power of a board member is to bring a resolution. And I suspect there's no one at this table who wouldn't prefer to see um a unitary a unified graduation. And you could bring a a resolution saying that the board um would urge the administration in future years to have the entire graduating class in its graduation ceremony. that gives everybody a chance to to weigh in and and it lets people in the community know that the board has thought about it and indeed has directed administration
117to do something in in that regard. So from me to you. Thank you Joe. That's why I rely on you. Any any other discussion related to that? I just wanted Todd to pay for my birthday party. I'll tell you when. Well, if you have it at the trampoline park, it gets pricey. Uh, okay. Emily, you want to close it out? I'll close it out. I'm just I wanted to like take credit for the fact that you guys stayed this whole time and I was going to be like the person that spoke to you last, but then Todd totally stole my thunder and said something way better. But we're glad that you stuck around. I just wanted to clarify that we clarified with our powers that be that the consent agenda that I mentioned earlier about
118staffing is available ahead of time and you can check it out to whomever else wants to go on to board docs and do that. So just so that you know in the future that those kinds of things will be available ahead of time. Um, and as you all know from being here before, I also very much am in support of uh a single graduation uh and hope and very much uh echo the like let's like actually move. And so I'm glad to hear that things are already moving to assess that. The only thing that I would push back on is I I think it is always a little risky to say that we're confident that we know what the entire community would say because I feel like I've said that before and I've been wrong
119or I've missed an entire group of people who felt very very differently than me. So, I think that it is a great thing to be able to be moving forward and also give people in the community, including students, the opportunity to provide feedback. Um, and we will already be halfway there by the time that they do that based on the assumption that they will probably be in huge favor of it, as am I. But I think that it's really important to give students the opportunity to be able to speak for themselves on what what they're hoping for and what they prefer. Any other last discussion items? Okay. Well, thanks for bearing with us. It was an exciting meeting tonight, but we'll call this meeting to an end and we'll see you next time.