001Excellent. [Music] Good evening. Tonight is Thursday, May 8th, and welcome. We're excited tonight to get an update on our capital project. We're going to hear from our board of education candidates. We're going to hear about the senior survey, and we're going to do our um last run through of the budget prior to the vote. So, we're looking forward to all of those things. And um before we begin, if we could please rise. Oh, can I get a motion to come back into public session? By Marjorie, second by Rory. All those in favor? 70. Can we please rise for the pledge? Thank you. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] All right.
002So, I think this may be your last report, Ian. Is that possible? Or maybe have one more. We'll get one more before the end of the year. Okay. We're going to begin tonight with uh a report from our student board of education member. So, I'm sure most of you who have kids right now or have had kids going through John J, you know that May is a pretty busy season. We've got state tests, AP exams, and even off at college, a lot of finals going on right now. But there's also a lot of art going on right now. And then at the end of the month, we've got our Memorial Day break to look forward to. So, with that, we'll get into it with our state math test going on yesterday and today for the
003elementary schools and then their fifth grade state science test on the 20th. Meet Pond had their fifth grade play with a specific sensory friendly showing on the 10th. They had their MPS art show coming up on the 15th and their PTO bike rodeo on the 22nd. Increase Miller is having their fifth grade play on the 14th and the 15th and their art show on the 21st. Daytona Elementary has had their fourth grade visit to the Museum of Art for them to kind of take a break and just have a moment to kind of sit there with their thoughts and their feelings as they looked at the um at the art on display. And they'll be having their art show on the 19th. In the middle school, their eighth grade earth science regions are also coming
004up. they have on that topic. Talked to a climate change expert on the 5th, getting to ask questions and understand a little more about what's going on right now and what their lives are going to look like in the future. They had their mass state test on the 6th. Yesterday, their family and consumer science classes went to release trout that they've been growing since October. They have their science test on the 14th and their band concert on the 19th. Lastly, with the high school, um the week of April 21st, we had our trial by fire in which various fire departments, um Vista, South Salem, Golden Bridge, and KFD came to help out and show students what it was like to be a firefighter with challenges and shirts as prizes. April 25th, we had our JFest,
005so a pep rally. All of our home games were lined up for the weekend, and it was just a big celebration of everything John J. Um, on the second, the music classes took a field trip to the New York City to see the Philarmonic and enjoy a jazz concert at the Lincoln Center. Like I said earlier, we've gone through AP exams. So, this week and next week till the 16th with our one act festival running yesterday and I think it's still running right now, actually. Um, junior prom is on the 17th. And lastly, on the 21st, we have undergrad awards. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Ian. And look forward to one more report from you by the end of the year and I hope that you're relaxing in between your exams. I know the AP
006exam weeks are a little stressful but hope things are going well for you. Excellent. Um and we also wanted to um do some board committee reports. Uh audit committee first. It's alphabetical. Uh we had our audit uh committee meeting last week and our uh external auditors began their process which is always a meeting with the board to sort of review the timeline and um go through what the audit process is sort of very standard every year but they go through it. Um we're excited to be um setting forth on that and they'll be in the district in the summer to do their on-site testing and they'll begin some testing offsite now and then we um are looking forward to our internal auditors um that will be they'll be in September. Correct. They'll both come back
007in September and to present both the internal and the external audits to the committee. Yes. So, it looks as if the committee will get obviously as usual the more extensive report um and then our external auditors will come and present here to the board and Lisa will actually probably do the report from our uh from our internal audit at the board meeting in September. Uh John, would you like to I'm going to bump the alphabet. Would you like to start with ERGC and then do your parent council report at the same time? Would that be okay? Sure. I'll go back to back. No problem there. Uh ERJC met on the 6th, so just a couple nights ago. Uh we had Cura Proctor join. Uh second of three times she'll be joining the group. Really dove
008deep into pillar two of the the mission, the vision. Uh the empowerment plan. Uh we had conversations about what belonging actually means, which is what that pillar is. I kind of dove deep into that. And then also worked on an empowerment plan. and then started working on the smart goal template. So the ERJC is really kind of starting to get a focus on kind of what their work is, what their role is going to be and uh it was it was a good meeting. Um little low in attendance about 15 16 people but people walked out of there kind of feeling like there is a a direction going. That's great. And then parents council met on the 2nd. Uh so a week ago, uh Ry did an update on the LSE uh update on what's
009going on there. Uh talked about how the video online about the board vote, they really liked it and is there a way to kind of pump that up more. Julia gave a very robust presentation on the Every Student Succeeds Act going through uh the allocations per area which led into a discussion on how families how the how the district how PTO can support families of need which includes but it goes beyond the financial need like translation and working with forms and and helping them feel fully engaged in the school experience. Um, other questions that came up, cell phone use, those new mandates, uh, as Ry pointed out, it's still a lot to filter through and even some of the mandates are there. There's like, does it mean this, does it mean that? So, it's really
010kind of sorting it out. We're on a hold there. Um, they want to know about some bond projects and we said listen to tonight and then we'll get an update tonight on that. And then a conversation was started that it's tabled until June about kind of the grade level trips um both curricular or celebratory and kind of what's the point to them, what does the district should cover, what your parents cover and kind of really started diving into that. But that was tabled. So it was a good meeting. Excellent. Um Marjorie, would you like to do your backtobacks if that's okay? facilities and then also anything that um you have to share with us about uh Westpad or New York State Board of Sure. happy to. Well, I'll be very brief for policy because we're
011so happy tonight to be joined by our architects, our construction manager, and our director of operations and maintenance. So, thank you for being here and we're very much looking forward to hearing your update. So, I will defer to you. Um policy committee did meet in between our last board meeting and tonight. We met on April 25th and tonight we have two policies on the agenda for first read. With regard to the wellness policy, I'll just provide a brief heads up that we're just um proposing some very minimal wording changes for the time being and then our group has agreed to perhaps take a deeper dive into the wellness policy next year, but we want to make sure that we have it just brushed up so that when Lisa and her team come and present the
012wellness policy, it's up for the triannual required review per our policy. you know, we'll be ready to go. So, we're going to have something for you in May and then we're hoping to revisit it um in a more substantive way next year. Um with regard to Westpot, I'll just point out we have agenda item 12.05 on the consent agenda tonight. The board met last Wednesday and approved the budget and slate of officers and so tonight's our board's opportunity to vote on all of those materials and um that's really it. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Um, finance committee did not meet, so there's no report there. Shady Rain didn't meet, so there's no report there. And sustainability. Sustainability. Yeah, we met uh last Friday on the 2nd of May with a pretty uh full agenda. Uh
013we got an update on the INF bus electrification plan. Um there's a report in the works uh which I think we agreed would be somewhere between one and three months from now. I wrote down July. So maybe we have it by July. That's the hope. That's the hope. One to three months is I'm hoping one month there probably maybe. And there was some conversation around the um software that we use for routing the buses. You know, it's a complicated process to route those buses. We've talked about it in years gone by. uh it's called transfinder and whether there's an opportunity to include EVs in there because there's a little complexity about EV buses that may need to be recharged midday and how many of those and can you swap in diesel buses or can you
014put someone so there's it's it's the logistics are complicated um and it really does dictate how many charges you may need and therefore the cost associated with that. Um, we also got a brief update on the energy performance contract which is still um being studied. And then we had a quick update on some great photographs of the greenhouse at the middle school. I'm sure you guys maybe will give us a brief update on that one, but it looks like that's been uh installed and still some work underway there. Uh, so the team was excited to see that. We spoke about the New York State mandate around air conditioning for their shoulder seasons. um using Paul's term. I think we all getting familiar with the shoulder term shoulder. Um but credit to Paul for that one.
015Um we also talked a little bit about sustainable furniture and the procurement of sustainable furniture in particular as it relates to the block scheduling and the need to perhaps have more seating in the cafeteria at the high school and what that might look like. Um, and yeah, there was some other conversations around a group called Advanced Energy United who are looking to build some sort of promotional videos around all of the good work that KLSD has done in the sustainability space uh with a bend towards trying to influence policy makers. Uh, we had some conversation on that. I don't think we had a final landing on it, but uh we had some good conversation. So, a lot of interesting and diverse topics there and uh really great committee. So, yeah. Excellent. Thank you. I think
016I covered everything in that list. Um and then um now we just have an opportunity for any board announcements if anyone wanted to make anything. One brief one because we met on a Tuesday the 22nd the last time. The very next day, Wednesday morning the 23rd. I wanted to say thank you to Dr. Siciliano and Kim Piccolino and the high school PTO for hosting a coffee. It was very well attended and we did have an opportunity to look ahead to block scheduling and to have a robust conversation about lunch for all. And that's actually where a question had arisen about the sustainability um concerns about furniture. And so thank you that um our district has been able to provide really helpful information that makes us proud about the decision-making process. And I'm glad it sounds
017like that was debriefed at sustainability as well. and um some good questions and we talked about preparing technology for AP exams which are now like old news and we're doing that. So um thank you very much and thank you to the PTO for facilitating teacher appreciation week this week and I'm sure this is happening at every level of the district and it's hopefully been um appreciated and wellreceived and we feel grateful for that partnership. I just want to say um Jay Fest this year they had the unified basketball game during the rally. It's really my favorite game. My as you know my kids play a lot of sports but that is my favorite game of the year. It's so heartwarming to see all of the children come together and cheer for each other and strongly
018encourage that season is still going on. If anybody gets a chance to go see a unified basketball game, it's it's just amazing and wonderful and it's a great thing that our school does. And just also want to recognize teacher appreciation week. So we uh could not do what we do as a district without our teachers. And I think that there's lots of great things happening in the district right now and we're really um I think hoping to support our teachers to continue to grow and evolve in their practice. and I think, you know, they really do a fantastic job and we're really lucky to have the teachers that we have. So, looking forward to celebrating our our incoming and uh retiring teachers in June. And with that, we're going to move to our first item
019presentation on the capital project. Yeah, we'll go ahead and start with that. So, as we spoke a little bit this evening, uh, that we've got some updates here throughout the, um, project that we've got going so far. And as we head into the summer months, we know that's a an opportunity for us to really hit it hard because we don't have the kiddos in school. And so, we've got our architect team and our and our construction management team here. And I'll hand it to Lisa and she can go ahead and do some introductions. And thanks, Mike, for being here, too. Yes. So, yes. So, maybe we can start. Well, actually, if you wouldn't mind, you can introduce yourself. We have our team from Triton as well as from KG&D. I will also we have Kevin
020Sawyer who is um who is vice president of Triton as well as our project manager um Frank and our assistant project manager Sydney is here all from Triton. Thank you. And then we have Walter as well as um sorry Walter Hower who's um now is partner at KG&D and Richard who's now principal architect at KG&D and of course our director of facilities and operations Michael Lavoy and we're going they're going to go through uh Frank is going to take the lead and take us through the work that has occurred probably since the last time that everyone I think KG&D presented last time uh the work that has been done about over the last year or so um and then what the work will happen occur occurring this summer. So, I will clicker for you. And
021can you see up there? I think Kevin wants to say a couple words. Oh, I apologize. That's okay. Uh, good evening everybody. It's great to see everyone again. Um, yeah. I think a couple of things that I'd like to add uh to to Lisa's comments is I just want to make sure the board realized that Frank and Sydney are both here in the school district full-time uh working actually out of Mike's office overseeing all the projects. We have a really great presentation uh for you guys tonight. I'm really excited to share it with you and the and the community because as I'm paging through them, I'm realizing the incredible amount of work upgrades and additions and things that are taking place in your district all around the educational process. And I just think it's amazing
022what's being accomplished here. And I think it's very appropriate to share it with you in the community right now. Uh and um you know, we're and we'll talk a little bit about maybe schedule and timeline as well. And I'll turn it over to Frank to uh go through it. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um so currently if you could look up currently we have a work going on on it at five of the schools. Uh metal pond is coming near the end and crease Miller is uh we will be completed at at the end of the summer and increase Miller John J. High School we're we're starting to get into work there. middle school, Katona Elementary School, and the three projects on the bottom right, uh, increase Miller HVAC upgrades, uh, John J. Middle School
023new playground and John J. Middle School new window projects. Those are completed. They were completed last summer and, uh, we're we're gearing up for for a lot of work this summer. Uh, increase Miller, a lot has been happening. Luckily, we've been able to work uh through uh the school year at Increase Miller since we are isolated from the uh from the school. We've been very careful and and not to disturb the students. Um and I think it's been working out well. So, as you can see, uh the exterior structural steel has been completed. Framing of exterior walls started November 24th. Go to the next one, Lee. Um, new addition, as you can see, it's starting to take shape. Uh, framing has been completed. Insulation has been completed. Exterior brick work has been completed. By the
024way, that it looks absolutely amazing from the outside for those that haven't haven't seen it. And a new roofing is completed. That's okay. And then the crane pick uh it there were rooftop units that needed to be placed on a roof and that happened uh this week. So, the air conditioning uh units are on the roof and all they need to do is now to tie them in. So, okay. Uh new addition, as you can see, things are progressing. Uh classroom exterior doors have been installed. All windows have been installed to the new kindergarten um classrooms and in progress taping and uh preparing painting. And today we started the tiling of the bathrooms in the uh in the new edition which is which is starting to really look great and take shape. Uh okay. Uh
025again a new addition windows and um have been completed. The interior library and screen this was completed last summer. uh carpet installed, completed, uh touch-ups, rubber base installed, released uh back to the district. So, the district has been using um the rooms um just awaiting on furniture. Metal pond likewise uh library stream has been uh completed and um windows were installed during I believe it was Christmas break. So we've been uh doing work as we can as during the uh breaks again metal pond you have your uh wing space C uh you have your uh B uh special education room bathroom and you have your uh kindergarten classrooms and uh just by me walking through the schools uh the teachers are ecstatic with their new with their new uh setup and I I I enjoy
026hearing those compliments. So, it's it's a it's a great thing to hear. Okay. Uh just recently we had the uh new switch gear the new power installed to both increase Miller and Metal Pond and that was done over break in cooperation with NISK and the utility companies aren't always that easy to deal with but uh they New York State Electric and Gas really pulled through for the district. So we're we're very pleased with with the job that was done. So uh both increased miller and metal pond the security vestibule the windows and door uh install has been completed. The vestible flooring is scheduled to be completed and the finishing of the interior uh mill work uh in the security offices. So each each security office will have a desk uh some case work and uh
027we're just awaiting uh on the uh transaction windows which we will be uh switching out. So uh by the time uh summer rolls around the uh security will have full uh full working um entrance uh security vest field. Okay. Uh these are just some of the projects that have been completed. The increased Miller metal pond HVAC upgrades. As you can see the units were pretty pretty large units uh that were placed on on the uh roof. And again, we had temporary power to the unit so we can keep the gymnasiums running during winter. So now that we have permanent power, uh we are 100% completed with the HVAC upgrades with permanent power, which was a big step. T uh John J. uh middle school security vestibules slabs uh have been poured uh structural steel completed
028uh cold form uh steel. Those are the uh metal walls and um and you can tell the uh roofing um has been completed. Today they started the block work. So you will be seeing um the finished block um starting to go up uh which is pretty exciting once once that takes uh takes shape. And uh here we have the family consumer science rooms. Uh they have been they they look absolutely the picture doesn't really do good, but they they look absolutely amazing with the tile and the flooring. Uh and we're just awaiting the casework and some additional flooring to come in, which should be in any day now. So, we'll we'll start wrapping up uh the three rooms and we're just waiting on the lighting. And there's there's their greenhouse. Uh so we um unfortunately
029we found a buried manhole that was abandoned years ago and we we were able to remove it and uh start construction on the greenhouse. There were quite a bit of uh drainage underground drainage that had to uh be installed. Uh slabs were poured. Um, and you could tell the greenhouse is is up and now we're starting on the uh plumbing and some of the additional work and the connection to the uh building. Unfortunately, if you look straight ahead uh where the white panels have been removed, once the panels were removed, there was some unforeseen uh asbestous material. Uh it was nonfryable. So, we are in the process of having that removed and we will then be be able to continue with the uh the connection between the greenhouse and the school. Uh there was a
030new ADA lift installed in the middle school. Uh picture of the windows that have been installed, the new windows in the middle school. And we have the uh new playground which is great to see kids as I drive by using it which is which is exciting. Okay. Uh shifting over to the high school uh the front security entrance. Uh unfortunately we also discovered some underground uh pipes or plumbing and we um with with the uh help of KG&D and their engineers were able to come up with a different game plan as to how to build our footing because that is exactly where our footing and foundation was supposed to land. So now we'll be bridging that with a grade beam type and we'll be able to continue with the work on the front entrance. So
031you'll you'll see activity uh back on the front entrance and there's quite a bit of work happening in the B-wing. There's structural steel um details. There's plumbing roughins uh framing uh is ongoing. Okay. and our tone elementary in progress uh approved well our insuranceances insuranceances and bonds have been all u taken care of construction lay down area we're we're a little further ahead we actually have three rigs drilling uh so we're drilling wells 9 900 ft deep 500 500 ft deep I'm sorry and uh we currently have three uh well drillers going at the same time and they're averaging one well a day and that's gone very well. The rock is extremely hard. They're going through a lot of bits, but um I would I'm saying they probably about 15 wells drilled already, which is
032good progress and they only started a couple days ago. That's a really good point as far as a lot of these slides, you know, they need to be public a week before the meeting. And so even like with I was thinking with the middle school with the vestibule like how much further it's come along if you drive by the middle school in just the week or that this says rigs you know scheduled to begin and and they already have 15 you know wells dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr dr drilled so it's just we're moving yes we're moving we're moving quickly there's so much and it's always this team is always um all these this whole team here is always working to
033just continue to progress the projects forward and and uh pivoting when needs to and just keeping us on schedule. So, thank you. Just while we're on while we're on that one topic, so we had talked at one point in sustainability about an opportunity for students to go take a look at the wells being drilled and kind of understand what geothermal and perhaps get that into the curriculum somehow. I realize the timing is pretty poor now. We're going to get it done over the summer, but maybe could we take like detailed photographs of how this all works and let so that we can refer back in class and like show students what actually happened and what a geothermal well looks like and all that. Would you guys be we'll be more than happy to to share
034photos. Our engineers would be thrilled to engage in this. Really looking for someone to talk about geothermal with. So um if there's a time that makes sense even just for an observation from afar, let's say what's happening in the field that we can explain the work that's progressing. You know there's you'll see the the the drilling activity. You'll see water coming out of the ground and they'll control it. And then we can see piping going into the holes at some point. Our our engineers would be thrilled if anything with summer break coming up and the the the seniors are already rolling out of here and so but yeah, I mean if we could work something out it would be super. Yes. Yeah. No, I was just thinking, yeah, if even um the beginning of the
035year, just having some even I don't know assemblies or something at the different grade levels like you know just of all the work that's happened the summer and then what's going to progress over the next year to bring us to the end of the school year when roughly when um everything will be nearly completed. You know, it just would be interesting like because that would be the midpoint really because then all the that'll be after the drilling but then all the interior work has to be done in order to connect you make that connection. Okay. Right. Uh just uh so this slide uh this is the proposed summer work increase miller. We will be completing the heating and cooling system uh inside the existing school. Substantial completion of the new addition excluding the rear connecting
036carters. Uh so we're uh by August uh 19th I believe the date was the uh new addition will be completed substantial completion. Uh we've um told the district that the team could start school and start moving in uh furniture and what have you. So we're we're very confident that we'll have that completed with the exception of the backarter. There is a backarter that we cannot complete because of the module that is currently there. So once uh school is out, we will be able to remove the existing module and complete the rear corer. And that will probably run us into October. So the new addition will be completed this summer with the exception of the the rear corer and the two SGI rooms. Metal pond. Uh there's some miscellaneous uh heating and cooling that will be
037completed and metal pond will be uh pretty much 100% completed. Kona Elementary uh substantial completion of new security vestibule. This is the work that we are uh planning on completing this summer. There is work this summer and work scheduled for next summer. But for this summer, we have the new security vestibule uh substantial completed. Um we have the library in stream and there will still be ongoing work um in the geothermal wellfield. So the plan is to have all the drilling completed this summer so the kids won't have to listen to that noise next uh fall. And um once uh the well drilling is completed then the majority of the work will be in the boiler room running the plumbing and the piping and what have you. There is quite a bit of work in
038the boiler room. So there Tony Elementary will have quite a bit of work. All the schools will have quite a bit of work this summer shifting up to the high school. Uh substantial completion of the B-wing. So the plan is for us to complete the B-wing this summer and to move the students from the C-wing into the B-wing so we can start the uh C-wing. So we are pretty confident that we will have that B-wing uh completed. And uh there's the continuation of the front security vestibule and the uh completion of the outdoor classroom. And there are some quite a bit of HVAC upgrades inside the building that we will be uh also working on. And uh we currently have our electricians working evenings in the middle school running main uh power feeds down to
039Carters. They're like little uh you know workers that come in in the night and by morning they they disappear. So we are getting a lot of work done in the evening uh believe it or not. And the middle school uh the home um I guess we're family consumer science rooms will be completed. Uh the greenhouse will be completed and the front security vest will be completed. And if we see areas that we can jump into, uh, we will. Obviously, we do not want to disturb, uh, school and we want to make sure that we're comfortable enough where we will have those areas ready for the start of school. And I think uh the next slide if um any questions regarding construction so far? My question is whether we have an estimate for the final completion
040of all the bond projects. Is there a sort of circle date on the calendar for that? Right now, our milestone schedule has a completion date for all the projects of believe it's December of 26. The the substantial completion of the uh classrooms they'll people kids will be able to go into. Substantial means lar they're just miscellaneous punchless items, little paint touchups that we can come in after hours or before hours and take care of. Great. But uh substantial completion means that the rooms can be occupied. How are we doing against our budget? There was a lot of when we first thought about some of these ideas there was COVID and lumber was expensive and things were going through the roof and we really the estimates were plus or minus a large percentage. Um are we
041on track from a budget standpoint? You want to take that rich? Currently um the uh our punch list our change orders have been very low which is a great great uh thing to have. Uh we are within our our budgets. We are within our numbers and uh hopefully we will have enough money uh in contingency at the end of the project to maybe shift around uh for some shortfalls. But um right now it's looking like we we're doing very very well against with our numbers. That's important. Do you want to add anything? No, that's you covered it. All right. Thank you. Yep. I I would say and um I think we talked about this when we were awarding some of the bids, especially um KES and the high school, they did come in above what
042was budgeted and anticipated. We did put in there was a large contingency that was built into them. we have had to um dip into those contingencies for the budget purposes. So that is why to your point earlier why we're hoping the inflation reduction act monies will still be available and therefore that will really allow for us to um go back and do some of those other items that we wanted to complete. So that's we're hopeful but we still do have healthy contingencies. It's just though we have had to um the budgets did the uh bids did come in over what was budgeted but within contingency but but yes so we still do have a contingency there it's just not as large as we had planned for. Thanks. Yes. Thanks Lisa. Thanks very much. It's all
043really exciting. We appreciate you being here. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Thank you. All right. So, we'll go ahead and just as the team's leaving, we'll go ahead and shift into the next piece here with uh Julie on the senior survey results. So, as that screen changes over here, um just want to have the board thinking you're we've got kind of two an A and a B part to the survey here. So, we've got kind of current year seniors and then looking at students who graduated uh previously from the district. The other piece we want to look at here is that I anticipate as we move forward that we'll be working and modifying uh and looking at a survey but probably a different survey from here. So just as you go through this
044kind of hold this kind of caveat off to the side that we don't have any norm reference information here to share with you uh against other districts in our area across the country across the state. Um we're looking at uh students who self- select into these surveys. So at the beginning the first chunking you see about roughly 60 to 2/3% of our kids who actually take that survey. Again that's not a rant. So we don't have a randomized sample here or anything like that. And then in that second set, it's even a smaller group. It's it's at actually towards the end, you're talking less than 10% of our gradu of our students who are college, you kind of shared bags. So, we'll take this, but I I wouldn't say these are um information that we
045would say actionable upon just because of that data set. So, hopefully as we move forward with our new uh director of counseling for 6 and 12 who came a little while ago, is going to get approved tonight. So we'll be working with him and and the team on there just thinking about what are some ways that we can provide quality information to Stephen and the team at the high school and say here's our programs here's the feedback we're getting this aligns back to where John was speaking before about using data to drive our practices and learn from it and then it's a continuous improvement cycle so it's it's a little challenging for us to do that right now with the data set but we had it so we thought we'd go ahead and share that
046out so Dr. Drake, thank you very much. Um, and I would like to begin by thanking Amarie Pesto, who was really, really instrumental in helping get all of the data together for this. So, a huge shout out to her, as well as my colleague, Dr. Siciliano, a really great partner. Um, so, thank you, Stephen, and Amanda Bergen who helped u make this all look beautiful. So, we'll start just with a reminder that the senior survey is administered in February of every year. And so what we're looking at are the results from 2024. Okay. So the seniors from 24 and Stephen I feel bad that you're so far away but he'll chime in um at any point. Thank you. So can we just first of all for me do you mind to start by are these
047seniors who have graduated? Correct. They're in college now. Kids who were in college they were seniors last year. They graduated in May and then we reached out to them in No. So this is the senior survey. But then we're going to go into the graduate surveill in high school while when they completed this. So our current seniors have they taken the survey in February or last February? Yes. Okay. But we don't have that data. Well, we do. However, so the confusion Yeah. The confusion I think is that we typically well in my vast experience of last year we gave these results in like mid like with the report card presentation and this year we didn't include that. that. So, we had promised to do it. So, we're a bit a bit later in the season
048than we usually are when we report out on that. Um, this is administered in February and then the graduate survey is administered every May to the kids who are just completing their first year of college. So, we're looking at a little bit of older data, still informative data nonetheless, and we've been able to have some good discussions about it, but it's a little it's a little bit dated. All right. Okay. Uh so again uh this was this from February. Here we go. All right. Um these are the number of students who completed the survey all of these years. And as uh Rey said earlier, we see the class of 24 had 213 students total. So this is a 74% uh representation. Um and our we're we're going to I'm going to move pretty quickly. Let
049me know if you have any questions. Um, but as you can see here, this asks the students how many hours they spent in a typical week doing the following. One of the highlights for us was to see how many students spent time volunteering. And our next slide is very tiny for for everybody to read. This is um get captures a little bit of all of the clubs and activities that happen um as part of their experience here in school. And just a reminder, we're talking about 157 students that completed the survey. So, it's not necessarily reflective of every single student. Um, but gives you a nice snapshot of a variety of things that students can do at the high school. Why do you think there was a big dip in the athletic? Just going to
050address that. This is one of the shortfalls of self-reporting. Now, a couple of things may have happened. We do have a number of students at the varsity level who have varsity option who perhaps did not come down to participate in it. Uh, it also could be because I checked with Chris McCarthy, his numbers are about 57%. So, I think we just may have just what happens when you have self-reporting. All right. The next one was asking, wouldn't that logic apply to every year? Wouldn't that be the same last year and the year before and the year before self reporting? It could. Um, I think the numbers kind of show there's not too many in the way of outliers. Um, there's some that are going in the other direction that you can see, but I think
051that was one that was a real interesting beaming. All right, so the next one asked them to rate the quality of the instruction they received in the high school in the follow following core areas. Um, and here we saw a nice improvement in health and PE, oral language, and quite a gain in math and English and writing as well. Oh, and world with world language are just required to take a year of it. So, it's pretty nice to see how many have stuck with that all four years. Our next question, oh, this one was a little juicy. Remember last year we discovered some of the um NA responses were included in the total response. So we were giving you a number that wasn't actually indicative of the of the uh actual responses because as you
052can see a number of students selected NA for computer and technology for example because they didn't take that elective right so um what we've done are some math calculations when you remove the NAS the numbers in the parentheses are actually um of the students who took it so gives you a little bit more of a better sense of our progress which we are showing is progress which is wonderful. Um and we anticipate that these numbers will only continue to grow as we embark on things like project based learning, project lead the way and all the cool things that the high school is currently planning for the future and working on right now actually. Um that's very interesting. Thank you. Because over the years over the years we were some of us were very concerned about
053the computer science science 18 30% like it was shocking right but you're saying that actually it was 40% in 22 57% in 23. Now that sort of shocked me the other way. I'm like wow okay I'm surprised it's that high. I I I we weren't we were we were not considering that we were count that there were kids who were not taking the course. So it the numbers were misleading. So I I could get for example like Oh, right. Okay. So we were counting NASA by the said NA because it doesn't apply to me and then we were still counting that as a valid response. Right. Right. So the 100% contain a huge difference. I mean we were we were wrapped in our brains as to why computer technology was so poor. But okay, now
054that makes sense years later. We should call Bill Riiffken and let him have it was a good math exercise for me as well. So um and and promising which is really nice. All right, the next one is the percent of students who strongly agreed um or agreed with the following statements. Um here you see increases across the board on all measures. Um and as as far as the first question is concerned, useful preparation for what I plan to do in life. Um, we're excited for the introduction of pathways at the high school and like a more life aligned approach to the learning that they that we're going to be experiencing which we think will show an increase even further. It would be interesting to ask that question to kids who are graduating college to see
055how John J prepared them. Well, it's a good sneak peek. I think like 15 slides from that question come up. I'll get there. from. Yeah. I mean, at this point, I'm getting a good education of KSD. 96% Yeah. are feeling like it was a good You guys did a good job. It's a pretty robust number. That's a big number. I agree. I agree. 4% feel like they don't well or or or somewhat disagree or and again like the scale as Ray was saying before is a little it's somewhat the the difference between each option or could neutral then it wouldn't show up here right yeah agree and strongly agree I saying what young person has never said why am I doing this when am I ever going to use this you don't have to be
056thinking right now, Stephen. Being honest, no pressure, right? Keep going. All right. So, uh the next question was the percent of students who uh said most teachers I had for class at John J High School. Um and you see the following answers and here again increases across the board board on almost every single one except for the know who I am which is still 85%. Um and in many cases this the year that we're studying 2024 is the largest percent since the survey was first administered if you look back as far as agreed and strongly agreed. Um so for example question number two right increase the oh am I on the wrong I might be in the wrong one. Sorry one second make sure I'm on the right one. Yeah. Nope. There we go. Sorry.
057Um the percent of students in John J who said most teachers I had for class prepare me for life after graduation from high school. This was the largest measure since 2018. We're at 63% now we're at 85. That's pretty tremendous. Okay. So the next one how satisfied Can I just I'm sorry. Yes. Is there any indication why know who I am has dropped by 9% over three years or no? when you see some of the other ones is a bit more assuring where they feel that they are reflected in the curriculum when they feel that they are they're respected and treated with dignity. They're very positive responses there. So, it wasn't like it was noticed because it was the only one that didn't go up, but it was uh disproved by a number of other
058answers that we'll see in the future. Especially with the treat me with respect being so high. Yeah. You would think that it wasn't totally aligned, but I'm reading it in a different way or something because that treat me with respect is a fantastic number. It is. And when when you when we get to some of the other newer questions towards the end, you I think you'll be very assured by what you what you see. Um, so let's keep going. Just want to make sure I'm keeping up here. Oh, you skipped. Did I skip one? Yeah. there. How satisfied are you with your high school experience? Um, and here we saw increases since 22 when you total the number of students who said very satisfied or somewhat satisfied. And so we have 85% of students saying
059they were very or or somewhat satisfied with their high school experience. We're almost back to precoid numbers. So this is the this is the first four-year experience of seniors. The 24 seniors had oh we were just talking about this they had three years of not uh I can tell you hang on. Yeah, they had they were home in 20 21 22 23. Oh, so they had a they had a hybrid year and then three traditional years, but I think the 23 graduators and the 22 graduators had more disruption in their and 21 was the the spring of 21 was when we had no school open at all. That was fully remote 21. So that was 20 we left on March 13th, 2020. 2020. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, it's the seniors. Yeah. And here they
060took it before because they took it right before before they and you mention the number. So, they took it after the and I just want to pull your attention to the bottom right hand square where 1% are very dissatisfied which is our really lowest since 2018 there too. Somewhat to vary is a big continuum. So, it's a race point. Do we have the best measure? We'll but we'll look it up. Yeah. So, here are some of those newer questions. I say newer because um that's from 2021, right? Where all the other questions went back to 2018. Um and this one is, did you experiencing did you experience a welcoming and affirming environment that felt safe during your time at KLSD? Um this is a district question, right? KLSD, not just the high school. Um and
061we see 90% uh yes and sometimes in 23 to 94 in 24 of a combination of yes and sometimes um which is lovely in the right direction. We don't survey middle school graduates or elementary school graduates. No, not yet. Not yet. You got enough to do with this. Um, next question was, "Do you find yourself represented and reflected, treated with respect and dignity in and out of the classes?" So, John, to your question earlier, um, and this is the highest it's been since 21 and the first increase since 21. Um, and as we talked about a little bit last year, we've added a lot of new literature to the English classes to represent like have different diverse perspectives represented um, in the libraries in the high school. and we see a real um improvement from
062that. And then if you remember way back on slide nine, 92% of the students reported that they felt respected by their teacher. So this in combination with the 92% that felt respected by their teacher are part of what was given. It kind of kind of sets up I guess for me I'm wondering if they're looking at it like I'm respected. I'm created with dignity but they just don't know me. John, maybe. Yeah. in where maybe kids in the past have. That's why I was wondering where the disconnect if that's how they're separating it. I don't know. Yeah. And it is hard when we have more questions about it. It's a little difficult in this format to dig deeper and and disagregate it. But um those are an excellent question. The next um and last question
063of the senior survey is do you feel the environment ensured all cultural identities were affirmed, valued and used as vehicles for teaching and learning? And again, highest since 21 and a total of 95% of students said yes or sometimes, which I think is really outstanding. So, um, a credit to, uh, Stephen and the high school for sure. Um, and the whole district, but um, that I think is a really impressive number. I think that was a simple what you pay attention to gets better. Yeah, that's great. who who do we use a firm to develop these questions and to think about the scales and like okay this so I'll just take a half a step sideways um so that's where thinking about moving forward there's been probably the longest run national report has been it's
064called HSSE the high school student survey engagement and that's out of the University of Indiana and that would be the assessment that I would suggest we would be looking at they do have a middle school one if we get to a spot where they're there they will create longitudinal reports. There's the National Association of Independent Schools that is partnership with that group. That's the part where truly to have this conversation we need to have that kind of data analysis in there. These are wonderful questions yet just the um uh it's hard to analyze. So there's this acronym called DRIP data rich information poor. The reality we got a lot of data but it's garbage in garbage out. And don't want to be too hard, but it's like we're putting stuff in and trying to make
065heads tails of it. It's really not what we can do. So, moving forward, we will absolutely be able to to make those kind of conversation have some merit and and and be almost statistical and we should be able to get here's what here's how we compare to SORS or some other school around here. Yeah. And nationally numbers as well too. And just those the high level pieces and then looking at those questions would be checked for validity and reliability and those are the certain elements we want to be doing. I think we're like I think John you're saying okay I'm not sure the kids with well then that's that's where the the the psychometricians will say okay this is statistically valid and reliable of what you're trying to do the higher level picture will be
066I'll be asking the team look at is engagement the idea about engagement broken into three elements ABCs of engagement affective behavioral and cognitive so those are the areas be looking back and that's how the information will come back to us a effectively are kids kind of connecting or behaviorally are there and cognitively are they connecting those are very three key pieces But those in of themselves are strong long-term predictions of students overall success here and beyond. So that's where we'd be looking at. So thanks. When you look at the graduate the numbers, I mean, you look at 43 answers. So I totally hear what you're saying. The one thing that I I was thinking to thinking back to vision 2030 talking about a lot of the student le work. Um, I love looking at something
067that's a little bit more standard where we have more of an opportunity to compare. I wonder I are there ways to engage the students and thinking about like how do you want to communicate your feedback um you know in addition to the survey? Is there is there something that they would sort of come up with in terms of their way of providing feedback before departing? And I don't know what that looks like but I think question to ask. I'll jump on there because the board typically does a little bit later in the year does a senior kind of sit and talk conversation with the children. What we're looking at is next year that we would have the survey results from the students. So you meet with our seniors that are heading out and say based
068upon because we disagregate this information up by grade level based upon what the children say we would walk in and create almost like a mixed methods approach. here's what the collective student body said and as representatives can we talk about tell me more about why do you think your your you know your student fellow students said these things and then now we can bring those together and start marrying that together a little bit more of a strong based perspective. So thank you Julia. No you're welcome and that's a good segue thank you Barbara to our postgraduate survey results. Now this is the class of the KSD class of 2023. Every May we send them we send our alumni a survey while they're in college still to ask how well we prepared them um and how
069they felt um John J enabled them to complete their first year of college. So that's this data and as Barbara mentioned this starts off with an N of 43 but as you see it drops. So by the end of the survey um we're in the 20s. Um, so we're already brainstorming incentive programs to keep the energy going until the end. But dong tongue for the principal next year. I think I don't know. All right, so uh let's dive in and um sorry it's pretty tiny on the TVs. Um here this is how prepared were you to do the following in your academic work at college? The scale starts very prepared on the left to prepared over to over to not prepared on the far right. It gives you a general sense of of things. Something
070to note um is the response to the analyze numerical and statistical information that that one is the highest. Four students felt they were not prepared. And I know we've talked a lot about statistics and everything, but um Steve and I have had some good conversations about um this is someone's perspective nonetheless and we do value that and uh why we are highlighting this one area where they felt maybe they're not so prepared is because we are actively doing work at exploring um ways to enhance this experience for students now anyway. So it's a nice alignment. The next question the key flips. So it's um we we're here um sorry in two questions the key flips we go um this is during the first year of college how challenging were the following. So sorry is this
071one the very challenging now is is is on the left going to not challenging at all. So your eye might naturally gravitate towards the things that are very challenging for the children. And here the most challenging thing is managing your time. Um which we find is a common challenge for students at this age and especially when you shift from high school to college on your own. Um and so that was something else that we noted. Um and I just so you have a sense of how many kids said that was very challenging that was eight. Do we teach time management at all at the high school? Like do we have I wouldn't say there's a formal curriculum for it. Um I know the English department tends to go into things like Cornell notes uh just
072trying to teach them strategies and science and science and also you know guidance counselors sometimes take individual interest if a student is really struggling in that area. Yeah. with executive functioning and you know and I think that's kind of really the key piece of where we're looking at you know the approach to executive functioning for for all children from K through and so that idea of of how do we support that really as a tier one intervention any content in any area and so that that honestly will be part of as our teachers and Stephen leads the team there about looking at a project based learning because you are having to plan yourself in time not just a couple of days out but could be a few weeks if not months So that's a piece
073we'll be working with our colleagues in particular at the high school moving forward about how do we think about what does this idea does this phrase ready do done. So start with this idea about what is done look like when you get ready to do that and thinking about how do we go ahead and and make get that there. So so all right so the next slide is asking the students who answered 43 of them were they required to take any remedial courses. Um here 41 said no. 41 of the 43 and two said yes and of those two only one of them answered the next question and it was which subject do did you receive remediation and then it was both which would would just lend lead you to believe that perhaps that child
074was having experiencing difficulty more broadly. Um the next slide prior to high school did you accelerate in grade 8 math or grade 8 science? Um, as you recall, we no longer do grade eight science acceleration. Um, and so they're taking the grade 8 science test next week. Um, but here we had uh 22 students accelerate in math and 31 in science. And then the next question is, did you take honors classes? And here 36 students said yes, six said no, and one skipped it. And the following, the next question was just asking in what area content areas did you take honors courses? And this gives you a little bit of a sense of how that fell out here. Prior to your college career, did you take AP classes here? 37 said yes and four said
075no. And then um if yes, in which content areas? Oops, sorry, I'm advancing on my computer. Am I? And here again, this is just a sense about where it all fell out. And it's uh again just reflective of the students who took the survey, not necessarily of the volume of students that took the courses in while they were here. The next Why do we ask these questions? I mean, we already have this data, right? We know how many kids took AP courses. We know how many kids, you know what? Fair question. Yeah. I mean, talk to the metrics committee. take take it up with the metrics committee from days of your so we will no longer ask that question might be relevant to other answers like if you looked at one person who said like
076oh I'm excelling everything is great but I didn't take anything like okay that's interesting like there's some sort of overlap but you don't it's it's anonymous so you can't tell which students say what so and that's where we we've kind of identified a a data team this year and so we're in the draft rudimentary structure of what we're identifying as an empowering empowering all report and then we'll bring in elements like this. So then as we start disagreeing that data set as well, we can see um students who took an advanced placement course, are there any differences between any breakdown race, ethnicity, gender, whatever it may be. That's the information we're free to use lunch. So they're like, "Oh, now these are kids are with us and it drives Stephen and practice and they already
077looks at some of that." So they're warming up. Here's some things that we think we would like do next fall to start get that. So that eventually we will when we're ready to kind of bring it to the border, we'll bring that stuff forward. And even question 10, when we first started this survey, there was a very small population of students that were doing like the first year of senior internship was like 24 kids or something like that. I remember question, right? So I'm saying but that question is in here because when it first started it was a way to sort of separate like, oh, this is interesting. These students did this, these didn't, and here are their answers. But anyway, compare. And here 40 said 40 of the 41 um said that they did
078participate in an intern uh ship experience which is really nice. And then here are um activities they were involved in at your school or elsewhere. Um and we are very delighted that the highest one of very was community service or volunteer. Um as the end is dropping. Well, let's be positive. I am positive the dropping. However, the moment in our survey responses where we start to see a decline. So, eight questions is the max. And yeah, so 16 students skipped this question. Um, and now we're we're hovering in the 20s. So, um, but it's still lovely that they do community service and volunteerism. They do. Uh, next. How sad. The college There is some good in the world. Um, how satisfied are you with your high school experience? Uh, 20 seven uh 23 of the
07927 students said somewhat or very satisfied, which is roughly 86%. based on what I know now to prepare me for successful for success after high school. I wish I had taken um and for this uh sorry excuse me let me just make sure I'm I'm caught up I think I went went one too far ahead satisfied are you and based on what I know now thank you so um here the one that we were pleased to see that I would not have taken different courses was the highest response um but then your eyes will naturally go to the next one which is more courses that emphasize research skills skills. Um, which is another thing we're excited about like our that our responses are aligned with this result because some of the courses that we're exploring
080and things that are outlined in the 2030 plan will lend themselves to more of this in the high school. So when we think about things like AP seminar or IB or capstone projects, these are like enhancing the really excellent research opportunities we have and trying to grow that um experience. Also, the training for a specific job. That one was interesting to us because it again aligns nicely to the predicted changes we'll be making with pathways and shifting potentially away from regions um with the change in graduation requirements. It might enable children to really pursue areas of a bit more passion and interest to them. The next one, what would you change about your high school experience if you could? And again, we were pleased to see that most students replied that they wouldn't change it.
081Um and and that they would be more friendly and outgoing. That's your favorite answer. Um um but uh again, some nice answers here. Is this something you would ever share with current students? Like this slide? I don't think you've shared that. That's interesting. No, I I don't recall. I know perhaps maybe some teachers have independently, but it's something that we've put out. Um, there's a lot of similarity between what you see in the slide and what we'll see in the exit interviews. So, there's some themes that tend to come up pretty regular. I mean, of course, we're asking the same types of questions, but most students would agree that they had received a very good education. If they had to do it again, they would have gotten involved sooner. And so, that's something that we've
082taken as a message asking 10th graders at the end of last year just to kind of put that before them. M and I'm interested to see that uh the 10th grade survey last year if we give it again in their senior year was there a pre and post. So that'd be interesting to see if the same people take it. Well, we're looking at big themes and then if we see an outlier we we'll drill. I like it. Yeah. Okay. Next question. My high school did a good job a good or excellent job on this. And here it's again nice to see that they felt prepared especially that they had writing skills they needed after high school. Um I think that is significant. Um here is now this we get into a little bit of less
083exact science and some self-reporting. So what was your high school GPA? 25 students answer this. 18 students skipped this. Gives a a layout of how they self-reported their GPA. The next slide compares that I guess to their essay. It compares their self-reported scores about their SAT results um as best they can remember. So to that one um and this is a uh 15 students didn't take the SAT. So the scores we're looking at is 10 students because 25 students answered this question uh and 15 didn't take it. Next slide was about the ACTs. So here um 12 students did not take the SAT the ACTs. So we're looking at a representation of 14 students just to give it some context. It's interesting. It would be interesting to see in previous years the answers on that
084because so many schools since co have gone testing optional and there's every year there's discussion about are are we going to bring the tests back from colleges or what are they going to do so it would have been interesting you know to see before co how many kids were taking the SATs and ACTs. Yeah. So part of what you can see and and Frank could speak to this whether or not I mean the reality is it's swinging hard the other way. Universities are requiring testing to be taking place and they are requiring if not one both of those. So it the pendulum is swinging hard the other way since co. So it is a piece where the reality is is for the foreseeable future. Um I think that's going to be something we're going to
085need to make sure our children are prepared for that. All right, here we go. Did you experience a welcoming and affirming environment that felt safe during your time at KSD? Um, 23 uh people answered, 20 said yes and sometimes, and three said uh no. And then the next question, did you feel the environment ensured all cultural identities were affirmed, valued, and used as vehicles for teaching and learning? Here, um I six said no and 16 said sometimes or yes. Um, and I just want to help us remember also that 95% of the seniors that we looked at in the senior survey previously said yes or sometimes to this question back on slide 13. So, class of 2024 versus the class of 2023. Correct. Yeah. And then the last one is in which of the following
086ways were you made to feel a sense of belonging at school? Um and it's nice to see that so many of the students felt belonging at school. Um and of the 23 that answered this um that five students are represented in that didn't feel a sense of belonging. Um, and so obviously we always want to make sure everybody feels like they belong and we're encouraged by the more current numbers that we have that show that belonging is being felt. And that is the end of our and this is this class is precircles or was this the first class that circles were implemented? This was a class of 203. We've been circles three years now. They had circles. They had circles. They the beginning of circle beginning it's not quite as robust potentially and just the
087sample size is so small. I think the ones where we have more responses they can tell us a little bit more than that. Thank you very much. Thanks Stephen. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next up you can head out. He he'll just stay for the rest of Thanks everybody. Great. Thank you. Thank you for all the attendance on those results. Yeah, the class of 24 numbers are really something, you know, again, as internal validity, external validity aside, I do think at least in our own sphere, there seems to be a positive uptick with the class of 2024. And I think that's really great. And I think we saw some some upticks in like our AP results in the class of 2024. So, it's nice to think that those things might be related. Agreed. Okay.
088So, we'll go ahead and uh hand it over to Lisa. So, they're going to change that PowerPoint here. So, again, from a uh the budget piece, as we know, we've we've had this for the last half a dozen or so meetings. And so, Lisa will more likely go brisky through here because this is just a kind of a a repeat piece. So, I'll hand it over to you. So, thank you, Lisa. Okay. Great. Thank you. So, yeah. So I will go through quickly um just um talk we'll speak a little bit about you the state aid runs did come out today but this is officially the public hearing and the last time we'll hear this budget presented for the 2526 um budget and just um it is it was a district's commit it is the
089district's commitment to academic excellence fiscal stewardship ensuring that the needs of all students are met responsibly while adhering to New York State tax levy cap. So that was the goal and the driver of this budget. the goal one of the board of education leadership, goal two KLSD 2030 plan as well as just um emphasize that in this budget um the goal three of the board of education is fiscal um stewardship and specifically adopting a budget that is responsive to the demographic trends financial conditions does not exceed the tax cap and ensures excellence in academics as well as extracurricular programming. So just want to emphasize that point. our new 2030 2040 no 2030 excuse me logo as well as uh vision 2030 our budget drivers school programming professional learning enrollment and class size infrastructure salaries and
090benefits our revenue drivers in the upcoming 2526 fiscal year our state aid is set to de decrease notably due to significant shifts in assessed value as well as attendance are um you we still are seeing a slight decrease in our enrollment within our district. This has led to reductions in our building aid ratios or building our Bosey's aid ratios as well as transportation aid ratios as outlined in this chart. Notably, our building aid has reached a statutory minimum. These decreases in state aid ratios were not known initial phases of our budgeting. uh they weren't until um we started to dig into projected numbers that we began to uncover this decreases in our ratios and I will you know these are just some belonging highlights academic highlights student supports enrollment and class sizes professional learning infrastructure
091which we heard about tonight um EPC I will um not go too far into EP BC, but I just wanted just to remind everyone that APC is an energy performance contract which enables school districts to improve energy efficiency efficiencies generally with minimal to no impact to a school district budget upfront. While EPCs are generally designed to be budget neutral, factors like state aid, rebates, incentives, and finance costing can affect overall cash flow. Since the contract has not been finalized yet, we can't unequivocally state whether or not there'll be any tax impact, but we are um working with our professional representatives to negotiate a contract with the ESCO with the energy um company that is budget neutral and that is a priority for us as far as the um for this EPC that is one that
092is budget neutral. And I uh once uh we will present that to the board of education once it's finalized which we anticipate that uh Honeywell will actually be uh they are wrapping up the energy audit and we anticipate in June that we'll have more information to present. And just quickly again um about enrollment that we are seeing that um curve flattening out and now and our projections are in upcoming years there could be a slight increase in uh enrollment but right now you know the major decline that we had seen over the past decade has actually become much much uh smaller class sizes um this is um most of Our projected class sizes especially at the elementary levels are less than the goals that we see here. So again the priority is keeping class sizes
093small. Staffing changes just want to highlight that reductions occurred naturally that the reductions you see here recur occurred naturally through attrition. Overall staffing changes are listed here but in the budget book they are in detail which is on our website if you'd like to look further into that. And I do want to say as I mentioned earlier about our our state aid revenues decreasing that we did have to look at every budget line to find where we could reduce expenses without affecting the educational experience of every student when we were developing this budget. So, we are proposed uh the board of education proposed budget is 127,410,469 which is an increase of a little more than $3 million a budget to budget of 2.49% increase and a tax levy increase of 3.29% which is meets the
094New York state cap uh tax cap limit. We do not exceed that which means that an approval of this budget only requires a simple majority which is 50% of voters plus one in order to um for approval of this um proposed budget. The major increases that we saw in the budget um were pretty standard increases that we see um key factors were um employee benefits contractual obligation. You'll see the Bosey's hardware replacement and what that is is during 2020 as mentioned earlier we moved to a 1:1 device program as we went remote and at that time we had used surplus funds in the budget as well as have in subsequent years used surplus funds in the budget to replace devices such as iPads and computers or MacBooks. However, as budget expenditures continue to grow at
095a rate that far exceeds our revenue generation capacity, we feel that it's important um not to depend on excess funds in current year budgets, rather to include that into include these expenses in the actual budget proper. So, we know that they are uh because they're an essential instructional cost. The four items above on the side alone contribute to $3,8,467 increase and our overall budget increase from last year um from for next was 3,91,77. As a result, we again worked diligently to maintain flat expenses in some cases, cutting back in certain other areas to accommodate other necessary increases. There are many other areas in the budget where reductions were made. These are just the largest that we did. Um, see, I'm sorry. Are we largest? I don't know why it says decreases there, but um, [Music]
096and revenue. It's not working. Okay. Rich, can you advance that slide? Thank you. Thank you. So impacted revenue is um the district has no control over state aid ratios or the taxbased growth factors. Consequently uh we have seen a revenue decline of approximately $1 million over year-to-year in these two areas. Specifically again our state aid and taxbased growth factor. Additionally an even larger reduction in state aid revenue. We have reviewed the data um comparing budget to budget projections with current expenditure trends and developed our own projections based on year-to-year expenditures. And so here you'll see where we are projecting a decrease of current year 2425 budgeted state aid to what we have presented for budgeted state aid for anticipating for next year a decrease of $839,000. If you look at the state aid runs it's
097more of a million dollars. Again, that is because those state aid runs are using 2425 actual. So, not what we budgeted last year, this year's actual state aid numbers, and then they're using projected numbers for last year or for excuse me, for next year projected numbers. Some of which, for example, Boseies is a combination of what we budgeted versus also some of what things we've contracted. But we know by looking at what we have submitted contracts that that those numbers increase as you go out through as you go through the year. So we anticipate our OC's state aid to be significantly higher than what is in those state aid runs. In addition, our building aid they only our building aid does not have those items which uh Triton had mentioned tonight that we are going
098to be closing out either the end of the school year or the summer. The way state aid operates is as long as we submit a final cost report by December 31st of 2025, we will see a full year of state aid in the 2526 school year. So those are again those are two revenue areas that we know will increase just based on looking at trends, expenditures, and just the way that state aid flows. And is that why are are you essentially explaining the state runs are about a million we're coming in at 839 because we think we'll get additional revenue from the state because of the fact exactly okay so we we're confident that the 839 is more or less accurate it's more or less in yes the best best um and is that a
099change from what we saw I'm sorry I don't remember this number but did it change from a month ago? No, it has not changed. Our budget hasn't changed. Our projections haven't changed. The what uh the governor presented in her budget uh for us essentially is the same. There was a very very small decrease in like textbook aid. So something in the final budget bills must have probably again um just made some changes based on wealth. I presume I haven't had a chance to dig deep into the budget bills because they haven't all been published yet. But uh yes. So but no, there is no changes versus what we were projecting. And we were hoping maybe there would be on the positive side, but that didn't happen. All right. So, truth be told, I walked into
100Lisa's office. Did you see that we got more money? And she said, "What?" That wasn't very nice of me, but we obviously so we were even. That is me. So and also uh rentals again um we as we already discussed that our analysis shows that capital improvement costs required to continue occupy ales space significantly exceeds any potential rental revenue. So just so these are all areas in which our revenues have decreased or will be we're projecting will decrease the tax cap calculation. I won't go into the um calculation but just a reminder again the tax cap was for many years referred to as a 2% tax cap and that is actually the allowable growth factor is capped at 2% or CPI that is a factor that goes into the entire equation which we'll see here
101on the next slide. So, the allowable levy growth factor is the one that's capped at 2%. That's about halfway down the um calculation. And since CPI actually exceeded um 2% for this school year when it was um when it's marked it was 2.95%, it's capped at 2%. But this is specifically the calculation for a tax cap. If you want to just um look at everything is delineated here. I won't go into it. But again, we are right at 3.29% 29% increase as well as our allowable tax levy of 109,490,423 as our um requested tax levy for next school year. So with that we um had to look at areas in which we could um meet the um in which we could meet the total budget with that. So with knowing that our state aid and
102other revenues were decreased, we did increase our appropriated fund balance reserves us by 350,000 and actually a h 100,000 of that is coming out of our capital reserve and that is because uh the ban the $25 million of ban or bond anticipated note monies that we received we have placed into a high earning restricted money market in which those interest that we've earned on that money o over the last year can only be used to pay back pay down debt. So we are using reappropriating some of that um to pay down the debt. Um and again as we will plan over the time of paying down the ban and the bonds we will just strategically use that interest um to interest revenue to offset any taxpayer costs to paying down the debt. These are our
103projected revenues. Not many changes. Major change is again the decrease in state aid as well as the increase in our uh reserves. Our projected tax rates, these are projected, they're set in July. These again have just been were updated again in April. Just in summary, this budget maintains all current student programming while adding teams to the eighth grade in a fiscally responsible manner and continuing to pri prioritize favorable class sizes, maintaining support for all students and professional learning, incorporating additional debt payments approved by the voters in October 2022 bond referendum to support support significant infrastructure enhancements in all five of our schools as well as well as being mindful of our taxpayers and holding to the tax levy limit at the New York State tax cap. So again, the proposed budget is $127,410,469. You'll see
104three propositions when you at the um on the ballots. The first one is the budget itself. The second proposition you will see is for applying existing funds from the current school year. So there's no new monies. These are current existing funds, excess funds in the current school year budget that we will use um just the same way as we have traditionally used to purchase buses. But this year we're proposing to access these funds to do necessary upgrades in order to facilitate electrical infrastructure um needs required um to transition to electric school buses. Our plan is to do this in a phased approach. So this isn't all the work that needs. It's just doing this in a phased approach to um do complete all the upgrades. And the last proposition you'll see is energy performance contract.
105the additional 10%. The board of education um seeks this additional 10% of state aid funding and the voter proposition the voter proposition does not decide whether we proceed with an energy performance contract or not. The school district is permitted to enter into the EPC um improvements without voter authorization. This proposition allows for us though to access an additional 10% state aid. Again, with such a major decrease in our building aid, it will be beneficial to have this additional 10% to offset the costs for the EPC. So, that brings us to the last again of the budget presentations. A reminder, the budget vote is on May 20th. We will be having that's okay getting choked up. She doesn't want this time. Um, so the uh PTO budget presentations May 13th, 7 p.m. high school theater at
106and on May 16th at 9:30 a.m. in the middle school ACR and not is there any questions or Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Great. Thank you again for putting together a budget at a challenging time. And I think you guys made some really excellent decisions about how to balance and offset the loss of state aid and we feel really good about this budget. There's some really exciting things in it. So, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So without further ado, we are I have to look at what the item number is, but we are going to hear from our board candidates. What item number is? 9.04. So we're looking forward to hearing from our three board of education candidates um who will be on the ballot along with the budget uh at this year's vote. Uh
107and we are going to go in the following order starting with John Puffenburgger and you're welcome to speak from there or speak at the Okay, Kim will use the timer just to help you. The timer the timer is a 3minut timer. Uh it will turn it's green. It will turn yellow at 2 minutes and 30 seconds. So you don't have to rush too much. You still have 30 seconds left. And then at 3 minutes it will turn red and also audibly make a noise. Go. Good evening. For those of you that may not know me or those at at home watching, my name is John Poffmger. I am a threeyear resident of Kona and I'm a child at KES and my wife teaches art at a school in Hastings on Hudson. I am also a
108KSD board member currently completing the unexpired one-year term. I can unequivocally say that I've really enjoyed my time spent on the board, which includes serving on the audit committee, facilities committee, and being the board representative for ERJC and the parents council. It's a lot of dedicated hours, but all of them have been and are fulfilling for me. I come from a long line of educators and have been one myself for over 30 years. Starting while I was in college being a coach and a mentor at a summer camp, then a substitute teacher back in the day when there wasn't a teacher teacher shortage. And I spent 25 years as a teacher, coach, athletic director, and primarily a dean of students. In all those positions, I was always student focused. Now a summer camp director, I
109see myself as an educator by teaching boys how to improve athletically. More importantly, to foster growth both socially and emotionally. I also see myself as a student by re-evaluating my own growth and learning in order to bridge the generational gaps with both the campers and the counselors. I'm a Gen X guy and what works best for their learning. Best advice I ever received is that if you are teaching how you were taught or how you taught students 10 years ago, you are doing them a disservice. And I wholeheartedly believe that. And I believe KLSD believes the same. My reasons for running last year and now seeking reelection this year are not based on any specific personal agenda or platform. The board of education needs to be concerned about all aspects in the district. take a
110360deree view of every issue with the outcomes always focused on what is best for the kids and all kids. I believe in civic duty. I believe in educating the whole child and I believe in what KLSD stands for is shown in both the mission and the vision. I've appreciated the opportunity to share what I've learned over the past 30 years and I hope to have the opportunity to do so for the next three. In closing, people asked me last year, do you really want to do this? and again this year. Do you really want to do it again? My response is typically a simple confident yes. But if I had to expand, I would paraphrase from the New York State School Board Association website. Schoolboard members oversee the education of the community's youth. Members should
111find excitement and satisfaction in confronting tough challenges and work collegically to help students in their communities succeed. That is why I am seeking re-election. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Who is second? Carolyn Snell. Good evening. I'm Carolyn Snell and I'm very excited to be running for the board of education. I am a uh KSD parent as well. I have two kids at Increase Miller. One is heading to JDMS next year. just went through all the parent or parent orientations. Very exciting. Um, and as a family, we've been actively involved. I've been a class parent, volunteered at a lot of PTO events, and my husband and I can be found on the sidelines of various fields basically every weekend. Our kids play baseball, soccer, flag football. Um, and we just love this community. Um, I one
112of the things I love about Katona Lewisboro is the focus on the whole child and and I think my kids come home telling me how to meditate, to self-regulate, how to better take care of the planet. Um, and I just really couldn't think of a warmer place and and community to raise my kids, and I'm really honored at the opportunity to be a part of it. I love the vision 2030. Um, as a former first grade teacher, my favorite pillar is knowledge and skills. I feel like some of those basic um educational building blocks are key. Uh and I love the idea of curriculum mapping and creating equity in every classroom by having basic standards and skills that all of our teachers and parents um are a part of making sure each kid has the
113best chance of reaching those. Um uh let's see. I do believe in public schools. Like I said, uh professionally, I was a former first grade teacher. I have worked at the Orange County Department of Ed education in California. I'm from Southern California. We moved here about seven years ago and since then I worked in education marketing and um for a large curriculum publishing and I now work in social impact where we place goods made by folks who experience barriers to work in hotels like Prospector Popcorn. I think we've worked to get their popcorn in like 350 hotels. They had a big uh celebration today. So, I'm um just really excited about public education and the work that you all are doing here and excited to be a part of it. Um I know that there's
114really important audits taking place and to parents who have concerns. Um I think those audits cover a lot of the main concerns that I've heard from parents around safety, literacy, and special education. I look forward to hearing those plans or hearing the audit results and coming up with great plans together. And thank you so much for trusting me. I'm excited and um looking forward to earning your vote on the 20th. Thank you. Thank you. Arwin Thomas is is it baloney? Is that how you say it? This is why you shouldn't hyphenate. My husband will tell you it's balan, but if you have a really nice Italian accent, and this doesn't count in my three minutes, I'm pretty sure you could probably say like a nice baloney or something like that. We're going to go with
115belly while now you can start. Good evening and thank you for having me. Uh my name is Arwin and I am excited to be joining the KLSD board. I can't say that I'm running because as you know there's three spaces open. Um I am a proud local mom of four kids. Three of them have already graduated the high school a while ago now actually and I have one still in the middle school. Part of the reason that we're joining that I'm looking to join this is because when we first came here my oldest son was diagnosed simply with ADHD and he had a hard time actually in his previous schools. Upon coming to this school district, he was actually welcomed with open arms. Uh coming here, we actually learned that he had a processing disorder
116as well. And this was transformational for him as well as for my family. My younger son, my middle child, actually was also inspired to become an educator himself from a science teacher that he had here at the high school. So this is part of the reason why I am looking to give back to this community. These stories are part of what drive me and make me um really fulfilled to be a member of the community. I was once told by a friend of mine, not the one sitting here, that I need to stop making eye contact with the PTO because what that meant is that I would inevitably be saying yes to something else. However, I have enjoyed all of my time volunteering because I volunteered a lot throughout the years. Um, after many years
117with JP Morgan Chase, I was actually given the opportunity to do something different and um, I chose to take a severance package. What that means for me is that I can commit myself more to public service and to spend time with my family, but public service is always something that's been important to me. I have a master's degree in public education. I mean, in public administration, sorry. Um, and it means I believe in strong public governing systems. I belong I believe in community collaboration. I believe in public education most importantly. Um I am running for the board because I believe in public educ in public education not only as a system but as a promise. I think my my two colleagues here mentioned the same thing as a promise to our children that they belong.
118Darn it. I didn't want that to happen. As a promise that they belong and that they matter. The belief is how I raise my children and how I plan to serve on the board. I'm especially excited about the vision 2030 plan. In all honesty, I believe that child centered learning is a way to move forward. I believe in the holistic approach that Carolyn mentioned. My daughter thrives in the school that we're in now. And I think it's because we are starting to look at students as more than just what honors classes they take, but how are their how is their whole well-being. So, I don't want to get buzzed out of here. I am looking to listen and work with the uh with the other board members and community and I can't wait to be
119part of this. Thank you very much. I did have more to say but I don't want to be busted out. Thank you to all three of you for your willingness to run and be a part of the board of education. You know, I think we can all agree at this table that it really is a tremendous honor to be on the board and it's a really wonderful opportunity to see all the great things that are happening and to help set new goals. And I think there's a lot of times people will say like, "Oh, it's such a thankless role." And I never think of it that way. And I hope that you will all agree with that. Once you're in service, it really it I am grateful and I don't feel unthanked in any way.
120I think it's really a wonderful way to be a part of the community. So, we're looking forward to the uh to the vote on the 20th and certainly encourage everyone to come out and vote and and be a part of that process. Um even though there's three candidates running for three positions, it's still important to get out and vote. So, uh we hope that we'll see you at the polls. Is anyone here for public comment? No, you're all together. No, I didn't look at the list to see if it was okay. I just want to make sure. Okay, great. Um, so I'm gonna open and close public forum. And we are going to move to item 11 uh uh 11, which is the consent agenda. And I did just want to at least acknowledge I
121folded the page and now I can't find it because I unfolded. Oh, item um 14.01. I just did want to say hello to Frank Gizo who is joining us here tonight and who is on the consent agenda. Um, so welcome and thank you for joining us for tonight's meeting and we look forward to getting to know you. Um, would someone like to move the consent agenda? Moved by Lorine, seconded by John. All those in favor? 70. Great. Excellent. We do have one gift to [Music] recognize. Um, and so item 16.0 is the resolution regarding donations and gifts. And we did receive a $1,000 donation from Nicer, the New York State Insurance. What does the R stand for? Reciprocal. Reciprocal. Thank you. Uh for the um John J. High School DECA trip to nationals. We did
122very well with DECA, our first year competing. And so that was a nice contribution to support that that opportunity for the DECA students to go to nationals. Um and so would someone like to make a motion to approve 16.01. Moved by Barbara, seconded by Bill. All those in favor? Great. 70. And this is an opportunity for board dialogue. I don't know if anyone had anything they wanted to bring up. I did just want to say thank you to the administration for a very successful senior week last week. It was very appreciated. Um I know it's a little disruptive to have all of us in. Um but it was a great deal of fun. All of the students were so polite and grateful for everything that was done for them for the week. It was a
123great group of people that came out. Um I just encourage everybody to continue to volunteer. It's um giving back is a is a lot of fun. So thank you. Very briefly just wanted to acknowledge that you know the the governor did pass the um what is it called? The distraction-free schools. Um I think that that's you know a a very good step forward. I know that it I'm not aware of it being a particular issue here in our district, but I think it provides a level of clarity that's helpful for students and for teachers and for um buildings and I I know that it's something that we've struggled with in our home. I know that I hear from a lot of parents struggle with. I know the PTO's have done a number of events to
124sort of have conversations about this. Even back last fall when we had the learning cafe about the anxious generation book, it was really well attended. So, I think, you know, I appreciate that that she gave the district sort of the flexibility to be able to put together a plan that that works for for our um circumstances and I'm confident we'll we'll have something that's going to work great. But, I'm just I'm really happy um to to have that clarity and know that, you know, kids are going to be, you know, that distraction is not going to be there. I think that's a positive thing. Yeah. Great. Great. I'm going to go to future meetings item 18.01. So this Saturday, Kim Monzen very generously will be here um from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. to allow
125people the opportunity to register to vote. So it's a special voter registration day again this Saturday in the district office from 9 to 3. So thank you Kim for doing that. It's really terrific. Um, do I need to say a meeting was canceled? So, the Wednesday uh finance committee committee meeting is cancelled to be rescheduled. Uh, then Tuesday, May 20th is the annual budget vote and election. Polls will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. So again, really encourage everyone to get out and vote. It's really important to show your support for the civic process of voting. Thursday, May 22nd is our next board of education meeting here in the library at 7:30. And the next day on Oh, no, sorry, a week later. Friday, May 30th, there's a policy committee meeting in the
126district office at 9:00 a.m. And Ray, we're at 19.0. Yeah. The clarification on the um voter registration, who can reg maybe if we can talk about who can register because I think you can register if you're not quite 18 yet. Is Yeah. So they can pre-register to vote. Okay. And you also give them the paperwork for the county. Yes. That's how they have to register for the county. So it's helpful if anybody's out there, you can help your kids pre-register to be ready for when they're 18. Yeah. 19.01 is there an opportunity for superintendent comment. So, next 45 minutes. But, so uh um we talked earlier when we started about this is uh National Teacher Appreciation Week. And so, actually Neil and I were talking earlier in the week about an article that he had
127shared with me. We spoke tonight about the pillar of belongingness and then really having that added that conversation to uh this idea about mattering. Um, and so kind of made me think about this quote where the idea about a teacher's greatest lesson isn't necessarily found in the curriculum. It's found the way that makes students feel like they matter. And from what I've been able to see and we talked and Lorine talked about like last week, you know, kids matter and to have our students understand that they do matter and they can make a difference in the world today and moving forward is something that again as I come on board to the family get it. it is a way of being. It's not just like a one-off. And so it's been pretty powerful to see
128that and actually visit one of the elementary schools today and walked around and then you can get just a sense of the children just in the hallway and where they talk to and their excitement level there and they have they understand that they do make a difference. So again I commend and thank you all of our educators in the district. So thank you. Thank you. Someone like to make a motion to adjourn. Motion by Barbara, second by Lorraine. All those in favor? 70. Great. Thank you very much.