001good we're good okay good evening it's uh Thursday March 27th and um would someone please make a motion to return to public session motion by margerie second by Rory all those in favor I so I know we normally would start with the Pledge of Allegiance but we have fourth grade Orchestra waiting for us so we're going to go watch a performance and we'll be back momentarily another [Music] I9 no n came out of nowhere last year I know they they've come you have three sisters that are the team wow the mother's mother's [Music] to [Music] good NE good evening everybody good evening parents good evening administrators and thank you so much for coming and being an audience to the increased Miller fourth grade Orchestra tonight my name is Faith Willet and I teach elementary orchestra
002at Meadow Pond Katona and of course increase Miller and tonight I have members of the increase Miller fourth grade or Orchestra with me here we are in the month of March we are celebrating music in our school's month which is an initiative um from the National Association for music education to spread music and public school music education programs all around the country and so tonight we would like to highlight for music in our schools month some s some of the incredible work that our fourth graders here have done every student on this stage started playing their instrument in this program just this year in this past September and it's so incredible what they've all been able to achieve so far we're going to be playing three songs for you tonight from our Winter concert last
003month so we hope you enjoy [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the [Music] [Applause] [Music] a h [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hal [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you all so much [Applause] nice job they taking long shortcut yeah [Music] are immediately beside e e e we were just able to see the increase Miller fourth grade Orchestra perform it was amazing really tremendous work by young people to learn a very difficult instrument and they were like perfectly together so congratulations to all of them and thank you so much for organizing that Neil I don't know if that was you again but yeah team than Kim thank you for organiz it's just really delightful to start the evening with something so special so um can we please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge ALG to the FL
004the United States of America to the stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all excellent so welcome this evening we're looking forward to uh talking more about our 2030 plan and also um adopting our budget for the 2526 school year so we're looking forward to that before we start with that we'll start with some board announcements and I just I sorry I should have just said also Faith Willet is the fourth grade teacher and I didn't recognize her but she is doing an outstanding job in all of our schools and we're lucky to have her so um board announcements I would like to just congratulate we had some really outstanding uh performance by our science research students at the regeneron competition and just really congratulations to so many of them who
005won in different domains of science different styles of um science research that was really amazing and last meeting I forgot to congratulate our Deca competitors who did outstanding and I believe two are we going to our actually going to the national competition and this was our first year back at Deca um and so just to do so well on the first first outing is really tremendous so I did want to recognize them I know if anyone else has any board announcements there the great per play performances or the Musical musical Greece yeah Greece and um 42nd 42nd Street with last yes amazing there's been a lot since last meeting it's h nice to see the campus coming alive again with this yeah it's fun I thought uh screen agers went really well there was probably
006about 100 people there and then Q&A after um you know it's pretty powerful watch I think for some people it was shocking other people was reaffirming um that they're kind of on the right path and I think there was 50/50 for most people kind of like yeah I get that and maybe not but uh it was a really nice event really great event I'm happy that Playhouse was able to accommodate that their ETL to be able to pull it off yeah thank you to the PTO and partnership with Bedford PTO yes so it's great to have that just you know we're all sort of In It Together our kids definitely overlap on a lot of their activities so it's nice to have that partnership Julie I just have a quick announcement if I sure um
007I just want to say that after six years serving on the school board that I made a decision to not seek re-election for my third term um it's really been an honor to work alongside all of the dedicated educators parents community members uh to support our students and our schools um I'm really deeply grateful for all the trust that the community has placed in me for the opportunity to contribute to the growth and the success of our district over the past five and a half years and while I'm not continuing in my role my commitment to our schools and my community remains strong and I'm always certainly available um I want to thank you for your support collaboration and passion for Education over the past 5 years I look forward to see seeing to seeing
008the district continue to thrive in the years ahead it's been a real privilege for me uh to serve and certainly has been one of the most rewarding Pursuits in my life I really enjoyed it um but I am delighted to be leaving it in the capable hands of Ray Administration all of our teachers and staff my fellow trustees him monen thank you um I mean I'm going to miss working with you guys terribly uh but I know that your commitment anded ation to our students is unwavering and I know that we'll continue to meet success so thank you all very much um I'm here obviously for another couple of months but I just wanted to make that announcement before because we have an upcoming election on May 20th people ought to consider running for the
009board it's one of the most important Civic duties that I performed I would encourage people in our community to consider running for the board um it's a very very W rewarding Pursuit there's some work involved but it's a very rewarding Pursuit I would highly recommend it to people who uh maybe partially considering it you still have another month to get your petition signed and get it in I think the deadline is April 21st um so I would encourage community members who are watching to strongly consider a run for uh School Board it really is a wonderful civic duty to perform um and I just wanted to make sure that people knew that there was going to be an open seat yeah that's it might be more than one there are three open seats there three
010open SE yeah so any other word announcements I don't have anything prepared so I'll go next week oh that'll be um okay then we will begin with our conversation about the 2030 plan great thank you and um just as we came out of that uh short con there with faith um and the board um has so many different things like you were saying or that we're looking at and doing and so hopefully just for the next little bit of time we can spent a little bit on the the the why and the connections and those pie so thinking about the kids in the back of your mind a little as we go through this next exercise so I was so I stand there listening I was say well maybe we can use that a little
011bit tonight so before we break out into some of our work I'm just going to go ahead and and provide a little bit more of an organization to uh the uh Vision so you either have it on your laptops and you also have it in those clipboards that are in front of you if you would prefer to use that and right it's the last document in there so again you you will see on the front as we've got on the screen there is the vision 2030 and then the idea about um empowering all and the uh the catch lineer there is lighting the path to success so even that piece the lighting the path success and the empowering all that kind of tagline that piece came through the thousands literally of different conversations that took
012place some some groups were as small as maybe a dozen or so but other groups especially at our our campuses were well over a hundred of our teachers coming together and our PTO meetings and so if you think about all those different conversations you were into the tens if not tens of thousands of different conversations that took place and so um what I've got on the inside cover of that you will see the process that went through you'll see at the top left there in the purple um so as the community may see this online and look at the document we set this out again to our community um last Friday or Friday before sorry um in relationship to this gave everybody a link to that and you can see the merried of different groups
013that had those conversations and basically on the right hand side you will see the Strategic plan where and I just skim through here a little bit with you again it provides that clear road map for achieving those goals and respond responding to the changing needs over time in our district and we think about it was created then it was co-created this wasn't something that a handful of folks sat and you know a room and came out with hey look at this isn't this a great plan this was co-created through again as I mentioned through hundreds of different individuals and and thousands of different conversations and how we did that as we went through it's identified as this uh idea about appreciative inquiry looking at the positive things and inquiring from a a space of of
014thinking about the possibilities that exist and so the short acronym there is identified as sore strengths opportunities our aspirations and our results there's always something that we can work on and do better and that's what this is about is continuous Improvement so thinking that mind and saying what are we doing well that we can leverage to improve in the future so then out of that the groups identified and we created and we honed an updated Mission Vision and Collective commitment and with a kind of I'll call like a point team we basically on the front side met with a handful of teacher representation a handful of administrator representation handful of students handful of PTO and a few board members and that was kind of our Point team that started and then as all that data
015came back and continued to be distilled down into what you see today that group gave constructive feedback right at the end as we started really trying to take some of the edges and smooth it off and so that's where we landed here today with the uh the vision element here and then what came out of that were these identified as six pillars of light and uh my colleague shared earlier today it's it's not a spotlight Ray it's like the whole sun it's all the light so I know as much as we talk about pillars and things did I say it right I I was just wondering what so um when we look at it that way that's the intent it's oh well this is one we focus on it it's it's one is great but
016it's not sufficient it's all of them to make it that place and that idea about that and that's where even in the graphic on the front side is intended kind to be that sun rising up around our district with thinking about those pillars coming out of that beam of creating that light so if we go to the next page if you don't mind you will see there the uh Mission and the vision statement again this is the piece that was created co-created across the district Mission again um think about why do we exist many times folks will kind of conflate those and and there's not a right or wrong way just I'm saying for us the mission is our why and our why is for us to ensure that all students learn and how to
017they learn they're learn an inclusive safe and Equitable environment that promotes engaging learning critical thinking and responsible citizenship so then how do we want to do that that's where we shift to that Vision piece so we're going to strive to be a model of EX Excellence by fostering compassionate School Community again where our students Educators and families collaborate to inspire lifelong learning personal growth and leadership in an Ever Changing world and you will see as we look at the pillars a little bit tonight I had not anticipated but that idea about leading and leading our community and leading our world come across all of our different groups that we talk with and that so much where became an identifiable piece that yeah we're committed to learning and leading and so that was a piece that
018was I found very um um very motivating actually I was say this was pretty amazing and our kids were just all over that conversation they want to make a difference in their own world and a larger world the next piece I just wanted to highlight here is the collective commitments and this is basically a question that we had talked with each one of those groups after this work and we came up with our best thoughts for the day of our why we exist and how we want to exist is to make that a reality what are you committed to do what should we be committed to do and commit to as an organization moving forward and you will see that those six items there again fostering student centered education and there's some description underneath there
019it talks about looking at curiosity and ensuring that students feel seen and valued so you can get that sense we also committed to building strong and collaborative Partnerships and opportunities with families Educators and Community to partnership this idea about mindset of looking at partnership openness and working on that equity and inclusion we will work intentionally to create environments where everyone is seen heard and respected every individual is empowered so you can continue to hear this societa about back to empowering all every person all means all not just maybe this group but not those it all means all kids all staff as much as we can our community and then open-mindedness and thinking about fostering culture of that uh looking at adap able and reflective and embracing new ideas and that idea about not thinking about
020what we want our students to necessarily what they we want them to not say learn this we want them to learn how to make decisions and learn how to be constructive thinkers and do that work not really what they should think but how they should think so as this new information world comes to them even more exponentially can I process through that information so that idea about empowering those things and then the idea about supporting and empowering our staff this idea about again collaboration ensuring that all of our teachers and all of our staff are supported and valued as we try to meet the needs of our kids and the last one is cultivating a positive proactive approach do you approach things with a positive mindset and our team not too long ago went through
021a very short uh uh introduction about appreciative inquire and there's a lovely U short video in there talks about what location location location and what's the first thing you think I think about is like okay is it next to the water is it you know is it you know that kind it's not that it's where are you located and the idea about you really they just said a very simple line are you above the line or are you below the line and the idea is is that if you are below that line you are coming at things from more of a negative mindset you almost expecting things to not go well for you you have this fight or flight kind of response in that thing versus if you're above the line you're located in a
022positive space you're expressing the positive intentions from people you're leaning in you're listening you're not waiting for somebody to stop talking so you can respond you're waiting oh that's powerful can you tell me more about it so this idea about collaborating connecting there versus I'm below and they also talked a little bit about it it's not wrong as human beings it's in our DNA to be responding back from a fight or flight piece I mean that was where we we're designed that way you're is this risk real or not and so when we perceive things that we think are risk to us it's not the old physical risk that maybe we used to you know um many ions ago but that still is in our DNA that is we were built and those chemicals are
023released to respond back to that so how do we keep above that line and so that's idea we're going to come at it conversation by conversation approach by approach that what can I learn out of this experience how can we work together in that regard so we can stay in a positive space that just aligns exactly with how we even shape this vision about what are our strengths so now we're going to start getting into the next piece so thank you for let me give you kind of the background of how we got to here so you will see on the next page left and right uh basically if on the digital piece you'll see on the left there are pillars of light and then on the right you will see the profile of a
024learner so in just a moment we're going to have you do a little bit deeper dive so you have your clipboards thank you very much Kim for the clipboards living and and um you have on the front of that clipboard you have your assignments So You See Your Chart there we have our six pillars identified there so on the first piece there skills and knowledge so Julia you're going to partner with Alex and you can read the other two the partners you have all the way pillars 2 3 four 5 and six I will point out to the pillars to you we have right over here pillar one I think is right behind Lisa and it just goes over this way two 3 four five six and in a moment I'm going to ask you
025and your partner to go to those pillars and at those pillars you will see you have a second page on your clipboard so this is the conversation I'm asking you to have it has the picture of the powering all again on there so we're going to start there we're going to be looking at these six pillars the first question is as partners you'll go to your space we'll ask you to take a moment to please read through the description that you have have in the full document and in that description you will see basically the description of the pillar this one Knowledge and Skills take a moment when you get to your table read through this component please read through the aspirations piece and then these empowerment actions once your team is done I will
026ask you to go ahead and look at the questions here the first one is after you've read it what part of this pillar resonates with you the most so you Pro you don't know the answer yet cuz you have well maybe you haven't but read this and say what resonates with you most there isn't a wrong answer it's what is it that resonates with you and then when I get a sense where we're going I'm going to ask you to kind of go ahead um guess it's kind of like speed dating but you get you don't get the change Partners so you got to go pillar one goes to two 3 four 5 six everybody will go around to each of the six pillars so after we've done our six rotations we'll come back to
027the table and we'll share what you guys came out with this process is similar not exact to what we'll be going through with our pto's with our students I met with a group last week of some of our our entire technology team and so the idea is to get more familiar with the pillars and then looking about the the um backside P five a learner but step one powering all you will find your pillar find your partner scan read and then we'll be facilitating the first question of what part of this pillar resonates with you most please take a pen write we want in there and then I'll rotate uh Team around we'll ultimately come back and share all any thoughts or questions or so now as a teacher for the teacher I would ask
028one of you to please report the directions back to me to make sure every's on the same page but I have faith that we all know where we're going and what we're doing so find your pillar find your partner and we'll go ahead and get started so I know our Mar could be off the one yeah right e e e [Music] all right so thank you for doing that Neil I appreciate the first uh rotation there cuz I don't think I would have made that call so thank you very much getting this moving with Bill for sure so just in general just got to open the conversation up at the table so you know some of the guiding questions were you know maybe what were um you know some of the things that resonated with
029you most across the pillars another one is thinking about how do you see them connecting and things so um really and and where you stay with the same partner through six of those pillars and think about is there a theme that kind of connected and generated across your thing so just see if you can share out a little bit about kind of where you found your conversation being L that that would be great um I think I I found that before I didn't really appreciate how much they really relied on and interconnected with each other so some of the things that we're talking about building skills will help with the social emotional learning part and the belonging obviously dub tailes in that and then how teachers being seen as Leaders will help students understand what
030it means to be a leader and you know maybe mimic um the things that they see their teachers doing so I really love how inwoven things really were when you start talking to them talking about them because on the base of it you're like oh there's six different pillars but then when you really start talking about what it means and following those sub bullet points it really does like Just Dub tail nicely and create that picture of what we want our community to be thank you resident off of that or talk about your own conversations my Trio we had we had we connected with that and if I may say so myself reiterated the phrase that it's a sun not a spotlight on a couple of occasions we also saw a lot of like interdisciplinary
031throughout the words interdisciplinary we saw belongings connectedness to well-being and Global perspectives um and and and more global global perspective actually resonated throughout a lot of the and the Glo the concept of global citizenry like we recognize that there sort of a you're preparing students for what's next and to be just good Global Citizens in a way that's of meaningful to them that they're at the center of all of that yes it seems like a common theme through most of the pillars around yeah thank you yeah I mean from the student centered learning to the sustainability and global citizenship it felt like we're designing a way of learning that really um helps students see themselves as agents of change and also responsible for their Community um for their environment um and we talked a lot
032about sort of students sort of rising to the occasion if you the more you give them Choice the more you give them a voice in in what it is that they want to do and the paths they want to follow thank you yeah I think just to continue building on that and and Bill you said it really well and it's about leadership too did you want to you want to talk more about the leadership aspect you brought it up I was trying to get you you're yeah um no I think we just noticed through all the pillars this this threat of leadership um especially in the leard centered leadership in pillar three but also really connecting to pillar four um for sustainability and I mean that Global as you were saying um that global citizenship
033and how we um there's a lot of great language in here encouraging students uh to take the initiative and be leaders in that space we also talked about um we felt like if there was a pyramid that well-being would be at the base of that pyramid because if you're not feeling good about yourself and you're not feeling like you belong you can't you these other things don't happen the leadership doesn't happen the learning doesn't happen so felt like that was that was a critical piece make sure that that that the kids feel like they feel good about themselves self-confidence self-esteem Emer we talked about that a bit yeah we had a very similar conversation yes we did we we talked about um the reality that without feeling that you're respected whether it's a student feeling
034respected or a staff member feeling respected and without feeling that the people with whom you're interacting in your school Community recognize that you have dignity that nobody can take your dignity away and that you know for all of the reasons that you know are easy to imagine like on occasion people experience interactions where they feel that their dignity was disrespected and that those seem to be the moments where um feels like there's the greatest opportunity to do better you know because by contrast when kids feel seen when staff members feel seen feel respected feel that they're treated with you know a feeling of self Worth or it creates and maintains their feeling of self worth like that's what leads to the the highs the good memories so um yeah we spent a good bit of
035time just kind of observing that Dynamic and and I would say that just with respect to each of the pillars it feels as if there's just a lot of intentionality around having asked our community and having answered the question who are we trying to be for each other for our kids who do we want our kids to be for themselves and for our society um feels really intentional and and um and hopeful and also I I recognize so many things that we are already doing so much of very well and then also opportunities where wow if we can really get to this we will be even better so I found it really I'll just thank you margar for saying that because we recognize the same thing and it felt like so much of this it's
036like well yeah but we've never written it down in such a structured way and what it does is it provides a benchmark for us to start to measure our Improvement like we now know okay yeah we know we want to do that we do a good job here and here but maybe not so much there there there's an area we can focus on establish a baseline recognize the improvement over time so we all recognize pretty much that same thing that it's there's a Continuum there that we're all striving for but when you document what you're trying to do like this it's very powerful yeah this sets the stage for the next five years this this is what this was for um who was the who did you write this so did was it a actually
037um with things the the the hundreds of different documents and pages and things they were all handwritten long notes if you may remember you went to those then Kim went and digitized those and so then we looked at um uh how how many of those items were repeated and repeated and so then we we just kept distilling and Distilling that down and and then that's basically where we landed with those pieces and and some I'm like oh I remember exactly that St from that group pretty darn close to it and so that was a piece that came through as you just kept turning that uh through and then um and then that's where the thread kept coming and so um that's basically how we're land our community wrot our community wrote this and I had
038a moment of that too reading some of the bullets thinking like I think we talked about that at one of the things and think one of the things I think is really important in this document that I noticed is just like the evidence that each area you're trying to say like how are we going to measure this like that's so a really important part of this plan is that it could have been just what are our aspirations right and that still would have been really lovely just to set some aspirations for ourselves but this has actions and has outcomes that we want to measure and that's I think a critical piece of this work that we have been like has been intangible to us and so I feel really excited to have those opportunities to
039be able to measure things reflect on them and and change course if we need to thank you yeah if it's all right then let me take that part just a little bit and so out of that like those empowerment actions so these are really if they're on this document those are at a more of a higher District level and you're you're connecting with maybe every kid in the class or Pro then at the building level each building will have their own empowerment plan so they were identifi for the building because one Elementary is going to be different than the other middle school but it'll be aligned to the pillars it'll be specifically ID down which element it'll identify which team is working on what and then out of that there'll be what identified as those
040smires so those are strategic and we're looking at those measurable and action oriented there is results and there's a timeline so those are all have that action plan to it so if we Flash Forward maybe 18 and 24 months and then closing our our table here bringing in and say hey walk us from the pillar right all the way down to the classroom level and back and forth so that's going to be the piece that'll come out of it I and my head I said no but I can't stop so I want to do the next one really fast and so and it actually instead be fast so oh great okay so cam I know I handed in Rory's partition for well last time he the first time he was in our right so the
041only one we need is the one pager on this next piece so it's just the one of the back side of the pillars this one is the profile of a learner so we will give roughly 4 minutes let's say we're going to go back to the one table no rotation now think about the first one was systems and structures and processes and support for our teachers now think about what at the other side of this is that we're looking for the student outcomes so here's all this input coming from the system of good professional learning a calendar that supports that work nice learning resources thinking about the opportunity connected what's the student outcome and what we're looking at is this is the profile of a learner that we'll be looking at coming out of the
042K School District so you will see on there here's a little different one in here Cu uh it has specifically their I can statements so these are thinking about a student being able to say these things and you will see there's six around there so we're just get that first one what does the KSD profile a learner mean to you so we'll give you those for a minute so you go back to the first pill you started with last time and I'll call you back and 4 minutes we'll share out so just to a quick read on the P five Lear e e e um so in this one here thinking about profile Al learner thinking about you know what of the student outcomes and uh I'll just start with us a little bit we
043had a couple of things and actually end being the courageous as empowered components I'll hit the first one but and the idea about I am a brave and confident leader that was just the first part and I talked a little bit about the idea about bravery for one is not necessarily the same for the other and the idea when a student can realize that I pressed myself and I and I I got through the storm and for me it was a storm somebody else may not have been and then come out of the backside succeeding that was a part that I hadn't really connected before and so for me to think about you know the kids that I had in my classroom so for one kid it's like oh okay that that's a really big
044challenge that that student realized faced and got through maybe the other student wouldn't even have thought about doing that but that idea about braver very and connecting pushing through can mean for everybody it doesn't mean you have to run the fastest or jump the fastest or do this the most it's like for you you know yourself and then you actually gra the second part of that uh part twoo yeah I was drawn to the same um empowerment statements but I focused more on the one that came after the one that Ray was focused on because earlier we had been talking about wanting to be a school district that really inspires kids to enjoy learning to to want to learn and to want to come back to continue to learn hopefully for life and so I
045thought that this statement spoke to that and I really appreciate it that it's not at the expense of being part of a community but rather part of what the work entails is also being reminded that I'm here to help and Inspire other people too um so just thinking about a more collaborative community-minded approach to education rather than a competitive environment so I like that a lot and you want to share out their eye level of thoughts or anything you had from the group so I had one overwhelming thought if we have a student or multiple students that can affirmatively make these six statements we've done our job mhm this guy right here you know and he was my partner and I really loved our conversations Ian I I I think you are the embodiment of
046us doing our job correctly and it'll be exciting to see you know with having these pillars in place you know we're going to have students that can take over the world and look at a global environment and ensure that people care about each other and feel that belonging and have balance and and self knowledge and awareness so yeah yeah and I know we've moved to the profile of a learner but I feel like we moved the conversation I'd love to hear from Ian sorry to put you on the spot I someone who's graduating and looking at the pillars you know what are you most excited about what do you think is going to be you know like what's different like what what are the things that are sort of striking for you that you think
047wow this is really cool students are really going to appreciate this um yeah here give me one second so sure I guess the biggest thing for me was in terms of the profile of a learner definitely resilience and being well balanced I think our culture right now whether it's school or you know more societal we have a bit too much of a affinity for productivity and I think just being able to take a step back and rest for the sake of rest not resting so that you can go to work and do better is a big thing that we're lacking so I think being able to to I guess I forget who was saying it but someone was talking about you know a genuine enjoyment of learning you know there's it saying that if you
048enjoy what you work you never work a day in your life and even if we're not you know waking up in the morning jumping out of bed I can't wait to learn I think being able to walk in and at least enjoy your every class ideally a little bit makes School better and it kind of prevents that burnout that we see a lot right now I think just passion and you know that balance between work to any degree and then you know enjoying the work itself is a big part of what we need thank you beautiful well thank you Julie I appreciate thanks I just I I would be remiss if I didn't comment on on one thing that just really resonated on for me personally um and it's it's written all over here but
049and for a community to put um and for our conversation it's always it's it's been learning learning learning and not really the education or the memorization piece and only on bullet point five aspiration number five on pillar one does the term academic achievement come up and nowhere else in this document and I think that's so important because I truly believe if all of this is capable and we pull it all off the unwritten evidence of empowerment will be academic success in that in that sense but even with the Educators it's about how their Learners not their AP scores that their students get or things like that and um it it it makes me really proud to be part of a district that really looks at things that way and not about what are our scores
050where do we rank where are our kids going to school that all comes out of this that's a byproduct of the process that we put our our students through and our faculty through so thank thanks to all that that put that in here recognize it and then push it thank you John thanks so we're going to go to the budget piece of they yes yeah so so right thank you for this work and we're really excited for you to be rolling it out across through the PTO and look for other opportunities for our community to learn more about it um I know that there's interest and people are reading things and have questions and so I think availing themselves to the different opportunities that will be available through the PTO yeah um and I think
051can we encourage people to go to PTO meetings that are not at their own school when we did the first time some people did some because it worked to better meetings and stuff and we'll continue that conversation so certainly it's if you have a day or an evening that's better for you and you see it's on the calendar Avail yourself to that and that's really welcomed thank you great so we're going to hand it off to Lisa I think and we're going to go ahead we'll get the slides changed here to the PowerPoint and I know we went through the just about almost all of these slides before so Lisa is going to go through this at a pretty brisk Pace probably even more than we had practiced um so I know we practiced a
052little bit before we'll we'll speed it up even a little bit more Le s though um and because because I took too long so um but stop us along the way anytime at any point there's questions there are a couple of pieces we want to highlight and here again obviously what we be putting on the ballot in the spring is something we want to make sure that's crystal clear so so thank you Lisa and we'll hopefully get that screen changed in the back uh yeah so um luckily you have seen most of these um slides already so it's okay if they're not quite up yet but um yeah so thank you again um for Jo joining us tonight and really as R mentioned as Dr BL I mentioned that we're going to briefly review this
053budget um as we've discussed it over the past couple of months but we are going to pause and spend a little time on the propositions as because we haven't looked at them yet um and I'm just you know um going to keep these you know the goal uh the board leadership goals the leadership goal at the KD 2030 plan which we just was that one um as well as fiscal stewardship and then I'm just going to um you know our budget drivers and but I'm going to just pause for a moment again at Revenue drivers because I just we really you know want to emphasize that in the 25 26 year you know when as we began budgeting they we were not made aware that our Aid ratios were going to decrease and decrease so
054um dramatically and um so it was you know a shift that we had to do quite quickly as far as prioritizing and um in order to you know knowing that we are we are under a tax cap environment so there's only so much that we can make up that Revenue that we lost so um but and again you know and in these shows here are the differences and the decreases and the percentage the percent decrease in each of these areas um and you know belonging and highlights of everything that we went through against all professional learning and our academic highlights and everything our uh infrastructure as well enrollment class size that's okay we'll pause here um but those again and you know and all the exciting things that goes on in klsd that you can
055look at those slides and see and the highlights but uh here we just want to talk a little bit more about the energy performance contract and um what is an EPC and just to give a little more background so an EPC um enables school districts to improve Energy Efficiency generally with minimal to no impact on School District budgets the district enters into an agreement with an energy Service Company which we refer to as Esco to install energy efficient measures such as solar in our case systems to reduce energy to reduce energy use as well as reduce utility costs the Esco guarantees that the money saved on energy bills will cover the cost of the project over time which cannot exceed 18 years that project length that you're looking at to um for the cash flow
056so that the project pays for itself over that 18-year period while EP PCS are generally designed to be budget neutral factors like state aid rebates incentives and financing costs can affect overall cash flow since the contract hasn't been finalized yet we can't unequivocally State whether there will be no tax impact we will continue to work closely with our professional representatives to negotiate a contract with the Esco that is budget neutral and we'll present it to the board for consideration once finalized so what you will see later in this present ation is a resolution for for the proposed proposition this voter proposition does not decide whether we'll proceed with the EPC um what a school district a school district is permitted to enter into an EPC for Energy Efficiency improvements without voter authorization the proposition prop
057three simply allows us to qualify for the additional 10% Aid again that will offset again offset the costs um and if we and uh the 10% of state if we and if we determine to move forward with the EPC as uh you know as far as as long as it's in the best interest of the district so so at least I know I I tell my kids there's no such thing as free money but this kind of sounds like it's free money extra yes so we want to make the so we get 10% back just by asking Community please let us do this and then we'll get 10% additional from exactly right thank you and and just um Dr thank you for bringing that also in the project cost you'll see 12 million maximum and
058I was just on a meeting this afternoon with you know um with Honeywell and energia Mike Lavoy director of facilities and we're looking at probably after they've we're about 75% um completed with the energy audit maybe a little further along so we're hopeful that we'll have some answers soon but our project probably will be around7 to8 million but the reason that we put 12 million there is if we went too low the state wouldn't give us the above that number so if we said 7 million it comes at 7.5 that 500,000 we would not receive a on or or you know or if we said 10 or 11 or whatever the case is so that is not the amount that um that the the project will cost or but it is just simply to ensure
059that we are get the Aid on the entire contract the EPC project so right so just for clarification one more time just so people understand proposition three whether or not we sign and energy performance contract is a board decision that does not require a vote we're voting on this so that we can access additional state aid so the state says hey you can do this without your community approving it because it's the it's the board can enter into an energy performance contract but if you engage your community and and tell them about this so they're aware and they vote on it we're going to give you 10% more money so that is our hope that the community can support Our intention to enter into an energy performance contract so that if we do we can
060access 10% in additional Aid that's very clear though looking at the language it says shall the Board of Education be authorized so it may come across to the voter as though the voter is authorizing the boards I'm not sure right so we let's let's yeah come to that but I um yes but for anyone who's watching or if you want to refer anyone to this want to make sure it's very clear what that 10% is about the purpose I think is to say if if you don't want to engage your community you can do so but there's a 10% penalty if you do engage your community and get their approval then there's no 10% penal that's basically what we're saying yeah and we want to engage our community we think it's exciting for us to
061be able to do this work and it's great for once the energy performance contract expires then it's just gain for us because we're going to have a lower overall energy cost so okay very good thank you yeah I'll give Lisa a tiny break here um this page here our class size parameters are contractually obligated class size as many of you've seen before I'm very happy to report that a majority of our classes around the district are at goal and uh every class around the district is uh at range or or below thanks and for our staffing changes we're recommending um uh three additional Elementary School teachers one at increase Miller and two at Katona Elementary uh an additional teacher at John J middle school and this is all budget to budget by the way uh
062for the contingency position budget to budget that's a reduction of one uh that next line down there that you see is the overall estimated reductions of uh non-replacement of of teachers who are retiring or resigning uh that's somewhere between four and six reductions at the moment with a total uh tentative reduction of 1 to three okay Lisa thank you thank you Neil So that brings us to again the proposed budget the current year budget is$ 1224 m318 762 we are proposing a budget of $127,400 469 which is an increase of $3,917 sub this um is a budget to- budget percent increase of 2.49% and a property tax levy increase of 3.29% Levy to Levy and this percent increase actually meets the New York state tax cap limit so we're right at the limit we're not
063above the limit liit that means that it just requires a simple majority vote uh in order to pass the budget and um so the key just quickly we've went through this a couple weeks ago but you know we just really want to emphasize that our budget to budget increase as I just mentioned is 3,917 7 and here you see these major increases total 3 mil 8,467 so just the major increases really um absorb the majority of the money that we could increase our entire budget and those areas are benefits salaries as we know which is generally roughly 80% of our budget uh Bose's Hardware replacement which is our devices our iPads for our K8 students and as well as our um MacBooks for our uh secondary students and what had happened is in Prior years
064because in 2020 when we did go to a one toone device during March 2020 March April May um one to1 device program we began using surplus funds in the current year and as we see surpluses in our funds um you know becoming stronger and stronger as or less and less excuse me as they become less and less we want to ensure that that money is built into the budget proper so we always have that program in place again with our um revenues we know we have no control over state aid or tax um the tax based growth factor so again we have um you know seen a major decline in our state aid as well as we did review actually the decline in the governor's numbers were about 1.3 million what we did is we
065reviewed the supporting data the backup data that goes into those numbers um and compared budget projections with current expenditures and developed our own projections based on the current year expenditures because the budget uh the governor's numbers as well as the numbers that um the legislators use are based on budget numbers so they're based on our 2425 budget it comes from our st3 numbers that we submit to the state and um we're looking at actual expenditures so it's more current data and um tax cap I you know just want just always wanted to just emphasize you know for so long it was a 2% tax cap and it's not really 2% we're not um it's not really just 2% growth the 2% is what the max of the um that we can adjust the tax cap
066is one of the tax cap factors which is related to CPI so if CPI is greater than 2% we can only increase we can only use 2% in that factor in calculating the tax cap in the next slide you'll actually see the breakdown there again where you see the tax based growth factor as well as our um allowable Levy growth factor that's the one that's maxed at 2% um but you can see the breakdown of all of the calculation there and um and again we are right at the um tax levy um right after next slide yes there you go oh I'm sorry do I have oh there's a slide missing here that's oh um here we are okay um um the tax levy calculation um it's just again it just shows our our other
067revenues we are um in order to offset the decrease in state aid we are um appropriating some additional um reserves in order to offset the loss in state aid and to stay at the tax levy or tax cap and um those um reserves you get set in July so the final Reserve numbers will be set in Ju July but that's what we're proposing is to appropriate additional reserves and um projected revenues is just can you go there you go perfect uh the projected revenues is just a breakdown again of where uh we're seeing revenues in new line for next year is day tuition other districts and that is tuition that we charge other school districts in order for their students to be enrolled in our specialized specialist programs um so that is just a new
068source of Revenue and again those are empty available seats in those programs the tax rate is um the amount of money um that you multiply your assessed value in order to generate that your tax bill essentially these are projected numbers we receive our final numbers when we set the tax levy in also in July so just in summary this budget maintains all current student programming while adding teams to eth grade in a fiscally responsible Manner and continuing to prioritize favorable class sizes uh maintain support for all students and professional learning incorporates additional debt payment for the approved ooc um October 2022 Bond referendum to support the significant infrastructure upgrades and enhancements that are going on in all five buildings as well as being mind of taxpayers and holding to the tax levy as well as
069um there isn't um anything in the tax levy or anything for the EPC so it's $127 million $127 m410 469 proposed tax um proposed budget so proposition one is simply um approval of the budget or it's just simply voting on the budget um proposition two is one that you have seen in Prior years and typically prop two what we are using is excess funds from the current school year to replace buses is what we've typically used um prop two for the excess funds for next year we're proposing that we use them for electrical infrastructure upgrades there's quite um there's a good amount of upgrades that need to happen in order for us to eventually transition to all 100% electric FL Fleet electric school bus fleet so again as we look at and do our long
070range planning we're looking at a um you know we're looking at doing it in a phased approach and so when we do have the funds available we want to ensure you know we want to take you know you set those monies aside and start to work on the part parts that we can in this approach so it isn't such a large impact um and there currently still is 2035 that schools districts have to be 100% electrified fleets of school buses and um proposition three is um again it is about the additional 10% state aid um that is associated with the energy performance contract and as Julet stated um earlier and explained that it is um the Board of Education can improve an energy performance contract this is just approving the additional 10% % and as
071Rory said you know on the other side it would be like a penalty if we didn't get the extra 10% right um and it is the state actually does referred to as a 10% incentive Aid so it is considered an incentive so um and I know that you kind of have to read through all of the language to get to you have to read through 12 lines as I pointed out to my attorney to get to to the 10% piece but um again the language has to be written specifically so the State education department sees that we made it very clear to our voters in order for us to give us the 10% incentive but that's why we added um that um phrase to the uh title of the proposition so it's up front that
072just simply the additional 10% that we're vote that uh this proposition is addressing so I shall turn it over do is there any questions just cuz we didn't say so at the beginning like this is our fourth I think read through this right so it's like people are watching the budget review for the first time and thinking those guys are very quiet we've been through this many many times and this is just one more final review before the board adops it yes thank you thank you and so I know that the attorneys have looked at these or have written these so it can't be shall the Board of Education authorized it has to be be authorized um they this is how they wrote it is sensitive subject they have to get it right for the
073law get it right for the law so we just need to make sure we really do some good community outreach so people understand this and and that was where the type uh at the top we can have there so pops out proposition three additional 10% St yeah good okay very we can't just put a statement at the top clearly the board May authorize an energy performance cont without voter approval however receiving approval allows the district to unlock an additional like just make it very clear we can't do that my understanding is Le I of lots of good ideas clear communication but not the so yeah we just really encourage yes our community to support this thank you L thank you thank you very much thank you and thanks for all the hard work that went
074into this from you rest of the cabinet Ry and all all the administrators I mean this is not an easy feat so a lot of long hours by all of you so thank you thank you I really appreciate the new way we reviewed it this year it made a lot more sense to me um the way my mind works Julia is more the numbers person but it just made more it made a lot of sense this year going through the process so thank you yeah so um right now this is just the proposed budget so this is an opportunity for us to um approve this as our budget uh so I'm happy to make the motion to um approve the proposed 2526 school budget would someone like to second that second by Barbara oh y
075do I need to do all the propositions separately okay yeah okay okay H okay sure make a res 10.01 is its own resolution okay so um I will start with making a a motion to approve 10.01 second by Rory all those in favor 70 great um someone like to make 10.02 okay so R has made a motion to move 10.02 would someone like to Second seconded by John all in favor all all okay need do one move 10.03 Mar Mar's moving 10.03 seconded by Bill uh all those in favor 7 Z great uh I'm going to move 10.04 and seconded by Lorraine all those in favor I Mo 10.05 excellent motion by Roy seconded by Barbara K this is very fast we got Miss I'm sorry okay all in favor I I great excellent uh
07610.06 I'm happy to move that is our last motion second by John all those in favor I 70 great did we do all the numbers got it okay excellent again thank you very much for all your effort um and again I think we talked about this once before but in order to achieve this budget with the major driver equaling all but about $80,000 of the major increases really required you to be very focused on holding things level and finding opportunities for savings and we just really appreciate the effort to do that so that we could bring this to the community um where we are so thank you supporting the budget thank you yeah now we have an opportunity for public comment Rich um so I I see may be aware our public comment is an
077opportunity for us to hear from the community and we will reflect on what we hear from you and likely not um reflect on it this evening but we'll return to it during our next board meeting uh you have 3 minutes and Kim has a timer for you just to help you um oh you have a timer as well okay so um can we not use Kim's timer you're going to keep to your timer she's going to turn it on anyway so the timer the timer will be green for 2 minutes and 30 seconds she's not going to do it okay okay excellent we do have a timer so welcome and if you could introduce yourself that would be great yes good evening Rich Laren uh 27e golden bridge resident a more than two decade Town
078volunteer and current Town board member since 2021 I do love lewisboro uh I'm here this evening to cordially invite members of this Board District administration committee members are in appropriate combination thereof uh to meet with the lewisboro town board in a public setting whether it a town board work session or Community Forum as an example to discuss the potential future and mutually beneficial opportunities which can arise from K lsd's recent decision not to renew the town's long-standing lease of the property on Bal Road formerly housing Lees as you know the town of lewisboro was leas the property for quite a few years at this location to house important Town facilities and operations from our town police and town court to VAR Town departments in a gym with extensive Parks and Recreation programming and with K
079lsd's decision not to renew the town's lease we have to figure out as a community uh where these important Town facilities and operations will go for the next generation and Beyond now I personally believe as a 27-year resident and taxpayer father of two John J graduates and now Town board member that there was an incredible opportunity here for klsd in the town of lewisboro to engage in an open and transparent dialogue with lewisboro about what can come next at this site my personal belief is that working together as partners uh on behalf of the residents and taxpayers Like a Phoenix Rising From the Ashes a brand new state-of-the-art facility could be developed on the site a centrally located Town campus with a new court new police facility and Community Center for the entire Community to
080use and enjoy with a corresponding long-term econom IC benefit for klst we can think outside of the box we should at least after all talk about it after all we teach our kids that if you believe you can achieve and I believe in that certainly now and if it turns out that such a Redevelopment plan or opportunity or something similar for the former Lees site is not possible then at the very least we can work together collaboratively on the town's exit strategy from Lees in a well well timed well planned and well executed way so the town has sufficient time to plan and decide how we best move forward in a most seamless and fiscally responsible way uh as possible for all I for one look forward to uh this potential great opportunity for klsd
081and nwn of Lebo to work together for the benit betterment of our Greater Community thank you for listening thank you for all you do your service and dedication on behalf of our community and have a great evening thanks rich thank you excellent I'm going to close public comment um that takes us to the consent agenda so I'd like to move the consent agenda someone like to second second seconded by Bill all those in favor I 70 great and find the donation sorry I just have to find the donation page because I know we have one from the class of 77 I okay great thank you so I'm going to uh like to just recognize um item 16.01 on the agenda and thank Carl and Jill Kramer uh for a donation of $1,000 towards the class
082of 1977 scholarship um and if someone would like to move that resolution so that we can accept that donation that would be great move by lorine seconded by marjerie all those in favor all 70 excellent thank you to Carl and Jill Kramer for that and for the class of 77 to continue having that scholarship and this takes us to item 17 which is an opportunity for board dialogue and discussion I just want to say thank you to the community for their continued generosity it's a rare meeting that we don't have some sort of gift being presented to our school district and so that means a lot that means that people care about what we're doing and um so we don't take it for granted and we we are very appreciative yeah absolutely I have one
083quick comment on agenda item 1303 once again we're seeing uh a athletic team looking to bring 40 students in this case to another state on a plane for substantial cost of families approximately $1,000 per family that we're asking families to reach out to we had this on the last agenda related to the women's lacrosse team this one's related to The Men's Varsity uh baseball team I just think we have to find a way to cap this or to somehow support it I I don't know why we have to go to actually I'm not sure whether it's Arizona or Florida because it's says both on the agenda item but wherever they're going I'm not sure that they have to go there we can play baseball right here we can play baseball in New Jersey overnight we
084don't have to go to Port St Lucy or Arizona to do so and I think expecting our families to Pony up another th000 bucks per family to have the privilege of being on the varsity baseball team I think that that's and I know it's it's probably build as being optional but if you want to play baseball you're going to be G on that trip so I just encourage encourage the board and and the district to consider putting a cap on how much we're asking families to pay for sporting events thank you thank you I would actually like to second that and include any type of spe packs in that as well um I know from experience those get out of hand as well and it's each team wants to have the nicest gear better than
085the year before um so you add spe packs and uh spring break trips and things like that and we really are asking students to pay to play and that's not what a public athletic experience should be I'll just briefly say that resonates with me especially in light of the things we're talking about in terms of having students have a consistent experience and having Equity so the things that you're both saying do resonate with me as well I think this is an opportunity you know for us to think about how Ray can start this conversation in the district and certainly know that he would have our support if at you know we'd talk about it at the board level if it came there but um and different board members may feel differently but I think it's
086um I think it's definitely a conversation that we should have and I expressed this at the last meeting as well I do think um for families who have multiple children multiple Sports um and public education and the experience to play in a high school sporting or middle school even um for some kids it's it's their opportunity to play when they can't be part of private private um travel type programs cuz those are exorbitantly expensive so I just want to make sure we're not limiting that opportunity anyway so sounds good members who are concerned about this enough to you know I don't want to uh make a proposal or a resolution or anything like that but I think that we should give it some give it adequate thought yeah could be an interesting conversation to have
087with parent Council because I think we would also be parted to learn of some initiatives that are underway I'm thinking about for example the upcoming sustainability Symposium where I know our middle school students are working on a spirit Weare swap like taking your spirit Weare and going through your inventory and you know trying to figure out is there somebody else who could use these items and really benefit from things that maybe you're not using anymore and I think if we talked with parent counsil we might be able to kind of round out the conversation hearing about both concerns and also opportunities and things that are underway in our schools to promote equity and to sort of think creatively about some of these issues so that might just be a place to start to learn more
088thank you great thank you so future meetings tomorrow morning oh the policy committee meeting is cancelled read that um um next Friday it's already April this year is flying next Friday is April 4th and there will be a sustainability committee meeting um at 8:15 in the district office um the following Wednesday there'll be a finance committee meeting at 7:00 p.m. in the district office Thursday April 10th is our next Board of Education meeting at 7:30 here in the library Tuesday April 27th uh that is the Bose's budget um meeting so that's why we're meeting on it Tuesday instead of a Thursday that is the same date throughout New York state so we're having a Tuesday meeting April 22nd here in the library at 7:30 and then that week on Friday April 25th there'll be a
089policy committee meeting at 9:00 a.m. in the district office and that's Earth Day fun great um Ray would you like to make any closing comments extended my I appreciate you not cut my mic off so thank you I will make a motion to adjourn with someone like to Second seconded by marjerie all those in favor 70 great thank you thanks everybody