001good evening everyone can I get a motion to open the meeting please second all in favor please stand for the pledge good evening everyone March 21st our our March Board of Education meeting for the Mahopac Central School District thank you all for coming I'd like to turn it over to uh superintendent Tona at this time for a presentation thank you vice president Savino so welcome everyone happy spring so um our first presentation this evening we have Bernadette lingardo Jeanette canelio and Gary ziegelhoffer and some students here to share with us the wise Club at the high school hi everybody thank you for having us um we love the opportunity so we start with a little bit of a video that is in our care wise for about a minute lost days [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause]
002[Music] together it just sort of demonstrates in the program so I found this statement that you'll get a sense of what our goal in the program will challenge themselves so I know many people are familiar with wise but there are some people who are not familiar with some people in the room have had their students their children to us so um basically the wise experience and it increases really great program for our seniors but to kind of stretch their uh stretch their arms a little bit and learn something so when we talk about the program we talk about we talked about the program we talk about what wise does and so we put this slide together just to kind of get a handle on showing you in a nutshell what wise can do for students
003providing hand on Hands-On learning teaching time management skills pushing boundaries um challenging students in a positive way making sure that they are committed and enthusiastic about their senior year about it you know the education that they're receiving and then one of the great things is wise benefits everyone the teachers the mentors the staff anybody who comes in contact with the students while this process is going on um in our program in the high school and I know Gary will talk about this as well we have ranged from 65 students to 110 students in our highest capacity over a 20 plus year career teaching-wise in the high school to our seniors it's a great program that was brought in by a former principal and former business teacher here Bob Charro and Eddie hat and it's something
004that we've kind of cultivated for the last 20 plus years improving tweaking really kind of making as as fine-tuned a program as we possibly could to guarantee our students had the best options for their senior year and we are affiliated with why Services which is the program that began this whole thing in Woodlands in the 70s I'm a great man named Vic Leviathan started this whole thing as a teacher in 1974 in Woodlands high school in Westchester County and it just kind of grew and grew and grew so why is the name has changed multiple times it was what woodlands individualized in your experience then it was Westchester individualized senior experience and by the time it branched out of Westchester into Putnam into Duchess and out of state to California and Rhode Island and Massachusetts
005and even Alaska depending where why students had gone to work wise kind of grew out of those places so we are a large interconnected web of family members all over the place which is kind of cool because when a student joins wise they sort of sign on to become a part of a family of people they never know when they might meet so it's kind of cool that you could go for a job interview and talk about wise and somebody knows someone who participated in the wise program you can go to work or have a job interview and someone knows someone who participated in the wise program so that is a kind of cool thing about the program do you wanna so what wise is built around is that in the state of New York
006we're mandated that English and social studies history senior year are required so the first half of the year the kids take an intensive English and social studies program allowing them the second semester or second half of the year to be freed up to leave our building and explore an internship that they will adapt over the first half of the year so in the beginning of the year they put together an outline of things they may want to try then they go from that to a a job list and or locations they're interested in they literally do a resume and they go out into the community and start looking for those placements some placements we start as early as May and June of the Year prior because in the medical field it's a very tough environment
007because there are lots of schools down in Westchester and other parts of the state that are also doing this program so their kids are also trying for the same internships our children are so I say that because we meet with the parents usually in May to discuss that so that parents are aware of what's coming right but educationally our kids are put through probably what would be harder than if they just stayed in school and did their classes because they're doing as much education the first half of the year and then doubling it down the second half of the year with their internship notes uh logs journals and a presentation that's got to be 40 minutes or longer at the end of it all representing their experience everything they've done what they learned and what
008they took away from me and that piece in itself is a huge daunting task for any young adult to try to take on as they're maneuvering through their own self acknowledgment but also to a community of Educators in front of them that are listening to them as they do this and that if you understand is what is a real growth spot for our children because not only do they go out and learn something then now they have to explain their learning to others and and really acknowledge how it impacted them there's a large reflection peace and wise in a large communication piece and was Gary mentioned that we talked to the parents at the at the end of junior year to get them ready their students ready for the fall and it's important because when
009we do that we're opening the lines of communication their students might be going home and talking to them about the program we want to make sure that the parents are fully aware of what the program is what they might be in store for how exciting it might be for them and what restrictions parents might have we want them in on the conversation so that you know your student doesn't go home one day and say yeah I'm going to do an internship in Manhattan and I'm going to take the train every day and you're not really prepared for them to come home and say that so the conversation is important communication is important uh reflection is important so our Juniors have already started the application process now reflecting on what they might want to learn what
010kind of students they are what their strengths and weaknesses are and what they might need going forward to be a part of the program so it again it's a cyclical program that continues to grow and continues to nurture Itself by connecting with students in the program now and students who are getting ready to begin the program in the fall so this is just a little snapshot of what to expect and our students this year will be doing their presentation starting around Memorial Day ish and you know you're all welcome to come and join them I'm sure these guys are so excited that I just said that but if you'd like to come and celebrate or see uh sit in on any of the presentations we would love to have you come in and visit our
011students and you all the great work that they've done especially by the time they're doing their authentication they do get a little nervous about that but by the time they're ready you can't stop them from talking about what they've done so it's it's a good thing do you want to we have a couple students that were kind enough to fit us into their busy schedule tonight so if you don't mind we're going to have them stand up and they'll just introduce themselves to you and just kind of tell you a little bit about what they're doing and then we'll wrap up the presentation um hi everyone my name is Emma di Almeida I'm currently a senior at mapac high school um I chose the wise internship because around my sophomore year my boyfriend's older sister
012actually did the wise program and she would she'd be like oh I just saw these amazing things you know I'm having so much fun and ever since then I was just like yup that's what I want to do so you know when June your year came around and they started sending out the applications I had my heart set on wise basically um so when I was about the end of my junior year I was kind of going back and forth between Majors which I think a lot of my peers are and I think that we're all kind of in the same boat with that so I was like you know what I wanted to do something in the healthcare field so let's start looking so my mom is Vice President of Westchester Medical for the
013nursing so I was immediately like hey Mom help me with this like let's come up with a plan so I'm talking to her we're looking around and I find that Westchester Medical actually offers a senior experience which is similar to us so I started reaching out in October and I didn't really get uh like an email back until December so it's definitely a very long process but it was it's very very worth it um so right now I'm currently in the postpartum department at Westchester Medical Center and I'm about to be into the labor and delivery unit starting quarter four um I've helped babies I help Mom with all their you know new questions it's amazing I get to follow nurses around it's honestly like a once in a lifetime opportunity and it helped me
014narrow down exactly what I wanted to be which was a nurse which helped me you know kind of pick my school rep Sacred Heart like um but yeah I mean I'm so grateful for wise the English really you know refined all my skills for all my journals that I'm doing I do um what's it called I take notes during my ship I write come with like a little journal and I'm like this like following the nurses like writing down everything I can um but yeah you know I've been exposed to so much and it's really made me reflect which I think is a huge part of wise you know it kind of like puts into perspective that there's a world outside of an iPad you know like this is isn't it like there is so
015much out there and that you can make like a change in someone's life even by just doing the internship so I'm very grateful that why is this a Perfection for me [Applause] hi I'm Jonathan I'm a y student and for my wise experience I'm interning at the examiner news and I'm writing sports articles for them and so far it's been really great I love it so well I want to do when I'm older I want to become a sports broadcaster and reporter and so far uh I've loved the experience and uh so what I do for the winter sports I covered hockey I'll go to the games uh to sit down take notes throughout the game and then I'll interview players afterwards and then when I got home I would write an article up and
016so far like I said I've loved it I've gained a lot of experience and I want to continue doing it and I'm thankful for the wise program to get the experience for that and uh help me for the future thank you so on the slides these last couple of slides I put together I just wanted to highlight and you can see is if you've been looking up there you can kind of see what I highlighted about the type of students who choose wise there's there's no limit to what students can choose the program you don't have to be uh there's there's no regulation to be a straight A student um you could love cars as one of our students did get it get an internship at Park Ford and then get straight A's in Delhi
017when you never thought you'd end up in college you can um you know you can create your own educational program after your experience with our own Mahopac teachers um because you you saw the passion that they had and they instilled that in you and you wanted to make a change in the world uh you could become an orthopedic surgeon you can pretty much do uh so many different things and so many of our students have gone into education again this is just a little bit of a snapshot of some of our students in the past who have chosen to do film and education and um worked with the karma PD and worked in in teaching and filmmaking and graphic design and medicine so it's just a kind of little snapshot of some of our kids
018and then this is some of the accomplishments we've had students again who have made presentations at The Goddard Center they did a project here with Bob Connick we have another student who um we had uh she fell in love with her special education class and was treated like a teacher in the room as you can see we've had students who have chosen to do projects one of our students scored multiple films for an NYU film students uh movies he also conducted the band top of a song and and conducted it here um he was our valedictorian so there's to show you that you know why it's asking a limit to who wants to be um on board with it and you kind of can take a look at all the things that they have done
019um this is just uh some messages from our alumni I highlighted some of the you know stronger points that they wanted to make about what wise has done for them um getting a research position or giving them clarity about what they wanted to do or changing their focus way because they realized what they were doing for their internship game site into what they did or did not want to do and that's huge and then uh sorry one last thing I just heard from one of our former students because we have a network of students we keep in touch with them we don't lose sight of them um I had when Facebook started I made an alumni page and people would support each other the students would support each other if anybody needed anything um the
020alumni would come back and they would help out or they would communicate with me and communicate with others we still keep in touch most of our teachers and mentors still keep in touch with their former wise students as far back as you know early 2000s so it's kind of cool and one in particular just finished her residency as a pediatrician and just moved back to Philly to work at the Children's Hospital there and she's like I'm so excited to share my wife's with all of you thank you for asking so um she uh she has learned so much over the years one of the things I didn't want to be remiss in talking about was the generosity of our community members our community members have so generously given their time and their experience to our
021students they have shared their knowledge they've shared their office space they've shared their classrooms they've shared everything with them I just threw some names out here because these are the people that have continuously supported the kids in the program um and it's it it runs the gamut from um you know typical business offices to educational classrooms to different settings to the Carmel PD to the Putnam County Sheriff's Department uh you can see I highlighted some of the names this is just a small smattering of people who have helped but without them our program would not have been as consistent as it is and we thank them very much for all of their support they're still doing it right now some of our kids are probably still there at their locations so just to wrap up
022um this is my last live talking about you know what wise has done for our students um you know they've gone into college they've gotten scholarships um they've gotten jobs they've gotten jobs in their senior year of high school from their wise internships um they've developed Bonds in the community that you know will last a lifetime they have learned and been empowered to do things as Adam said that to know now that they can go out and change the world they can do something good take mayor path out into a broader community and you know and speak volumes to what we're all about so um I just want to say thank you to the audience thank board for letting us talk about it because I could talk online about this as you can tell I
023know I'm going to stop talking now and get her starting to get the hook so I just like to do two things I'd like to just say to the community that's watching this and and on the web that wise is an amazing connection from state to state Nationwide it's all over the place it's not just Westchester or Putnam and the reason I say that is because when we talked about Connections we had a student many years ago that swore she was going to be a teacher she went to the classroom and after her internship did a whole presentation about how she decided not to be a teacher and became a psychologist and uh right before covet emailed me about her being down in Florida and uh starting her Master's in psychology and that she was
024going to be interning a student that was going to be looking into education as a wise intern right like so she was now giving back right and so I say that because the amazing connection that we say is that Community loves to give back and this community gives a lot and this program has been really adopted by this community and the school district and it's continuing to grow and it's had its ups and downs right as far as uh with covet and post covert but I say that in a positive way because we're seeing now the numbers come back now that covet's gone and we're reestablishing ourselves in the classroom but sadly after 20 years of organizing and helping coordinate this program Ms lingardo will be retiring at the end of the year and I
025want to give that note out to the community because as people watch they know her because her passion and her drive to keep this program ever growing and ever larger her network of people that we can always rely on when our internships needed or her ability just to make a phone call or adapt an old student of hers to take a student in has helped us greatly grow and adapt for our students in every neaten area and so I say that to us because I would like to just say thank you to her on behalf of all the students and teachers that have worked with her over the years on this program it's been a joy and a pleasure to learn thank you again for allowing us this time and have a good evening [Applause]
026so thank you all for presenting tonight our students and our staff members um what a gem the wise program is in our district and um I I was able to see firsthand some of our interns in the community while they were doing their internship and have a conversation and and very impressive and just as you saw our two seniors this evening present to us so eloquently this program prepares our students to go out into the world and and just like everyone said it's hard to know when you're 18 what you want to be for the rest of your life so this gives an opportunity to try it out and if it's something that sticks that you really like that's terrific you've got a head start on a future career that you'll love and it's also
027great if you figure out what you might not want to do because that also gives you a head start um on on your major decision as you go into college or into the workforce so thank you all for presenting and um Mrs lingardo you will certainly be missed we hope you come back and visit us and visit the wise program we probably won't be able to keep you away so thank you all okay so moving on um it's time for the budget presentation so I'll turn it stay with you all right thank you so tonight we have our third budget presentation we're going to be looking at some more of our departments in the district we have some staff members that will be sharing as well as some staff members that will be stepping in
028for other staff members this evening um who has the slide advancer okay so in the budget development process here we are highlighted you see March so like I mentioned we're looking at some Department budget presentations the next slide shows the budget priorities that I've shared with the board early in the process highlighted tonight is that we're going to look at the continuation of the district's bus replacement schedule and so at this point um Leonor Volpe our supervisor of Transportation could it make it this evening so our interim assistant superintendent for business Christina Howe will be stepping in and presenting the transportation budget you have the magic touch thank you Mr Trombley thank you Miss Tony and I hope I can do as good a job as miss what we did the other day but um
029tonight I'm going to go through some of the highlights of Transportation our district operates a fleet of a hundred and two vehicles last year our Fleet traveled over 1 million 700 miles serving the needs of our students that included 90 field trips to date um at our last Camp there's about 40 more upcoming for the school year so obviously it's a enormous part of our program and it supports all of our field trips uh certainly transportation to and from school included in that miss what we reported that she um accommodate well she provides for over 500 requests for alternate Transportation stops so that includes day care and work passes so if our students have work responsibilities within the district she transports them to and from which is a huge help obviously for for you know
030students who are maybe 16 years old and can't drive so she does that within the boundaries of the district and this year she commented at the work session about how we've had an increase in our mckinney-vento student needs McKenney Venture is when a student is displaced from their home for some reason they become homeless they have the right to attend their District of origin which might be Mahopac or if they get placed in another District they can attend that District this year we've had more students and families requests to continue to attend Bay pack schools and that Transportation has taken her down to Yonkers and peakskill and I believe there's a 50-mile radius and based on the McKenney vento regulations they're entitled to that because a lot of times due to McKenney vancoat it's a
031temporary situation and as soon as it can be returned to District they are or if they find permanent housing somewhere else than their transportation and their it would begin in another District so the picture of the bus lift is a sample for this slide it's not actually our bus lift but the pictures on the bottom half of this slide do represent our bus lift and part of the discussion about why we need another one because we service all of our own Fleet that includes the buses that includes the buildings and grounds vehicles and equipment we do that in our own garage and um the lift that we have in the garage we actually have two lifts we were notified that they were no longer serviceable and they would not pass New York state inspection so
032in the current budget we have a lift that was approved in the 2022-23 budget we're requesting a second lift because there's two lifts in the garage the cost of that is two hundred and ten thousand dollars but actually that represents only a 26 000 increase for the 23-24 budget and of course those increases are due to supply chain challenges that we're all experiencing the other request that Ms Hopey has made is for a morning dispatcher um that would be a second dispatcher in the bus garage that way someone would come in early and be able to take all the calls that come in actually before school starts and that would give us a good Continuum for before during and after the school days all the times that our buses are in transit so there's many
033times that buses are out late for sports runs or field trips and having two dispatchers would give us a continuity of services so that there's always somebody in the bus garage who can take those calls can reroute buses if they have to and um that would be at a cost of sixty seven thousand one hundred dollars part of the conversation tonight is about continuing the bus replacement plan this slide represents our current Fleet as you can see from the slide we have 11 buses that are more than 16 years old um we'll talk about the the Colin furthest left number of buses are the number of buses in each age category as listed the current percentage and the column all the way over to the right that says recommended percentage is best practices so as
034you can see there's 11 that are more than 16 there are 20 buses that are between 11 and 15 years 28 buses between 6 and 10 years 43 buses between one and five years and if you see on the right column the recommendation is to only have one percent of your Fleet that's over 16 years and then and even spread between 1 to 15 years so the average lifespan of a bus should be about 15 years if they're well taken care of thank you we started the disposal and bus replacement plan in the 2018-19 school year this slide represents the number of buses that we've disposed of and replaced based on the replacement plan originally this was a 10-year plan but as you can see during the covid years we did not um well actually
035during the 21-20 school year we did not replace any but because we didn't replace them at the same rate we've extended it from 10 years to 12 years so that we could continue the replacement plan um this year we have requested nine buses we've gotten all but one of them as you can see by the farthest right column again the net gain and loss based on the number of buses that we've disposed of that were out of useful life or would not have past expense inspection we're actually um down four buses so we're hoping to make that up over the course of the rest of the years of the replacement plan we will be asking the board to consider and the community to consider a separate proposition to continue that plus replacement plan for eight
03665 passenger buses with air conditioning each of those buses cost a hundred and sixty thousand six hundred and seven dollars for a total of one million two hundred and eighty four thousand eight hundred and fifty six dollars to date we've replaced 40 buses each of our buses have and by the time we replace the buses they have an average of 80 000 miles on them some of them have as much as a hundred and thirty thousand miles on it but based on the average it's about 80 000 miles and they're 10 plus years of age so because we have such a good um bus garage and mechanics team they've keep the buses in very good shape we've been able to extend the life expectancy of lots of those buses so you know we're not replacing
037buses until they have really serve their purpose and beyond their useful life and by doing that you know we're trying to be very responsible with taxpayer sellers the purpose for the air conditioning in the buses is again you know you've all seen the weather changes you know that September has been much warmer we have sports runs that you know there's excessive heat some of our Sports trips start in mid-august um we also transport our own students to the prom and um there are lots of field trips that happen at the end of the year so having the air conditioning means that we don't have to go out and rent those big uh charter buses we can accommodate Those runs ourselves and as Ms bohi said when she was here you know it's much nicer for
038the students who are all decked out on Prom to get on a bus with air conditioning so it's it's really at you know this phase it's not a luxury it's almost a necessity to have buses with our conditions any questions okay thank you so much thank you Mrs Howe so um our interim director of special education Karen Gatto she couldn't be with us this evening so I'm going to uh present the special education information so uh first we see a special education snapshot and this is the information for each of our schools you can see by building the number of students with individual individualized education plans IEPs as well as our special education staff the programs offered the number of support staff in each building and the number of teaching assistants and aides in each
039building so just taking a quick look at the programs offered so at foma road we have integrated co-teaching as well as a special class at the 1212 level resource room and the Wilson Reading Program at Lakeview we have integrated co-teaching and two different size special classes as well as resource room and Wilson Reading Austin Road Again integrated co-teaching as well as two different size special classes then we move into the middle school integrated co-teaching a 12-1-2 resource room Wilson Reading and some tutorials and at the high school integrated co-teaching a 1212 self-contained and resource room so we have 737 students with IEPs spread out amongst our five schools then continuing looking at the programs that we have within the district we have the Falls Academy which houses 20 Middle School age students seven of whom
040are Mahopac residents and the other 13 come from other school districts where we receive Revenue in the form of tuition then we have a program at the high school the high school academy which currently has 38 students enrolled 30 of whom are Mahopac students and eight are tuitioned in from other public schools we also have 57 students in out of District placements so of those placements 28 are at a BOCES placement five of those students are scheduled to graduate in in June of this year 22 students attend private special school placements and seven attend other public school placements and then we have 100 preschool students who receive services from a variety of providers so this school year we're proud of our full Continuum of services that are provided from resource room to special classes as
041I mentioned the special programs at the high school in the middle school as well as a variety of accommodations and resources and supports for our students and their families um the staff the special education staff receive received Crisis Prevention intervention training this year CPI training we've become to uh make the special ed Department more centralized bringing all of our special ed administrators and their clerical staffs over to the fall school so that they have one central location and then from that central location they're able to meet and communicate and then move into the buildings to provide support the foundation's reading program has been put in place as well as the Practical assessment exploration system Lab at the middle school we just are hiring we've already hired a special education chair to assist our secondary special
042education meetings committee on special education and we're in the process of Hiring Our secondary special education administrator we had an individual that left us mid-year and we've been going through the hiring process and that selection should be going before the board within the next month looking ahead to the 23-24 school year we're looking to enhance that full Continuum of services and that means we're looking to add another self-contained special class at the elementary level uh we're also looking to add content area special class at the high school currently we offer two content areas at the high school special class we're looking to add additional content there so that we can meet the needs of the individual students more efficiently we're looking to hire a board-certified behavior analyst a bcba and hire our elementary chair for
043to chair CSE meetings as well as an assistant director and that position was shared at a previous meeting about the new structure of the special education department and we're looking to hire a transition counselor through our Federal Grant and that individual will assist our oldest special education students with connecting with the services that they need as they move from our schools into outside of our schools whether they're turning 18 or 21 there's a lot of services out there to help support them in their independence and job skills and so we're hopeful that we can find someone that can help us bridge that gap for those students and we are projected to return about five students to districts from out of District placements so that does allow us to keep those our students within our district
044so that is definitely a goal of ours A lot of these changes that we've been making or look to make some of them will be in the in the makings for next year and others will be in future years so it's a conversation that's ongoing and I'm very excited about the restructuring of the special education department to provide the support for our students their families and our staff so looking at the special education department budget you can see in the second column the current spending for the 2223 budget and then the third column the 23-24 projected budget so the contractuals going down a little bit because we're looking to replace with some District hires like we mentioned the bcba person but that contractual amount is not going to zero will still be contract Contracting with
045different vendors to provide services to our students and families as needed the BOCES tuition line is going up quite a bit and when we look at the current school year we realized that the budget did not um include an accurate expenditure amount so we were looking at our actual expenditures this year and that three million 26 742 is actually um over 4 million so we recognized that that was under budgeted for 22.23 so in 23 24 it looks like a much bigger jump but it really is reflective of the current it expenses this year plus a percentage increase thrombosis that we that we get from them on an annual basis then you can see private tuition costs and public tuition costs with modest increases traveling conferences dues salaries for CSE related expenses and materials and
046supplies are being budgeted at the same amount as 22.23 so overall that increase in the special education budget from year to year is due to the BOCES tuition costs and making sure that we're planning in the with the correct amount for the 23-24 school year any questions from the board on special education okay now I'd like to uh welcome Michael Trombley our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction and professional learning and he'll talk about that budget as well as the technology budget thank you Miss Tony good evening Board of Education members and the community watching and in public here here at high school I'm pleased to present our curriculum instruction professional learning as well of our technology budget for the 2023-2024 school year as proposed I always view a school budget as a not just a
047balanced statement of costs and revenue but of our beliefs and it's a statement of what we believe in education and what we would like to support through programs and through the Staffing that supports that program and thanks to the community budget approval of our 2223 school budget we were able to add or expand the following programs that you see here starting in 2019 we implemented the teacher College readers Writers Workshop approach to literacy instruction and that has brought cohesion and Alignment to the way that we teach our youngsters from from their kindergarten Year all the way up through eighth grade eventually in terms of literacy ensuring that every student whether they be at Austin whether they be at Lakeview or whether it be at fomer has a similar cohesive literacy education experience experience this year
048we've implemented the reveal math program for our K-8 Katie rate grades that is a program that we brought on last year because the previous program went end of life end of support from the publisher so we had to we had to make a change we brought together a diverse stakeholder group to choose the new program and that program is the backbone but more more so supported by our locally developed scope and sequence for math particularly K-5 that our teachers have developed and reflects our pedagogical beliefs of how we should instruct mathematics additionally we've expanded our Project Lead the Way sequence of engineering at the at the high school and implemented last year the Gateway program which is the middle school version project lead the way for our Middle grades we're continuing to provide rigorous uh
049secondary coursework and elective offerings such as the wise program that you saw earlier this evening and we're also continuing to expand pltw as we speak and other physics-based and engineering-based classes in alignment with the building's vision of what they want to see our graduates leave with Prof in terms of the profile of their education each year since 2019 we put together to further enhance this the highlighting the student outcomes the programmatic experiences and the accolades that our students receive that are supported by our programs and our teachers we've put together an infographic over the past couple years to articulate that I'm not going to go through it in detail here but just know that it is in print and we will have it at future board meetings and at future future events just to highlight
050some of the items that are in there and I want to thank this year for their work on this program I want to thank our high school administration in particular Dr Lawrence Dr Aaron Kleinman our director of guidance Miss Jennifer Diegel who who coordinated some of the work with our with our with our printer and graphic designer and Mr Stephen Luciano and our art and math department I'm sorry art and music chairs is Heather palewick and uh Miss uh excuse me I'm sorry um our art department chair would be thank you Miss O'Brien so I apologize for that so uh they all contributed to the data that went into this infographic uh that highlights over 51 extracurricular activities uh 3927 college credits gained by the class of 2022 so some pretty impressive uh data that
051you'll you'll have the chance to see and you also see some of the varied and exceptional uh post-secondary acceptances into colleges and universities in the class of 202 had thanks in part because of the support of the community uh in terms of our budget so that will be shared with you in Greater detail at a later time in terms of what we're requesting to add in the 2023-2024 proposed budget uh we are con asking to continue to expand in accordance with the plan that was put in place years ago our readers Writers Workshop up to the seventh grade and we will also uh just to project out farther in the 2024-2025 proposed budget we will look to complete that rollout with the eighth grade addition uh to ensure that we have a cohesive and aligned
052literacy program from K to 8th grade we will be looking because we do have a capital pro project that is providing uh updated and renovated library media centers in particular under construction right now we see Austin Road having active construction that we hope that we anticipate being completed by the start of the 2023-2024 school year to support those spaces and also our students in attaining library sciences and also information information literacy expectations we are looking to add a library media specialist to be split between those two buildings with an anticipation once like view is updated as well possibly revisiting adding an additional Elementary uh library media specialist we have wonderful talented and dedicated Library aides who provide access to library materials and push into classrooms but we're looking to enhance that with a certified library
053media Specialists to bring their expertise in terms of developing and delivering lessons of information literacy and um and Library Sciences we also in the in the vein of continuous Improvement which you've seen throughout our budget presentations whether it be programs looking to improve efficiencies whether it be looking to expand programs to better meet the needs of our students or or the the expectation of those programs we continuously look at what we are currently offering and how we're structured to support those offerings and in the in the realm of supporting instructional uh methodologies and deliveries we're looking to redesign in this budget a our instructional coaches and our Building Technology leader positions and most of the costs associated with that are are budget neutral or have no budget costs in general but we do present this
054as part of the proposed budget to demonstrate that our budget is not just a balance sheet it is how we how we support our programs and so looking at that that proposed redesign on the left hand side of the slide you can see that we currently have um each building provided support through the Building Technology leader who in essence provides initial level Technology support initial level technology integration in other words how do we integrate some of the technology tools we have to support instruction and also support of District technology-based initiatives for instance if we find that our server space is running not this this would ever happen but we're running out of server space we coordinate how we may clean that up and the Building Technology leaders would assist our teachers in that initiative so
055that they don't have to do it all on their own and they can focus on some focus on classroom instruction so each building currently has a Building Technology leader including one District level Building Technology leader who supports District level initiatives whether it be updates a web page updates of newsletters those items we also have a K-5 literacy coach that splits their time between between the three Elementary buildings a K-5 steam coach who supports uh I'm sorry divides her time between the three Elementary buildings and a K-5 math coach and their primary roles are to support the teachers within the particular discipline or content area in uh best practice instruction of pedagogy approaches and also with perhaps co-teaching co-planning uh curriculum support in terms of development and and we've seen that we've been able to provide
056our teachers with higher levels of support and ensuring that we can we can make sure that we're implementing best practices through those coaching positions we also have two educational technology Specialists their role is primarily to help teachers integrate and Infuse technology Tools in an appropriate manner so whether that be through co-teaching co-planning demonstration of best practices those two positions exist one at the elementary and one at the secondary level the proposed 2023-2024 configuration we'll see um one steam slash edtech specialist in each building at our elementary levels that's in that's to ensure that each of those students and teachers have uh increased access to that coaching model but additionally we also have new computer science standards that New York state is expecting us to implement uh by 2020 and by 2024 so we want to
057make sure that rather than adding an additional task onto our teachers plates we can have those positions available to support and dedicated one per building we're accomplishing that by collapsing the three stipend positions for the for the building level btls at those Elementary positions we're also looking to add an additional K-5 literacy coach supporting our belief that we know that our students in k-3 are learning to read and then beyond the third grade they're reading to learn so really placing an emphasis on support for our teachers as they provide literacy-based instruction uh and we would uh we would look to keep our six through twelve educational technology Specialists and we would also look to keep our middle school high school and district-wide BTL additionally Kurt our current approach to supporting literacy also involves consultant-based Services
058through the gravity gold gravity Goldberg group through our k-6 program this year each grade level split 81 days of services from that from that consultant we would look to add that second literacy coach in part by reducing some of the Reliance on that consultant service and shifting it to where we see more of a need for supports are k-6 I'm sorry K through five grade levels have received support from gravity's consultant consultant since 2019 so we're looking to supplement their professional learning through the literacy coach which also will be here every day rather than just a certain number of days throughout the year we would still rely on gravity's team for 22 days of consultant day services for those new grade levels that we brought on in the recent past of our sixth and seventh
059grade in addition you can see that we would not look to fund a math coach we would supplement our math professional learning through a boces-based consultant for 20 days at the K-5 level the benefit and we also receive we also use we also receive gravity Goldberg Services through BOCES and the benefit of that is we receive some state aid the following year and if BOCES does have a surplus at the end of the year for their overall budget based upon the participation rate of each district we could see a refund to the general fund of the year but we don't necessarily plan on that but that's just an added benefit our budget but to budget comparison in terms of the major codes that make up our our budget uh in in terms of our offices
060areas of oversight we see a slight increase in our curriculum and development supervision code and that's primarily due to an increase in BOCES Services we plan for BOCES services to increase about two percent each year we do receive more detailed financial data throughout our budget development because they were developing their budget as well and we always view BOCES as a value partner but also a vendor if we can receive a service from a different uh source and it's more financially beneficial to us we would we would also also look at that but we do see a slight increase in some of our contractual Based Services for professional development there our in-service training code our 2070 code will have a slight decrease due to reducing some BOCES Services found in that area and also reducing some
061contractual professional uh in-service training as well our Bosey Central data processing code is a technology-based code that supports our student information system Infinite Campus it supports some of our server-based hosting for our for web-based and database Services it also provides us with State reporting Services we see an increase in their primarily due to the increase in what it costs for server-based hosting that's a cost that is passed on To Us by our provider BOCES and as we have more server space being used and as server space becomes more of a premium they do increase their rates a little bit and then we see our 2630 which is the bulk of our which is the code that provides us with the bulk of our technology-based services whether it be web-based applications software or our Technology support
062staff we do see a slight decrease in that because we look to find some cost that uh cost efficiencies particularly in terms of BOCES contractual services and thank you for the opportunity to present the curriculum instruction professional learning and Technology budget this evening thank you Mr Trombley does the board have any questions for Mr Trombley all right so this next slide um we've looked at before this is our projected 2324 state aid so um it's broken down by different categories so you can see our current state aid budget in the second column then the governor's projected budget for 23.24 and what we're looking at is our projected budget based on what we know about actual expenses so if you look all the way down at the bottom the total Aid less the Pre-K money that
063the state does provide in the state aid run we're looking at 37 million 76 643 dollars which is a slight increase of 2 million seven hundred eighty two thousand seven hundred Seventeen dollar increase that's not really slight it's a almost three million dollar increase over the current year in state aid so this next slide Miss how is shown previously on how the tax levy allowable limit is determined so the entire formula is there that we've reviewed in the past but at the very bottom you can see that the tax levy allowable limit is at 3.71 for the 23-24 school year so then on the next slide everything that we've shared so far and all of our budget presentations which included the input of all of our administrators our building administrators who will be presenting at
064the April meeting we have a proposed budget of 137 million 937 which is a budget to budget increase of 4.15 percent the proposed tax levy is 94 million eight hundred sixteen thousand two hundred thirty eight dollars which represents a 2.81 tax levy increase so that is substantially less than the 3.71 percent allowable tax levy increase and that is in dollars eight hundred thirty six thousand four hundred seventy eight dollars less than what we are able to um present to the community but we're not going to go to that highest level so this budget is a sound budget it provides for all the opportunities for our students in and it increases opportunities for our students as as we've shared uh in special education areas and curriculum areas technology areas we feel that the Staffing changes the
065restructuring of our administrative team of our students support teams steam coaches Building Technology leaders all of that will provide more streamlined support to our buildings to our staff and ultimately to our students so I'm very proud to present this budget to the board of education for consideration next month when budget adoption occurs so next steps April 18th that regular meeting we're going to have all of our building administrators here presenting highlights of the school year and what programs that they'll be looking to offer in 2324 and the board will be considering the entire budget for adoption May 4th is the annual budget hearing and then throughout May until May 16th the budget vote and trustee election between the budget hearing and May 16th I'll be visiting different organizations in the community to share the information
066about the school budget so that everyone can make an informed decision on May 16th so if anyone will be away on May 16th this slide walks you through what you need to do to obtain an absentee ballot and then also as part of the budget vote on May 16th it is the annual trustee election so there are three seats available this year um so the process has already occurred for those that are interested in picking up a petition so you have until April 17th to return your petition if you're interested in running for the board any questions all right thank you thank you so much can you hear me yeah thank you so much for the presentation oh here we go okay thank you for the presentation um some things that came to mind uh
067which we've talked about on numerous occasions was I know our next slides are going to have more information I just want to make sure that enrollment and lovely history we're going to be included with that yes we've already started to work on the presentation for April um for the budget adoption that information will be part of the public hearing and um that'll be comprehensive uh information that pulls information from each of the presentations so far as well as summary information for the next uh meeting in April thank you I'm going to mention that anybody else any other questions so thank you for the presentations on the budget I know it's a lot of numbers uh being thrown out uh slides being seen over and over again it's a lot to digest if you go to
068the district's website um drop down the Board of Education to the district clerks page there is budget information 2324 budget information along with all the other committee reports and so on and so forth is a an outstanding resource if you miss anything or you want to go over it rehash it and take a look at yourself so you have the the information in front of you when it comes time to vote in May so moving on we have comments on agenda items so I would like to call up Marie Frankel INE thank you good evening superintendent and board um so I wanted to talk about the um can I talk all about the budget stuff that just happened or no is that not allowed excuse me okay so one of the things that concerned me
069originally was the the 24.7 increase in the special ed budget and I guess it's even more concerning that we were off almost a million dollars in our BOCES numbers last year like I'm not sure that's like 33 I don't know how we could be off that much um so that that's pretty disturbing and I don't know what happens to that shortage or that has to come into this year I know that fund accounting is different from anything I've ever seen so where does that go does it go into this year where does that million dollars go we we attempt to absorb it all within the current budget so um as you know that um there is with any budget that anyone has you don't spend all of your money um to the dollar so there's
070always some money that's unspent part of that goes towards our fund balance and to uh be part of the revenue to present to the next year's budget Miss how would you like to add to that okay so we can't have a budget freeze for next year instead of like a 4.5 4.15 increase yeah yeah okay I would politely ask that if you can read it okay so the next thing is about the letter I guess my other thing is about the letter that's there that um I guess they want the parents or something to to send to our Representatives that's in the um that'll be discussed that'll be discussed later okay so you'll just so I can't discuss it on so you're going to go through it you can make your statements um you know
071because your talent you're asking uh you know people to commit to this I just want to make sure you're going to go over all the um attributes related to all these things because I have no idea what the you know the 250 million limit for for certain spending how it could be used um the same thing with the health insurance Reserve I have no idea what that is um I think wanting to have free lunches I mean yeah I guess it's great but you know the saying there's never any free lunches so um because I think for people that are in need I think there is federal programs to provide them with free lunches um and since our lunch program is so profitable maybe we could just charge a little bit less for lunches and
072that would sort of accomplish the same thing um the electric bus issue I think is a real is a real problem I don't know whether we should be buying electric buses now if we're going to continue on this um 12-year program I guess we're going to have a bond of 1.3 million dollars every year is that what's anticipated because that's the only way you can buy nine buses a year so um but I'm concerned because I don't think there is the actual charging capacity available electric electric infrastructure and Associated costs before we start purchasing electric buses and I'm also afraid that um you know it'll become a mandate and New York state will threaten to take away our Aid again unless we comply so I'm very concerned about that electorate that's it thank you is
073Frankel there's nobody else correct now okay so we'll get down to the board Business board business for this evening can I please get a motion to accept the treasures report for January 2023. so moved second discussion all in favor aye can I please get a motion to accept the warrants for January 2023. so moved second all in favor a motion please for the to accept the revenue reports for January 2023. second second discussion all in favor motion to accept the budget transfers for January 2023. second discussion all in favor aye motion to accept the claims audit report for January 2023. so move second discussion all in favor motion to accept the work session minutes of February 14 2023. second second discussion all in favor aye a motion to accept the regular regular minutes of February
07416 2023. second discussion all in favor aye and finally a motion to accept uh motion to accept these special meaning minutes of February 28 2023 so second discussion all in favor thank you very much and I will turn it back over to our superintendent Miss Tona for the superintendent's report Ed by Mr Trombley the Austin Road and former Road libraries they're progressing nicely and we anticipate um having substantial completion within the next few weeks and the work will continue during the Spring Break and um there's quite a bit of work scheduled for that week and we will be inviting our architect and construction manager to the May board meeting to provide a thorough update on where we stand with the capital project um safety concerns procedures of the district as a student safety is absolutely
075our top priority I just wanted the community to know that we do have many discussions and reviews of our systems and protocols throughout the school year we partner with our school resource officers to review Systems we work with uh Putnam North Westchester BOCES they have a safety individual that is a tremendous support to us so we definitely review all of our procedures to make sure that everything we do is the best that we can do to promote Safety and Security in the district the capital project and the smart schools Bond will allow us to have double secured vestibules at each of our buildings they exist currently in some locations the other locations will have them by this summer which will allow us to keep our buildings even more secure and we'll we will also have
076card swipe access at our buildings and that will allow staff members the ability to enter certain doors at certain times using their card swipe access so that we can keep doors locked we're also installing door ajar systems so if a door is left open for a few minutes longer than it should be or a few seconds longer than it should be there'll be an alert that our security and administrative Personnel can go in and make sure that the buildings are secure so we're looking forward to those enhancements to the Safety and Security of the district and also proactively to reinforce the dangers of misuse of social media we are planning to bring in a presenter for our students in grades 4 through 12 in mid-april to discuss the dangers of social media and if it's
077misused so more information will be shared with the community soon about that on a positive very happy note our Middle School production of Beauty and the Beast is this weekend so Friday at 7 Saturday at 2 p.m and Sunday at 7 p.m so uh you're looking for a wonderful way to support our students and get some entertainment at the same time please stop by the middle school this weekend congratulations to our coach Tim donahe who was named as section one coach of the year for ice hockey um also as our winter season is complete at the April meeting we'll be recognizing and honoring our student athletes who have substantial achievements uh under their belt for the winter season and the spring season is underway and hopefully it remains spring and our students can continue to
078use our outside facilities they're scrimmaging now and in the next week or so we'll be we'll be having games outside so hopefully the weather stays nice and warm so that we can all be outside and cheer on our students and finally tonight the Board of Education will vote to accept the resignation for the purpose of retirement assistant superintendent for human resources Deborah legato so I'm very grateful for the opportunity to work with Mrs Legato during my first year in Mahopac her knowledge and support have been so invaluable on behalf of the entire Mahopac Central School District we are appreciative of your service to our students staff and community congratulations on your upcoming retirement and I am very happy that you will be with us for the remainder of this school year and we know where
079to find you and we have a question so thank you so much and congratulations then atona we now have our board our committee reports um I'll start with the HR committee the committee met on March 7th from 6 pm to 8 P.M president or myself president dullo trustees masafra and Martinez assistant superintendent Legato and superintendent Tona we discussed the tonight's HR agenda future pending 10-year candidates which is a lengthy list recent appointments resignations and leave requests as I mentioned earlier we adjourned at 8 pm I'll move on to all right the advocacy minutes trustee McCracken could not be here tonight so I will read his statement he could not uh do the work he could not make it so he does apologize the advocacy committee met on Thursday March 9th 7 15 pm at the
080fall School PD room president or superintendentona uh trustee mccrack in the chair president dullo and the community the Community Committee members the advocacy committee suggestion box submissions were reviewed and priorities for the New York state budget were discussed thanks to superintendent Tony's input and thoughtful deliberation from members of the committee a budget board letter was created a resident template and a resident phone script these roll on tonight's agenda if approved by the board they'll be placed on the advocacy committee page which is under the Board of Education tab on the district's website any Resident can use these resources to advocate for the needs of our district and our kids the priorities my whole pack is advocating for in this year's state budget is such a postponement of the mandate to implement electric busting eliminate limitations
081on the 250 million dollar high impact tutoring one-year set-aside Foundation Aid State funding for school resource officers to support school and student safety legal allowance for school districts to establish a health insurance Reserve and free lunches for students we encourage residents we encourage all residents to get involved and send letters email and call our state legislators using the resources the district is the district is excited uh and proud to provide to you respectfully submitted trustee Tanner McCracken and that is all we have for advocacy next up we have facilities yeah so facilities also met on the that's on the 7th of March 4 30 in that area we adjourned around six uh at the meeting where uh myself trustee Martin Martinez and um Savino as well as our facilities director Mr Walsh is tone in
082this house most of the meeting we spent really discussing kind of how the capital project was going in general um we did to get these some great pictures for the Austin Road we're excited to uh hopefully get out there in an April meeting and take a look at how we're going and uh and hopefully we can finish this thing up this year get through the rest of our our Capital Improvement Center honorable thank you Mr Faro next we have senior trustee Mustafa with our finance committee report good evening everyone the finance committee met on March 9th and in attendance was myself superintendent Christine Tona assistant superintendent Christine Christina Howe uh or president benzalulo and Adam Savino I don't know why before they post on it the committee reports sorry about that for some of the
083things we discussed on March 9th was we we discussed the purchase order process and payments um for uh ordering food and for District staff meetings we also reviewed um some warrants applications Department we discussed and reviewed the presentation that was given this evening um we reviewed the tax delivery rate and recommendations and we discussed revisiting the tax story we also discussed to review the budget via an interactive Excel spreadsheet and we talked about discussing that at our next work session which is still to be determined thank you thank you very much for that report technology it's great when it works when it doesn't yeah that's it uh so with that um as mentioned in the advocacy minutes I have three resolutions uh which I'll Now read upon recommendation of the ad hoc advocacy committee the
084Mahopac Central School District Board of Education hereby approves the New York state budget advocacy letter and authorized authorizes district clerk to send um to send on behalf of the Board of Education and place same on advocacy webpage of the mcsv website getting a motion to approve please so moved second discussion all in favor aye next we have the resident phone script and letter upon recommendation of the ad hoc advocacy committee the Board of Education of the Mahopac Central School District hereby approves the resident New York state budget letter and Resident New York state budget phone script and authorizes district clerk to place on the ad hoc advocacy webpage I have a motion to approve second second discussion all in favor all right all the information is on the will be on post on the advocacy
085webpage on the advocacy committee webpage as well as what I just read finally have um settlement I'm sorry one more I skipped the line yeah okay about that all right resolved at the Board of Education hereby approves the terms of a disciplinary settlement agreement between employee um an employee and the Mopac Central School District and authorizes the superintendent of schools design can I have a motion to approve it's all moved second discussion all in favor all right this would be an MOA we resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the Board of Education here by approves the memorandum of agreement between the Mahopac Central School District and the United school workers of my whole pack Union regarding agreement with employee and employee had a motion to approve so moved second discussion all in
086favor aye all right I'm going to turn it over quick to senior trustee Mustafa for a to read a donation resolve the Board of Education hereby accepts the grant for 2 477.78 from the fund for excellence in education fund of the community foundations of the Hudson Valley to support the artistic prophets make history at Austin Road Elementary motion to approve second second discussion all in favor aye that motion to approve tonight's consent agenda so moved second discussion all in favor aye okay now it's time for public comment um we've all heard the guidelines before um respectful uh try and keep the three time three minute time limit a lot of for individual public comments um address the president of the board conduct herself in a civil manner um I've seen language level of statements threats
087of violence statements advocated racial religious or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated um personal attacks or criticisms of any person connected with the district will not be permitted so with that I will refer to District cleric loraca we have resident comments Ava can you please come up so good evening to the board of education and community members my name is Eva vanortwick and today I'm here to discuss the idea of book Banning that has surrounded our community since late last year I've been to a lot of board meetings and I've even spoken at a few but the one issue that has always caught my attention has been the questioning of reading material within our district while I can understand from a parental perspective the want to protect children from what may seem like
088vulgar and violent content which is rightfully so Banning or restricting access to Books available to all students in our school libraries is not the way to go about this issue today I want to start by thanking the Board of Education my teachers and the Librarians at the high school Miss Berkowitz and Ms fabaro for their commitment to furthering student education through literature especially with techs that have been controversial from one point in time from putting together committees to thoughtfully review books and having constant commitment to keeping diverse Techs in our district I know I wouldn't be here speaking today without Educators like these who ensure students like me their Right to Read as many community members have mentioned literature should not only be a mirror to reflect our own experiences but a door that opens
089our minds to the experiences of others books like The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and all boys are blue by George M Johnson are just two books like many that tell the stories of experiences we don't typically get to hear about in mayopath I've been able to read books like the hate U give by Angie Thomas and Looking for Alaska by John Green and gained so many New Perspectives on topics important to our world today from mental health to equality I've had the honor of listening to authors like ibrahamex candy and Nick Stone speak about their books stamped and dear Martin that changed the way I go about thinking and dealing with complex topics that I've barely been exposed to within May pack the six books I just mentioned have been or are being reviewed
090by our school board based on Snippets of text pointed out by those who have completely missed the purpose and benefit of these novels I've heard Snippets of Sarah J Maas romance novels read aloud in this Auditorium to straight lists of curse words used in various books that have a much more complex meaning what I feel to be missing from these comments is the value that these books have provided for me that allowed me to be The Confident young woman I am which would be taken away from students who may need these novels even more than I do to find out more about themselves if they don't remain within our school district for a diverse Community all students need to have a diverse reading material that means no restrictions based on age suggestions or content as
091reading has always remained near and dear to my heart it has become more and more important to so many others relaxing it could be agreed it could be restricted in our schools because of that both myself and all the other offices that are part of senior and executive Student Government at mapac high school wrote a letter to the Board of Education expressing our student perspective as well as created an online petition to Garner support for this issue we feel is so important in our community as of today 321 450 students teachers friends family and community members have signed this petition with the same goal in mind of keeping all literature available within our district an overwhelming number of people commented on our petition alumni students parents all voice their opinions the consensus being that reading
092is crucial to understanding representation equality empathy and is essential to Freedom I can imagine many in this room feel the same way so I wanted to come and speak tonight on behalf of the MHS Student Government my friends my family and all 450 of those people that signed our petition dedicated to making sure I diverse a diverse student education perseveres on behalf of many students in our district I implore the board to take into consideration the student and Community perspective when it comes time in May to make a final decision on books being reviewed and I urge our community to do the same when thinking about a book they may feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable with thank you so much for your time and consideration thank you Ava okay so that concludes our meeting for tonight
093I have one more please come up uh good evening to the board and I really want to thank you for your time my name is Maxine van nortwick I'm a junior and amongst other things I really enjoy literature I've been joining The Works of Charles Dickens Joan Didion Maya Angelou and so many other greats since I learned how to read books have shaped who I am today and have led me on a very successful path in life Animal Farm by George Orwell showed me that ordinary individuals have the power to create change and the dangers of an abuse of power Looking for Alaska by John Green showed me how teens can cope with grief loss and ever-growing expectations the hate U give by Angie Thomas showed me life from New Perspective and to fight for
094what you believe in these books shape might me and my beliefs and I wouldn't be who I am today without them yet as the board is aware these are the ones being banned in our district books such as the aforementioned are actively being banned around the country the important messages and lessons in these books are being overlooked because of prejudice surrounding their content the majority of Pros being banned does not discuss the lives of heterosexual CIS white people but of marginalized communities books about our differences our most important quality are being ousted by Banning books with New Perspectives on different people and their ways of life we are not preventing our children from seeing these people banning all boys aren't Blue by George M Johnson does not prevent a child from learning about transgender people
095and exploring gender themselves it simply delays it our world is so connected that there is no way a child can grow up without being exposed to people that differ from the quote-unquote norm just because someone doesn't look like you does not mean they don't deserve to be seen I've learned about different communities and their experiences in these books I've become more empathetic when I learn about the history of marginalized people in these books I learned more about myself and who I identify as in these books Banning literature is simply because of a disapproval of a minority shows is it completely disregards the point of reading literature is about the meaning the lesson and the knowledge you gain to carry you further into life if the hate U give had gone banned countless kids would not
096experience the story of fighting for what is right and the institutions that fight against the people they're supposed to help every day when Animal Farm was banned more than 50 years ago children simply complied with abuses of authority and never learned they had a voice if Looking for Alaska gets banned people will fail to understand that being themselves is okay and that getting the help you need is not a bad thing to the board when making these decisions on the books I ask that you think of those who will be reading them if parents choose to stop their child from reading books that is up to them but the ideas of one should not determine the fate of the many our students deserve the chance to read about others and experience different walks of life
097thank you so much for your time and have a good evening thank you very much and thank you for for getting up and speaking I know it's difficult um it's wonderful to see our students be able to come up and present so eloquently on such a hot topic not only do we have anybody else before I jump ahead Okay so one last thing I'd like to mention one of the changes we made recently was or pot where to locate our policies quick tutorial we talk a lot about policies at the meetings easiest way to get to them now they're located in board docs from the home page for the district click on Board of Education scroll down to board Docs um anthropovic site and on the top right you'll see a drop down for policies
098and they're all listed there numerically um and you can search them search for them that way easy way to find them reference them sometimes we mention policy numbers if you're not familiar with it this is the place to find them so with that I would like to make a motion to close the meeting so moved second all right all in favor all right thank you all for coming and have a great night we'll see you next month