001Good evening. I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the board of education. Today is Wednesday, November 5th, 2025. Please stand for the pledge of it stands nation for all. >> [clears throat] >> At this time, I'm looking for a motion to go into executive session to this personnel. >> Motion. >> Second. All in favor? >> I. >> Motion carries. like to welcome everyone back to the regular meeting of the board of education. Is there a motion to return to regular session? >> Second. >> All in favor? I >> I We're back in our regular meeting of the board of education. Today is Wednesday, November 5th, 2025. Please rise again for the pledge to the flag. I pledge I pledge algiance flag United States of America and to the republic for it stands
002one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all. >> Good evening and welcome to our middle school. My name is Gabriel Baringer Himenez and I am an eighth grader. We are grateful for the opportunity to recognize and thank our board of education members for their vital work on behalf of our school, our community. I would now like to invite members of our student council and my friends and Madison Joseph to lead us. Now I would like to introduce our principal. [applause] >> Good evening. Good evening. We are pleased to share a special performance by our chamber choir. They will represent they will present one music out of tonight's meeting. a reflection of the dedication, talent, and commitment our students bring everything they do. I want to thank Brian Clark for conducting the choir this
003and for his continued work nurturing our students. We also extend our sincere appreciation to camp and the music department, the student council, the national society and the entire district office their ongoing support and collaboration. [clears throat] Finally, thank you all. for joining for joining us tonight, for being part of our middle school community, and for representing our district. Thank you. [applause] Thank you again to our board of education members for your service. Please enjoy this special special musical performance. from our chamber. I'm going to go down. and she >> [music] >> Happy >> [applause] [applause] >> Thank you again for visiting our middle school. We hope to see you again. [applause] >> [applause] >> Thank you. That was absolutely beautiful. I'm going to open up the meeting with the memorial resolution. for Dr. Michael J.
004D. Geronimo unanimously adopted by the Monroe Woodbury Board of Education at its regular meeting on Wednesday, November 5th, 2025. Whereas Dr. Michael J. Deronimo was a member of the board of education for the Monroe Woodbury Central School District from 2007 through 2013. And whereas through his dedication to the district, Michael has touched the lives of many individuals in our district. It is hereby resolved that the board of education on behalf of the entire district extends a memoriam appreciation and gratitude as well as its sincere condolence to the Djonal family. As the above resolution is adopted by the board, it will become part of the official historical records of the district and will serve as a memorial lasting for all time. Is there a motion to accept the resolution? >> Motion. >> Second. All in favor?
005>> I. >> Motion carries. >> Okay. And a reading of our mission statement. We are committed to academic achievement and success for all students in a safe environment in partnership with families in our community. Our mission is to promote confidence, inspire passion for learning, and to prepare our students to become responsible global citizens. Is there an approval? A motion for the approval of the revised agenda? Motion >> second. >> All those in favor? >> I motion carries. >> Uh there is no update on questions or comments raised from interested citizens. And we do have a speaker signed up for questions from interested citizens. >> Koban, are you here? No. Okay. That brings us to the presentation of the 2024 25 external audit by Scott Oling. Don, do you mind if I say a few words
006sort of introduce uh Mr. Holing? So, as you may or may not know, in New York State, school districts are required to annually uh secure an independent audit. Um, in this case, it's an external audit of our financial records, including the extra classroom fund. And, um, report this information to the New York State Education Department, the state controller, and uh, this information is obviously important not only to the board and the community, but it also in some cases can drive our state aid for the upcoming year. So, with us tonight is Scott Olan, our audit partner with PFK O'Conor Davies, our external auditor. And I didn't realize VIB is also uh with with Scott, the uh uh audit manager as well. And um so they're going to talk about the audit report for the 2425
007year and a little in some some depth uh the results of last year. Um, and I'd also just like to take a moment to thank uh both our audit partners here with PF PFK Oconor Davies and also our business office staff and our treasurer Michael Buffamonte for uh preparing us for the audit this year. Audits are a lot of work to get ready for there. It's sort of an invasive process or looking back at everything you've done in the in the past year and I think everyone did an outstanding job. I think we were uh well organized and I think the audit went very smoothly. So, thank you very much. And with that, I'll turn it over to you, Scott. Thank you. >> Thank you, Patrick. Good evening, everyone. >> Uh, everyone should have a
008uh copy of uh this year's uh audit report that we provided uh to the district uh both hard copy forms and electronically. Even though we prepare uh the audit report on behalf of the district, the only part that belongs to us as your audit firm is the auditor's opinion, which appears after the table of contents at the beginning of the report. We've issued what's known as a clean opinion or an unmodified opinion on the district's financial statements. Meaning that we believe the financial statements fairly present what happened in the district uh from a financial perspective uh for the year that ended June 30, 2025. In addition to the audit report uh we have also provided you we also do an audit of all the extra classroom activity funds activities. There's a separate report for that
009and we also issue a communication letter on any uh you know uh deficiencies or or issues that we have uh with uh the finance department's uh operations. So with that what I would uh take you to is the uh general fund which appears on page 57 of the audit report. Page 57 is uh the income statement the revenues and expenses for the district in its general fund. Now the district operates a variety of funds. It has a general fund. It has a capital projects fund for the uh numerous capital projects that are ongoing or about to be ongoing. You have a special aid fund which accounts for any federal or state uh grant monies. You have school lunch fund and and so forth. But I'm just going to focus our time tonight on the general
010fund because that's the fund that the voters each year approve uh for you uh as your uh plan uh for operations uh for the following fiscal year when they approve that in the spring each year. So page 57 is the income statement, the revenues and expenses for the district. It's presented in a format uh required by uh the state education department and also generally accepted accounting principles. It's a budget to actual uh presentation. And if we start at the top, you see uh the revenues that support your operations here. Uh those revenues in total, you could see were estimated at about $222.6 million. You have two primary drivers of your revenues. It's the levy of property taxes uh to residents and and businesses within uh the school district's boundaries and also state aid. Uh those
011are your two primary revenue sources. So when we look at this, you could see that basically the budget for property taxes was approximately $127 million. Uh and that pretty much comes in on budget. There are some adjustments that that made it come in uh slightly lower. Within the next item of revenue there, that other tax items line included within that is uh the star money that comes to the district. Those are funds that are credited on certain homeowners property tax bills if they qualify for it. uh and instead of those folks paying uh the property taxes to you, New York State essentially pays a portion of their property taxes directly uh to the school district. Other homeowners have the star money paid directly to them and they pay the full uh property tax bill. So
012between the property tax number and the star number, the total property tax levy for this year was approximately $131.4 million. Last year it was 129.1. So that was an increase of about 2.3 million or about 1.8%. Uh so you were within uh you know the property tax cap uh limits uh for your uh levy adjustment this past year. And then your other uh big revenue of course is the state aid that that you get. And the good news for the district this year is you could see on the state aid line where you had budgeted to collect approximately $88.8 million in state aid payments. you actually collected uh 93.6 million uh in state aid payments. So you did $4.8 million better than your plan for state aid uh revenues this year. And the other big
013variance in the revenues also to the good was on the line called use of money and property which is essentially interest earnings. And you could see on that line you generated over $5 million or approximately 4.7 million better uh than your plan. I would expect this number to probably begin going down in the current year. As you all know, the Federal Reserve has started cutting interest rates uh at their last two meetings and look like they may continue uh that going forward. So uh everybody's interest earnings are going to you know most likely decline this year. So overall, when you look at revenues, they came in at a total of 233.9 million. So compared to your budget estimate of 222.6 million, you have a positive variance on the revenue side of about 11.3 million or
014about 4%. In the middle of the page is what you spent those resources on. In the first group of spending, it's what's known as general support uh spending. These are the administrative type functions of the district. Primarily buildings and grounds type costs, but costs like the business office, superintendent's office, generally all administrative type costs for the district. Uh you could see the spending this year was about 26 million in the in the actual column. And there's also about $5 million of things called incumbrances in the fourth column. Those are purchase orders that just were not finished uh prior to the end of the year. Most of it's in the central services or buildings and grounds area and that's because a lot of that work is done over the summer uh when when the students aren't
015here. So most of that will have already been spent in in the current year. Uh some of these costs were were overall an increase from the prior year. Uh this group of expenses was up about $1.3 million and a lot of that had to do uh with some security additional security costs if I remember correctly. Um and uh you did have some savings in judgments uh certain settlements that you had to make in the prior year. Uh those were down somewhat uh this year compared to last year. The middle section of expenses there is the instruction expenses. So this is essentially why you're in business. These are essentially the direct program costs. The cost for teacher salaries, guidance counselors, principles, pens, pencils, smartboards, and anything that's uh classroom related. And you could see these costs
016came in at uh just under $115 uh million dollars uh this year. Uh you did have increases in certain uh costs related to health services, psychological services, and the rest really has to do with increases in special education costs and then just normal contractual labor increases, salary increases uh for your certified staff, uh step increases, and and so forth. the next line, pupil transportation. The cost to operate the buses for the district over $20 million and and you spent just under $20 million this year. Uh some contract transportation costs were up this year by about a million and a half year overyear. And then the other big cost for this district and all districts is employee benefits. Uh the benefits that you provide your employees legally or contractually. uh you spent uh just over $53
017million in uh benefits this year. That includes pension benefits, health benefits, workers compensation, FICA, those kinds of things. Uh the big increase this year in employee benefits uh was uh like for everybody else was in the area of health uh insurance coverage. Those costs rose by over $1.5 million uh this year compared to the prior year. But there was also increases in pension costs. The state raised the pension contribution rates on everybody and so everybody has to pay a higher percentage of salaries. So total expenses came in as you could see at about $218 million. So when we get down to the very bottom of this uh chart, you see a couple of numbers here. Uh in the first column in the original budget that the voters approved, there was a shortfall expected of $3.5
018million. That's a planned shortfall. Some of it was the rollover of purchase orders from the prior year. The rest was using fund balance to help lower property taxes. That number was revised as you could see in the final budget from 3.5 million to 23.8 million. That had to do with uh the authorization that the voters gave you and that the board approved to transfer approximately $19.5 million to your capital project fund and use that money towards uh the voter approved $98 million capital improvement plan. Ultimately, those operating funds will reduce what you have to borrow for that project and save the district, you know, millions of dollars in in interest costs going forward. So, what that means this year though is by transferring that money in the actual column, what you see is that the
019net change in fund balance, the third number up from the bottom, fund balance for the general fund this year declined $5.9 million. Your fund balance went down. in your savings account went down 5.9 million starting the year it started the year at 60.3 million and so you end the year with total fund balance of as you could see 54.4 million. If I have you turn one more page to page 47, you're going to see a breakdown of exactly what that $54 million in your savings account uh represents. If we start at the top of the general fund column on this page, 3.1 million of that is money that's set aside for things known as prepaid items. So sometimes in June you have to pay for things that are really for the next year. Some health
020insurance uh costs, some uh welfare fund costs and and so forth. They're not expenses of the 2425 year, but because the cash already went out the door, we set that portion of fund balance, your savings account aside. Uh for that, the big portion of your fund balance is in the next group. It's in the restricted group where you have 35 almost 36 million of your total $54 million fund balance. I believe that's about 2/3 of your total fund balance. Hopefully I'm doing the math right. I'm out of school. um $36 million is set aside for these restricted items. Restricted items are established under New York State general municipal law or New York State education law, but none of these exist without board action. So, you operate under that umbrella of what's allowed by New York
021State. So, when you take a look at this $36 million, $1.6 6 million's been set aside for workers compensation claims uh that you would have to fund. Uh that was an increase of about 70,000 from last year. Some interest earnings earned on those funds. You have money set aside for unemployment benefits uh in the neighborhood of 400,000. Had some interest earnings added to that. This year you have money set aside in a tax circuitari reserve $6.7 million. Uh the board authorized an increase to that reserve of $2 million uh during this past year uh at your board meetings towards the end of the fiscal year and so you did increase what you have set aside there. This helps you pay tax or sherari claims should they come through rather than having to borrow money and
022incur interest costs uh to pay for those. Then you've set aside 4.9 million for contributions to the employees retirement system. you added uh by board action $900,000 to that in the current year plus interest earnings. Again, that's available to help pay your employee retirement system pension bill. If the pension system raises rates and jacks things up, uh you have money to to take from there. TRS retirement, you have 5.4 million set aside. That's for the teachers retirement system. And again, on this one, there was just some interest earnings added to that this year, but again, that covers your bigger pension bill uh that you pay uh for teachers. 1.5 million is set aside for property loss and liability. This is essentially self-insured uh type claims that you might have to pay for. And again, uh
023the board authorized putting in uh the million half dollars this year. the employee benefit acrewed liability reserve of 7.7 million is basically vacation or sick time that are owed to your staff. Uh so that money is set aside. So when you have folks retire uh and leave the district uh this is the pot of funds that you could pull that from to pay those obligations. And then uh the big number here is the future capital projects reserve $7.6 million. This is the one I I spoke of earlier where you took the 19.5 million out of to fund a portion of your big capital project that's going on. The voters authorized this reserve about seven eight years ago. If I have my timing right, they had approved you over time putting $40 million into this reserve.
024And to date, you have contributed approximately $30 million to date. So you have 10 more million in in the future over the next couple of years that you could put in if you have the resources to do so. It's earned some interest over these years and you've used a total of $24 million uh since its inception uh towards capital projects. So uh you know very strong uh position there uh for the reserve for capital projects. So that's the total 36 million of fund balance that's restricted. You then have assigned fund balance purchase orders of about $5.6 million. Those are purchase orders similar to this past year, mostly in buildings and grounds to do work over the summer. Then what you did was you gave back to taxpayers 1.4 million of your savings account in property
025tax relief in the budget that you're in right now. So you adopted a budget where you expected to spend 1.4 million more than what you would take in. You said we have this, you know, savings account. We have fund balance. We will give this back to the taxpayers in the form of a lower property tax levy because otherwise you would have had to increase taxes an additional $1.4 million to balance your spending plan or cut spending $1.4 million. So that's what that is for. So what you're really left with out of $54 million is the 8.2 million in unassigned. That is what we call your free and clear fund balance. That amount is not allowed to be more than 4% of your next year's budget. And in your case, it actually represents only three and
026a half%. So you are, I believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of about a million two million four lower than what you can be in there. But you can only have in there what what you have in there after you've uh allocated stuff uh to everything else. So, with that, that's basically everything I have regarding the uh the district's uh general fund operations. I'd be glad to take a break and and take any questions that anybody has. >> Scott, I have a question. Um, with the rates going down, do you foresee the pension fund requiring more funding because earnings will be down? >> You would have to talk to the actuaries of the system. The way my understanding of the way the pension both systems ERS and TRS work is they kind of use a five-year
027smoothing. So they don't want big variations yeartoear. So they kind of take a five-year look at things but yes and and remember they are not just in you folks are only allowed to be in basically cash accounts or or class or very conservative investments. They're invested in the stock market international. you know, you could you could look up the pension systems and see what they're invested in. >> So, so yes, if if their earnings go down, if the stock market goes down, the valuation of what they own goes down over a five-year period, yes, they would they would increase rates. As as I indicated this year, the rate was for teachers was about 10.1%. So, for every dollar that you pay a teacher, 10 cents you pay also to the pension system. years ago that
028that rate was almost 20%. So imagine having to budget double what you budgeted this year just for a pension contribution. So that is something that you know hopefully will not happen. Thank you. [clears throat] Does anyone have any more questions for Scott? >> Well, thank you very much. >> Have a good evening every Okay. Is there a motion for a resolution to accept the external audit report? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Motion carries. Next is the approval of minutes from the September 17, 2025 meeting. Is there a motion? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. Motion carries. Next is policy manual updates for policy 1120R and 5500R. would you like to speak to that? >> Good evening. Um policy committee discussed these two policies that were presenting first
029meeting both have to both deal with the district records regulation. Um the first one 1120R deals with who is in who is in charge of getting the records um accessing the records and the appropriate procedure for um getting the records to the person requesting them. Second regulation 550R uh deals with what can be deleted or redacted from the records for sake of data privacy. So th this is this is an attempt to bring the 1120R and 55R in terms of compliance with the adlaw 2D part 121. So both policies in general talk about how this will be a lot more in compliant. Before this two policies they were separate. Now the state is or are or we're trying to bring it all together and then enforce it in appropriate way. 1120 talks about the records
030access officer how the records being accessed. Uh 55R talks about obligation under FURPA uh for our school district. um inspect, review the records, what are the exemption to the fura and then retention and disposition of the student records under the local and government local and governmental situational LGS1. >> Thank you. Are there any questions? Okay, thank you. We'll be on for a second reading at our next meeting. Next for personnel, Mr. Burgerer. >> Hi, good evening. I am respectfully requesting consideration of approval for personnel items 12.1 through 12.20. >> Any questions? Is there a motion? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. Motion carries for business and financial. Mr. Cahill. >> Thank you. I also respectfully request approval of business [clears throat] and financial items 13.1 through 13.10. >> Questions. >> Motion.
031>> Second. All in favor? >> I motion carries. >> Going to go a little bit off uh script here with the agenda and turn to our student board representative >> for her report. >> All right. Good evening everyone. Happy Wednesday. Firstly, I wanted to say it's great to be back in the middle school after so many years since coming to the high school. So, thank you to the middle school for hosting us and the musical performance from the kid was amazing. They are very very talented. Um, these past couple of weeks a lot has been done. I visited two schools. Pine Tree on Friday, October 17th at North Main on Wednesday, October 22nd. Thank you for those two schools for having me. I had a wonderful time meeting all the kids. They were very excited
032and engaged once we started getting into the visit and they answered all my questions really well. So I met with about 20 kids at each school with about four kids give or take in each grade grades second to fifth. Uh the way I did these visits were with a slideshow presentation so that I could catch the students attention with colors and images so they're engaged. I first introduced myself what I was there for my role and I also tried to get to know kids a little bit better so I could ask them questions and get their opinions about the school. To do that, I formed the questions as small games so they wouldn't be too overwhelmed by just like being attacked by questions by me. So the first part was the game where they would
033give me either a thumbs up or a thumbs down based on certain questions that were asked. And the questions I asked were first, I enjoy coming to school in the morning. I feel safe here at school with older adults. I have fun learning at school and I feel comfortable talking to my teacher. And also a fun question they will all agree on. Lunch and recess time should be longer. When they put their thumbs they so after that they would put their thumbs in the air either up or down. And I would ask about three to five students to explain exactly why they answered the way they did for each question. For these questions there were a lot of positive answers and a lot of thumbs up. Students at both Pine Tree and Nort Main said
034that they felt very safe with the adults like teachers and security guards. They also stated that they had a lot of fun learning which was great. For a few things that did receive a thumbs down were that a couple kids didn't like waking up too early in the morning 8:00 a.m. or they felt comfortable talking to a friend rather than a teacher. But I made sure that they all know that adults in this building are there to listen and help them whenever needed. I also noticed that Maine, most students enjoyed math and science classes rather than reading and writing. But at Pineery, it was quite the opposite where most students enjoyed reading and writing rather than Matt and science. So that was kind of opposition. The next segment of the presentation were 10 questions I
035asked and then I also called on a couple kids to answer. The first question was, "What was your favorite part about school?" Pine Tree students said that their favorite part was the new playground in the library while Nort students said that their favorite parts are seeing their friends and also learning in their classes. The second question was what are you looking forward to in school? Pine Tree students said gym class and their concerts while Nort students said their musical instruments and activities which were pretty similar. Third question, do you find it easy to talk to your classmates and or friends? Pineree found it very easy to talk to their classmates and friends. Nort students did agree, but a student specifically pointed out they enjoy talking to their classmates and friends more than adults because their
036friends get them a little bit more than adults do. The only thing they find a bit hard is to talk to some of their friends in other classes. The fourth question, what was your favorite thing to learn? Pine tree was a mix of everything, but a couple of them did say that their least favorite subject was math. While Nort said reading, writing, math, but mainly science, and also other classes like gym, music, and art. Those elective classes they really liked. Uh, what do you like or dislike about school? Pine Tree said that they like recess, lunch, writing, and the teachers. Pine trees did state that sometimes certain water fountains at school didn't work. and Nort said that they um like seeing their friends and playing sports, but they don't really like how loud some students
037could be. And I also noticed that Normine also stated that the water fountain can be a bit of a tassel for them like Pine Tree. The next question that was asked was what makes a good teacher? Both Pine Tree and Nortain students said that teachers have to be reasonable, explain the problems, not just restate them. Listen to their students. Don't yell that much. Make sure everyone is on the right track and help students who may be struggling compared to that class. Following up that question, I asked what makes a good student. Pine tree and main students both said that a student with a good teacher that is respectful with appropriate matters, kind, listens, and doesn't talk or yell out constantly, which I'm very happy they do know the characteristics of both a good teacher and
038a good student. The next question was, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Pine Tree students said a mix of things like a fashion designer, entertainer, doctor, hair stylist, chef, interior designer, scientist, vet, director, marine biologist, lawyer, soccer player, and not just one group of jobs or completely unrealistic, which was really nice. Mort also said a good mix like baseball player, WWE wrestler, Broadway star, an author, a business owner, soccer player, football player, rappers, a scientist or restaurant owner, a molecular biologist event and I found that at it's a good thing since at a young age they're already thinking about what things they could pursue and not just complete fantasy things like a princess or a fairy or things like that. Uh question nine, who do you talk to if you feel
039sad or have a problem? Pine students mainly said their parents, but they are in fact aware that they can talk to a trusted adult in the building. New mean students said mainly teachers and staff, but a student did say they also like to write what they are feeling down, which I thought was a very smart action for someone in that age group. Uh the last question I had was finish the sentence. I wish We had blank. Pine tree students said that things like more research, more activities in school, more celebration. So I basically from that got that they want to get together as a school more and start celebrating. Nine also said a mix of more breaks to talk to friends, more matt time, more breaks in the day to learn things you enjoy, and
040also more classroom and hallway space because they mention it's a bit clustered in the hallways. Um, the next thing I did was just a quick game of would you rather so they didn't feel too nervous and I also answered a couple questions they had for me whether it's about my position about the middle school or high school or just my life in general and that was the end of my visit. One thing I did learn from my visit was that Pineree had the system called PBIS, which stands for positive behavior intervention system, which which is a positive behavior program where the kids at Pine Tree can earn heart tickets for making good choices. This can be either in the classroom, the hallway, at lunch, basically anywhere around the school. The students collected these tickets and
041kept them in their classroom piggy bank. And once the classroom reached 100 tickets, then the classroom gets a heart on a tree. Not an actual physical tree, by the way. And once there are 100 hearts on a tree, then there is a schoolwide reward and celebration. When this was explained to me, I really like this idea since when I went to Pine Tree, I didn't have this. But it also really reinforces kids to be positive and do good things at a young age, especially with a reward system. um that same positive energy and good deeds can easily lead them to have the same approach in life when they do grow up and move up onto other schools in the district like the middle school or the high school. But I also learned that only Pineree
042has the system going and not the other two to five schools. So that idea gets a quick shout out because I think it's a really smart way to encourage kids. Another thing that did come up to me is that a student in one of the second to fifth grade schools told me about a holiday he celebrates called Eid because he's Muslim. One thing he told me is that he wishes for to have Eid off school districtwide so he could celebrate the holiday with his family because he does he says he does not have enough time to celebrate this holiday. I looked into it and Eid is a Islamic holiday signifies the end of Ramadan which is a month of fasting for the religion. The holiday is celebrated through prayers and family gatherings. This situation also
043came up before the school year in high school with two girls, one currently a junior and one currently a sophom senior about also having Eid off from school district as well. I did confirm with them and they do in fact know that their attendance will be an excuse to celebrate the holiday and there is a prayer space available in the high school but they reason and express to me that they are still worrying about school their grades and catching up on this works which makes them lose focus on the actual celebration. I've also been hearing about wanting off from students for the last past two years before I was even in this position. From this information situation, I want to ask more students in the district who celebrate this holiday about it and to get
044accurate information numbers to see how many students are really affected by this. Switching topics, um, last meeting I brought up a Google form survey I made that was posted a high school for the fall. Since that time, that same survey was also posted to the middle school with 69 high school students and 176 middle school students filling it out since I last looked this morning. Since the survey could possibly get more responses, I plan to have this up until the winter and hopefully send out another one then and then a final one in the spring. I wanted to quickly thank the high school middle school principles, Mr. McGiller and Mr. Vasquez for helping me send out the survey and get responses. For the high school students that did answer the survey, 33% of them were
045in nth grade, 22% intent, 23% 11, and 21% in 12. So almost evenly split, 25% in each grade. For the middle school students that answered, about 19% of them were in six, 32% in seven, 49% in eight. And for now, all I want to share is the first question and I eventually will share the other questions later and their response when the form closes out just in case anyone else wants to fill it. The first question states, on a scale of 1 to five, how was the start of the school year been so far with one being pretty difficult so far and five being smooth sailing? The high school survey also states that 2% of the students give a one, 9% of students give a two, 30% of students give a three, 42% of students
046give a four, and 18% of students give a five, which is all in all pretty good. After doing some analyzing, ninth graders mainly give fours. 10th graders mainly give threes. 11th graders mainly give threes as well. And also 12th graders mainly give threes. But all the grades mainly skewed towards a 3 to five rating which is higher than half. Um that is it for my report. My next visits are Monday, November 10th at Sapphire and also Friday, November 14th at the middle school. Have a great night. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. Next, we're going to do uh reports by committee chairs policy. >> Yeah. Um in addition to the two policies that we brought forward tonight for a first reading, um we had one policy that we've heard back from the attorney on that
047would be 550. and we are awaiting their response on three other policies that that had been sent to them for review. We will set a date for for our next meeting once we receive their response for visitation Mr. Reynolds. >> Uh we are current our next one is at the high school on 1117 at 4:30. >> There an update or anything you want to share regarding the capital project? We had one meeting so far starting with help of Patrick >> the audit Mr. Ser >> uh the audit was presented tonight and we don't have any more meetings till next year. So that's it. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And next is a motion to accept the recommendations of special education and preschool special education. Is there a motion? Second. >> Second. >> All in favor?
048I >> I motion carries >> and reports by board and central office Dr. Hassler. >> So, excuse me. A quick thank you to the middle school team, the students, staff, the administration for just being awesome hosts. They did a great job. It's certainly great to hear the kids perform. Uh just a quick reminder, I announced that we launched the first ever Monroberry Hall of Distinction. Nominations close next Friday, November 14th. Uh information is on the district website on how to nominate and what the categories are. So, please just a reminder everybody to get those nominations in. Um some congratulations, [clears throat] excuse me. Uh congrats to the girls soccer team who won sections who's going to be competing momentarily in the state regional tournament. Congratulations to boys and girls cross country on winning sections and
049they'll be competing next week in the state tournament in Queensberry. And good luck to the football and girls swimming and diving teams as they begin their section journey in the coming days. Congrats to the new inductees to the Triumph Music Honor Society. Uh the ceremony last week was great. Finally, congratulations to Prasad Saha who is our newest National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist as he continues his journey in in that program. I should also note one thing that's not on the news story on the website. If you were at the uh homecoming football game last week, Prasad was the soloist on the drums during halftime, he was also the soloist on the drums during our pep rally. And he is awesome, awesome, awesome. He's not just uh brilliant in the classroom, he's also a very talented drummer.
050So, congratulations to him as well. Thank you. >> The burger bounce around on him. >> All right. Yeah. Caught me off guard. >> Yeah. Good thing I was prepared ahead of time. Uh, I want to first congratulate all of our new appointees and staff members uh that were appointed tonight. I did a quick scan and I I know it's a little bit far out there, but I do see at least one of our uh new staff members that was appointed tonight. I want to congratulate Amy Witrock who was appointed tonight as a sixth grade Lee replacement teacher at the middle school. So, congratulations, Mr. Whitlock. [applause] Uh, I too want to thank the middle school. I certainly always love being here in the building, but appreciate all of the the planning and the time and
051effort uh from Mr. Vasquez and the administrative team uh to put together everything for us tonight. A special thank you to Mr. Brian Clark and the middle school students. I think regardless of whatever role you play in this district or community, you always get a sense of pride when you hear and see our students um and just see how how talented they are and how incredible they are. Uh so thank you to our middle school students for always reminding that and all of our students of course. Uh congratulations to all of our fall athletic teams on a what was hopefully a successful season. Special good luck to those that are preparing for sectional games and regional games and regional meets that are in the upcoming days and weeks. Um and with that I wish everybody
052a good evening. >> Mr. Reynolds >> greatly enjoyed the chorus tonight. So thank you for all the hard work for that. Um also obviously all the setup here at our not our normal location to the audio visual team that take care of that. Congratulations to our students inside and outside of the classroom. Uh lots of great work going both space on the field. Obviously our soccer team is doing quite well. So proud quite proud of them and have a safe night. >> Dr. Mor would like to also thank Mr. Vasquez, the middle school team for hosting us tonight. Gabriel, Mity, and Madison for welcoming us. Uh, Mr. Clark, the chamber choir sounded amazing and more professional than they did a middle school musical group. Uh, similarly, I'd like to congratulate the girls soccer team. It
053was really special having the boys and girls cross country team both take the section title and hopefully the rest of our teams do as well in championship season. Thank you and good night, >> Mr. Seriela. >> I al also want to thank the middle school for hosting. It's a lot of work to have us and we really appreciate that. Um, I also want to thank the food services because I see they put cookies out in the back, but they've they always do a great job providing food and and water and other things. And um I also want to thank the um choir for their fantastic performance. Uh it was great as usual. We have a really strong music program in this district and I wish you a good night. >> Thank you Dr. Via. >>
054So thank you middle school team to host uh for hosting us and uh again chorus and students were unbelievably amazing. So that that's the one skill that I don't really have good. So I always appreciate that. Um uh a little bit update on the distraction free learning. Um uh we last month we administered the survey for our parents, students and staff. uh we had 30 388 parents, 514 students and and 133 staff member responded to the survey. The purpose of this survey is just not to collect the data but allow us to to to see the trend analysis and collect the feedback and then shape us over next few months. Um and our goal is to do some similar one in May. Couple of highlights um of the trend analysis. Many students and parents report
055that the absence of phones during the school uh during the school leads to the less pressure and increased face toface time uh face toface time fostering the more conducive uh learning environment. Teachers and staffs observe noticeable uh reduction in distraction caused by the phones, watches and earbuds. Um many parents and students expressed some safety concern about the phones being inaccessible during the emergencies. Um some families and students felt unfairly penalized by the blanket policy particularly responsible phone users. But overall um the data shows that a strong appreciation uh for the distraction-free learning environment uh in our school district uh with a couple of things that to improvise. Our next goal is to work with the with the all the building administrators and then make sure we share this information appropriately to our uh to our
056district students, staff and parents. Big shout out to all the administrators, teachers, parents, most importantly our middle school and high school student. Uh much appreciated. Uh I know this was a hard change in the beginning of the school year. Not necessarily a welcome change. Uh but we are on the right track of making a positive impact. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Welcome all the new hirees and congratulations to any retirees. I'd also like to congratulate our fall athletics for a successful season and good luck to all the teams that are in postseason competition. Thank you to Mr. Vasquez and the middle school for hosting us. As Mr. Seriela commented, it's not an easy job and we do appreciate you so so much. Um, and I'd also like to thank the chamber choir for their
057>> Dr. Santa. Thank you to the middle school for hosting us and thank you to the chamber choir for a wonderful performance. Um so much talent there and thank you to Mr. Clark for the guidance of these um beautiful children and thank you to Zoe for the thoughtful presentation today. My visitation um to Pine Tree Heart Tree was also um left a great impression on me as well. So thank you. Good night. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. So thank you to the middle school for hosting tonight. As others have said, I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the staff of North Main uh for their donation tonight of plantings in a bench in memory of former North Main teacher Kristen Hos. Uh and I'd also like to just take a minute to provide
058an update on the capital project and the capital program where we are uh we're going to try to promote and communicate uh more of what's happening board meetings, you know, in the future and other forums. So phase one of the project, there's four phases is substantially complete. Uh we did four security vestibules uh at elementary schools this summer. A boiler at Smith Clove and a new new boilers I should say at the high school. So it's about eight and a half $9 million of work was done. Uh the board tonight on the agenda approved phase two award recommendations. So, there was six contracts that we approved tonight and this work will largely be at Pineree this summer, starting this spring and summer where we're going to start the roof replacement. We're going to do the
059HVAC upgrades, uh, brick repointing on the exterior of the building. A lot of work happening. Um, and also the tennis courts will that reconstruction will start as soon as December. So, that's right around the corner. We're going to go from six tennis courts to eight. We're going to have new lighting there, new lighting on the girls softball field. So, it's exciting stuff. Um, we're going to work until the winter. There's going to be a pause during during winter and the work on the tennis courts will resume in the spring. Should be wrapped up by uh June 30th. So, there's a lot happening and I look forward to uh relaying the that to the the community and the board in the future. >> Are you putting a pickle ball court in? >> I was. >> I
060think there are a couple of courts which will be lined for pickle ball as well. So, all good. Forward thinking. again. Thank you so much for middle school for having us and thank you so much for Mr. Clark who actually was my sixth and eighth grade teacher. So, it's nice to see him again. Thank you for teaching me how to sing and how to play the ukulele. Um, thank you again, Mr. Basquez, Mr. McIlly for my survey and have a great night everyone. >> President, um, I'd like to echo the sentiment. Welcome to the new appointee. Congratulations to the retirees. Um, thank you to the chamber choir. I'll say this a million times over. Seeing those performances is better than going to Broadway. So, our music program, fantastic job, but thank you, Mr. Clark, for
061leading the charge for these students. Um, big congratulations to the Monroe Woodbury athletics. I had the honor of seeing the cross country team run at Vanc Courtland Park a couple of weeks ago. So to see them from that point to getting to the um section championships. Great. Great job. Congratulations to Coast Sakis on another successful soccer season. Um good luck girls tonight. Um thank you to uh Scott and his team for the audit report and thank you so much Mr. Vasquez for hosting. We always appreciate all that goes into getting all of this set up for, you know, all of us to sit here and and speak to you. So, thank you to everyone who had anything to do with that. Have a great >> Superintendent Norman. >> Good evening, everyone. [laughter] I certainly echo
062all the comments [snorts] that have been shared. I just like to just take an opportunity to just thank all of our athletes. I think it's amazing, you know, that we reach championship [snorts] levels, but I've had the pleasure of watching our athletes from beginning of the season up to now. And just to see the progress that they make is is amazing. And I want to thank the coaches. Certainly want to thank the community for allowing me to just be a part and stand on the sidelines or in the stadiums and just cheer him on. So truly, thank you, Mr. Vasquez. Well done. U this was very professional you know tonight Mr. Clark student performers you know what a powerful message let them hear your voice I really appreciated that and just want to commend this
063community for for putting this together well done just a few updates um superintendent conference day um employees across the district engaged in meaningful learning opportunities. I was able to visit several sessions where presenters share valuable information. Staff participated in hands-on activities and rich discussions took place. So, I want our community to know that these days when students are are home and uh our teachers and administrators are at work, you these these days are essential to our work and they really you pay huge dividends. Uh last thing, just a reminder that all schools and offices will be closed on Tuesday, November 11th in observance of Veterans Day. We thank all of our veterans, certainly the many within our community and staff for their service and commitment. Thank you. Good evening. >> Thank you. I also echo
064everything that was said tonight. Um especially uh a few things that I will mention. Thank you to the middle school, Mr. Vasquez and the administrators and Mr. Clark and and the beautiful voices of our students with a very powerful message. I'd like to say a special welcome to Mrs. Whitrock. Your positive contributions to the community advocacy of our students have been for happening for a long time. So, we welcome you to our Crusader family in this capacity. And thank you to Miss Preia and food services for the food that you provide and the students and staff are definitely lucky to to enjoy it every day. And with that, I ask for a motion to adjourn into executive session to discuss personnel matters. >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? I. >> We are journed
065into executive session.