Monroe-Woodbury Board of Education Regular Meeting - March 23, 2022

001Good evening. Call to order the regular meeting of the board of education for March 23rd, 2022. Will everyone please rise for the pledge of the flag? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have a memorial resolution this evening that is on the agenda for employee Michael Mitchell. Um I will go ahead and read that here. Whereas Mr. Michael Mitchell was employed by the Monroe Woodbury Central School District as a custodial worker. His employment with the district began September 2020. 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

002entire district extends in memoriam its appreciation and gratitude as well as its sincere condolence to the Mitchell 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. May I have a motion? Motion second. Second. All those in favor? I. 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 and our community. Our mission is to promote confidence, inspire a passion for learning, and to prepare our students to become responsible global citizens. May I have a motion to approve the revised agenda? Motion. Second. All those in favor? I. Questions and comments from interested citizens this evening. Our first speaker

003is Janet Steltz. She will be speaking on behalf of New York State curriculum and supplemental material. I have something to hand out to you for a visual for yourself. So, couple of things I wanted to just kind of bring back into the forefront. Um, for the past eight months, we've been coming to several board meetings. There have been times where we've, you know, asked several times, what are you guys doing for making decisions on reading material, educational material, and we were told New York State Department of Ed, the Librarian Association, and we wanted to just remind you of a few things, and it's kind of a collective thing that's going on in our state and in our country right now that has us even more concerned as things escalate. I'm going to read you a

004few of the 45 communist goals that I've shared with you in the past, but have to do with specifically tonight's topic. Number one, actually 17 on the list is get control of the schools, use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers associations and put the party line in the textbooks. Number 25 on the list is break down cultural standards for morality and promoting pornography and obscinity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. Number 26, and this is their list. I'm just reading it. It says, "Present homosexuality and degeneracy as prom and promiscuity as normal, natural, and healthy." Number 32, "Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture, education, social agencies, welfare programs, and mental health clinics, discredit the

005family as an institution, encourage promiscuity, and emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents." Pretty horrifying that this is communist agenda. This is what they promote. This is what they seek to do in order to destroy a country. Well, I sent you a handout and on the top of it, this is what you have in front of you, is the official New York State Department Twitter account, which has since been deleted since she posted this, but um this is the uh Lauren Moore, the assistant commissioner for libraries, New York State Librarian for the New York State Educa uh Department of Education. She recommends a book called Gender Queer. Now, as you can see, the images on this are pornographic. They are absolutely disgusting to put in front of a young

006child. Um, if you read, you'll read the text in there. I'm not going to read it because it's so filthy. I'm not going to repeat those words, but to put this in front of children, this is what you guys are looking at for guidance on what books to put in your school. And it's this woman right here. I mean, gosh, she looks like Mary Poppins for crying out loud. This woman, her point is that she thinks this is a good book to put in front of children K through 12. And there are other schools in Orange County that are have issues with this book. Now, even if you have this book or not, hopefully, I hope to God, you do not have this book. But the point is, this person and this organization is what's

007dictating what books you allow in front of our children. And we've been coming here for month after month after month about the quality of education or lack thereof. teachers bringing inappropriate materials into the classroom, indoctrination in the classroom, using them as political pulpits. So those that you the things that I just read there, then you have two pieces of New York legislation that are very important and I encourage you to write this down. Assembly bill A3192, it eliminates parents uh parents right to consent or knowledge regarding vaccinating their children. Bill A822 eliminates parents rights to consent regarding treatments for sexually transmitted diseases of child for a child of any age. Now think about that for a minute. All of the communist goals that I just read to you, the New York legislation that I just

008read to you, basically eliminating parental rights and knowledge about vaccinating and medical treatment for sexually transmitted diseases for children of any age, any age. These are active bills in New York state legislation right now that this is a roadmap for normalizing pedophilia and child pornography. You've got a minor child who can make metal medical decisions without parental knowledge or consent. You have while being coerced by other adults, by the way, then you have another five years of extremely graphic sexual content being taught under the guise of health classes. And so that's a real problem for us. We see nothing but Planned Parenthood being allowed in the classroom to teach and and Planned Parenthood associated organizations to teach in our health classes, but never pro-life organizations. Okay? It's always one-sided. So, in that, we would just

009ask you to please revisit some of the criteria or some of the people that you're trusting in big government, centralizing these decisions. You're there to represent us. We're local. You're local. We need you to to be our voice. And it seems like it's really kind of been inverted. And I'm not saying that all of you set out to do that on purpose, but it seems like this is happening across our country. We are being forgotten and all of a sudden your role is becoming and maybe this happened without your maybe you didn't want this to happen. Okay. But now it's like you guys are being more of an arm for them and pushing their will on us and you're being caught in the middle of that. But the bottom line is, does anybody here want

010their children K through 12 being having people like this making decisions to put books like this in front of their children? I mean, it's hideous. Thank you. [Applause] Our next speaker is Eileen Colipy and she will be speaking in regards to health class. Good evening. Um, I actually knew what Janet was going to be speaking about. Um, so I want to come up after her, but this has been on my heart for years and many of you know it because I've come in and spoke with administration about this before. I don't have any kids in health class right now, but again, I've mentioned in the past I am a CCD teacher. I've got students that I'm trying to morally help here. So, I have seen and I have heard assignments that are coming down and

011I actually researched when I heard about this um you know the bills that are coming down the pike. And when I did this Google search, it mentioned this and I don't know if any of you know whether it's true or not. It says that sex ed does not even have to be part of the health class curriculum in New York State. So I if that's true, if we can remove it alto together, I think that's fantastic because I think it's a parental issue, a moral issue that should be dealt with in the health education um you know atmosphere. You got to kind of those lines are very blurred right now. So one of the very disturbing things outside of the condom presentation was the 11th grade health class last year. Um, there was an assignment

012for the children were to roleplay being an abortionist and to decide which of the children they would save by killing them and which they couldn't fit into their schedule in a day. I don't know how that got into any classroom. I don't know what that has to do with health class and if anyone can tell me, please do. I have no no idea. And then the latest one I heard was a uh an ideology quiz given out and the things on there again from from choice to gay marriage to death penalty to borders. What does that have to do with teaching them health? Has nothing to do with anything. There was a whole first page that only the heterosexual children were to answer. My guess is they were trying to get them to feel for

013and empathize with others. And that's great. That's fantastic. But I've never in my life had to question myself and label myself and and tear myself down in order to be able to love others and reach out to others. I would propose we do the opposite and build up our kids. How about we go, hey, you're awesome. Each and every one of you is awesome. Let's have a club. Let's have a class on celebrating you and your gifts and your talents. And once they can love themselves, that's going to flow out. that's going to flow to their their peers and they're going to learn to love people and they could even go out into the community and use those gifts and talents to help the world, help society. But this tearing down and this questioning and

014this labeling and I've never in my life I if someone says who is Eileen, would I ever say, you know, I'm not identifying myself by my skin, by my gender, by my sexual identity. That's part of who I am. Yes. But that's not Eileen. And I don't I don't think the kids should have to be seen that way. You know, they're they're more than a label. They're more than their skin that they can't change. They're more than what they're feeling sexually right now. That that's they're more than this and they need to know that they're an awesome person inside and we need to strive to let them know that and again to stick with the education. You know, it's just health class. And also for an easy opt out, I would ask if the parents

015want to opt out. Make it very transparent. This is what we're doing this week exactly. And if you want to opt your kid out, you can. And make it easy so that kid doesn't have to be the weirdo that leaves class. you know, send in a parent, you know, maybe a note outside the classroom. You drop off the parent note, you pick up a library pass, and off you go. Give them an alternate way to get out of it without seeming like the the oddball, you know. So, I I'm just looking out for the kids, and I ask that some of these changes be made because what's going on in there is absolutely disgusting and horrible and is not healthy. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, those were our only two comments for this evening. Um,

016updates from last two weeks ago meeting. Elsie, do you have anything? I'll say what I have. I know that there was something directed to us. Okay. So, I will say that one of the questions that we got at our last meeting um from uh um a concerned citizen was in regards to when a foil request comes to the board. So, one of the things that we were able to do is we do have a new website. So, we are open for suggestions and feedback as we start to transition some things to where they used to be and make it a little bit more accessible. So, um there are going to be spots under the document section now for the foil request form. So, that should be already on there. I did check it and it

017is there. Um the other piece that we were looking into is the draft form of contracts. So previously we had looked that we cannot post an an official contract on the agenda until it is approved by the board. However, we are looking into the possibility of putting a draft form on there. So that is something that we will look continue to look into. As far as the cataloging of all approved contracts, that is what we have board docs for. So, while I realize that it might be tenuous to try to find it, once you go in, you should be able to search and be able to find um within board docs, all of the once they are approved by the board, they are then out of executive content into public content and they are available

018through board docs. So, we technically do have a cataloging system for that um and the public comment portion of it. So, as you saw this evening, I tried to be a little bit more lenient with the three minutes, but I will say that we have that policy in place. We are not the only school district who does it that way. We do want to hear from the citizens. We certainly have never, even throughout the entire pandemic, stifled public comment. There are several other school districts that still are not allowing public comment. We are not one of them. I will encourage you that if the 3 minutes is not enough time andor you have anything else that you'd like to share with us materials-wise or anything, our emails are listed on the website or at least

019I know mine is. I'm not sure if everybody's is anymore because I think we were trying to tamp down on having so much um fishing scams that uh Dr. Vayaz had made us aware of. So, I do know that my email address is on there andor you can send something directly to Lisa Sudin, our acting district clerk, and she will be certain to forward it to every single board member and you will get a response. So, I encourage you that if the 3 minutes is not enough time, then please feel free to send us an email and we will get back to you. The other thing that I'm not sure whether or not you were aware of was we have discussed this and we will we haven't revisited it in policy, but we had looked

020at one point about perhaps adding a second public comment. So typically what some school districts do is the first public comment of the meeting is based off of the agenda only. So you would only be able to comment on an item that is on the agenda for that evening. The second public comment portion typically comes at the end of a board meeting and that is where you would get up to discuss something that did not pertain to that current agenda. So that is something that we've started to discuss within the policy committee and we will look into possibly um instituting that which would then give another opportunity for for more comment. But we certainly aren't trying to stifle anybody. So please if you feel that the three minutes is not enough time, please go ahead

021and send the email. But we have revisited that and the 30 minutes of public comment. While it doesn't happen often, we have had times where it is 30 minutes. And this is a meeting that is held in public, but we do want to try to keep to the agenda that we have on hand. So I hope that that answers all of those questions. Okay, moving on. A presentation from Dr. Passler in regards to the instructional budget items. Everybody's I'm sorry. Oh, it is still okay. Thanks. I will Is it on here? I can see it. It changed. Yes. But not here. Did they change up there? Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. Uh, no. This is good. Yeah. Right. There you go. You can see it better. You can see it, right? Yeah. Is that okay? You're

022okay. Perfect. Okay. Perfect. We're good. Good evening. Um, thank you to the board of ed for the opportunity to be able to present the instructional budget items. This continues our series of budget presentations. We heard the non-instructional budget items at the last board of education meeting. Uh, typically the presentations begin with the non-instructional items and then the subsequent meeting are the uh various instructional items K12 across the school district. So, I'm going to jump right into it. Uh, you should have in front of you a copy of the presentation. And also loaded into the board docs are all of the various budget wap reports. Um so again, thank you to the board of ed for the opportunity to be able to speak. Uh thank you very much to the many many different people who contribute

023to the development of this budget ranging from uh our building administrators to our uh department chairs, our various administrative directors across the school district, the business office who has to deal with countless visits from me back and forth, the accounting office as well, um my team in the in the curriculum office. There there are a lot of people and a lot of different departments that contribute to this. So, thank you very much to everybody for all of their support. Um just a reminder that I give every year when I give this presentation that um this is a snapshot in time where um the the numbers that I'm presenting to you this evening are a reflection of the time and date stamp on the WCAP uh reports that are provided to you in um in WCAP

024where you know we still continue to review our I I speak every year about textbook expenditures where we receive approximately $500,000 worth of state aid in textbooks We maximize that because that's a dollar for-doll return on the school district. So, we make sure that we drill down to every single cent to get the full amount of our state aid um regarding textbooks. So, um if there are still available funds, some of the things that I'm presenting to you this evening, and I kind of alluded to this last week when I did or last board meeting when I presented on the the new math program, um you know, if there's an ability for me to be able to purchase a piece of that this year to be able to reduce next year's budget, obviously that's something

025that that we will look to do. um again to maximize that state aid. So the the the first slide is uh our core programs. Core programs represents the costs associated with providing instruction in the various core um departments of language arts, math, science and social studies. These costs include uh things such as textbooks, supplies, um replacing lost lost textbooks, workbooks, manipulatives, dues, and publications. Um servicing uh our various uh science labs and science equipment throughout the school district. Uh the the cost basically for providing education to the in district students, which is approximately 6,500 students in in Mon Woodbury. The chart uh represents all of the various expenditures proposed for the 22 23 school year. Um the way that the budget is broken down, the 3900 line is kindergarten and first grade. That is inclusive

026of all language arts, math, science, and social studies K1. The 4,4200, 4,300, and 4,400 lines are for grades 2 through 12 broken out by those various departments. Um many of these lines are a reflection of per pupil multipliers meaning the supplies that are included in each of these lines are designed based upon certain expenditures times the number of kids in a particular grade level. So the fluctuation that you see within each of those lines represents the um the increase or decrease in student populations by grade level across the school district. It also includes the fluctuation of various textbook purchases where um for example the uh the math program that I presented on at the at the last board of education meeting is something that is included in both the kindergarten first grade line under mathematics

027as well as the mathematics line in grades 2 through six because those are the grade levels that the program would potentially um be inclusive of. So that's included within that budget. Uh, one of the things that we're looking at is the sixth grade social studies department is looking at, which is the ancient civilization portion of the curriculum. Um, the textbooks that they're using are very old from 2003. They're damaged. They're they're they also don't include any digital materials, so the students don't have access to those materials online. So, they're looking at the possibility of getting the current uh version of those textbooks, which are also inclusive of digital licenses. So, right now, there's a placeholder in the budget for that item. Um, again, that's something that's still under review and there would be a future

028presentation to the board of ed if that was something that was going to be a recommendation. But right now, that's a placeholder within the social studies the the social studies line. So, the next category represents district-wide programs which includes uh health education, art, music, languages other than ling English which is our world language, Spanish, Italian, and French. uh our family and consumer science department, our technology department as well as gifted and talented. Um basically the same as the the previous um categories that I provided, it represents the supplies and textbooks that go into the uh to the uh education of students within each of these various departments. Uh a few things to note. the uh increase in the art department is a proposal by the art department to get a class set of um uh

029iPads for them because our uh advanced um some of our advanced art classes are looking into doing some digital media that Apple has come a long way with the capabilities of the iPad and we've been working with Dr. VS and the and the micro computer center to be able to do that. So that's something that's currently earmarked in the art department budget. The increase in the music line is due to a French horn at the high school and tubas at the middle school and North Main. Again, currently in the budget, the remainder of the fluctuations up and down, again, many of them are the result of multipliers uh per people multipliers, and it's the eb and flow of um the the various student populations. The reduction in the family and consumer science line is the

030result of a textbook that was purchased last year for the fax department that was obviously not going to be purchased again this year. So that line ultimately went down from the 2122 school year to the 2223 school year. Any questions related to that question? So the so the negatives are because department does not need to upgrade this year either. It could be due to a variety of different things. Again, to use the example of the family and consumer science department that one of the family and consumer science classes purchased a textbook last year and and they don't need to purchase a textbook every single year. So, the the the line might go up one year because of that textbook purchase, but it's not needed as an annual cost. So, it's removed from the budget the

031subsequent year. Um, another another example of that would be in the next line where the the next series of costs are our physical education athletics departments. The reduction in intercolastic athletics. If you go back and listen to the presentation that I gave last year, there was some uh equipment that was being put into the intercolastic budget for our weight room, that's something that again is not a recurring annual cost. It's not included in next year's budget. So that allowed us to be able to reduce the budget in intercolastic athletics this year. Um, regarding the physical education and intercolastic lines, physical education represents the costs associated with maintaining our physical education program, various uh, you know, equipment for the K12 PE classes across the school district. Um, the intercolastic line includes costs associated with participating in

032the intercolastic programs 7 through 12, which are our various section 9 league fees, the fees associated with the Orange County Intercolastic Athletic Association, travel, maintenance of various um, athletic equipment, the cost for officiating of those programs, and again, the reduction in that line was the result of some equipment that was purchased for the weight room that's not in next year's budget. The next category represents special secondary programs which is inclusive of business education uh student activities and occupational education at Boseies. The business education line represents the programs that are sorry my time is up. Your time's up. Any other questions? I mean that would be amazing. Like I'm I'm all good with having a buzzer. Fantastic. I don't even need I don't She is awesome. I love it. Any questions? She didn't need to. She

033did. Sorry. People are going to want that bell for any any other future meetings beyond the board of They're like, you said, "Give me that bell." This is just prolonging the presentation. [Laughter] Um, so the the increase in business education is the result of the renewal of our uh the program is the edutyping software for our keyboarding class which is renewed every three years. So that's we're on a three-year cycle. So that's something that's included for next year. Um student activities includes costs associated from various uh assemblies uh various honor society ceremonies uh student publications like um the the school newspaper and things like that. Occupet uh uh aed the reason why previously this used to appear the 6900 line used to appear under special education and PPS because it was an '09 code a

034district-wide code. We changed that code to the high school code because really only high school students have the ability to be able to attend the occupational education program at Boseis. So we changed where that was positioned and moved it into the special secondary category. I should note that the $181,000 increase the reason for that increase is a few years ago we reduced this line to be more in line with what our expenditures were historically out of this budget line which was fine during the pandemic. there were actually less kids that were participating in the program. However, when we looked at the qu the current 2122 school year now that we're back to full inerson um instruction as well as increases in tuition costs, we needed to raise that line back to the traditional spending for

035students attending OEED. That line does not represent an increase in the number of seats of students. that just brings our expenditures back to where it needs to be to reflect the 105 students that we've had budgeted for to be able to participate in that program. So it it doesn't represent any additional seats. It just represents the increase needed in order to be able to maintain the current number of students attending that program. The next category is instructional support uh which is inclusive of the uh principal supervision lines which are principal specific lines for dues and publications, travel allowances for building principles. It includes things like student field trips, conferences that uh they send staff to, costs associated with graduation and moving up ceremonies. The general supply line represents the um the various types of uh

036smaller uh equipment that might be purchased for schools such as student desks. Um it's also based upon the the supplies that are given to the supply budgets that are given to teachers on an annual basis. um conferences and meetings represents expenditures for uh staff that it's the professional development line that's given to buildings for the principles and directors to be able to set share um professional development opportunities with their staff. Again, the fluctuation in the supervision line and the general supply line. Those are the result of predominantly per people multipliers and again represent that fluctuation of um student enrollment in the various grade levels. I do have a question on that with the rising inflation. Mhm. that actual amount is going down. So it seems unusual that to put into next year's budget that we

037would expect it to go down when it's going up across the board. I mean the cost of materials are going up but as as there have been some slight decline in our enrollment not a significant decline but again it's usually based upon the the number of students that are in a particular grade level the number of sections that we have you know the number of K 1 2 3 four you know sections across the school district. So it's not so much driven by that type of fluctuation like we've been able to build enough of a of a cushion within the budget in order to be able to accommodate that. It's really per pupil driven which which impacts that. But I I think the other thing right we we also take a look at in in

038various buildings what supplies we have. Correct. And and that's right part of the process is right doing an inventory of what you have before you go out and purchase more. So there and we probably have more of an inventory after these past two years than we've had. And I'm just guessing at that that that's correct that this is also that there is a degree of zerobased budgeting that goes into this that um that's particularly the case somewhat with supplies, but definitely when it comes to things like workbooks and things like that that even though there is a multiplier that's built in, we also calculate the number of rollover materials that we have. um you know many of these especially at the elementary level are workbook driven similar to what I was sharing at the last

039board of education meeting about the math program for example that you know we just don't wrote you know routinely order enough for every single grade level there's an inventory that's done first and then the orders put in accordingly and I think the big thing for us has been paper uh there's been a there was a shortage of paper at some time and so we couldn't even get paper so paper's been a big deal for us and that's actually so I think that that's now What? I would say that's all fluid positive. But yeah, well in in the end the the paper budget actually is not inclusive here. The paper budget is actually something because in in the end we get rather than having it be purchased by building, we get I think a better rate

040when we purchase it districtwide through the through the MCC. Um you're saying that uh items are uh based on you know enrollment and in certain levels of classes. Do you see any trends going on in the district in terms of overall enrollment uh populations growth in different uh segments? We I I mean in general we're seeing our numbers are down a little bit. Um particularly at the early levels at the elementary level where I think it's attributed to you know I can't come to any definitive conclusions but you know the the numbers are down either you know between our prek program and various other programs across the school district whether people are deciding that they're you know not sending their kids into kindergarten or whatever the reason is the the numbers are down at that

041lower elementary level. So, any other any other places where you see things standing out? What do you mean? Uh ELLL population, uh special ed population, any sort of shifts in there or things pretty consistent? Our our ELLL numbers are are on the rise because we're seeing an increase actually in Title 3. Our Title 3 money is in correlation to the number of students that we have sitting taking the the the New York State English as a second language exam. So, those numbers are increasing, which does impact our Title 3 funding. um special education, there's not necessarily a sharp increase in that population. However, we have obviously an increase in various needs of of the students across the school district. And do we have contingencies based on who would be enrolling in the fall uh to

042cover expenses if we needed to? Sure. Yeah. I'm I'm actually going to talk a little bit about that. Some of that, you know, for example, is built into the the presentation that I gave two board of ed meetings ago on special education, the tuition lines and things like that, which I I'll get to. All right. Awesome. But we do have the two directors here. They're they're looking I mean if you want to pepper them with questions, you can. No, I I I think they can pro. I mean, if if you don't mind I mean, you ask a question, right? I'm just I'm just looking for an overall, you know, I know we're we're concentrating on the budget for this year, but they're they're all going to be really mad at me, but but I think

043if you ask a question and we have people in, you know, our our team is able to answer it. Stop showing up. And Lisa can always ring the bell, so it's fine. Dr. Morales, would you what would you say is the increase that you've seen in the past couple of years for ELLL students? I'm I'm sorry. I'm going to be the really bad guy here though. You have to come up to the microphone because I'm sorry because because we can't hear you. I'm sorry. I if I had a portable one, but then the people that are listening at home are unfortunately unable to hear what gets said. Okay. Um, so the 2021 school year, we really didn't see that much of an increase in our ENL student population. Um, we were seeing increases prior to

044that. This year, we're experiencing significant growth in our ENL population. within that population. What we're also experiencing is significant growth in our students who are coming here for the first time or our students um our safe students, students with interrupted formal education. So that's where we're really feeling the impact there. Um the title 3 allocation is not driven solely by our numbers. It's driven by our private our participating private schools that are within district. So the overall allocation doesn't necessarily match our student increase. the overall allocation is actually it drops a little bit each year. Um but that's reflective because of the private school numbers. Um there are two components. There's the one for the IND district numbers as well as the out of district numbers. If you could give us like an estimate 10%

045more, 20% more. I I can give it to you by the end of the board of education meeting after I finish this presentation. And I mean I don't know unless you have it like right at your fingertips. Um, we've we we're up over we have over a hundred more ENL students from when we started this school year. Wow. So, currently currently about 100 more and percentage wise, do you know what that percentage is? That's all right. I'll text you the percentage figure. With numbers like that, do we have built-in capacity to accommodate them and fulfill their needs from jump or is this something that once we're getting enrollment, we're making adjustments on the fly as as we we had room we had like some room, but I will say that we've also had to kind

046of go back to the drawing board and kind of shuffle things around. Um, as we've we I don't want to say that you can't anticipate, but we did not anticipate this level of of growth. We've also increased staff as the needs have grown during the course of the year. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Morales. And I apologize. Now, did you Oh, now you really see this team function. Doc, Miss Jordan, you're not get you ask a question and we want to give you an answer. I think it and they're very knowledgeable. And not that we don't want to hear Dr. Hassler speak, but we we love that there are people behind Dr. Hassler that do a lot of work. So as we have shared our our needs in the world of special education has continued to

047grow. It's not that we are having more students come into the district but the overall needs and the support that our students require have grown. So we used to see a lot of students coming in that may need one particular support in the area of special education. Now our students are requiring support in all the four content areas plus additional support in the area of social emotional. So we are continuing to see an increase in the overall special education needs for all of our children. Thank you. Particularly in the area of social emotional development. Thank you. You thank you. Does that help? Very much so. Okay. So the next slide represents the educational support services programs within the school district which actually are inclusive of our English language learners as well as our academic intervention

048programs. Um now again this is inclusive of funds that are coming out of the the general budget not inclusive of any of the title monies that we that we also receive within the school district. Um so there is a slight increase in the ELLL line. Um, and it's basically the transition of some of the funding within our academic intervention program over onto the ELLL side. Um, similar to the various other programs, districtwide programs that I shared, this is inclusive of um, professional development money, publications, conference money for us to be able to provide professional development to the staff. the non-public textbook line. We are also responsible for providing textbooks to students that attend non-public schools, district resident students that attend non-public schools uh um either within or outside of the school district. That money is

049remaining flat from last year to this year. However, similar to the various other textbook lines that I referred to, that line is also eligible for onetoone state aid in in the form of textbook money. The next series of lines are the instructional management line, community services and curriculum development. The instructional management line includes money in the budget for um many of the things that are within my office, including um various supplies, conferences, dues, and publications. Again, similar to the lot of the other lines, as well as some uh district-wide testing fees that are included in there. The community services line was previously the line that was used for the summer enrichment program. We didn't have the summer enrichment program in the past due to COVID. We are not anticipating running the summer enrichment program again

050this coming summer. Uh we're anticipating running the summer bridges program. So that line again is going to continue to be zero. And then there's the curriculum development line which includes costs associated with uh staff development particularly through Orange Olter Boseis and that includes services like the critical incident stress management program our lead evaluator training for our administrators and our department chairs the model schools program as well as many different crosscontract professional development programs that we get from other Boseies including um the Sullivan Boseies and Putnham Northern Westchester Boseies lower Hudson Boseies The final line is the special education line and PPS. So, this is going to be a little bit of a review from the presentation that I gave two uh two board of education meetings ago. So the the first portion of that is

051the district-wide line for tuition foster students where basically we are responsible to pay costs for students who originate within Monro Woodbury but may go into the foster care system and are maybe receiving an education or transferred to another school district but as the district of origin we are still um required by law in order to be able to provide the the support for that student. The next line is the committee on special education line which are fees and costs associated with the running of our committee on committees on special education. That includes the basic fees of professional development. Uh travel costs for shared staff across the school district as well as to homebound students. fees for uh out of district evaluations that we need to conduct or consultations that we need to do with medical

052personnel or anything like that outside of the school district. The PPS administrative costs are costs that are associated to the actual functioning of our PPS and special education departments including supplies um equipment needs, postage, things like that. The miscellaneous expenses for home instruction includes the costs associated with providing home instruction to students that are they're either uh hospitalized, they're uh no longer in an in district placement and then they might be waiting uh an out of district placement, students that might be on long-term suspension or students that might have a a medical condition that might prevent them from coming to school. We are seeing an increase in the number of students that have been placed on home instruction this year. So that's the result of that's what that slight increase is the result of. Um

053the district-wide guidance line is inclusive of costs that uh come with our our guidance department across the school district including the postage of sending out transcripts. Um college applications that we use, job fairs, supplies, software costs, and things like that come out of that line. Health services include costs and fees that are associated with supporting our nurses and our health offices. This includes various equipment fees, um professional development fees, fees to Boseies as well as the various supplies that are needed for running uh our health offices. And finally are our three tuition lines. And again, this brings us back to the presentation that that I gave last time where our tuition lines are broken up into three categories. the non-resident category, which is students who we provide services to in Monro Woodbury who if another

054student lives outside of Monro Woodbury but attends a non-public school within Monroe Woodbury as the district of location, we're responsible for providing special education services to those students. However, we build those services back to their district of origin. So, that's something that needs to get included in our budget. However, the money in this budget line is something that is anticipated to be build back to the district of origin the following school year. The next line is the 7500 line which is the tuition resident student. This is for students who reside in the Monterberry School District who attend out of district placements by who are placed by our committee on special education to out of district placements outside the boundaries of Mono Woodbury. The final line is the 7600 line which is the tuition line for

055chapter students where we have um various uh various programs that are within Monro Woodbury where students are kind of similar to the non-resident where they are officially district of location students. They reside within the Monroeberry school district but they are placed here by an outside organization. Again, similar to the non-resident um the non-resident line, we are responsible for providing special education services for those students, but then that is something that is potentially able to be build back to the to the district of origin. the fluctuation in these lines, the the tuition lines are uh a very classic example of district um zerobased budgeting where we literally have a spreadsheet student by student with their tuition costs in anticipation of what that budget is going to be the following year. In addition to that, the fluctuation

056is we also include certain placeholders for if we have a student who moves into the school district in the be in the in the middle of a school year that we didn't have included in the budget, we now need to add that position into the budget the following school year. if the student is anticipated to remain in Monterbury as a district resident. Additionally, if there are students that may currently be in an IND district program and we're anticipating that that student may be going into an out of district placement for the 2223 school year, we add that student into the budget in the subsequent school year as well. Another example would be if there is a student who is currently a CPSC student, a uh committee on preschool education where we shared at that at

057that um last board of ed meeting that we are responsible for those students as well. If that student is now going to come into the Monroe Berry School District as a kindergart kindergartener the following school year, but it's projected that that student is going to go to an out of district placement, that's another student then that would have to get included in the budget. So literally the fluctuation in these budget lines is based upon the eb and flow of students going into and out of these various programs. So similar to Dan's question then those hundred students that are now in the seats this year that's that impacts these lines. Correct. No, that the OEED line is a completely separate line. And one of one of the reasons why originally when I did the if you

058look at the budget presentation that I gave last year, OEED was a line in the special education PPS line. And the reason why we removed it was first it was it was listed as a district-wide code and it's not really a district-wide code. It's really something specific to the high school. Number one. Number two, it didn't belong in special education and PPS because it's not a requirement to have an IEP, an individual education program in order to be able to attend that program. So to position it in special education in PPS when it's not necessarily a special education program didn't make sense which is the reason why we placed it in special secondary programs rather than special education PPS that line that line in the earlier slide is something separate from this totally different okay

059both are both are eligible for aid and that was something that I should have said earlier I've talked about where things are you know where they qualify for different types of aid that aed Bosey's line that I spoke about earlier is eligible for Bosey's aid. Okay. So, has there been growth or loss in these areas this year especially in regards to the non-resident students? Yeah. So, so the the the reductions are the reductions of students in those placements and the increases are the result of not only that the the increases a result of multiple things. Number one is placeholders. Like I was saying before, us having students that we are eyeing for possible seats next year that may not be included in this year's budget, okay? Students that we know are here that that were

060not in this year's budget that we need to include in next year's budget. Plus, we also budget for other projected seats that we anticipate, plus a few hundred,000 in that line because it it is uh a $14 million line. There are just increase in tuition costs. If Eric Hastler goes to a program for the 2122 school year and then goes to the same program for the 2223 school year, tuition costs increase the co, you know, the the as you were speaking about earlier. So part of that increase is also just the year-to-year increase in tuition costs as well. And when um when you're talking about a $14 million line, that's a few hundred,000 alone in that line just from the annual increase in tuition as well. Okay. I have a question. Sure. It's not It's

061a little granular and it's not specific to anything in this packet. Okay. You see it on the one of the sheets online. Yep. Um so the first one is about field trips. Yep. Is I've noticed as long as I've sat here that pretty consistent and like 14 or so per student. What dictates that? Like is there any talk about increasing or because it's contributo, right? It's not inclusive of the entire cost of correct trip. Right. So, one of the things that we've historically done is a at least for the majority of the field trips that we participate in, one of the largest costs associated with field trips is in transportation. So, usually what we do is and and they don't always do the same exact uh field trips on an annual basis. Some grade levels

062do, some grade levels change from year to year where they go that we try to budget for what we project the rough estimate of transportation costs are going to be for that particular trip. And then in the end, a lot of times the student gets asked to pay, you know, a fee that might cover the cost of admission to a museum or to the zoo or wherever it is that they're going and then the district shoulders the transportation cost for that. That's been the general philosophy of the school district. Um certainly that's something that we can talk about on an annual basis where you know we have the general sort of radius of where the field trips go. If they're looking to do something else beyond that radius or expanding the field trip that that's

063always a conversation that that we can have. It's not something that we really anticipated. I I mean I think right now we're just excited to be able to say the word field trip and have it be something that is like back. Um but that's certainly you know it's a a change in cost for the 22 23 school year was not something that we were planning on. Okay, thank you. And the second question is I I see that the middle school is the only school that has a budget line for an assembly program. Why is that? Um, that's a good question. Thank you. I don't know the answer to that question. I I mean I I the only thing that I can think of and this is just based upon like putting on my principal hat.

064I I know back when I was a principal, the majority of the assemblies that we previously ran and I think it's still the case within the schools is predominantly PTA funded. um where the PTAs would often work with the school district on bringing in an author or something like that. Um but for consistency, we can Sure. Yeah, we could talk about that. Yeah. So, the projected budgets for special education takes into consideration the fact that we have more students. So, so especially when you're talking about the tuition costs, this is not um this is not just sort of I mean it is a bit of a guess because you never know who's going to move in or who's going to move out into the school district, but when I say to you it is literally

065on a case-byase basis. We maintain a spreadsheet of every single student that has an out of district placement within the school district along with the various tuition costs. We factor in either what we know the cost will be for the tuition the subsequent school year or we build in a certain percentage of an increase and and we literally budget line by line for every single student. It's never an exact science, but it is pretty much the best that we can possibly get it where you know again and it's conversations between all three of the all three of the directors where if we have a student who's within the school district that we say you know something this student is having various um you know challenges again I had mentioned home instruction what will typically happen

066in that case is the student may go on home instruction they send out packets to various potential placements for that student, the programs get back to us and they make a decision whether or not the students accepted into that program. But if that happens over the course of the school year, that may not be something that's in the budget for that current year. So the district then shoulders the responsibility of that and then we build that into the budget the following school year. So that spreadsheet that I was talking about, that student would then be added onto that spreadsheet and included in the subsequent year's budget. So it's literally case by case, but you can readjust it on the fly if you know that. Sure. And and the challenge is every every student and and

067and every situation is unique where the vast majority of the tuition costs are not straight basic, you know, a basic tuition fee. It's based upon the various types of services that that students receives, how much speech they receive, if they receive OTP counseling, like all of the various services that that student receives. And that might vary even from two students that are in a similar program. they may receive varying services and that the tuition costs may vary from student to student based upon the various services that they receive. Um so it's it's literally a casebycase analysis of the students. It may vary for the same student from year to year which which yes a student could go from program A to program B over the course of the school year. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Any

068other questions? Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. You can ring the bell, Lisa. There you go. Time is up. Now it's official. Um, next on the agenda, we have an update on district goals. It should be there. Yep. Uh, you could give the um clicker to Eric because and then Eric, you can just pass it. I can pass along. Okay. So, just to give everyone a backstory to this, um the board and the cabinet have uh established goals prior to the beginning of the school year. And so, one of the things that the board was really strong on was making sure that we updated the community on where we are with our goals. Um as you will see in the first slide, the first slide talks about data um and district data teams. So

069I had talked about what were what was the goal of the data team and now Dr. Hasser will speak about what he's he's been able to accomplish um over the last month and a half. So at at the last update Mrs. Rodriguez spoke about how we had established a district-wide data team. Um and at that meeting she had shared that this was something that the team was going to sort of embark on. I think at that time we had our first districtwide meeting of the whole group. Um that meeting was on January 31st. Basically it was a full team K12 of administrators, teachers, um all all sorts of of various staff members that participated in that. At that meeting, we decided that it would be appropriate for us to kind of branch off and and

070break into an elementary group and a secondary group because um the needs were going to be very different in terms of what um because at the elementary level you have teachers that are responsible for all of the core content areas themselves and it's departmentalized at the secondary level in terms of data. So we broke off into the two groups. Um, we now have an elementary data team and a secondary data team. Those teams have also met since that last initial meeting. The elementary team when we met had a a very lively conversation and we talked about a lot of different things. And again, because elementary teachers are responsible for all of the core content areas, we decided that it would be appropriate for us to even break off further into a reading writing group and

071a math group, focusing on those two content areas first and foremost. Um so we did that. The the reading and writing group has also met since that time and we started to compile in addition to the various assessments that we administer unilaterally across the school district to students in the form of the star exam for benchmarking and our state assessments. We started to compile various other assessments that are common that are administered across the school district such as Foundus and Panel assessments, various siteword assessments and how we can gather data from those assessments to uh present a an even bigger picture for our students in terms of tracking their growth. Similarly, the secondary data team also met and their work is going to branch off at a department level again because the teachers only teach

072within their specific content area. And what the departments are doing is they are also compiling their common assessments. Um many of which are in the forms of various um midterm exams, final exams. This is also going to be in addition to the standardized assessments that are administered uh in the form of STAR exams, the 3 through8 ELA and math exam exams as well as the regions exams. So, we're in the process of of compiling all of those assessments. The next steps I said to you that the elementary level is breaking out into the reading writing group and the math group. We're now shifting to the more current version of our K6 math program which comes with a whole accompaniment of new assessments. So the next phase of the work for the math team is to

073dig into the assessments of this new math program and how can that potentially fit into some of this other work that we're talking about in the other content areas at the secondary level as well. We're now looking at how we have the ability to be able to gather and track the data. These other common assessments that we administer across the school district, whether it's a found and panel assessment at the elementary level or a midterm or a final exam at the secondary level, predominantly exists at the classroom level with the teacher. So we're now looking at how can we take these common assessments that are given to students across the um the particular course or across the particular grade level and what additional information can we gather it from that and how do we track

074that information rather than having it just live on a student's report card from a district perspective how do we have the ability to be able to track the overall growth previously I gave presentations to the board of ed about three you know back when we had 3 through8 testing and regions results I would give a present presentation to the board to share with you how our students are performing on regent exams, how our students are performing on 3 through8 ELA and math exams, how can we use some of these other com uh uh common assessments and gather comparable data from those assessments that are being administered to our students. So that's the work that is very much ongoing right now with the data teams. So the second part of goal one is is also continue

075to build the central data repository. We use Hanuit as to as a tool for central data repository. So far we are able to connect the power school with the hanuit which brings the data from demographic information the student schedule uh student discipline along with the student grades uh for the 6 to 12 as they use the grade book. We're also able to connect the data or bring the data from our benchmark assessment star for reading, math and early literacy. We're able to also load the data for New York State assessment uh for last couple of years. uh last Friday uh was a big release for Hanuit. Um some of the work that we've been doing with with Hanuit, we were able to identify some of the inconsistency of the of the data that was coming

076through from a different system as a part of the data validation process. So they were able to address most of that in last Friday. So now we are actually verifying that are these data inconsistencies inconsistencies has been removed and what's the what does the new data chart look like for our students along when we bring the all the different systems data into the Hanui on the organizational process side um we have started the work uh with the NIST cyber security framework NIST is the national institute of standards and technology we have adopted as a as as a district the revision four of that work um and one of the portion is the access control So the big big shout out to all the system administrators who manages various systems we have. So powers school um

077we we were able to complete the access control protocol for powers school. So when an employee gets hired what kind of the rights that the stu that that employee needs to manage his or her role in the s in the district and what access that person will have in in powers school. Same logic for recruit and hire which is the system used by our HR department uh for the recruitment um of the new employees. Um professional growth this is the system that we we we have implemented last about maybe six years before to monitor the the the teacher um to monitor the teacher evaluation and various conferences they they track. So we track that data and their New York state hours in this system that is managed by U. Kristen Rander in technology department. we

078were able to complete the access control protocol for this system. The next two system that we are working with the special education directors and and if director of finance Tanya Morat uh IEP and Vincap um this these are the critical systems and the goal is to make sure that we have a really robust protocol in place that allows us to make a decision not based on a person it's based on the position what is the role of a p position in the district and what access rights that the person would need. Generally when we get audited usually these are the first questions that the auditors are like show me the list of the employee you have and why these employees have a various access rights in the various systems. Then for next step for us

079continue to work with Dr. Hler and districtwide data team uh to identify various data points so then we can bring it into the hene um and and in in January NIST comp NIST has the current version of what we call version 4. NIST had NIST had adapted version five now in January. They added some more categories for us to make sure we are paying attention to that. So we are now reviewing the new uh version five and what does the migration look like for the work we have done in last few years in division 4 to revision five. Uh Bargo quick question. Sure. So it's three more are in progress and there will be some next steps with additional data points. Is there a specific date or even like we are very close to finish

080it the last two points last two bullets it's just a matter of finalizing with the department heads what well I was sorry I was ask like is there is for a beta release is is there a specific date it's been so so every so next release for for the knew it would be in May so they just released the in March what we will do now we will report all the inconsistency to them in next I would say five six weeks they will take in consideration and then they will put it in new release which is the next release will be May 2022. They are generally very adaptive to that. Um and and and kudos to to board and and obviously Elsie uh in terms of adopting this there are a lot of districts now

081reaching out to us to see what we have what we are starting to do and what we have done is so I think that's also helping us because the more adaptation of the tool becomes more widely popular it puts a pressure on the company. So the goal is to have them do every month not every two months. They used to do every quarter now they have come up all the way to every two months to build the more system in place. So then ultimately we can get quick fix uh of the data validation in the process. And I know not everyone will have access to this but the people that will have access to it have have they all been have they all gotten the chance? Not yet. So so that's what I'm saying. When's

082that beta release going to kind of So our goal is actually to work with the district that's a good question. Um, our goal is to introduce this tool to the district-wide data team meeting before this this school year ends. Great. All right. So, that that is our goal. Thank you. I think you need to charge for your consulting to other districts. Yes. I don't think he can pass contract. He can ask the vendor for a better discount for our district for next year and that's what he does. He does does make good um deals with people because of his knowledge. So, good. It serves us well. Anything else for goal number one? All right. So goal number two re uh revolves around family and community engagement. And one of the ways to determine um how

083our families are feeling is to ask them. And we completed our strategic plan survey. Um I just want to point out the numbers. So we had our students in grades four through 5, 6 through 12 take it. We had about 4,000 students um across the district take it. Our staff in our buildings, we had 315 staff members staff districtwide, 110 families with children in schools. Um 982 families took this and residents without children in schools. 228 for a total of 5,789 which is an increase from the last time we administered the survey. Last time we had 5,522. So um we had a few more people who had something to say which is a good thing. So, we we got the information late on Friday afternoon and what we decided to do was to start to

084to delve into it and there were a couple of trends or themes that have already started to to emerge. Um, we still have to do a deeper dive just because we're going to be doing it with the administrators, but I think the reality is there's a there's a new COVID related baseline. There were questions that were solidly green last time and now they're red. And things such as they wouldn't really necessarily think about, but when students were asked about working in groups in their their classrooms, last time almost all the students worked in groups during the the course of a of a class or or class period. When you take this in the you know towards the end of a pandemic, they weren't allowed to work in groups because well, they weren't allowed. They weren't

085they were in desks and they were in their spaces. So that number was low. When you asked about families who were um you know not welcomed but were more active participants or physically active participants in the actual buildings that number was lower than it was last time again because people weren't allowed to come into the buildings. So there is a COVID baseline and as we delve into that more I just want to you know want to state that the second trend or or theme that came out was across the board whether it was staff including teachers whether it was our clerical staff or buildings and grounds department um and this also includes our parents because they were asking for the same thing. Everybody was asking for some more training, some more um specific professional development

086um whether it was about how they teach or what they're teaching and families who were asking for more training and more understanding of what it is their their own ch children are learning and how we as a school district can best help them. And that was also something that was very evident regardless of who was taking the the survey. safety and security. It was big the last two surveys and it continues to be a concern because it's always there's always something moving and I'll be speaking to uh some additions that we were adding as far as the personnel budget um safety and security and then differentiation of instruction was interesting because you had students who were you know you had some groups of students who were saying you know I'm hoping that my teacher could

087teach me differently when it comes to certain subjects and then you had teachers who were asking for you know new new ways to to teach an ever not changing population of students but in order to meet the the continuing changing needs of our students. You had teachers asking for um for extra support with that. And so our next steps um I put the completed ones there. We first two but now it's now that we got this we had our cabinet meeting yesterday to really look at it a little bit for the first time. Now we'll roll it out and sit with our administrative team and then by May we'll be coming back to all of you to share some some more in-depth results. Thank you. Okay. Uh so you know goal number three is principally

088about the uh pre-referendum uh planning for capital projects and and we intend to have a referendum put that before the uh the public in early December and and as you know c capital projects need to be voter approved in New York State. So that's why we go through that project or process. Another way to do that is actually to include the expense or the appropriation for a capital project as part of your budget. So sometimes districts do that. That's one of those things we're proposing for next year, a small $100,000 capital project as part of the general fund budget. Um but in terms of goal number three, so uh the building condition survey is now entirely complete. We've submitted that and certified that with New York State Ed department. So that's going to be, you

089know, the tool, one of the tools that we're going to use to sort of develop and refine the scope uh for our project. Uh what we've begun is looking at these reports. Andre Rudi and I have been looking at the reports and there's a lot of reports. It's a very lengthy voluminous report for every building and it's more than just the seven school buildings. It's like 14 or 16 buildings that we have. So we're reviewing those and then actually visiting the buildings themselves to review the cited deficiencies. So we want to actually see it uh look at it during the course of those meetings. We're also we're trying to meet with all the principles and sort of give them the opportunity to have input on the capital projects and capital needs because the building addition

090survey talks about what's wrong with the existing structure. It doesn't talk about how would you like to change it or enhance it? Uh what kind of new programs or areas do you would you like to have? What kind of new facilities you would have? So that's where that input comes in. So, um, common requests, and we've been talking about this before, based on our our prior building conditions survey and a facilities report that we had done with our prior architect, seem to be air conditioning, congregate areas, you know, large spaces in in school buildings. Summers are getting hotter, right? It would be nice to have an area to rotate students through during those really hot weeks towards the end of the year. Uh, new playgrounds. So that's something we're considering for, you know, all the

091elementary schools, either entirely new or new new pieces, new additions. Um, and then outdoor learning spaces. So that's something that we've, you know, become accustomed to during COVID. You know, we utilize the outdoor spaces a little more and it's, uh, something that you see more and more where you can actually make a, you know, sort of a nice permanent area. We have courtyards that could be enhanced in that way. So that's something we're going to look to our architects to help us with too as far as the planning and the the conceptual uh you know development of that. So um to that end we're meeting with CPL our architects tomorrow actually to share the BCS reports with them to we we've given them building schematics that they requested. Uh we also we began we had

092a baseline of capital projects. So, we're taking that baseline. We're going to, you know, add some some of the newer BCS uh things that have been cited. We're going to add some of the new requests and um you know, our own observations and, you know, some of the things that have been requested and start to develop the scope, cost out those projects, and then prioritize those projects because we know if if we did everything and everybody got everything they wanted, it's going to be a big number. So, we have to prioritize things and determine, you know, what's what's a need to have, what's a nice to have, that kind of thing. But, I think we're in a good position, we've talked about this before, to be able to with a minimal impact on the budget

093and the tax levy do a lot of work. And adding to our capital reserve helps us with that because you're able to with a capital reserve leverage building aid. So if we have 9 million in the capital reserve, we can actually do about $30 million of work because we're able to leverage that. It's the local contribution and the rest is building aid. So, you know, we have that plus the retiring debt. So, we're in a pretty good position to, you know, to make a a big impact on our facilities. Um, our next step, work with CPL to refine project scope and then develop the five-year capital plan. So, that's something that we have not done yet. It's often done in conjunction with the BCS, but we're going to allow CPL to do that. Lan put

094together the BCS for us. We're going to have our new architects do the five-year capital plan with the cost estimates with the prior prioritization. And uh you know, the final piece that we've talked about is bringing on a construction manager. So, going through the architectural contract and some of the difficulties we had with that, it took us longer than we thought to do that. And what we realized is the attorneys need to be involved like with the development of the RFP for the the construction manager so we can we can make sure that what we've put in the contract for the architect is coordinated and aligned with what we put in the RFP and ultimately the contract for the construction manager. So you know the idea is is aligning it so there's so the architect

095knows where his responsibilities begin and end and where the construction manager's responsibilities begin and end. So that was one of those things where in the original timeline we thought we'd be done with that by but we're not. We're having I wouldn't call it a setback. It's just sort of a re-evaluation about how to do that in the right way. So that's it. Any any questions? No. No. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Chupoto, could you put the lights on, please? Thank you. Okay. So, moving on with our agenda, we have a motion to approve the minutes from the March 10th, 2022 meeting. May I have a motion? Second. All those in favor? I. First reading of the policy manual update. I just want to make a note of this here. So we are waving

096our second reading this evening and the line that is coming out of policy number 2200 which is based off of our annual budget vote and school board elections is that we are removing that the board of education authorizes personal registration. The dates and times of registration will be designated by the board in accordance with state law. So that is the one line that we will be removing from that policy and the reasoning for that is because we are no longer offering that service. So we will no longer need that line within our policy. So the policy committee met for that and that is the line specific that we will be removing. So may I have a motion for the first reading? Motion. Second. All those in favor? I. And with the description that I just

097gave, may I have a motion to wave the second reading? Motion. Second. All those in favor I I. Next is a resolution to approve participation of Monro Woodbury students on the Minisync clay ski and trap team. I just want to make a note here that basically what this is for cuz we asked um we obviously do not have this program here at Monroe Woodbury. However, what the board is now authorizing is that our students will be able to participate at another location that is offering this program. So that is what we specifically are approving for this evening. So may I have a motion to approve? Motion. Second. All those in favor? I um committee reports. I'll go first with policy. The policy uh committee met on March 15th. Our next meeting will be on the

09819th. This was one of the policies that we went over. We are also still currently working on our equity policy. So that we are waiting for some final results back from the attorneys and we hope to be able to discuss that at our next meeting which is scheduled for April 19th. Um Don for audit. Yes. So uh we met we've picked our new uh internal auditor uh New Rocky and Smith. They're a pretty big name. They're out of Long Island. I was actually surprised they came up here to bid on this. Uh we're very fortunate to get them. Um uh part of that we're going to review the vendor database and the W9 files and um we reviewed the various grants. We reviewed the investments of funds uh from from Monroe Woodbury what we were

099putting it in and Tanya came up with some some pretty good suggestions. Um, and then we reviewed the New York uh New York State Transparency Report versus the uh ESSA reports and basically concluded that, you know, the new formats are pretty worthless, but uh that's what we're required to do by New York State. So, okay, good. Any update for And I will just note that the next audit meeting is scheduled for June 9th. Um, facilities update. Uh, we have a meeting, what is it? April April 27th. 27th. That's an additional meeting that we added based off of some of the feedback that we've been getting um in regards to the capital project. So that will be our next facilities meeting on April 27th. Noan for visitation. We visited the middle school last week. Um I

100don't think there's anything especially to note. Um I have not seen the building condition survey yet. So, I don't we looked at all the systems there, but when I read the report, then I think it'll make more sense with the minutes. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And the next meeting that we have is scheduled for April 25th. I just don't recall the building that we're visiting. But that's it. All of that information is on our district website, so that should be up on there. Um, report by student representative Omar. We missed you last time. I'm sorry it ran late, so you didn't get to give us your report. No worries. Um, I just wanted to say that the um the student council is presenting their first annual spring social this year, which will be taking

101place on April 1st for a night full of karaoke, comedy, music, games, and trivia and more. So, tickets will be posted on Rev Track soon, and I encourage all high schools, high school students to go. Um, Miss Dunnings with the 2023 student um, student government has come to me to inform everybody who is planning on going to junior prom that they must adhere to the deadline of April 6th because they have to send in the information, the final list to West Point a month prior to the actual prom date, which is May 14th. So, April 14th, they have to send it back. Um, the senior class and the class of 2025 are hosting a bowling night on Saturday, April 3rd 23rd at Pine Street Bowling Alley in Warwick. And make sure you get your tickets

102on Ref Track by April 15th. And any member of the class of 2023 who is interested in becoming the Board of Education student representative for next year, please make sure to fill out the online application that can be found on the district website by March 31st. If you have any questions, feel please feel free to contact me and I'll be glad to help. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you so much. And that's good. I don't need to give that reminder because you gave that so I don't need that anymore. Um but yes, please I we encourage students if you have any questions, please reach out to Omar. Anything else that you might need, you can reach out also to Lisa student and I believe she'll probably put you in contact with Miss Fenley. So, we

103hope to have uh a good handful of students this year that apply for the position. Um Matt for personnel. Thank you very much. So, just a couple of highlights before I ask for approval under uh for the items listed under personnel. First of all, there there are a number of classified appointments tonight. Um including seven school security aids which will go a long way to helping our school district in terms of their their safety for all of our buildings. Um so, welcome to those those folks. Um, also I just want to point out under our certified appointments, one of the we we have a number of people, but one person who's being appointed is somebody we um we created a special appointment for him a few weeks back. He his all of his stuff was

104in for certification. Um, we were just waiting on it. It's since come through and that's Sam Munzer who is our technology teacher at the middle school. So his his time for tenure starts, you know, basically starts on on March on March 5th. But one thing I do want to point out is that um he's such a good teacher already that he was recognized by Sunni Asiggo. Um with the James R. Hastings award for field experience excellence. Um Asiggo is is one of the few schools that we draw a huge amount of well there are not a huge amount of people. So if you want to go into teched, you know, folks out there, that's something to go into. But they are a a pipeline for school districts in terms of of teched. um and for

105him to get that award is says a lot about him and says a lot about our district in terms of people that we're able to recruit. The second thing or the last thing I just want to cover, there are two retirements on on tonight's um agenda and uh it's one of those like you're super happy for the people who are retiring and really kind of bummed for us in a lot of ways. First one's Michelle Bennis. Um September of 1990, Michelle started here. Uh she started as a teacher. She was a special education department chair and then an assistant principal. And I think for me, one of the best things I could say about Michelle is when I was a a, you know, an elementary school principal, I the fifth graders who transitioned to the

106middle school as far as um, you know, needing special education services were nervous, right? And along with the kids being nervous, their parents were often very nervous. You went from small little North Main to the big middle school. And Michelle would come down to those those meetings in the spring and meet the parents, walk with the kids, talk with them, and one of her greatest, you know, attributes was that she was able to make those parents feel really comfortable. And then she was able to help support those kids and make them successful and and, you know, on the on a long list of great attributes. That was one thing that I just found awesome. And then the second person who's retiring on tonight's list is Lee Freriedman. And for those who don't know, Lee started

107here in July of 2011. She was the the secretary at North Main when I was the principal. Um when I jumped over here, Lee also jumped over here, which was a big deal for her because so much of you know what makes her special is how she deals with people. and she gave up a lot of that leaving North Maine and leaving a building where it was busy and there's always kids and parents and um to come to an office uh upstairs but to be part of a team that that deals ultimately with people right in the district and she's someone who when you call she's kind um she'll be missed and both of them are on to bigger better different things and I just wish both of them um tremendous amount of luck and

108let them both know that we're incredibly grateful to both of them. So with that, I'm hopeful that we could approve the items listed. Second. All those in favor? I. Thank you, Patrick. For business and financial, uh, thanks, Stacy. So, I would respectfully request approval of the items listed on the business financial section of the agenda. And I just would like to acknowledge uh a $2500 uh merit scholarship award to uh Dr. for Barav Vas for his participation in the future of privacy forums train the trainer program. So the donation will be used to help fund onetoone device repair and loss for students in need. So thank you Dr. Vas for that and thank you to the future of privacy forum education and innovation foundation. May I have a motion to approve? Motion second. All those

109in favor? I. May I have a motion to approve the recommendations of the committee on special education 17.1 through 17.4? Motion. Second. All those in favor? I I um reports by board and central office surge. I wanted to congratulate all the retirees, all the award recipients, good job. Mhm. Um and uh thank you the cabinet for uh continuing um such uh wonderful work. The presentations are very complete and we know that it takes a lot of work and effort uh to make this happen. So thank you. Thank you Dan. I just want to thank the middle school for um inviting me to attend the uh the musical this past weekend. Um, I spent an awesome couple of hours on Sunday seeing the kids and it was amazing and it's definitely evident all the work that

110was went into the production. Um, and I especially want to give a shout out to Miss Guera and the AV kids because I know that sometimes they go unnoticed but definitely integral to everything that was done. So, thank you. Thank you, Don. uh like to I really appreciate the goals that uh I know you guys made a huge effort to uh to work on those and it's it's really helpful. It uh it's a pretty good feeling that we're moving in a really really good direction and uh welcome spring. Yes. Thank you Suzanne. Yeah, I'd like to congratulate and please forgive me if I mispronounce names, Evan Leu and um for his becoming a semi semi finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Awards and also to Avalash Patel for being our spelling bee champion. Um and

111I hear you're going on to uh I believe it's the regionals I think regional DC. Washington with Lavar Burton excuse me nationally so congratulations I'd like to thank Dr. Hassler for your presentation on the budget and the cabinet for updating the goals and congratulations to all the retirees and like Don said, welcome spring. Thank you Omar. Anything else? Jessica Knight. Have a great week everybody. Thank you Lisa. Um I'd like to also wish the retirees well that I will also personally miss them. Um and everyone have a good evening. Thank you. Margo Michelle you will certainly be missed along with Lee. So I know it's been short time working with you but you have definitely provided really good support to technology even though from your special education side knowledge. Um congratulations to uh Pine Tree

112uh Jingle Book. Uh that was phenomenal performance from that and good luck to a high school drama club for the next weekend. Thank you Eric. There were a number of retirements at the last board of education meeting and this board of education meeting. Most of whom I know for a very very long time and I'm just not willing to acknowledge that you're retiring. So I'm I'm not even going to comment on that just yet. I'm not ready to. It's too upsetting. Um thank you again to everybody for their assistance in in putting together tonight's budget presentation. Uh a huge amount of work goes into it. Thank you very much to Karen and Karen for stepping up to the plate into the microphone. Um, I do have the updated numbers for you. In October, we had

113414 uh, English as a new language students. Right now, we have 507. So, that's an increase of 93. However, that does not include commanding students. When students take the the New York State English as a second language exam and they test commanding, which is basically the equivalent of proficient, they're still entitled to two years worth of services following that. So the 507 is the number of kids that are currently receiving services in the school district plus there's approximately I think around 100 students that are commanding in the school district on top of that. So there are those numbers. Um good luck to our Odyssey the Mind teams. Two middle school, one high school in states in Syracuse this weekend. Well done, Pine Tree with the Jungle Book. Uh, best of luck to James and the

114Giant Peach. It's awesome. Yes, yay, spring. But it's particularly awesome to see sports back outside again. I mean, winter's tough when everybody's sort of inside, but you drive the by the fields now and the kids are back out there, which is awesome. Um, we are back to an in-person district art show, April 29th. So, please put that on your calendars. K12 uh art exhibits as well as the portfolio portfolios of our senior art majors. Congratulations to Evan and Abalash. Well done. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. Yeah. So, I just wanted to uh wish big thank you to all my colleagues for the work with the budget. You know, Eric, uh your presentation was good, spot on, and um you know, thank you as we go through this process. Good big and uh wish every I

115I was told to put clip art in it and stuff like that and I was like, I don't know. I I you know like like I I I feel like that's just more that just like I'll just go on more and more. So I'm trying to just like um less is more. That's I'm really trying to go for that. I am good motto. Thank you, Patrick. Matt, uh, very quickly, I just want to say I think one of the things I love with the the new website and the social media piece are how you just get these popups of whether it's the attitude of gratitude or the the women's history um, you know, videos and spotlights. So, just keep them coming because they are fun to watch and it's it's very cool to learn new

116things about people that you know, but it's nice to to know even more. So, um, they're just fun to watch. So, thank you very much. Have a good night. Thank you, Jamal. Everyone, have a good night. get home safe. Thank you, Dan. Ditto. Thank you, Anthony. I just wanted to thank the members of the community for stepping up and asking some difficult questions and uh I think that's a very important part of these meetings. So, thank you to them and uh have a great night. Thank you, Michael. I want to thank the cabinet for the budget presentations. They were very thorough. And also the update on the goals. Uh, I'd like to acknowledge the amount of work that's going in there and we do really appreciate that. Um, and I want to wish the high

117school theater troop with James and the Giant Peach to break a leg cuz I hate that phrase, but if you say anything different supposedly it's bad luck. So, um, they I wish them to break a leg. Um, tickets are still on sale and I think it's really going to be a fantastic show. So, I do recommend anyone who can attend Thursday through Saturday. And thank it. Have a good night. Thank you, Elsie. Um, I want to thank Eric, Dr. Hassler, for his presentation and I do want to thank the cabinet. I know that they work hard and sometimes I can push you a little hard and I will continue to do that. So, it's not going to change. Um, I want to say congratulations to my friend Michelle and to Lee. I will miss you.

118One more thing. Uh, see, I guess you should have sat over there, Michelle, so I couldn't look at you. So, I do want to say something about Evan Louu. He is also he will be attending the Massachusetts Institute for Technology in Cambridge. So, good luck. Congrat congratulations to him. And lastly, we have a student by the name of he's a sophomore in the high school, Evan Pavagiano. He earned his state recognition for reflections entry and it was what autism means to me. So, congratulations, Evan. And um thank you. Thank you. That's awesome. Um I too want to say thank you for the presentations. I I agreed with everybody else on the board. We know that a lot of work goes in behind the scenes. I want to say thank you to those that got up

119and spoke and I don't want to make anybody nervous, but I prefer it that way. Um, so, you know, get ready perhaps for future changes because not that I don't think that Dr. Hassler does an excellent job, but similar to last board meeting when Mr. Judis was up there, there's a team of people that sit behind everybody and uh it's great to see that it is a collaborative effort. So, I appreciate the presentations. Thank you very much. Um, thank you for the invites to the plays. Similar to the seeing the kids on the athletic field, it has been amazing to go back and be able to see our kids doing what they love, which is performing. And I have to say, I was able to get a sneak peek yesterday cuz I'm out of town

120this weekend. So, the uh um director of the play, Forgive Me, Miss Pacted, is was able to give me a little sneak peek. So, congratulations to those kids. If you haven't purchased tickets yet, I encourage you to go get the tickets for the high school performance because it was amazing. So, they they deserve all the recognition. We were able to go see The Jungle Book uh at Pineree, which was also equally amazing. I look forward to hopefully seeing those kids on the stage of the high school in future years. Um I want to say thank you, same for the website. I absolutely love that we're able to go on there. I know I encourage people pretty regularly here to go and visit the website. There is a lot of content on there and it does

121take a little bit of scrolling and a little bit of navigating, but there's a lot of great information to be seen on there. Specifically that I would like to highlight that um through Women's History Month, we are currently on our third individual this month who I believe was just released this morning. I believe was a bus driver, Miss Gatling. Um but I do encourage you to go on there and go ahead and read some of those information and their bios and see what great things they're doing. I of course will mention our fearless leader here, Mrs. Rodriguez, because I do hope that you can go and visit the interview that took place. It is long. It is 14 minutes, but it was wonderful. And I want to give a shout out to Leila Mustafa who

122did the interview because she was phenomenal and I hope to see more of her in the future. She really did a great job and I thought the interaction was wonderful and just that you are a role model for our students. So, it is definitely appreciated and please go ahead and visit the website for the other people that are on there as well. And um with that, I ask for a motion to go into an executive session for the dis public excuse me for the for the purpose of discussing the appeal of a particular student's suspension. Motion second. All those in favor. Meeting adjourns.