001Thank you for, uh, joining us this evening. We are starting our Board of Education meeting in a short bit. Uh, but before we do so, we have a special presentation. Uh, and before we do that, I would like to thank all of our parents who are here tonight. Uh, if you are a parent of one of our amazing scholars, please stand up. Let us recognize you. Todos Los padres well-traveled, balancing grasslands by the local state as para New Zealand. Thank you for all that you do for our scholars. And I want to give a special thank you. I know we'll call them up later, but if you had some of the coffee or the treats that we had our very own high school Rye students, um, I think we have Mr. Ness here. Mr. ness,
002can you stand up? He's one of our amazing teachers. We have Mrs. Cairney from the middle school. If you can stand up and let's thank her as well. And she has, um, is, uh, her staff member as well. If you can stand up right to your left. Yes, yes. Miss Buzz and Miss Buzz. Uh, we're a family here, and her daughter is going to be appointed tonight to work in our school district as well. Let's recognize her. The young miss was. This was. And you're going to, um, hear about our students in just a moment. And so we will recognize them. But we have a very special treat. Will recognize some other individuals who are in the audience in just a few moments. Uh, but before I get started, I would love for our Board
003of Education members. I know we recognize them earlier. They are sitting over here without their support, without their vision, without their allocation of budget, without their action planning and moving us forward as a district. None of what we have know nothing of what we've innovated would be possible. Board of education, please stand up. Let us recognize you and say thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you do. And I plus one is our president is. At this moment. It gives me great pleasure and honor to recognize some of our amazing students from Woodside Elementary School. Let's hear it for our Woodside Scholars. And we're going to bring them up. And they are going to sing a very special song that has a very special meaning for us as we celebrate black history throughout
004the year. And they are coming up now. Let's give them another big round of applause. Welcome. We are the proud Woodside Wildcats in the K one building, myself, Mr. Chang. We have Mrs. Cordova, Mr. Muffler, Mr. Vini, Miss Goucher and our principal, Miss Woodley. In February, we celebrate Black History Month. This tradition was founded by Carter G. Woodson in 1926, exactly 100 years ago, to honor this milestone. We are sharing two very special songs with you today. Our first song is Lift Every Voice and Sing, written by James Weldon Johnson. This song was written during a time of both great struggle and achievement, eventually becoming known as the Black National Anthem. Next, we will perform Shea Coulee, a traditional call and response song from Ghana sung in Swahili. This song celebrates the rhythm and spirit
005of African heritage. When I noticed even many those at todos for that better than Westeros ninos, the Woodside Wildcats and the Imperial Celebra Ramos de la Historia Americana is that tradition for Dada, Paul Carter, G. Woodson and me. No siento NTC. I see excitement seeing anos para Coleman. Coleman. Morales. Boy. Capaz de moscone status dos canciones we especiales nuestra primera consume s lift every voice and sing as Greta for James Weldon Johnson. Esta canciones durante una grandest, the grandest. Um Lucius ello Ross Gomez dimple gay conceit Quincy conceal. Sorry, my Spanish is horrible, but I'm getting there, I'm getting there Como el nino nazionale Afro americano I continuacion contact cantata Amos Church a cool una canciones traditional de Gaia. Ghana and Swahili is celebra el. Read more. Ellsbury to the Latencia africana. The moment the
006whole fabled bull nun say they please stand me and Raquel Thomas and im Nacional. Afro americano. Gracias a Belize. Miss the Historia Afro americana. I. When? I. These guys. I. That is the policy. It's. I mean, I. Even from. All right for our next song, che che. Cool. I'm going to ask my two dance leaders to step forward, Michael and Michelle. And before they sing this for you, Michael, you can go on that corner right by Jake. There you go, buddy. Yeah. Michelle. Before they sing it. We're going to teach it to you so that then when they sing it, you can also sing it with us. Okay. So they're going to show you how it goes once. Then our dance leaders are going to turn and we're going to do it again. And you're
007going to participate with us. And then we'll kind of put it all together. So Michael and Michelle I'm going to count you off. Ready, friends? One, two. Ready. Go. Okay, cool. Call me for. Exactly. So. You. So now I'm going to have Michael Michaud. Can you turn out face your families? We're going to do that same thing. And then my my friends back here. You're going to sing with them too. But I'm going to ask you to sing with us as well. So our dance leaders will go first and you'll repeat it back. Ready? One, two. Ready. Go! J. J. Taking a visa. To complete a visa, call these. On part. She. La la. Call. And now we're going to perform it for you. And feel free to sing along and dance leaders. Let's just.
008Yeah, yeah. You just stay right where you are. You're great. Here we go. We're ready. I see. I can't. Exactly. I. Wonderful job, boys and girls. Thank you so much. Great job. Woodside Wildcats. Another big round of applause for our Woodside performers, our Woodside staff. Why? So I literally. Let's give our music teacher, Miss Gallagher, a big round of applause. And all of our teachers from Woodside Elementary School. And just so you know, we have a full time music teacher in all of our schools from kindergarten, all the way up to the high school, multiple teachers at the middle and high school. And we even have thank, uh, thanks to our Board of education and the work of Doctor Vilas Rodriguez. We also have a teacher aide who is working, uh, teacher assistant working with
009our students, teaching them piano in pre-K. And that's a commitment to our arts. Thank you, Board of Education. We appreciate that financial commitment. And so with that, uh, at this time, we are going to begin our board meeting. But before we do, parents, uh, your Woodside children will be in the museum up on the gallery here level. And so if I Woodside parents, you are welcome to stay. Uh, but your children will be out there. Um, so if you'd like to, uh, um, go, uh, find your children, you certainly welcome to stay and join us again. But we have some honorary. If you celebrate Irish history, then please give yourselves a round of applause. And your heritage. You want to be part of that? Our schools are engaging in that as well, as well as
010women's history and the importance of all of the people who have come before us to allow us to have what we have today. And so with that, at this time, we have our Peekskill Pride. This is a moment in which I get to speak with great pride about the things happening in our schools, from our amazing staff, before I move forward with that. I know we have some administrators here, so our principals, directors, assistant principals, our very own assistant principal here from the middle school as well. Administrators, please stand up. Let us recognize you and thank you for your commitment each and every day. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I know tonight we also have amazing staff, many of whom are from the special education department and Student Support Services department. All of
011our staff, please stand up, let us recognize you and say gracias. Thank you for all that you do. And so I just have a few slides that I'd like to share with you about the things happening in our school. Behind me on the curtains here, you see the remnants of SpongeBob the musical. And this took place just two weekends ago. And here are performers. Let's give our middle school team, uh, directors, uh, cast and crew, and, uh, amazing, uh, students who are, uh, getting ready to move on high school and be part of our theater arts program, another very important investment into our arts in Peekskill. Another big round of applause for our students. And just in the middle school, as we always do. We had our wonderful Saturday Academy again, recognizing women's history and
012say, um, and also Irish history as well. We had a special presentation right here on the stage, uh, where our students learned about, uh, bearded dragons. They learned about animals from, uh, South America. They learned about kangaroos. They had a python snake, a ball python snake. And I got an opportunity to hold an alligator as well. And I'm still here to tell the story. And so let's give our two by two zoo, our Saturday Academy program led by Iris, who covered it, and her team. Thank you for always creating this. And thank you to all the families and our marching band who came out. It was sunny, but it was cold and windy, but we came out together to celebrate Irish history. Let's give everyone a big round of applause for coming out as well.
013Coming up soon. March 24th in just a few Tuesdays from now at 6:30 p.m., right here in the middle school, we will have music in our schools, and this is an opportunity for our children from our earliest grades, all the way up to the secondary level to showcase their talent. My daughter has been practicing the viola approach to the large, uh, instrument, and I have the, um, earplugs at home. Uh, she is getting ready. Uh, but she doesn't know it. I'm smiling like you are as well. So thank you, families, and thank you to our amazing music teachers. Let's give them a big round of applause. At this time, I'm going to call up our Special Education Students Support service team, and they have a very special presentation for you and a recognition of one
014of our very own scholars, Miss and Elder Eliza. Yes, yes you can. Hello everyone! This year we have started a new tradition to recognize a student of distinction. We would like now to invite Miss Nicolette Thompson up to the stage to present the selected students of award. We are awarding Adam Mejia cannolis from Woodside Elementary School for outstanding growth in his communication skills, his academics, and his social development. He's made so much progress and we're so proud. Thank you. Good job. Adam. Congratulations. Congratulations. It is a yearly tradition that happens from both sides. Every year, they come to each of their 18 school districts, and they recognize a student of distinction. And our very own Mr. and Mrs. Hackett, um, had the idea to bring this every month moving forward as we roll into the
015next year to recognize at least one of our students from our schools. And we want to say thank you. Let's give Miss Hackett and her team a big round of applause and say thank you for all that you do. Okay. And our last, uh, recognition before we get into our adult recognition of our scholars is going to be a very special, uh, short video. And then, um, this dress with, uh, after the video, I'll turn it over to you. Um. Higher than it is today. I hear. At this time, we would like to invite Coach Nash and Coach Kearney up to the stage to be recognized. We would also like to invite all of our players up to the stage as well. So will all of our pioneer students please come up to the podium?
016Come on up. Jolly sprint. Come on up. Come on up. We're going to call each of their names, and we're going to ask that you please hold their applause until the end. Is. I mean, isn't that just. Anthony Mora, Marvin Odenkirk, or Lewis R.P.? Carmen RV. Okay, Carmen, you're going to get through. Sister to Elise Camacho. Yes. Written facts. You ed in Ventura. Okay. Eddie and Stephen Foster, CNN senior. Wonderful. It is a welcome to square one. Okay. We're all going to take a quick photo everybody. We're going to smile doctor. And you're going to get in the picture Julia. And that's why I really. Look at this. Clara! Ready? Over here. Wait, Laura. Everybody who is an MP. I just like to take a second to thank Doctor Maurizio. Miss Hackett, the Board of
017Education providing an opportunity for our students to represent Peekskill wearing the jersey. It gives them great pride representing the school community. I am extremely proud of them. They show up every day and they give their best effort. They play with heart, they're unselfish to their teammates and most importantly, they always demonstrate great sportsmanship to the other team, the other players and the other coaches and referees. And on top of that, the soccer team was undefeated this year seven zero. And the basketball team has been two years in a row undefeated. And we won our first game. Way to go, pioneers! Thank you, Mr. Nash. Thank you, Coach Kearney. And thank you, all of our players, for an undefeated season and for representing Peekskill proudly. Thank you everyone. Let's give them one more round of applause
018and say thank you. Congratulations. And also we know that parents are in the audience as well. Parents, please buy this. Por favor, please stand up. Let us recognize all of our parents as well. Gracias por el toro loco. This is quite a list of things. At this time, I'm going to call up as our parents make their way to meet our athletes. Um, I'm going to call up Doctor Daniels if she can come up for the final part of this, uh, program. And here she is. And let's give Doctor Dames a big round of applause for her work on, uh, cultural and diversity. Instructional work that we do and celebrating all of our students for who they are, our community. We are welcoming community of friendly town, as you know the saying, and we are
019also one that celebrates all of our students, no matter what background they come from. They are part of the Peekskill family and most of that is led by Doctor Dance. Another big round of applause for our. Good evening. Na na na. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you. We are so excited to be here to celebrate. Uh, and that's the beauty of being in Peekskill City School District. We love to celebrate, we love to highlight, and we are proud of our students and their accomplishments, as well as the dedication of our staff and everyone that is committed to our learning community. Just to give you a brief overview, I am truly going to do an overview because we could not capture all that we have done for Black History Month, but we wanted to give you
020a snippet of what we have accomplished on this year, as well as as well as celebrate some phenomenal individuals for their contribution, as we also recognize Women's History Month. One thing we do know that Black History Month is not SEL, not settled on just a specific month. We celebrate Black History 365 days of the year, and that is important to us. And we want to make sure that we continue to lift up, and we want to make sure that we continue to lift up and acknowledge each and every one. The theme for Black History Month this year was Black History Month, a century of Black History commemorations. Please give a round of applause to Miss Cherise Wood Chang and our living Museum. Was that not outstanding? Being able to see all of the accomplishments that
021has taken place through the decades and the half has not been told we are still yet celebrating. We know that the celebration of Black History Month started with Carter G. Wilson, which began as a week. Woodson rather, which began as a week but now has cultivated into a month. And again we celebrate all the t I'm e time because that's what we do and we love celebrations, so we are so proud of our young people. Were they beautiful, the Woodside Wildcats. Oh my goodness. Thank you Miss Woodley. And they come out and they support and they're just beautiful. That is the graduating class I believe of 2039. Oh let that set. Yeah. Oh yeah. Let that settle in. And uh, let for some of you let that settle in. We are so happy that at
022the elementary level, not only did I buildings, not only did they celebrate, uh, individually, but they celebrated collectively. They celebrated our community partners. They did gallery walks, they did educational learning. They were able to embrace. And we are so happy that our schools are intentional about the work that we are looking to do around the celebration of diversity, equity and inclusion. It is important because our society is diverse, that we make sure that we lift up, we celebrate and we elevate. And this is an overview of what had what took place in various buildings from Uriah Hill, um, also to Woodside as well as Oak Side. Uh, we also have that. I click it the right way. I did, yes, I did, I I'm so proud of myself. I clicked it the right way. Yes.
023Thank you. Give me a round of applause. Technology is my friend. But you can see the exceptional work that we do here in the Peekskill City School District. And you know what? It starts pre-K all the way up to grade 12. We are invested in our children. And not only that, you get to see the investment manifest again. You are living and experiencing what we are and who we are here in the Peekskill City School District. And congratulations to our pioneers that again represent the diversity of who we are and the work that we do in our community. You see here there are students who are learning about not only do we have a dream, but they have a dream, and they were able to share out what their dreams were as well as they
024were able to experience gallery walks, be able to learn. And it was authentic work, not just work that was cut and paste, but authentic work where our students were able to dive, to learn, to inquire and to gain knowledge, and in turn celebrate and share that knowledge with their families. Let's give our elementary schools a round of applause. I can do this. Yes I can. Congratulations. At the secondary level. We are so proud. And once again, one of the beneficial ways of learning and expression is through the arts, through dance. As you were able to see through, through the learning about historically black colleges and universities, the expression of dance, you were able to see that. And not only was it the expression of dance, but the learning about the importance of historically black colleges
025and universities in the lives of individuals. What we hope is to our learning and through our knowledge at the secondary level, that our students will then be able to want to investigate and possibly attend historically black colleges and universities. One of the things that we are also proud of is that some of our students Chi where you had graduates come back and celebrate and show at graduates from Howard, the Howard University, if I'm not mistaken, giving her a round of applause participated in our our student panel. That is what we do here in Peekskill City School District. Our students were able to learn about great historians and our ancestors, but not only learn about them, be able to gain identity and pride, and that is so important. Shout out. But you know, one of the
026beautiful things about Peekskill City School District, we don't just keep it in the house. We take it to the community. Thank you. Doctor Ferris and the team. We were able to partner with sun River health and to take the show on the roll showcase of Black History Month. If I'm not mistaken, the Zetas were there as well. Celebrating and highlighting and learning about the history here in Peekskill. Peekskill is a phenomenal, phenomenal place of history, and we're able to showcase that and to turn key to Turkey that and to share for that information. Our My Brother's Keepers was invited to participate with the Westchester Knicks for Black History Month, and we were able to celebrate that. And it was a great experience because we got a shout out on the big, um, what did you
027call that thing? Thank you. Jumbotron. Did you you could tell I'm a basketball enthusiast, right? The jumbotron. We were able to get a shout out. And again, the pride, the pride and who we are and how we celebrate and giving our students those experiential opportunities. And not only was it our students, but we were able to collaborate and to connect with other My Brother Keeper, My Brother's Keeper initiative. And then we had a presentation by members of fraternities from the Divine Nine, for which we were very, very appreciative. I could do this. Yes I can. There we go. Yay, I did it! Excellent. You know what? We have so much talent here in Peekskill City School District. And not only do we have the talent, we're able to showcase the talent. And through our collaboration
028and partnership with the city of Peekskill. They invite us to showcase our student work in the rotunda so that the community can come and see all of the great things that, uh, that's happening in our school district. Again, our students will was able, through art, aluminum foil, magic markers to create stained glass. And not only was it stained glass and beautifully illuminated, it was the illumination of the Negro national anthem. Lift every voice and sing. That is the work of our children. And then not only that, we have those who are recognized by the city of Peekskill. Our teacher, Miss Rene Kirsch, and not only miss her kids give a round of applause. She's a special ed teacher here in the middle school. But our very own Miss Stacy Woodley, building leader, was recognized as.
029Well, that is what we call Peekskill Pride. That is celebrating black history. That is also elevating women and the great work that we do. Give him a round of applause. No. No. There we go. I'm gonna get this clicker before it's too late. Also, we are so happy. But not only are we bringing it to our community. Thank you, Doctor Mauricio. Thank you, board of education. Board of education for our parent resource center. And we truly do believe it's going to continue to grow and become an even greater hub here in our Peekskill community. Congratulations to Doctor Holman and her team for having a black excellence honoring our ancestors presentation. And it was really done well and our parents got to see. And we also had the opportunity to recognize unsung heroes. And we were
030able to recognize Coach Seawright and Mr. Darrel Francis again, stakeholders and important members of the Peekskill community. Let's give them a round of applause. I'm missing a slide. No. Okay. All right, well, my closing slide would read as this. Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a better person of yourself. A greater nation for our country. And a finer world to live in. That is why we celebrate black history. That is why we celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion. Because we want to make a final world for everyone to live in. And that is from Doctor Martin Luther King. Thank you. What they are doing. I thought it was me. Thank you. So at this time, we wish to recognize some phenomenal, finer women in the
031Peekskill area. The women of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, incorporated. Please come on down to the stage. Doctor Mauricio, will you come? New size Zeta chapter. These final women have been doing great work and partnering with our community, and we are eternally grateful for all that. They look beautiful in their royal blue and white. I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying anything. But the principles are these phenomenal women is scholarship, service, sisterhood, and a finer womanhood. And they have been major contributors to the work that we do here in the Peekskill area. And with their president, Miss Monica Jackson. Give them a round of applause. Doc Mauricio, which is bakery. Thank you. Let's give Doctor Daniels a big round of applause again for organizing these efforts. And Tuesday to Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated. We truly appreciate
032all that you do in our Saturday academies, in our community. Efforts to make sure that our students see themselves in you, that they see your ancestors in you, and that they see the spirit of your organization in what we have a kindred connection with, which is service to the community. And we thank you for all that you do. Some of you are on our staff. Others are in our community, and others are coming from the region supporting our students here in Peekskill. And on behalf of our amazing Board of Education, we want to say thank you. Big round of applause. And Miss Belfiore, if you can take the picture and I'm going to share a certificate, we have them for your outstanding efforts and valuable contributions to the Peekskill City School District, given this day,
033March 17th, 2026. President Gillian Valon and Superintendent Mauricio, we thank you for all that you do. Not good enough. And I would love for you to hear that. Let's give the members of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, incorporated gamma, a new size Zeta chapter. A round of applause for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority incorporated new sizes to chapter the president, Mrs. Monica Jackson. They are doing great work here in our community and we are truly grateful. However, it is important to know that the work that is done by Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated is supported by a lovely group of friends and this phenomenal group of individuals, the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, incorporated. Omigod! We also want to recognize you for your outstanding work and services. Please come on down you beautiful ladies in light blue. Yes.
034To is instead of our. Thank you again for all of your contributions to our community, to supporting our students. Don't they look lovely in this wonderful blue? It is my favorite color, and we thank you for your commitment to our school community and to our scholars as well, and our students in particular. Our young ladies, we have a my Sister's Keeper initiative and begins in our middle school, makes his way up to our high school, and is important for them to see people who they can emulate. And you are that it is important that they can look up to people and say, one day I can become you. And so we say, thank you. Big round of applause. And to you, on behalf of our Board of Education, for your outstanding efforts and valuable contributions
035to our entire Peekskill City School District community. Awarded today, March 17th, 2026, signed by our president and myself. We say thank you for all that you do each and every day, supporting our children and supporting our community because we know that they are better when we are better. Thank you. Let's give them a round of applause, and we are going to call one of you to give some, uh, words of, uh, on behalf of your organization. We'll let you figure that out. And there you go. Thank you. That's amazing. I so was not prepared to give a speech. However, thank you so much for this honor. It is. It means a lot of us for us to do be of service. Servitude is what we strive to do in Peekskill. We take it with great
036pleasure, we take pride in it, and we work so hard to give back to the children who we want to provide an amazing future by offering scholarships. So everything that we do, we do to bless one of these children to go to college. With that being said, we do have a fundraiser coming up. I'm going to give a plug on May 16th. We have our our first annual scholarship luncheon fliers all over the place. We would love to see you because you and your contribution give our children an amazing future. Thank you so much. You. Doctor Bedi, if you could escort, uh, Mrs. Monica Jackson, the president. Um, in my haste, I forgot to have her come up and say some words. And so you can think about what you would like to say on
037your way up here. Uh, but, uh, Doctor Bedi is going to escort you up and, uh, bring you back up to the stage. Let's give our president, Mrs. Jackson, a big round of applause. That's right. No, that was okay. I. Thank you. This is. Thank you for that escort. Good evening again. As you have been told. My name is Monica Jackson, and I proudly serve as the president of New Sine Zeta chapter, the first Greek letter organization established in the city of Peekskill. We are a community conscious, action oriented organization committed to making a difference and leaving a lasting impact. We stand firmly on the principles upon which our great sorority was founded scholarship, service, sisterhood, and finer womanhood. This work is not just what we do. It is who we are. Each year, we
038invest in the future by awarding thousands of dollars in scholarship to local high school students right here in peace, Gil, helping to open doors and create opportunities. But beyond that, we show up, we give back, and we serve because our community matters. To be recognized for this work tonight is both humbling and deeply appreciated. We do not serve for recognition. We serve because we care. We serve because we are called. And we serve because when one of us rises, we all rise. Thank you for this honor, and thank you for believing in the work that we do. God bless you and have a good night. Thank you, President Jackson. New era creative spaces. Are you here? I met Mrs. Turner many years ago when her daughter was in our school district, and she was a
039parent. She was working at IBM, and at that time IBM in Yorktown was taking students, female students from our school district, from the secondary level and bringing them to a camp, a regional camp right on their IBM campus, which is an amazing technological feat. And our students got to see that. They got to connect with the researchers and the technical, uh, technical staff, their vice presidents and others. And Mrs. Turner was the person that made this happen for us. And then I got an email and she, uh, shared with me that she is now at New ERA Creative Spaces, which is a long time partner of our school district and has now opened their own space right in, uh, across from the Beam Runner Cafe. And it's right in downtown, um, Peekskill area. And they
040offer scholarships and they bring our students together for theater, social justice and other important aspects as well. And Mrs. Turner is now the interim interim interim executive director, as their founder is away on a sabbatical. And in her honor. Uh, Rizwan Foxhall is on sabbatical and traveling. And so you are leading the ship at the helm. And we thank you for that. And on behalf of our wonderful Board of Education and our school district, we thank you for all the efforts of new ERA creative spaces. Uh, awarded today, March 17th. And let's give Mrs. Turn a big round of applause and we'll take a picture and then call her up. I want to say, Doctor Mauricio mentioned the time at IBM and I just remember being so proud. He came in and I know how
041he has this presence, and he introduced himself as the superintendent of the Peekskill City School District. That was the first time I ever met him or knew him. And that was a proud moment to be from Peekskill and to have him represented at that IBM site. But that was a while ago, and now I am the interim executive director of New ERA Creative Space. And that new our creative space, we inspire a stronger community by delivering creative arts programs to change the world. Every time a young person walks into new our creative space and says, I didn't know I could do this. And when parents say, I wish there was a place like this when I was growing up, we know that new our creative space is exactly where we're meant to be. Right here
042in the heart of Peekskill, New York. Thank you so much to the Peekskill Students School District for this incredible recognition. It truly means a lot to be seen and supported by the very community. We are so deeply committed to serving at New ERA creative space. We believe that creativity is not a luxury. It is a necessity. It's how young people find their voice. Build confidence and imagine new possibilities for their future. Every day we have the privilege of witnessing that transformation and action. This recognition isn't just for us. It belongs to our students. Many of them you saw are so talented. You know that Peekskill has done so much with. And we have the honor of having them at any CHS that you saw out there as well. I teaching artists are families, and every
043partner who believes in the power of creative expression and opportunity. I'm almost down to the Peekskill School District. Thank you for your partnership and for investing in spaces where innovation, culture and community can thrive together. I am excited to announce that New ERA Creative Space will deliver an afterschool program. It is called the New ERA Creative Space Creative Academy at discounted rates, and we also offer financial aid so students can get, um, busted to our center starting in the fall. But parents have to sign up by April 1st. Thank you. Another big round of applause for Mrs. Turner and X. Last but certainly not least, let's give a round of applause for our panel. Yes, yes. Thank you. Many, many years ago, uh, I got the opportunity to meet, um, then Sergeant Carter. She had
044a blue uniform, and. And as I met her, um, time and time again, being there for our dismissal, you know, we released over 2000 students at the same time. Uh, around 3:00. And, uh, you remember when you were that age. And so we always need partners to help us make sure our kids are, uh, in our community, get home safely and play safely in our community. And we have a partnership with the Peekskill Police Department. And Officer Carter, I'll later say your correct title. We appreciated all that you did at that time. We appreciate all the time and energy that you spent with our students. And I will tell you, I don't know that I have ever seen Officer Carter not smiling. She is always smiling. And you can see that beautiful smile on the
045screen there as well. And she is partly smiling because she is now Lieutenant Carter. Good evening. Good evening. So it is with great pride and pleasure that I stand before you this evening and accept this recognition. I got to say, it's a definitely a win for me. It was a long, hard road getting to Lieutenant, and it's, uh. I'm happy with the accomplishment, to say the least. Um, didn't get here alone. I didn't get here alone. I had the support of the entire Pasco Police Department, who has done great work engaging the community with me. And, uh, it's we've built a special relationship with the school, city school district that I, I can't even it's immeasurable. I can't tell you how thankful and how grateful we are. We built our community policing unit around our
046experiences with the Peekskill City School District, and we are so proud of that work. Um. Beyond that. It's it's been a good long run. I think I'm gonna go. All right. I don't want to keep you too long. I didn't prepare anything, uh, tonight, but, uh. But here we are. Congratulations to all the other honorees. Uh, we've also been supportive of our work, and we appreciate you. Thank you. Another round of applause for Lieutenant Carter, doctor who died. So we're gonna move. We'll take care of you. You see? We're looking. Go! Yes, yes. So our Board of Education meetings are called business meetings. And this is where we conduct the business of the school district. Very important, um, business that we conduct with which is appointing staff members, working on school budgets, presentations from departments.
047But the most important business that we do, the most important business that the Board of Education does, is celebrating its students and its community partners. And tonight was a wonderful night celebrating our students, our scholars, and our community partners. Let's give all the honorees another big round of applause. We say thank you for all that you have done for us. And at this time we're going to take a very short recess. So our honorees, you are welcome to stay for we'll be here to midnight. Uh, you're welcome to stay for our business portion of the board meeting. But we know you have to get home. And so we're going to take a short break. We're going to have the Board of Education members come up to the dais, and everyone, you can say your goodbyes,
048your congratulations. And, uh, we will start our meeting very shortly. And Mr. Brown, if we have some of that jazz music, we can put that on as well. Oh. I'm sorry. Yes. Board of trustees. If you can make your way to the first row, we're going to have a presentation here. Sorry about that. Do you make your way to the first row? Yes, yes. Yes, I know you are saying. Any other. [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah, that's enough for me. I think you're awesome. Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Yeah. We'll do this. Yeah, yeah. That's better. Yeah, yeah. Wash your hands. Actually, Doug, I think we'll be okay. It shows where it says you. Okay. Board of education members and members of our staff who are here today. Uh, it is with great pleasure that I turn our meeting
049over to Mrs. Hackett and Mrs. McCann law, as well as they present the special Education Services Department and special Education Plan and Budget as part of our budgeting process. Let's give Mrs. Hackett and Mrs. Mac and Law crews your attention and a round of applause as well. Okay. Okay. Hello. Good evening everyone. Welcome. Um. Good evening. President Avalon. Board trustees. Doctor Mauricio, our central office, administrative team, administrative colleagues, staff, parents, students and community members watching from home. I want to welcome you. I am Ellen Hackett, and I'm the proud director of Special Services, and I'm excited to be here tonight to co-present with Miss Melissa McKenna, our interim director for Special Education for instruction. To get started, everything that we do here in the Peekskill City School District is centered around the Peekskill Promise, with
050the whole child commitment right in the center. To get started, I just want to share a brief overview of our department. We have the Special Services Office located at Central Office that oversees our special education services and programs. We also oversee student support services for all children as well. In addition to parent family community engagement efforts. And then in order to have the IEP, the individual education plan go from development to full implementation. A few years ago, with the board's support, we've added a curriculum and instruction arm to our department, which is overseen here with our colleague, Mrs. McClellan, who is going to be presenting later on this evening to ensure that special education services and programs are happening in each one of our individual school buildings. To get started. We're going to over we're
051going to have an overview of our special education department data. As you can see in the beginning and the top slide, there are total district enrollment. Students with individual education plans and services is 578 students. I'm sorry, I'm reaching 578 students in the district, as well as out of district 99 students. Which brings us to a total of 677 students in the district with special education IEP plans. That is approximately 16% of our classification rate, um, for our district compared to our total enrollment. Additionally, we oversee our preschool special education services. That's an additional 150 students that we service that are ages three and four. And we also provide medical support plans that are not special education. They're separate and under the Americans with Disabilities Act. And that's an additional 103 medical support plans. That
052brings us to a total of 930 students total that our office and our department serves. Here you can see the special education student breakdown by grade level in the district. So these are our students in district that receive special education services. I'd like to draw everyone's attention here to an increase of enrollment of students with IEPs that have reached up to 51 and 56 students per grade level. This is going to be relevant in the future. Slides that I will present. Here you will also see our students by classification. So speech and language is SLI impairment other health impairment, learning disabilities, autism and intellectual disability, emotional disability and multiple disabilities. So speech and language other health impairment which are often includes attention deficit disorder, are the top two common classifications within our school district. Out
053of district students that attend therapeutic schools, these are the total 99 students attending schools outside of our community in a therapeutic setting. The top two classifications that you would expect to see our children with autism or a multiple disability, as well as an emotional disability. This slide speaks to the special education classes and programs that we have across the district. It is one of my favorite slides because it shows my time here in Peekskill. This is my 10th year in the Peekskill City School District, and this will show the growth in our program over time. We use our data in order to assess our students needs, and then we continue to grow and develop based on what our students need. As you can see here, in the year of 20 1718, we started to align
054our special classes and add additional supports. In 1819, we added additional ICT co-teaching classes and additional self-contained classes for Science and Social Studies. We then added some additional life skills programs to support our students who were ungraded. We added programing in 2324. We added a social emotional support class at Oak Side. We then continued to add classes at the high school. Mr. NASA's section is new and was created in the 2324 school year to support students up into the age of 22. We then added, actually, Mrs. Nicolette Thompson was here this evening. We added her class in the 2425 school year. And then based on that increase enrollment that I just showed you a moment ago in tonight's presentation, we are making a recommendation this evening to the board to add two additional classes at
055our Woodside Elementary School. These are life skills classes for our children who are ungraded, who need specialized support. So in lieu of sending those students out of district, we are proposing to keep our students in district and add two additional classes for this population of students. We are also very excited to be partnering and growing in Uriah Hill in in order to serve our special education students in pre-K. Preschool special education is provided. Services are provided by Westchester County Department of Health. We in Peekskill are the facilitator as the chairperson. So we have currently partnered with Family Services of Westchester to provide special education services at Uriah Hill location. Next year we are proposing and very excited to be able to expand our pre-K special education services through our universal pre-K in order to open
056up to a proposed class two special classes in an integrated setting so that we would have five, um, five special education classes at Uriah Hill so that our three and four year olds don't have to travel around the county for specialized program. We can keep our three and four year olds here in our Peekskill community, which we're very excited about, as well as continuing to partner to provide related services. So we're excited to expand our services at Uriah Hill as a proposal for next school year. Here's an overview and a breakdown of our special education staff. So total, uh, staff is 147 student, um, staff members across the school district, including our teachers, our Tas, paraprofessionals, as well as our clinical and our related service staff, as well as our nursing professionals. This is a
057budget presentation breakdown, and this is to show the areas of need within the budget. This shows our salaries are certified in classified staff. Our equipment our contracted services are tuition which is the cost to send students to therapeutic schools. As mentioned earlier, that is a growing population. We have approximately 99 students attending therapeutic schools regionally. So our high cost tuition as well as our Boces tuition services supports those students as well as supplies, materials or residential cost of students needing that specialized care. So as you can see here, we do have a decrease in two areas. And then we do have an increase in staffing. And that is due to the proposal to add additional classes. So those additional classes that I spoke about is a reallocation from tuition dollars to added into our staffing.
058So if it was not in staffing you would see an increase there in our add of district cost. The total overall increase proposed budget is approximately, um, 5 to 6% total for the year. Here you can see a breakdown of our student support services. As mentioned earlier, it's not just special education staff, it is our support staff as well which includes our guidance services, nursing, our psychological psychologists, staff as well as our social workers. And so overall increase. There is a 7.6% increase for our student support services. We are funding full time psychologists. We did have a portion that was grant funded. So we are adding that to the budget. And then we are also, um, reallocating some positions from social work to psychologist positions. And that accounts for the change there that you see.
059These are also student support programs that we have across the district. We are very fortunate and grateful here in Peekskill to have seven on site partners. We have different agencies that are on site providing mental health and clinical support services in our schools. Many of them are grant funded and some of them are part of the budget. Some of them have grants that support this work as well. We also receive revenue through our Americans Ida grant as well. So we do receive funding that support. 611 is for K through 12 and 619 is for pre-K K services. So we do have additional revenue streams of approximately $1 million every year that helps to offset the cost and provide supplemental services. So our overall key points in our budget presentation include an overall increase of students
060who receive special education services. We know that we also need an increase in our self-contained special classes. We know that we've also had an increase in students needing out of district therapeutic settings, and we also need to continue to support our students who need one on one medical services as well. So we do have some students that receive one on one nursing services, and we need to continue those services for those students. As mentioned earlier, we are making a proposal to add two new kindergarten self-contained classes. That is money that we are paying out in the first year, and then we do get reimbursement back the following year. So that is actual cost up front, but we get paid back the following year on that. In addition to that, these classes are going to be
061a reallocation of added district tuition dollars. So either way, we would need to be providing support and services for these students, whether they be in the district or out of the district. We are also making a proposal this evening to add a full time teacher. So we are looking to reallocate our this way, which is our afterschool tutoring program at the secondary level. We also send students to a back on track tutoring program, and we also provide a lot of students with individual tutoring when they need to be on temporary or interim instruction. And so we are looking to reallocate the funding that we're already spending on tutoring services and making it more centralized by having one teacher to provide that, rather than having it spread out across different agencies or in different places. And
062we're looking to centralize that service. So again, that is a reallocation of funding that's already been in the budget. We're just looking to repurpose it. That concludes the budget portion of the presentation. We're now going to move into our special education plan. In order to develop a plan for the department, we are always analyzing and we're always assessing how we are doing as a department. We're always looking where we can grow areas that need improvement. And we have a team of staff across the district that comprises of teacher members. We have clinical staff members, we have district administration as part of that team, and everybody has been meeting pretty regularly to develop a high focus areas. And then from there, we've been developing action plans and figuring out where we need to go and where
063we need to grow. And that supports the budget request that you see this evening. As a result of that work, we've developed our five areas of focus that we continue to have a spotlight on. Part of that is around curriculum and instruction. We're going to be sharing some of these highlights soon around our IEP progress monitoring our partnerships. We've, uh, celebrated our pioneers program this evening. We are also working on improving our parent education and community involvement efforts as well. And so around that issue, we are looking to figure out new and creative ways to provide parent education. And, uh, some of our board members came up with a really great idea in order to provide our parents with a how to, uh, what to expect when expecting a child to enter into special education
064video. So we are going to showcase that video now in an effort to help parents understand the special education process. So we're going to share that with you now. Welcome to the Special Services Department. My name is Alan Market and I'm the director of Special services. Our office is located here at some level on our street or at the intersection building, directly across the street from the high school. Our department provides services to more than 100 students that call for special education. Now, all our alumni support services. In order for a child to qualify for special education services, the school building team, a parent or any professional member for the family of special education located at the Special Services Office. Once the office receives the referral. We will send a parent a consent form within
065ten business days when received in some other form. We will look at. Every child for the Committee on Special Education. We'll have a social history report completed. A school social worker will all come together and information about the child's medical history, developmental milestones, family and general information. A school psychologist will also meet with the child to complete a psychological evaluation. This evaluation will assess working memory capacity, express receptive language, and provide an overall full scale IQ of the preferred child, and also meet with the special education teacher to do an educational valuation. The student will be assessed in the areas of reading, writing and. Other revelations maybe could be of the areas of concern and suspected infidelity. A child may have speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, evaluation or other adaptive functioning, and hearing
066skills or other assessments completed in the organization's will be completed within 60 days, and the parent will be invited to a meeting with all the providers to review the results together and determine whether or not the child meets the New York State criteria to receive special education services. I'm here to see copies of all of the reports a minimum of five days before the meeting, so that the parents have time to read it and have an opportunity to speak to the providers before the meeting. You may wondering when you may have a special education meeting on Friday when you entered. May I have some information? But that could be virtual or in-person communicating like, I may have put the patient chairperson in a meeting on the other side of the machine the school psychologist, the
067social worker, the patient teacher, the general education teacher, a speech provider and occupational therapist and physical therapist. The first time of the. Please review all the evaluations. After all the information is reviewed, the committee will discuss the challenges of the New York State criteria and is eligible for special education individuals eligible for special education services. The team and the part of the individualization plan. This plan outline the recommendations to support the child. It will include a program necessary and even like a. Accommodations for modifications, outlined goals and other support services as. I've heard or seen a copy of the individual education plan in their opinion. Every year plan to to. Special education meeting in the spring. That meeting is called the Annual Review. Yes, this meeting will help to plan for the upcoming school year.
068The school year at a time. If the building team or the parent would like to make any proposed changes to the child's plan in her five year special education program review meeting, or make changes with the parents. If all our member you know if after watching this video, if you have any questions about the Special Services department this contact us here at the district office. You may also contact any of our school psychologist at any of our school. Thank you for watching our video. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the podium over to Mrs. McKinnon, who's going to share some highlights of our programs. Okay. Good evening. Um, I'm going to click it. I know, Okay. Last year, the district partnered with Tarrytown and Ossining to develop a post-secondary workforce development program.
069Each school has four students that are attending a morning session four days per week throughout the year. The program has been a great success so far, and we look forward to continuing this partnership next year. Our life skills program throughout the district using the unique curriculum. The past two summers, our staff have attended trainings in New York City in order to incorporate the teach model with our K through eight classrooms. This model helps to promote and increase each student's independence and skill level. We continue to add resources to strengthen our program. In addition to adding the adding the teach model. We have also implemented the use of iPads in our cated to Life skills programs. Each student has a device to help them with communication and language development. Mrs. Eliza and I continue to support
070teachers by providing coaching and professional development. We offer trainings afterschool for teachers as well as coaching cycles throughout the year. We support teachers in implementing best practices to access tier one instruction in all classrooms. We also support quality IEP writing and progress monitoring throughout the district. Oh, sorry. Our department provides an extended school year summer program for students who meet the criteria and need it, and need a special program during July and August. I am excited to run this program this year that will be held at Oak Side Elementary School. Oops. Our special education PTO program. Uh Group continues to provide monthly parent workshops in person at the Family Resource Center and online with guest speakers. In January, Steptoe partner with us and the athletic department to sponsor a basketball clinic with the varsity basketball
071team. I want to recognize and thank Randy Albarino, our CPO president, for all that she does throughout the year for our students and families. In 2023, the district received a $2.2 million grant from the New York State Office of Mental Health. This grant has funded so many great initiatives and programs to help increase access and awareness of mental health services. This spring, the Umbc and MSC students will be going on an overnight wellness retreat to the Catskills. Having Wjxt train the students and Teen mental health first aid and bringing in a keynote speaker to the school high school to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month in May. The grant will be coming to an end in June, and at this time, we want to publicly thank miss Now Moran and Mr. Lauren Geter for serving the
072district as our SEO specialist and District Case Manager. Can you please come to the podium to accept these tokens in appreciation for all of your hard work and dedication these past two years? Of your. This year we received a new three year grant in partnership with the Southern Westchester Boces and several other school districts to support our students in temporary and transitional housing. We want to thank our social workers for always going above and beyond and providing our students with over 100 school readiness kits and winter coats this school year. Please give them a round of applause. This year we have entered a new partnership with Northwell Health. In September, our clinical team went to visit the new state of the art Pediatric Mental Health Urgent Care center. There is also a counseling clinic that
073provides ongoing services for students that have been, um, and and they have been an invaluable resource for our students and our families. At this time. This concludes our presentation. But before we end, I really, truly want to thank everyone who is here this evening. We have members of our office staff here at this late, late hour. So I want to thank them. We also have our district behaviorist. We have our coach. We also have members of our Woodside team and our administrative colleagues as well in the audience. And we also have our, uh, administrative, um, building custodian there to support us as well. So I just want to thank everyone who has stayed to support us this evening. We could not do this work without everyone's support, and it's a collaborative effort. And again, I
074just want to thank the Board of Education for all of your support throughout the years to be able to grow our programs and to meet our students needs. And again, our support from Doctor Mauricio and the administrative team as well. It's really been invaluable, um, support to be able to grow our programs and support our students. So I just want to thank everyone for supporting the Special Services department and making all of this work possible. So thank you and have a great evening. Thank you. Another round of applause for Mrs. Hackett and Mrs. And more. And, uh, I know we also have a special education coach, uh, this year as well. And I know the. Please stand. She's a wonderful Woodside teacher. And we always say we hire the very best. And I had the
075opportunity to hire her. With Rodriguez, she was a superstar when we hired her. And we appreciate the role that you're in now. And thank you for joining this amazing team. And so with that, thank you again for the, um, for the partnership and for all of your work as a leadership team. We're going to allow our staff to go ahead and, uh, hit on how we know you have a early morning tomorrow with our young students. We have our next presentation coming up. But we'll give you a moment to say, you guys, and, uh, we will see you all tomorrow. Another big round of applause for our staff. We say thank you. And with that, I'm going to call up, uh, Doctor Vilas Rodriguez and Doctor Moody. And if we can pull up the next
076and final presentation, and then we will have Cynthia cap us off this evening with our final presentation as well. Take care. Have a good evening. Take care. And Mrs. Hackett and. Thank you. I know the board may have some questions or some comments, so thank you for staying. We have Bustelo coffee in room 113 if you needed. We had it all before we came. All right. Great, great. Thank you. So with that, I'm going to turn it over now to our, uh, two wonderful assistant superintendents, Mrs. Mack and Laura Cruz. I'm sorry. Congratulations on your promotion. Doctor Vilas Rodriguez and, uh, Doctor Di, who are going to speak about the work that we are doing and any additions to the budget request as we move forward. So this will be a full, um, presentation on
077all the work that we do, but rather the work that we're asking the board to support and the community through the budgeting process. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Doctor Vilas Rodriguez. Let's give her a round of applause. A round of applause is getting weaker and weaker. We're we're we're dwindling in numbers. That's okay. These are hard acts to follow. And it's it's late. So I'm blessed this evening that I only have two slides to present to you this evening. And I'll be passing it off to my partner, uh, very quickly. Um, but, um, I'm just going to go ahead and click. Okay. Um, I just want to begin by saying it's it's always a delight, um, to come before the board and to first and foremost, always be able
078to say thank you. Um, you are an incredible board. A board that is always supportive. You are responsive and you are true partners in the work. So I just want to say thank you for that. Um, we say thank you all the time and we do the round of applause. But whenever I'm up here, I just want to take a moment to just pause and really share with you, um, that I'm very appreciative of the work that you do. The work is thankless. It's long hours. Um, and it is community driven. And you are truly, truly in the trenches with us, thinking, processing, um, and solving problems to be able to best serve our students. So I want to thank you for that. Um, because, again, the work is not easy. Public service isn't easy.
079It's a choice because we love you. So I just wanted to take a moment to say that and really thank you. That deserves a round of applause. So I'm really excited and delighted that the first slide I get to share is at zero cost to you. So let me just first again, start by saying that, uh, a few years ago when I came to you and I asked you, um, for the literacy and the math coaches, and we process together about how we could financially make that happen and really what the return on investment would be. You said unequivocally, yes. So thank you for that, because I just want to begin by saying that the coaches, both the literacy and the math coaches in the elementary world, are just invaluable in terms of the support
080that they provide the school community, the teachers, in terms of the coaching cycles, the support they are building principals, the planning, um, you name it, they do it. And we keep asking them to do more and more. So, um, just to give a quick recap, each one of our elementary schools does have a literacy coach, and, um, two out of the three have a full time coach and then they share. So Woodside has to currently share its its math coach with Oak Side Elementary and Hillcrest Elementary this year due to, um, Cynthia partnering with me and b us being a little creative with the budget as well as through attrition, we're able to kind of shoulder tap, um, a PFA member to be able to step into that role at zero cost to the, to
081the budget. So it's going to be zero impact, um, in terms of its monetary value, but it's going to be high yield in terms of how that person, um, whoever they end up being, uh, partner with Wildcat Nation to continue to elevate our, you know, best math practices. So, um, that's an ask from the elementary world this evening. Okay. And, uh, this will be a quick, um, snippet. Uh, as you know, we have been incredibly fortunate to have been able to, along with Maria Flores, uh, write for the 21st Century Lead Grant. It provides our lead program, which is, again, a superlative service to our community. Right. Uh, and it has extended into the summer for, I think, the last five years that we've offered the summer school program. And so we're able to, um,
082offer our summer school services to our most tender scholars and extend the school year to them. Um, and it has been an incredible success. It's SQL services, it's enrichment. And again, it's extending the academic, um, uh, year for the, for the students. So our ask this year is that we contribute $40,000 so that we can continue. Um, the approximate it's the approximate 17 days in the summer where we provide the summer school program. So it runs Monday through Thursday. Again, 17 days in the summer, again to put a hold on learning loss. Okay. So now I'm going to turn it over to Back to Blue Day. See how fast that was. That was painless right. Thank you, Doctor Vilas. Um, you will never find, uh, two slides from me. Um, I will be asking for
083a lot, um, but always in a fiscally responsible manner. Um, because I have some checks and balances on my side here as colleagues. Well, um, I'm really glad to see that. But, um, just similarly to, um, what Doctor Miller said, um, our summer program really is, uh, an opportunity for us to, number one, provide our students with, um, areas that they need support in so they can grow even further and enrich some of the some of the area that they are already establishing during this time. We also have our drone program. We have several things that are enhancing to our students. The summer keep them, uh, reinforcing what they learned throughout the year and enhancing them so they can become more successful when they enter in the following year. Before I move on, I just
084wanted to, um, uh, make a comment. Just earlier, there was a student that two students that came down and, uh, they needed me to sign their, uh, their form because they're doing community service. Um, but I had to mention about one student, uh, last name Alfaro, who I was at the high school the other day. Just happened to walk into the main office. Um, father came in with a with an envelope and said, uh, you need to give this to my daughter. Um, so, Miss Sims, uh, explain to me what it was. I looked at the envelope. I saw that it says Bridgeport, Connecticut. Now, those of you that know, um, when you get when you get the the big envelope, uh, it is it is a really nice thing to see. And when you
085get a smaller one, you kind of are afraid to even open it. She got a big envelope, uh, to go to Bridgeport, Connecticut University and in, in Connecticut, uh, to study sports management. Um, this was one of our students that actually attended change Makers, um, as well. So we know that our students, everything that you provide to our students has dividends and pretty much provides with a support to start a year. So I want to thank, uh, Doctor Mauricio for his visionary leadership and the board for supporting that vision at um, cost and challenging us to think further moving forward. Uh, so, as you know, My Brother's Keeper has been, uh, something that the district has adopted for many years here. We have supported it. The New York State Education Department and the Senate and
086Assembly has supported that through funding as well. This year, um, we were not, uh, funded. The, the Assembly and New York State Education Department, uh, has not released an RFP. Um, and we are still waiting on that RFP so that we can apply and receive funding to continue the process. However, that being said, we do want to commit, um, what our priority is for our children. We want to sustain the program that we have for our students. Um, and so that's why we are requesting, uh, $70,000 for the MBK. But we are starting we have started this year, as you heard, are my sister's keeper who are strong and active. I will say, uh, they're going to give the young men a run for their money, and I'm looking forward to seeing themselves kind of
087serve as partners in this work so that they can support each other. So it's really, um, the MBK and M is K is to increase attendance, make sure that they're focused in school, make sure that they are seeing themselves as collaborators and partners and peers, um, in the work of school, but also in the social aspect of their lives so they can continue supporting each other. So we will be asking requesting for that as well. In the area of mathematics, as you know, we had one of our coaches, Ronaldo, who was here today. Um, previous to her, it was Nora Sachs that was in that position. She is now at the middle school serving as a coach, uh, throughout the year, based on the foundation, the capacity building that we have seen from this coach,
088we are also requesting to do the same in mathematics, because our students require and our teachers require some support services in that area so they can build the capacity of mathematics. So we are looking to have a math specialist, um, to serve in that capacity for not the whole time, but we're trying to build that, that muscle into the into the school in the middle school as well, to get our, our teachers prepared better to teach mathematics as well as our students. And if you know, if you notice, sometimes we we end up hiring experts from outside of the district to come and support us. We have experts right here, and our staff can really do this job. We want to utilize those specialties so that they can support our teachers and the students moving
089forward with, uh, nice shift to biology regions. This is something that has come to us. Um, uh, last year they started the Nology regions. Changed from living environment to biology. Um, because of this, some of our students that did not meet the expectations in the living environment regions. Um, next you will have to, based on the results of this year, will need to take the course again as well as the regions in order to obtain the regions diploma. So, um, currently we're waiting. We had approximately 25 to approximately 25 students that passed the regions in January. And we're looking forward to many more to passing the regions and meeting the expectations in June. However, those that may not be deputations in the next coming year, they will have to take the biology course as well
090as the lab and the regions again. And as a result, we are going to need additional sections in sciences in biology so that students could get prepared for the Regents next year as well. Next year they will have opportunities and we'll have the January. If those of those that have taken this year will have an opportunity, those that will have the same opportunity in June to pass it again, and thereafter they will no longer need to do that. So we're looking for next year to be the year that we ask for this. After that, it will become a regular course. As as always, we used to take the biology course when we were in school and then it changed. The living environment will go right back to where we started. And so we're back to
091biology again. Expansion of the world language. Um, I believe it was two years ago. Uh, we started discussing, uh, the expansions of our world language. We introduce our French course. We started with French at the middle school and at the high school. This coming year, we're going to expand it again. We're going to have two years in the middle school and have the same at the high school. Yes, we can have a clap for that because that is important. Um, as a result of that expansion, we're going to need an additional section, two sections of world languages in Spanish, because our French teacher, who also taught Spanish, um, will need to be focused on French for two additional courses, which then we'll leave the two courses open for, for Spanish. And we're going to need
092two sections to be taught. Um, I will skip this, but I will let you know that, uh, miss, uh, Hackett, uh, already presented this with Haas this way. And how we're looking to unify all the services into one. It is a challenge for us to to, uh, seek individuals that can work part time. And that has been an extreme challenge for the last years that I've been here. And we came together to discuss the fact that if we placed it into one position, all the different services, we will get a capacity building of one full time teacher that can support all of the our students without having to us either provide them tutoring outside of the district, or even when we have an in the district, we can't find the person to possibly provide the
093services. So this will really support our students on a daily basis. Uncharted learning uh, entrepreneurship class. Um, just uh, proximately, uh, last year I was, um, uh, speaking to a colleague of mine that started, uh, doing a course called Edu, um, incubator through Uncharted Learning. It is an entrepreneurship course. Those of you that know wise, uh, in, in our schools, um, this is, um, almost like a secondary or a or initial part of that course is getting students to understand how to problem solve, how to, uh, pitch a, a, a some type of a solution to a problem, connect with the community resources that they have, speak to them about what what what can we do to address some of the issues that we have within our community and establish a business in that fashion.
094So it really fosters critical thinking for our students connection with real life individuals in the community, and start learning about entrepreneurship and getting them ready for the real workforce coming through. This is a the first year. What we're going to do is we're going to get our staff prepared. So they're going to be working alongside with other school districts that have already incorporated this within their schools. Um, we are, uh, going to be visiting one of the school districts in a, uh, I think it's tomorrow, actually, um, to see it in action, see how the students feel about it. What have they learned? Um, from incubator course. And then in the following year, we're going to start our course here. There's a two course series. Um, and the idea is to bring in all the
095partnerships that we can to really serve the capacity within our schools so that when our students graduate, um, there will be people fighting for our students to give them employment. That is the idea. So we're looking forward to getting the new into, uh, incubator course, uh, into a four year course here at the high school, uh, along with, uh, our principal, Doctor Ferris. Um, and I would like to say that, um, none of this gets accomplished without, um, the collaboration with our principals, with our directors. Um, there's, uh, a great deal of conversations that occur. Um, these don't these items do not come solely from me. It comes from ideas that our teachers have. Our principals have. Our directors have, um, doctor Mauricio, uh, we always say that if you throw it in the air,
096let's see how it lands. And so there is no we we do not put a foundation to anything we say. Throw out the idea. Let's see how we can make it happen. And so this is why we are asking for some of these benefits here for our students. Thank you. And now our amazing assistant superintendent for business, who's going to grant us all the funding for this. Good evening. Um, so I'm going to wrap this up. I'm not going to be too long, and it's been a long day. So just want to remind folks that the wrong way. Sorry about that. Some important key dates. Um, I previously presented what our state aid, um, proposal is by the governor. We're expecting the legislative legislative side to adopt the budget, hopefully April 1st, but no guarantees
097on that. But we'll have, um, the full amount. We'll know when they do release it. What? Our aid is looking forward to the next budget meeting where we'll be presenting the budget, asking for the board adoption so we can move on to go ahead and, um, put it out to the vote. This is the history of what our tax cap, um, our tax levy has been from year to year. So everybody is familiar with the 2% tax cap. Um, just to reiterate that that is a portion of our, um, calculation, 2% CPI or 2%. Um, going forward, it can be a maximum levy amount. But the board is always conscious of our community and we tend to stay within that 2%. So as you see over the last couple of years it's been 2%, 2%,
0982%. Last year it was 1.5%. This year, based on the calculations, as expected, to close out some project and receive some additional state aid. Our levy is the maximum allowable levy is low. So therefore we are proposing to the board is 0% tax cap for this year. So good news. We can cap it up for that. So the idea is to continue all of the programs and the staff that we've brought in over the past couple of years to continue our services at same or greater level, um, without a strong burden to the taxpayers. But we thank you all for supporting our budget. This is with the zero tax increase your estimated rate. So we would remain at the same taxable amount as last year. And as you notice your tax rate will go down
099just over half a percent. But it's $4.18 um for the tax rate. And on the assessed values, as you can see your tax bill will also be lower. And roughly those are the tax I put increased. But it's a negative. So it's a decrease. Again. Important dates April 7th. We're hoping to have the budget adopted. April 20th is the deadline for submission of petitions for board candidates. May 5th will be our public hearing in a proposed budget. And everyone. May 19th. Please come out and vote. Thank you. Let's give Doctor Vilas Rodriguez, Miss Doctor Bedi and Miss Cynthia Hawthorne a big round of applause and say thank you for your presentations. And I was reminded that we had a half hour board meeting, and then we had a one hour board meeting due to snow
100days. And all of that has been rolled into this board meeting, and that's why we have so much going on. But thank you for, uh, board. Uh, crowd has dwindled. Uh, but thank you for, um, uh, all your attention to these very important presentations and recognitions that we've had. This concludes the superintendent, uh, update and our staff members presentations. Thank you again to our special ed department. So at this time, we will make sure I do this right. I'm going to raise the screen now. Okay. We are going to raise the screen now. And now ask the board to make your way to the dais so that, um, we can have, uh, any comments that you might have and we can move forward. There are no members of the community, so we won't have any
101public comment. Uh, but we can move right into the business part of the agenda and then wrap this board meeting up. Yeah. It's go. I'm doing. It's the fourth. Much simpler. These are all mine. Yes, yes, the mics are hot. This. Come here tonight, Nelson. Yeah, I saw that. So because our audience has dwindled. We did a lot of presentations and we're staying a little late. I am going to recommend to hold our questions to next meeting. And, um, if our department had to present, it could come around and we could ask all our follow up questions then and then get that out of the way then and then we'll also move our, um, student report since she had to skedaddle. Um, also, we're there's no citizens here. So I will reiterate, like always, if
102you are interested in coming and presenting to the board, please feel free. Um, we're always welcoming to the community to have, uh, any questions or comments, good or bad. Um, so, yeah, please come out to our meetings. Uh, old business. Is there any old business, new business? Any new business policy readings? There's no policy readings at this time. Accepting of minutes. Any comments or questions? Can I get a motion for accepting for the business meeting? Uh, February 24th, 2026. Business meeting work session March 3rd, 2026 and the special BOE meeting of March 10th, 2026. So moved by Bradley. Second. Second by Amy. All in favor? Uh. Any nays? Any abstentions. Consent agenda. Are there any comments, questions or thoughts? Can I please have a motion to approve consent agenda items 11 A through 14 em.
103So moved. Moved by Angel. Second. Second by Allen. All in favor? Aye. Any nays? Any abstentions. Any Committee reports or comments. And one thing that I just wanted to say is, again, thank, uh, Miss Johnson for, um, one the presentation that we had earlier, but also, um, I know, uh, PS Gilbert, I think, uh, 24, uh, of our young ladies to a, uh, women's history, um, event at Memorial University, and it was just good. I came out of my, uh, my office and ran into a couple girls who had their p skill, uh, t shirts, and I said, hey, Peaky. What? So, uh, then they automatically knew I was from Pisco, so it was just good to go in, and and I went into the auditorium and saw them and said hi to them. So
104it was just good to have them have a chance to, um, to go to such a beautiful event. Um, after today, I think the board would also like to thank, uh, Doctor Daniels and all the work that she does. Spreading awareness, different cultures, different backgrounds, just making sure that every student and, uh, has a representation within our school community and is celebrated every day. Um, and that's really important to us. Instead of saying we celebrate Black History Month or Women's History Month or, or Irish History Month or Native American History Month, or you could name it, we could go on forever, but they're celebrated every day here. Um, we want students to be seen. And if they have any ideas, always. We're we're more than welcome to ideas for celebrations because we love seeing our
105kids celebrated around here. So thank you for all that work. Thank you for everyone who does the work that makes students feel uplifted. Um, it's really important to us. Any other comments or questions? Just quickly along along those lines, uh, Doctor Ferris is here, and, uh, since you thanked, um, Doctor Daniels, uh, there are two items that you'll vote on. Uh, that is the Frost Valley and BCC and MSC. My Brother's keeper. My Sister's Keeper. Overnight trips we are taking in being inspired by the, uh, changemakers initiative where they went out west. Um, we, uh, they've created our own version here as well. And they will be going on an overnight camping trip, and some of us are going to be chaperons. And so they will have, uh, uh, fires at night, uh, telling stories
106around the fire. They'll have empowerment sessions and building them up as their brothers and sisters keeper. And so I want to thank all the staff that are going to do that, and the two leaders that are making that happen as well. And we appreciate making our own version here. And I think the board that actually actually, um, President Ryland, you asked us to think of something, uh, that we could do for our own kids. And so, uh, we're doing that right in our backyard, and you're doing it with one of my favorite things field trips. That's right, that's right. Yes. So thank them both. Thank you for all that work. Um, if there's no further action, can I please have a motion to adjourn the meeting in memory of Miss Clark in. So. Moved. Moved
107by Amy. Second. Second by Frank. All in favor? Uh, any nays, any abstention. Mrs. Margaret Clark in. Whereas Mrs. Margaret Clark in serve the Peekskill city school district for 31 years with great devotion until her retirement in 2014, and whereas Mrs. Clark in career highlighted impactful service to the district. And Whereas Mrs. Clark in welcoming nature, demonstrated respect for all students and Whereas Mrs. Clark and served the Peekskill City School District staff, students and families with distinction and Be ItrillionESOLVED therefore, that the Board of Education notes with sorrow the passing of Mrs. Margaret Clark, and and be it further resolved that the Board of Education, on behalf of the entire Peekskill City School District, expresses condolences to the family and deems that the resolution be noted in the minutes and a copy thereof be forwarded
108to the bereaved family. Regular Meeting, Board of Education, March 17th, 2026. Good evening Peekskill.