001correct okay we're going to return the Board of Education meeting for Wednesday November 9 2022 back to order everyone please silence your electronic devices and we will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign s to the agenda since Friday mailing yes we do business consideration 6.16 will be in agreement with CSEA 617 will be a donation for a little Free Library house Personnel consideration 7.30 will be hiring a lifeguard 7.31 will be the resignation of a custodial grounds person 7.32 will be a resignation for a teaching assistant we'll have some corrections to 8.3 with dates and 8.4 and 8.5 are just additional information items computer we have a motion for the additions Mr Engel II this is hotel and all in favor all right motion pass sorry I need a motion for the acceptance of
002the minutes of the October 19 2022 special bird event meeting Mr Ross all in favor aye aye and we have a special presentation tonight our external audit Chris from Marvin and Company under the hot seat he's been doing it for so long it's not even hot anymore is it no it's not it's a little easier all right thank you um so for those of you who don't know me I'm Chris Healey I'm the audit partner at Marvin Marvin and company that oversees your external audit so we did wrap up the audit last week and um so since the the timing of the reports coming out for the board meeting we have finalized the reports with you know very minor changes from the draft that you were provided we did review the draft reports with the
003audit committee a couple of weeks ago went through our reports and this financial statements in detail so I'll keep it relatively brief we did audit the financial statements of the district management is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements including the design and implementation of internal controls our responsibility as the auditor is to audit the financial statements and express an opinion on the financial statements based on our procedures and we did Issue a unmodified opinion on financial statements which is the the clean opinion that you're looking for that's the highest level of assurance that we can provide on your financial statements you did Implement two new standards this year that were required to be implemented that was Gatsby statement number 87 related to leases and gasby statement 96 related to subscription-based
004Information Technology Arrangements and the overall impact on the district was relatively insignificant but it is required to be called out to your attention we had one finding related to non-compliance with the four percent real property tax law cap um you were at about just shy of 12 at 11.98 percent that was down from 16.28 and the um June 30 2021 year end so you've taken some steps to reduce that amount in excess of the four percent and as we discussed at the committee level you know the four percent um you know many folks would say is is insufficient to provide you with you know the the cushion that you need to be able to make changes and have funds available um you know in in economic downturns so but the district has taken steps to
005to reduce that so that's our one finding we did also perform a single audit in accordance with the uniform guidance because the district expends greater than 750 000 in federal Awards you're required to have that extra audit done and the program that was audited was your education stabilization funds which encompasses all of those covid funding streams that you received and expended during the year and we believe that the district complied with all the relevant compliance requirements of that program identified as subject to audit we really have no other significant items to report to you you know a big thank you to Eileen and Tiffany and Sue and you know Tammy and the team for providing us with all of the information that we needed in a timely manner organized um you know they really do
006you know make our job you know very easy in terms of you know we're not waiting and and um you know having any difficulties in terms of actually progressing through the audit we certainly come in and ask for a lot of information so we we really appreciate their hard work um and getting through the audit so um that's really all I have unless there are any questions anybody have any questions I think we're good all right well thank you very much thanks Chris we didn't let him off the hook that easy we drilled them there okay uh business considerations uh we want to start with the ones we have to roll call or we want to approve all the other ones besides the roll call thank you you're ready fish let's go order so I
007make a motion for six one through 617 leaving out 6-4 and 6 14. okay do we have a second Mr Ross do we have any discussion thank you for the money for the the I don't know is for the books or for the little Library house that's from Trish Grogan from Trish Grogan so we want to thank that we also want to thank Price Choppers gold Foundation grant for 500 to support the school community garden so those are the two donations that we have so I want to thank both of them anything else any other discussion all in favor aye we need a motion four six four so moved a second it's about another any discussion no okay so who's going to do roll callingly Mr beninotti Mr Deo aye Mr Engel aye Mrs Hill
008Burns aye Mrs whole tailing aye This Is Molina Mr Reveille aye Mr Ross aye okay question passes thank you you need a motion for 642. don't move okay give me a second any discussion star will do Morocco we're going to go backwards okay Mr Ross aye Mr Reveille aye This Is Molina hi this is hoteling aye Mrs Hill Burns aye aye Mr angle aye Mr Deo aye Mr bettinadi aye make a motion for 7-1 through 7 32. okay give a second any discussion no well good all in favor all right motion pass you want to thank Justin our business administrator or welcome I think we scared him off already yeah welcome him to uh the district yeah because it happens to me all the time yeah yeah okay eight uh is for informational items only
009eight one two eight five special reports nothing to report and any other board members have anything they would like to report really moving and um I think exciting to recognize such sacrifice in our community and it was really very enjoyable I'm sure you'll have a little bit more detail into it and I hope we see more of it in the future it would be nice that it was actually done maybe at the whole county level where you could see people that came from your community in in large numbers so it was great good thank you I didn't get to go but I know they had the Greene County All County Festival of the weekend and get to go because my someone only told me about it two days before like when he was leaving that
010it was that and I was already booked but from what I hear the jazz band was outstanding sure I don't know about the rest which would have been the one I wanted to hear but they were first I know that's what I heard which is unusual too usually they're less you have to wait around the whole night to hear them tonight they put them first and they're allowed to live stream those at other schools oh good yeah we will turn it over to Dr Bailey as Tina had mentioned we held operation graduation this past weekend and the folks from VFW were so uh good we had so we had nine dignitaries speak and I'm with Tina you know as as well as recognizing for RCS graduates three posthumously and and one who was able to
011be there Mr daytree um was very moving uh because of the and you heard each of those dignitaries from assembly people to uh to local dignitaries and um recognition of the sacrifice that they made by defending our country it was great we spent a lot of time reaching out to our community Through various resources through the paper trying to get more people to to come on board and I think the last time that we recognized a graduate was at a board meeting here maybe eight years ago nine years ago when I was still principal um it is very noteworthy to do it so I'm glad we were able to I've got is that we're in the room too where you are now in your life these individuals were going off to war um and that
012was I think very heavy for people to think about that that parallel yeah we had uh members of our filled with smoke and you know you're trying to navigate around FBI we had a couple colleges and a recruiter I think the Marines maybe maybe uh but um as part of our you know career exploration our employment enlistment enrollment um we need to continue to give our kids exposure um to uh these types of opportunities so we're excited about that the course guide I just signed off on our course guide for next year I talked about some of the our Fred has talked about some of the pathways and certifications that we've been working toward right now we have the Seal of by literacy which is a graduation credential and we've just got permission for the
013Business and Entrepreneurship CTE pathway credential um and we have a few more Brewing um we are either have our applications in for them including construction to the Building Systems building sciences and uh construction two as a class building Sciences um Civic Services yeah Human Services and the Seal of Civic Readiness yes so uh but the exciting thing for me is having come from the high school here in 2010 to see us taking the work that we're already doing and giving it even more meaning kids have always left with content knowledge and skill but to be able to help them better Define their Pathways is is important especially now you know I think things are a little more defined when I graduated from high school and now there's so many opportunities but uh giving them a
014head start even if they're not going to the career that or the pathway that they've decided on in high school it'll serve them well and no matter what they do because it teaches them self-regulation it teaches them application of skills so you'll see in the new course guide it gets a little more refined every year and as I describe to uh to Dieter the other day when I came here the course guide was 25 stapled pages in black and white with just a list of things that we did and to look at it now and it'll be in print probably in two weeks it is it looks like a College catalog and that tells a story of what we're trying to do for our kids here I'm very excited about that so I have a
015question I know you bring up the career pathway and we've had this in cni so one of the challenges we are going to have is backfilling Mr Kerrigan so because of it he's got certain certifications right I can't remember what it was like he's got a map too we're gonna have something special how do we go about being proactive ahead of time of trying to find a new teacher that's going to be able to backfill him with certifications is that something like we can try to do earlier or how do we approach that I guess huh he's not alone and I think the second part of that is how do we pivot if we don't fill that hole by the time we need that class so this year is a perfect example we have teachers
016who are some are teaching one out of their certification area in an area where they have some experience or they have some interest they're teaching one out of their search which is a lab um and that math position is just one we're going to have a short in family and consumer science and in technology because these Pathways require more uh offerings in those areas so the uh is unquestionably it'll be important part of our 2324 budget process and as well as as you said how do we pre-plan we can give some of our existing staff access to Pathways where they can get the training or certifications and some crazy thing about New York state right now technology business facts and there's a fourth one are the hardest positions to hire for but if anyone is
017in any one of them they can like take two courses and move into the other one so basically if you have a rare bird and you can have them move into a different Rare Bird position but I will give New York State Credit I think where they've been very static in how our staff are able to get to uh a final Target they've made it easier in a few of the pathways especially those that are hard to refined they've just they became very restrictive around special education as a for instance where it had to be you you were certified in K2 three five k six seven twelve seven nine they just reversed and went back to a K-12 certification in special education because think about it you hire a special occasion a special occasion staff
018member to work with a third grade class and the students or the class move into fourth grade and they can no longer teach them is crazy so that's a sign that things are improving so we'll work with staff who we already have to work on those Pathways and we're going to start advertising as early as possible with anticipated vacancies yeah I just think you have to be more proactive because we have a lot of really exciting things new programs but finding staff to you know do them is more of a challenge now than ever no question every position and those more than others sure um so as the guidance counselors the counselors begin their work with students uh in the next couple weeks they'll have that course guide um I shared a discipline Report with
019the board last week it was kind of a first draft of a very interactive report around um the specific I don't like the word offenses I was going to say infractions thank you I rounded fractions and the consequences that were yielded from that it's aggregated data meaning that it's um it's it's by building it's by um gender it's by I guess it's aggregated and disaggregated excuse me what's going to say is aggregated is there are no student student identifiable information so it's general information but it can be sorted by gender ethnicity socioeconomic status and building so you can see trends at different levels where we are biggest reason why that's relevant is each one of our buildings has a Target right now related to student discipline and you heard Debbie tonight she was great about
020reciting what the targets are for her building and her students with the whole buildings working on you'll be hearing more about our progress toward those targets over the course of the Year having data around discipline is a very relevant thing especially if you're coming from these past two years where we know there's a lot of social emotional issues that students have experienced and staff um and we're doing things to try and close those gaps but I think that we are seeing the types of behaviors that we're seeing are different than they were three years ago sometimes the magnitude of behaviors is different than they were three years ago and if we're able if we're going to talk about instruction we obviously need a school climate and a environment where students can do that and they
021feel safe and confident so that will be updated uh at least on a bi-weekly basis and it can also be that data can be sorted by weeks so you can do an entire year or you can just choose selected ranges so I think that'll be interesting too because you can see what happens in the first few weeks of school versus what happens around the holidays which is always a very difficult time the span of time for our teachers between now and January 1st is going to be tough um for a lot of reasons so does that report take you to the next level where there's interventions offered other than discipline no it just talks about the types of infractions and the consequences that are given although you know the lists have been list of consequences
022goes everything from meeting with our counselor to suspension from school so there's a range but certainly it won't be Soup To Nuts everything that could have would have been used yeah my only thought behind that is obviously the coveted funds we've been given to kind of help close some of those social emotional gaps and intervention at some point we'll be gone and if there are relative interventions that were really meaningful it'd be great to tie the data to that so that we can make a conscious choice to continue it right so the task for each of our buildings as they're working on their behavioral targets is to do exactly that is to compare and say all right we see that this is a big thing um insubordination is a big thing or uh what's that
023called when you spray paint something uh graffiti thank you uh graffiti or damaged property damage is a big thing what are the interventions we're going to do to do that is it through assemblies or Debbie talk about Assemblies of you know that that partnered with in-class intimate reinforcement of positive behavior is very important everybody hears the same message then it's able being able to watch the kids on a classroom and a personalized level is really relevant so they'll they will look at that um and that from both a preventative and a reaction you know to to how things are progressing um but that's the concept that I will want them to share out especially as they're going to the budget process we approved a referendum and bond for the construction project uh January 9th is
024our Target date for the vote we have a lot to accomplish between now and then when I say we I mean we you're good you've done what you need to do but um we will be preparing the public relations around it we're going to we've been talking about communication Community we definitely are going to do some kind of public event so people will be able to come in and watch a live stream of us talking about the project so we have a little bit more interaction with our community we'll be doing a large-scale card that'll go home that will describe the context of it with really a lot of substance backed up on our website very difficult to send an 80 to 12 page document and have people first get it in the mail right
025now as you may know there are some significant slowdowns in the mail so we've been talking about how we're going to communicate in the mail and we'll use all the other typical conduits including Ravinia News Herald and other ways that we can communicate with our public we have Public Notices required to do on a set timeline and um the we expect that the pr in the mail to get to households about two weeks prior to the vote so we're talking about the last weekend in December last week in December uh in order to get there and because we know that mail is sometimes taking up to two weeks that really puts us in the first few weeks of December to get out of communication it's not a lot of time as you know correct it'll
026be going in the mail with 10 million holiday cards just in Ravina to get into people's mailboxes so you'll see more PR about the construction project soon as you stated um you know the impact on the household 300 000 house is 15 a year that will likely help our residents feel more confident in the impact on their lives if we have chosen to do this referendum the last thing I wanted to mention to you is we started BOCES started hosting an equity event some Equity series for board members last year and we were able to attend the one session that they had and they have two sessions coming up this year one is Tuesday and none of them this time are on our board meeting nights uh one is Tuesday December 7th from 5 30
027to 8 and the other one is a Friday January 6th don't ask me why uh 5 30 to 8. I'll send around an invitation uh to members who might want to go they wouldn't want no more than two of us to attend myself plus two board members to attend and I'll include a little more context to you in these we had a guest speaker last time and in these next ones it'll be Dr Sean Douglas he's a social worker at Uniondale who was very well known for speaking on issues of equity and then the one in January is natal McGee she's a CEO of progression Partners who work with districts and other organizations around issues of equity is it just Equity or are they including under the full diversity equity and inclusion yeah that's okay
028is it complete and Equity inclusion the social justice is the name of the first session so thanks for asking that Dina as you probably know uh our district has wage forward with a significant investment in Dei diversity Equity inclusion uh beginning almost two years ago and and that has included training for our leaders training for our staff and training for our students this is a nice part for board members to participate in some way as well so I'll send that along and you can just let me know if you're interested in attending and that's it oh and I also welcome Jonathan who is called Jesse Baum our new business administration administrator he is 10 years experience in the work and he's a resident of the district with four children invested in our school district so
029he will make a great addition he'll be joining us in the first second week in January and of course Tammy has generous genuinely generously agreed uh to continue through that time and to help us with the transition to Jesse we're excited to have him on board thank you we will turn it over to Mr animal so I just wanted to publicly thank our curriculum content specialist and our instructional coaches for supporting our professional development day yesterday we had a full day professional development day departments were diving into learning standards we were able to start the therapeutic Crisis Intervention as for schools which is tcis for many of our support staff which is usually a four to five day training so we were at least able to get day one and so we're trying to build
030that capacity within our district to do that and then other kind of Standalone sessions as well we did some appr teacher evaluation Refreshers we looked at some some of the new tricks in Google classroom things like that so I'm hoping that folks walked away and I've gotten some feedback that it was worthwhile and if we gave some time for collaboration for grade levels and teams as well so they were really appreciative around that going with the behavioral piece of thinking around disciplining through a multi-tier systems of support is something that I think we need to continue to do we had a team of folks go to the National PBIS conference and they came back to some great ideas around what we can do to continue to build those interventions and supports for students around Behavior
031so we look forward to learning more about what they learned at that conference um I did want to just say you know we don't necessarily mention much about sports but the swimming and Diving came in third overall in sectionals so I just want to mention that which is huge um also this return to kind of normalcy we had a lot of candy on campus thank you to PTO and ptas for their truck or treats it was Dr Bailey and I and officer Quay were able to do some judging and it was really hard because there were such great trunks that were decorated that was at Peter B and then Andy Rector I participated as a parent and it was just like my child came home with bags and bags so dentists are probably cringing everywhere
032it was it was great to have those kind of traditions back in in full swing so um Miss Buckley is putting some now that's the beginning of the year is putting some of our future teacher articles back on the website so keep an eye out on our first future teacher was is social worker at the high school in this door and then also we're we've been celebrating our artist of the month so for October it is Rachel squadier so check out her work on our website as well we had 50 students participating in all County so I just wanted to give a number to that and then next week just so Ray knows 14 high school students participating in nisma area all state Festival so I'm guessing well it could be yours how many I'm
033guessing yes of that myself uh we also have a wonderful Frozen Junior production coming up from the middle school so mark your calendars the it's the this coming weekend the 18th and through the 20th next weekend and then the High School drama club is doing their Cabaret fundraiser that is on the 12th so lots of exciting probably be here though for the Middle School the height the Middle School production of Frozen fear yes okay so they were just recovery November 12th or December 12th November 12th okay this weekend this weekend and it's here um I didn't want to interrupt Dr Bailey but our building science pathway did get recently approved oh so okay for us on that and lastly if you want to go to Shen this weekend to see the varsity football play section
034two yeah um Super Bowl bring your rings so we got a lot going on everyone's got a busy schedule and we're all ubering our children around that's it thank you we will turn it over to Mrs Sutherland yes so just quickly I want to just provide just some additional information on the electricity bill that's a bill did at the board took action on tonight so the district is using a consultant firm called usource and they bring an unbiased independent expertise to the process on energy markets so the RFP is going to include four districts so Greenville Carol Durham and Coxsackie Athens have actually been bidding together since 2012. so this is an opportunity for Ravina to join that bid and so will be a four District bid right now and they're hoping if they get
035all the information from the districts that they would go out to bid as early as November 28th that week so how it is Bid is they look at a variety of terms so they look at 12 month 24 36 and 48 months and that is what you so use Source will do an analysis and they will work and talk with us about what is best for all four districts and what you really approve today is those terms are good for like a 24-hour period so you've really given approval for Dr Bailey to say yes when we look at it if it's in the best interest of the district so I just wanted to just give a little share out on that the fee for you source is not paid by districts it's actually paid by
036the winning supplier and it's just part of the way they do business with getting a new um so that's nothing that we're paying to get that expertise I will say that the other districts because they know for firsthand have saved money over these years so I'm hopeful that that is something that we will see at Ravina real quick I got some updates from bill on the buildings and grounds the pool there's not a lot more to share again it's still the long lead items but he's hopeful that the beginning of December we would see completion and final Doh inspection and he also gave an update on lighting I know there's been some concerns that have been spoken about on the lighting so he does have an electrician coming on site as early as next week
037to install replacement building mounted fixtures and they're also going to be here to troubleshoot the pole lighting and the student lot and address photocell issues in the new gym lot and he has new LED fixtures on order for two pull lights at the main entrance to the high school middle school campus ongoing conversations with Architects will be about additional lighting needs and he knows that there's also multiple lights out at the football field so when time is right for that he will schedule the lift to come in he did replace him a wall he said in the spring of 2021 he'll make sure they're all replaced again so that's the update from the grounds great I felt bad for whoever was mowing as we came in tonight at 5 30 because he was in our
038back field mowing in the dark and there were no lights no lights on the tractor no lights overhead might be a nice pattern in the morning my pointing in the wrong direction thank you hello treasurer's report is for review only does anyone have any new business they would like to discuss or add to the agenda okay old business nothing to report audit finance committee meetings are attached for the most part I think we just discussed the external audit I don't have any hearings and petitions upcoming activities our next board meeting is December 14th which we will have Peter B recognition Awards and I think we don't have any school right Friday well we're off from school Friday on school Friday so 17. 70. okay so that's what I have okay and we put our communication
039to families in a couple different ways in the last 24 hours but there is no 10th period Tomorrow there's students all go home at 205 or they uh or they go home at three o'clock for elementary is it three o'clock dismissal for tomorrow so that's important for elementary families to remember great uh I will need a motion to go to Executive session to meet with District Council for matters relating to construction student discipline appeals and Collective negotiations and we will not be taking any action when we return do I have a motion Mr Ross Mrs hotel and all in favor hi we're an attack