001Could we have everyone please rise for the pledge and remain standing for the land acknowledgement day to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Salama City Central School District acknowledges the homeland of the Anandka, the people of the great hill, the Senica people on whose ancestral and modern-day land Salama School District now stands and whose water we enjoy. We stand with all indigenous peoples in their land in their resolve to remain connected to their land. While we cannot undo what has been done, it is the goal of the Salama City Central School District to recognize the history and make improvements that will benefit the next seven generations of indigenous students. >> Yep. >> Thank
002you everyone. >> Welcome. Good to see all the students here tonight and everyone else too. That's >> Do we have any changes to the agenda? >> Uh yes. Uh, we had a presentation that was scheduled for tonight um from Mrs. Hager, but she's currently at the basketball game. So, that got moved to the March 24th board meeting. Uh, we added a conference uh in for Mrs. Bever and Mr. Long. And then in section five, we added the contract and bid award for the uh phase 5.1, which is the site work for the old Dong sites. All right. Then with that, uh, I need a motion to approve the agenda. >> Motion. >> Second. >> Motion by Tracy, second by Carrie. All in favor? >> I oppose. Abstain. Motion car. Next, we will go on to
003our first presentation, which is music. My name is Jill Sarasani and I've been with the Salamanca School District for 30 years and I am the department chair for music and I teach band for grades four and five. I'm here to talk about uh what I think is a very exciting concert that we have coming up on March 11th. And um it's a great partnership that I have with fifth grade. Fourth grade band will be on at fifth grade band and then the two high school band. But before I get to the very special part of it, I think it's only possible to have such a successful concert with the efforts from the very beginning. So, I just want to give a very brief overview of the full music department so that you have an understanding
004of what goes on. Over at Prospect, we have Andrew Cornell. When I was there, it was just general music for kids K through two, but now he has them in preK all the way up through third grade. And I believe that each grade level gets an opportunity to do one concert a year. That's a lot of prep when you only get general music class once out of a six day cycle. So, that takes quite a while with those young kids. But they either do it over at Prospect or some of them come over to the high school and do it in the auditorium. In third grade, they get to do the wonderful recorder that every parent loves to hear. I know it's your favorite, but it's really a great opportunity for when they come over
005to Sonica school. They're standing they're learning to read that standard notation. They're working on those fine motor skills and everything. And then when they come over here to Sonica, they have general music with Brookke. She does grades four through six and Mona does grades uh seventh grade. If they don't play a band instrument or they're not in chorus, then they get their credit through the general music class. Brooke also does chorus for grades four through seven. I do fourth grade and then a separate for fifth and then Mona has combined sixth and seventh grade band. Then when they get up to high school, they can still continue with band and chorus. Um, but there's also a music theory and appreciation class. Um, upon successful completion of that class, they receive JCC credit hours. So, that's
006taught by Dr. Sel Bodner. And there's a piano class and guitar class that condenser teaches. He does the coral for grades 8 through 12 and Dr. Bodner does uh the instrumental for 8 through 12. some of the extras that we can do. Um, Mona does pand with the kids, grades six through 12, you'll see that most of the home games for football and basketball. She's taking them on the road for some of the postseason games. And it's so cool to have sixth graders, seventh graders playing alongside the high schoolers. I think for some of those kids, it eases it as you move up into the next level. It's a great time for those older kids to be a mentor to the younger kids. Um, I've started a jazz, it's a small group in my first
007year, but a jazz group at the Sonica level to hopefully be a theater program for the high school. That's just an after school eatup. And then practice club because not all kids are at home where they have uh the ability to openly play out loud like that. You might be in an apartment building. um beginning saxophone and beginning trumpet and clarinet is not the most inviting sound for the neighbors I think until they get better at it. So it gives them a chance just to stay with me to be in a free space to get extra support and have that time to practice. For some of our higher achievers, we like to challenge them a little bit and we have something um that's held at the county level as well as the state level which
008is solo festival and we had our county level one in January. We took about 24 kids maybe to Alageney Limestone. Those kids prepare a solo whether it's vocal or instrumental. They have site reading that they have to do and then the instrument instrumentalists have scales that they have to memorize. They sit in front of an adjudicator that's trained. They play their solo. They receive that site reading music. They get a minute to look at it. They play it. They get a score. Most importantly, they get the feedback to become a better musician. We had all of our students place in the highest category rating, which is outstanding. and we had three with perfect scores. Now music is much better to be listened to than talking. So the treat for the night is I brought one
009of my students that received a perfect score and I assured her that most of you did anyone play a band instrument in school. So she's going to perform her solo that she got a perfect score on last June. to be coming for anyone listening. Not that she doesn't want to That was awesome. >> Yes, it was. >> It would have been squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak. You did a really great job. So now, do you go anywhere else? >> Heather kettle or Heather Kettle on this. So then at the younger level, it's just recommendations for all county teacher recommendations. Obviously, I recommended Riley for this. And so then you get the best kids um in your bands from all of the districts in the county that get together. They get their music ahead of time.
010They rehearse for Friday afternoon or Saturday morning and then they put on a concert. >> Oh, cool. >> For their family. It is amazing. So we have that at elementary and junior high, senior high level. I think there's even some other kids from band that are in here that'll be attending that as well and they do that for as well. When you get a little bit older, as you're entering seventh grade when we do a state um level for Solo Fest, your score matters in a different way if you get one of those top scores and you can get recommended and accepted into area all state all state level and then conference. And we always have kids that attend one or all three of those. So we're we have a very successful program. and these
011students work very hard at it. So, she'll be going to Al County in March. >> Awesome. >> Great job. >> I was chatting with the kids about why they wanted to be in band and I said, "Well, I could probably speculate for some of you what it is." So, I actually did have them write this down. So, Riley's going to share with me. Yeah. Number one is to get away from trouble. >> These are the top 10 reasons. Band means a lot to me because you get to learn a whole new instrument and can help you when you make a mistake. Also, there's people from different classes. We play amazing songs, too. >> I think band is important because it can actually help you learn and make you a little smarter. I like band because
012you can explore instruments and you get amazing teachers. What I love about band is that I love playing an instrument and using both sides of my brain. >> Band makes me want to come to school. >> I like being in band because it challenges me to try different things. >> Band allows me to play music instead of just listening to music. >> It means to learn responsibility. >> Well, band is the best thing that I do. The band teacher is so nice and fun, too. Also, I make music and I love going to school for band and my friends are >> well, we missed number 10. Another girl said it was just the best thing that she does. She has so so so so much fun, but the music actually soothes her. So, I thought
013it was pretty insightful from her, too. Okay. The biggest reason that I came tonight was to talk about her piece that is on our concert. I'm super excited about I don't know if all the kids are as excited as I am, but that's okay. There was a piece that I heard called Stay by a current composer, Randall Standridge. And this is probably the best fifth grade band I've ever had. I wanted them to play it, but it was definitely a higher level, but I still thought they could do it. We didn't quite have all the instrumentation, and it's a little bit longer, so it's more of an endurance thing, like their jobs are going to get tired. So, I asked Dr. Bodner if he'd be interested if his high schoolers would be willing to play
014with our fifth graders. And instantly, of course, he agreed. Ordered the music. First thing I open it up. Hey, you. The one playing this. The world is a better place with you in it. I didn't do enough research on this guy. Comes to find out he suffers from anxiety and depression. And he has something called the Unbroken Project. And he's composed many pieces. Didn't know high school played a few last year. This one also. and he said, "These pieces are written just so that there's more open conversation about mental health." And I went to Brian Spo, our counselor, one of our counselors at Senica School, and asked if he would at least have information for us to be able to put out on a table. I mean, how many of us know we can say,
015"I know someone who suffered from cancer," and you can instantly start talking about Roswell or any other place, and you're easy open to talk about it. But how many are willing to actually say that about mental health issues? It's a very difficult thing. And how many would know where to turn if you needed help? That's a very difficult thing. 911 emergency. 988 is for mental health emergencies. Puts you with someone instantly. And it's a parent who needed help at one point. Two, didn't know where to turn to. So he actually reached out to a lot of agencies and we have four that have committed. We have Kataragus County Suicide Coalition that's going to be there with the table set up and information and talking to people. Senica Nation Behavioral Health, Katarogus Community Action, and Senica
016Strong. And he said he received a 20 pound box shipment from 988 with all kinds of information, pamphlets, little cards you can put in your wallet to hand out to other people, everything like that. So, he plans at the night of the concert trying to get up to talk to everybody, but he appreciated that I provided that information tonight. Um, I think the only other thing we will have bracelets that say you are loved, the world is better with you in it that we plan on handing out, but Amazon did not get them here in time because they were supposed to hand them out to all of you. But I know it's means far more for us to have you at the concert instead of you hearing about the concert and you'll have many other
017things that you're doing. So we made invitations for you. >> I'll edit and help was done by Riley. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All I have prepared for you tonight. Does anyone have any questions about the music department or the concert or >> I would love to when you hear the piece you will feel all the different emotions that I have kids that have said I listen to this every day before I come to school in the middle of a lesson we're playing with a fifth grader and we have the accompanistment on so they can just hear the other instruments and they're playing into it and know where they fit in and she's stopping she's tears like first are you okay do you need help do you need to talk to. No, all of
018a sudden I just like I don't know what happened. I said that's just what music does sometimes. It moves things on the inside. You just nothing. >> That's true. >> So, hope to see you there. I know you're very busy people, but we appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. President Yeah. audience. >> So, next we have our presentation for drama club. >> This is our field trip. >> We are going to take a field trip. >> We're taking a field trip down to the auditorium. >> All right. >> You all are welcome to join us. two and four on the bottom. It's fine. Yeah, I don't think she's like if I could sing, but I can't. So, I'm not going to >> Now we get to follow that up with a budget presentation. I hope
019you can sing, Karen. >> Um, not really. Trust me on that one. >> I don't believe you. There's a reason that I >> Why are you singing? >> There's a reason that I stopped doing chorus in fifth grade. >> We want a song and dance. >> So, um, tonight we're doing a district administration, facilities, safety, security, and transportation. So, what do we know? We know right now that we have six retirements. Um there's rumors of more coming, but deadline doesn't end until Friday, so I don't know. Uh we have two clerical and one teacher, one teacher assistant, one cleaner, and one custodian that have submitted um their um retirement notifications. A couple of them are actually already gone and a couple are uh going to be gone on June 30th. Then the bigger question is
020the unknown. So do we have any additional retirements? Again, deadline is is March 1st, which you know, Friday is the 28th. Um, STA negoti negotiations outcome, CSU negotiations outcome, and state aid, the state budget is not due um until April 1st. So, I'm not really going to know how much state aid is coming in until then. Um because, you know, as you know, that the governor does her thing and then the house and senate do their things and then we end up with some other number uh once it's all over with. So right now in the budget numbers that we're looking at that we're looking to reduce there are no increases for STA or CSU built in right now because I didn't know what they are. I don't know where they are in negotiations etc.
021So I don't have anything built in right now and we're already in the mode for reducing what's been submitted. So we're in cutting mode at this point. So first up is district admin. You can see the 26 27 proposed, the 25 26 approved, and then the variances. Um, some of them are quite large and are being looked at. Board of Ed, you know, that's a 54% increase. A lot of that was the request for travel that came in. So, we'll take a look at that and see where that can be reduced. District clerk is up because uh we are going to be switching our software. You're used to board docs right now. We're switching to diligent which really is taking over board docs and board docs is eventually going away. So we need to send
022Trisha um to uh professional development to learn how to use that and then provide the rest of us with training. So that's up a little bit. Um district meeting pretty much remains flat. Superintendent is down by $5,800. Very good, Dr. Bill. business office is down 131 and that's because the two payroll folks um don't report to me anymore. They report to human resources so they've been moved to that budget. Audit I increased a little bit because we have to go back out for RFP for this year uh and the next five years. Treasur is down a little bit. I reduced some of the costs in there. tax collector is down a little bit because it hasn't cost us as much to um cover the costs of um the lock box at the bank. Uh fiscal
023agent is down a little bit because we canled the uh BJ's membership. So that went down, but the uh one of the credit cards um actually went up a little bit. So it ended up in the $60 uh decrease. legal. We're leaving flat. Personnel is up because of those additional um two people being pushed in. Plus, there's a lot of uh professional development being requested plus equipment and darn would have thought I had all uh oh, and an increase in the Boseies costs uh for personnel, which includes the um administration of our health plan and our workers comp uh plans. Then PR is pretty close. Central prints up a little bit. Data processing up at 20. That's really in paper supply because paper is outrageous and we print the entire encyclopedia every year. It seems
024like um insurance is up because it's up across the board. Um not just for us, but any entity has really been seeing increases. um in part because there were so many um child victim act claims on policies for school districts across the state because when they opened that up a couple years ago there are a lot of them being settled etc. So that's pushing rates up across the board not just for us but across the board. >> So what insurance is that? >> Uh that's all the property and liability >> insurance does not include vehicle that's in transportation. >> Um school association dues all the associations that we belong to and because we get um a large portion of money from impact aid that cost goes up because it's based on the amount that you
025received in impact aid. So that's um a good portion of the increase there. The other one was um small city schools increased um assessments and lease that's the nation lease that we pay on all of our properties. Bosey's admin that's the cost for their administration and our our portion of the Bosey's administration and then Bosey's capital again that's our cost of our portion of the Bosey's capital costs. Then next up is facilities operations and maintenance. Rich did a great job at at trying to keep this down. We still need to whittle it a little bit more. um safety and security is down primarily because of the loss of the contract with first response. Um so that's something else that needs to be uh taken a look at. Then we have transportation. Um transportation is up
026because we need so many drivers and there's also um buses in there. We have no for we have three diesel buses, three of the large buses that we'd like to purchase and then one of the smaller buses with a wheelchair lift in it. Um so that's a a large cost compared to last year. But the other thing that's in there as well is um we're putting out a separate proposition for an electric bus to see if the community will approve the district purchasing an electric bus and those are about $450,000 a piece versus about half of that for a regular piece of bus. >> Is the state providing anything to assist school districts with buying? >> There are still some programs out there that we will definitely be applying for, but whether they approve it
027or not, I don't know yet. And we still get 80% of our bus class. Yes. Right. Yeah. >> Um and next up is March 10th. We'll be doing instructional and updates with um any of the reductions we've made because we're really trying to um as I had indicated before, we're trying to keep this flat and and reduce as much as we can because we just can't sustain what we've been a brain. um especially with you know prospect coming on board in a couple years and um so forth. So we just can't sustain where we are right now. So we need to look at reducing costs. So we're we're looking at what we can. Um and then March 24th, same thing. Bosey's debt service and u where we are at that point in time with reductions
028that are being made. April 21st will be the final proposal um review and then uh the board has to adopt by the 24th. So, if you don't adopt it on the 21st, then we'd have to have another special meeting before the 24th to adopt it. May 12th is a budget hearing and then the 19th is the vote. That's all I have for tonight. >> I know it's not a song and dance. >> Maybe next time I'll I'll practice. >> Great. Bring in my my uh guard equipment and do that for you. Thanks, Gary. >> Okay, we have no more presentations. I guess wants to get up and sing. >> We'll move on to the consent agenda. You don't want to hear me sing. Uh, we need a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Motion
029by Dale, second by Brad. Are there any questions? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstain. Motion carried. We have item 5A. We are declaring surplus um some surplus music material. Uh so we need a motion to declare those items. >> motion by T second by Dale. >> Are there any questions? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstain. Motion carried. Next, we have a mo a donation from Jim Fitzpatrick for $2,600 um board's food cost for Washington DC trip. So, we need a motion to approve that donation. >> Motion second. >> Motion by Casey, second by Carrie. There any questions? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstain. Motion carried. And then next we have a donation from Dollar Tree. We have purses, spring bags, lunch boxes at about $250. So we need a motion to approve that donation. >>
030Motion by Brad. >> Second by Carrie. Are there any questions? All in favor? >> Opposed? Abstain. Motion carried. amount of salary trade. >> Question on both of those though. >> Will we be sending thank you cards? >> Absolutely. >> Uh item D, we have our contract and bid award for Kilbrook Road selected building demolition and update. Uh and that is for 183,738 uh dollars for regional environmental demolition. So we need a motion to uh approve that. bid. >> Motion second. >> Motion by Tad, second by Carrie. Are there any questions? >> Yes. >> Did you want to ask that or you want me to? >> I'll let you do it. >> All right. So, questions come up on the difference in first and second on this. Um, and then you look at the other ones
031on here, there's a huge discrepancy or I mean difference between low bidder and high bitter even second place. So, can you explain a little bit about >> were they completely vetted? Did Turner really uh engage with him and do a thorough scope review? >> Great question because this was uh I don't want to say concerning, but uh well, it drew our attention as well as that of Turner. Turner estimated this um in the $750 to $850,000 uh range. So when we see a bid that comes in this drastically low uh in comparison to what the estimate was as well as the other biders uh we add essentially put them through a second descoping meaning we had them physically come out walk the site uh we also did a pretty extensive amount of research into the
032company itself. Uh it has been around for several years uh I want to say 20 plus years as a relatively large uh company out of Niagara Falls that we have not done work with in the past with a significant amount of equipment. They're also registered with the federal government to work on federal projects. So uh after all of that additional vetting we are confident moving forward with these uh individuals in this corporation. >> Did they indicate where they're hauling the waste material? Uh, I am not aware of where it's going. Okay. Away. >> Well, away means a lot of different things. >> Uh, I'd like to know where they're taking it and where they're hauling it through, especially if they're crossing territory. >> Okay. >> You want to hold up on this then? >> I'm
033fine with moving forward. I just want clear answers. Yep. Okay. >> And I mean, I'll be honest. Um, we have a little room. We have a little wiggle room based on the budget. Yes. Oh, absolutely. >> I just want to be certain that we're disposing of everything properly and at a location that we accept that disposal. >> Understood. Okay. >> So, right now we have a motion by Tad, second by Carrie. All in favor? >> Opposed? >> Abstain. Motion carries. Uh item six is our board information reports and discussion. We have our Indigenous Education Committee meeting minutes from February 11th. our capital project phase five uh summary report and then we have our upcoming event. So we have our high school drama club presentation on February 28th. I think it's also February 27th too, right?
034>> What they told us in there? >> That is correct. >> So we have February 27th, 28th, and March 1st. Um not as exciting as March 3rd, the finance committee meeting uh at 5:00 pm. Uh, and then our next board of education meeting will be March 10th. Um, and with that, we need a motion. Is there calendar? >> March. >> Oh, March 15th. >> Well, March I mean March 15. I can mention that. March. >> All right. So, I'm missing something on here, right? Yeah. >> That will be on the next agenda. >> My gosh. For anybody that doesn't know, my birthday is March 15. And I love my birthday and my birthday starts to be celebrated on March 1st. So everybody can hear >> that. Now I need a bleeder. >> Motion by Dale.
035>> Second by Brad. All in favor? I oppose. Motion carries. Thank you everybody for coming. If you have four signed, everybody at the table can I know.