SCCSD Board of Education Meeting - APRIL 20, 2021

001we have everyone stand for the pledge of allegiance okay do we have uh any changes to the agenda uh just a notation that dr mccoon is joining us via zoom i believe she's on but i don't have my participant screens up and just for the board members benefit there have been a lot of adjustments to the agenda over the last 48 hours but this is the correct agenda that we have in front of us okay then with that i need a motion to approve the agenda motion by barb second by sue all in favor oh sorry yes okay uh all in favor [Music] don't see her on yet okay okay so then uh we have six yes uh zero close and one that's absent okay let's start off with our recognitions for alicia fisk so

002um let's see chris are you uh going to recognize alicia i didn't know no i i yeah thanks bob i will start and i appreciate everybody having us here tonight um actually i want to have uh i think nancy middaugh is going to introduce alicia and the award that she won i both nancy and kim dry are on uh they are both the ones that actually ended up recommending alicia for this award so i will turn it over to nancy or kim but i think it's nancy okay um thank you chris yes alicia fisk was recognized by governor cuomo for her part in the new york state governor's youth council representing cataracts county so what alicia did was she attended statewide trainings about government civic engagement and positive youth development she worked on selecting policy

003issues from local regional state and what they talked about the topics mainly were on education and careers civic engagement juvenile justice and environmental justice and then kim and i would also like to recognize alicia because she became a member of the deca honor society which is also a high prestigious honor because to get on that you have to be involved in deck of states for three years so that means that she had had the scores and the role play um and test scores high enough to go to deca states so congratulations alicia kim mr dry did you want to add anything in well i think you you covered it but i just we just need to let everybody know we're super proud of her and she's amazing student and uh um has gone like she's

004gone above and beyond and everything and i can't wait to see where we go from here good job congratulations alicia awesome congratulations alicia i saw that she was on the meeting so thank you for attending too so that we can recognize you next we will move on to our presentation from our salamaka student activist yes so um i'll start first board members thank you for allowing our student group to address the board they have been working on a presentation for you on an issue of importance to the student body i want to commend each of the students that are here tonight and i'm sure there are probably a few that are not able to join us tonight due to other commitments i also want to thank the um advisors to the student activist group mr

005hubbard mrs crowley and i know that there are a number of other adults that have been helping the students and you may get to see some of them during their presentation but i will turn it over to mr hubbard and the students and mr hubbard that the students can introduce themselves first just so we know who's here the last quest i'm new i don't know what i'm doing i think you're supposed to go okay hi i'm maya brazil hi i'm elia lee hi i'm hannah kusick hi i'm cody yarn hi i'm grace hedera hello hi i'm kirsten klein i'm riley john co-founder and co-president of the club yala scano my name is rhys and i am co-founder and co-president of the sound league student activist please so reece so again yay scanner swag lego nang

006amazona date i'm all thankful you're well here tonight um so uh what we are is the sale make student activist group also known as ssa and we have been meeting weekly since the beginning of school like almost the first day to talk about issues that plague our school community and the community at large on you know state and a world level um and it is an all-inclusive group anyone can join any time it's not a full on commitment really it's just a safe place for anyone to come and voice your opinion really and it's also a a place to learn you know you come here to learn about issues that you might hear in the news or stuff or we might just talk about what happened in school maybe and that's kind of where we're

007at with this right now so what we're trying to achieve is raising the progressive pride flag which you see over there underneath the american flag out front of the school all year long and um what this would do is kind of show that our school which is a reflection of our community that we are an all-inclusive school and we are inclusive towards members of the lgbtq community and beyond that it would also show students coming in and say for a sporting event a concert any extracurricular really that is not from our school that our school is accepting as well so they have a safe space here too um so that's kind of where we're at [Music] the progressive pride flag that was ray or created in 2018 it adds those five arrow shapes to the

008already famous sixth color rainbow flag which is widely recognized as the symbol of lesbian gay bisexual and transgender communities this flag the black and brown stripes represent marginalized lgbt communities of color which would include us because we're on an indigenous reservation and the colors pink light blue and white which are used on the transgender pride flag why we need this or should fly our school is very diverse and accepting place which we know this already the flag would further show our and support or show our support and inclusivity while positively representing the lgbtq plus community and allies within our school district and as a step further we'd be one of the first districts in our area or even the state to propose this and we would pave the way and set the bar for other

009districts all around the country [Music] okay so we um followed um a process to get us to where we are um even right now so in order to start the group there is a very large interest in um activism and to get the group we had to get approval from mr siebert mrs mcgarra and the board then we met weekly then we decided to research and have further discussion about the lgbtq and progressive pride flag we also had a meeting with a local lgbtq activist and community organizer then we presented our early proposal to mr siebert we got together and created a proposal video then we met with mr breidenstein um we obtained oh yeah we have 10 community feedback from students and staff which i'll talk about a little bit in the next slide

010and now we're here so um you can't see the full slide but i went around i surveyed a um staff members i was unable to reach everybody um due to you know covet us being here four days a week and the fact that i had um very long discussions with some of these individuals but this kind of shows that the staff um is also supportive of what we're doing and this is a large majority of the people that i asked were happy to sign and learn more so that's them [Music] uh so this flag actually has some cultural meaning across tourist islands so many tribes and bands across toronto leave an idea of a third gender or non-ver and also non-binary identity and this is also known as two-spirit identity and it kind of shows

011that you are both male and female or none in some cases uh and in another wakanda seneca language there's not really a specific word for third gender or non-binary so the closest thing you can get really is the word de niuse which means they standing for one man or one woman or and one woman two two people and also hudi guego which means them and it is a group of both men and women and you can use these in uh conversation as standards for the pronouns they them which are used by most non-binary and transgender lgbt people um and it shows that you can have both male and female traits and kind of break down the genomes even within indigenous societies and so here's some pro-lgbtq educate legislation that was proposed earlier this year on

012february 18 2021 the equality act was proposed in the house of representatives of the u.s congress and what it did is prohibit the discrimination of people based on their sex sexual orientation and gender identity in public places education federally funded places employment housing credit and the jury system the bill now resides in the senate awaiting to be passed on to the president's desk for signature it's become a law sadly though there is anti-lgbtq legislation as well as well as anti-transgender legislation as of now there are 20 states that have bills to seek to deny transgender youth health care within these 20 states over 27 bills have been proposed to deny transgender youth access to health care 31 states proposed bills to seek to ban trans and youth from participating in athletics out of these 31

013states more than 56 bills been proposed to ban transgender youth from competing in sports other anti-lgbtq legislation consists of legislation that involves banning from uh bathroom use lgbtq members especially trans members and also defenses used in courts to prove violence against trans people based purely on their identity what this means here at sailmaker is that trans individuals see almost daily that there is more and more anti-lgbtq legislation propose every day and they see these institutions like states like public places that ban them and bar them from being who they really are and at cell make it kind of show these students that may maybe have seen you know a bad headline be like oh here i'm banned from another place it shows them hey you're welcome here though it's america okay i'm gonna introduce myself

014again i'm hannah i am the secretary of ssa and my slide ties back to when we did the teacher survey and we got many questions about just what this means for the school so when they were presented with these some questions that came up where what about any other group wanting to raise a flag um like we said we went through a process and this can establish a process just across the board for any other group like syc or seneca youth council to raise the hadi nashoni flag on the fried flags or with the other flags it will make it so it's a fair process to be able to achieve your goal like we are um other flags like the confederate flag what about what about those um these this flag specifically the confederate flag

015and any other they are discriminatory and used as political statements whereas the progressive pride flag is not it is symbolizing inclusivity and diverse diversity and the progressive pride flag is not a political subject with yeah and it seeks to include and represent others not exclude them uh why should we raise it under the american flag in flag code any other flag that should be flown on the same pole as the american flag should be flown lower and should be smaller in size this has no no negative connotations against it raised raising a flag on the same pole and yeah thank you um all right there are some further progressions for the lgbtq community the franklin mckinley school district in san jose california annually holds a pride month ceremony where they raise the pride flag signifying

016the universal support for the members of the lgbtq community within the school's students staff and local community and they've gotten a lot of positive feedback actually on this from members of the city members of the staff students even people coming in from other districts so i think that's a huge thing to model our district off and i think it's never a negative thing in june 2020 new york state landmarks were lit up in colors of the lgbtq pride flag with governor cuomo commenting new york is the birthplace of the lgbtq rights movement and while celebrating pride during the pandemic will certainly be different for our lgbtq community new yorkers are finding ways to come together and show the world that we stand united not only by love but our commitment to progress in that spirit

017we are lighting icons what the lgbtq pride flag and sending a clear message that even in unprecedented times nothing will stop i think he finishes his statement with nothing will stop our fight for equality um for the first time in its history jamestown community raised the pride flag at tracy plaza outside city hall in october and i think this really shows that you don't really have to be this huge city this huge like um state capital like you don't need to come from a big place to show inclusivity even a town as small as ours can do our part jamestown mayor eddie sundquist says the event is designed is designed to celebrate national coming out day for the lgbtq community he commented that summoning the strength to reveal the innermost part of you this flag

018is a symbol that no matter what happens in our nation jamestown is and will continue to be a welcoming place no matter where you fall on the spectrum and sorry and no matter whom you choose to love and i think that's a huge message um to not only put out to our students but again to our staff to our community anyone who comes here that sellmaker will always be um an inclusive place and a safe space for them to feel welcome in all righty thank you um [Music] yes [Music] um [Music] um [Music] very good [Music] much hi i'm myra brazil that is a picture of me and my girlfriend amaris and i think it's important to raise the pride flag to show that our school is welcoming no matter what you sexually identify as

019or what your pronouns are and if we do it'll show the students that if they have like a judgmental family or they just don't accept them that we will accept them here and it'll make me and a lot of other students feel safer in the school like they're welcoming raising the progressive pride flag is really important to me because it represents two sides of my identity i am non-binary and has been slowly introducing my they them pronouns to everyone in school and everyone has been very accepting and i'm also queer so seeing this uh flag raising of lipo would be very important to me it would make me feel a lot safer and just acknowledge that hey there's other people like me here strengthening the community and makes it so uh if i need advice

020from other trans people i can get it very easy easy and it just would be really important to me um hi my name is cody yarns and i am transgender um i came out as transgender when i was 13 years old and i went to eliquid central school up until my sophomore year of high school um i can count on both of my hands the amount of teachers at ellicottville that were accepting of me being transgender i had students make a petition so that i couldn't use any of the bathrooms in the school um but transferring to salamanca my junior year um my first day when i walked into mr hubbard's classroom he had a pride flag hanging up and that was the most amazing feeling ever being able to walk in here and know

021that there are teachers that are accepting and that are happy to have students that are part of the lgbt community be in their classrooms he did a great job yeah well thought out you followed all the proper protocols and uh it makes me really proud that you brought this to the board um for consideration i'm 100 behind you i think it's a great idea the only thing i would say is i think you deserve your own flagpole not just to fly it on the same pole but you guys you really it's great that you came here and presented you thought out your presentation you know it's hard to get up and and speak to a bunch of strangers um well some of some of us are strangers than others but it's really hard to get

022up and and really voice uh your feelings and your concerns and you have a hundred percent of my support on this project i can't speak for everyone else here and i'll let everyone else speak for themselves but great job and uh i'm really proud of all you guys yeah i wanted to say a great job as well you know i want to echo teresa's uh sentiments that was a very well presented topic you guys did your research always get very well put together presentations but i will give you guys a hand you guys are very good and it's appreciated i appreciate the initiative i had to this is um megan mckeon i i had to join a little bit late because there's a baby having a meltdown but i'm really proud of all of you

023um i've you know was anticipating this meeting really looking forward to this meeting and and seeing the presentation i just like teresa and and carrie um am in support of this teresa i love the idea of a dedicated flagpole because i think it's it's that important and just good job i teach sex and gender at jcc and you all have done an amazing job with with your research and as a college professor i would definitely give you an a thank you lost a cousin because he was gay no fully i i also echo it was a great great presentation and you guys had my support um it's not so much being par part of a group but it's being part of a philosophy and a movement you know uh inclusivity is is such an important

024thing for for all of us everybody you know and i i just think you guys are doing a great job i fully support this also thank you for coming you're you're all very well spoken you did a great job and i also like the idea of having your own flagpole um great job obviously it takes a lot of bravery to do what you did today and i think you all did a good job a lot of the questions that i had were answered in there and i'm very proud of you and you have my support i just like to add one more thing thanks for sharing that sue wasn't easy for you and it wasn't easy [Music] to do what they did and i do want to give a shout out to uh mr hubbard

025um thank you for putting this together thank you for working with these kids for uh guiding them but i also like the story that cody shared walking in and seeing your pride like that's that's one of the things you carry with your entire life so thank you for that i just want to read a few of the comments from members of the uh community that posted on facebook live uh from a brian i uh i won't read last names uh people can read the comments uh this is an awesome thing please let the kids fly the flag sue laboon oops sorry sue elle so proud of our students they are often forgotten they are our community christina m while the students are amazing brian f uh brian i again so inspiring mara a what an

026awesome presentation great job warriors uh laura h fantastic presentation ssa i'm so proud of all of you be you stand up for what you know is right in each other this is truly fantastic justin c a powerful presentation by some amazing stu students heather h awesome job very powerful and i will just simply add i've met with all of you a number of times you've stopped me in the hallway you've messaged me you've reached out to your um teachers who've reached out to me to mr siebert to mrs mcgarr and i just want to say when you were doing your presentation i had goose bumps and i don't think i've ever been this proud of my students in my 30 plus years in public education and i certainly thank you for all of our students

027um it sounds like you've changed the history in this district and that's an awfully good thing thank you well and the other thing i just want to add one thing um the comment that you made about uh when you fly the flag it's gonna let everyone know that we are a welcoming district and that's the philosophy that we want people to know that you are welcome and you're safe when you come to our district and if we're the the first district uh a local district i should say that's gonna start flying the flag hopefully other other districts will follow so uh you know we do say uh salamaka where um learners become leaders you've all taught us something and you're all leading the way uh to help improve our society so really great job guys

028for putting all of this together it's just i'm so proud of you question for mr siebert i know mr sievert's on the call and for the students here do you have a flag ready to voice the mainsail okay all right we will have one and make it so we will make it and great job guys i'm like everybody else said just so proud of you guys phenomenal job presentation thank you [Music] i'm gonna go they advocate they clean they do windows [Music] on board of education members okay so thank you very much uh we have two presentations this evening and commendation for board members mr dale colton and dr meg mccoon for their excellence from the new york state school boards association recognition program which is designed to acknowledge those school board members who have

029strip who strive to continually expand their governance knowledge and skills on behalf of school districts throughout new york state we would like to congratulate on having earned level three board mastery award mr dale colton in addition to this spiffy portfolio and folder mr colton has received a certificate of merit as well as a certificate for a free day training event sponsored by the new york state school boards association and we would like to congratulate mr colton for his training excellence and commitment to the students of the salamanca city central school district congratulations thank you thank you all right and our next uh presentation for excellence is for uh dr mckeon uh for level two board excellence award and dr mccune has received a certificate of recognition from the new york state school boards association for

030participating in leadership development opportunity opportunities totaling 150 points for the 2021 school year so dr mccune thank you and we'll make sure that we get this to you um next time we see you face to face which will be next meeting i'll be back on sunday thank you okay all right congratulations next we have our school safety and reopening plan thank you at the march 16th board meeting a revised version of the district safety and reopening plan was approved this revised plan used the most recent guidance from the county department of health which permitted a reduction in social distancing requirements in schools this allowed us to increase the number of students that we could have on campus as well as the number of days students could be on campus the district administrators developed a plan

031to bring back as many students as possible yet allowed any students wishing to stay on fully remote instruction to do so the plan was located on our website now and was fully implemented last monday april 12th with the assistance of our entire staff students return to campus for four or five days a week with approximately eighty percent of our student body on campus for instruction over the past week we have worked through minor logistical issues but we are very happy with our progress i'd like to thank our administrative team our support team particularly transportation and food service who have had to be exceptionally flexible as well as all of our teachers and our school related personnel thank you okay thank you mark and next we have our long-range fiscal [Music] plan all right uh board

032members you've all seen the extended version of this um presentation and uh basically it's on our long-range financial plan you know what is it and why are we doing it um what it is is a multi-year financial plan that projects revenues and expenditures over several several years into the future based on a series of different assumptions and why do we do it so that we can analyze it and really basically plan for the future um the revenue assumptions that we made are that impact aid will continue to be funded the district will receive at least 90 percent of its lack uh calculation and i can tell you for the 2020 year we received 100 it was the first time that we're aware of that any uh districts were receiving 100 of their lot for us

033that was a little over 15 million dollars um we'll assume that state aid is being reduced by five percent and then it's flat now i want to pause right there and say that this was prepared two months ago and already it needs to be updated because at the time that i prepared this the state was on the we're holding back of your payments and you know we're not sure what's going to happen in the future we're relying on the federal government for money and all that kind of stuff and now all of a sudden the state is giving us extra money so um while this is you know technically out of date it's something that's reviewed on an annual basis so next year in the fall early spring december january probably is really when i'll

034get started to review it again so every march we'll kind of review you know the past year's results and where are we looking forward to um in the the next year um so pushing play again we're going to go on to our native american contracts will increase slightly based on the number of students and the budget fluctuations that we have and that taxes will remain flat at the current 250 000 uh levy so with that this just shows that um you know in in 1920 our actual was 44 million 2021 were budgeted at 43 million our projection for 2122 is 48.7 and then it goes on you know out through 26 so we can kind of project where we're going to be um within the next three or four years after that for karen can

035i interrupt you for a second can you go back a slide yep please go over your top item here for your projection all the way from 25 to 20. yup okay so the tax levy is we're preparing to to keep it flat um across the entire time because of the indigenous tuition and transportation monies that we get as well as the impact aid monies that we get that we should be able to keep our tax levy flat and not have to increase taxes so the expenditure side of things salaries were projected based on their current um collective bargaining agreements equipment we went up one percent textbooks one percent contractual two materials and supplies two tuition three both these two benefits are going to vary based on which one it is whether it's a retirement or

036if it's a workman's comp or fica insurance and things like that and then that service is really going to vary based on what we do i did not include any future data if we do any future projects so with that um again this is a quick snapshot you know in 1920 we had 36 million dollars in expenditures with an additional 13 million dollars in interfund transfers which put us at a total of 49. again we're looking at 43 for this year projected at 48 for next year down to 44 staying kind of flat for a year and then going back up a little bit those are projections based on all those assumptions that i just went over and um you know one of the ways that we fund our programs is through our multiple reserves

037so i did the same thing with the reserves where do we look like we're going to be with the reserve funds for workers comp we're going to go from a current you know 179 000 it looks like we're going to go down to 140. well is that good or bad it's kind of both it's good because we're using our funds we're using our reserves and that's what they're for it's bad because it kind of goes down a little bit but that's okay because that's what it's for it's supposed to fluctuate um as we use it and it gets refunded throughout the years so same thing for unemployment ers is a big one um for that's the employee's retirement fund that's for the non-certified folks that work here and then trs is the big one that

038was just approved in 1920 here to become a reserve so that even though it's one of our larger expenses it's only 229 000 right now but as you can see it's gonna pop up to one point we're projected to push it up to 1.5 by 2026. that has a maximum of 10 of the prior year's um trs salaries so all of our instructional certified folks um their total salaries times 10 that's the highest that this actual reserve could go at any point in time once it gets over that we can't fund it anymore so our game plan with our current reserve plan is that once we get up to that maximum of 10 percent then we'll start using it a little bit each year as we refund it so it's kind of an in and

039out in and out um kind of you can kind of think of it you know as how you save on your um your mortgage for your taxes you put away money every single month then at the end of the year when your tax bill comes you pay it so that's kind of what we're doing with the reserve but we do it on the end excuse me on an annual basis instead of putting money away on a weekly basis and as you can see the rest of them are designed as that as well what might be concerning for some people is this unassigned fund balance new york state has a law that school districts cannot have a greater than a four percent fund balance right now ours is 32. and that's a lot better than it

040was it used to be 60 something so this shows that we're using it down to get back down within our four percent so we'll be um following the controller's rule of having four percent but we still have our monies from on federal impact aid to be able to um fund the programs to fund the um extra stuff that we do all the time like renovate that's part uh so this uh overall the fund balance the reserve shows that it goes from 20 goes down to 15 but um that's okay because we're using down our unassigned fund balance which is what the controller's office wants us to do so overall you know this just really synopsis um synopsis that's not even a word um summarizes been a long day let me tell you um summarizes um

041each of these the revenues the expenditures where we we see this this is um in 1920 we had a planned deficit we wanted to use our monies because we were getting yelled at by the comptroller's office for having too much so we're balanced for 2021 these are anticipated potential surpluses um and then use and tax reduction this is monies that we'll use out of the um on reserve fund balance to fund our programs etc so overall that's the long-range financial plan that um i created one year and years ago and went over it with the finance committee but i never brought it to the board and then we had um a new york state audit came in um the office of comptroller's office office of the controller's office controller's office came in and audit us

042and they yelled at us because we didn't have a formalized long-term financial plan i said well i have one it's right here they said well did your board accept it no well that doesn't count like well finance accepted it so that didn't matter to them it had to be the full board so between everything else that's going on in the district um i worked on this here and there and whatever and got it all together and even though this looks like maybe it's not a whole lot of work the actual plan is really like 64 pages long um and once i get it finalized there's a couple pieces in it that that i haven't discussed here that i'm working on as far as equipment replacements um chad is working on some stuff for me for

043the athletics and one we're going to need to replace those things i just got the information from the transportation department i have the information from facilities as far as when major pieces need to be replaced we're also working with young and right to develop our overall facilities plan so once those pieces are all together then i'll finalize it and then we'll um actually publish it but for now this is the the required piece from the and actually that's the that's the part that kind of um is frustrating because legally it's not required to do this the comptroller's office wants you to do it they recommend you do it and they'll write you up if you don't have it but you're not legally required to have it so here it is um you have any questions

044let me know and um it's on the agenda later to accept the plan and then again i'll see you next year earlier in the year to review it all and see where we are from next year you have any questions okay all right then we'll move on uh to our budget overview vegan okay so budget this time this is the final review or adoption of the budget um so here we are this is our revenues for 21.22 um again the taxes at 250 000. this 550 is any um fees and interest that will earn from people that don't pay the taxes on time um 460 thousand dollars from various things like tuition coming in or use of the parks use of different pieces of facilities etc also some services that we provide for the county

045use of fund balance in reserves at 3.68 million indigenous tuition and transportation contracts about 8 million dollars uh impact date at 12.2 and then state aid at 23.31 uh for a total of 47 million seven hundred eighteen dollars and two hundred and seventy eight and let me try that again forty seven million seven hundred eighteen thousand two hundred and seventy two dollars it's an increase of about ten percent over last year and some people's immediate thought is oh my gosh we're increasing by ten percent but you'll see in a little a little bit more um why it's gone up by ten percent so another piece i kind of alluded to in um the long range plan is additional funding that new york state is giving us that really came from the federal government there's two

046large pieces um some people are calling it cares act 2 and here's that 3. some people are calling it sarissa and arp it's there's so many acronyms in education that's ridiculous so i'm just going to tell you what it is and you can call it whatever you want it's coronavirus response and relief supplemental appropriations act of 2020. the elementary secondary school emergency relief fund aka sarissa so we are getting 1.6 million what we can spend it on we don't know yet they're supposed to have further guidance and applications out for us by the end of this month the second piece is the american rescue plan act of 2021 or arp which will bring in 5.6 million dollars of that 5.6 million we need to use two million sixty two thousand three ninety seven specifically to

047address learning loss from our students not being in the class in the physical classroom we already do many of the things that are going to be required in this such as summer school is after school programs the tutor programs that we have um so a lot of this is really going to be um has been taken out of general fund and will be put towards this and other additional programs created to assist our students in their learning last recovery and again zero percent tax increase to two hundred and fifty thousand dollar tax levy just like it has been the last couple years we have 26 new positions there are 15 current vacant replacement change positions one was changed from part-time to full-time some are replacements of the retirements and some are just people that have

048left but we haven't had an opportunity to replace that position yet so that's open so during this time if you've seen the olean paper or sound making paper or buffalo paper there's a huge one ad out there for salamanca there's about 40 positions that we're hiring overall so it's going to be an extremely extra busy summer and spring for not only my offices but for the principals and department heads as well they're going to be interviewing all these people so what don't we know we don't know where the coronavirus thing is going are we going to be maskless next time or is it going to be two years from now before we finally can take these things off and get back to normal we really don't know so we don't know if we're going to

049be in school out of school or where we've planned the entire budget that we are back 100 everything's going that's how the budget is planned um we also we don't know if there's any student enrollment fluctuations or special education cost fluctuations for instance i talked to kristin today and there were i think she said five new students coming in and a couple of them are very high needs students so we never know um how much our special education costs can rise or fall within one year you just don't know and then we also don't know about the fiscal cliff that's occurring because of the sarissa and arp funds what that means is that those funds are coming in over the next couple years and then they drop off so then what happens we're in a

050financial situation that we can afford to continue programs where other school districts may not be able to they may create these great programs to help their kids with their learning loss recovery but then what are they going to do when the federal money runs out for us we can replace it with additional with different federal money which is impacting can i ask a question absolutely so with the sarissa heart funds is that included in this year's budget right now or is that additional aside additional aside okay so on top of the budget we have that six million plus dollars to spend yep okay yep absolutely and that money the different thing about that is so or is this to [Music] some of them are not quite ready for prime time just yet but we are

051excited very much so and they will make significant impact on um our students and that's our goal is to you know improve instruction through teaching and learning it's about settlement community but also to make salamanca a more impressive community thank you mark sorry sorry if i stole any of your thunder from uh the central office message so this is where we are we have 23 million um dollars or 48 of the budget is strictly instructional um staffing materials and supplies consulting et cetera uh professional development and all that good stuff uh for instructional then there's the strictly the benefits and this is extremely important at how pricey benefits are for an employee without including insurance it's 18 cents on a dollar to hire somebody so if somebody makes a dollar an hour it costs us

052a dollar 18. so and then you add on health insurance on top of that so 17 of our budget goes for benefits which is retirement and health insurance and sick vacation flex money you know all that good stuff and then our transfers to capital um of five million dollars into special aid 75 um and that transfer the capital um bob can probably speak to um in a little bit once i get through the end of this uh the 75 000 transfer to special aid fund is for the summer school special education kids uh administration is all of the superintendent's office the business offices and all the principals offices and all the costs that are incurred to actually run the district that service that's what we owe on the bonds for uh principal and interest transportation

0532.7 million dollars is what it costs to run the full transportation department including purchasing additional buses and vans and facilities to keep us where we are and continue on the beautiful facilities that we have is uh 2.6 million dollars so our total budget is 47 million seven hundred eighteen thousand two hundred and seventy two dollars so here's the thing that it's hard to read but i have to go over this because you have to approve it so um this is what's called a property report property tax report card this is required from new york state basically it just says this is how much money our budget is at 447 million 0.7 our tax levy is 250 000 and then sorry we could have increased our taxes a lot but we did not so the total

054levy limit um permissible exclusions and i went over the whole um tax cap calculation earlier in the year and it just shows that you know we could have and i i'm pretty sure this number is accurate if i don't um i apologize for getting incorrect but i think it was 219 that could have increased our taxes um but we didn't we're still at zero so this this report has to go out um every year showing where and this is um another one of the silly things that new york state does this says actual 2021. so you would think that that was our actual number for 6 30 21 which is when our fiscal year ends well obviously it can't be because it's not 6 30 21. so what the state wants us to report in

055this column is where we were at 331 21 so where we were at march 31st and then estimate where we will be at 6 21. so those are my estimates i've been hammering those out um last couple days so it looks like you know our estimated fund balance is going to be at 32.99 uh these are the um reserve funds where we were on march 31st of where i anticipate as being on june 30th for each one of them and how we anticipate using them um throughout the year next year and that is the budget only 10 minutes oh well thank you so do you have any questions all right next time great job next time i'll be back and it'll be in more detail i know you're excited we are thank you okay we'll

056move on to communications i know we don't have anything for title six there are no comments that we haven't already brought forward [Music] okay then we can move on to central office message dr buehler you want to start us off excited about several things tonight um last week salamanca high school was selected to be one of the first high schools in new york state to offer the new york state civic and readiness seal which is applied to a graduate's diploma civic readiness is the ability to make a positive difference in the public life of our communities through the combination of civic knowledge skills and actions mindset and experiences now the reason that this happens to come up tonight is because a we just received notification that we've been selected um for this process and it's

057extremely timely given the student presentation that we just saw in order for a student to achieve this award students must acquire a number of pre-estate assessments fancy but if a student completes the required new york state social studies requirements they have already achieved two out of the six points that are required they can also be engaged through community involvement or they can complete a capstone project now the capstone project involves doing identifying an issue determining the various points of view regarding that issue identifying how to move that issue forward in a governmental or organizational process and then advocating for that change to occur the last piece of that is to simply reflect on what they've done and write down what they've learned so kind of excited just writing this seal made our school a safer

058and more inclusive space but i think they made our community and in a small way the world a better place they've exemplified what this seal of civic readiness is designed to do i'm proud to say that i work for san jamaica because this was just released in uh about three weeks ago this the seal and we already are at a point with the programs that we're doing because they're the right thing to do to give students a voice to empower them just an expression from i will mention this is really ready time but i'm excited to say that and i'll sprinkle out a little bit of um about that we are in the process organizing a early childhood program for students under the age of our current pre-k 4 program we look to see how

059that can be expanded to include even additional students and provide additional services we know the importance of the first four and five years in a student's life and that's from birth actually from conception through the time that they're in formal kindergarten and i'm once again proud to be part of a school district where that's recognized and where we're going to take affirmative action to make sure that those resources are available to our parents to our students and to the community as a whole there's one other thing i'm kind of excited about too i don't know if mr bridenstine we didn't coordinate this are you going to talk about the high school award i'll take the hesitation as no no oh you can do that that's yours i got two exciting things okay actually my phone

060wasn't on i was on mute so how about we have mr siebert to address that do you want to share a little bit of that information or do you want me to formally present the information to you because really this is acknowledgement of award that you and your high school staff has received yeah why don't you present it but honestly i i mean this goes back to the kids presentation today and and how phenomenal the kids are and obviously the staff that's that's working with them this is this is a reflection of i guess them as a whole so why don't you present it i read it briefly uh we got choked up but right and rightfully so um you know several years ago lameca high school was identified as a high school in need

061of improvement they were identified as close to the bottom seven percent of new york state um throughout the past six or seven years mr siebert has stepped up he's taken the leadership role and has brought the building together so that it's not just a building it's really not just a school but it's a family of learners and educators and many times salamanca we hear and see business first we don't necessarily get to where we want to get to um and you know there's some negative associations that we've tried to overcome actually i will say that we have overcome but many times even though the students are at a higher level than they were four or five years ago the public perception and the adult perception is more difficult to change but in the olean times

062and in the salamanca press today they recognized and announced that um salamanca high school has been identified as one of the 500 best high schools in new york state so that's out of 1200 high schools now even more significant than simply being in the top 500 is that they were in the 74th position so that's in the top 100 of the high schools in new york state they factor in an exceptionally large number of considerations into that calculation and it is the highest rank since we always like to see where we are close to home it's the highest rank um high school in cataract county by far so mr siebert i'm really excited i really want to just simply acknowledge you and what your staff has done under your leadership and just say great job

063thank you and again i mean i it's you know like i said we saw part of the presentation or the presentation tonight with the students and stuff and uh just you know they did a phenomenal job but you know i see those kinds of presentations to me by students regularly either through student government um different types of exercises and things that that they've seen and wanted to make changes um and then honestly we just had a meeting just the other night with four i guess was friday afternoon with about four students uh trying to make you know some other changes that they that they saw that um they felt was i guess inequitable so i you know it's it's it's it's really i guess listening and then following up to make the changes for the

064better and uh i'm just i'm so thankful that we have the staff and the students that we have so and bob i can cry in baseball if i want he should he sent me a text saying you can't cry in baseball all right uh mrs ray thank you that's all right thank you karen do you have anything else dad okay as always right then we can move on to the board of education message let's go first dale um i know i'm going to sound like a broken record again but uh i just want everybody to remain vigilant against this coronavirus pandemic you know and the best thing you can really do is get vaccinated um you'll be protecting yourself your family your friends grandparents and it's best thing you can actually do for your community

065at large um also make sure you have your snow shovels ready because it's going to snow overnight um i i heard up to six inches so it's not just a little you know dusting of snow so um also dust off your your winter driving skills because it looks like it's going to hit you know overnight and and to continue through the the uh the morning drive hours that's all i have thanks board he's board member and part weather man that great combination carrie yeah um i kind of wanted to mention the same thing about the coven 19 that's out there and also just to reiterate that uh the seneca nation health system partnered with the school district to offer vaccines for staff and students 16 years of age and just to go over that again

066tomorrow they're doing pfizer vaccines there's still time to get on the list if you have students 16 or 17 who are looking for pfizer that's available tomorrow at our health center and then also next week there's moderna for uh 18 and up so i just wanted to reiterate that i know it's been shared i know levi did a great job getting that out to the public and letting everyone know again stay vigilant um it's still here you know it's still an issue we run into it every day so don't let your guard down i wanted to thank karen for all the hard work she's doing putting the budgets together that's no easy task you know and every year it seems like the budget gets a little larger and as the budget gets larger it probably

067means our workload gets more and more so thank you for that karen um mark that's pretty exciting news you know the daycare facility expanding our services to the community that's what we all hope for that's what we've been working towards i've been on the board for six years and been pushing for more and more of our improvements and expanding our services and everything and you know i'm so happy to be a part of this board and part of this district to make sure that these things are happening you know it's exciting it's it's great news um the news about the high school uh that speaks for itself you know when i when i got on the board we were in the basement you know we're we're on the verge of new york state coming in

068and shaking her finger at us you know so it's it's pretty pretty awesome to see that article today and you know to share that news um other than that i just want to thank all of our staff and everybody else for doing the hard work that they're doing and the great job they're doing you know to keep our kids educated to try to keep everybody safe and to just get us through this pandemic as best as we can it's much appreciated so thank you that's all i had brad congratulations to mr siebert and everyone involved when i read that article today i have a relative who recently moved back to the area and to a neighboring district so it took me about 30 seconds to copy and paste that send that to her that's all

069i got i also would like to commend the school and our teachers and the staff for starting this new adventure with us with the pandemic and teaching in in the school and i hope they can keep it down so we don't have to close up again um i think the school is doing everything they possibly can and the teachers and the students are doing the best they can so um thank you to the superintendent and the rest of the teachers and staff for doing such a good job in our school system thank you i just want to say thank you again to the students who came and gave that great presentation and congratulations from the bottom to the top for all the hard work and getting shalamaka the recognition that that we are getting good

070job meg i don't want to forget you had to write your name down um lillian's serenading in the background but i just want to echo what um other folks have said first with kovid i'm actually in michigan right now for a family issue and i'm sure those of you that follow the news have seen that michigan is in the news for not so good reasons their coveted cases are exploding their hospitals are completely overwhelmed and the age group that's spreading it the most right now are you know high school middle school age kiddos um sporting events people not wearing masks um i agree get your vaccine but also keep wearing masks so so so important otherwise we're gonna end up just like um you know people are here and it's it's not good um it

071seems like it's it's march of 2020 again in new york city um you know here in michigan so um on a more positive note just chris congratulations you know on on that ranking i was really proud it's well deserved i will say you know some of the rankings that we've had in recent years um don't do justice to what we're doing in the school i was happy to read through the criteria you know that folks were looking at what that group was looking at in terms of the rankings because i i think this isn't just something this year we deserve to be much higher in some of our local rankings for the past couple of years it's just they don't value the things that really should be valued in the school that we do exceedingly

072well we do better than our peers in western new york um you know i think everything that mark mentioned you know in his message we're really we're a shining example for school districts around the country as to as to what can be done with adequate funding and good administration good teachers good board members and the support of the community i am so thrilled about the early childhood you know initiative that is drastically needed um i'm so proud of our students today and then the support that you know board members and and community members vocalized on you know on facebook and in the meeting um to have that support you know within the community is just i'm not all districts are that lucky so um i i too am really proud to be on this board

073and to be in this community i agree you know tonight was just a really great meeting to hear all the different positives you know we're we're lucky that we have the funding to be able to do the things that we have and that's a direct result of karen's hard work uh when the impact aid was first brought and the amount of work that it took to get it going um was was massive and karen took it on early on i mean uh how long have we been receiving the funding karen yeah so you know seven years now and um it wasn't this much when we started and it's allowed us to really do things in our district uh that other schools can't uh and not only has it allowed us but we've also been able

074to share that with other school districts uh with native american students so uh gowanda silver creek lakeshore they all have benefited from what we have we've started um and you know there's not enough credit that does go out to um to bob to mark to karen to all of the principals and um all the teachers and all the support staff to everybody um we have a really really really great crew and you can see what it means to hire local people that want to work for the district and are invested in the district um teachers that aren't local that invest their time here night after night because they love it here and they're willing to drive into our community because they like what we're doing um because we're doing things that are new and innovative

075and we're always trying to put our kids first and our staff first and our community first and um not a lot of districts are doing that and it's proud i'm really proud because you know i was here when we were towards the bottom and i remember telling bob you know i don't want to see us have to combine because our classrooms are getting smaller i want to see us expand because more kids are coming back and that's the trend that we're at right now and with the kids that were here tonight you can see why because we are welcoming to other students we want people to be in our district we we want new things and uh it's a great feeling and every one of you board members that are sitting here should feel so

076proud to be a part that we're all open-minded enough to make sure that we always try to do what's best for the kids and when um whether it's an administrator a principal a teacher or a student that brings an idea to the board we're all willing to sit down and listen to hear what they have to say and to make sure that we're making the best decisions for our kids and i mean i'm just really proud to be on this board with every one of you uh and to be a part of this school district to see what we've done and i'm excited to see what we're going to do i mean the eclc uh type of a prospect um prospect where we're we're going to start a new um learning center for kids that

077are age three we know what a problem we that parents have for day care in this community and you know that we're trying to address that and to let the community know that if you have needs that we're here to try and help in whatever way we can so i'll get off my soapbox now but uh bravo everybody thank you [Music] as i'm sitting here i keep changing my notes about the things that i want to address first and i have seven or eight things that are critically important that each deserve to be number one on the list so um i'm just going to start randomly on my list tomorrow is administrative assistant day and i don't think we can underscore the importance enough the tolerance and the patience that our administrative assistants have for

078putting up with us uh they are truly the backbone of what we do operationally and so on behalf of all of our administrators and all of our staff i want to thank all of our administrative assistants and personnel that help to keep the trains running on time we truly appreciate all that you do and all the things that you do that no one knows until they don't get done um so thank you for all of that um later on the agenda we have um literally a boatload of individuals getting tenure tonight these are individuals some of them are mid-career that decided to join us and take a chance on a little school district in cataracts county because they heard what we were doing and they liked what we were representing and they came to become

079part of our family some of our brand new staff members that quite literally have recently walked across a virtual stage to graduate and joined us because they were rock stars and they impressed the daylights out of us and some of them are alumni and some of them live here and some of them have connections to our community they are truly what has helped to propel us forward as a district from our littlest little ones in pre-k to our oldest students uh and everyone in between the staff getting tenure tonight i would say pound for pound dollar for dollar i'd put them up against any school district suburban rural city affluent or impoverished our staff that we're recognizing tonight have truly made lives of children and families better and so while the principals and the supervisors

080will talk a little bit about you i just want to say from the bottom of my heart truly and sincerely thank you um i do want to also thank the seneca nation and particularly kerry john for helping us to have access to vaccines for our staff and for our community members and our older 16 17 and 18 year old students with parental permission of course please consider getting a vaccine [Music] to help keep everyone safe we want to make sure that everyone is protected and safe so that we can continue to not only make progress but quite frankly frankly lap other districts while others are struggling to figure out what to do we are doing it day in and day out because of the staff and the partnership that we have with the seneca nation

081and the city of salamanca so to our municipal partners thank you very much and please get vaccinated and wear your mask one of the things that dr bieler did not mention in the reward or the award and the recognition that we received is a is is a comment that dealt with college readiness and that was a ranking that as dr mccune had said might not tell the rest of the story so let me try to tell the rest of the story briefly we have expanded in the last seven years our jcc college connection courses and courses that allow our students that are on a college track to earn i think uh upward of 15 courses that can receive college credit or transfer to a university system in new york state or throughout the country we've

082added advanced placement classes for students and we run classes of that nature with one or two students in it when other districts would quite frankly not even consider offering that we've been doing customized learning for almost the entire decade that i've been superintendent and that's what helps our students earn and and make the progress towards college readiness but what wasn't listed in the report and the award that we received is nearly 80 nearly 80 students attend boces career technical education center in ellicottville and we've had other students attend the oleand cte center as well but let's not underscore the value the incredible value of our students that go and earn credentials through a vocational program those nocti no ct national recognitions for vocational students are the skilled craftsmen and crafts women that our economy needs

083desperately to be a vibrant engine of commerce that is so often underscored in an only college atmosphere we're proud i'm proud that so many of our students take that opportunity and earn credentials to earn a very good living as electricians plumbers welders lpns and nurses and a whole host of other vocational credentials that are often underscored that aspect and that partnership with boces and the career tech ed centers is absolutely essential to the success of a number of our students and if you're like me and you can't change a wall socket or change the oil in your car we depend upon those students who become career individuals in that field and so if someone tells our students that you need to go to college sure that's appropriate for some students but going out and getting

084a vocational and a craftsman or crafts woman job in a vocational field is essential to the the success of our economy on um uh let's see on friday i'm hosting a meeting with section 6 athletics here in salamanca they have heard the buzz about vets park they want to come down and see what we've built i'm also pleased to announce our first major hosting event that's tied to vets park in august of 2021 we will host new york state public high school athletic association and over 100 area athletic directors for the section's annual athletic director meeting they want to come down and see what this board in this community has built and i'm awfully proud to host them and i do want to thank penny beatty for helping to coordinate some of that and to

085continue to coordinate that lastly second last i do want to thank karen megara she is far too modest to accept public praise so i'm going to do it anyways part of the reason why we're successful is karen is masterful at budget development and our financial plan i've worked in other districts and karen is clearly the best that i've ever seen and i think dr buehler would acknowledge that as well we are blessed to have karen at the helm of our finances and don't let anybody kid you that money doesn't solve every problem but having no money solves no problems and i've said that before and it's because of karen that we have been able to fund what we value implement what we need and make it work so karen thank you and lastly um dr

086buehler mentioned uh an initiative that we're working on the planning stages with our three-year-olds and we are very excited to be having conversations about our little warrior academy so stay tuned to a theater near you good things are happening for those individual staff members that may be watching uh this and i believe we're up around people on zoom and facebook live tell your friends tell your neighbors tell your cousins tell your your student teachers give us a look we're hiring we want you we want you to be part of our team come join a winner come join a district that values everyone and what they can contribute to our organization we want your ideas we want your energy but most importantly we want the very best and i'm proud to say that we're doing that

087thank you well before we move on i just wanted to add one more thing yeah yeah no you had to drop the mic moment um this is um an issue that we haven't talked about in a while bob you just reminded me you said you have a meeting friday with section six coincidentally we're going to be starting lacrosse season pretty soon i would just like to plug that you kindly remind everybody in section six when it comes to our athletics and especially our lacrosse teams racism will not be tolerated it's not an issue that we want to see rear it's ugly head again um we didn't have a season last year obviously so there was really no opportunity for racism to show itself but we're starting lacrosse again and that's predominantly where we see it

088so i would ask that you make sure that the section folks know that this will not be tolerated that's that quickly um we had our first um section six diversity and equity meeting uh about two and a half weeks ago maybe three weeks ago and the topic of racism and insensitive comments and the the experiences that we had a while ago with our lacrosse program we did discuss that and it is an issue that we'll continue to bring up with section 6 the officials and the diversity and equity committee that's doing some important work in the section okay thank you does anyone have anything else dad okay we will move on to our consent agenda and we need to i need a motion to approve the consent agenda motion by brad second by dale are

089there any questions all in favor aye aye look for meg nice thumbs up okay then motion carry and we have no old business our new business is our boces administrative budget so we need a motion to approve the boces admin budget motion motion by barb second by kerry are there any questions on this budget all in favor i opposed did my thumbs up legs thumbs up uh abstain motion carried and item b is our boces board vacancies so we need to cast a vote for each of the nominees there's only one for each area so it makes it a little bit easier so we need a motion to vote for leslie buckley charles bessette ira katzenstein and michael conroy so we have a motion okay motion by sue second by dale any questions um favor

090hi thumbs up by meg opposed abstain motion carried item c is to adopt our 2021 budget uh and school property tax report card so we need a motion motion by kerry who seconded that brad motion by kerry second by brad are there any questions all in favor aye comes up by mag closed abstain motion carried and item d is our long ring long range fiscal plan so we need a motion to approve that motion by dale second by kerry are there any questions [Laughter] you want to see the 64-page backup okay okay so we got a motion by dale seconded by carrie all in favor hi thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carry item e is to abolish and create positions uh from our attached list so we need a motion motion by barb

091second by sue are there any questions on any of this comments yeah questions uh why are we eliminating two school counselor positions i was uh anticipating that question um we've talked extensively with the administrators and um with the addition of the family support workers there will still be a full-time school counselor at seneca and prospect respectively there'll be a full-time position each and three high school counselors at the high school including one of the counselors working exclusively with the native american students after reviewing the model with the additional social workers and additional supports we felt that the single school counselor at seneca is appropriate we can always revisit that if we feel as though the model is different but with all the other additional staff and supports we felt that that was appropriate right now

092one of the school counselors is handling um a large portion of discipline referrals and working with the teachers and the students in a disciplinary setting and we're adding an administrative position to provide that actual official support the door is open if the need arises we can bring back the position next year in the budget the board is free to add positions whenever they direct us to and and then we can go about and take a look at that and see what the needs of the building are but yes we can add and adjust positions at any time is there money are there any other questions just one note we are not laying off any positions these are vacant positions due to retirements and staff moves so we don't do taxes we don't do levy tax

093increases and we don't do layoffs okay all right then we have a motion by barb second by sue all in favor aye thumbs up by meg opposed abstain motion carried item f is our donation from teachers desk so we need a motion to approve that donation motion by dale second by kerry are there any questions comments all right then uh all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried item g is our school calendar for 2122 so we need a a motion to approve uh the school calendar motion by brad second by barb are there any questions on the calendar it may be subject to change based on what's happening with covid and the region schedule so uh this is uh we'll just give everyone a good look at what we plan

094on doing next year for a full calendar [Music] okay so we got a motion by brad second by barb all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried and our scholarship for mark chase um or mike chase scholarship i should should say we need a motion to approve that scholarship motion by sue second by dale are there any questions all right all in favor aye opposed thumbs up by my abstain motion carried and uh thank you to the chase family that's really nice um and our square point of sale we need a motion to approve uh the square point of sale agreement motion by kerry second by dale are there any questions on this and this is going to allow us to use the credit card where over at the concessions and

095okay thank you carrie um yes it will be used at best part for concessions also for um like prom tickets or um senior trips trip to dc any any payments that um parents or groups would be making to the district will be able to use it exciting well we don't we're charging them they do but we're going to charge the person who's using your credit card yeah yeah any other questions we have a motion by kerry second by dale all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried and our 21 spring and summer adult education catalog we need a motion to approve community ed motion by barb are there any questions all in favor aye comes up by mag opposed abstain motion carried item k uh is to declare surplus of a

096of a bus so we need a motion to declare our bus surplus motion by dale second by brad are there any questions all in favor aye thumbs up by meg opposed abstain motion carried and our cat county youth bureau children's with special needs program so we need a motion to approve that authorization so we got a motion by sue who's second by kerry are there any questions on this all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried and our girls across merger with randolph we need a motion to approve the merger and the moa motion by kerry seconded by dale are there any questions all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried and our uh wayne finger lakes boces natural gas cooperative resolution which i will not read

097but we'll refer to everybody so we need a motion to approve the resolution motion by dale second by brad are there any questions i could if you want i could even sing it but i'm not going to so motion by dale second by brad all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried and our personnel consent agenda that is attached item a hit and b we need to approve our personnel consent agenda motion by dale second by barb are there any questions all in favor aye thumbs up by mag opposed abstain motion carried and we have some introductions bob we have quite a few um staff introductions for tenure and i apologize to ms pavone and mrs beaver i'm going to ask mr siebert to start because i know he's got a

098another engagement this evening so i want to make sure that he gets to where he needs to get to this evening so mr siebert do you want to start please certainly thank you so much um and again god i hate that zoom thing as soon as i start talking i come up on the screen um but i have i have three individuals that are recommended for tenure tonight um two english teachers one school psychologist i'm going to start with miss hoffman um miss hoffman is a very uh energetic and engaging teacher she has a true excitement for teaching and it's very evident when you enter her room during a lesson jen has excelled as an educator and has been extremely successful in motivating the students as they prepare for the ela regents exam she's also

099developed into a faculty leader in that she has taken on the 11th grade team leader role her dedication creativity and patience and flexibility have helped the 11th grade students excel during this pandemic one of the things that you'll hear me say about i guess all of all three of them tonight and really all the staff is they just build great relationships and and they're there for the kids um and they're dedicated to salamanca and the kids and that's what i need from the staff uh the next teacher is uh mr degennaro he's also an english teacher um he is a caring compassionate dedicated teacher he has brought an energy to the english department and to the high school many times anthony will get into costume while reading a story for his students he has put

100on skits so students are better able to understand what is happening in the story he works hard to engage the students and to create a welcoming friendly atmosphere in his classroom anthony takes part in many school activities he's a class advisor he volunteers to teach our jcc public speaking class one of the classes mr bridenstine spoke about as far as one of our college classes and he was pre-covered regularly seen at basketball games talking with students sitting in the student section and talking with parents and again uh just building those relationships with students uh the last uh individual for tenure tonight is our school psychologist chris myers um he is in the salamanca alumni he's an integral part of the salamanca district and he's taken on various leadership roles his interactions with staff and students

101are always positive and he's always ready to lend a helping hand mr myers is well versed in his responsibilities and does an excellent job engaging students and families and tying them to the resources for them to be successful mr myers also serves as a 504 an rti co-chair and also special education department co-chair he works closely with our drama club and our music program operates a sound system in our auditorium for many of our activities so in a nutshell chris has been there to help volunteer assist and take on leadership roles in order to make the high school and provide supports or to make the high school better and to provide supports for students parents and staff and it is my pleasure to recommend all three of those for tenure tonight they are great assets

102to the salamanca school district i have nine staff members at seneca school to recommend for tenure tonight i have a first up mr adam bennett adam bennett is a hard-working dedicated teacher who goes above and beyond to meet the individual needs of his students he has high expectations and appreciates each student's individual individuality adam approaches colleagues students and parents with respect and collaboration he's always a team player and ready to help by putting students first mr matthew buckles is a driven and passionate teacher who also goes above and beyond it is clear matt has a passion for teaching and salamanca matt uses his expertise in ela to propel our students forward to excel in the high school miss heidi jimerson heidi is able to differentiate curriculum to meet students personal needs she has great relationships

103with students and she's able to have a passion for salamanca and salamanca students that does not go unnoticed she is a driven and a collaborative teacher mr keith jones mr jones has clear routines procedures and excellent rapport with students and colleagues keith has a passion for teaching and strives to engage students in physical education and personal health ms gina madison i have found that she is an accountable and compassionate teacher who goes above and beyond to reach our students she has excellent rapport and a willingness to learn and share gina has a strong passion for teaching and goes above and beyond every day to help any way she can miss chelsea rath she is a qualified teacher who also meets the needs of individual individual students and is dedicated to professional development and continues to

104demonstrate critical thinking and collaboration with her peers and colleagues chelsea engages her students and holds high standards and expectations in her classroom on the daily miss elise silski has a strong understanding of intervention services and has spent time providing professional development to the salamanca staff milsilski has clear routines and procedures in her classroom while being organized and taking initiative elise has played a critical role in the success of our reading services at seneca miss brook skiba brooke is a creative and dedicated individual she has a strong understanding of music education and has spent time developing an engaging curriculum for her students brooke is always willing to learn and is an outstanding team player and last but certainly not least mr brian spako i have found him to be dedicated to the social and emotional needs

105of our students mr spako takes initiative to collaborate with colleagues and has students best interest at heart brian demonstrates leadership in the counseling department it is my pleasure to recommend all nine staff members for tenure at salamanca city central school i'll go ahead and jump right in with our prospect recognitions for tonight i do before i recognize tenure have three individuals that have certification complete and so have now transitioned to um instead of long-term subpositions full-time positions jennifer reed completed her certification amy mowry and sarah aldrick so i'm happy to have them on my team and for their certification to be complete i do have five individuals um for um tenure and they each bring such great things to the prospect team i'm going to start with jackie mborsky jackie started as a building level

106speech interventionist and i have to thank the board for trusting that this was a great position for prospect to have being able to support building level needs for speech is an incredible thing and jackie really set the framework up for anyone to be able to jump into position she then transitioned to special education and has been a great support to our students with iep needs in regards to speech and has been a great support still within the building level to continue the good practices that we had in place for rti her attention to detail has supported meeting students learning needs not only in regards to speech but also to social emotional needs as well so thankful to have jackie receive her tenure uh nicole keisler is a kindergarten teacher she's been with sale makeup for

107multiple years starting as a teacher assistant in transitioning great in doing a great job within the classroom over the past four years she's implemented new initiatives and instructional strategies nicole has also been the team leader for this year nicole always advocates for the needs of her students she has been an inclusion classroom teacher in his work collaboratively with special educators and teacher assistants working alongside her it's clear that nicole has passion for teaching and for salamanca students so congratulations nicole on your tenure brielle wallen is also in her fourth year teaching she's a first grade teacher at prospect over the past four years she's done a great job implementing new initiatives and instructional strategies she always advocates for the needs of her students she has also been an inclusion classroom teacher over the past couple

108of years and has worked very collaboratively with the special educators and teacher assistants coming into her room it's clear that brielle has passion for teaching and i'm thankful that she's part of the prospect team also megan leblanc is going to sound some very similar too because she's also been an inclusion teacher as well as a first grade teacher she's done a great job of implementing new instructional strategies and works very collaboratively collaboratively with individuals that come into her classroom um megan is also a maker graduate and so we're proud to have a warrior graduate as part of our family she has a great passion for teaching and does a great job of just making everyone feel comfortable i'll say that about all the people that are getting tenure today they truly have a love for

109children and wanting them to be a part of their learning community kellen stone is in her fourth year of being a special education teacher at prospect she has grown in her teaching over the four years she has also included a variety of new initiatives and instructional strategies within her classroom she is very receptive to feedback and adjusts her classroom to meet the needs of her students she builds good relationships within her small classroom setting and works very well with the teacher assistants that and are in her room so i'm very proud of all of the teachers and the hard work they have put in over the past several years dr bieler i have um actually i'm going to start with a new hire karina flagg she is joined as a coordinator that will be focused

110on our native american mentor program that is a program that's funded currently through the my brother's keeper native american program four month search for just the right person so we are excited to have her join us she's already started with us and i'm certain that our new program is in good hands with her so welcome aboard karina i also have two individuals that are up for tenure uh the first is michela reddi michela rydai has worked with the salamanca school district and with the salamanca education community in a variety of roles over the past decade and then some tonight we are here to recognize her most recent achievements in the role of native american service coordinator which is a teacher on special assignment within three years of her appointment michela has streamlined the process for

111identifying our native american students who are eligible for services those numbers have actually increased by due to her hard work and those who work with her her colleagues something that's note uh of importance there is that that has not only increased our ability to more readily provide services to these individuals but that has resulted in an increase of funding by 106 thousand dollars and that's specifically our title 6 funding while that is impressive it is eclipsed by the work that she has done with our family support workers to improve the relationships between our students the families our school personnel and the seneca nation of indians so i'd like to thank michelle for the great work she has done and congratulate her on her tenure i also have the privilege of recognizing aaron strauss who serves

112the district as the instructional coach for steam education he has an associate's degree in computer engineering a bachelor's in business administration a master's in education technology and advanced certifications in virtual instruction and school district leadership aaron has initiative plain and simple um as one example within two years of him joining our team he sought out and received a hundred thousand dollar grant to support the programs that he is building in salamanca so not only is he building programs but he's actually getting the money to do so over the past four years due to his hard work and dedication the district has received numerous awards including the sustainability education award in the western new york schools on the move advanced designation award in 2019 the new york's the nisba champions of change award in 2020 the

113fetsy so fetc stem excellence award in 2020 and that's the one that we had that was a actually i guess it was an international award that we had groups travel to miami for and then most recently the itea school of excellence award this year most recently even more so than that he has been recognized as an outstanding leader for nicegate which is a computer and technology association for new york state for the year 2020. there are several other things that he has done that are notable that i could go on for a long time with one more that i'm going to mention is the project sammy which is really a project that he has developed himself that we will be launching here in the fall you'll have him present that to us probably in the

114next month so he'll do a much better job than i will but i'd like to just congratulate aaron on his well-deserved tenure and welcome him once again to salamanca principles uh dr biller maybe levi did we miss anyone that's on the call that we haven't recognized i think we got everyone and just thank you to the personnel office staff the principals your secretaries uh the district office staff uh this was a heavy lift to get these to you um and we're delighted to have all these staff members receive tenure and receive appointment tonight congratulations and thank you thank you yes thank you to everybody that participated in person and on zoom uh and we're so glad that you're part of the family and keep up the good work so once again thank you everybody now

115we will go to our board information reports and discussion um so we have our personal instruction and service committee meeting minutes our indigenous education committee meeting minutes from april 24th our policy pulse for march 2021 and our first reading of policy 7551 uh our capital project summary report and our upcoming events so our next uh board of education meeting will be may 4th which is also going to be our big bet grand opening ceremony so um excited about that we do have an executive session so we need a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of personnel so we got a motion by barb second by kerry all in favor aye opposed abstain thumbs up by meg uh motion carried thank you thank you all for coming and congratulations this is a reminder

116our board meeting on may 4th will be at 6 30 not 5 30 due to vets park grand opening yes yes we will be adjourning to uh caleb where the um should go um the overwhelming support um thank you thank you