001Okay. Um, so we're about to review the 26 27 U proposed budget. As always, um, we are informed when we decide what we're going to put together in our budget each year by our district mission and our district vision. Our district mission mission is to provide an excellent education ensure ensuring that all children maximize their potential become contributing citizens and pursue lifelong learning. And our vision is to be a community of excellence achieved through a commitment to high performance morale and involvement. So when we're thinking about our budget goals each year, we we're thinking about that mission and vision. Obviously always focused on education. That's our main purpose for existing. That's always what we have to to measure any decisions by is is it going to enhance or deter from student education. But at the
002same time, we have to think about the realities of budgeting and the costs of of running a school district. And so we try to maintain a sustainable budget each year and obviously consider the taxpayers and have a reasonable tax levy. So the 2627 proposed budget, our current budget in 2526 is 46,651,344. Our proposed budget for 2627 is 48,2814,457. So if you look there, you see that we have a a proposed sending uh spending decrease but a proposed uh tax levy increase. So, there's some explanations for why that all appears that way um that I'm going to get into in the next couple of slides. But one important thing to remember when we think about the tax levy is that 1% when we go out for a 1% increase in our district that generates $90,000774 uh
003$90,774 um with a 1% tax increase. So, our revenue projections this year, um, and this is some of what is, uh, can be a little bit confusing. We have state aid sources. Um, last year, if you look at the at the top line, we had more state aid coming into the district than we do this this coming year. Um, that's for a variety of reasons having to do with the fact that we were in a building project. we um we had greater expenditures in paying off um that building project, but we were also generating more state aid that was specific to that building project. So even though our state aid was higher, it wasn't really going towards funding programs within the district. If we look at other revenues, we're projected to uh go up a
004little bit from $64,000 to $627,000 for the coming year. That would be an increase of $23,000. Um this coming year we our appropriated fund balance would be the same $750 um,000 and this year though we will be needing to tap into reserves in the amount of of $650,000. Our tax levy uh again if we go out for a 2.57 increase for 2627 would be 9,310713. That is an increase to our budget adding to the to our budget from the local tax levy of $233,264. So when you look at the distribution of what that money is going towards, um each year we talk about the fact that we are very much dependent on state aid and that is a big question mark right now as you know. Um we've been waiting to get a a budget
005from the state. Um it sounds like they are close to coming to some agreement on that. Um but when we have to put together a budget for our district before we know what our definite state aid is going to be, we have to base it on projections. So the thing that we base our projections on is what the executive uh put out in her budget to begin with. So based on those numbers, total state aid in the coming year as part of the budget that we're proposing would be 76 um.52% of our budget. And again, just to back up and explain why that is, um, New York State collects, uh, state taxes across the state and they distribute it to school districts so that school districts can fund no matter what the tax base is
006in their communities, a reasonably equitable learning experience for students no matter where they come from. So state aid um as you can see there state aid building transportation Boseies and categorical aid as a percentage of that 76% is about a quarter of our budget. The tax levy that we talked about there that we said 1% gives us $90,000. Um that as a percentage of the budget it's just short of 20% of our budget. And then fund balance as we just mentioned in the coming year will be 2.9% of the budget. there are some other re revenue sources and that's a small part of our budget each year. So by comparison between last year's budget and this year's budget um you can see that um our projected aid uh is um our our projected program percentage
007of the budget that's the green there which is the really the the core foundational functioning of our school which is the program um is 74% of our budget in this coming year. There are some changes to different parts of the budget including the admin budget um from year to year um having to do with the way that we'll break that out when we get into what the administrative budget covers. But there are some changes um yeartoear that are it doesn't mean that we've hired more people or we did anything like that. There are just some uh increased cost costs in those areas. But the important thing is if we're thinking about our mission and our vision, then the important thing is that making sure that we're focusing all of all the funding that we possibly
008can on the programming that impacts student learning. So the administrative component uh the budget last year was just short of $4 million. The proposed budget is $4,242,422. That's a 6.39% change. um that in that categories include salaries and benefits of administrators, supervisors and support staff, public information and central printing, legal services and insurance, board of education administrative costs, financial operations, Bosey's administrative and capital costs. So there are lots of things within those categories that we're going to talk more about when we talk about the other categories that have gone up this year. Um things like benefits and things like that have have made some pretty significant jumps. Uh the administrative component component includes things right here like the board of education budget, central administration, finance, legal and printing, special items, curriculum uh uh categories, supervision,
009regular school supervision, other school um employee benefits. And if you can see there in that last line, um that's part of the reality of our world right now is employee benefits um cons consistently going up from year to year. the capital component. Um, this last year $10 million, $281,487 was our budget last year. Our proposed budget this year is just over $8 million. That's a 19.22% uh change. And uh again if you look there salaries and benefits operation and maintenance and security debt service on buildings that as as we discussed we coming off of a project so that debt service on the buildings and capital projects is not on our books for the coming year and so um that's why there's a pretty significant change there. capital component um includes central services, special items, debt
010service, employee benefits and interfund transfer program component and again this is the biggest part of our budget. So that includes salaries and benefits of teachers, counselors, aids, monitors, nurses, social workers, uh, school psychologists, speech therapists, um, all sorts of people that work with students every day. programs for students with disabilities in and special schools, mandated training and professional development for all of our staff, library, media, computer services, instructional hardware and software, textbooks, materials, everything that goes into um the things that are used in the school system each day. Stu trans student transportation and athletics and co-curricular activities. And the increase projected here you can see is 3.93%. And and just to back up there, I mean, that's increasing. Again, we're not increasing staff or anything in any of those areas. In fact, we've made some,
011you know, belt tightening cuts wherever we possibly can. It's just the the costs associated with um the people and and the the things that we have to have to run our school. So again, more specifically teaching regular school. If you look at the line by line, um the cost increases, uh programs for students with disabilities, um you know, these things just always go up from year to year. I mean, in the programs for students with disabilities, just like when we have uh costs of our own staff here, those programs have to pay staff so that the the um the costs go up. Teaching special schools is the same thing. And that is different each year depending on um the students that we have um in different programs. Instructional media, people personnel services, that's all the
012support services that we talked about, the therapists that work with students, athletics and co-curricular, public transport, people transportation, um Bose, employee benefits, recreation, and interfer. Um if you see employee benefits, um there's a pretty significant jump there. um the cost of health insurance is is is really um made some pretty significant impacts on our budget this coming year. So this is the part where you all get educated on how our school taxes are calculated, Mr. All right. favorite part of the presentation. How are my school taxes calculated? Um, this is a very busy slide here. Uh, I'm going to try to break down uh basically how we go from our tax levy to uh that we use for running the school to how that relays to a tax rate in each municipality within our district.
013Um, so again, just to recap, our current uh tax revenue that we get is a little over 9 million. And then how does that work out each individual town? So, if you start up top, and again, uh, I know it's a busy slide. I like to just kind of focus on Barker on the left. I'll go down for that example. It's a little bit easier to follow. Um, but first, we try to figure out every tax parcel within the district. And we need to know how much that's actually worth. So, how much value of property is in the Whitney Point Central School District. And it's important to know that this first part of the formula is really determined by the town assessors. And that's important because we don't get reassessed every year. Um, you know,
014sometimes, uh, I think most recent, maybe two or three years ago, Ly had a reassessment. Um, there's municipalities up here that haven't had a reassessment in decades, right? Um, and so what does that really mean? It means that when that assessor did assign that initial value, that value could have been from 30, 40 plus years ago, right? So obviously that's a problem when you're trying to equally spread out the tax base, have everyone pay their fair share. Um, so the state recognizes that that's a problem. They can't insist that, you know, everyone gets reassessed every year. So they look at their data and their information on what they believe how long ago the assessments have occurred versus where they think it should be and they every year generate these equalization rates. That's the second part
015of the formula. Um and what they're kind of saying is you add up all the property value in town of Barker based off the last assessment, it's worth $92.1 million. Um the state says but that's only about 71.5% accurate, right? It's really worth. That's where you see this first part of the formula kind of calculate the true value of the property in Barker is 128.8 million. So again, you'll see we spread that across all the municipalities. Uh so we go from the last assessment of all the value in Point Central School District, all 140 square miles. It's we're talking big numbers, right? $395 million of property. The state saying, "Yep, but what it's really worth is $619 million." Again, these are massive numbers, right? And so, now that we know how much uh true value
016of property is in the town of Barker, now we can kind of see what is Barker's percentage of value compared to every all the other value of property in the school district. And that's where we get our 20.8%. So, Barker uh their portion of the whole value in our school district is 20.8%. So from that they should be responsible for paying 20.8% of our school tax levy, right? And that's where we get Barker residents should come up with 1.9 million of that $9 million tax levy. Um and then again the last little part of this formula uh is really just you take that 1.9 million and you divide it by you going all the way up to the assessed value, right? the 92.1 million and then you have to divide by a th00and that's where
017you get your tax rate. Um, and you'll see these tax rates vary widely, and that's the reason, right? So, Barker's tax rate, $2051 cents per a thousand, is because they are roughly 71.5% assessed correctly, where you have some of these other ones I'll pick on the town of Maine. Looks like they may have had the longest time since reassessment. Uh, their value is only about 39% accurate. And you can see it it's reflected right in that tax rate. The Barker for $1,000 of assessed value they're paying $20.51 or Maine it looks way bigger but because their assessed number is probably way smaller. Um again a lot on there but try to break it down a little bit more on this next slide. All right. So this is a sample calculation. I picked out a few
018of uh municipalities within the district and I think it's important just to go through how's this supposed to work if everything's done the way it's supposed to be. one municipality. We're all assessed the way it should be. Well, that's the example category, right? In the that green color there. So, say again, um I live in Whitney Point School, generic, right, municipality. Uh I have $100,000 of value. I'm assessed. The state says, "Yep, that value is correct. It's it's 100%. It's really worth $100,000." Okay. So, then we go through the formulas with the tax rates and the tax living, how we distribute everything. What we're really saying is if everything was completely accurate and assessed currently, um the real tax rate when you point residents should be $1466 uh $1466 cents per uh $1,000. Lots of
019numbers. Bear with me here. Um so now knowing that uh we're going to go through the examples of triangle willlet and nano. And you can see if we're going just off of the initial assessor, again, each one of these towns may have a different assessor. Um, they're all assessed at $100,000 in these three municipalities. These are again the state telling us how accurate that is, right? Equalization rates triangle 69.96. Will it 60 a little bit off screen, but 40 I think around there. And then again, it's a simple formula, right? We divide 100,000 by that percentage and we're saying the true value of a triangle even though it's assessed at 100,000 it really should be taxed if it was 142,000. Same thing with will it even though it's assessed at 100,000 that property you were
020trying to sell it you should get around 166,000 then you can see the nano example and again just going back down as from the previous slide how those tax rates work right triangle for $1,000 of value because they're not quite at 100% they're not at $1466 they're at 20.96 you can see how that kind of plays out so again looking at one tax parcel in each one of these municipalities where they are assessed by the local assessor at $100,000. You can see their projected tax bill will vary greatly because of those equalization rates, right? So, we have a bill for 2,2400 and on up. Uh I like this slide. We saw this one earlier back in March when we were going through the tax level limit calculation. Um but this is all of our neighboring
021districts in the broom tagosis region and what is their true tax rate on $1,000 value. Again, it's kind of what we just went through when you point right $14.66. You can see our neighbors of Weap Lake in New York Valley right around there. Um and then you have some of the again I'm not going to point out things, but maybe more rural or or povertydriven districts um below us. And then deposit is a little bit outlier too. uh they get some New York City revenue uh for the the water supply that they provide to New York City. So again, they're kind of an outlier, but uh I I like the slide on each show slide because Winnie Point is at the relatively bottom part of this uh graphic, which shows that, you know, we all
022hate taxes, right? Woody Point school tax rate is relatively smaller compared to all these other neighboring districts. uh you know just simple terms this is in the newsletter every year people I think like this slide don't like it I don't know uh but it just kind of shows you the facts right of we're going for our increase the 2.5% 2.57% that Joanne talked about our current tax rate again if I project out what it will be next year which I can't quite do yet then we'll have all the warrants from the uh the counties yet which I will over summer um but projecting it out at this moment it looks like it' be roughly uh $38 increase on a $100,000 true value property. Going to hand this back over to Jo. Okay. So um you
023know as the first few slides are you know doesn't make it super clear because there's so many different factors that go into funding uh the funding that we get the funding that we we need to expend each year. But when we talk about the fact that threearters of our budget is is in our program. Um the reality is those those costs continue to go up and what we're projected to get from the state, the kind of state aid funding that that funds that programming is really expected to be a little over 1% um of an increase this coming year based on um what we know about what's happening in Albany. And um so the realities are for us that we need to be really really careful in our spending. That we've been really, as I
024said, doing some um belt tightening, trying to make sure that we're preserving the essential programming for students, that we are making sure that Whitney Point is a place where people want to work and they feel respected and they are uh have a a living wage. Um while at the same time, the cost of just like everybody else, the cost of gas, the cost of electricity is all going up. I mean those are the things that we do just like we do in our households to make sure that we can continue to uh you know move forward and fulfill our mission. So when we think about um our budget goals again always a focus on education thinking about building a sustainable budget not just thinking about this year but thinking about you know making sure that
025we're setting ourselves up uh in a reasonable way for the future and also being conscious of the tax levy and the burden that is on our community. So we in particular the things that we pay attention to when we're constructing a budget is maintaining enrichment opportunities and continuing to provide needed supports for all of our students. uh supporting a variety of student learning experiences including opportunities in the arts, career internships, job shadowing, career and technical programs, advanced academic coursework to make sure that kids who are going to Whitney Point, when they leave Whitney Point, they are as well prepared as students from anywhere for success in life after graduation, no matter what they're going to do. Uh we continue to cultivate partnerships uh to enhance the offerings we have for our children and families. you
026know, we have very healthy and strong relationships with lots of different agencies and entities and universities to make sure that we can um have a greater impact and offer more things uh to our community than we would just based on our own budget. We continue to provide our students and community with facilities that are well-maintained and support innovative learning and enrichment. And we also continue to implement our $100,000 capital outlay projects to ensure that we're responsible stewards of the community's resources because the school district is the community's resource and the long-term quality of our school facilities. And so again, with all of that in mind, um we are proposing to go out for 2.57 increase as has been calculated as the appropriate tax levy cap for us this year. Um and we hope everybody in
027the community will support us. The budget proposition um the is the shall the board of education of the Whitney Point Central School District You want to read this or do you want me to read it? Shall I I always feel like you this should be the part you read. Shall the board of education of the Whitney Point Central School District be authorized to appropriate for the budget the sum of 48,281,457 for the 2627 school year and levy the necessary tax. Therefore, with a projected tax levy increase of 2.57%. And the proposition for the election of board of education members um is okay. So, the proposition for the election of board of education members um is three three-year terms that are up for election. Um, currently they're held by Aubrey Naraki, Thomas Tasper, and Molly Willis.
028We'll have two candidates on the ballot, and that is Aubrey Naraki and Thomas Tasper. Voters can write in one or up to three writein candidates. And the terms will commence on July 1st, 2026, and they will be ending June 30th, 2029. And I'm not sure. Um, so voting for the budget, school vehicles, library tax, and school board elections will be held on Tuesday, May 19th from 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in the Whitney Point High School cafeteria just down the hallway. U voting will be done using voting machines and this year we'll introduce ebooks for signing in similar to ones you may have seen at the last couple of November elections. Um if you are not a registered voter, we are asking that you please bring two forms of uh residency. For example, your stateisssued
029ID and a piece of mail. >> Okay. And so just um for any voters in the room um there have been some changes to New York state law and our reporting uh regarding elections and so that's why some of those changes are are going to be in place this year to help um make sure that we are complying with new requirements. Um so our bus proposition for this year we have a separate proposition which will be put placed on the ballot. Um, and that proposition is shall the board of education of the Whitney Point Central School District be authorized to purchase two new 71 passenger diesel buses and two new 42 passenger wheelchair accessible diesel buses at a cost no not to exceed $841,21. And did you know that state aid reimbures the district 90%
030for most transportation related expenditures? good thing because their buses are pretty expensive. Um, we have 48 DOT inspected vehicles in our fleet. Our buses annually travel over 575,000 miles, which is the equivalent to driving from Whit Whit of Whitney driving from Whitney Point to San Diego, California over 206 times or 103 round trips. Wouldn't you like to be a bus driver? Um, so as uh Stacy just outlined, our budgeting our budget vote will be from 1 to 8:00 PM on May 19th in the high school cafeteria. We will have if you are not a registered voter, please do bring um ID. And um our understanding is that when you use the ebooks to sign in that it's actually quick and easy um and not really an inconvenience. So I hope you'll come out and vote.
031And um again this year we have Aubrey Naki and Thomas Tasper seeking reelection. Would either of you like to say anything for the My husband and I are both alumni program. Um I graduated from Miami with a bachelor in fine arts. I am a member of the school's community engagement council, our flight community table, the district planning team and the uh I serve as the representative for the race committee and the health insurance consortium. I attend many additional opportunities as possible to better serve our district including legislation meetings. workshop board member webinars and the holiday. I was a panelist at the spring conference and I volunteered community. All that to say um the knowledge and understanding that I've gained over the last years has been incredibly impactful and allows me to meet these important conversations.
032It's been an absolute honor to serve our district and I appreciate the Um, good evening. My name is Thomas Hazber. Um, I have lived in the district for over 30 years with my wife, Marine. I have three daughters that have all graduated from attended and graduated from Wy Point. Um, professionally, I've worked um in the community going into school for close to 40 years. I've had experience to be able to impressed our district compared to other districts. And I've also had the opportunity to be a school board member for a very long time. Um I have been honored to be able to uh look at those different districts and our district, try to bring uh a lot of good to our district. As a board member, I've been honored to be on the board for
033a long time and I'm looking for support to continue that work. consider me. I would thank you. >> Thank you. And at this time, if anyone from the public has any questions regarding the budget, we can take But we can get that to you. >> I mean that's it's it's publicly available information. Yeah, it's 1100. >> What is the long Excellent question. What are we going to do? Because what we're doing, you know, part of the calculation, you know, our township factor. unspoken. >> Yeah, I can I can answer. I mean, it the I mean, the reality is, as we I talk about each year, I mean, we we are a unique business because we're it's all human beings pretty much. And so, um it's you have to be very careful and thoughtful. Um and
034we've been talking about this publicly in the district that we're going to be looking at every opportunity. How do we uh tighten our belts more which may mean bigger class sizes which means I mean we can't not pay people what they deserve to be paid who would want to work here. We can't not give people the benefits that they would make in any other school anywhere because would want to work here. So we have to think about every possible way that we can make sure that our students which is our mission get an education equivalent to anywhere that you can't if you're going to graduate from Whitney Point you need to be able to hold your head high and have the same skills and and you know be ready for life afterwards but do we
035do it with bigger class sizes? Do we do it you know with like being more strategic in how we you know have people? We were looking very hard to not have to be in the boat that a lot of other districts as you see in the newspaper are right now and having to have massive cuts, but looking at every opportunity when we can downsize, watching enrollment very closely and making sure that we're being strategic and not hiring when we possibly can. You know, um we don't ever want to lose anybody, but if we do that we try to do things like that. I mean, it's it's in the absolute forefront of our mind. We also are looking at ways to save on health insurance, which has gone up 20% this coming year. So, um it's
036hard, it's a struggle to keep that balance of making sure that you're giving kids a quality education, that you're, you know, honoring the hard work of the people who work for the district, but also being fiscally wise. It's going to be tough times. We know that. Any other questions? So, can I just say I wanted to say thank you for pointing that out last year and that you know that was Yeah, heat. I'm just Wow. What do you hear? Well, thank you. We appreciate it. We're not happy to see us ourselves on that list either. And there's, as you mentioned, that all of those nic workers, all those people who work in the district um are working very hard to increase those numbers. They they you know, every day that we we have changed um
037our literacy instruction. We've changed our math instruction. We are working very hard from the beginning of school, from the time they come in as prek students to improve those outcomes. We have one mission and so yes, that is unacceptable and uh you know I mean there's a lot of factors that go into influencing schools and some some little demographics might have a little easier but there is no way being that ranked in that position is acceptable to any of us that work. So, you know, we're with you on that. Not good enough by by even a little bit. Okay. Any more questions? Okay. I'll turn um the meeting over to Mrs. Champney um so that she can suspend the hearing. >> Okay. The board will suspend the meeting until 1 p.m. on May 19th, 2026,
038at which time the polls will be opened. Do we have the need for an executive session at this time? >> Okay, thank you. Um, correspondent, there was none. Um, policy discussion. So, um, I can't log in, but I hope you all can. Um, and I give Tom a copy. There's a number of policies as I mentioned um you're working through the special ed policies that had not been reed um since well actually some of them but uh most of them 2009 2010. So there's a cluster um today that we're going to look at and um I would propose that the next meeting we u have them ready for first reading. Okay. So, um the first set of policies are uh 7613 which is special education programs and related service. Um the second one is 7615
039discipline of students with disabilities. 7617 declassifications of students with disabilities and 7620 students with disabilities participating in district programs. Now all of these uh policies are out of date inconsistent with regulation um and they are not required. all of them. There are specific regulations and education laws that cover these things that require us to do them. And then also in some of the policies that are we're going to have for first reading at this meeting, the foundational uh concepts outlined in these policies are in the new policy. So, uh, my proposal for these in particular is to remove them. Um, again, when you I mean, sometimes I think that, you know, people think that you should have a ton of different policies to cover yourself, but in a way you get yourself into a problem
040because if they are covering things that can change fairly regularly with regulation, then you get yourself out of compliance with your own policies very quickly. And that's what we've been doing. So I would propose that we not and that we um make sure that we are following what regulation and education law require us to do. So, um if you can look through those um at your during your leisure time um before next meeting and if you have any feedback in particular on them um do send them to me your thoughts or questions and um if you have any concerns about you know how it would be covered for something there um I can certainly address it. The next policy is um and that is grouping by similarity of need. Um and this one I'm just
041proposing that we update to have more current language and it's we're using Erie one as the model and you can read it's it's pretty similar to what was there. It's just it's just you know slightly rewarded. The next one is um 7616 which is least restrictive environment. Um this is a required policy um and um I just used Eerie 1 policy and I And I add I tweaked the language a little bit because even their language was a little outdated just to make it a little bit more inclusive. Um but yes, this is a this is a required policy and um obviously very important foundational feature of special ed. The next one is uh the provision of interpreter services to parents who are hearing impaired. Again, this has not been reviewed since 2009. The proposed
042policy from Eerie 1 is exactly the same. So, I would just like to keep this policy and update it and say that it's still appropriate and it's still what we do and um just have noted that we reviewed it in 2026. Okay. Uh the next policy is 7673 and that is was our RTI policy. Um and I and we did not have a policy that we are required to have which was a a pre-referral intervention policy which really the RTI policy was sort of addressing um although that language you know I actually sat I wrote that policy but it is very out ofd um from 2010 um and I'm proposing to replace it with this uh pre-referral intervention strategies policy, which essentially covers what was outlined in in the old RTI policy. You would now
043call it MTSS and um just covers other areas that are required by law. So, if you can look at that policy, I'd appreciate it. And um it thank you for your patience with all of this. Well, thank you for the work that you put in going over all of these and making it easy for us to follow along. Okay. Policies for first reading. The first one is to approve policy 7614, preschool special education program updated for first reading. May I have a motion? >> Thank you, Tom. And a second. Thank you, Benny. And do we have any questions or comments? >> I'm just going to add that this is an a required policy and it's an update. >> Did anybody have any questions or suggested changes for these? Okay. All those in favor for approving
044for first reading. Any opposed? Any abstain? Um, next one is um policy 7609 section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of updated for first reading. May I have a motion? Thank you, Aubrey. And a second. Is that you, Michelle? Thank you. You're so far away. Okay. So, this is a required policy. Um, this is an update and I believe in your electronic copy, you should see the replacement of the his or her Aubrey. I don't know if you can see it. I can't plug in. Um, but there were two uh his or hers in there. updated that language. >> Um, I'm looking at what's on here and it says new proposed policy and I just found >> her. >> Yeah. Um, first page bottom of the third paragraph down. >> Is that is that currently? >>
045Yeah. >> Well, I I I did change it in the policy, but maybe I didn't get it loaded in. >> Okay. I know that there was difficult stuff >> but that is um >> well I like did it the team is like you came my maybe I didn't hit save but um I said though we have that changed so that will be changed in this uh policy. Any questions from the board? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Policy 7611, children with handicapping conditions updated for first reading. Um, we need to get a motion first. It's okay. May I have a motion, >> Benny? And was that you, Aubrey? Okay. Thank you. All right. So, um that policy uh was last reviewed in 2009 and um and we already removed 7650 which had
046outdated uh language in it. And we are creating proposing to create this new policy which is just students with disabilities which includes information um that uh you know obviously that all students in are entitled to be part whether you're a student with a disability or not involved in all um programming in the school and outlines everything that was in these old policies and some of the other ones that we just had removed but not in a way it just kind of goes over what the requirements are that we have to have in there what the foundational uh principles are and I think for the most part um does not include things that change often in regulation. And then we talked about um the parentally placed. Parentally placed is the term that stated uses. It is
047what's in regulation. But so I try to weave in um the term in quotes because that's their term and then just say like by their parentle guardian because that's the language that we prefer to use. Um, so if you could go through the newer version of that and make sure that I have those changes. And I believe I changed also the occurs anywhere that was in this was in the other one. Any questions from the board? All those in favor? Any oppose? Any abstain? um approves the removal of policy 7620 students with handicap participating in school programs. May I have a motion? Thank you, Tom. And a second. Thank you, Michelle. So, as I said, that policy is now covered under the new 761. Any questions from the board? All in favor? Any opposed? Any
048abstain? Next is policy 7660, parent involvement for first reading. May I have a motion? >> Thank you, Benny. and a second that you Aubrey. >> Thank you. Okay. Um so this policy was from 2009 and we are proposing to update it to parent family involvement for children with disabilities um as outlined in the new proposed policy. >> Will the title of this one change as well? >> Well, it says parent family. >> Right. It does there, but um up top. Oh, yeah. On the top. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any questions from the board? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? That brings us to policies for second reading. There are none. It hasn't. Um that does bring us to the first opportunity for comments from the public. Um please understand that there is a
049second opportunity towards the end of the meeting. We do have some guidelines. Each speaker will be limited to a maximum of three minutes and the entire public comment period to a maximum of 30 minutes. This may be waved by a majority vote of the board. The board requests that each speaker stand, state their name, residency, and topic of discussion. By law, the board will not permit any public statements regarding individual students or employees. And please be advised that while the board takes public comment very seriously, we are not allowed to comment or respond during the meeting as this is our opportunity to hear from our stakeholders. Items brought to the attention of the board will be taken under consideration for future responses or action or the proper staff member will get back to you at
050the appropriate time. Is there anybody who would like to speak at this time? Okay, as I said, there is a second opportunity at the end of the meeting. Commendations. Varsity softball athlete Olivia Summers for pitching her 500th career strikeout as a varsity pitcher in the sixth varsity in her sixth varsity season. Congratulations, Olivia. High school physics teacher, Mr. and the Whitney Point Robotics uh team for representing our school at the 15th annual Sunni Broom Robotics Competition on Tuesday, April 21st. Whitney Point Freshman Academy students for assembling gift bag uh give back bags filled with essentials and heartfelt notes for individuals experiencing homelessness in Broom County. Varsity lacrosse athlete Kaden Sears for being named WBNG 12 uh sports athlete of the week cas Miss Grimes Miss Driscoll Mrs. Whitaker Mr. Kain Clay Miss Burke Mr. BK
051the BKS for everything they do for being everywhere all the time doing everything. Our very talented PA students and their families for a wonderful talent show held on Thursday, April 30th. Well, it was actually two days, right? Um Miss Gayton and the TR administrators, faculty, staff, and students were successfully raising $2,81.98 through their change for hope fundraiser for Griffin's Guardians. Very nice. We do not have a student board member present tonight, so there will be no report. Old business, there is none. That brings us to the consent agenda. May I have a motion? >> Thank you, Tom, and a second. >> Thank you, Benny. All those in favor? >> Any opposed? Any abstain? We have the last day of school information. The last day of school for all students preK through 8 will be a
052half day on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. The last instructional day for high school students will be a full day, excuse me, on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. The last day for faculty will be on Friday, June 26th. The last day for the staff unit, aids, and food service workers will be a full day on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. The architect services agreement for architect and engineering services with Ashley McGra Architects for the anticipated 2026 to 2027 capital outlay project at a cost not to exceed $15,000. May I have a motion? Thank you, Michelle, and second. >> Thank you, Tom. Any questions or comments? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? Seeker determination for proposed project. Resolution of the board of education of the Witty Point Central School District regarding a state environmental quality review act
053determination for the proposed project. at the regular meeting of the board of education of the Whitney Point Central School District, Brim County, New York, held at 10 Kybell Road, Whitney Point, New York, at 6 PM on the 5th day of May, 2026. Whereas the board of education of the Winnie Point Central School District board is proposing to undertake a $100,000 capital outlay project consisting of construction and renovations including incidentals and expenses relating to select masonry restoration at the TF Neoga Riverside Academy. the project. And whereas the board wishes to fully comply with its obligations under the state environmental quality review act seeker and the regulations therefore thereafter with respect to the proposed action and whereas the board has carefully considered the nature and scope of the proposed action. Now therefore be it resolved by the
054board of education of the Whitney Point Central School District, Broom County, New York as follows. Section one, the proposed action involves construction and renovations, including incidentals and expenses relating to select masonry restoration of the TF Neoga Riverside Academy. Section two, the board of education hereby declares itself lead agency pursuant to seeker. Section three, the review will not be a coordinated review. Section four. The proposed project represents the replacement, rehabilitation, or reconstruction of a structure or facility in kind on the same site within the meaning of 6NYCRR 617.5 section C2 and/or represents routine activities of educational institutions including expansion of existing facilities by less than 10,000 square feet of gross floor area within the meaning Um, excuse me. Section C NYCRR 617.5 section C11 section five. The proposed action is a type two action within the
055meaning of 6NY CRR 617.5 and is therefore not subject to review under seeker and the regulations there under resolve that this resolution shall take a place immediately take effect immediately. May I have a motion? Thank you, Benny. And a second. Thank you, Michelle. Any questions or comments? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? Superintendent update. Um, I think the uh the only big update is um that it's an actionpacked next month. If you want to um see kids doing wonderful things, we've got you look, there's a list of dates here. There's all sorts of things happening almost every night of the week. Um hopefully the weather will cooperate and uh yeah, everything uh there's all sorts of things happening. So um you know members, please join and celebrate our our students. That brings us
056to our second opportunity for comments from the public. Um, I'm not going to read everything again because I'm sure everybody heard it the first time. Is there anybody who would like to speak at this time? Okay. um board of education comments. I know that there's a reminder that we need to um make sure that we're looking at the board evaluation, our self-ealuation that we need to do because we need to complete that prior to um doing the superintendent evaluation, which of course we would ideally like to have done. first meeting in June. So, everybody needs to make sure they're paying attention to that. Does anybody any other board members have something they want to bring up? >> I had one thing. Um, today, uh, I was lucky enough to be on a trip, field trip
057for the fourth grade at the TR. Uh, they were raising in the classroom this year and they released them and it was a nice day. There were four different uh six different uh rotations they went through including New York State BC, the Upper South Coalition and um Portland County Soil and Water. They went through different um stations. They released their eels. There were also some students from the Anandaga school and they the students were talked to by of the the group that was from the eel clan taught them some native language and also about the importance of the field. So it was a really neat day and a lot of the kids had a lot of good fun. It was pretty amazing. >> And I think you're on the news right? >> They were going
058to be on Yeah, they were on channel 40. So um tonight be on again. So >> how many eels did they release? >> That class had >> Okay. So yeah, and I I think that they they limited to 10 classes per year >> and so it was a really neat experience and it was just one of my >> Do any other board members have comments or >> Okay. Um do we have the need for an executive session afterwards? Okay. Um What will we be discussing? >> Specific. >> Okay. We'll be discussing specific personnel. Um just as a note, when we go into executive session, um when we are done, we will go back into public meeting and then we will end the meeting so nobody has to hang around and um and wait for us
059to finish. Um, students, make sure that the top of your sheet is filled out and any one of us at this table can um, fill those out for you. So, we are going to go into executive session at 7:07 p.m. May I have a motion? Thank you, Michelle. And a second. Thank you, Benny. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Thank you very much for everybody who attended tonight.