001okay we're gonna call this meaning to order and start with the pledge of allegiance flag of the united states foreign so before i call for a motion of president agenda i just like to note that we have amended r58 um which is the policy adoption agenda i'll talk more about it when we get there but we've uh we've updated the motion to remove one of the policies which i'm going to recommend go back to uh policy um so um can i have a motion to approve the president agenda as amended all in favor any post okay so we'll come back to that uh policy section but we're going to start off with public comment and do we have any public online it's such a nice day yeah seven and uh zina sanchez heads are overhead
002oh okay so um as an introduction uh there this is the first of two comment periods um we will uh take this first comment period to give uh each speaker up to three minutes to speak about items that are included on the agenda today um we will also have a second comment period at the end of the meeting and that will be for any issues pertaining to the district so for this first comment period um if anyone would like to speak raise their their digital hand um i think we have i i don't see if that if it if anyone in the room would like to leave a comment they're welcome to uh add their name to the sign up sheet here um but with that we just have the one hand online okay so
003we'll start with xena xena uh make sure to just state your name for the record after you get promoted and then uh state which agenda item you're commenting about xena you may have to unmute your microphone okay hello everyone hello hi okay um so i just wanted to speak on one of the policies that we're going to be voted on tonight um perhaps that's the one that you are making change to i'm not sure but um it's the student harassment and bullying prevention and intervention um the first thing is on the first uh page at the bottom it goes over verbal bullying and listed on you know different types of verbal bullying is gossip um gossip is chatty talk you know the the definition of gossip is casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other
004people typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true um yeah gossip can be unpleasant but i think making that a punishable offense is a very slippery slope so i i don't think that's a great idea um the next thing that i wanted to mention is on the third page under prevention it says that staff members and students will be sensitized um sensitized is to cause someone to respond to certain stimuli and i'm not sure that the school even has the right to sensitize our children that's um sounds extreme um it also mentions how this is going to be done through curricular material k through 12 and it would just be nice to know what that is you know you know is anti-racist baby going to be read to the kindergarten what how what
005type of type of uh material are we talking about um you know we send our kids to school to be educated not to be sensitized um you know we're really getting off course here it feels like the diversity equity and inclusion situation all over again um because you know this also involves having the district designate a dignity act coordinator for each school in the district and in addition to that a designated um district-wide coordinator and then in addition to that a district-wide bullying prevention committee who is responsible for reporting investigating remedying and tracking allegations of bullying um i just don't it's i you know our principals and vice principals trained to handle these issues i think that we're capable of handling these types of things without all of this it seems like a lot of
006extra again what about real education or academics i feel like we're really losing our way with that the last thing that i want to mention is um on the fifth page um under incident reporting and investigation there is uh it says verified bullying incidents that meet the criteria established by the state will be included in the statewide reporting system um so first off like why what well why what is that for what does that do what's the point of that and then also where is this criteria where can we find it um so we know what it is um so anyway i find a lot of that very concerning i think we need to focus on building our children up and teaching them self-respect and confidence and you know smart you know education is the
007great equalizer right let's focus on that um and you know bullies are part of the world like it or not i don't like bullies myself but i also know that it's important to know how to handle situations and in the real world there are bullies anywhere you go and so you're not doing anyone any favors by trying to make everybody change their behaviors um and in the meantime you're burdening these children with you know everybody's hardships kids all have their own hardships everybody has their hardships they have to deal with and to put all this extra on their backs i don't think that's right um let's just please let the kids be kids and teach them to be good people and you know just give them a nice atmosphere give them a nice place to
008be in education their opportunity and you know the people who fall out of line i trust that the administration knows how to handle them so um that's all i hope that you you know look into that a little more and think about it a little more so um thank you and enjoy the rest of your evening hi mike beckham thank you xena um feel free to stick around we are going to discuss policies at least for a a moment during adoption um if there's any other digital hands do we do we have any okay so there will be another public comment at the conclusion of the meeting or towards the end of the agenda until then we're going to move on into a board comment um i have an item for future agenda but um
009i don't think i have anything for board comment today does anyone else have anything you want to speak about okay we can wait on that um all right microphone very very good uh um i'd like to second that although i didn't get to see the show um usually i'm dragging the kids to the theater for seussical i had three kids that insisted they were going even though i couldn't make it um so that was uh well i i think that there was just general uh the student body in general they were all cheerleading that group so that was across multiple buildings so that was neat yeah it's beautiful outside and we got the track baseball and and softball are all happening right now all right uh we're gonna move on to the student representative report
010yeah so um yes stole all my points already but yeah i was gonna talk about like seussical and i think it's really cool because we have our theater production class um with mr and mr loomis so like the fact that us high schoolers were like involved with that stuff i it was just nice you know a nice sense of community um and then regarding like some student government stuff if you look outside there's a courtyard and we're going to be like trying to clean it up because that's where the seniors have their space for their senior privileges so we're going to try on cleaning it up and just getting some like um gardening out there and make it look nice and pretty and then our blood drive is still on the agenda so we're really
011excited about that and then yeah spring sports are happening um i think our girls just won over maple hill yeah and yeah they did um and our baseball boys are playing and our track team is against taconic hills right now so pretty brief report today but it's good feeling jumping into spring tell me about the blood drive when is that so the blood drive is gonna be in may and we are holding it in the gym and there's um it's with like the red cross and there are a bunch of cert they're like requirements for who can and who can't do it as in terms of like physical like you know like health stuff but where student government put that on since we made it one of our goals and um agenda item to do
012more for the community and is that scheduled yeah no it's scheduled i just honestly don't have the date off right off my head but i can get back to you i can email you the date if you like um i'm interested i'm also curious um is this like uh you raise your hand and you show up on that day or you have to make an appointment um it's a student one so i think it's you walk in during like your free lunch period times i'm honestly not entirely sure about the logistics of it but i can definitely send you an email if you'd like but the students we're gonna i think we're gonna be um presenting the students with information soon since it's happening we have a couple more meetings so let's yeah um not
013yet the seniors are working on that um since that's more of like a senior kind of oriented thing we're working on that within our class advisors and stuff but it should be good we have like maybe a picnic or something planned for crellen and a potluck so yeah it's nice to be back to normal okay okay yeah i'll let student government know about that and i publicized the um garden cleanup that happened over the weekend unfortunately i couldn't make it but did anyone go to that was how was it i thought yeah was it good we cleaned up that's awesome yeah but i'll get back to you on the blood drive stuff okay uh all right it sounds like the end of year is in in sight i'm just hearing maybe it's the spring energy
014when i'm here yeah well it's fourth quarter next week so we're all just kind of like can you smile um well i think we're up to um unless you have anything else mia that we're up to the uh superintendent report with dr deangelo awesome just a few brief items um the board clerk asked me to remind everyone that candidate petitions are still available to be available till april 18th um and also we had a little bit of a change in date in the voter registration dates the first one is is now may 4th from 2 30 to 6 30 in the med lobby the second one is may 11 from 4 to 8 pm in the med lobby so if you're already on the columbia county board of elections list you don't have to worry
015about anything but if you'd like to register to vote in our election you can do so on those two dates uh i myself mr chutty uh dr rood we um had the pleasure to also see seussical on friday when the students performed it for the fourth and fifth graders and it was it was awesome really enjoyed it it's really great talent it's always it always um amazes me that as we over the years we have great talent they move on they graduate and you always worry that they're you know there may not be um that talent behind them but no no worries we've got some great um students in the pipeline so that's encouraging um a reminder that next thursday the 14th is a full is the last superintendent's conference day for the year so
016although um staff have to report students do not so the um spring recess officially starts on the 14th and goes through sunday the 24th we'll look forward to inviting everyone back on april 25th with that i'm going to turn it over to mr trudy for the highly anticipated always welcomed final budget presentation as we kind of bring this to a close for this year so um provide me a moment to bring up his presentation and i'll turn the microphone over to mr chutty all right so as cell stated this is pretty much summing what we've done the last uh since january uh pretty much everything i'm going to discuss tonight i'm going to go through high level um there hasn't been really major significant changes from all the updates that i gave recently over the
017last few months the big number will be the levy we decided on the finance committee so we went i want to thank everyone in finance committee that met and uh same with a dave laveau our community member appreciate all the input for the numerous meetings we had but i think we came up with a solid budget so if we go to the first slide the state aid so right now the governor they do not have agreed upon budget so usually i have numbers if it's on time by now or around this time so what i did is i took the this is the executive budget we discussed in january and i'm going to go with that budget i looked at the foundation aid that's our operating that's the big number you see 145 928 at
018the top we're getting the minimum of aid because we're a wealthier district that's that three percent increase it looks like that's going to hold which is the good news then the other aids are all reimbursable aids for the most part we spend money one year and get reimbursed the following year and i checked those and they all excelled so this pretty much is the same that i discussed in january increase of 116 636 or 1.48 percent so i kept that the same we go the next slide this is new this is the other revenue um this you know we have almost what seven eight million dollars in the uh the state aid and then the other revenue it's uh if you can look it's 398 000 303 at the bottom so what this is and
019i'll go through this briefly penalties on taxes we kept flat um that's when people pay their property taxes late in the fall there's a two percent penalty we roughly typically generate 36 to 40 thousand dollars so i kept that at 36. continuing ed in driver's ed that's uh i kept that flat remember this also is offset with the expenses offset the revenue so if we don't run these programs like this current year then there's no expenses so there's no revenue this washes out so this number actually washes out with the revenue expense interest income i'm going to keep another year at 30 000. interest rates are extremely low over the last couple years we're actually going to hit that 30 000 target this year there is discussion and i'm anticipating there's going to be rate
020increase rate increases over the next year but we'll watch and we'll see where that goes so we'll adjust that the following year depending on where rates go pilot payment lieu of the taxes that's uh the senior citizens home up uh above on the old price chopper that plaza that just falls uh 2.5 percent increase rental of property and buses i did increase 4 000 last year there was a question if we were going to have head start and um you know we're going to have that again next year so that's 8 000 of the dollars and then we also rent the buses to kids club at times for the other thousand other revenue this is driven by tuition uh pre-k special lead costs that we get reimbursed for um i kept that flight 146 451
021medicaid reimbursement same thing we kept flat then the big big decrease was the health rebate e-rate line and what what that is is we've been getting some health rebate checks over the last few years that i spread out over four years so i kept the 85 000 for that but the e-rate project that we had this year that revenue is gone because it's a project where you spend the money and get reimbursed um so we had the expense this year which we took out of the budget and the revenue is coming out so the 192 500 is for the e-rate project that expired and there's corresponding decrease in expenses in the budget so bottom line 188 162 decrease but it's really that e-rate project okay so now if we summarize the revenues that i just
022discussed state aid 116 636 increase other revenue dropped 188 162. medicaid's flat so the big number what we discussed at our meeting and where to go with the tax levy uh remember the tax cap is 3.48 that's what we could go up with a 50 in one vote to pass um but we decided as a group and we you know we try to go under when we can and balance taxpayers needs with school needs so the recommendation is 2.75 percent increase on the tax levy this year so that's that 23 uh 884 492 or 639 000 increase be appropriate similar since i've been here 10 years 1.3 million we appropriate to the tax levy um that's our contingent money we have built in and then so the net increase 567 718 if we go to
023the expense i don't know this and then just the program highlights again we talked about relocating that reallocating the middle school special ed teacher uh to the elementary school for k1 so we'll solidify that program and then the 100 000 capital project we met with facilities and we're gonna you know we've agreed we're gonna do the electronic sign up on the top of the hill budget highlights to summarize so this is everything that we discussed in all of the meetings so general support remember that's uh board of ed district business office audit legal operations and maintenance has included that so this was pretty much driven by sale reincreases per contract instructional we discussed that's pre-k to 12 all the teachers teaching assistants conferences supplies principles special special ed's in there technology guidance health sports once
024again it's really driven by salary increases and we did have a couple retirements that brought that down this year with the breakage um hiring a you know lower salary employee for the higher salary employee that's retiring transportation josh went through that 2.15 percent increase we consolidated some runs that brought that down a little bit but we did increase fuel costs and advertising for bus drivers slightly employee benefits is the one that changed slightly that's what we got to the 2.75 percent health rates came in a little under that six percent that i was anticipating um so i took that uh savings there to lower the tax levy so 178 544 and that line debt service is pretty much flat negative two thousand and then inner fund transfers remember it's the library we discussed cafeteria which
025were pretty much flat summer school special ed our share that we have to send to the federal fund and our bus purchase 100 000 capital project so pretty much what we discussed a slight decrease from last meeting but 1.72 increase in the budget if we go to the next one this is uh gives just kind of an idea where the school tech district tax caps are remember this isn't what people are going out with um but this is what they could go out with for fifty percent of one vote to pass so you can see rensselaer's at six five you can see we're kind of in the middle but you get down to one point one seven the main idea this slide is you know everyone always thought you know when it first count came
026out two percent tax levy or two percent cap but as you can see in this there's eight steps in the formula and it it varies greatly depending on multiple factors so historically we this is what we discussed at our meeting when we just decided on recommending the levia 2.75 you can see where we've been with our cap and with our levy and the average is 1.85 percent we've gone out over the this this period of time and you can see in some of the years uh 2013-14 it was 4.34 and we were you know that was quite a high number so we went out at three six and then some of the lower years point six six when inflation is low that really drives us we went out at the cap but we try to
027if we can you can see we do a slight decrease when we can if the numbers are are reasonable so that's where we decided 3.48 we feel we feel solid with the budget going on at 2.75 let's see what else we got so proposed tax levy so remember the caps 3.48 roughly uh and we're going at it we're recommending 2.75 increase and then we will have a proposition for the 5 million capital reserve remember that's a reserve to help us fund future capital projects it doesn't mean we're going to put the money in there we don't have the money right now but we'll try to build that up over time for our next project so that really sums up what we've discussed the last few a few months are there any questions on the budget
028for the tax lobby so the big question i have is what's going to happen with the budget and i know we don't know what the state's going to do yeah it's we're there in legislature discussions this week um you based this on january numbers do you get the feeling that that's where things are this week yeah i feel confident with the because since we're not getting a lot of extra money uh you know that operating aid formula some districts because they're poor get significant increases we're getting the bare minimum of three percent so i feel pretty comfortable and they discuss those and i think they're they i think all uh the legislative and the executive branch did agree in concept at that three percent number all the other numbers are just reimbursable so that won't
029those that will not impact those numbers okay and so are we going to be late on our budget because they're late on theirs no we just keep going and this has happened in years past where we might not get those numbers until after our budget vote so that's why so i guess it's not a problem unless theoretically the tax cap is lower than we thought what would happen in that case well the only issue would be if all of a sudden they don't agree or if they agree on a budget that we're not getting the three percent let's say they say we get zero and i'm not anticipating that at all so i i think this is solid if if we were if our operating aid was like 10 and we might say are we
030going to get that much and i wasn't sure but since we're getting the bare minimum anyway i feel very confident with these numbers and we can manage since most are reimbursable we can manage those numbers within you know when they decide i had one more question that was pertinent to the slides but um i don't remember which slide um it was [Music] that's from the beginning right yeah okay you talked about e-rate keep going oh the capital project the the electronic sign so i think when i was in facilities i overheard the hundred thousand dollar capital project thing is not necessarily a hundred thousand anymore it's that we're waiting on that we don't know yet we don't know until they agree they'd have to agree to increase it to 250. so if that is agreed
031on the budget then next year my recommendation is increasing our line so we can take care of you know a hundred thousand doesn't go far very far no i'd like to be able to do more projects so that would be next year's budget okay and we you you got an estimate for the sign yeah the sign and the nice thing about you know remember these projects have to be done approved through state and in a year so this is a project that can get done in that time period does anyone else have questions uh mike so that's the um last year giles talked about the e-rate we can get there's federal funds through e-rate for technology projects and that's where we got the uh to increase our wi-fi capability in our district so we utilized
032some of that money last year you only get you get so much enrolling every five years so we've been using pieces of that to upgrade technology in our district yeah because we'd get a revenue and then in our budget it would be the 192 500 for an expense so those basically wash out and that that's the state pays do they fund all of the e-rate or that's just they they're they've price negotiated it how does i know that it's yes yeah so the government negotiates really um usually really good uh rates that are well beyond what we could go out to the market and pay for but sometimes the rates that they negotiate are actually way out of date and we're stuck with them anyway but in in terms of the purchasing we still use
033state contractor brought to competitive bit ourselves we're not using any government rate to procure the actual equipment this is just reimbursement as mike said for internal connections every five years um so so i think we're i don't have any other budget questions so so um i only have one final thing i don't know if you've seen our social media today or our website but a shout out to mr mr chatty who um is our face of the utica national titanium safety award we've won this award uh 10 years now and um yes he is only balancing seven for those who are counting he couldn't hold all ten um but um thank you to um adam charvin our communication specialist who had a little fun with this um mike's not an olympic swimmer but he's he's
034a olympic champion of finance in our mind so um thank you mike for your work on that and also our facilities department with that annually comes i think a 500 check from utica national made out to the district not mr charity and that concludes our superintendent's report okay uh just for i guess that that's the last budget conversation until we have the hearing right okay so with that we're gonna move to committee reports um pat uh did you meet since our last meeting can you take the mic yeah one of those thank you uh we met last wednesday i don't think it's time okay i know it's raining oh no i can hear it um we met last last wednesday and essentially what we're doing um is looking at several policies to um to see
035um if the suggested changes that nisba and boceseries have recommended regarding these policies that we um should be doing and so it takes a little bit of time and back and forth so it takes a couple meetings before we finalize uh so we're working on two policies one having to do with updating the student uh data privacy and security policy which we did last year and the other one is the um policy and uh general new gender neutral single occupancy bathrooms which are which was new um this past year so there are a couple changes that uh are suggested that we make and we're looking at revisiting and make sure that uh we are going to be doing that um so that should be hopefully next month we'll we'll be complete with those um there
036are a number of other suggested changes to uh not necessarily to require policies that we've been discussing and um some of them we think you know would be appropriate to make however um at the same time knowing that next year we're going to be doing a full up review of our policy manual uh in conjunction with the uh with nisba that uh we might just postpone all those and do it all at one time so we're not doing a piece bill and going back again making some more changes to it so um and the last thing really that we were we discussed too was the planning for next year the scheduling of the policy manual update working with nisba making sure getting essentially a purchase order issued early on in the year uh so that
037nasa can take a look at our policy manual they said they it takes about two months to take a look at it review it and that would put us in good stead for early fall for us to start actually working on it as a policy committee whoever is on the policy next year that was going to be my next question how are we doing with participation there do we have community participation uh yes we do we have you know we have one community rep we have two of us from the board and okay and whoever else that uh all right did they did they get back to us this week by any chance okay do they work over the summer did they they the reason that we reached out or we reached out for a
038number of reasons but um the timing of that would be ideal to get a purchase order in like you mentioned and have them do the lion share that work over the summer so that when the policy committee reconvened in the fall we could hit the ground running with the recommended changes so and they didn't state that they had the contract now july 1st so it's all in place and ready to go or we can just wait so deb and i work on getting that together and getting it out to the policy committee for the next meeting for what it's worth i'm in favor of a little bit more scope there to reduce like the ongoing burden so like renumbering for example because i know you guys have to go through the whole number and reconciliation
039every time you review a policy right i think i think would be sparring to try to go with their numbering policy and then fit our any other policy that we may have in with theirs and that's another thing we were talking about is some of the considerations for next year as we're we're trying to think ahead and plan for next year so we're not doing it all you know come next fall we're starting to do that planning right now so we'll this is one of the things that we would be talking about and thinking about okay um and i i think um but correct me if i'm wrong both the data privacy policy and the gender neutral bathroom policy that you're thinking about um there are legislative mandates that are new in both of those
040categories right right so there's legal changes that are requiring policies and requirements there's you know whether federal state law behind them yeah so we have to know so we definitely have to be careful as to if any we make any changes to make sure they're ready but also we we have to like the law is telling us we have to do this yes yeah there's no choice in that yeah okay um all right um do you need any anything at this point time okay that seems to be pressure all right all right our next meeting's not until may 12th so we've got a month okay okay um public library advisory committee who wants to uh who wants to report sorry about that um so at any rate at the meeting we discussed that the coleman
04119 mass state mass mandate was lifted on march 2nd and they're now optional um you also listed the occupancy limit of one person family group at a time at the canaan library because that's no longer a necessity um our new bookshelves have come in and the staff will be shifting our nonfiction collections into them starting this week um she's working with the chatham book store to move our wish list for book donations from amazon to local businesses so that local companies can get their fair share the school district has included the updated principal library clerk position in our budget and it'll be officially adopted in may um the internet technology at the beginning of the pandemic a number of the public was computers were put in storage to accommodate social distancing um they're now being
042updated and brought back because that's no longer a necessity um the canaan branch building maintenance schedule has been updated and we have plans to survey the perimeter of the building this spring to check for and repair any openings where mice may be getting hit and she's working with the public the building department to have those things checked out they're working with needle risk management for emergency procedures at the library much the same as we do here at the school district there are quite a few programs coming up this month um there's going to be a month-long series of training for the library's digital navigator for the staff and they're also getting ready for their update um strategic plan and they're going to have various meetings to try to get the public in to get their
043opinions on what the strategic plan should be and becky klein's getting ready for the spring break series of programs and planning the summer reading program that she's done for many years i mean i remember when her kids were back in first grade that's how far back she's been doing this and that's basically what happened to everything oh i thought you're right um there's a question some of the furniture um because it was in storage during covet um has come out and it's got some mold on it and while we can probably work with the um wooden part it's hard for the the pillows whatever so she's looking to get more sustainable types of and things that'll be easier to move than those heavy chairs oh yeah and the new um sheila stump is the new
044public library which was kind of fun for me because i taught her brother my very first class and her niece in my very last class yeah well why don't you check me out the rest of that they have nothing for the safety that can't mention this in our report you know to have it the ability i have a few library questions um the radios i'm curious are those connected with the rest of the radios in the district okay so they've got your emergency channels um requested a couple meetings oh that's great adult adulthood too but but yeah definitely children definitely children that's great yeah yeah no no uh that's great i i the e okay so the is has anyone in facilities liaised with c plaque on facilities no maybe sometime over the next i
045don't know a few months that would be good yeah it sounds like it's a good idea definitely um i don't i don't know how that'll happen between your two groups but it might even just be the librarian that that you guys meet with um or you guys could discuss and then she can meet with facilities or something like that um one of the things i think about is um these and i'm sure the the librarians are gonna have more specific thoughts but the space upstairs has lost a lot of shelves in in recent years as we've lost content and yeah okay that was going to be my last question if the community room opened back up but great um friends are active okay girlfriend okay um thanks for the thanks for the update um i'm
046happy that's opening back up does anyone else have questions for our library group i just have one question about the technology component computers is that uh coordinated in terms of you know managing the computers in the library is that through the district yeah there's a lot of requirements on how library computers internet needs to function yeah yeah that's all through the central yeah well except they they rely on the mid-hudson library system for some services right that don't that they don't get from the district so some other like their systems servers like catalog systems stuff like that uh all right we're into facilities chris yeah we had a good meeting uh with uh design group the architectural firm that uh has been uh working on the bcs uh report that report is completed and i
047believe they're in their final stages of it has been submitted so even better so that's good news that has been uploaded we have started to drill down into that report and we have started prioritizing um elements uh within the report to consider as part of the next [Music] project and we don't have a complete list of that yet we've tasked sdi with creating a short list based on their discussions at the meeting to to filter you know what we began to prioritize and assign start assigning uh estimated costs against those we will be meeting with them in about three weeks so once once we have that i think short list we can begin to share that with the board so the board can understand it's kind of the direction that which we're going so that
048might be perhaps in about a month or so so we'll be looking at that but as i mentioned before there's some significant infrastructure uh things that are necessary relating to the high school the roof the gym floor some other components that we need to consider related to the middle school but it seems like a bathroom certainly in high school some program programmatic items in the high school but i think one of our our focuses we're finding is in the high school itself and trying to see if we can come up with a really strong package of various needs that will get the public the community excited about what we're proposing that's the whole idea okay um finance committee back to you pat if there's anything new well my presented our final product of the year
049we met last thursday for the last hopefully the last time this year and uh i have to say i must thank mr shetty for being so organized so efficient and everything was so well documented it makes the entire process somewhat painless um at least for me um anyway um bottom line is i think what we tried to do is the the committee members really understood the concerns of the community regarding the recent uh reassessing property reassessments and the fear that for so many uh property owners that their taxes might be going up uh so we made sure we took those into consideration when we came up with our final plan the uh the budget is i think conservative but realistic uh so um and i think now we're if we're in good we're in good
050stead this year um so um so hopefully it'll pass okay um we are into old business um and i don't see and was there did you amend this one okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna read it as r58a is that right okay so before before i call for a motion um i want to read one public comment um into record um for marianne pirro um i'm gonna try to keep it brief here and and and paraphrase and i hope she won't mind that but um she had a specific concern about policy 7550 um she was concerned whether it should have the same paragraph inserted that exists in 3420. so this is the student harassment and bullying prevention intervention policy and that's 75.50 this is a new one we're trying to adopt 70 uh sorry 3420
051um is an overarching policy on that includes in it um anti-harassment and in in 3420 there's a there's a short paragraph that talks about um false charges or false evidence and she wanted to understand whether uh whether that should have been included in in policy 7550 as well and i think i'm going to recommend that we refer that back to the policy committee to get an opinion um so with that and we've had a few comments on this group of policies but they were all about 75.50 so i think what i would like to do and i'm going to call for that motion in a minute is call for adoption of all the policies except for 75.50 and ask that we refer 7550 back to policy to uh to review it in line with the
052comments we received and i think um if if there's any changes that are recommended by policy we would we would want to do a reading i think and then do an adoption at a meeting at a later meeting but if we come back from policy and there's no changes recommended um i think i'm gonna table on the agenda that we just adopt so does that sound right so you'll just have to coordinate before our uh when's your next policy meeting uh not until may 12th so it would be the subsequent so in the in the agenda following an agenda meeting following your next policy will either turn it into reading or or wall dot um so with that um i'm now gonna read and maybe i can reload this now of course this is and
053this is where we're talking about amending the agenda earlier is it this it's the same thing but now it's r58a is that right okay so i'm just going to read it as amended so r58a be it resolved with the board of education adopt policies 3420 non-descriptive non-discrimination anti-harassment and equal opportunity sexual harassment 6120 sexual harassment of employees 75 51 sexual harassment as students of students um as read at the march 8th and march 20 to meetings absent of that is 7550 which has been removed can i have a motion for r58a as amended um questions or comments that was a complicated mouthful could i ask you to forward me that um mary ann's yes and i may have already done so uh but if i have not i will make sure you get it thank
054you my computer's a little slow here so i'm just gonna okay so we had we had motion in second yes okay all in favor aye any opposed okay so we've adopted all except for 75.50 and we'll talk about that probably it'll end up being june right late may so now we're into the uh the most fun motion of the year um our 59 be it resolve the board of education can adopt the tentative 2022 2023 educational plan and budget in the amount of 33 million can i have a motion second questions or comments all in favor any opposed okay and our budgets adopted and off to the hearing in a few weeks of course i hit the uh the reload button here and i have uh paper copy r 60 be it result that the
055board of education approved the 2022 2023 property tax report card can i have a motion questions or comments on r60 all in all favor any opposed okay are 60 passed and still in new business here with r61 it resolved that the following proposition be presented to the voters at the annual meeting of such voters to be held on tuesday may 17 2022 this is the verbiage for the uh capital reserve fund proposition in the amount of five million dollars with a duration of a probable duration of 10 years uh can i have a motion second questions or comments on r61 all in favor aye matt before you move on um mike mike just discovered that um we just have a mislabeling so subject four which says motion to approve emergency repair at the seeker resolution
056which has to go first is that 62. actually um and then if you look at the next one on the number five motion to approve emergency transfer capital project which is r63 the we still need the motion to stay motion number four but it's r63 is the narrative that fits that and r62 it's it's it's reversed okay so i'm gonna um i'll clarify that we're just swapping the numbers is that right no no the number the action so you still need to approve subject number four motion to approve the emergency repair seeker resolution but it's actually referring to r16 correct and then the emergency transformer project is actually r62 yes okay so i'll just be careful about reading that as amended motion to approve the capital emergency transformer capital project which is r-62 and this
057is for the entirety of expenses related to the failure of our transformers so before you just um our legal our legal advice is that we have to approve the seeker resolution first okay so that would be r63 so we i'll do our 63 first and then we'll come back to r62 sorry okay so but when you describe r63 it should be named what says subject number four got it okay so but i'm going to keep the resolution numbers right deb is that going to be a problem if we do 61 we did the capital reserve that's fine so we should probably keep the resolution number but with the wording from number five and then when you get to number five right so but it's okay doing them out of order like that it's not that
058i've ordered so the same number just but just you just flip the word okay uh it's it's fine i'm just not sure how to put that verbally in here um okay so motion to approve the emergency repair seeker resolution r62 not as stated on this page as as stated on the following item under r63 but it's actually r62 and that's authorization to undertake the emergency pro project can i have a motion second questions or comments okay uh all in favor aye okay now we're on to r63 i'm on three different pages here uh motion motion to approve the emergency transformer capital project and well and that includes that includes the full replacement of the transformer associated installation costs and emergency costs related to the generator and other assessment costs right yes and that's in the
059amount of 285 000 from the general fund can i have a motion questions or comments on r63 i have i guess a question slash comment just being that it's a significant amount of money and i fully understand the reason for it and why we had to spend it um but i i think it just you know deserves a moment of pause just because it was such an emergency such an expensive emergency um it would be good to hear that and i believe this case that we are as far as we know we we believe we are in good shape uh certainly from my understanding of it i think at this point we've done everything we possibly can do to resolve the electrical issues uh would would you agree with that statement mostly um remember there's
060one more component that we under we're undertaking uh during the april break that currently one of the arresters um which was the last component that was uh deemed to be defective and preventing us from moving forward um with bringing our new transformer online was um bypassed uh in consultation with the engineers there's multiple arresters out there so they didn't feel that was a short-term safety issue so that part is on order and over the school break we will gain access to an easement that's owned by a private citizen to have that arrest or replaced and then the the full repair will be complete as we have been advised should be undertaken and does this amount include such yes yes and that lightning arrester belongs to us okay which led to part of the confusion towards
061the end until mr chatty found some paperwork from 1982 that indeed had drawings and a bill of lading with materials that showed that the three arresters and the three poles that have been in question as to who's who the owner is is that indeed they currently belong to the district in a in a deal that we became the primary um to the power company and those polls are 40 years old now or they older pulls itself um yeah so they're probably good [Laughter] and again um in doing the work um our electrical contractor also took an opportunity to um do some preventive maintenance on the knife switch out there that's is the disconnect that is usually used when we're trying to do work on the building so again anything we possibly can do to avoid
062a problem in the future we've tried to incorporate so but we we may have to replace those poles hopefully not in the next couple of years but pulls like you know well we'll get an arborist out there yeah the generator um left that monday morning and in the equipment that we sourced where is it from georgia or where did it come from south carolina south carolina south carolina who was the one that that was responsible for sourcing it i think andy andy was the one that actually found it he should be commended for that really there weren't too many out there so very happy that that happened i think we all you know benefited from that greatly right okay all in favor aye any opposed all right we paid for your generator nightmare okay uh
063r64 be it resolve the board of education except consensus agenda j through k as written can i have a motion second um okay any questions or comments on consensus agenda j3k okay all in favor any opposed okay we are into future agenda items um i actually have three i thought i had two but um probably i should have asked this during superintendent report i'm curious if we have an adult head timeline yet we are anticipating if nothing changes that we'll be starting that again in the fall okay all right there was a request to consider alternative dates for the organizational meeting so i did ask the district to look into that um sally want to give us what our options are so as i reported to the board that the annual organization meeting of the
064um school district is required required to take place on the first tuesday of july by regulation except if a board resolution is adopted by the board selecting an alternative date and that date must take place in the first 15 days of july so currently we had had july 12 and there's a conflict we could go to monday the 11th or we could go to wednesday the 13th to accommodate that if you so choose that resolution we don't usually bring to the board until june when we set the dates for the following year's board meetings so but we might want to post that oh yeah absolutely so oh yes i'd say the calendar so if we move that um we'll need to do a resolution later but we can do a public announcement now if we
065decide to move it yeah we could actually do a resolution in the next couple meetings just say that the annual organization meeting at the board will be held on you know july whatever okay so i don't have any thoughts on this um chris you were the one who who brought forward a conflict so i don't remember the details 11 12 13 you have a conflict in the 12th however the 11th and 13th font it was just that one night it was an issue and i think dr rude won't be available on the 13th um that doesn't mean we can't have an organizational meeting it's really wrote organizational stuff that night um the 11th other than being a monday there's no problem there does anyone have any personal conflicts or opinions about monday tuesday wednesday because
066otherwise we'll just let chris choose this is the you'll be gone this is the organizational meeting where we where we if we don't have an organizational meeting there's no more school the the government the government falls apart so um we have to have that meeting on the first second second week of july you said it was so um doesn't matter to you monday or wednesday either one uh monday's fine you know that's fine well maybe we'll if it doesn't matter to you i defer to the district yeah absolutely it's on 11th or 13th get a quarter i can flip monday the 11th it is okay we will prepare the resolution uh but an answer to your original question that's the hardest meeting of the year to change yeah i can see that yeah um all
067right chris you said you have one i'm gonna dig up my last one while you're yeah uh i just wanted to [Music] request or i guess just in the interest of uh the topic of cell phone use in schools i know that there was a recent assembly and effort in order to i think quell some of the issues surrounding cell phone use by the administration and i think that that's uh absolutely necessary um but my concern i would say is being that it was something necessary to be done that tells me that it's it's it's an issue that's there and um something that i would i feel like we as a board should be aware of as it moves forward some sort of reporting like how's it going is it getting better is getting worse
068is it staying the same because i think cell phone use by students can be a major distraction to everyone in the classroom and can really work against the heart efforts by our teachers and by our administration administrators um so so i think it's it's a topic that we should be on top of and aware of at a board level so you know i think the ask is uh for us to consider some type of um ongoing i don't know what ongoing means but some method of of hearing you know a reporting on on this issue so the first thing i would ask the district is do we have the policy in place we need for uh management of cell phone use i would just ask for a little time to work with the administrative team
069to put together something for you based on what the current practice is the reset um how it's been reacted to okay so like at a couple meetings or maybe even more than a couple meetings when you feel like you've got something to say um let me check with them it may be as soon as the next meeting we can at least do an update do a pulse check okay yeah go ahead there are some teachers the teachers that i have i have not experienced that and i've not heard of anyone doing that and i feel like i would hear about it if it was happening so that's not a yes or no but i i think it'd say i would probably hear about it if it was happening yeah but i can do some digging
070if you need to i don't know but i prefer that i prefer that we give us an opportunity as an administrative team to to yeah that's okay i just it worth worth noting um the entire world is dealing with cell phone distraction right now not just schools um so there's no way of avoiding this um i'm interested to hear what you guys have to say uh all right so unfortunately i lost my notes i think i wrote them on paper and i didn't bring them with me um nisba has coming up um of course the um the annual convention and expo which is way out in october um and uh i have a chance to talk to uh some people at nisba over the last couple weeks but um that's we don't have to really
071solicit interest there yet but it's worth noting their congress is not going to be combined with their expo this year they're going to keep virtual on that um which is uh actually a big policy change for them because nisba is a pretty strong um lobby in in favor of educational reform change or status quo in new york um when they throw their weight behind um agenda via the congress um um it really has an impact and they're not planning on going back to in person i asked them to consider a different comment process because i was unhappy with the congress um when i did it i guess a year and a half ago chris you did that a few months ago i didn't i did not feel the format was a provided sufficient platform for
072debate um and i let them know that but um that's that's new i don't know if they've announced that yet but um the other thing and looks like their media team hasn't posted it yet um they're doing a uh regional here in albany in the next few months you don't know anything about that dsl so that's going to be at the uh out by the airport um there's going to be training available there um you know their their expo this year is all the way out in syracuse but um i believe that's coming up in the summer time they're going to have that regional so if you guys um if you're thinking about workshops and such maybe start thinking about i believe it was i can wish i had the dates on that debbie and
073i could do a little research and we'll send it to you yeah um they have their annual law conference usually in july uh wasn't that okay and it was um they said they said the media team hasn't posted again they still haven't we might want to save the date as soon as we get the the date on that because it would be good to get some board participation there that's all i had they're going to keep the convention but the congress where they're actually voting on platform agenda is not going to be combined with the convention conventions in person in syracuse in october which which was the centerpiece of the convention so but you know i think that the feedback they got was that the participation rate was way up which they liked because uh
074there were school districts that were really far from the conventions that were coming in to vote and that they thought that was a good thing we'll keep an eye out i might you might october 27th through the 29th and i wish i had my notes because they actually asked us to uh think about appointing a representative for something and i'll track down my notes and i'll tell you more about it next time i guess all right does anyone else have new business i forgot to mention um on april 8th there's a chs all-county performance yes i forgot to mention that thank you thank you for that i mentioned it last the all county um orchestra yeah that's this friday evening at 7 30 p.m here at the high school great okay so uh we're in
075the second public comment um we've got anyone that wants to speak about any issues pertaining to that might affect the district uh now is a good time to sign your name um tell us who you are and we'll give you your few minutes here um and if anyone's online you can raise your digital hand with a icon at the bottom of your screen we currently have no one online indicating the desire to speak my name is bonnie williams my granddaughter is a first grader in the school district last november i guess maybe this is part of your sexual policy maybe not but last november her chromebook somebody downloaded porn on it um your superintendent knows well about everything that happened my daughter was never informed until my granddaughter came home but last week it's kind
076of um there's been a lot of other stuff going on and it's kind of just ebbed away um but last week a little boy urinated on the playground in front of her my daughter feels that she's not safe in the school and that's why i'm here you've talked to my daughter you really don't want her to come i'm sorry i don't we don't respond to people i know i know but i'm just and i'm aware of both situations and uh and i will say that mr fortran has been terrific through all of this and that's all i just wanted you know i don't know you know the policy i don't know the policy and i know you're not going to respond to me but like i said you know it's been two instances with one
077child and she's only six years old my daughter just she wants to take her out of school totally she feels she's not safe but thank you bonnie and um i i appreciate you coming out here tonight to share i just want to follow up with the fact that um because in any situation where there's a another student involved the student's privacy is also i get that right okay that's why that's the other reason why i can't comment i i get that and i i will tell you guys all that i told my daughter you know it's i mean let's face facts who hasn't i don't know who has a child but who hasn't pulled over on the side of the road and let their kid he if they had to be you know i'm not
078you know i mean i'm sorry but i mean everybody's done it i get it i do get it it's just that it's the second thing that has happened and that's and when the porn thing happened she wasn't allowed to see what her daughter seemed so she couldn't even deal with it it would not allow her to see what her daughter seen on the chromebook and again what i told mr portrand when i spoke to him and what i've told the newspaper is it's not just her it could be any kid anywhere in the world what kid is not using chromebook right now that's it okay thank you bonnie and and i appreciate you um sitting through our budget meeting uh do we have any other digital hands at this moment we do not okay so
079we're going to move on out of public comment um we are going to move into executive session um i believe we just have the one item to speak about uh something involving employment of a specific individual so um we're gonna go into that executive session in a moment do we have another item um i would like an opportunity to brief you on the situation so if we could add a specific student student as well specific student okay um okay i think uh with that we're gonna okay can i have a motion to uh be resolved at the board of education enter executive session to discuss uh a matter pertaining to a specific employee as well as a specific student can i have a motion questions or comments all in favor any opposed okay and can
080we do the pro tap yeah okay motion to appoint uh salvador d'angelo as a district clerk pro tem for the executive session can i have a question all in favor aye okay just a comment that we won't i don't know if you want to and we we do not anticipate returning to open session uh we won't be passing any more resolutions tonight thank you