001Call the meeting to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Call for the acceptance of the minutes of the February 24th, 2026 meeting. >> So moved. >> Been moved and seconded. Discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. We have a a great presentation tonight in our district spotlight. I will call to the podium our principal, Nicole I, to give us a full explanation. >> Uh good evening, members of the board, families, guests. Uh tonight I have the pleasure of recognizing these amazing group of students from Ellenville Elementary School. These students achieved perfect attendance for the first 20 weeks of
002school, meaning quarter one and quarter two perfect attendance. Coming to school every day takes huge commitment, responsibility, and support from family. So we thank all of you for getting your kids to school each and every day. Being present each day, these students have shown strong dedication to their learning and to being part of our school community. We're incredibly proud of their hard work and consistency. So at this time I'd like to recognize each student for their outstanding attendance. So please join me as I celebrate their accomplishment. I'm going to call their names. Mrs. Matterazzo is going to be here to help give out the certificates. >> Mrs. I, could you have them come around and >> Absolutely. So we're going to have you once I call your name, we're going to hold applauses to the
003end, and then we're going to come around to shake all the board members' hands. Okay? All right. Yeah. Madeleine Mealy Ariana Brooks Mealy Mangrum Z Lee Assan Rahman Majesty Mangrum Olivia Villegas Sarah Wright I don't see her. Madison Pagliarini Julius Rivera Emeliano Emeliano Cruz Dylan Landino Genevieve Valeno Charlie Coddington Emerson Novitsky Diana Rios Who is this? Diana >> This is Diana. She has She has your >> I think this one's hers. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> We'll get them. Hunter Smith Ryder Smith That's Hunter. Julia Feliciano Merely Castillo Rojas Harrison Hall Yaxin Martinez. And Luana Alua. How about a big round of applause? I just want to thank all of you for coming out tonight in a short notice that we had. And thank you all for your dedication for our students. And students, you
004all should be extremely proud of yourselves. >> Mrs. I, am I to to understand that they made 90 days in a row? >> Correct. >> Wow, what an accomplishment. I'm going to I I have some jobs open at the police department cuz I can't get anybody to come 90 days in a row to work for me. So, uh congratulations. Hard work, dedication, it's definitely a testament to your parents and caretakers. So, parents, take a moment of pride. Uh you have a lot to be proud of. And here at Ellenville Central, the Board of Education is extremely proud of each and every one of you. So, thank you so much. >> [applause] >> Mr. President, I just have one quick question. How Miss Miss I, hi. Good evening. How will the children be recognized outside of
005the tonight? >> So, we do a lot of attendance incentives throughout the school year. Uh we've had We had an ice cream party. We're looking for the quarter two. I think they're very excited for our movie and popcorn. Uh we do an attendance drawer incentive. The class that has the best attendance each week gets a big attendance sloth that gets delivered to their room each week and they you would think that wouldn't be exciting, but how many of you get really excited if that attendance George gets to your classroom? Yes, they get very excited for that. Um and multiple things throughout the the school year, too. So, we do 5-week incentives, 10-week incentives, but this was the big incentive right here. >> I hope to see all of you back at the 180-day mark. That
006would be great. >> Some of them are there. We're already into quarter three and some of them are there already. >> Uh parents and uh we're going into our budget meeting. You're welcome to stay, but I I I anticipate that all of you will be running out the door, so we'll hold the doors for you. But we're I'm following you guys out. Thank you for coming. Thank you. We'll take a 5-minute recess until they're able to disperse. Reconvene the meeting. Call up for our presentation. There is no public forum for this evening. I'm going to call up for our presentations under 5.1, Dr. Jonah Schenker, District Superintendent Amanda Stokes, Assistant Superintendent Ulster BOCES budget. Wow, you're come here to tell us that you're giving us money back. Is that what you're telling us? >> I
007was actually hoping that um we could get the same uh handshake situation [laughter] and just call it a night. But I understand there's probably some questions. Um it's nice to see you all. Thank you so much for having us. Um we get to um this is the only district actually we get to come out and talk a little bit about the budget and and uh we we appreciate it. So, thank you for having us uh out out here. Um I am don't have too much of a voice and I know there's going to be some questions, so I'm going to keep uh the intro uh fairly short and then I'll turn it over to Amanda to go through the budget, but you have here in front of us an overview of the shared services, which
008is really kind of a snapshot of how you participate with BOCES, and in turn what the aid back to district is. And again, just just want to thank the Ellenville Board, Superintendent Lisa Wiles, and and in turn the whole administrative team here for their partnership as we think about extensions to your programs that we have now, but more importantly what we need. There are some gaps in programming that that that are across the board regular and special ed, but special ed specifically and and so again we'll we'll have a conversation about that. I did want to point out though that [snorts] Ellenville with 123 students who attend our career and technical education center, that's the highest percentage in the county of students who participate in career and technical education. Not the not the largest number,
009but percentage out of the student body, and it really just speaks to the you know, the the innovation, the the care to know that there's more than one path, and that we can't have barriers to be able to unlock how students get from K-12 and beyond. And so thank you so much for that that commitment. It's inherent in you you and the board and and administrations commitment to thinking about building P-TECHs and the work that you have done. Again, I don't have the results here, but I know I've talked to both Lisa and Kelly, your ELA scores and your 3-3-8 math scores have exponentially increased, and that's a direct result of uh work and the value towards uh, uh putting money towards individuals who have expertise in front of teachers with building principals to do
010the hard work and I remember conversations after year one and after year two um us saying like, "How long is it going to take?" And year three it started to happen, but but really really flourished this year. So, um it's wonderful to do that or to see that um in our county. Uh although Ellenville is just one of our components, I am a firm believer that we need to be responsible for every single student in Ulster County and beyond. So, uh with that I'll turn it over to Amanda to kind of walk through and then any questions happy to take. So, thank you. >> She didn't allow me to touch the clicker, but the mic keep it on this Hi everyone. Uh Amanda Silk, welcome. Uh thank you for having me here actually. Um so,
011the BOCES budget is comprised of three sections, the administrative, the capital, and the program budget. Both the administrative and capital budgets are based on our water, which there are some details here about our water. If you need to a refresher on that, it's their resident weighted average daily attendance and it includes the combined wealth ratio to come up with a number um for the aid that that aid available to the district. And so, um the admin budget is uh a budget that the component school boards vote on. So, each year we work diligently uh to try to keep that number um under a 2% increase. So, for the next year we have a 2% proposed increase for the budget. And overall, um we had to make some cuts in order to maintain that level. As
012you probably are aware, health insurance is on the rise exponentially. It's been very hard to manage our budgets and keep up with the costs that are uncontrolled to us. Um we are working diligently though through our contract negotiations to try to limit that amount and the increases that go in and in the contributions from employees on the health insurance. So with the 2% increase, there are changes in the ARWADA throughout the county. So the wealth ratios are changing. Uh People are moving in from the city. People are moving in who don't have children and it's changing the numbers of the ARWADA for everyone in the county. As those numbers change, it affects all of you. So even though Ellenville's ARWADA just increased slightly, the increase to the budget, the portion of the administrative budget has
013a 4.13% increase for next year. Overall, the change only had a 2% but it shifts depending on where people are in the ARWADA shuffle. Same idea for the capital budget. Um also a 2% increase year-over-year and on the next slide you'll see um it results in a 4.05% increase for the Ellenville portion of that budget. So what's driving these costs as I mentioned earlier, health insurance, uh contractual salaries, and vendor contract increases, and changes in the service request amounts. This slide here, I was told you guys got this shared on BoardDocs. Is that correct? You have access to see because it's really small and kind of faded. But if you need copies, Do you want to hand out hard copies? Okay. If anybody needs it, Dr. Shenker has printed copies. Uh but basically it will
014tell you if we run through the 24-25 year that the total um contracted participation with Ulster BOCES was 9.2 million after we get through the eligible for BOCES aid portion at the BOCES aid ratio amount. You'll see that the of the 4.6 million dollars that was eligible for BOCES aid, the aid amount was 2.3 million and then there was a refund of 966,504 on top of that making the net participation 1.3 million just signaling the amount of savings while participating in a BOCES coaster. >> And then we're up to the questions portion. >> Questions from the board. >> Yes. >> Iris. >> So my question is in reference to special ed. I think you probably were expecting this, >> [laughter] >> but for years we've talked about regional classes for special ed students cuz you
015I mean we're all aware that an individual school cannot supply the number of different types of classes and the intensity of resources required. So now that there's a Kingston facility and if I remember correctly we were told that once that facility was up and running that the Port Ewen facility would have more room for more classes. And so we have finished the discussion just this evening with our special ed folks and there's just a tremendous need and it's and it's year after year after year. So what I would like you to talk about is what steps you are taking presently to increase the services, not just the conversation cuz it's been years of conversation. But actually what is being done to move us forward with this? >> Sure. And And so, you know, I think
016it's important to just kind of take a look back. I started my time here at Ulster BOCES after instructional services in alternative and special ed. At that time, we had one center in Port Ewen. Mostly upper middle and high school. We have since opened the Mount Marion site, which is a lease through Kingston. That's an elementary site. And then since then we've opened Mount Marion, which is a lease site from Saugerties. So, while there has always been discussion about increased programming, we have been increasing programming. With that said, there is still a great unmet need. And so, I just give you an update as to what you were speaking to regarding the movement of our career and tech program over to the iPark facility. So, we're underway there. Continuing to address the needs. There are
017things that were done that we need to go back and take another look at that weren't done up to our standard. There's still some work that needs to be done. But But again, it is There's some amazing things that are happening there. With that as some of you might remember, the second half of that was the rehabilitation of the Port Ewen site to become a middle high school campus. We're currently engaged in that capital project right now. And [snorts] that building is slated to open in the 27-28 school year. If you remember the long runway to be able to rehab that site before iPark, we were looking at a six or seven-year capital project. Because we're able to move the career and tech out of that site, we were able to expedite that. So, even
018even it seems like it's still far out, it's still two or three years prior to that initial timeline. And the reason for that was if we're doing a capital project here in Ellenville and there's five classrooms, you can relocate them. You if we had the Career and Tech Center there prior to iPark, you can't move the manufacturing lab down the hall. And so the window to do that construction was just a couple of months over the summer. So we were able to shrink the timeline and save some money which we then uh we then re-purpose towards the rehabilitation of this site. So that will become a middle high school campus. That will allow us to increase programming. With that said, there are still a significant gap in who we can program for currently. Uh these
019are conversations that uh that Lisa and I have been engaged in for a long time. Um right now uh in Anna Divine which is full, uh we are currently sitting on about 35 uh referrals waiting for intake. We have made it a point and a practice to prioritize intakes from our Ulster County schools before we look at out of county placements. So if there are available seats and there are 10 students waiting and three of them are here from Ulster County, they get priority over students who might be coming from Poughkeepsie or Wappingers. All of the BOCES special ed programs program for students outside of their component districts because it's based on what they call least continuum or the least restrictive continuum. So there may be a program in Ulster that isn't appropriate and if
020it's not, then the district looks through the CSE maybe to Dutchess or Sullivan. It's never ideal. We want to keep our students in our home schools and if that can't happen, then we want to keep them in our county BOCES. The the the programming that we're seeing emerge is young students with significant autism and spectrum needs. The classification rates are growing exponentially. But out of that population, both from the the real little students, K-2, all the way through the most difficult to place are students who express themselves outwardly in aggressive uh or violent manners. And those students uh are students that by law we have to figure out how to program for. What happens is those particular classrooms cannot be proximate to students who require a different approach. So, think about a hallway. Even if
021we had a room, having a classroom for students who may need to express themselves, throw furniture, they bite, they spit, they're angry, that's how they express themselves. It's very difficult to put that classroom next to a classroom with somebody who has sensory issues or is medically fragile. And so there is a need for a site-based center that has a different approach to program for these students. We don't want these students on home instruction. We don't want these students placed in other in other areas. These are very very expensive placements. And so the conversation that we're having with the Ulster County superintendents is who do you have in your schools who has this need? And it's still really really costly at that level. Last week uh myself and Lisa had a conversation with Assistant Commissioner um
022blanking on his Chris Soriano, uh who is in charge of special ed. And we talked to him about this issue cuz it's not just a local school and BOCES issue. The amount of residential programs are few and far between. Day treatment and uh overnight or residential facilities. And so, by nature, with less programming at that level, they get pushed down to BOCES placements. Those are not appropriate placements. They wind up getting removed from those placements, and they bounce from BOCES to BOCES. It's not appropriate delivery of care or service or education. And so, we really need to be talking, not just as an Ulster County, but as a JMT, joint management team, that's Ulster, Sullivan, Orange, Ulster, and Dutchess to talk about what would a site-based program look like to really provide the both therapeutic
023and behavioral and educational academic supports to be able to provide for these students. And I understand that you don't want conversation, you want programming, but we are working hard to look at what what will this take. I know that there's a commitment from your superintendent to build this. And I know there is commitments from other superintendents in the county. And so, we're going to continue to look at how we can build these programs in an expedited fashion to program for those students so that you aren't transporting out of county. >> Thank you, John. Any further questions? No, thank you very much for coming up here and sharing what what Dan last minute. >> Thank you. That was a lot to take in. Holy cow. So, where are we at? What's the next step? I mean,
024it's You say the need is there. You said it a lot, but where are we at? What's the next step? You said we're talking, there's conversations, but there has to be some sort of answer you can give us to make us and our special education department feel better as to where we are at as a county to ensure we have those those services in place for the kids that need it. I mean, it's You said it's detrimental. You said it's it's a lot, but where are we at, and what's the next step? >> So, I mean I think the most most clearly the next step is the expansion of the middle high school program that will create space and program. That that doesn't necessarily mean that that there are programs for those students who are
025exhibiting this level of of kind of violent expression. Some of those students are appropriate for BOCES. Some of them are not. Some of them are not. And and so this is not just as I started an Ellenville or BOCES issue. There are tiers that involve the state and residential. We have a program in Kingston, the Children's Home, which is a non-BOCES placement for students who require more more intense therapeutic services. They've had a change in leadership. We are meeting with them to talk about expansion of services, but again, these are programs that we're talking classrooms with four students, one teacher, three aides. These are highly highly restrictive programs and and and opening these programs take some time. >> What about the K-2 level? You said middle and high school, what about those elementaries? >> Right,
026so the the direct response to that is the expansion of the middle high school program will allow us to spread out across our footprint and open up seats at the elementary level. >> Where is there more of a need? Is it more of a need in middle high school or is the need in the elementary level? >> Currently right now the elementary is where we have the largest growth. And again, this is not an Ulster County specific issue. We are seeing more students classified earlier with more intense needs. >> Should we focus on the elementary as opposed to middle and high school? >> Sure, so that what we're doing because right now we don't have any any room. We've got we've got it at Anna Devine Elementary School. We've got a Mount Marion [clears throat]
027Middle School and then we've got a Port Ewen High School. By opening up the Port Ewen campus, we can we can we can open up the grade bands. So and again, I'm not sure this is exactly how it it's it's going to it's going to structure, but Anna Devine instead of being K4 could be K2. As we spread out, Mount Marion could be 3-5. Then Port Ewen Middle School. And what we're preparing for as we take elementary students, since that's where the bubble was, is although we work and hope that these students come to us as youngsters, spend 2, 3, 4, 5 years and can return back to the home district. Like that's that's what we ought to be trying to do. >> right? To get them >> Right. The reality is it doesn't happen.
028Most of the students who come to us in early age and in BOCES placements wind up spending the majority of their time K-12 with us. And so we've got although we may open middle high school and have space in there, we've got this bubble because we opened an elementary and middle that are on the rise up. And so we need to we need to create room there as well. What would be really tragic is if that we had placements for these students in Mount Marion and Anna Devine, and if they weren't going to go back to district, we had to send them somewhere else because we didn't have space in the high school. So it's a complex puzzle trying to create space here to open up space here and deal with creating some more programs
029for those students with more intense needs. >> All right, but you can confidently say we're working towards the K-3-2 placements and >> Yeah, by 2027-2028, you will you will see seats at Ulster BOCES expand across all programs K-12. >> All programs? >> All all >> Okay. >> Working on placements for for those really complex students. That's kind of a separate lane that we're working on as well. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. And thank you again. And we welcome you anytime you want to take the trip up here from New Paltz and come over to this lovely mountain. >> Thank you. Appreciate you all. Thank you. >> Well, now we'll move on to our business administrator, Mrs. Susan Schwalb, with the budget workshop number three. Sue. >> Okay. Welcome to budget
030workshop number three. Uh tonight's agenda we're going to go over special education cost, BOCES services, athletics, and district-wide curriculum and and instruction. Um with us today we have Jessica Materazzo, Chris Ruberti, and Matt Salamone um for any questions. So, the first slide is our special education budget. Overall, it's increasing $647,979 or it's going up 12.37%. Um it's primarily because of an increase in out-of-district placements for both the summer and the school year. So, the non-BOCES tuition is increasing $608,050 with 13% and that's for day tuition for out-of-district um private placement. The professional fees, however, is going down $20,200. And professional fees consist of OT, PT, and speech therapy from private providers where we're where receiving more of those services through BOCES. Um the next line is summer tuition and then summer transportation. Both are going
031up and that is just for additional students attending out-of-district um summer summer placements. And just to note that these lines are just for 20% of the tuition cuz the students are stacked and will receive 80% of the tuition back from the state. Any questions? Just >> Nope. Okay. So, the next slide is for BOCES services. The first line is for BOCES special education. That is going up overall $103,509 or 2.12% and that is an increase for our students attending BOCES out-of-district placements. The next line is BOCES other expenses non-special ed. That overall is increasing $370,576 or 7.8% Um some key facts are administrative and capital components is increasing $22,562 or 4%. Our career and technology costs are going up $374,595 and 19%. That's due to more of our students attending both Ulster and Sullivan County
032career and tech programs. Uh however, we are decreasing $23,500 or 100% because we are no longer using the recruitment services from BOCES uh through Dutchess BOCES. >> I saw Um can we have the numbers for the increase year-over-year in the career and tech services for the for the number of students? >> I'm sorry. Can you >> Can we have the increase year-over-year for the number of students who enrolled in the career and tech that that that make up that 374? >> want the students we had last year compared to this year? >> this year or what we're projecting for next year. >> Okay. I can get that for you. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> We can even do we're doing some trend analysis in the district now, too, over a a 5-year period. >> Excellent.
033>> So, we can we can It's just going to take us a little time to get it together, but we'll get it for you. >> Okay, so that that will do it for our special education and BOCES services. If you have any questions? >> Any questions for special ed while they're here? Are we done with special ed? >> Yes. So >> Thank you for joining us tonight. >> Are you going to stay? >> Thank you, ladies. >> I don't think so. They'll be running out the door faster than the kids did. No, we appreciate you coming though. Thank you. Yeah, oh, we got one question here. >> No, not tonight. >> Okay. >> Um I just wondered the transportation for special ed, is that in the transportation line? >> Yes. >> It's calculated specifically for
034special ed bus? >> Well, it still has the same transportation aid that a regular run does. But, we have and we could get this for you a listing of all our special ed runs and the cost of that if you'd like. Um but, it's included in the transportation budget. It's rolled into the transportation budget. So, it's not separated out. I mean, we know how much the special ed runs are versus the regular runs. >> Well, much like Willie asking for breakdown of the the tech stuff, you know, it >> [music] >> it just helps to have a basis to compare it to because really that is part of the expense of our special ed program. >> I remember we had a board member, Mr. Prococo, that wanted to see a full how much we're spending
035on special ed totally. So, we can pull that report out and and update it. In-district, out-of-district, transportation, benefits, all the support. So, let's we'll look at that. We can have our treasurer put that together. >> Okay. >> Next. >> Okay, so moving on is athletics. So athletics has an overall increase of $48,050 or 7.78% um Key points in this budget are the stipend increase of 62,000 or 63,000 or 34% an increase for chaperones of $3,000 or 30% transportation increases for the sports program is increasing $8,000 or 8% whereas materials and supplies for the intramurals is decreasing $3,250 or 54% and uniforms are going down 4,000 or 17%. >> So I think a question that I have just real quick with everything that's going on in the world today as you know oil prices have gone
036through the roof fuel is going up. Are we locked in with transportation as far as the fuel costs go? >> Fuel cost is the answer is no that's on state bid but the transportation expenses the CPI increase. >> But we know where we're going to be with fuel or we don't know. >> I I don't think I think it's I think it's going to be I think it's going to go up and down. I think it's going to be volatile right now in the short term supposedly so we'll have to see where we are with regard to transportation and the contracts we're talking about where we are with that and impact of electric buses and things like that which we'll talk to the board about but as far as the fuel goes for any transportation
037we try to build enough in the budget to cover it. Sometimes in years like this we're a little bit you know, we run a little short this year not so much but we're going to have to see where we're going to project for next year. >> Thank you. Go ahead Mr. >> Does the bus company generally at some point lock in prices for their fuel? Or we don't know that. >> We have a X amount of dollars in the contract that we're responsible for for fuel. We can get that information to you. Um but overall we the only the cost of the transportation contract goes up by CPI. So it's a locked-in increase um that they have to uh follow. Add-ons to the to the runs would be an aid, you know, or special ed
038um And some of our regular ed runs have aids or monitors on the buses, which increases the cost. >> So but we can get you a breakdown of all the transportation. We have We have it. We'll make sure you get a copy of it. >> Okay. Thank you. Got it. >> So that will do it for athletics. Any >> Just a quick question on the stipend increase, that 34% is comprised of what? >> I'll talk to I'll talk to that. The stipends uh Sue and Rob Baxter been doing a really good job going line by line in the budget. And we found that um the stipend lines The stipends are those um stipends that we pay our coaches and assistant coaches. Uh we found that over the last couple of years they were a little
039under budgeted. And we also in 22-23 uh renegotiated um rates uh to make it more attractive for people to become coaches. If you remember, we had an MOA on that. We also increased some of the stipends for a longevity. So we encouraged people to stay, you know, with the program. So I think the six And we'll have a Sue's working on a breakdown on what that looked like from year to year, but we're catching up over a couple of years. It There was an under budget in those lines. >> Got you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Athletics is done. Any questions for our athletic director? Ours? >> Victor But as far as the stipend is concerned, that also includes we have some new programming in athletics, too. I mean, we have extra intramurals now and
040a few extra things, so those the stipends are included in that, also. Yes. Yeah, so we have additional programming, too. We'll get you a breakdown of that so you can see it. So you can see what the increases are, the additional program, and such. >> So then, what's the line item for intramurals? What is that? >> That's materials and supplies. >> Materials and supplies is M&S? >> Okay. >> Thought that was like middle school. Okay. Thanks. >> [laughter] >> Matt, thank you for joining us tonight. And have a safe trip. >> Okay, so moving on is district-wide curriculum and instruction, and that budget has stayed relatively flat except for a couple key items, which is summer school in district for both the elementary boost program and the high schoolers that attend regular education summer school,
041that's increased in $9,125 or 2%, and then there's a line item for tuition for a GED program, which is run through Ulster BOCES, and that we just right-sized it to prior years, and that's decreased in $20,800 or 12%. >> Any questions on curriculum and instruction? >> I just want to make a comment. I think we're going to have to look a little bit deeper into that. We've had some reductions in grant funds, possible grant funding. I want to look at the general fund budget and some PD initiatives that we have. So, um well, if it modifies over the next couple of weeks, we'll bring that back to you. >> Okay. Ours? >> GED, so what does that mean that there's a a decrease of $20,000? So, were we paying for GED and we're not anymore,
042or what does that come Where does that come from? >> So, we pay for students well, they're not students. They're of the age to go for their GEDs, but they're they might be in the Samaritan Village and BOCES will come in and give them a GED program. >> Oh, so BOCES carries the expense for it, then not us. >> They BOCES runs the program and then they bill us back. >> So, these are these are students who don't have enough credits and will not have enough credits to graduate. Maybe they have six credits. >> Right. >> And the only option for them to continue on is through a GED program. >> Yes. >> So, we offer that for students usually between the ages of 18 and 21. >> Yeah. >> Um so that they can
043get their GED if it's totally impossible or they're not committed to making up 15 credits in 2 years, which is almost impossible. Um so, we we have had programs where we've had a few students like that and we would cover that. >> And so, we have a reduction of $20,000 in this difference. Is that because we know we're going to have less GED students or someone else is picking up this bill? >> I think it's probably a trend, but we'll look at it. >> a a trend from prior years. >> We haven't been spending that much money in that code. >> Okay, but we don't turn someone down if they want to have this this opportunity. >> to if we need to place it, we have there are lines of unanticipated costs that we have
044in the budget. Correct me if I'm wrong, we still have that. And we would transfer the money from there if we have it, but the trending of this shows us that it's less. So, there's no point in budgeting for it if we're not using it. >> Thank you. Anything else, sir? >> That is it. Just a reminder that there's upcoming the next workshop is March 24th and we'll do a full budget overview and then just a reminder that the budget vote is May 19th from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. right here. >> Okay, I'd like to thank you and Rob Baxter for the work you're doing on this budget along with the superintendent. And we look forward to your next presentation on the 24th. >> Thank you. >> All right, we'll move on to reports
045and correspondence. Myself, I have nothing board membership. Nothing, we'll move on to Jack Henry. >> Good evening. So, for happenings and events, so there were a couple of scheduling changes that were made for two events in the school which include the Black History Month Movement Through Dance which is now this Thursday during 7th and 8th periods for juniors and seniors. The students will learn how dance has an impact on Black History and the Elma dance team will highlight the performance. Also, the Battle of the Classes is now taking place through April 6th through the 10th. All six junior senior high school classes chose Disney movies to represent their respective grades. They will also earn points by participating in the spirit week and pep rally finale that Friday. The senior high school musical Footloose will take
046place on March 20th and 21st. After the rehearsals it took, the cast members are thrilled to perform. The shows will begin at 7:00 both nights and the tickets are $6. The district-wide band concert will took place last Wednesday in the auditorium. All grades from 5 through 12 performed songs including Hercules, The Incredibles, 76 Trombones, and so many more. The concert concluded with all four bands combining to perform Sweet Caroline. Congratulations to all of our band members on a phenomenal performance. A reminder that the district-wide choral concert is this Wednesday, which is tomorrow, where the elementary, junior high school, and senior high school choirs will showcase their hard work. The concert is also at 7:00 p.m. in the auditorium. Congratulations to the following band members in the school district for being selected for the Ulster County
047Music Educators Association All-County Band Festival that is this upcoming weekend. So, I'm going to name off every student that was selected for this. So, we had in the elementary school area, Bennett and Leia Sanchez Cruz on the flute, Alyssa Lake, Emily Rodriguez, and Mila Zelinska on clarinet, and Edward Ignor III on trombone. In the junior high school, we had Alexa Dupont on clarinet, Jeremiah Hendrickson and Kylie Moreno on bass clarinet, Charlotte Zelinski on tenor saxophone, Amelia Sousa on baritone saxophone, Timothy Maxwell on French horn, Pedro Cabrera on trombone, Annelise Keener on euphonium, Hadley Walsh on tuba, and Lucas Denman on percussion. In the senior high school, we had Dana Velasquez on alto saxophone, Braylon Peevy on the trumpet, Matthew Henry on French horn, Isabella Velasquez on trombone, myself on euphonium, and Liam Turner on tuba.
048All these students will join nine other Ulster County schools in this festival. It will take place Friday evening and throughout the day on Saturday at New Paltz High School. And finally, this past weekend, myself and Alexa Dupont were selected as members to represent Ellenville at the Nisbet Estate Honor Band Symposium this past weekend in Syracuse. We joined other band students from the entire state to perform. Congratulations on your hard work and incredible performances. For athletics, all varsity spring sports are underway as of yesterday. We wish all of our student athletes and teams the very best of luck for the spring season. And the winter season, however, will continue for one of our track athletes as Christian Zelinski is scheduled to compete at the triple jump at the Nike Nationals at the Armory on March 20th.
049We wish Christian the very best of luck. And finally, for fundraisers, the senior class is selling Little Caesars pizza. The junior class is selling Gertrude Hawk chocolate bars. The freshman class is selling damn good honey, and the class of 2030 has a cookie fundraiser. >> You could sign up early, Willie. >> [laughter] >> I'm on it. I have a couple of questions. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, go ahead. So, just working in reverse order, Jack, if you would, please, I missed a couple of dates and some other details. So, this coming Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th, what is happening in New Paltz? >> Uh the Ulster County Music Educators Association All-County Band Festival. >> And we have how many students attending that? Or how many in the band? >> if I counted correctly, which
050I did before the meeting, we have 22 students. So, 22, from what I remember, is a very significant number compared to what we have. So, again, congratulations to the students, and it's a dedication on the hard work the music department's put in. >> Agreed, 100%. What time does that start? >> Um the first rehearsal is, I think, 5:30 on Friday, and then every student will start rehearsing at 9:00 Saturday morning. >> Okay. Is it rehearse >> What time is the performance? >> When is the performance? >> is 2:00 for the first concert, which I believe is elementary and junior high, and the senior high school concert is is at 3:30. >> Okay, thank you. And um the choral concert is 7:00 tomorrow. >> That's correct. >> Footloose is the 20th and 21st? >> Yes. >>
051Thank you. And what time is seventh and eighth period for the uh Black History uh Expression Through Dance, roughly? >> So, that will That starts right before 1:00 through the end of the day, which is 2:35. >> Okay. And that's this Friday? >> Thursday. >> The 12th, okay, thank you. 12:30, 12:30 Are all of these things on the calendar? >> Yes. >> Okay, so I could have just gone. Thank you very much, Jack. >> Of course. >> Appreciate it. >> And if you have any questions, call the office. >> Will do. Thank you, Madam Superintendent. >> Thank you. We will move on to our Superintendent, Lisa Wiles. >> Um I just wanted to inform the board that the Ulster County School Boards Association was having a meeting this Thursday. That has been canceled uh for
052there's a low participation RSVP on it. Uh so I think that they're going to try to reschedule state ed coming down, but there will be no meeting on Thursday if you're planning on going. I want to remind everybody that a week from I think it's a week from tomorrow on the 18th, yes. Uh we will be having our Superintendent's conference day, no school for students, uh but a staff development day for teachers. It's our annual wellness day. Uh this past last week I attended uh the New York State Council of Superintendents uh winter institute, which is a lot of professional development, but really focuses on lobbying and legislative issues. So, I am a currently the co-chair of the legislative committee and had the opportunity to go with a couple of colleagues and Bob Lowry and
053Greg Burke to meet with the Secretary of the Speaker of the House. And not the Speaker of the House, Speaker of the Assembly. Wrong wrong uh Congress. Um and we got to advocate and bring our concerns forward um as we do all year. And some of the the issues that you should be looking at um during this legislative session, Uh there's a mandate by 20, I think 2030, 2035 that school districts have to be converted to electric buses. And um is it 2030 or 2035? We're supposed to start in the next 2035 fully. We're supposed to start phasing in. We're running into a lot of um barriers to that with regard to what the electric the electricity available, what the capacity is of uh the electric companies, the grids, whether or not we can do
054that. The other um concern that we have is the electric buses cost about a half a million dollars each. And the cost of a regular bus is running about 150 to 200,000. So it's a significant increase the num in the cost of buses. And while we don't have our own transportation department, those costs costs will filter down through a contract. So it seems like it's an unattainable initiative. So our organization and others are saying like you got to kick this back. It's it's just not There's too many barriers, especially in districts like ours. We have 135,000 square miles of places to cover. Think about where we cover and how long our runs are and the capacity of batteries on buses to run. They have to recharge during the day. Um if we're going to use
055them for after-school runs, they'll have to recharge. You can't get a full charge on a morning run and a afternoon run depending upon the miles. So I think it was um I think it was a well a well-intentioned um initiative with regard to you know, gas and cost, but whether it's going to be realistic, many of us know it's not going to be. So it's getting the legislature to see it and put the data in front of them. They've already given school districts a two-year waiver to continue to look at this. We haven't done a feasibility study. We've been holding off on spending any money on this. Um, so just so you know, that's a big issue. When you get your you're on board, look for any articles on electric buses. It's definitely a huge
056issue coming up. Uh, in 2028, it looks like pre-K is going to be mandated um, in the state. So, uh, you can watch for that. And another big advocacy is for enhancing tier six um, and the benefits for those new employees coming in in tier four um, has a better benefit value than tier six. So, there's a lot of lobbying in the state to move to tier six. If there will be additional costs with regard to ERS and TRS. So, um, it's important that they look at it to try to uh, attract more people to come into the field cuz there's a question about that. Uh, but those are three of the bigger issues that are being discussed and I'll have more information for you as things go on, but the Senate and the um,
057assembly, state sen- senate and assembly, they just introduced their budget bill. So, the governor puts her bill out and then the Senate puts their bill out, the assembly puts their bill out and what happens next is what I call the dance of what's going to happen, how it's going to move and where we're going to be hopefully by April 1st. That's when the budget should be in place. It hasn't been in the last couple of years, but we're hoping that they can move towards it um, expeditiously. There seems to be a little bit more money. The state revenues are up a little bit for this year, but there's also a question about the federal funds. Are we going to be getting them, not getting them? So, they're discussing all of that. We hope to have
058an update on what our state aid run looks like the next couple of weeks. That's all I have. >> Move on to our school business administrator. Thank you. Deputy Superintendent Kelly White. >> Um so, good evening. As Superintendent Wiles shared, I did share the agenda with you for the upcoming conference day that was linked in my board report. But, I also wanted to recognize our MBK fellows, Caleb Nurat Roldan and Henry Jones. I included some photos from them in my report from an event um they attended called Stand and Deliver. This is an event that our MBK fellows attend um during their their senior year where they get the opportunity to present on their community service project and also participate in other um activities. And um Caleb was selected by state officials to lead um
059uh a disc- a a 45-minute debate on the topic of artificial intelligence. Um And we believe he was selected because during the weekly um mastermind book reading sessions that he participates in, he's an active participant in those. He's always bringing valuable contributions. He comes prepared and, you know, on several occasions has been shouted out by the assistant commissioner just for his thoughtful responses and contributions to that work. So, I think that was a great selection they made and um as I shared in my report, it ultimately led to Caleb's team winning the debate. So, that was awesome to to hear back from Frank Mulhern on that. >> Thank you. Assistant Superintendent for Personnel, Curriculum and Instruction, Scott Prokosch. >> Good evening. I just have one quick announcement for our public. We currently have an an
060for a part-time cafeteria monitor in our elementary school. Uh interested candidates can find applications online in the district website, and they can drop off applications to the district office or email human resources at ecs.k12.ny.us. >> Thank you. Move on to personnel resolutions for this evening under 8.1 upon recommendation superintendent of schools be resolved the following substitute personnel be approved. Move this as moved. >> Seconded. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. Leave of absence 8.2 upon recommendation superintendent of schools be it resolved that Amanda Cruz request for an unpaid leave of absence be granted. Been moved and seconded. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. 8.3 memorandum of agreement upon recommendation superintendent of schools be it resolved the memorandum of agreement between the Elville Central School District and ETS
061RPA Teachers Unit be approved as attached. Moved and seconded. Discussion. Iris? >> There are still significant number of students participating that they need um that they need the extra coach, right? >> Yes, I think that I attached Yes, I attached >> Oh, I see it. Okay, yes, I see. >> And you can we tried to denote who moved, how it was, but it's the it's the same actually. It's one less, but it's still the same number. Around the same number of students. >> Good. Thank you. >> Any further discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. 8.4 resignation upon recommendation superintendent of schools be it resolved that the resignation of Jason Reyes security attendant be accepted effective March 24th, 2026. Been moved, seconded. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries.
062Under budget budget resolutions, somebody want to move both of those? >> move 9.19.2. >> Been moved and seconded. Discussion. All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. Under 10.1, student IEPs, be resolved that such list of student IEPs be acknowledged as appropriate. There are 10. Been moved and seconded. Discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. Under 10.2, volunteers, resolve the following volunteers be approved for the 2025-2026 school year. >> Move the list with gratitude. >> The list has been moved with gratitude and seconded. Discussion? Mr. Calvin? No, Reverend. All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. Somebody want to move 11.1 to 11.4? >> 11.1 through 11.4. >> I'll move and second it. Discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. Uh we have a few under others.
063Somebody want to move 13.1 to 13.3? >> Uh move. Yeah. >> Move the list and there's a second. All those in favor? Opposed? No one. Motion carries. And then our next regular board meeting budget overview is on Tuesday, March 24th. Does anyone have anything they want to see on the next agenda? If not, I'll entertain the motion to adjourn. >> Seconded. Discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? We're adjourned.