001Good evening. My name is Christine Lopez, Fort Jervis City School District Board Clerk. I hereby call the reorganizational meeting of July 8, 2025 to order. Please stand for the pledge. Michael, would you please to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with all. You may be seated. I will now administer the oath of office to new reelected and reelected members of the board of education. I will read the board of education member oath of office to all of you at once, pausing so each of you can state your individual name when I prompt you to do so. And then you'll continue to repeat the oath after me. After the completion, please come up and sign our oath book. At this time, Joe Antioch and Bill
002Harris, if you would stand, please. Um, Don Santiago is not present this evening, so we will do his vote at district office. Raise your hand, please. I state do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York the Constitution of the State of New York and that I will faithfully discharge the duties that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board of education member of the office of school board of education member according to the best of my ability according the best of my ability. Thank you. If you'll just step forward and sign our oath book. Sorry. Okay, we will now hold elections for this year's president and vice president. First, may I have a motion and a second
003to open the nominations for school board president? Judy. Okay. At this time, please raise your hand if you would like to make a motion for the nomination of particular candidate for school board president. When I call on you, please state your nomination. Bill, I will nominate Jason. Can I have a second for that nomination? Are there any other nominations? No. All right, then. May I have a motion and a second to close the nominations for president? Question. Second. J Michael. All right. And may I have a motion and a second to approve the appointment of Jason Kmart as school board president for the 2526 school year? [Music] Michael. And this is a roll call vote. Judy. Joe. Mark. Yes. Bill. Jason. Jeremy. Yes. And Michael. Yes. Yeah. All right. May I have a motion and
004a second to open the nominations for school board vice president, please? Same thing. Uh, please raise your hand if you'd like to make a motion for the nomination of a candidate for school board vice president. Jason, I'd like to nominate Bill Harris for reelection. Wonderful. May I have a second for the nomination, Jeremy? Any other nominations? Okay. May I have a motion and a second to close the nominations for school board vice president? Michael. And may I have a motion and a second to approve the election of Bill Harris as school board vice president for the 2025 2026 school year. Second. Again, a roll call vote. Judy, yes. Joe, yes. Mark, yes. Bill, [Music] Jason, yes. Jeremy, yes. and Michael. Yes. Thank you. Okay. So, now we have to administer the oath of office um
005to the new board vice president and then the president. So, Bill, if you would stand. Repeat after me. I I William Harris do solemnly swear that I will support that I will solemnly swear to support the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York and the Constitution of the State of New York and that I will faithfully discharge the duties I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board of education vice president of the duties of school board vice president according to the best of my ability wonderful Sorry to have to sign again, please. [Music] And Mr. Would you stand, please? I I Jason Kmart do solemnly swear that I will support do solemnly solemnly swear that I will support
006the Constitution of the United States the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York the Constitution of the State of New York and that I will faithfully discharge the duties I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board of education president the office of school board of education present according to the best of my ability. Thank you. And I'll have you sign. Yes, of course. Okay, raise your right hand, please. I Kristen Lopez, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York and the Constitution of the State of New York. and that I will faithfully discharge the duties And that I will faithfully
007discharge the duties of the office of school board uh district board clerk of the board of education board of education school district clerk according to the best of my ability according to the best of my abilities a little ad living there just for people that aren't real realize I'm not reading correctly and now it's my pleasure to turn the meeting over to our Thank you. School board president never. [Music] So we are now looking for approval of the board meeting agenda for the reorganizational and regular business meeting. May I have a motion and a second? Joe and Judy. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. That brings us to the reorganizational consent agenda items. Item A, [Music] designation of official newspapers, radio stations, and television stations. Item B, statutory public official bonds. Item C, designation of
008depository. [Music] Item D, designation of establishing petty cash funds. Item E is transfer authority for the superintendent. F is mileage reimbursement for the 2025 20226 school year. Item G is annual appointments for the 2025 2026 school year. Item H is adoption of the 2025 202266 school district code of conduct and item I is adoption of the school district policy manual for the 2025 2026 school year. [Music] Item J, adopt adopt policy investment numbers 5220, 5410, and 5411 for the 2025 20226 school year. Okay. Building principal acting principal resolution for the 2025 2026 school year. Item L, principal, acting principal resolution for special education students being educated out of district for the 2025 20226 school year. M, special education committee members for the 2025 2026 school year. Item N, special education impartial hearing officers for the
0092025 2026 school year. Item O, appoint board president, vice president as designate, alternate to appoint special education and partial hearing officers for the 2025 2026 school year. And item P is our approval for reorganizational consent agenda items. And I have a motion and a second. [Music] All in favor? opposed. Motion carried. Brings us to reorganizational action items. Item A, appoint a board member as delegate and an alternate delegate to the Orange County School Boards Association for 2025 2026 school year. Uh, Bill Harris has volunteered to be our delegate and Michael as an alphant. Correct. Correct. Thank you both very much for volunteering. That is appreciated. I have a motion in a second to appoint Bill Harris as delegate and Michael Whit as alternate to the Orange County School Boards Association for the 2025 2026 school
010year. And Jeremy [Music] and Joe is our third. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Item B, we are to appoint a board member as delegate to the New York State School Boards Association for the 2025 2026 school year. And we did have Michael Rich volunteer continuing his role as our delegate. Thank you again for that. May I have a motion and a second to appoint Michael Wit to delegate as the New York State School Board Association for the 2025 2026 school Judy from Joe. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Again, thank you both for doing that. We know that's extremely time consuming. Uh item C, appointment of the board as a whole to the board audit and visitation committees uh for the 2025 2026 school year. Motion in a second and Judy. All
011in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Item D, CS vendor list for the 2025 2026 school year. Motion and a second for the floor. [Music] All in favor? Motion carried. Item E, section 504, committee members for the 2025 2026 school year. Motion and a second. [Music] All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Item F, letter of engagement for independent external district auditors, uh, Nent and Houseler PC. Motion and a second Jeremy. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. Okay, that brings us to the adjortment of our reorganizational meeting. Uh motion and a second to adjourn Joe. Thank you. All in favor. All opposed. Motion carried. Now call the regular business meeting to order. We have a house. I don't think we have any public comments. Okay, [Music] brings us to our administrative reports. First up is Superintendent
012of Schools, Dr. John Bell. Okay, good evening everyone. First of all, I want to let you know Wi-Fi is down. So, if you're getting any text about why they can't see the board meeting, we're not able to get it going yet. We're recording it though. But we are recording it so we'll be able to put it on our board page so people can see it. It's old school where you're recording for future reference. That's right. PHS page. Uh first of all, I just want to say uh congrats again to the class of 2025. Uh the graduation was incredible. It was just a beautiful night and we were packed. Holy cow. I haven't seen a crowd like that at graduation. Uh and I actually Justin working on pricing to what it would be if we were
013to put an extra section on each end of the bleachers, another section just to accommodate us because even when we had a couple football games there this year, we were posting the seniors as well. So, we're working on that and congratulations. We say that one more time and seniors before we forget all about them and uh and start wooing the juniors soon to be seniors coming up. But it was such a wonderful night. So, thanks to everybody who played a part in it, whether it was it or it was communications or it was B&G, everybody chipped in to make it just an awesome night for the kids. So, we're happy with that. Um, summer school started yesterday uh for the first time ever. K12 summer school is together in one building with air conditioning. They're
014at East Main Street, usually all three floors with the little kids downstairs and the big kids upstairs. Uh, and everybody's nobody's happy to go to summer school, but at least they want to finish that a little better, make it worth their while. Um, some is credit recovery. Um, some is for the lower kids, it's to move on to the next grade. But also, we have kids who take courses to get ahead. Like often times they'll take the required senior halfyear social studies, the economics and participation in government courses to get them off their schedule so they can take more college courses during the senior year and stuff like that. So, but summer school is off and running. um summer construction update phase four of the gap project. The HBE roof is done and now they're
015tearing apart the classrooms to replace the uh the unit ventilators that that do the uh heat and ventilation. There's no air conditioning at this point because there's still a lot of electrical upgrade work that needs to be done, but they'll have new heat, new ventilation, and new bookcases on the external walls over the classroom. But they will not have air to start the school year. Um air conditioning will later in the year because there's such a long lead time on on some of the items that you need to go for air conditioning. And then on this campus, they started work on the high school middle school roof and they will do the rubber resurfacing of this entire roof this summer. How long it will take will depend on the weather. You know, if there is
016a chance that we may be all the way at the old kindergarten, still be doing the roof when school starts kicking a lot of rain. if it's just hot and dry, we'll continue on and we won't have to lag into September with that. Um, also in the uh Pike Street uh district office, Catholic Charities had moved out a few months ago because Catholic Charities closed all their Hudson Valley offices and it was Monaceel, Newberg, Sid Ocean all closed and we did some painting and new carpet and we moved it the IT department into the suit where Catholic Charities was and Now, we're in the process of taking the huge room that it was in and renovating that to be a boardroom so we could have board meetings at the district office instead of having to
017move everything out of the cafeteria, set up for board meetings and put everything back into place before the next morning's breakfast at 7:30. Uh, so the goal is by September that we'll start having board meetings at the district office and not have to do all this to our poor custodians with all the extra work that they do. So, we're looking forward to that. Also at Pike Street, we'll be repaving the parking lot later this summer and resurfacing that roof in the fall. And we made it to the fall because um you can get a cheaper price in the fall and it won't disrupt academics in the school year. And then finally, uh last thing is I'm excited that we really haven't had much in the way of summer camps and other districts do. So, we're
018really excited that boys and girls volleyball had a summer camp this year and girls lacrosse is having a summer camp for kids in grades four through eight, I believe, right? Uh right now this week and they got 18 new recruits out for lacrosse. So, we're excited to see camp. We hope that will spread to more programs now that we've done all that's [Music] thank you sir. brings us to assistant superintendent for instruction, Dr. Natasha Walker. Good evening. Just on behalf of Tanya and myself, uh we went over to summer school today and the kids did look like they were having fun in the classroom, Miss Dr. Bill. And um they were excited to see us, had questions, and the staff, I can tell you 100% um the teachers and staff and administration were very thankful
019for the air conditioning. So, they just us to pass that along to you. Um we also have curriculum writing teams this summer. They already started this week and we have our K5 are working on inter reading um doing the alignment for that as well as all the other content areas K to five. And we have um teams identified for our middle and high school working on their core team their core subject areas. And let's see um we're starting our curriculum map um migration from New York Learns to Tahoe um starting next week. So it's a much enhanced um curriculum mapping tool that uses AI to help teachers come up with ideas. Um it does connect with powers school and um we use for our secondary for a lot of our literacy and content areas informative
020to formative instruction or formative assessment. So, it ties in with all those different apps that we're using now and um provides our middle and high school with AI version. Our elementary is um starting out without the AI version. Um but we're, you know, we're going to start small and work up from that. So, teachers are already asking me today when is it happening because they're done with learn unfortunately. And let's see, we have teacher teams attending training this summer. K5 interreing. Um pretty much almost all of our K5 teachers are doing um non-mandatory but encouraged um inter reading training this summer and we have a group going up to PLC in Rochester. That's it. Thank you so much. Assistant Superintendent for Business, Mr. John. Good evening. So prequel to Dr. those phase four, phase one,
021two, and three. I have to say that phase one and two, all payment applications are in. We are preparing for what they call a final cost report, which should be done shortly so that we can start retrieving state ed, which is great. All payment apps are in. We were able to take $3.5 million that we were under budget with and put that towards phase phase four to get that started. the timing of that getting them started saving save us some money and some time etc. phase three uh pretty much the majority of them. There's only a few more thing done, but we'll be complete there and we're on budget. So that's it. Thank you. And originally phase four was only going to be the most needy part of the high school middle school because we
022were under budget one and two entire high school. Awesome. Okay. Next is assistant superintendent for people personnel services, Mrs. Tanya Dur. Good evening. We're really proud to share that over the past three years, our graduation rate for students with disabilities has increased by 25%. I believe it was 79.4% this year. We had great gains. I just want to say thank you to our incredible teams and for their consistent leading. Um, this growth reflects our district-wide commitment to raising expectations and outcomes for all learners. This year, we strengthened transition planning and expanded access to rigorous coursework for students with disabilities, including more participation in honors and college level classes. Um, we are equally proud uh that our English language learners that their graduation rate has, I believe, quadrupled. I'd like to say today that it was
023at 100% this year. students in that cohort that I will know better when we do our rollover a case in Chieky. They did a mock rollover. What I mean by rollover, it's our New York state education data and gets rolled over into the system. We did a mock one today. The real rollover will occur on July 11th. So I will have harder for me numbers for for everyone at that time. Also, Peggy and I were honored to attend a lot of um different UPK graduations that we have with our CBOS as well as our Bosei graduation ceremonies. As you know, O Bose offers many diverse special education programs for different students and they're throughout the entire county and we try to attend um those graduations for our portraiture students because they are still our students.
024And lastly, um tomorrow, Dr. Bell and I have a meeting at 8:00 with Dr. Jim Higgins regarding our Bosey's partnership with the leasing of the space. Um here I will tell you that it's an exciting opportunity and an employment opportunity for our residents. Boseies will be looking to hire teachers, paras, nurses, OT, PT, clerical and we are meeting tomorrow to discuss a mailing and a flyer to uh folks in our area. So, we're really proud of that partnership and it's going to be incredible um opportunities for our students and our family as well as for our staff. Thank you. That's all great. Thank you everybody. [Music] Uh that brings us to consent agenda items. Item A uh minutes, Board of Education meeting of June 17th, 2025. Item B, minutes committee on special education and committee
025on preschool special education. Item C, approval of Port Jervis Education Foundation grant funds. Then item D would be the approval of the consent agenda items for this meeting. I need a motion and a second. Judy and [Music] All in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. On to personnel employment agenda items which include item A, leave of absences. Uh B, resignation security attendant uh Lewis Perea. Item C, resignation school monitor Jesus Hernandez. D is a resignation summer school special education teacher Madison Crle. Item E, appointment, coaching appointments for the 2025 2026 school year. Item F is an appointment probationary math teacher Carla Shannon. Item G, appointment, summer school special education teacher Jennifer Conklin and Rose Gary. Item H, uh, stipen positions for the 2025 2026 school year brings us to I, approval of the personnel employment agenda
026items. I have a motion and a second. Very good. And I had Mike on a motion and bill for the second. Is that accurate? You all in favor? Post. Motion carried. I just wanted to say congratulations. Carla is here tonight. Congratulations Carla. I also want to introduce Megan Bitbo in the second row there. She's a redeemed sub. She's going to be student teaching with us and also be the JV lacrosse coach. [Applause] [Music] Okay. Action items. Item A, CSCA memorandum of agreement typus for Spanish and English speaking. I have a motion a second bring to the floor. Joe and Judy. Uh any questions or discussion on this item? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. B. Memorandums of agreement 2025 2026 school year attendance incentive for PJTA, CSEA, and 12 month non-administrative personnel with independent contracts.
027I have a motion and a second. Jeremy and Mark Q. Questions or discussion? All in favor? No opposed. Motion carried. Item C is a resolution authorizing execution of letter for municipal advisor services. Uh that would be Bernard P. Donan. May I have a motion and a second? Michael Joe. Thank you. Questions or discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. D. Health and welfare contract with uh Elg Central School District 2023 2024 school year. We have a motion in a second. Not everybody's as fun as JT [Music] uh questions or discussion that clarification. All in favor? No opposed? Motion carried. Item E, ADAC memorandum of understanding multi-year PJ CSD prevention services. I have a motion and a second for the floor. Thank you. Questions or discussion on this item? This is for the program where we
028have Denise Hul doing amazing work with our kids and our staff and seems like she's everywhere. So, this is a fiveyear agreement with ADAP. We're just super super thrilled with the work that she's done with our kids. It's amazing the work she's done for us. Everybody knows her in our community. So that made it that much easier for her to hit the ground running in year one, which we had no cost for. We're in year two. We're just finally starting to take on some of the cost that we'll share. Eventually we'll get to the point where it's a 50/50 share pay for half of the salary and we pay for half. First year was zero. This year 10,000 it goes to 15 and 20 25. Thank you. All in favor? No opposed. Motion carried. I'm
029going to ask you guys to actually take F. We're not ready for F. So, we're going to ask you to vote to table F. We're still working on the language of the contract with regarding the appropriate insuranceances and things of that nature. So, we're asking table that. Okay. [Music] So, we're actually voting on that. So, uh voting for the table [Music] on the mic. Any further questions or discussion table? [Music] All in favor? And G is a resolution school district leader intern placement. I don't want to mispronounce this. Lauren Kangus Kangis. I uh I really my name is never ever pronounced correctly. That H in the middle screws it up. Uh, may I have a motion and a second to bring to the floor? Mike and John. Questions or discussion? All in favor? Motion car.
030[Music] Lauren is a teacher at East Main Street and we're really excited about her donor. She's putting in the hours today already. So, let's get in the air conditioner. That's right. Yes. Uh item H, capital project allowances and change orders. Any questions or discussions? Actually, jump back to call it. Uh motion and a second. Judy, thank you. Look at me for a second. Robert. Uh, now are there any questions or discussions? All in favor? No. Motion carries? Item I policy first reading policy number 7314. [Music] I have a motion and a second Joe. Thank you. Questions or discussion? All in favor? Opposed? None. Motion carried. J policy first and final reading policy number 7313. Motion and second. Any questions or discussion? All in favor? Opposed. Opposed. Motion carried. Item K policy second and final reading
031policy numbers 5635 and 7440. May I have a motion in a second? Joe. [Music] Uh questions or discussion? Uh all in favor? opposed motion carried brings us to board member items. We have appointment of membership to committees. Um at this point uh for everyone else to know uh the following members have volunteered for uh the individual committees for 2025 2026 school year. Uh we have builds and grounds. We have uh Mark Green, Jeremy Shannon, and Michael Wit. Uh DT committee delegate we have Bill Harris. Deer Park leaison we have Joe Andreak. Port Jervis lison uh Nancy will continue in that role. Nancy Dunn. Education committee I have Joe Andreak myself and Michael Whit. Health and wellness committee we have Nancy Dunn, myself and Jeremy Shannon. Mr. delegate uh as we discussed earlier, Michael Whit, Orange
032County delegate, Bill Harris, policy committee. We currently do not have a volunteer. Do we have anybody present? I would love to be on a committee. Um however, my issue has always been during the day and most days I work. So, policy done health and wellness I think I can we can we can put it on a day it's not whatever day and week works better for you because I do know ahead of time Awesome thank you that's a big Good. Can't wait. Will we be serving coffee, Dr. And then finally, safety committee. We have uh currently Nancy Dunn, myself, uh Don Santiago, and Michael Whit. Okay, very good. So, we're up to par on that. All committees have been filled. Uh thank you everybody for volunteer room in agreement. I have a motion and a
033second Joe before Jes. So we have a motion and second to appoint members as volunteered. All in favor? No opposed. Motion carried. brings us to uh board member comments. Um start [Music] I'm looking forward to the summer being busy for all of you. I can meet all of us and uh lot of speaking engagements hopefully from Mr. Laro and I just hope it's a great summer. It's going to be great to see a lot of construction still going and lots of uh gearing up for the school year. So it's going to be good to see all the new programs in place. Awesome. [Music] Uh I I first of all graduation amazing grounds crew. I don't know how you'll top yourself next year. Fantastic. But I also want to thank uh the police and fire for
034coming out and supporting the way they do. Um you know just uh the community is amazing. Uh, congrats on the numbers for ESL and for special needs. Love seeing that uh that trend. Graduation as well. Kudos. Uh, fantastic news on that. Um, and as we start the new year, Mr. Tim, start working on that budget. And uh as I've said in the past, but since it's a new year, the the the fat's been cut and uh I think it's going to be a challenging year to try and figure out how uh how we're going to do this and uh um just, you know, let's set expectations and uh five straight years during the worst uh economic times in 50 years, we're going to have to Thank you. Uh, Bill, I just wanted to thank Mr.
035Lazaro and his team for another great graduation this year. It was very inspiring. The weather held out for us. There's no sun. It wasn't very hot. It was one of the best weather days. And I also want to thank the community for reelecting me and trusting me uh here for another three years. And I want to thank the board again for appointing me vice president for another term. Thank you. All right. Uh, pretty much echo everything up here on the board that says, uh, we got our work cut out for us, but I think we're on the right path. Uh, Mark has mentioned it several times before. The work is not done, but let's catch our breath, have a good summer, and, uh, try to keep this momentum going. So, with that, uh, that'll bring
036us to dates to remember, which the only one we I have the date with the clerks here. There were two other dates that did pop up. Sure. This Friday, August 11th, at 7:00 p.m. at BFW number 161, the Port Middle School Drama Club will be putting on a benefit scholarship concert uh in the name of Dan. Uh the show starts at 7 o'clock. We're asking for a $10 donation or more when you get to the door. And it's just going to be a night of music, fellowship, raffles, 5050s, and uh some good memories of our friend Dan. Next meeting for the board of education will be held here on Tuesday night, August 19th at 700 p.m. And Dr. Walo, I'm looking at the high school summer school graduation will be on Wednesday, August 20th. Actually,
037I uh the summer school graduation on the Thursday because of Wednesday we wouldn't be able to turn around the exams 21st. Yes. Yeah. So it should be on the Thursday and it'll be here 9 a.m. Thank you. And we'll confirm that because like I said some of the concern we have is the turn the the timing of the exam. I apolog Yeah. Yeah. But if anything changes Yeah. Thank you. Awesome. Okay. That brings us to adjournment of uh today's meeting. I have a motion Joe and [Music] time is 1945. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. As you need.