001and welcome to this evening's meeting of the port river city school district board of education at this time i'd ask everyone to stand for the pledge followed by a moment of silence nancy could you leave us in the pledge to the please of the united states of america and to the development for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] thank you [Music] okay this time i'd ask for a motion a second to approve the board meeting agenda please philanthropy second by brian all in favor anyone opposed motion carries at this time we have a presentation and it's the annual financial audit report mr mark levy's here from nugent and hassler come on up mom mark while you're speaking i would ask that you remove your mask so
002that the public in attendance as well as the audience at home can hear you thanks good evening everyone um i'll be very quick uh brief again you're welcome to ask questions but we just went through this report in great detail um with the audit committee and so i won't go through as much detail this time through but i will say that uh first of all thank you for having me in the household do the district financial statements of the district for the year ended june 30th 2021. so the as i said to the order committee the most important thing i'm going to tell you is that is that the um you got a clean opinion or are you passed in other words the financial statements of districts were fairly presented in all material respects in
003accordance with our professional standards that's a good thing i'll miss mentioned that the the general fund had assets of the year let's go through some of the highlights we went for fun by fund in the prior meeting a little bit more in detail but now this mentions that the general fund had total assets of just over 40 million dollars you had liabilities of about 10 and a half million dollars leaving you with net fund balance of about 29.8 million dollars but of that portions of that were restricted um you know you had for different reserves a capital reserve an employee the crew liability reserve um tax social area reserve so some of that money was reserved and again we went through that much more detail with a previous meeting you know for those of you
004that have the statements still out on page 21 we went through the revenues by funds and you can see how much the revenues were generated by the general fund and expenditures from the general fund and especially fund school lunch fund projects that service so you can see all the funds there again so you have the fund statements and then you have what's called the full accrual statements and and the full approval statements are what we call the entity-wide statements and so there you can see i'm sorry for those of you that don't have the statements but the total assets of the district were shy of 122 million dollars then you had liabilities though of 158 million dollars and and you had in there what's called the freddie outflows before inflows that affect the fund balance
005but ending up with a net position of a deficit of 18 and a half million dollars again a lot of that deficit has to do with as i mentioned earlier your other post-employment benefits and your your ers-trs pension liabilities okay um and the only other thing i'll mention real quickly i told you that the district as a whole got a clean audit opinion we also ordered the federal awards of the district in other words the district expends over 750 000 federal awards so we were probably having to pull the single audit and this year the major programs were the school lunch fund basically or the the child nutrition cluster and the cares act money that the district received so both of those were ordered under the single audit and and you've got basically a clean
006opinion there um you know everything you are in compliance with the compliance requirements of the major programs that i just mentioned we also audited the extra class activities and they are on the cash basis of accounting and as i said earlier they received a clean opinion as well um and and all the details are in this long thick booklet that you just got to look at um it's almost 90 pages of information so again we went through it in more detail in a previous meeting i'm not going so in so much detail right now real quickly that's it in a nutshell any questions before i leave [Music] okay well i'd like to thank you and thank the business department i mean john's new i wish john locke um you know john came in that towards
007the end of the audit um but i do say the business department did a great job and um and look forward to you working with the district going forward thank you have a great night thank you too [Music] okay the next item on the agenda is that a public comment there is no one signed up to speak this evening so the next item is administrative reports mr ragno [Music] thank you very much and marcos you're exiting thank you for all you do for our district and your team super uh thank you appreciation thanks have a good night so the as everyone knows the school year is in full swing and routines are being established and that's really great to see because it was certainly a unique start of the school year and well maybe that
008much of that was to be expected it's great to see and experience the fluidity that we're now starting to see in our schools that being said i just wanted to share with the board specifically that it's also time that we collectively increase our focus on that which we were focused on before which is continuing to improve and not just react to circumstances so with that miss wakowitz and mr tim and i have been meaning to talk about committees and really just creating that calendar and you know separating out the committees that we combined early on in the pandemic and putting them back out there as an education committee a health and wellness committee and safety committee separate entities so they can focus on improving instead of like i said before reacting so another thing that
009we are coming up with in our calendar which is of specific interest potentially to some of the board members is that we are going to attempt to have some of those meetings and hours that would allow for the board to have increased opportunity to attend so ie in the evening a few having a few of those sessions so that way you can have more of a figure on the pulse so i just wanted to share that as far as some appreciation i wanted to share i do want to thank and i wanted to wait until this evening to do that at a board meeting we have a great relationship with bonsacor's hospital a great partnership and one of those things that you know we benefited from that partnership was their generosity they delivered a pretty
010significant amount of school supplies and i shared the photo with the board earlier this afternoon if you haven't had a chance to check your email but you can see that that was a value on that on that table of school supplies so backpacks binders we were definitely super appreciative of that and also with bonds course hospital and speaking of that community partnership one of the point people that we deal with is mary decker she's the community engagement manager at bonds of course and she's just been amazing for our schools she late last week connected us with the rotary that was looking for some volunteers for their flags for heroes project that they have i believe it's tomorrow evening and see if we have any students that might be interested and i sent that to mr
011lazzaro and he immediately got on that task and i'm proud to say i'm not surprised at all but uh some of our coaches and our our students uh jumped at this opportunity for volunteerism so we'll have uh we'll have several student representatives at that as well as uh coaching representatives at that tomorrow so mrs blizzaro thank you for that and uh like i said i'm not surprised about our coaches and our students stepping up but especially with such short notice but i'm certainly appreciative and then the final element of appreciation that i'd like to share is this is board of education appreciation month week we'll just call it day since we have a meeting so as we typically do uh well actually i'll just give miss logan has all the credit as lopez typically does
012she tries to find something creative and meaningful to give to the board and um you know to commemorate the appreciation for that so um as i think natasha's next as ms walkowicz is speaking i'll just go around and distribute those so but i do want to say as someone that deals with the board on a daily basis i am appreciative of everything that each of you do you bring a different element perspective to our conversations and i and i appreciate it thank you [Music] okay well thank you okay so next on the uh agenda is an administrative report from mrs walkerwood thank you notwithstanding what mr eidel had said earlier we are starting our 20 20 21 22 education committee um that will include teachers administration csva parents and board member representation so we're excited
013to get that kicked off very soon we'll be meeting one to two times per month you know depending on the volume of work that needs to be done and do things such as reviewing curriculum proposals like textbooks textbook adoption looking at our alignment of k-12 programming and how we might want to roll out some initiatives to review our k-12 programming and having discussions about new programming opportunities one of which is kind of in the works that has been um rolling out is our seal about literacy for example um the education committee just as mr rydell had mentioned um we'll be holding meetings right after school as well as we're going to make an effort to have some in the evening so that everyone can attend and be available also i want to mention our teachers
014college reading and writing professional learning series has kicked off already in our k-8 programs um just want to throw it out there that our ask 5th grade team is hosting their writing kickoff tomorrow morning midday-ish so we're excited to go look at that and finally we're also our professional development committee is looking forward to our hosting our november 2nd conference day with workshop choices that include ixl seesaw and handle with care we're going to push out some of our tech mini sessions that we're designing google literacy support from our regional auburn which is our ls support regional team mindfulness and social emotional learning from cornell cooperative just those are a few of the offerings for november 2nd and now to you jt thank you mr tim thank you i also want to thank the board
015for all the work that you do you've done nothing but make me feel welcome and i do appreciate all your hard work to mr mark levy you just left i i do want to thank him for presenting and doing all the work that he did and also the business department i would drown without them and their support around me the capital project update worked for the project is going to go out to bid in november mid-november with some of the receipt of the bids will be in the middle of december and during our next board meeting november 16th representatives from political group at bca will be presenting to update us on the capital project that's all for this evening thank you thank you okay next item on the agenda is consented items these include minutes
016from the board of education regular meeting of october 5th 2021 minutes of the cse meeting sorry i'm not following wolves for 9 24 9 28 9 29 9 30 10 1 10 4 10 5 10 6 10 7 10 8 21 minutes from the cpsc meeting for 10 1 and 10 7 and the treasurer's financial report for september 2021 at this time i'd like a motion of a second to approve these items second brian second by bill all in favor anyone opposed motion carries item six personnel employment items these include leave of assets appointment vacancy 2323 co-curricular coordinator for the 21-22 school year appointment instructional staff vacancy 2354 arch teacher and counselor for the 21-22 school year appointment support staff vacancy 2372 positions 587-489 probationary cleaners appointment administrative vacancy 2375 position number 538 assistant principal
017appointment instructional staff vacancy two three seven six position two three five special education teacher leave replacement appointment support staff vacancy two three seven nine position three six six seven present provisional coda appointment support staff vacancy 2384 position 3585 probationary teacher aid appointment support staff substitute cleaners and correction to board docs personnel agenda items from august 31st 2021 meeting at this time i'd like a motion in a second to approve the personnel items as listed by phil harris all in favor aye anyone opposed motion carries item seven a is an action item approval of the cse vendor ability builders license behavior analyst pc may have a motion a second to bring this item to the floor for discussion please flow second by bill annaphree are there any questions on this item all in favor anyone opposed
018motion carries item 7b is first reading of policy numbers 1333 three three eight one five one zero one five two zero six one six zero and three one six zero they have a motion in a second to bring these items to the floor for discussion please phil harris second by flo nancy did you have a report on this sure thanks so we had our meeting and um there are six policies up for their first read tonight as you know they get two weeks before they're passed in so policy number one through three were duties on of the tax collector this was revised because of concerns we had concerning the reporting of collected and uncollected funds we removed the reference to an actual listing of those individuals with unpaid taxes and personalized the policy with just
019port jervis which we're doing with almost every policy we review policy number one three three eight on the duties of the director of the school health services was also revised it was decided to change its title to conform with the title given in the annual appointments to add the committee on preschool special education to the committees on which the director is an on-call member we wanted to remove reference to quote-unquote reports to the board of education we added to that school nurse and administrators and special ed department to those whom the director provides consultation with as needed policy number 1510 on regular board meetings and rules we decided to add health and safety considerations to a decision on where meetings could be held we removed dated language concerning the district's high-speed internet connection and added
020how the public could access recordings of live as well as past meetings policy number one five two zero was on special meetings of the board of education we agreed to personalize this with poor jervis and remove reference to where the special meetings would be held as well as the requirement to sign a waiver of notice form palace 3160 on equity inclusivity and diversity in the district was this was a new suggested policy developed in response to a policy statement at the may new york state board of regents meeting the board of regents expects all districts to develop and implement policies and practices that advance diversity equity and inclusion the one we received from erie one boces was very very long and extremely specific so ms welkowitz researched many of the policies of various districts and
021we found one that was a little bit broader but filled all the state's requirement so implementation details will be in procedures and we'll have a ddi committee within our district policy 6160 on professional growth and staff development i feel like we're beating this horse to death um this has been discussed over many meetings with other policies recently this was revised to conform with the current ship terminology from professional development to professional learning in the commissioner's regulations it also removed some outdated language we added some wording to include video conferencing pre-recorded videos and online discussion boards and added a section on professional learning plans we also personalized this with um port jervis and that's the long and short of it thanks dan yeah i'm sorry for so long okay all in favor of approving the first
022reading i'm moving all right anyone opposed motion carries okay item c is second and final reading of policies number one three three one and seven one three three they have a motion in a second to bring these to the floor please i'll move it onto phrase brian dewey any discussion on these two mr rondell you want to speak with me i did i just wanted to acknowledge the one item in personnel and that's the letter a appointment administrative vacancy two three seven five position five three assistant principal mr gennaro is actually here tonight he's sitting right behind mr lazaro welcome well we didn't have the discussion it's really great that you showed up tonight and i appreciate that if you could hang out just a few minutes after the meeting and introduce you to the
023board of education i will tell you it was a pleasure meeting matt and getting to know matt mr gennaro highly impressive resume more impressive in the interview [Music] just really very much looking forward to all that you're going to bring to this school district and the administrative team so welcome welcome back thank you [Music] all right um forgive me there's one additional item that i missed on the action items that it's item 7d um and i'm going to be i'm going to need a motion in a second to approve the resolution of a memorandum of agreement between the port river city school district and the port george teachers association concerning remote instruction so the resolution reads as follows be it resolved that the board of education of the port georgia city school district herewith approves
024the memorandum of agreement between the port german city school district and the port germans teachers association concerning remote instruction and be it further resolved that the board of education authorizes superintendent of schools to execute said agreement on behalf of the board of education may have a motion in a second please i'll move it second bill and brian any discussion all in favor anyone opposed motion carries [Music] sure so since we have a few teachers here just to explain that that's something that the uh district and pjta have mainly worked out as far as the compensation structure for home instruction and we're just looking to just put it in writing so that way it has a clear begin and end date so that's what that is and once it's finalized that's when it'll be put on
025board docs thanks [Music] okay board committee reports mr harris at the october 6th orange county school board association meeting by uh we had a very detailed presentation by the alcoholism and drug abuse awareness council of orange county and this program is introducing a new substance use prevention program for adolescents aged 12 to 19. and it's called team intervene teen intervene is a 2-4 session evidence-based program that addresses adolescent alcohol or other drug use in its early stages by providing education support and motivation to reduce substance use it is a free service being offered virtually in both english and spanish to all orange county youth the model reflects the belief that it's important to meet teens where they are and recognize a team may or may not see their use as a problem or see a
026need to change their behavior team intervene draws from various models proven effective in addressing substance use i'm going to forward this information to the superintendent's office and then have it moved to our secondary guidance offices and they will come out they'll do presentations they'll meet with the students and the staff so i think it's a very worthwhile thing to uh have them come on board and do something for us like this absolutely our next meeting is november 7th okay thanks thank you brian if i could ms just uh so thank you for that mr harris uh we are very much involved with adac uh we are involved with team intervene and we also uh mr lazzaro mr morata both do an outstanding job of implementing programs for that particularly when we have a student that
027makes a decision that they shouldn't be making when it comes to you know drugs or alcohol [Music] i said i apologize for the seriousness thanks okay flo do you have any committee reports of course you do i don't know why but i was blessed um there was no one else so um i was appointed to go to this button and well maybe i didn't want to hear this i was i was um elected to go to nisba and being that the conference was cancelled it was supposed to be next week and it wound up to be last night and the week before i did on they had an online training to show you how to vote to show you how to vote to do different things and so i did a week ago i did
028monday we went through all of it i believe there were 226 school districts that had delegates there so you could imagine what that was like uh last night was the voting 23 resolutions that i was part of and i'll tell you um some of them were very interesting that is going to be changed and some of them are you know were failed and they didn't want to go with it so um if the if mr rydel if you want i could leave this at the office and we put i put notes or passed or failed and some of them um they even had um when they talked um they pulled it out and they said no and it was very interesting but it was like four and a half hours from four up to 8
02930 last night but it's very interesting so that's what i have on this one and that's why okay and nancy you gave the report on the other and then audit committee met this evening i'll have a synopsis of what we talked about on the next board packet for everybody any other committee many meetings no okay all right this time it's board member comments let's start with you tonight jason i have no comment okay dancing um just thank you to bond's course that's that's a very cool thing their motto is good help to those in need you know that's what bonds of course means that's their motto there but um that's a really nice thing nice thank you bill crying bill okay flow i you know i want to apologize for not being here the last
030meeting um things do happen and i had to go to another convention so i don't know what's going on being conventions i i have no idea but um i want to tell you i'm sorry i missed it but i did i did try all honesty to watch it on on the the site i just couldn't i know anything ever needs but i could not you couldn't live you couldn't hear it it was it was pretty bad and even i guess the people at home that do it on a normal normal basis i don't know what the problem is but maybe it's better here in the cafeteria which i'm glad we're back because i could not hear a word um you know what i don't know who's in the audience but i want to tell you
031it looks good if you look good out there i don't care who you are but having this room filled up with people and to know what we're doing i want to thank you for being here you know because this is what it's all about this is what it is when we decide on we will meet motions what we vote on for you for the kids for the district i want to thank you and you know what hopefully you keep coming to see what we do here and i want to thank you and i thank you all the time for everything everybody does for this district thanks flo okay this time we have dates to remember and the next meeting date so tuesday november 2nd 2021 is a superintendent conference day no school district-wide sunday november
0327th 2021 daylight savings time ends thursday november 11 2021 is veterans day the district is closed friday november 12th grade 7 to 12 first market peer report cards are issued tuesday november 16th is a board of education meeting and remember um i just want to remind those in the community listening and those here in the audience today that you need to sign up with the clerk online before the next meeting um if you're going to speak you need to if you're coming to the meeting just to attend the meeting we do observe social distancing and wearing a face mask and i think everyone for participating and cooperating with that this evening if you're going to speak we'll ask you to remove it but if you're going to speak or come to the meeting we need
033you to sign up in advance because we do have limited seats available here in this room so with that i would like to entertain a motion to enter executive session for the purpose of discussing litigation contracts and items relating to employment matters related to appointment employment promotion demotion discipline suspension dismissal or removal of a particular person or person i don't anticipate any action after this meeting bill harris second second by delana frey all in favor anyone opposed ocean carries mr rogers to say something sorry you want my mic this one works so i i thought uh mr dewey was going to mention something about it and that's the uh something that he works very hard on which is the farnham house the haunted house that they put on there the farmhouse haunting and that's each
034weekend between now and the 30th right that's not happening on the 31st so um the reason why i bring it up because you put a lot into that but that also involves a lot of our students 60 students volunteer for that and they learn a lot of life skills and get involved with things and some of those students that's what they're looking forward to is being involved with that they're maybe not participating in a sport in the fall or the sport overall so i thank you for that but i did want to just put it out there um the two years ago you broke the record of attendance you shared that with us and i think this year you'll you'll break that once again but just thank you for that you do uh some of
035that money does come back to the school to the students in the form of scholarships so that's why i feel that there is a school connection for that so thank you brian the record wasn't 1 000 people who did 665 this week well let's not discourage the motivation from working out we're going to break the record so we want to break that record so but thanks brian we have not had any conversations with ptas as far as trunk retreat goes