Regular Meeting of the Goshen Central School District Board of Education 4/21/26

001Thank you. Good evening everybody. I'd like to order a regular meeting of the board of education of the Goan Central School District being held on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026, 6:30 p.m. in the board of education room. After the pledge, will everyone please just take a quick moment of silence to remember the passing of Joan Vander, who was a retired bus driver from our district of 30 years. United States of America to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you very much everyone. We're going to start out tonight with some very exciting moments here. I'm going to turn it right over to our interim superintendent, Mr. San Bonjobi. Thank you, Princ. So, there's certain milestones in everyone's career that they remember. I mean, you

002remember being hired for your first teaching job, I'm sure. You might remember your first day of teaching, whether it was here at Goan or somewhere else. And then you make so many memories over your career impacting so many students. The average teacher over their career impacts more than 3,000 students. They positively impact 3,000 students minimum. And once you've been in the career for a long time, such a great re reward when you bump into former students who are now all grown and they're adults that you see, you know, how they turned out. Sometimes sometime the most challenging students end up being the most amazing, you know, supporters of you. So tonight, tenure night, everyone remembers their tenure night. Uh it's just one of those rights of passage. It's one of those milestone events because for

003however many years now you've been doing this for the three, four or maybe had some prior years, you have been impacting students positively through your career so far. So I do want to thank all of you and congratulate you on behalf of the board of education, central administration and really the whole community for what you have done so far in your career for the students go but also the community of goan. Thank you and congratulations. I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Carter because I know we've got some cookies waiting for us. >> Thank you, Mr. Bonjobi. So, as he had just mentioned, we're here to celebrate a major milestone, and that is extremely important. But more importantly, we're here to acknowledge the hard work and dedication that got you to this point. And

004so, we speak often here in central office about the future and just how bright we think the future is in Gan. And we are absolutely thrilled to know that you're going to be a part of it. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. Keep up the good work. I'm going to now invite up our principal from Scotchtown Avenue School, Miss Kristen Driscoll, and her team, Mrs. front and center. >> Good evening everyone. Um, I'm going to start I just want to start by saying thank you to the board of education. uh Miss Plechinsky and I have the privilege of honoring three fantastic educators um who have been working at Scotchtown Avenue. Uh they are actually three of the first people that I hired when I when I got here in Gan and um I

005am very happy and privileged to honor them tonight and recommend them for tenure. So I would like to invite up Mrs. Stalin Melvin, Mrs. uh Mrs. Trisha Sanders and Mr. Rick Sternoff if they can please. Uh the first teacher I would love to honor tonight is Mrs. Sal Melvin. Uh she uh since she joins us here, Mrs. Melvin has proven to be that she is not just an educator, she's a thoughtful and caring part of our school community. Mrs. Melvin joined Gan with a foundation of experience from the New York City Department of Education. With a masters from Hunter College and a dual certifications in early childhood and special education, she possesses a deep nuanced understanding of how our youngest learners grow. She's not just a teacher, but she's a learner herself, always wanting to

006go for more professional development, learning more about her students, and really being an advocate for everything that they need. Inside her classroom, magic happens. Sometimes literally, as the students raise chicks and study the life cycle firsthand. But beyond the curriculum, Mrs. Melvin excels at building a home to school bridge. Whether it's through her updates on Parent Square or inviting families in to be mystery readers, she ensures that parents are a true partner in their child's education. Her initiative in creating K2 Book Buddies program further demonstrates her commitment to building empathy and leadership in our students from day one. In addition to supporting her students in the classroom, she also shows up for her students outside the classroom. You'll frequently find her on the sidelines of soccer fields or cheerleading competitions, cheer cheering on her students

007in their own worlds. Within our building, she plays a vital voice in our PBIS and morale committees. Always looking for ways to lift up her colleagues. Mrs. Melvin is a compassionate, hard-working, and deeply collaborative professional. She embodies the spirit of Goan Central School District and I recommend her for tenure with the utmost confidence and enthusiasm. We are lucky to have her. >> You want me to just keep going through? I'll pick up. Uh, next up are is Mrs. Trisha Sanders. Since arriving at SAS, Mrs. Sanders has been much more than our school counselor. Mrs. Sanders brings a high level of clinical expertise to go with a masters from Long Island University. She is not only a certified school counselor but also a licensed mental health counselor. Before joining us, she served as a crisis intervention

008counselor and a mobile mental health team responder. The frontline experience is evident every day in her work. She possesses the rare rare ability to respond to high stress situations with a level of calmness and professionalism that reassures both students and the staff. Mrs. Sanders does not wait for problems to arise. She proactively builds a culture where students can thrive. As the chairperson of our PBIS committee, she spearheads our pause and pawsome student programs, ensuring that positive behavior is celebrated weekly. Perhaps her most visible contribution has been the creation of our Scotttown Avenue career day and the tough to truck event which she started last year. This is connecting our students to their community and helping them uh envision their own futures in hands-on exciting ways. Beyond her events, Mrs. Sanders is a vital member of

009our MTSS team. She works side by side with teachers to develop strategies for executive functioning skills and pushes into classrooms to teach lessons on empathy and peer relationships. She ensures that social emotional learning isn't an extra. It is woven into the fabric of our school every day. Mrs. Sanders is a compassionate advocate for our children and an indispensable asset to our faculty. Her expertise, her leadership, and her heart make her an ideal candidate for tenure. I am proud to support her recommendation and look forward to to the continued positive impact that she will have on the go Central School District. Congrat Uh, and last but certainly not not least, I don't know if Mr. St. Lawrence, would you like to join us? Are you gonna Okay. Uh, Mr. St. Lawrence and I and Miss Pulch,

010Miss Pulchchinsky would like to recommend Mr. Rick Sternoff for tenure. Mr. Sternoff is the definition of energy and positivity at Scotchtown Avenue School. As our K2 physical education teacher, he does not just teach kids how to move. He teaches them how to cooperate, how to compete with sportsmanship, and how to build a foundation for a healthy life. In the gym, uh Mr. Sternov creates structured yet high energy environment where every student feels motivated to participate. But his impact uh stretches far beyond the gym walls. He works collaboratively with our PE department to create some of our most anticipated school traditions. From coordinating our schoolwide field day to collaborating with the music department and our kindergarten teachers on our kindergarten festival. He understands that our youngest gladiators need these joyful milestones and they are what make

011our school feel more like home. What uh Mr. Sternov tr what makes Mr. Sternoft truly unique is his commitment to the entire vertical K12 go experience. During the day he is helping uh as a kindergartener find their footing and in the afternoon he is coaching JV football, track and field and at the secondary level. He also works with our students throughout the summer in our local summer recreation programs ensuring that they stay active and mentored all year long. Mr. Sternhoff is a consmate team player. Whether he is going out for our morning bus duty in rain, s sleep or snow, co-eing lessons, or supporting our PTO through his afterchool events, he brings a can do attitude and a genuine care for his students. He has become an important part of the Gan athletic community, which

012is a benefit for all of our students. Mr. Sternov's dedication to student wellness, his tireless involvement in athletics, and his vibrant school spirit make him an ideal candidate for tenure. I am proud to support this recommendation and look forward to many more years of his leadership at Scotttown Avenue and throughout the Gan Central School District. Congratulations. >> Congratulations. >> All right, we're going to move on to go intermediate school. We have Dr. Worth, if you would please. first podium. >> Good evening, members of the board of education and Mr. Manovi. Uh, tonight is my privilege Oh, am I still off? Thank you. Tonight, it's my privilege to recommend some outstanding educators for tenure at Ocean Intermediate School. I will ask that these educators come up and join me. We have Mrs. Tavcar, Mrs. Urick, Miss

013Menddees, Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Rosierre, and Mr. Johnson. So, I'm going to begin with Mrs. Tavcar. It is with the highest degree of confidence and profound professional respect that I recommend Miss Annabelle Tabcar for tenure at Gan Intermediate School. An 18-year veteran of New York State teaching, Miss Tapcar is truly an elite educator who brings a sophisticated level of instructional mastery to our building. Her expertise is anchored in an impressive academic foundation, including a bachelor of science from Long Island University and a master of science science in literacy from the city of New York or CUNI University. Beyond the confines of her classroom, her previous experience as an instructional literacy coach and a lead coach for the New York City Teaching Collaborative has made her an indispensable visionary for our district and our building. She possesses

014a rare ability to bridge the gap between highlevel theory and practical classroom based excellence, making her a mentor among her peers and a transformative force for our students. In her classroom, which they've nicknamed Tavcar Town, Mrs. Tavar has established the gold standard for student engagement and academic success. She creates a model environment where high expectations are met with absolute support from her. She masterfully utilizes both formative and summitative assessments to identify student needs with absolute precision, adjusting her instruction in real time to ensure that no student is ever missing out on anything. Her leadership is felt across nearly every critical facet of our school. She's a driving force on the ELA curriculum committee, a key contributor to the MTSS team, and a leader in our data wise inquiry group. Annabelle has even opened her doors

015to host colleagues from across the district, modeling best practices for our new literacy curriculum and fostering a culture of professional excellence buildingwide. She views families as truly partners in the educational process. Her dedication is absolute and her impact on GIS is nothing short of profound. It is with my absolute honor to recommend her for tenure with the highest degree of confidence. Okay, going in order. I have Mrs. Christina Urick next. It's with immense pride and without reservation that I also recommend Mrs. Christina Urick for a tenure at Goan Intermediate School. She is both a proud resident and a parent within the district. Christina brings a heartfelt connection to her work that's truly unique, viewing the success of our students through both a professional and a personal lens. Her academic foundation is extensive, including a master

016of science in childhood education from Albany and a professional literacy certification. Along with that, as an AIS reading specialist, she serves as a cornerstone of our literacy program, utilizing research-based interventions like Orton Hillingham, Just Words, Hagerty to bridge critical skill gaps for every child that she works with to help them discover the joy of reading. Her career spans over two decades, providing her with a deep well of experience to draw from when supporting our most needy students. Beyond her work with students, Mrs. Jurk serves as a teacher leader for our MTSS team. In this role, her ability to translate complex data and assessments into actionable instruction plans has been invaluable to both her students and students of other teachers she works with as she ensures that a tiered support is implemented across the building. She

017provides a steady resource for her colleagues in intervention planning, helping align buildingwide goals for student success. And her dedication extends to a broader school culture through her involvement with she's done some connection crew mentoring of students and also co-chair uh when she was still at SAS for their book fair. She's a team first educator who maintains an open supportive communication with families and ensures that every student reaches their full potential. Mrs. Urick is a steady champion for students whose expertise and compassion elevates our entire building and district. And I recommend her for tenure with the highest degree of respect. Okay. Up next is Miss Michelle Menddees. It is a distinct pleasure to recommend Miss Miss Michelle Menddees for tenure at Ocean Intermediate School. She represents a unique asset to our faculty, possessing a rare dual

018experience as both a dedicated educator and secretively she also has a license in social work. Her academic background includes a master of social work at Adelfi University and a master of science and education from Mount St. Mary. This dual lens allows her to approach her third grade classroom with a whole child mindset, seamlessly blending academics with deep social emotional support in her classroom. She understands that academic success is completely linked to a child's emotional well-being while still structuring her classroom to support both academics and that is at the same time. Miss Mendes is a master of creating an inclusive relationship-based environment where students feel safe to take risks, learn from their mistakes, and grow. She's a leader in fostering a positive school climate through her work joining our restorative practice leadership committee and also working

019with third grade data team in the past. What truly sets Michelle apart is her tireless commitment to professional self-development. I was trying to count the hours and it was a lot of extra hours of work she's put in. But as a lifelong learner, she's earned her Google trainer certification and she's earned Project Lead the Way certification as well as a long list of additional PD sessions that she's attended. Her colleagues, particularly the third grade team, value her as a collaborative partner who prioritizes kindness kindness and growth. Her passion for teaching combined with her clinical insight and professional drive makes her an exceptional educator who has truly found a home in Gan. I recommend her for tenure with the highest degree of confidence. Okay. Next is Miss Nina D. Roier. I'm pleased to re recommend Miss

020Nina D. Rosier for tenure as the music and coral teacher at Goan Intermediate School. Mr. Rosierre's pedagogical foundation is deeply rooted in excellence, holding a bachelor's degree in music education from the Crane School of Music. I went to Fredonia. I will not hold it against it, but it is a great school. And master's degree in early childhood education from Capella University. She brings a rare blend of artistry, creativity, and high expectations to her classroom where she does not just teach music, but brings the curriculum to life through performance-based projects and some seamless integration of technology. Her coral program has become a hallmark of our school, producing concerts of exceptional quality that teach students the skill of listening, blending, and communal musicianship. Mr. Rosier's commitment to expanding musical access led her to create the Boomhacker Club,

021which was new just a few years back. It's a student- centered percussion ensemble that empowers students in grades three through five to master complex rhythms and develop agency through studentled repertoire. Basically, they're they're kind of like bell choir, but they're banging some sticks, and it sounds amazing when they kind of get in sync with each other. This inclusive initiative highlights her belief that every child can find a voice and build confidence through active musical participation. Her impact resonates well beyond the music room. She's a member of our kindness week committee and our faculty culture and improvement team. She works tirelessly to foster a positive school climate and strengthen the homeschool connection. She's a dedicated professional who fosters a supportive environment where students can extend their learning beyond the traditional school day. Mr. Rosair is skilled

022educator whose artistry and leadership have profoundly strengthened the cultural fabric of our school community and I do recommend her pretend you're without reservation. Okay, next up I have Mrs. Tegan Kennedy. Oh, I will still water my candles. I'm like literally getting a time out there so much. Don't give it back. I'm sharing. >> So, it's a wonderful privilege to recommend Mrs. Tegan Kennedy Wald for a tenure as an art teacher at Goan Intermediate School. Tegan is an absolute Goan success story, having dedicated 20 years of her professional life to our district. Her journey from a 17-year veteran of fourth grade classroom at GIS to her current role as the in the art department reflects a teacher who is deeply rooted in our community and passionately committed to student growth. Her transition to art education was

023the natural evolution of a career defined by creative integration supported by both a bachelor of fine arts and a master's of science and teaching at Sunni new pulse. Her institutional knowledge and her rapport with our families make her an invaluable pillar of the faculty. In the art room, Mrs. Kennedy operates under the core philosophy that art does not exist in a vacuum but is a root from which all other things grow. She continues to leverage her extensive classroom experience by weaving core subjects like math, science, and literature into her art lessons, allowing students to apply their prior knowledge in new tactile and imaginative ways. I will say sitting in one lesson, I think I actually learned how to draw a bird finally, but they were very much engaged in the the project. She introduces our

024students to diverse artists and global cultures, broadening their worldviews while teaching them fundamental artistic elements with a wide variety of mediums. Her happiest moments are those where students find the spark of creative discovery. And she's built an environment where every child feels safe to explore, take risks, and advocate for their own ideas. Keaggan is a master educator who understands the developing sense of humor and inherent activism of intermediate school students using art to help them express their unique points of view. I recommend Miss Tegan Kennedy for tenure with the highest degree of confidence and respect. And last but not least, it's a privilege to recommend Mr. Brian Johnson for tenure as a physical education teacher at Gan Intermediate School. He has a master's of science in coaching pedigogy and bachelor of science in physical education

025from Sunni Courtland. Mr. Johnson combines his athletic expertise with a genuine passion for developing lifelong movers. Since joining the GIS faculty has become an integral part of our physical education department, revitalizing school traditions like Jellybean Field Day and designing immersive units such as the Winter Olympics experience, which I just got the pleasure of watching recently. He's a datadriven instructor who utilizes tools like the fitness gram and national president's challenge to ensure every child regardless of their regardless of their initial athletic ability show measurable growth in fitness coordination and competence. Mr. Johnson's dedication to the Gan School District is perhaps most evidenced in his extraordinary coaching record. For seven consecutive years, he has coached three sports per year, totaling in an incredible 21 seasons of mentorship and coaching across tennis and basketball. Whether he's precisely lining

026the fields for a kickball tournament or navigating complex logistics to coordinate the annual spikeball event at the high school in the past. His attention to detail and organizational talents are unmatched. He focuses on developing vital skills through physical movement, ensuring his classes are high energy, inclusive, and rooted in team building and mutual respect. He's a master of logistics where he can transform a complex challenge into a seamless, joyful experience for our entire school body, such as jellybean field day and some other great events. Mr. Johnson is a consmate professional whose dedication to our students physical and character development has greatly enriched our community and I recommend him for tenure with total confidence. >> So we'll move on now to the CJ Hooker Middle School. Uh Mrs. Tendell if you would come to the podium and

027I believe you'll join as well for one of the presentations >> and Mrs. Ding in this one. Um so I would first want to thank the board for having us here tonight. It is truly an honor to be recommending um these two amazing educators tonight. I'm going to start off with It's just CJ Hookers. Well, kind of. I'll sh I share her with Mr. St. Lawrence. Um, it is an absolute honor to recommend Miss Sarah Gold for a tenure tonight. Um, when you see her, um, the first thing you can see, please come up, Sarah. Um the first thing I thought when I met her um was she's so positive, so kind, so caring. And you see this in everything that she does. When she's in the gym with her students, when she's on the

028field, even when she's on lunch duty helping with recess, um she's everything she does is with a light and energy and positivity. We all know that not everybody's born a natural athlete, unfortunately. and PE can be difficult for some students. When you're in her classroom, every student is thriving. Um, in one of the lessons I got to observe with her, um, there's a student that was struggling with bad mitten and couldn't get couldn't get it over the net. And she was with the student side by side guiding her and the student was laughing and you could tell she was embarrassed because it's middle school. Um, and Mr. kept her confidence. And when the student finally got to hit the the birdie over the net, um the the you could tell which one of us was

029not good with rabbit sports. Um she was so confident and felt so great in her space and I think that has a lot to do with the environment this year brings to our classroom. She's a leader in the department. Um she brings a positive energy, innovative lessons and a lot of times the PE has come a long way from when I was a student where you just stretch and you can participate. They integrate so many different um different technology in the lesson in the lessons and she's she spearheads that um she is reliable, hardworking. You ask anybody to hey I need a volunteer to do something, Mr. Urgle's right there with a positive attitude and a smile. She is truly a pleasure to work with. Um, and if you look through her tenure portfolio, not

030sure if you saw, she could do back flips. There's nothing that she can't do. Um, and she's truly an asset to our department and to our district. Um, in addition to what she does in the building, she's phenomenal coach. And I know Mr. St. Lawrence um, is agreeing. Um when we were talking about um we wrote a letter together and speaking about Sarah, one of the things that came up is that she's truly a gem um that we found and we're so grateful to have her with Goan and I really happily recommend her for tenure and I'm excited for all the great things that she's going to do and continue to do in our district and our community. Mrs. Cressy, would you mind joining us up here, please? This is a very special night. And

031what makes it extra special is when you get to see one of your staff members move through the instructional continuum in the district. Mrs. Cressy started with us as a teachers aid then became a teachers assistant and while she was doing that she pursued her certification in special education and general education and also became a certified academic language therapist. She received her credentials through the international multiensory language education council. Thank you. I wrote it on a postit but I'm not going to look at it. um which is an accredited program through accredited plus program through the international dyslexia association. It's always a pleasure to observe Mrs. Cressy when I'm seeing her in her resource room seeing first and second graders talking about schwa dip thong consonant vowel consonant and going through their depths of vocabulary

032words is truly amazing and really a testament to Mrs. Pressy and the dedication to her students and be being a real lifelong learner. She is truly an asset. Reading is very difficult to teach. It's difficult to learn. But Mrs. Cy makes it very easy. And it is without hesitation that myself, Mrs. Driscoll, Mrs. Hindel present Mrs. Cy to you this evening for tenure. comes to the podium to present four of our educators. for this uh opportunity to really speak about and recommend tenure for these excellent teachers at this time. I'll call up Miss Ganon, Miss Kempy, Mr. Leading off um start off with uh Ms. Elizabeth Ganon. Uh when I had a chance to first observer in my first year at Goian High School, I was just amazed by having someone that worked in the

033field graduate of FIT and be able to apply these real world skills with our students. So, within the first uh few years, what she's accomplished, redesigned our library, decorated our mental health office, and just basically gave life to these spaces that were drab before. But more than that, she's a student advocate. She's with our students uh day in and day out as uh she's a co-curricular advisor to our crafting with kindness. And this uh advisory club uh is not just your run-of-the-mill club. It actually raises money for local charity foundations. So, uh, for local students inflicted with cancer and autism, um, just a tremendous job and a heartfelt mission by Miss Ganon. And along with that, um, one of the things that I really enjoyed as well, her connection and and really the K12 alignment

034of the fax program and working with our intermediate school and Mr. Dr. uh, Wetward's fine teachers in creating third grade monsters that the students make and that our students in their fashion program would bring them to life. And I know she uh she has some of her students make one for my daughter. She still brings it to bed. Um so I do thank you with it. It's has one eye, but it's still um and you know, I could talk all night about Miss Gand, but what I'd really like to do this evening and have some of our students speak on her behalf and uh had some quotes and we're going to lead off with uh Julianne Bonito. And so one thing that Juliana said is Miss Ganon is one of the sweetest, most genuine teachers

035I know. as a freshman. She immediately made her classroom a safe and welcoming space. I know that that if I needed anything, I could reach out to her and she'd be there to help me before I even knew it. So, thank you for being a safe space and an advocate for our students. Tony Paulino, we all love Tony spoke about you being a student advocate, passion for her content and refer to you as Miss uh inspirational. So that is very uh high regard and there's nobody else I would want to have taught me in this game who forever hold a mark on me. I thank you for everything. So I love Miss Canon. So shout out to Tony and of course Ryan Kulka who designed some of the spaces that I spoke about spoke about

036before. Um, also speaking about that safe space that Elizabeth creates, supporter and advocate and always leaves her room to smile. So, think about our students and not only teaching them content um about, you know, the more importantly how a teacher makes you feel and I think Miss Ganon exhibits that and sparked an interest in interior design. So many of her students in her classes go on to pursue that and commented her compassion, caring advice has helped me become a better person and if anyone deserves this great accomplishments it's you miss Gan. So with that I give Miss Ganon the highest recommendation um recommendation for tenure. Next, I'd like to uh have Miss Kempy. So, I've known Miss Kempy for a while. Um I did with full disclosure. I did uh u you know, poach her

037from another district. Sorry, Mr. Castle. My former superintendent reminds me of that. So, she comes to uh Goan with being tenured in in two other districts, Tri Valley and Walkill. Um when we had an opening and she applied, I was uh really ecstatic about her experience and the breath of knowledge that she has. But not only that, she's dual certified. And when in a pinch, we had an opening in a Spanish position. We had a leave placement. I knocked on her door. Hold on, Miss Kempy. Like, what's going on? I'm like, you're teaching Spanish. She's like, did an awesome job. And just think that you have a amazing high-powered English teacher that's teaching Spanish. Um it's there's really uh you know nothing better. She's also pursuing her doctorate so we appreciate her uh you know

038lifelong pursuit of education and the way that she interacts with the students in uh classes is just phenomenal. The project based I know she does her puppet theater and um along with that would make Mr. Reese happy. She did there was students like stage lighting in these little puppeteer shows. uh it was very very uh in depth and it just created a real life experience for our students and really the takeaway is again just this memory of uh what these kids have along with that you know all hours a day if you're at the school for our pep rallies our senior citizen banquet she's the one behind the scenes planning it and calling vendors to come donate their time and their food for for our residents and really just making our school um just the

039the the premier school in the Hudson Valley. and she's also a class adviser. So, a lot of these positions, you know, we we like to think about our teachers, what they do in the classroom, but outside as well. And all four of these educators do that as well. And again, speaking what the students really uh commented, uh this one student says, "I love my English teacher, Miss Kempy, because she makes learning feel meaningful and engaging every day. She creates a classroom environment where I feel comfortable sharing my ideas, and she also pushes me to think deeply and do my best. And she also makes me want to read more." And that's from Sam Salty. So Sam, God bless Sam Maddie Lenosi. And this is really special. So Miss Kempy's amazing no English teacher. She not

040only focuses on her academic static stat status, but focuses even on her well-being as a student. One example of this when I was injured this year, Miss Kempy made her job focus on me, making sure not only that I was getting my work up, but also I was okay throughout the whole process. So Maddie, Maddie is a heartfelt famous. and our friend Liam O'Hara, a hero of that spear trophy game. Miss Kempy is an amazing teacher. She keeps all of our topics interesting and engaging. Help me and others in class with helping our writing techniques. She's a cool person to be around. I agree with Liam, Maggie, and Sam. And I wholeheartedly endors Miss Kempy for tenure. >> Mr. Maline, come over here. Mr. Maline. So Mr. Molain and I go back. I met Mr.

041Molain. I don't want to date myself or him. Um, we'll just say, but he was a modified wrestler. I was the coach. So I was modeling the cement mixer, guine, all these different moves. And, uh, the one thing when you have a student athlete out in the mat, you have pride for them. Hunter would go all out. He would wrestle to the whistle. And you want to fight for these kids. You want to fight for uh, what they stand for. and he did this amazing job in the room that year and to see him full circle as one of my teachers that I hired. Um he just, you know, he leads blue and red. He's an alumni uh you know resident and he just was what is all about. And the thing about Hunter is

042he wants to be great. He his mentors uh from Mr. Izzy to Mr. Car Shower uh he's a student of the game and what he does is just amazing every day. So, uh his rigorous course load, the AP classes that he teaches, the capstone, he's bringing local civics into the classroom and his really students rave about his ability to bring two political spectrums inside a classroom uh that is really rare to see and de demonstrates a strong content knowledge uh inside and out. In terms of outside of the classroom, he is an adviser to our model UN program and also our youth in government which I also gave a knock on the door and say hey three months into school do you want to be advisor to this club that uh Mr. Bonjovi thankfully uh

043resurrected and Hunter did it in in an amazing fashion was able to create a team uh to go and compete and along with that he didn't himself is a modified coach coaching lacrosse. So coming in uh when I was leaving today I was reading a scoreboard getting ready for practice. So again, inside and outside the classroom. But enough of what from me. Two of uh our our shining stars at Goan High School, Dylan and Mary. Let's see what Dylan and Mary has to say. Dylan, Mr. Main is a type of teacher who constantly challenges students and forces critical thinking despite any of his personal views. Mr. Main has ability to play devil's advocate, utilizing his extensive knowledge in all fields in order to shift and promote mental growth in his students. He also puts extensive

044time effort into students personally memorizing specific events and supporting them inside and outside of school. He also said, "You're funny." That's that's debatable, but and then Mary Mott, Mr. Wayne has been incredibly dedicated and impactful teacher who consistently supports inspires his student. He creates a positive, engaging classroom environment and his passion passion for teaching, commitment to student success make him a truly valuable member of our school community. Again, I agree with Dylan and Mary wholeheartedly, and it's an honor to recommend you for tenure, Mr. M. Miss. Vanderbar, front center over here. So, Miss Vanderbar is a an amazing educator who is always dedicated to her students. Um, if I went through student quotes, I would have a three pages, four pages long. Um, and when I put some responses out, uh, it's really these common

045themes, Miss Vandermark, that really come again and again. So, basically, we're looking at someone who's dedicated and brings math to life. her project based learning uh her use of student centered instruction make complex complex concepts seems very accessible and really breaks them down on a on a on a very level that students can really understand. She creates a supportive environment where all students are embraced and again builds strong relationships that not only impact achievement but our confidence of our students. And when we think about extracurricular, there's if you again uh you know reference Miss Vandermark's tenure portfolio, she's on the ski slopes. She's on riding the luge at Great Adventure. Um you know, Mr. Lawson like going like this in his background and uh she's always supporting students at different events from um if I'm

046going to event, I see Miss Vandermark right there at a dance, prom, uh you name it, she's there with a smile on her face to support our students. So I thank you for all of that. and some of our students from uh of course Arouch who doesn't know Arouch great kid Arouch Bora and is as a freshman Arouch says Miss Vandermark every day makes sure that her class is always enjoyable with her class it's fun great environment to learn and collectively uh as a class we enjoy math freshman enjoying math I love it she's always helpful for school if we have a question or concern about lessons so I'm thankful that Miss Vandermark is my teacher and I hope to see that next generation of kids have our ocean as well and then our friend

047Matteo Van Pong Barbosa. Miss Vanmar's style of teaching is interactive. She's always animated and excited to teach. She always makes sure no students left behind and often stays until 5:00 p.m. to best help her students. Speaking for my class, we're all lucky to have her as is the go Central School District. With that, I give Miss Van my highest recommendation for Jen. Congratulations again to everyone. Uh you know it's so great to see all the support here. Uh you know sometimes uh we're not so happy to see so many people in board meeting but this is such a special and positive night. Thank you very much for coming. And we're going to take about a you know 12 or so minute 15 minute break. We have some coffee, cookies, water, and we'll take some pictures

048>> after the resolutions. Of course, though. >> We have to make it official. We know you've been here for a while. >> Sorry everyone. Sorry. needed to verify before we make it all official just uh thank you from all of us here for your dedication and support to this district making it wonderful. So I need a motion to approve the tenure candidates. We have everyone be resolved upon the recommendation of the interimm superintendent of schools. The board of education approves the tenure appointment of Fallon Melvin in the tenure area of elementary education effective September 1st, 2026 in favor. Congratulations. Be a lot of that. Dear resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education approves the tenure appointment of Richard Sternov in the tenure area of physical education, health education

049effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? >> I resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools. The board of education approves the tenure appointment Trisha Sanders in the tenure area of guidance effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? >> I resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools. The board of education approves a tenure appointment Annabelle Tab Tatcar in the tenure area of elementary education effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools. The board of education approves a tenure appointment Christina Urick in the tenure area of elementary education effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? >> I resolved upon the recommendation of the interimm superintendent of schools. The board of education approves the tenure appointment of Michelle Mendes

050in the tenure area of elementary education effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? >> I be resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent schools board of education approves tenure appointment of Nina de Rosier in the tenure area of music effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor I resolved upon the recommendation of the interimm superintendent of schools. The board of education approves the tenure appointment Kennedy Awalt in the tenure area of art effective September 1st 2026. All those in favor >> I resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools. The board of education approves the tenure appointment of Brian Johnson in the tenure area of physical education effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? I Be resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools. The board of education

051approves the tenure appointment of Genie Pressi in the tenure area of special education effective September 1st, 2026. All in favor? >> Be resolved. Upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education approves a tenure appointment Sarah Yergle in the tenure area of physical education effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? I. You resolve upon the recommendation of super interm superintendent of schools board of education approves tenure appointment of Elizabeth Ganon in the tenure area of home economics effective September 1st 2026. All those in favor >> I Being resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education approves a tenure appointment Kesha Kempsey in the tenure area of English effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? Hi. >> View resolved. On the recommendation of the

052interim superintendent of schools, the board of education approves a tenure appointment of Hunter Malain in the tenure area of social studies effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? I. be resolved. Upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools, the board of education approves a tenure appointment Vandermark in the tenure area of mathematics effective September 1st, 2026. All those in favor? >> I didn't miss anybody, right? Raise your hand just in case. All right. Again, congratulations. Thank you all so much. I need a motion for recre. All those in favor. We'll be right back. Thank you. Congratulations. All right. Ready? Yes. All right. >> Right. Thank you. I need a motion to reconvene the meeting. We have John Brett. All in favor? >> Okay. That was very exciting. You're just listening. We had a

053huge tenure presentation. Congratulation again to all of our teachers that got tenure tonight. All right. Next, moving on to the president's report. Just two items to report on tonight. It finally happened. We had our very last policy committee meeting where we reviewed our final bunch of policies to complete the very long policy audit. So, those will be up for the first and second readings, final adoptions, and then the full audit will be complete. Uh the other item to report on is we are on our last steps of our superintendent search. We are down to board interviews. The team over at Boseies has been doing a really nice job >> guiding our subcommittee through the process of full board. So we're down to our last stage now and the board will be conducting some interviews for

054our finalists and hopefully making our offering decision very soon. Everybody who's been part of that process and our we thank you. Thank you to the team of Boseies for for the wonderful guidance. All right, moving on now our student representative report. >> Thank you. Um not too many updates tonight. So for Goian High School, I would like to wish best of luck to the varsity track team as they are attending Henry this week. Um, the Ocean High School band and Orchestra will be performing April 28th at 7 p.m. followed by the coral concert April 29th at also 7 p.m. For the middle school, the incoming sixth grade parent orientation will take place tomorrow at 6 p.m. And along with GIS, the Orange County Music Educators Association Elementary Festival will be held on April 25th for

055students in the arts from both uh CJ and GIS. I would like to congratulate the cast of Winkle Fu for their successful performance over the weekend at GIS. And for SIS, spring picture day will take place tomorrow, April 22nd. And the second grade dance is scheduled for from April for April 24th from 6 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I'd also like to shout out currently I'm in civic action leadership. So in this class you uh do what's called the capstone project. So a project you hold out in the community. I'm doing a project to help the readers um the young readers in our community. So, I'm currently holding a book drive collecting books for children ages 5 to 7. There's um donation boxes at all the Goan schools, this building um and the Goan public library.

056So, if anyone has any books they'd like to donate, please do so. And the drive will end April 24th. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you very much, Francesca, and good luck with the Capstone project. That's >> great. >> Okay. Okay. Do we have any board member committee legislative or Oxford reports to share this evening? No. Very good. Anybody like to discuss any of the policies? You want me to I can quickly just run through some of the uh since it's kind of like a celebration of the last group of policies that we had to do. So the a the academic academic intervention services this replaces the current policy uh brings it up to speak with the guide current guidelines the program for English language learners replace also replaces current policy on the topic and

057reflects the new regulations the admission of nonresident students. So this changes the current policy that so the district can no longer be accepting non-resident students except in certain cases uh student activities funds management. So we're adding to the current policy so that any event hosted by a district approved club that charges attendance and it requires the paid services of others. So for example, perhaps district employees, custodians, um that the club, the sponsoring club must incur the cost of those extra charges. Uh and then the last two about meals, charging of meals, it just the last two and the free meal services just replaces uh current policies just to get the new policy and new book number. >> Right. Yes. Thank you for respon to our interim superintendent report. Back over to you. >> Thank you,

058Mr. President. So, uh, I've been involved with the Mid Hudson School Study Council for a number of years. I serve on the executive board as the past president. Uh, so each year they do two awards for excellence, one in the fall and then another ceremony in the spring. So, this spring ceremony is on Wednesday, May 6th. It's a very nice ceremony at North Rockland Middle School. They have a great spread of food from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. and then the meeting and awards at 6:30. So in spring the categories are excellence in teaching. So uh last week we presented that to Miss Margaret Rossi. So is our teacher winner for this year. Congratulations to Mrs. Rossi. Uh there's a category um excellence in community service. So uh we we the award is going to Susan

059Armstead who's done an amazing thing bold amazing things for our district. Um certainly she's one of those people. She does not love recognition. Um she's kind of behind the scenes but does so much for the district. Um so she will be honored. And then also actually an excellence in board service award. Uh so I did speak to that recipient uh today. So they were aware Billy Castell was nominated winning the award for board service. Well unfortunately he couldn't be here tonight but we wanted to kind of surprise him and the rest of the board. So again this is a this is a free event. So the award winners are can bring as many family and friends as they'd like to come support. It's a very quick night really. Um like I said 5:30 to 6:30

060is in the uh in the lobby and then we go right to their beautiful auditorium and it's done at 7:30. It's an hour. It's not long. So you don't have to speech or anything. So we congratulate and thank all those people for what they do for our district. Uh just a reminder uh you know the and I'll be asking the principles and directors to be helping to reach out. So we passed a lot of uh new policies this year dealing with booster clubs. So when I give it a grace period uh till March though certainly one of the first things that the booster clubs had to do according to our new policies was simply to register just to register with the district so we know who who is you know who the officers are what's

061the name of the booster club what's the purpose of the booster club so we're a little behind on them doing that so just a reminder um all the registration materials are on the website uh there's a link to those pages And I'll be asking the Bristol director, like I said, to reach out to those people that they know of the booster clubs for their area and to please ask those people to get those in. Uh tonight we have a uh presentation. We try to do monthly presentations on academic issues. So um we have done amazing things over many years in the air technology. I'm just going to pass it over the introduction to Dr. Carter. This will be our go Central School District technology department and our presentials will be uh Dr. Carter, John Reker

062and Jim Strick. anticipation. >> Yes, it really is. All right. Good evening everyone. Uh so first and foremost, thank you for giving us the opportunity to present tonight regarding the go Central Swim District Technology Department. We had a chance to uh put together a lot of great information to share and essentially our goal here is to provide you with a brief overview of everything that we've been doing here as a team uh especially regarding current initiatives, the progress that we've made um certainly this year but throughout many years and also the future direction of our technology program. And so we're hopeful that you'll see as we go through our slides that everything that we work for and everything that we complete together um is to support our teaching initiatives and our classroom instruction. And also

063uh as Mr. Sterk gets through, you'll realize uh much of his work uh is regarding maintaining a safe and a reliable network and infrastructure here in the district. uh and of course there are other massive issues that we're well aware of including not limited to law 2D and data privacy and also as many of you have heard us talk around the table uh emerging issues or emerging initiatives such as artificial intelligence chat GBT etc. Um, okay. So as you see uh primarily the technology leadership team including Mr. Bonjobi um starts with myself and leads into the work of Mr. Stern our our technical services director and also Mr. Recker who's been with us for quite some time leading instructional technology as our coordinator. Uh but we also have the luxury and pleasure of working with

064Mr. Therret staff that he'll briefly mention to you. >> Yes. Our tech team consists of Walter Thompson who was uh recently somewhat recently started with us from U Boseies and came on as a technician. Now he's uh earned the title of network specialist. So he's a great addition to our team. Anthony Chisum has been here for decades now as a computer specialist. Jonathan Conor, a relatively new addition, another great member of the team. And our most recent, the inevitable Salangelo, inevitable, I should say. Um and uh so between us all, we we have great chemistry. We're doing everything we can to keep go moving forward and relevant and just supporting all the kids, students, faculty, staff, administration. Uh on the instructional support side, we have Michelle Gerardi, longtime computer teacher at Scotchtown Avenue School, planting

065the seeds of technology for our K2 kids. Kendra Parchinsky, fertilizes, waters those seeds at the next level. And then Melissa Bailey, she gets them when they're when they're just about ripe and ready to go in the middle school. Uh their imagination and integration of technology throughout curriculum u is a great service to the district as a whole. And um they are our first line of what we need to do for the kids to make uh technology relevant in their schools at all the levels. the uh some of the work that we've done is uh really forefront those folks that Jim just mentioned are really at the forefront of instruction day-to-day but a lot of the work that you see here has to happen behind the scenes. There's a lot of u not Jim the physical

066infrastructure with Jim but also the u the legal infrastructure the protection for students and things like that have to happen as well. So, uh, a number of years ago, we we were hit with New York State Education Law 2D, part 121, which if you're not familiar with it, talks about student data privacy. And as we all know, uh, data is currency, right? People want people's data, and we have to protect that with students. So, that's a primary job that I have. Uh, we'll talk more about that uh, later. Uh, one of the things that I talk about, but I'll give some interesting data on that. Uh, we also are are responsible for submitting three-year goals every year. So, we we submit three-ear technology goals. I think Mr. Carter will talk about that. uh just last

067year um actually after a couple of years they introduced the New York State digital fluency and computer science standards. Um so these are all things that have come at us that we've had to sort of uh approach beyond the fact that we grew through COVID and help train teachers and things like that. These are all policy things that really helped guide uh the decisions that we make in this department. Uh LA just this year we we in increased the distraction-free learning environment. If you're not familiar with that, it's what the governor used to call the the cell phone ban, but the governor now changed it to the distraction free learning environment. So, we we've adapted to that. America's Disabilities Act is changing. Uh that's a federal law, but that's changing this next cycle uh uh

068this next school year and beyond uh to adapt for those things. And then uh we're actually looking at some artificial intelligence bills um that are in committee in New York State government. So, we're we're concerned to look ahead at those things, but you can't just sort of look in internal internally in your departments in a school district and say, you know, hey, we're good or we like our our program. We have a lot of legal things that come at us uh from every angle. So, stuff that we have to pay attention to, >> right? And so now what you have in front of you um is is just a visual to describe and highlight some of the work that we've done here uh to establish what I would consider to be um clear policies, procedures,

069and guidelines for use of technology throughout the district. And so you realize this is extremely important and it's something that is ongoing and will continue to be. Um no question about it. Technology is ever evolving and for us the number one key is to stay aware of how it's evolving and to stay ahead as we plan so that we can continue to ensure that we have implementation that is very thoughtful uh and on behalf of student learning and teaching initiatives. And so as you look from the left and and just kind of go around, you realize that they they range from our acceptable use policies uh that everyone is familiar with that everyone has to acknowledge upon logging in moving over to device management whether it be purchasing of some devices that we've talked about

070at the table in the past or replacement cycles uh or even recycling plans. We do have plans for that. When we move on to the three-year NIST tech plans, this is actually something that is required every three years to be placed on the portal. Um it's something that takes a lot of um thought and a lot of planning so that we can make these goals that we realize uh are achievable and sustainable in the future. And then obviously there are some pieces that are handed down to us by our local government, state government etc. Um but everything is beyond uh everything is rather for proper use um in instruction on behalf of our students. That is the absolute key. So this allows us to continue to implement our technology thoughtfully while maintaining a safe atmosphere,

071responsible atmosphere for our students and our teachers. Thinking of a safe atmosphere, security awareness training is something that we've uh been implementing for a number of years now. Basically what it is, every month uh all faculty and staff receive a simulated fishing email and if they click on it then training follows uh required training. So, um, as you can see, well, I'd say we started this in and, uh, you know, so we have several hundred messages going out per month and when we first started sending them out, people were clicking on them people and they would complain to me and they h they they would get so angry and I can only say you're welcome because it was doing exactly what it was intended to do. And as you can see now, everybody I still

072get complained at. Uh I still get nasty emails and again all I can say is you're welcome because they're really learning that they are targeted regardless. Every time you go online you're targeted. So people are learning that and they're learning it well. And so I try to instill upon them that they are our first line of cyber security defense. Uh the Chromebook replacement cycle which Dr. Carter alluded to that's been going on since September 2021. We uh provide the incoming sixth graders and incoming um ninth graders with new Chromebooks. Sixth graders use them. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Then those are returned and repurposed or recycled. Uh the ninth graders keep their Chromebooks for the duration of their high school career. And at uh their graduation, they have the option of taking it with them,

073which is is a win for both sides because they get a decent device that they've been using and we don't have to concern ourselves with the recycle process, which is, you know, a job in itself. Um classroom technology updates, they they go on annually as needed. desktop computers in all the classrooms as needed, laptop computers, interactive flat panels that we have to keep updating um and document cameras which you know come and go. So it's your basic classroom technology that we just make sure everything is working and uh that everybody has what they need. Uh regarding infrastructure security and updates, we have performed firewall upgrades to give us the latest and greatest on protection on that side. um enhanced VPN security. We uh certainly have, you know, enhanced security throughout. VPN was one of our

074first strengthening targets because that that's a vulnerable area. So, uh, we included multiffactor authentication on all VPN connections which are extremely limited to only those individuals that absolutely need to connect to our network when they're not in district. The fiber optic network has been replaced across the entire campus. We bury fiber from building to building to building across Scotchtown Avenue. um that was completed in 2023, October 2023. Um so that should the fiber before was buried in 1996. So we we have some time with that. It's it was done really high quality work we got done. Uh secondary internet connection which we now have has all our guest and BYOD traffic on it. Um and that just allows more bandwidth for the production environment, production network and it can also be used in a pinch

075if we lose our connection to the internet from OUS we can transition over. So uh that was another great improvement regarding security. Multiffactor authentication is implemented for all users um using Google. whenever they log into their Google accounts, they're required to um get a code or a push notification through Duo. Um and then uh Mr. Bonjobi, Dr. Carter and I met with the NICD information security office for a data security review back in October and from that we are continuing to strengthen and update our policies and plans and uh implement recommendations to basically strengthen our overall security. That's where we're at. I mentioned this earlier but continuing on with security uh this is now data privacy security um I was the date slipped my mind earlier but in 2020 uh Edlaw 2D came to came

076to play and what I used to say uh it's like the wild west um and it's a really exciting thing when teachers find content or or material that looks awesome maybe they have a friend in another state who's a teacher or even just another district but they have a different uh legal framework or a different law firm uh Sometimes that matters. Um, so this is a screenshot of the portal that we use. Um, every teacher can log in to see approved websites and things that have been unapproved uh based on student privacy data. So there's a whole bunch of metrics. There's about six buckets that every uh website company has to check if you're going to have kids sharing their first name, their last name, their school district, which are also our email extensions. So

077uh these are very important for us and teachers can see when it's when it's effective when it is expired and we review over 300 software applications annually. Um and this is now done through a process that a portal that we discovered called education privacy network which is phenomenal. Uh, but this is also really helpful because it also streamlines and tightens our curriculum because not only are we looking for for privacy, but when it comes through a request from from a teacher to to my office, I look at it and I say, well, have you, you know, kind of have you asked a friend? Have you turned and talked to your colleagues? Do you need another program for math and third grade or do we have enough? You know, let's do a comparison and see what

078we have. So, we also look at the academic rationale. Are we are we do are we playing infotainment where we're just playing games uh and thinking we're learning or do we need this as a as a practical tool? So those are the kind of um conversations that I have with uh EDL2D and and and applications that we request and Jason's going to talk about some goals. So before we get into the goals I would also say regarding the last uh two slides um Mr. Mr. Bonjovi, I hope you would agree. I think we did a pretty decent job as we met with the office of of data and security. You know, a few recommendations that that we've been working through, nothing major. Uh and also the work that we do with Ed Law 2D, although

079at times uh may be overwhelming, it's absolutely necessary for a multitude of reasons. not only security uh but it has a large part to do with consistency in instruction and what we're providing our students and also there's a large financial component because what we've learned all of us around the table over time is that nothing is free even when it's free at the beginning whether it be you know 30 days 60 days 90 days there's always a price attached to it and when you become used to something you want to maintain it right and so the vetting process that we go through I I truly believe in and I think we've been doing a great job and Mr. Reiger certainly has been a large a large part in that had a large large part in

080that and so now we move to our next two slides and these are really important as I had mentioned earlier uh we are responsible for putting together uh a technology plan that must be submitted through the state and it also goes through a vetting process um through OU Boseies and so we do work with Forest he does take a look at everything that we do as he does for every component district uh and then it gets finalized through the state uh and So what you're looking at now would be the three goals that we created for that first cycle of 2225. And on our next slide, we'll go through um what is up on the portal right now for approval for the 26 through 29 cycle. And so when you look at these slides, uh

081they truly do uh highlight the work that we've done to adhere to NISA requirements. Um but but also it gives a general idea uh of what we've been able to achieve together throughout the district and also the direction that we're headed in. And I think there will be more clarity when I when I get into the next one. Uh and so I I will cover cover goal three. I don't want to jump ahead. I think we had planned on teaming it up. >> And so if you just uh wanted to talk about one real quick. >> Yeah. I mean, we I kind of just went over that, but it it's just a of course it's a it's a continual progression advancement. We have to do everything we can to keep our network safe and and

082functional. So, that's what we're doing, trying to make it, you know, work as well as it possibly can while keeping it available to all faculty, staff, students as well as the community at large. And >> I think the larger component of that is the education component. And so, you know, we are very fortunate. We have fantastic TAs that assist us throughout the building in addition to Mr. Star staff. Uh, and so everyone knows what we're trying to achieve. Everyone is for the most part aware of the goals and everyone understands the expectation when it comes to use of technology, which I believe is imperative. >> Two. >> So, the second goal is about u having a robust recursive um staff development plan. uh that ran into a little bit of uh struggles with it towards

083the end of this timeline because of some some budget reductions that we had to make for staff development in terms of after school programming things like that. But when I look at what kind of programming that we've offered that I've offered through the district um it averages about 200 hours per year of staff development and that doesn't necessarily count for the embedded like during the day uh type work. That means after school, after hours, formalized staff development that we've had. And uh part of this goal is that I've met with uh the every new teacher that we hire, every tenure candidate that we just approved tonight, I've met with at least three times in their cycle of tenure from introduction in the summer, their first year to then through their their um mentoring program and

084just making sure that they know not only how to get oriented and how to log in and take attendance, but also then how to use the programs for best practice and instruction. So that that's been a big part of my my work. And so again, you have a goal in front of you uh that is extremely important for many reasons. Uh everything that we do by way of professional development adheres to goal number two throughout our district. Uh with that central theme of acceptable use, proper use, responsible use, ethical use, etc. Uh right down to the creation of our digital portfolios for this evening. Um we strongly believe that, you know, we we have a robust software offering here. We've got programs uh essentially coming out of our ears, but each serves a strong purpose

085uh for instruction. We cannot expect that everyone understands how to use it immediately. Some people do need personalized instruction, better known as professional development. And so everything comes through my office through frontline. It is a proposal. We sit down, we make sure it aderes to the goal, that it will help us to achieve the goal, and that it's sustainable. And then we put it into play. Uh and that's been our action plan for the better part of you know five, six, seven years. Um we found success with it and and hopefully we can continue with that. And when it comes to goal three um and you'll see in our next slide, it's an important goal and it will also be a rollover goal for us when it comes to um a strong commitment to stakeholder

086involvement. That's absolutely imperative. And so you know we all know what a stakeholder group is. That's in district and that's the greater school community. we have to have involvement uh of all of these individuals. And so that was very evident in our last cycle when we went through our cell phone policies and updates to adhere to the law. Uh everyone had a say including our students which probably was the most important voice in the room. And I think that we've had uh general success with implementation of that policy and maybe more importantly general happiness with implementation of the policy. We haven't had our students really um upset with being able to access or not access having communication or lack of comm everything uh by way of feedback has been fine. Um throughout our buildings and

087collaboration with our stakeholders in each building, they have a part in asking for professional development that aderes to our goals, but more importantly the instructional program that we're all aware of. And so I believe uh goal three is a strong goal uh that deserves to be rolled over. And so now as we move to the next three-year cycle 26 through 29 um Mr. Sarah will talk a little bit about goal one. >> Uh again, it it's it's the same it's a constant uh you know this is what we do. We we keep it. We modernize. We improve. We advance. Um we keep up with the times. We uh change what we have to. We move things where we have to. You know, if they're going to the cloud, we'll certainly take advantage of that. and

088with cyber security first and foremost uh you know in mind because we didn't want to have anything like that happen again. Um so uh and that that's it like I said I mean it it's it's a continual progressive movement towards better. >> So goal one and three for the next threeear cycle are very similar but goal two changed pretty dramatically. While it does still have a core basis of how we approach teaching and learning, it also now uh unpacks really the AI uh movement. And so that's going to be a huge uh it is already a huge uh lift in schools um both for students uh where we purchased a program called Magic School uh which we'll continue to invest in that teachers can actually monitor and assess and do formative uh formative assessment over

089what how students are using AI tools if they choose to. uh it's not open for everybody but uh this this also means we need to do a lot more training with teachers with clerical with admin with everybody about what this looks like and then also opening it up into uh families as well what artificial intelligence looks like in a in a learning environment uh which is very new for us. So as you collectively look at goals one through three again three being another rollover uh everything that we've built for this cycle is about u sustaining what we've been able to achieve and strengthening what we know we can strengthen um with a with a high level of fiscal responsibility. Right? we can go out and spend millions of dollars to get the new bells and

090the whistles, but we believe that we have strong foundation and so we want to sustain that and strengthen where appropriate where we know we can. Um, but then also we want to ensure that there's preparedness for the future. And so it goes into some of that AI discussion, the magic uh school discussion. Um, in order for us to do that, there has to be stakeholder involvement. It has to start with our building leadership. it has to go into you know those that will implement and be the largest part of implementation and all out into the community so that there's preparedness and understanding and so we do have plans uh and we have been discussing um coming up with our uh AI task force per se so that we can develop uh a group and come

091up with responsible use and establish those guard rails before we just open it up for the masses. This will help us to have a little bit of control over you know the breakout of such tools but also ensure that um it's more for productivity rather than replacing what we're we're very special with and very good at in the classroom. Okay. >> All right. And so as you look at at this slide and and John and I will uh team up with this as well um you know NISD is is always cutting edge and always passing down standards and and with that there's um a high level of responsibility in a unpacking and understanding and then um developing programs that will help us to to spread the word about such um standards. And so this came

092our way uh in 2020 and as soon as it hit we started to unpack and take a deep look at everything we had going on within our curriculum um K12. And so what we found is that you know there was there was a lot that checked the box and was embedded in our current curriculum. But then we also found areas that needed to be focused and and strengthened. Um and so we'll talk a little bit about that. Um but I think it's important to stress that right from the onset we were very fortunate because we focused a lot on digital literacy uh and digital citizenship and a lot of what we were doing was already checking the box. We we were not behind very far. So on the right hand side you'll see we're going

093to share the slides with you uh as well but at the this on the right hand side was a a gra a spreadsheet that I created. I unpacked the uh standards that are listed there by band by grade band and then I listed them out with exemplars for what they might look like by grade level and we set them out to those folks that you saw earlier on the slide for who works in the buildings dayto day with with the children at each grade level and if you see my the metric there was where do we do it do we do it in our computer science program or do we do it in our general curriculum or both and let's talk about where so for instance in in GIS they're doing uh some some u

0943D printing with um when they're studying landform forms. They're building mountains and river valleys with 3D printing as well. So, they're doing it with their science class as well as with the computer science program that they have with Mrs. Parchinsky. But that this is really important to see and it helped us identify where gaps are and this needs to be an ongoing recursive uh pro process that we continue to take a look at um to see where our gaps are in our computer science program. The biggest challenge of course if you know much about computer science and what what Jim really focuses on is at the secondary level it gets very complicated um where at the elementary there they and they these standards are great. They'll say discuss the difference between public and private, right?

095So in kindergarten and first grade, you can talk about the bathroom and versus the playground, right? Public and private and those kind of things. That applies towards computer science. When you get up to the secondary level, um it really does start to talk about network infrastructure, VPNs, those more complicated things. So it does scaffold really nicely, but it's something that we're going to continue to need to work on in the district. >> Good. Um the we mentioned this before as well. The governor's uh cell phone ban turned into what we call the distraction-free learning environment. Uh we had four stakeholder meetings last school year to start to build into what this might look like. Some of you had joined. Of course, the policy uh went came through the the board of education and then into

096the buildings to see how we we look at this as well. Um this also enabled us to shut down student Wi-Fi which has been really helpful for our network security as well as student focus. uh we've seen a lot more student engaged and in interpersonal connections. Kids are playing cards in the lunchroom and things like that where they can actually engage and maybe Franchesca would have something to say about this too, but I I'd be curious to know afterwards, but I know we're getting on long here as well. Um but I also want to mention that I led a book study. If you have if you have not read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Height, uh he's really at the forefront of a lot of this conversation. We had about 40 teachers across the district

097doing a book study that I led with Eileen Behringer, the high school librarian. Uh so we met together we did some asynchronous virtual uh work as well but this was really significant for us and it dovetailed really really timely because if we're calling it a distraction-free environment the cell phone is it also was a conversation about um how much tech do we use? What's our screen time look like? How do we model this as teachers in front of our students? Uh I would question our Chromebooks part of a distraction-free environment or not. You know there's a lot of things you can do on a Chromebook and how do we ma manage that? So, one of the things that I focused on with professional development is what's called the SAMR model for um implementing um technology.

098And so, it begins with S is the bottom tier. It's substitution. So, we're doing a worksheet on a Chromebook. It's still a worksheet. It's substitution, right? It's just digital. All the way up to the R, which would be a scaffold to redef. And so, those are really important conversations to have. And that's what we need to be striving towards with technology use in our school district. That's just the kind of work that I've done with professional development. It's been really wellreceived throughout that. >> So, it's important to mention that with with the book study, these are um professional developments that we we sponsor. Um and at that point when we had started to talk about, you know, this distraction-free environment, but then also uh screen time and the use of other devices, we wanted to

099create awareness. It's our job to educate and that is built into our goals and this was a great opportunity to bring colleagues together districtwide to have these discussions about what it looks like and the slide in of the SAM model uh it really fit the mold of what we were trying to do at that point in time. So as mentioned earlier now we move into the ADA title 2 compliance uh and you see here there's a firm deadline uh of April 26 2027 and so uh we've started the work uh first inhouse of course but then also um for the time being through our our cap region and and the mid Hudson regional to ensure that all of our materials that you would find on our web are accessible by every single person including those

100with disabilities which is key. Uh if you recall even locally uh just a few years back there were many school districts that were actually having uh some issues with with this u compliance of of ADA and materials on the web uh because there was a habit of simply placing a PDF which didn't necessarily allow for modification or accommodation or adaptation. Uh and so this this uh actually involves an extensive amount of work. It's nothing that can be done by one person and it is most certainly nothing that can be done over maybe a week or a month. It's going to take um a strong effort and a consistent effort to make this happen. So we just put together the slide that talks a little bit about you know the standard itself, where we are, the

101deadline um and what we anticipate being uh a collective effort of number of hours to get this to happen. I put together a little timeline just so we can reflect too on this big elephant in the room that I talked about before as a goal. But November 30th, 2022 was the uh the birth date of CI GBT uh where OpenAI sort of broke the sort of changed the whole world in in releasing that that platform. Uh by 2023, we were proactive just a couple months later as a school district. Um and we and we sent a memo from the superintendent's office to all teachers saying, "Don't be scared. Put your feet in the water." We didn't say, you know, go out and adopt everything, but said, put your feet in the water. Just just test

102it out a little bit. So, we started to get there. We said, this is going not going to go away. This is something we need to do. Uh, follow up that next year, we did a lot of training on that. Uh, September 24, we purchased Magic School AI and I started to go around to school, the school buildings and work with the instructional staff there to sort of pursue what it looks like to use AI as a classroom teacher or as an administrator or what have you. By 2025, this is very interesting to me. Uh, schools around the county have taken a different approach on this, but Google Gemini, Notebook LM um, signed the ED2B agreement that we talked about before about personally identifiable information, but some schools just opened it very very widely said

103go ahead without training for teachers and kids and and guidance and guardrails. So, we have not done that and that's something that we can talk about as a governance body and think about what you want to do. But, uh, I have written uh, with Dr. Carter, a governance policy, a governance document, not a policy, but how do we talk about this? So, we start with first with ad administration, work with teacher leaders, work with teachers, pull in parents, pull in student groups. We're going to need to do those kind of things. And there's some major questions out here like how do you define cheating in the world of AI? You know, what does plagiarism look like with artificial intelligence? the you can even site artificial intelligence using you know MLA format or or APA that

104we used to learn use to site papers in college and things like that. So we need to think through some of this and uh we really need to start to have some conversations which I've sort of outlined a map for with Mr. Carter to think about how we bring in our stakeholders and do that. So we're looking forward to pursuing that with all of you uh and bringing that to your attention soon as well. Looking for any feedback would be great as well. Generally speaking, one of the things that I've thought about for a long time is this concept of um we talk a lot in teaching about best practices. Uh I've used the mantra for a long time, best practices to next practices. What's coming up next? Don't throw the baby out with the

105bathwater for traditional modalities, but what can we do that will improve us for the future and keep some of that right? Paper and pencil is still very strong for cognition. The brain research is showing that. But what can we do that's creative and new? And I don't know if I use this anecdote when I talk to vendors a lot on the phone, but uh sometimes we get stuck in the same software. And if you have kids in the district, you might know that my kids are using the same tool, you know, very frequently. I like this screen. This little screenshot is from the Nintendo Wii. If you were a Nintendo Wii player, video games, but this is a video game company that wants you to be playing more time, but yet they would say, "Take

106a break with a picture of an open window." And sometimes our teachers need this, too. We just need to say, "Let's take a break and let's try something else, right? Let's move move on." So I use this a lot for how I think about software practice and it helps us to evaluate what are we doing as far as our best practice in instruction. So that's one of the major concepts that guides our decisions. And to that end um we've done an incredible job if you look at our uh the trend line on this instructional software budget uh from 2020 down to 2026 27 the projected uh academic instruction budget for next school year. Uh we've looked at software and said not just use but best use. Are we using it well? Are we using it

107correctly? And we've been able to pair things down to not cut completely but to trim to use a scalpel instead of a chainsaw, right? To go through and trim things down and to to figure out where we're wrong. So I think we're in a really healthy financial position where at COVID we really grew and blew up and we gave everything. We had all sorts of tools. Uh but now the philosophy has really been what are we doing with tools that are creation instead of consumption tools. Uh we've also moved things over into some other buckets. We've picked up some PPS tools uh as well. Uh but we've also then said hey wait a minute this is not an instructional tool. This is an a testing tool. So maybe sit Mr. Carter's bucket uh or or

108this is a management tool. So it sits in in the network administration but bucket. But as far as instructional tools go, I think we're in a healthy place and we've done a really nice job in in pairing that down. >> And so truly the the approach here and John had mentioned it 2020 2021 is the first one there for a reason. We had a very small software budget um leading into 2020 2021 and it's no secret we were faced with the co9 pandemic, right? And so for us to have a remote instructional program, we needed um robust tools. We needed a a big toolbox. And so this is what came our way to the tune of 273 plus. Uh and then within the next two years, those prices because a lot of them were the

109sign on price, get a good price, and then they increase on year two and then the increase in year three because vendors like to lock you into three-year deals. Uh and we realized, hey, you know, we need to do a better job here. And so we streamlined the process and we spent a great deal of time in the office looking at what we had looking for um redundancies. We were looking at metrics saying, you know, so we've got 800 licenses. Let's pull up every user and let's look at the number of minutes that they're spending actually using their login and actually spending time using this as an instructional tool. And so you can see over time there's been a downward shift. Um and and of course John had mentioned you know we we reallocated uh

110with Marine's help with Miss Vamparan's help you know putting things in the correct bucket right based on coasters and other private agreements and so on. Um and we've landed on on this proposal which I truly believe over time has shown a great deal of fiscal responsibility uh and teamwork and trying to achieve what we're trying to achieve throughout our district. Uh so we're we're quite pleased with where we're at today. Then as you look at um instructional initiatives, uh we all we all have a part in this and so I think it's extremely important um to pull out some of the highlights here uh which would include the continued support of project lead the way. So everything that we do we talk about a continuum of learning and Mr. Star had mentioned you know when

111he was speaking about our teaching assistants in the building and how some plant the seed and the next one waters it and so on and so on. Uh and that's truly the reason behind uh our project lead the way support. You know, this is this is something that creates or helps us to create and maintain um a K12 continuum of learning especially in the area of steam which we understand looking to the future uh is booming right there's many opportunities there and you've been a part uh of the growth in those programs including um our CTE pathways and looking at other pathways for graduation and so you know we are well aware that from SAS to GIS to CJ Hooker u we've got this in place which encourages is our hands-on learning and and those

112that have an inquisitive nature and so on and so forth, but also it leads right into uh what we consider to be a world-class steam lab at the high school uh and establishes that K12 continuum as it stands today. I would say to you that this is a this plays a large part in what we're trying to achieve um by way of of portrait of a graduate and giving our students opportunities um not just for you know the academic nature of of steam but also career readiness. Uh and so it's important to mention this and then as we move on um you know others here we'll talk about some of the other items on here and then we'll move into district initiative >> just in regard to the digital art lab at the high school

113the uh high school art department uh expressed the great need to have a lab of their own. So, we put together a in the old um faculty room, we put together a lab dedicated for the art department at the high school of 30 high performance computers that uh we take care of and update as needed. They are using Adobe Creative Cloud and all the uh so or shouldn't say all but many of the applications within such as animate and Photoshop any anything else? illustrator. So, >> illustrator and uh and it's been a great success and and I think the high school art department might be happy. I don't know Nicki. >> Um so that that's been a great success and then um just a little bit of success story here but uh you can see

114it but since 2017 85 teachers been certified Google Google um users at level one 36 to level two. was the professional development that I led that that is able to then take and turn key and they feel a lot more confident and capable in the school buildings. Uh I think Mr. Carter might have taken that class once too but u >> I am a certified level one I may even know. >> Yeah. Um and then a couple couple of things that are not necessarily instructional but very helpful. Uh we know that a lot of people are uh parents are looking for more the the right place to go. We give a kid a device with the onetoone initiative. What do they do with it at home? We give access to parents uh to to GoG

115Guardian basically after school which is our monitoring and filtering program. If you want that Chromebook as a parent to turn it into a brick at four o'clock because you don't want them scrolling or searching or whatever, you have the power to do that as a parent to turn that Chromebook into a brick at four o'clock. You want to shut down a certain app that they're on, you can do that. Um if you want to guide them in a right direction and you're not home from work, you can actually do that. Open up websites for them on their device. So very powerful tool, a little bit underutilized, but powerful for those that have found it. We also have class linking for families which which puts a lot of the apps in one place for them. There's

116a lot of places that you have to look in school for school as a parent to look and see where you need to go. Then of course you saw the portfolio work for tenure candidates. We've worked on digital citizenship and working with the high school. Uh I've worked with Mr. Pentleon to implement passport for good which will be potentially changing this year to another platform. But the idea is now we have a digital platform where students can actually track their community service and involvement so that they can actually build a better more robust portfolio of the work that they've done uh in in their school time. So that's a a couple of great initiatives that may be flying under the radar that we wanted to to show you about. And so now we we move

117into those um district-wide initiatives. And of course, um it it really talks about um all the things that we're trying to do collectively throughout the district um to not only support but also strengthen all of our programs, all of our collaboration, all of our communication. Uh and so I will quickly just mention, you know, you're you're well aware as parents of the Parent Square app. Um and and primarily that's used for all of our communication. And so now we're we're looking into opening up uh Parent Square pay and also Parent Square sites. And so, you know, we anticipate that pay uh will help to streamline a lot of the operations that we have throughout our buildings, whether it be collecting funds for field trips uh or collecting maybe bills for a damaged Chromebook. There's a

118lot of exchange of personal checks. There's there's an exchange of cash at times and with that comes a lot of time spent on tracking such finances, right? And then we get into uh Miss Vanput Lamarin's office and and you know proper utilization of uh collection tools and then also auditing right and so we anticipate that this will help uh us to clean up and streamline um that process and then I believe that uh parent square sites is going to be a big one for us as we move on to begin to take ownership and and management of our own go school district website. Uh and so, you know, I believe we're pretty excited about the possibilities here and what this can offer us. Uh I think, you know, simply the design tools and the ease

119of access um is going to be wonderful. No more phone calls, no more waiting on anything. If we have a dedicated individual, that individual can help us at the snap of a finger. Uh and so ease of access and also ease of ease of use will be very important to us. Um on the back side of that there's also um some savings right some finance components to be aware of and so again uh very proud of the ongoing work in offering uh support of our systems and processes go ahead um what you want to do master library >> no you so uh one of the things that I was able to roll out with the buildings grounds department is a work order tool it was used to be called master library now it's owned by

120and all that. They just changed company, but uh we now uh with Jim and uh buildings and grounds, they were using this for uh facilities, uh repairs, uh work orders, that kind of thing. Uh we were able to roll it out also for if anybody maybe uh Mr. Sullivan has signed up for basketball, you know, and needs a gym, he's using that uh that tool, signing up on that online. It helps really manage, helps custodians, it helps everybody streamline things a lot more easier. And then recently, we just rolled out the uh master library for uh field trips. So, uh, now, uh, there's a pipeline of approvals. Uh, really key things that need to know. Nurses need to know ahead of time if they need to send a nurse for medications on a trip. The

121bus garage needs to know if they're going to get, you know, handicap bus or how many buses, do they have a driver, all ahead of time. And so, uh, we're using this approval process through Master Library in order to really, uh, streamline a lot of those incredible things that are happening that were not happening before because it was all paperbased and time taken between things. Now you can track everything immediately and know where things lie in the portal. So we've really done a lot to streamline some of those tools in the district. Do you have anything else? >> Uh I think that was >> okay. >> All right. So essentially um the district continues to support those offices that you have in front of you. Much of what you had seen on the previous slide

122contributes to that. uh and it's an ongoing process and we try our best to ensure that whoever makes a call and whoever needs support and assistance gets it almost immediately. Uh and that comes from a collective all of the individuals that you've seen in the first two or three slides. Uh of course overseeing behind Mr. Von >> uh and that that concludes in a nutshell you got essentially where we've been and where we are and and where we're going by way of PCSD technology. It's a lot, but we haven't had the opportunity. So, we do apologize for the link, but it's more than just what's happening in the classrooms. It's really the fingerprints are on everything in the district. So, it's important to share that. So, thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Uh,

123Miss Lambert and I will uh give a very brief I do want to thank uh the board of education, the administration uh and central central administration for working collaborative atively to put together this year's budget. You know, we've been presenting since October uh on budget. So, this is the culmination of all those meetings and a lot of time looking at our budget. So, you know, we've talked about, you know, this isn't just tonight's budget. This is, you know, a trend for the next five years. Uh it's going to be, you know, tough budgets over the next five years. will be really following this pattern of reviewing all of our code. Uh like what I talked about wants and needs when we first started and really at the end of the day in this budget the

124most we could do this year the need we could meet which really was the lowest need was we need to maintain programs. So that's what this budget really does. It maintains programs. Uh but we are very proud of the budget that we're presenting to the public and to the board. >> Was working so well for him. >> He's sabotaging you. Maybe the battery's died. >> Okay, so our final proposed budget, uh, this is a slide that shows what our revenue is. There was another budget extender this week. Um, so we do not have final numbers for the state budget. So we're going with the governor's aid projections. If there is a change in that number, whether it goes down, whether it goes up, we will just adjust adjust it using more fund balance or reserves.

125So our total revenue is 96,3,950. And we will have to appropriate fund balance the same amount that we appropriated for the 2526 budget. That's $3,750,000. And we will tap into our reserves of $1,296,51. And that gives us a total budget of 101,50,451 which is an increase of 4.4%. Last year our increase was 5.4%. So we did come in under that increase. And I just want to note we did do a presentation at the last board meeting in which we have had a change in our total number and that is by $91,755 where we increased our heating and fuel in the building codes transportation codes due to the current climate that we're experiencing. >> And then just as a reminder to the board and to the public, so we are 3.06 is our tax levy. What

126does that mean again? So, as you can see, so if you have a house that is uh anywhere $650,000 home value, that is estimated tax increase of about $64 per month. So, again, when you, you know, I'm not taking uh that lightly. uh you know tax increases uh unfortunately are a part of life but when you break that down again like I said last uh meeting so that's about $2.15 a day so an average cup of coffee at Duncan is between 215 and 350 so a cup of coffee costs every day costs more than that tax increase every day moving forward. As I said, we're in this together. We are one district, one mission, and that mission is to provide best possible education for our students, certainly at a price that our taxpayers can afford

127to support. So, we thank everyone again. This concludes our presentation. Thank you very much. >> That does conclude our >> just Thank you. All right, moving on to our assistant superintendent for business support, Miss Mar. >> Thank you, Mr. Hus. Um so about a month ago we were approached by the child nutrition unit at state ed and they wanted to do a review of our school lunch program. They wanted to review the 2526 claims for um meal reimbursements as well as eligibilities. This is called provision 2 base year review. I'm pleased to report that out of 569 of those um free students and claims 285 were reviewed. So it chose half and there were no um errors or concerns. So great report. Um inform K12. We spoke about this software that we are going to

128be subscribing to at one of our budget presentations. I talk about how it's going to help streamline a number of things and items at the business office and it'll help us with accuracy as well as time. And so we did have our training last week for our first form. called an employee recommendation form and we're going to be releasing that in the near future either at the end of this week or next week to be used. But we're also going to be using this software to build forms for payroll and that'll also help with accuracy and streamlining things and eventually we can use it for um human resources items other than the ERF that we're working on and eventually forms going home to families from the building. So it's a work in progress that we

129will use utilizing more and more as we go along. And then for ed data services we subscribe to this service for bid cooperative. Um you approved that at the last board meeting. We finished up our training last week as well on this and we should be ready to order items through the bids cooperative and the savings starting with um next week. They're uploading all of our account codes as well as the amount in the budget lines and per person whoever will be doing the ordering which is really going to be saving us time as well when putting in the purchase orders for these orders. And let's see, we also have our business office efficiency study that I handed out tonight at your seats and Mr. about Joy and I will see that from Miss Gilch

130and we'll be um reviewing this and reviewing her recommendations and using it as a guide to help us move the business office forward in the directions and operate the ease of the business office. And for our financial information in your packets, it's for the month of March. Our expenditures were $6.6 million and we received quite a bit of aid. This is the end of the fiscal year for the United States. So, we typically do receive a large amount of aid from them. We received for general aid $8.2 million. Our excess cost aid was $1.8 million. BLT lottery aid $144,000. Instructional materials aid, this is our software, hardware, library materials, and our textbook aid combined. Uh, $246,000. Commercial gaming aid, $114,000. We also receive our taxes this time of the year from the county. The amounts

131that we did not collect by November 15th, they make us whole. They they complete the tax levy, the tax warrant. And that amount was $3.9 million this year. And then our interest earnings for the month of March were $113,000. You may notice that number is creeping down a little bit. The interest rates have to climb a little. But after we've put all these funds in for the month of March, you should see that increase again next month when we have a heavy cash flow. Our total expensure expenditures through the end of March were $61.3 million and that's 63% of the budget and that is in line with where we were at this time last year. And we've earned $92.7 million in revenue since March 31st or 91 and a half percent which we are up

132about half of a percent this year as I have one of my questions. >> Thank you. >> Now our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction personnel and technology report Dr. Dy Carter. >> Thank you Mr. Lawkins. Once again good evening everyone. Uh just a few brief updates for you to create some general awareness. I had a great opportunity on Monday the 13th to meet with uh all of the department chairs including special areas guidance etc. uh at Ocean High School and really our focus was to talk about in general our standards awareness regions testing but more importantly curricular needs, instructional needs um and the current status of our programs focusing on resources and materials. Um the overall feedback I think was absolutely excellent. Everyone felt very well prepared. Everyone feels as though they have what they

133need to lead our instructional program forward. Um and then the conversation moved on to professional development needs in preparation for portrait of a graduate. So once again, our high school team uh they do feel very well prepared, but they also acknowledge that they've got some great opportunities here moving forward to attend uh some of those professional developments that we spoke about being put on through consortium at OU Boseies. Um I have approved many many um of course in collaborating with Mr. Nutle and Mr. Bonjobi. Uh so we've got teachers going over to Boseies throughout the next two and a half months from all four buildings to be better prepared for implementation on portrait of a graduate when it comes around. So we're very proud of their efforts and their willingness to do so. Uh and

134our next steps really are to talk about some of our um challenges that we've noticed as a result of the PDS and further education. Uh and then some of the support that they mean they may need moving forward for proper implementation. Uh as you know, I've had some materials out there being looked at um for elementary math program. Those materials have been in the buildings for probably closer to three weeks now. I've started to receive some feedback whether it be um just some quick emails or even organized on a rubric with some ratings. Uh and so my plan now is to work with our building level teams to actually go and meet in person uh either before or after school to really hear our committees by grade level um to to get their general thoughts

135and idea about each program to then collectively select two of the four that they've been presented with um to move forward to those personalized pitches from the actual companies that that offer such programs. Um, I've heard everyone loud and clear. Tremendous focus on professional development, which I believe is music to all of our ears. Um, because in full transparency, I don't believe that any of us were very pleased with what was offered from our previous providers. So, I look forward to that. That'll be coming up. Um and then you know we've talked at length about diagnostics because it will have a large component in the MTSS work that we're we're putting together uh and and by way of standardizing our universal screening tools and growth monitoring this will play a large role and so using

136our model schools days available to us by way of coser um April 28th and 29th will be full day offerings. We're going to put together a district-wide team and then also half day on on May 11th. So, we're excited for that. Dana Gropel Groper will come. She does a great job. As you're aware, I had the chance to go districtwide with Judy Riley for our MTSS work. Um, I met with each building for an hour and a half or longer utilizing the MTSS fidelity of implementation rubric. Each team um sat there and went through every component uh regarding their program and gave feedback. We identified strengths. We identified weaknesses. many of both uh and we're fully prepared to take on the work to standardize that program and move forward together. I think many of us

137were excited. I think Judith Riley did a wonderful job uh well organized and I'm very pleased with where we landed. And so we have two options uh for the the week of May 7th, I'm sorry, May 4th or the week of May 11th to have consecutive days um in district to continue our work. And so that's that's uh in progress if you will. Um, Scholastic Literacy has been huge for us, right? And we've dedicated a lot of time and energy and finances to professional development and implementation of that program. May 5th, they're coming back for CJ Hooker, the sixth at Scotchtown, and the 7th at GIS. And these will be more um customized, personalized trainings for our teachers based on what they know now that maybe some of their weaknesses um and something that, you

138know, maybe they want to delve a little bit more deeply into. And so, that's that's on the way. uh writing is still a major component of our professional development, but I think there's a little bit more focus on some small group work. And then your final update, um substitute teacher training, as I had mentioned, April 28th through May 1st. Um unfortunately, we we do not have anyone signed up yet. So again, please, if you're interested, reach out to Michelle Cerna or Andrea Richardi to sign up and get some orientation training. That concludes my report. Thank you. >> Need a motion to approve the consent agenda. Shannon jump be resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent schools board of education approves the consent agenda as present. All those in favor motion to approve the new

139business. John Scott be resolved upon the recommendation of the interim superintendent of schools board of education approves the new business items as presented. All those in favor I post. All right. Do we have any member comments, open agenda items, questions anybody like to discuss? Just a quick comment, you know, as we're going over the final policies. uh was thinking about facilities use. We had that was a policy that we all went on and had discussions, you know, with the public and our and amongst ourselves and one of our biggest issues were that we have great facilities here and we didn't want to restrict them. We wanted to have some fair use. Uh but I think that we our discussion was to leave it open and and just you know see how things went. And what

140I'd like to do at this point and you know the only concern I don't want to restrict it to the public. My concern is especially with you know recently uh the tennis courts you know we we have wearable items that's really meant for our students and we are investing a large amount of money right now to make sure students can continue to have tennis in the district. uh we have fields. So it from what I see it appears you know since the adoption of that policy um which is great but our fields are being used every day and I would like to request to see if if everyone is in agreement just some numbers for the last maybe year or two of of what it looks like what our fields are being used uh and

141then also you know what expenses what are we Are we using them too much? Are we in jeopardizing our own students from being able to use our fields? Um the there's also another part of it, you know, our employees. Are are we overworking our employees just with you know, we staffed originally just really I would think mostly just for our own internal use with some light public use. Have we gone over overboard on that? It's something that we need to look at. Um because we're charging minimally because we wanted to help out the public, but are we charging so minimally that uh you know we're we're maybe we could get a little extra money into it for some some fair use, get better equipment to maybe help our employees, maybe make the job a little

142easier or even if we really have a deficit of of maintenance employees to hire, you know, help hire somebody else. Uh you know, my thought is and I'm talking a lot about fields. We have a lot of use. There's some that may be lighter and I think that's something talked about. You know, you may have some clubs that just use like the lunchroom that's real light, but they could still use garbage. There's still custodians. There's still things I think we have to look at. And our our pricing structure may be maybe a little low, but I think data will help really kind of decide what we need to do to move forward. And really, what's the most important thing? We we just have to make sure our facilities are here for our students, for our

143student athletes. >> So, just I appreciate those comments. So, uh, you know, I'll put together, uh, you know, I was, uh, for meeting with Mr. St. Lawrence and Mr. Lambert and we'll get those numbers together because, you know, you're right. You know, the, you know, I think when you see the the amount of use of our fields, I'm talking after the school uses it. Um, it's really use every day. I don't want any numbers, but so I will get you those numbers. something we can take a look at because there is a cost to the maintenance of the turf and track and everything else. So we don't want to restrict public use of it but I think we need to be fiscally responsible for the amount of use get it up. Mhm. >> One other

144thing that if I can request like to know how many programs use it that are gobbased versus non goan based god it's not gigantic. We're not a city. There's only dominating sports programs that are gob based. Speaking about the courts again versus programs that support students right. So like there are programs that I understand may have some population but that's to me differs from the ones that are based in in this community. We'll get that. >> Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. I think that's good. I think in that in that data also to just piggy back on you know what John's requested. I think to know the size of the group, the frequency of their use in their space, right? To to to Brett's point, if you have a small group using a

145cafeteria at four o'clock and mean still there and they use it once a month versus a group of 50 that use a field door space three times a week. That data might help us to make a more appropriately adjusted policy. So the smaller groups with low impact don't bear the brunt of a cost where a larger group more use that maybe they have more fundraising you know opportunities where >> others wanting to know the data regarding go programs because to your point yes a bigger program with more people that use the fields may cause more wear but that program if based also houses significantly more taxpayers than the smaller program that's maybe less where so I think we have to remember especially this season for anybody who's listening as we ask you for a 3%

146you know increase in your taxes like we want to support the community we live in we want to support the people paying for these facilities and I think it's important that we look at it through that lens as well >> any other points that just two quick things here question for you. If I recall correctly, uh well, let me go back a second. You spoke earlier in the meeting about the booster clubs. If I recall, there was a meeting that you hosted for all the booster clubs in the fall. >> Yes. >> Was was it on the schedule to do another one of that for the spring clubs to refresh all that? >> It wasn't on the schedule. I can look into >> at your at your discretion if you feel this need to just

147>> with all the advert I think with the assistance of the building administrators I think we'll be able to and you know we'll put it out on parents where it wasn't that well attended there was you know I appreciate the booster club that did come but we know that there was many more that was attended so I'm not or another meeting would really get any more people. It's just getting a little worn out >> at at your discretion. Whatever you feel is best. I was just curious. Um and you know, to go back to something Francesca said, just a comment. Uh really, you know, Francesca mentioned her capstone project that she's working on, right? That's for the seal of civic readiness. Is that right, Francesca? >> Yeah. So, most students receive the seal of civic

148readiness, but this is like in addition to it. So at graduation if I like fulfill the requirements for all servicing battle for >> it. You know we're kind of at that season where we have uh you know in the past we've had the odyssey of the mind groups come up that have made it to worlds to talk about what they're doing whether that be for 15 minutes before a board meeting or during a presentation we are musical groups. It might be nice just a thought, you know, maybe we have a student or two that talk about their capstone project, right? And highlight some of the great work the students are doing and above and beyond this might wherever you think it might fit in appropriately. It's might be nice. It's that time of year. >>

149Absolutely. >> Celebrate. >> Yes. >> Anybody anything else? >> All right. Wonderful. Then I just need a motion for executive session. Right. We have John Red. Be resolved. The board of education will enter into executive session with the intent not to reconvene this portion of the meeting for discussions related to the employment history of particular person. All those in favor. Thank you. Have a great night. Thank you everyone.