CCSD Board of Education Meeting Monday September 22nd, 2025 7 00 PM 1

001and through the double doors to either side of the building. And I'd like to start our meeting by reading our mission statement. The Cornwall Central School District is committed to working together with the community to provide a secure and nurturing environment of diverse learning opportunities for all students. It is our goal to help students achieve their dreams and aspirations and to prepare them to confidently face challenges while promoting the strength of mind, body, and character. And before we get into the bulk of our meeting, I just want to acknowledge that tonight's meeting falls after sundown on a holy Jewish holiday and this was an oversight and purely unintentional. We recognize the importance of being mindful of the diverse religious observances in our community and we regret this the impact this may have caused. Um I

002promise we will be more mindful in the future about our scheduling decisions and we know it's important that we're aware of you know the religious observations within our own community. With that, I would like to open up the microphone for recognition of visitors. The board of education welcomes comments from the public. Each person wishing to speak is asked to speak into the microphone identifying themselves and respectfully limiting their comments to three minutes. Two opportunities to speak are available. One early in the meeting, which will be limited to 30 minutes, and one at the end of the meeting. Each speaker may address the board only once at both of the opening and closing portions of the agenda. Please remember there will be no cross dialogue. speakers and members of the board. All speakers are to conduct

003themselves in a civil manner. Obscene language, liable statements, threats of violence, statements advocating racial, religious, or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated. Persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual district personnel or students should should present those comments and or concerns to the superintendent during regular business hours. You have any comments? You could just state your name right. It's on the end right here. Sorry. >> Hi, good evening. Uh, my name is Kristen. I'm a parent in the district. Um, good evening. I just wanted to voice my support for the message shared by interim superintendent Argio. heart. This letter is about humanity, kindness, and teaching our children to think critically while treating others with respect. It reminds us that disagreement is natural, but violence and hatred can never be acceptable responses. Those who protest

004this letter are in effect protesting the very values of empathy, compassion, and leadership by example. Our children are watching us closely. Let us show them that even in hard times, we choose courage, understanding and kindness. That is the community I want to be a part of and I know many of you feel the same. If we cannot stand together for kindness, then we are teaching our children to stand for nothing at all. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, so this is our first meeting with our new student representatives. Welcome Jocelyn and Mave. We're so happy to have you. Um, I will turn the microphone over to whichever one of you would like to start. >> Um, my name's Jocelyn. Um, high school senior. Um, I'm really excited to be here with you guys. Um, yeah. Uh,

005we are so happy to be back to school at Willow Avenue. Our kindness crew and PTO welcomed our students back with music and smiles on the first day of school. Our students and teachers have been busy creating their classroom communities and learning what it means to be a good friend. Miss Sawaki, our social worker, has been visiting this classrooms talking about DSA DASA in teaching a lesson on our monthly character traits of patience. Miss Buck Holtz is visiting all of our classes and meeting with grade levels to talk about friendship, patience, and responsibility and teaching our little dragons ways to sprinkle kindness like confetti around Willow. Our Willow Spotlight has begun on our sensational fourth graders, highlighting two fourth graders each week. We were very excited to welcome our families to Willow for open house

006on the 17th. Families have the opportunity to visit their students classrooms and to meet their teachers. We will end the month with our very first Friday morning opening while where we will review our classroom our September character trait with a presentation from our fourth graders celebrating our new friendships in our new school year. We are off to a great start at Willow and we are learn looking forward to a successful school year. Hi, I'm Mave. I'm also very happy to be with you guys today. Thank you so much. Um, good news from Cornwall and Hudson. At CO, the school of the year has gotten the school year has gotten off to a great start. It began with the annual PTO play held on the play date held on Wednesday, September 3rd. The turnout was fantastic.

007Students gathered in the back of the school and played with new and old friends. Students and staff have made a smooth transition back to school. This year's schedule has provided opportunities for classroom teachers to collaborate with special area teachers to plan enrichment in art, library, and music. Staff will be focused on student engagement and specific learning expectations. Much like last year, every class has has scheduled time with an with an ed with an edtech to support steam and blended learning. [snorts] Open house was held on Wednesday, September 17th. There was a tremendous turnout. Parents and guardians spent the evening listening to teachers explain their plans and expectations for their children during the school year. CO will hold its first spirit day on September 26th. We are hoping the classrooms and hallways are filled with students

008and staff wearing green and white. The first Friday, the first Friday morning opening assembly and principles awards will take place for students and parents on September 26th, followed by the first PTO meeting. We are looking forward to welcoming parents back to help celebrate their children's success. >> Um, more good news from Cornwall Elementary School. Uh, September has been a very busy month at Cornwall Elementary School. We kicked off our year with our PTO carnival on September 12th. Mr. Tramon and Miss Ganilo volunteered in the water bucket and pie in the face booth. Students, families, and staff had a wonderful had a fantastic evening. CES also welcomed families back to school with our annual open house on Wednesday, September 17th. We will be launching our PBIS initiative for the new school year on Thursday, September 25th.

009Cheerleaders from high uh Cornell Central High School and Cornwall Elementary School PTO will join the festivities. We are looking forward to an exciting and successful year at Cornell Elementary School. >> Good news from Cornwall Central Middle School. We have had an amazing opening to our school year. Many thanks to our teachers and staff for all the work in preparation to welcome back our students. CCMS is a buzz with excitement and energy. Our very own teacher band first day last day greeted students with parents on the first day and students have already gotten back into the full swing of things. CCMS hosted their f their annual dragon camp this August. Incoming fifth graders got the opportunity to meet their teachers and classmates, drop off supplies, learn a little more about the building, play on our playground,

010start a collaborative art project, and take part in coll and cooperative games. We finished we finished the day off with pizza for lunch. It was an amazing morning. Many thanks to all of our teachers who helped. CCMS was so excited to open our doors to our parents for open house. Parents in grades five through eight had the opportunity to follow their child's schedule, meet their teachers, and learn about all of the programs and activities their child will be able to participate in this year. Band, chorus, and orchestra families learned all about our music program. >> Okay. Uh now for the good news from uh Cornell Central High School. We are uh extremely excited to be back in school at Cornell uh Central High School. Although many students were not exactly excited about the new cell

011phone policy, its implementation has had many positive results. Students are more more focused on academics and a greater interaction between students is evident throughout the building. On the other hand, it has been tricky to adjust to not being able to take pictures on textbook questions or write down important dates. But through the use of planners and lockers, everything is running smoothly. Um similarly, the backpack policy is not the most popular among upper classmen because many students like to use community lunch as a time to get work done. Um but as the years progressing, students are falling into a pattern and adjusting really well to these new rules and its benefits are apparent. Students are no longer burdened with carrying their backpacks everywhere in the building and the hallways are less crowded, allowing students more room

012to sit. Everyone is taking advantage of the free lunch policy, which provides a nutritious breakfast and lunch for all students. Community lunch offers students the perfect opportunity to hang out with friends, even if you don't see them during the day. Student engagement in extracurricular activities has increased as both underassmen and upperassmen learn more about activities available at CCHS. National Honor Society National Honor Society tutoring is set to begin next week, offering students the opportunity to seek help in whatever subject they may need. Um, we also had a celebration of the new Dragon Stadium, a very successful ribbon ribbon cutting ceremony. And the first few football games have been great, and the Cornwall crazies are bringing more spirit than ever. And the senior parking spot paintings were a success with a great turnout and um, a

013lot of fun in the parking lot. [snorts] >> Um, okay. This was the part that I created myself. Um, it was suggested improvements at the high school. Um, I noticed when I was walking through the lunch line that a lot of students, they would buy the lunch solely because um, it was required to buy like milk and a fruit in order for it to qualify as free lunch. So, what I was thinking was like uh, students being given an option to get milk and fruit rather than um, obligating them to would cause less food to be wasted. Yeah. Um and then aside from that, um I noticed that the lunch lines they got extremely busy like um in the D-wing hallway and cafeteria. So um I was um wondering if we could um possibly like

014I don't know uh have more registers um in order for like the process to hurry well speed up a little. Yeah. Um and then um another idea that I came up with was um for the month of October um it was to start a pumpkin carving contest. Uh uh Google form sign up $10 per team. Uh it can't be a solo project. Uh no more than six students per team. record a video of themselves carving a pumpkin and send it to whoever by October 29th, 2025. And then uh teachers and staff vote on the best pumpkin. And then the students um they would receive like a gift basket, the best pumpkin would receive like a Halloween gift basket on the 31st. Um and then the money collected from the signups would be the same money

015used to buy the candy. Uh, I just thought it would be like a fun fall project for students. >> Yeah, >> great. Thank you so much. And I was going to say that um we really encourage you to participate in our meetings if you have questions, if you have anything to add from the student perspective because, you know, we only have a limited perspective either from what we hear from our kids or from our neighbors. So, you know, you being right there, um, knowing what's happening daytoday is really invaluable for us as we try to make decisions and and do what's best for students. Um, and Jocelyn to all of your ideas. I think they sound exciting and we can talk, I mean, I'm sure maybe after or however in terms of like how we

016go about setting up the process for discussing them further implementation or you if possible, etc. So, I thank you for bringing those ideas here. Any questions or So, we're going to move on to the um superintendent update. Megan. >> Okay. Good evening, everyone. And thank you again, ladies. When I met with them this summer, I had a conversation about, you know, sharing your input. We want to definitely hear from you. We find your uh take so valuable. So, I definitely appreciate it. And Joselyn, I think you're going to be a busy girl this year. [laughter] I think you just formed a new committee for yourself. Um so, thanks to everyone for coming out tonight. Um it's hard to believe that we're already rounding the corner to October. We've had a really positive start in our

017schools. The vibe is super um upbeat. Everyone is is pretty excited to be here um and to get the year moving forward, which is which is great. Um we have some really good news. Our all state of to announce some allstate musicians who were selected as participants and alternatives in the 25 NISMA all-state conference in Rochester this coming December. Um, thousands of students auditioned for this honor last spring at solo festivals throughout the state and these students were selected and will be representing our district. So, they all received perfect or nearperfect scores on their NISMA solos last spring which recommended them for these ensembles. This is really not a easy accomplishment at all. So, it's definitely uh worth noting. We're very proud of them. Big shout out to Fiala Query for mixed chorus. and Fiala

018actually sang at uh last Friday night's um opener of the football game. She sang the Star Spangle Banner ac cappella which was absolutely beautiful. Um Sydney Johnson for mixed chorus, Christian Moyak as an alternative uh jazz drum set and also uh Hudson Alcron for the alternate trumpet, Hunter Olsen for alternate jazz trombone. So we wish the best of luck to all those students. Um, so speaking of last Friday night, we had our official opening of our new athletic complex at the high school with the special ribbon cutting ceremony, and anybody who was there will know how special it was. Um, Dragon Stadium is alive with our students of all ages, families, and community members to celebrate this special event. Uh, so I just want to take a moment to thank our community again for their

019support in realizing this dream for our students and to share that we can't wait to see the talents come alive in our new stadium. another new exciting space right here in CES on your way out. Stop by our library. I see Miss Cre's in the back there. So, she's very proud of it. She's been working incredibly hard to get it set back to the way it was and even better. So, take a look at that new space because it's absolutely gorgeous and we have been waiting for a new library in this building for a very long time. So, we're happy to see it here. So, and then just a reminder as uh Christine have mentioned, we are closed tomorrow in observance of Rasha Shana. So, we're just wishing our families a nice holiday and a

020new year to those who celebrate. >> Thank you. Um, president's update. Uh, I there's not a whole lot. I just want to let the board members know and the committee for that matter, you know, when we get started at the beginning of the year in August, the board does uh a retreat and I would say off-site, but it's really on-site, but essentially a working session for all of us to um get together, you know, talk about how we're going to function as a board, what are our aspirations for the year? And this year, we were committed to doing that more than just once, which has been the pattern in the past. So, um I just want to ask board members to be on the lookout because we're trying to put some dates on the calendar

021for the next session before the holiday season um so we can keep that momentum going in terms of what we started back in August. I just also want to take a moment to acknowledge um families and community members who continue to engage with us. You'll see in our draft board goals, one of them is community engagement. And we just want to let you know that, you know, your input helps and your comments here helps us guide our decisions and keep us accountable as a board. And while we may not always agree on every detail, we are united in our commitment to the success and well-being of our students. You know, that is why we're all here is for the students. Um we will um as we look ahead, we will remain focused on collaboration and

022making sure our decisions are always in the best interest of the children that we serve. And I'm going to dovetail into a um thank you to David Stingle, our audio and visual operator, who if you'll notice, you know, two seconds before we're about to start, audio goes out and he doesn't like break a sweat like he's I got this. No worries, you know. So, we just want to take a moment, David, to thank you. You're sort of, you know, the man behind the scenes, but really making it possible for everyone in our community who can't be here to be a part of this, to hear us, um and, you know, really give us an operation that runs so smoothly, never a hiccup. So, we appreciate you. David is going to be leaving us. Am I

023allowed to say? Oh, so he's in a band which we have to learn more about. So, now we can join, you know, the um fan page, but he's in a band that has um really, you know, gotten successful and it's getting some traction. So, they're he's leaving us to pursue that uh more full-time. So, congratulations, David. All the best. [applause] We just we have something small for you or, you know, so that you'll remember us. I will. [applause] Okay. All righty. Now we move into our presentations. So, thank you for being patient. Our first presentation is from the EFPR group, our external auditors report for 2024-25. So >> Christian, as the I'm sorry, as the uh chair of the audit committee, is there anything you'd like to say as we >> I I will make

024>> I probably make some comments, but I am probably uh not as qualified as our our guest presenter. Um so I will let's say take it away. I'll just do a quick >> I will say take it away to be clear. >> This is uh Douglas Zimmerman from the uh EFPR group who did our external audit. I'm just going to jump over there and do some of his technology because uh David swung into action um this evening uh because the computer died over there. So, we hooked up the laptop and had to do a shift there. So, Sorry about that. I I speak loudly in a room so I'd forgotten about the the online version. So again, I'm Doug Zimmerman, partner with the FPR group and uh I'm here to review the results of the

025audit. We did have an opportunity last week to meet with the audit committee. We reviewed the uh financial statements in detailed, certainly answered any questions that they had. And today I'm just going to go over uh a relatively high level uh review of the results of the audit and certainly be happy to answer anyone's questions. Um anytime we perform an audit, we do a riskbased approach um well before we ever set foot in the the district's offices. Um we take a look at any changes that have occurred, any uh known uh operational adjustments. Uh certainly this year uh with the changeover in the uh the department head between Harvey leaving and John coming on board that was certainly something that we kept in mind as we went through the audit process. Uh we identify significant

026areas and obtain a detailed understanding of the internal controls uh in those areas and certainly internal control is the bedrock of the financial reporting system that you have and it's the uh the first line of defense on maintaining uh the appropriate accounting records. Uh and then when we uh we are out in the field, we do certainly test those controls. Uh we're happy to report that uh uh based on those controls uh we developed detailed audit plans and there were no needs for any adjustments to those plans as the audit unfolded. So it went really according to plan and uh you know in today there are certainly a lot of turnover in personnel at districts. uh we have some that go very smoothly like quite frankly this one did and we have other districts that

027they they don't make that change quite as smoothly as has unfolded here and so certainly a commendation to uh to John and his entire team that uh they really didn't miss a beat uh you know from Harvey departing uh to the new leadership in that department. Uh as far as the results go uh we've issued what's called an unmodified or a clean opinion. uh that's exactly what you'd want to receive as the district and certainly as board members to have that comfort that the accounting records are appropriate. And that's not only on the basic financial statements. Uh but there's also a federal grant compliance audit or more commonly called a single audit. Um you received over $750,000 of federal uh dollars. It was about 1.7 million this year. And so there are a whole different

028set of rules and regulations that the audit has to be conducted under. Uh we also issued a clean opinion on the extra classroom activity funds. All the records, information, everything that we were looking to receive, all the discussions that we had to have with various individuals in the district were uh freely provided. Uh there were certainly no issues whatsoever in conducting the audit. Uh the results of all those various tests indicated that there were no instances of non-compliance or other matters uh that needed to be reported under government auditing standards. So, as an example, one of the things we look at is there's a New York state law that you cannot have more than 4% in undesated fund balance. Uh, you were at 3.54%. You know, had you been over that, that would have been

029a finding in our report. But again, uh, you know, you've complied with that uh, rule as an example. Uh there were also no material weaknesses, deficiencies or uh non-compliance matters related to internal control over financial reporting and no material weaknesses or deficiencies related to the uh major federal program uh what's commonly known as single audit but it was also uh called uniform guidance. Uh there were two programs uh that we tested as part of that uh single audit uh within the education uh special education cluster. That was the uh special education grants to states and then the uh preschool grants. And again, there's a whole host of uh compliance requirements, the federal government issues. Uh you're required to comply with those. And as part of the audit, we test whether or not you've complied with

030those. And again, we're happy to report back that there were no non-compliance issues. That is everything I wanted to cover and again I'd certainly be happy happy to answer any questions anyone has >> questions comments from the board. >> Um so since we've already talked in the audit committee meeting but I just want to re ask a few questions just for the benefit of the public and also some other board members. Um and I know you not going to give me a credential like the the you know which is the best course of action but one of the things we discussed in the audit committee was what are the alternatives available to a board when if they pass the 4% threshold and I was wondering if you I mean one of them obviously is to

031allocate those funds to a reserve um but you I asked you about applying that to in the budgetary process and since that was uh Jim really asked this question for you because you had asked about what is available in terms of the budget and I you could in a sense lay out what the alternatives are. >> Sure. Absolutely. Uh so again the requirement is that you can't have more than 4% of undesated fund balance for your next year's budget. And so there's a calculation that's done and uh a number of organ you know boards have been over that over the last several years. Uh a big reason of that was the COVID funding that uh organizations received. Um they didn't know exactly how expenditures were going to occur. Uh and so there were a significant

032number of districts that were over 4%. And as we discussed in the audit committee meeting, you really only have uh two viable choices. One is to increase funding to the reserves, which we discussed, and the other is to effectively utilize that money as a uh uh appropriation for the next fiscal year's budget. Uh certainly, if you have a high overage, you know, uh we have a couple of districts that are at eight or 9%, you're not going to go from eight or nine% to 4% overnight. Um, but what the state ed wants to see is a plan in place to get you from that over number down to 4%. Uh, but those are really the only two uh avenues that you have and effectively by appropriating that money into the subsequent fiscal year, you'd be

033uh reducing the tax burden on the taxpayers, whether it's a uh a reduction or more likely just a lower increase in the in the tax rate. And again, you want to make sure you're funding the reserve to have healthy, you know, uh future anticipated needs being met. Uh thank you. And I guess my comment is just this is not really about first of all I'm happy that it is a uh a clean report um as we would hope and expect. Um but several other things when you see when you look at the numbers you just see some of the trends and I just think you know this may be a point to comment on some of them. Um and one of them is just kind of where our revenue sources are that if you include

034like the star refund almost 40% of our revenues are now sourced from the state and a declining amount raised by the local tax levy and this is not you know this is just a natural process and it's been going it's not something that happened this year but I think it's important to point out like we are becoming more and more dependent on outside sources of revenue which we don't control and another thing that happened is falls a large category the instructional uh I think share dropped by a few a percentage point or so and just in sense where money is going in the different buckets in the budget but um you know I just want think those are important to point out as we go into budget season and we have to start making choices

035and what we are dependent on and so I'm not sure I don't think I misstated anything but >> no absolutely correct yeah and and certainly uh you know a lot of my districts are wrestling with the uh the electric bus issue whether or not the district h maintains its own fleet or is outsourcing that is that is certainly something that boards are cognizant of and looking forward to and uh you know it is a uh a future uh heavy expense. I mean I've got some districts that are talking to outside vendors talking about a doubling of their transportation expense because of the increased cost related to to electric. So as board members, you really have to know not only what's happening in the in the next fiscal year, but what might be occurring, you know,

036two or three years out when uh certain mandates come into come into be. >> If I may just follow on that, just to um since we don't maintain our own bus fleet, we cannot create a reserve fund for electric buses and you mentioned that it is possible though not standard to if you maintain your own bus fleet i.e that you operate it. Some districts have created a fund for future capital expense, but we're not we are not in that position. So, we don't we have an outside vendor, >> right? And I've got a couple districts that are wrestling with the idea of setting up a liability fund to fund that. However, there's a lot of ambiguity of whether or not that would even uh future liabilities for uh anticipated bus increases would actually fall under

037that. So, it's still something that's up in the air quite frankly. And once sorry to clarify, so the state does not permit us to do that like some other funds, right? So even if we went into a referendum, it's not a fund we could create. >> No. No. At this point in time, um since you wouldn't be purchasing the capital assets of a bus fleet, you really don't have any avenue to set the money aside, if you will, uh other than being in the undesated uh fund. Um, and I've got one district that basically has ma made it a purposeful intent to go over the 4% and when the state ed says something, they're basically going to respond that we know this is coming down the road and this is the only avenue we have

038to set that money aside >> and that would qualify as a spending plan even though it's not I >> I can't give you state's answer. So [laughter] I I appreciate I appreciate that I'm putting you a fund, but I mean I'm just trying to like >> you know when you mentioned about like a budgetary application before is that we need to declare an intent to spend this >> and and again all I can tell you is is what I'm seeing is that that's the avenue that they that one district took. The position that they're going to take with state ed is that's why we have the money there because we know this is coming a year and two out. what state ed's reactions to that is. I can't give you the answer to that, but

039that is something that we have seen. >> Thank you. And I apologize. I did not mean to I [laughter] uh I appreciate um I appreciate your professionalism and I realize I'm not you're not here to make credential or recommendations for how we spend the money or what is legal, but like thank you for I mean your hard work. >> Absolutely. Thank you very much, >> John. Thank you very much. Oh, I'm sorry. >> I was just gonna my one question was going to be down that same road of based on your work with other districts, what issues do you see that are becoming trends that other boards have to deal with whether or not it confronts us or not will just to be seen. >> Yeah. I mean I mean the two biggest things obviously

040is the bus issue that we and transportation that we talked about and the other thing is just health care costs. I mean uh um some districts are experiencing you know higher uh numbers than others. Um, but the, you know, there's there's never been a, uh, you know, there's no increase in your healthcare expenditures from one year to the next with insurance and everything else. I mean, I've got some districts that are, uh, being quoted, you know, 15 or 20% increases, you know, year-over-year. And, uh, it it seems like it's been like that as long as I've been doing this job. And, uh, you would think someday that number gets ratcheted down to, you know, two or 3%, but I I've never seen it. So, those are the two big areas that seem to be uh,

041of the biggest concern, at least from a fiscal point of view. >> Great. Thank you. >> Anyone else? John Jim, >> I don't have any questions. I just wanted to say thank you um to Christian for chairing the audit committee uh so I could roll off of the audit committee after four years of dedicated service. Um and thank you Doug for the work of you and your team. I've had the pleasure of working with you in the past with the audit committee and you guys always do a fine job. And just thank you to John. You know, it's um tip of the cap to you. uh you've actually been here less than a calendar year. It seems like longer than that in a good way because you've really hit the ground running in your job.

042Um but just to you know to u navigate the handoff from Harvey to you taking over to be issued a clean audit report um is a testament to you and your team. So just wanted to say thank you for your work on this. >> Yeah. So I just want to thank you uh for that Jim because I'm going to pick up on that. Um and and Doug had mentioned, you know, taking over for Harvey. So, um Harvey's still here and around if if you know, like he allows me to call him like he's Oz and stuff like that because I have to I have to like figure out what was going on in his brain a lot of the time. Um so, I really appreciate Harvey Sland for for allowing me to pick his brain.

043But more importantly, the team that I have that that I received from Harvey is incredible. And it starts with Selene Maxwell, who's our district treasurer. Um, you know, I said to her, uh, when I came on board, I said, "I need a long runway for this a audit." Um, so I need all the information in advance so we can nail this, uh, and she started with me back in the springtime. I drove her uh, bananas on this and then she, you know, really grinded through the audit um, in the springtime and in the summer. So, I'm incredibly appreciative of her. But it's really the whole office that comes in as well. Um, I'll just name some names and who they are and thank yous is u Stephanie Fuo who's my assistant and and that's not

044an accurate statement or title for her, you know, and all that she does. Um, and accounts payable. It's Jennifer Cox. Um, you know, watching all the bills, it's incredible. Um, and then you move on over to payroll, you know, uh, Rosanne de Espazito, Donna DS, and, uh, and Helica. um Roselle uh Paw, you know, and then Trish in in HR with Brent, right? You know, this is this is the office and and this is the grind and they do an incredible job. So, I am very fortunate and very lucky um for for all those people and then to have Doug and Jeff Jones from EFPR come in and just be really pleasant to work with, bounce questions off them, make sure that we're all on the right page. So, I'm really appreciative that >> and

045I can put this into perspective for you. We do 35 districts and this is the first uh board public board meeting where we're reviewing the results of the financials. So the fact that you had the turnover and yet you're still, you know, getting to this point, first district out of 35 that we do tells you that everything is functioning extraordinarily smoothly in your your business office. >> Thank you. >> Oh, and um John, thank you. I I won't reiterate exactly what Jim said, but I think being the first out of 35, we should put that on the board somewhere. That's a a really great accomplishment. So, and thank you for acknowledging everyone on your team. It's important for us to hear those names and know who the other folks are that are working really hard.

046So, we appreciate you and thank you for your presentation and all your hard work. >> Thank you, Evan. Christine, um not related to this, but just for the members of the audit committee, um an email went out regarding a meeting for our internal audit and about your suggested dates. So, if you're on that committee, just so we can finalize a date for our next meeting so we can make the recommendation. It's not as time-sensitive as the external audit, but um we'd like to get it done. >> Thank you. >> So, our next presentation is a buildings and grounds update with uh Dr. Walter Moran. So, we look forward to hearing what's going on in that area. Thank you, John. So, that that sounds very weird, Dr. Walter Morant. Um, well, that's what my family says.

047So, but first of all, I want I want to thank uh you know the district for supporting me on my academic studies and and uh for those who may not know me, I did uh confer in May and I received a doctorate in strategic leadership with Liberty University. took about three and a half years uh to complete that study. And and really what that has done for me is to better manage the men and women within my department really to um offer empathy, understanding, transparency, and and really taking leadership and and raising the bar on that on an individual level with each and every one of them. and uh it's made me a better leader and it's helped me be a better director of facilities for the district. So with that I will uh I

048will begin. I'll try to make this brief but concise uh operate. So this presentation is an operational overview strategic infrastructure management. Thank you. Ensuring safe functional and welcoming uh learning environments. Okay. So, our key points, our mission is to maintain a safe, clean, and efficient facility for students and staff. I drive that mission home every day with the men and women uh in the department, the custodial staff and the maintenance. There's a purpose for what we do and and it's K through 12 trying to get these kids to go through the school district. And and [clears throat] what I do with the men and women is when they graduate from high school and I'm with Katherine as she's walking down a corridor and you have seen me and and Pomp and Circumstances is playing and

049I show them, well, this is what we do. We we're helping these students what we do. You might not realize it. cleaning the classrooms, changing the filters, repairing mechanical systems, but we're helping these students graduate and move on with their lives. And that goes right on to the significance. Well-maintained educational facilities directly impact student achievement. I've learned through my my dissertation and through my studies there is many peer-review journal articles that that prove that well run facilities have a direct impact to the academic success of the students. All right. Uh contributes to an organization's instructional effectiveness and financial well-being. Improve the cleanliness order and the safety of the facilities. uh reduces operating cost and life cycle of the cost of a building, helps staff identify facilities priorities proactively rather than reactively. And that's something that

050we really want to do as an organization. We don't want to react. We want to be proactive, especially with facilities. We want to have a robust and bold preventative maintenance program. This way, we could reach those failures before they happen. This way, there's no interruption in the classroom. It's extremely important and extends the useful life of of the buildings and increases energy efficiency. All right. So I want to take a high level review of our buildings, what they are, the name of the building, the square footage, and the acreage. So the high school was built in 03. It's a little over 200,000 square feet. It's on 51 acres. kind of take a a look at when we clean that building. An average home in Cornwall is about 2,000 square feet. Do the math. That's how

051many homes that we're cleaning just for that one building each night for the next school day. All right. The middle school was constructed in 1957 with additions in 1964. That's just about 100,000 square feet. Sits on 41 acres. Cornwall Elementary School. It's my favorite building actually right here. Um, consists of almost 60,000 square feet and it's on 8 acres, Willow Avenue. Now, if you take a a look at this photo here, you'll notice that the elevator shaft isn't there. All right, this is a dated photo which helps us identify some of the things that we've done to the buildings as we go along here. That sits on seven acres. Here's Cornwall and Hudson built in 1922. Almost 40,000 square feet on 7 acres. Uh notice the windows in the front. Those are the old windows.

052If you look at the building today, you can see that there are new windows in there. Here's the district office sits on one acre and the maintenance building. Now along with these buildings here, we have press boxes. Now we have uh garages, we have sheds and we have um storage boxes, utility uh units that we have to maintain as well. So from a high level, here are some of the things that we maintain through our school district. We have 13 boilers, two chillers, one at the high school, one at the middle school, one cooling tower, over a 100 split AC units. That's what you see right up in here to bring cooling into the rooms. 30 air handlers, over 100 unit ventilators, much larger number than that. 128 variable air volume boxes. That's in the

053high school only, Katherine. That's in your building. Every classroom has one. Over 80 exhaust fans, 300 plus micro computer. So every piece of mechanical equipment has a computer attached to it. Buildings and grounds manages all those all those computers. Plumbing wise, over a 100 toilets, over 200 sinks, 67 urinal, water fountain, showers, mop sinks, the list goes on. We have to manage these. We get the calls every day. And you'll see when we go through the ORC chart who we have and how many of those resources we have in order to maintain this. Here's a snippet of our um computer application automated logic. So when you call my office and you say, "Hey, I'm too hot. I'm too cold. Um too much air, too noisy, whatever it might be." I we go right onto the

054computer. Here's a little snippet. It tells us everything about that room. We could drill down into the computer and get into the logic and get into the software. We do that right in our office. All right. And then here's another list of of the things we do. I won't go through them, but um real quick, uh air filter changes. We we we strive for three a year, right? Every filter being changed three times a year. That's unit ventilators and the air handlers. Uh, we manage the cafeteria, snow and ice. When everybody gets to roll over in bed, we're out at 4 in the morning. We're doing snow removal, deicing, grounds work, playgrounds, district courier, we deliver the mail, we we go to the post office, waste management, not only in the cafeterias, but on the

055grounds, playgrounds, the list goes on. So, it continues. sports fields, parking lots, exterior, interior lighting. We're trying to move everything to LED right now. Gives a little brighter and saves on uh electrical and energy, door and hardware, key management, preventative maintenance. I can't stress enough how important that is. All right, so here's our work order reporting. All right, for the last school year, we did over 5,000 work orders. And I have to tell you, we're not able to capture every work order. A lot of times it's hey can you take care of this or a phone call comes in or it's an immediate need. So that number is much higher but this is what we've captured. On average we've completed just about 14 a day. Average time open is 33 days. I will tell you

056as a director my my goal is seven days or less. Very difficult to achieve. All right. So, right now for this year, uh I put this on the presentation in the middle of the week last week. We were almost up to a thousand work orders. All right. So, here's our department here. Director of facilities is myself. I have two secretaries in the office. One head custodian. Custodians that work underneath the head custodian and they're in the building and they're building managers. And the list goes on. Here's our AR chart. If you notice, director reports right to me. It's significant. I have a lot of people that report directly to me. And if you notice, if you go through and you look at the numbers, we don't have enough numbers. I'm surprised our men and women

057are really able to get the job done. Here's our maintenance staff. These are the repair people. This is when, hey, this isn't working. This is broken. I need a project done. Uh these are the men and women that take care of it. One electrician, one plumber, one locksmith, one HV uh one HVAC technician. Change all those filters, right? One person. Imagine having that job. Maintenance mechanics. They're like the shortstop of the district, you know? They do everything. All right. Before I get into the key support buckets, what I'd like to uh say publicly is I want to thank the men and women in the department. All right. Um these people, they worked tirelessly every day. They had 60 days over the summer to pull apart all the classrooms, put them back together, make the floor

058shine, work with the capital project people, deal with them, clean up after them, work overtime, and then open up the school building in September, which I think in my 23 years here was an extremely smooth opening. I'm very proud of how everybody worked and how our department worked. All right. So, how I look at the the functions of the department is we have these four buckets here. Daily operation project specific Kelly that would be like building your your your library. That would be one of the projects. Uh schoolastic sports uh they take a lot of our time. Uh we do great in sports. Um but there there's a need there. Uh we have to give them the support. And of course, capital projects. All right. Daily operational support. I'll go through the list real quick.

059Routine maintenance. Okay. Includes work orders. Responding to immediate needs. Our phone is ringing all day long. There's seven buildings. Rings all day long. We're always responding. We're like first responders. Classroom prep, cleaning and organized classroom each evening. So from 2:30 to 11:00, the night shift comes in and they clean the classrooms and they prepare it, sanitize it, and get it ready for the next school day. Waste management. You wouldn't think that that was a big part of our job, but we have to manage the cafeterias and we have to manage the grounds. All right. Also, safety checks. Um, that's a whole another presentation. Here's our next bucket. project specific planning and execution. Hey, I want this. I need air conditioning here. Hey, I want a new library. Or hey, I want a home ech room

060or uh we need security vestibules. All right, what are the drawings? What are the design? Do the engineerings. We all do that right back in our office. So, here are some examples. Library media room, Katherine, that's what I'm calling it. That was in your library. We were able to do that. Uh, renovate staff parking and fire access road behind the high school. Work with the contractors on the auditorium sound system. Home and careers classroom. Oh, by the way, we got a ship date on those cabinets. They're coming in. Baseball field renovation. All right, here's a big one. Cornwall and Hudson fire alarm. So, those who remember, Central Hutson had a power outage in Cornwall uh the second week of August. It took out the fire alarm in Darren's building. If we would have went out

061and bought that work, it would have been well over $100,000. We did that in house. Our men and women installed the fire alarm at Darren's building. We saved the district $100,000. Cafeteria and uh kitchen air conditioning in this room uh next door. And of course the security vestibules [snorts] schoolastic sports field and gym maintenance ensuring safe high quality athletics facilities for practices and games. All right. Event coordination setup breakdown pre and post weekend and holiday work overtime to support our school athic sports. All right. And coordinating with the athletic director. We're always in conversation even on the weekends. All right, here's just a multitude of of areas that we manage. Field prep, pre and post management, field painting, a significant amount of buildings and grounds resources goes to support the scholastic athletic program. So think

062about all the things that we listed prior and now everything with the sports and try to get everything done. All right. And then capital project support. Yes, we have an architect, we have engineers, we have designers, and we have a construction manager, but they don't know the buildings as well as we do. Our team shares our knowledge with the design and construction team. We work overtime to keep buildings open. Like tomorrow, they're working in several buildings. Uh we offer problem solving and and other mission critical input on the various phases. Hey, this isn't going to work. Hey, you need to tie this in here. Did you ever think about this? Uh it's not only me who is having that conversation, but we work together as a team. All right. So, our challenges, what are our

063challenges? All right. Um, we're challenged to attract skilled staff to fill open positions. Right now with everything we do, we have six open positions. It's been very challenging to fill them. Also, we I'd like to see and what's a challenge is we need to increase staffing levels to cover personal time off and overtime needs. It's the same people working overtime each week. So, you'll have one individual working six days a week for months on end. staff retention due to competitive salary at neighboring school districts. A lot of times staff comes on board, they're hired here, go Washingtonville, another school district pays more money, that's where they're going to go. Okay, it's a challenge. All right, training and professional development requirements. So, one thing that I've learned through my academic studies, it's important that we continue

064professional development and training similar to how the teaching staff develops their professional development. The challenge that we have is we don't have the time. Time isn't incorporated in their contract or afforded to them. So, I have to be very creative when I do that development with my men and women that are in the department. aging infrastructure. We've done a lot, but there's still a lot more to go. You'll see you once the building condition survey data is revealed. Uh, and you know, we discuss, you know, some of the items on that, you'll see we'll need to continue to address this even when I'm gone. The next generation capital projects need to continue in order to to really bring these facilities up to where they need to be. And budget constraints, increasing increasing contract and supply

065costs. You feel it at home. Think about how the budget that I manage, it's a 30 to 60% increase in a lot of our supplies and contracts. Our short-term goals, uh, professional development for staff, work order management. I have to meet the needs of the men and women in the department. I have to continue to train with them and I have to support them so they can support us. That's that's very very very important for me to do. uh long-term vision, address the building condition survey needs. Uh soon the architect will be meeting with the board uh and the facility committee and we'll be reviewing those items. Uh the development of next year's budget and hiring and staffing needs. Okay. Try to do that as quick as I could. Um any questions from the board?

066The deis, I know you have a question, right? You have a question. No. Yes, you do. You have a question. >> Anyone? >> Yes. >> Questions? >> Um, uh, so I just have a question since you u mentioned about our facilities and as you know some of our facility facilities are 100 or near 100 years old and I say this from my own experience um in a different district which is that the original high school became the middle school and now is an oversized elementary school in Lakeland school district. I think Miss Fosio knows it well because I think she taught in that building before she taught here in Cornwall. Um, and the common uh point that was made is that it really was not appropriate to be an elementary school because of the vertical

067construction of some of the um secondary buildings. And so R2, particularly Willow and CO are multifloor buildings because they were built as K through8 or K- through2 buildings originally. And how does that function or what are the issues that might come up with small children who have to manage stairs where most elementary schools are designed to be one floor flat for uh for that reason? Well, it [clears throat] is a challenge. Willow Avenue, for example, has five different levels. Uh it's been a high school, it's been a middle school, and if you are walking on the original stairs, you can see they're they're they're they're worn out. So, you know, the question is, and this should be with New York State Education Department, is there a certain time frame when you put a school building

068to sleep, you put it to bed, and then you uh you construct a new one with the current technology? That's far, you know, but beyond me unless I go to a think tank years from now, but uh it really would be, you know, up to the board on the vision that you guys see. Where do you want to take your school buildings and and how do you want those school school buildings to uh offer education to the to the students? >> Just kind of a follow-up question. As you probably know, since you've been working in in the district and living in the community for a very long time, that there was a a committee, I think 20 years ago, >> recommending that Willow Avenue be uh closed as a as a school building. And if

069you could just comment like what have we done since then to make it obviously it still is >> and um >> well I think you're referring to the 21st century committee I believe so >> I think it was like >> 1998 >> that would be I I don't know exactly the year but that sounds correct >> um so yes so it was it was a good they they used the SWAT format um they uh they had some really good dialogue um Dr. names at the time uh you know ran that committee. uh they they came, you know, they offered many many good solutions. And what you see today with the uh with the uh K through four, five through eight um and then the high school configuration all came out of the 21st century committee

070moving uh Willow Avenue which was a middle school over to the formerly known as the high school which is now the middle school and then moving the high school out to where it is now with the wider corridors and etc. all came out was derived from that committee, the 21st century committee. >> And if I could just add too, I mean over the years the buildings have evolved into what we need them to be. So Willow Avenue for example, Mrs. Buckt has created a really nice K2 primary wing downstairs with 34 upstairs for more appropriate as the kids get older and then the other side of the building is for like academic intervention services, related services and so on. So, you know, these are the buildings that we have and we we evolve them to

071the kids that are in it for the most appropriate situation possible. >> Other questions? >> Uh, I just want to start with a uh a comment. Uh, Walter, thank you. I know the uh you did that was very gracious of you to to thank everybody else, but um there are a lot of many impressive things about this district, many impressive people. Um I'm just speak to you from my own experience. There is no one more impressive than Walter. Um I mean truly a PhD only like begins to cover it when you're in facilities meetings. Um you you cannot gotcha him. He >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um and I I I've just seen this continually um in my time on the board and I I know that when when I first started getting involved in this

072stuff um we had just had our you know capital projects voted down. We're in a pretty tenuous time um in this district. I remember a meeting here that you stood up and and said basically I will I will make sure this district stays afloat district uh facilities wise and I know that was u a bold promise to make at the time because so much needed repair and nobody is more responsible for where we were then and where we are now uh than than Walter. So uh you don't get these moments to to acknowledge that. So I just wanted to take this moment to do so. Um speaking of which um first can you share this presentation with e either with uh Christine or I I would love to have particularly your next steps or or

073requests slide just to um so we can look back on that you know budget times and whatnot and then particularly about the uh professional development. Can you expand just a little bit on as you said it's so much more obvious where to find these kinds of resources for teachers and I think that's what we're more familiar with but you know what would be required in your mind and what kind of resources are you looking for >> well first of all thank you uh but uh I I only lead the team okay and so the thanks has to go to the men and women all right they they're they're the soldiers that are out there making this happen so I'm I'm very apprei appreciative of that. But there's there's a whole bunch of people behind me

074that are working and supporting me. But thank you very much. Uh professional development. So here's what I what I have found and and I think the teachers in the audience would agree what what I'm about to say. So the technical aspect about professional development is is the easy part. All right. I could teach somebody how to fix something. I could teach them how to do a PM on a air handler or something. The most important thing is the social emotional wellness of my men and women. All right? Because they're human beings and and and they have lives and they bring their lives to work with them. All right? And and my goal is to get them to work to have them functioning at the best whatever the best is for that particular day and to

075go home the same way that they came to work. So what I have found is the interpersonal relationships that they have not only with with me the director but with each other and getting along with each other and collaborating and creating those teams and creating that cohesiveness between the teams uh so they could problem solve and they have a sense of belonging and there's psychological safety within the department and the culture is one that supports the men and women. That's the professional development that works. The ABCs or the one two3s, that's the easy part. It's it's really how how do you how do you get along? How do you trust the leaders? Right? This is what I have found is the most critical. So, for the last couple of weeks, here's what I've been mentoring

076my men and women. Separate the signal from the noise. Every morning I say that yet we have 85 things we need to do. What are four things we gonna do today? We're going to do it right. We're going to get it done. Don't let the noise get in the way of the signal. What is your core mission for the day? That's the professional development that I'm talking about. I I've had a couple applications. I put them in front of computers. It it's better that if I have a one-on-one or if I have a 10on-one and and I'm working together with them. All right. And I've been doing this now for probably five or six years and I've seen the progress with the men and women and I've seen the results. So that's what I mean

077about professional development. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Jim. >> Um, so again, I don't have a question. I just want to make a comment. Um, since we have uh some folks in the audience, we have a larger audience than we normally have tonight. We've been uh talking about this a little bit um as we move on through the year, but just you know dovetales nicely um with your presentation. So, first of all, thank you uh Walter for what you do and and your team. Um you know what strikes me about your team is when you see them out and about there's always a smile and a hello. So, they're not just doing a good job, but they are um enjoying their work and interacting with the community and with the students. Um

078but just, you know, for the community that's here um and you can go back and spread the word. Uh Brendan mentioned capital projects. We've seen that we have buildings that are uh with the exception of the high school, all the other buildings are 50 to 100 years old or actually over 100. C is now over 100 years old. Um we are meeting as a facilities committee one week from tonight to go over the um results of our five-year building condition survey. Um there's a lot of work that needs to be done. uh we have money in the capital reserve to do it and we will presenting we plan to present uh a list of projects to the community to vote on uh in the springtime uh to just carry out some more of the capital

079projects um with all the aging infrastructure that we have. There's lots of work that needs to be done in this district. Um it's been a pleasure in my time on the board to work with you uh on that process and just you know for the community look forward for that vote uh in the spring to help continue to maintain our buildings. Thank you. I have a question if no one else does. Anyone? Walter, you mentioned you have six openings. Are those openings captured in your org chart or those six plus? Okay. >> And um >> not to answer here and now, but I would be curious, I'm sure, Dr. Harrington, you know, in terms of how long are those spots open, what is the pay differential for the surrounding ones, and you know, why are

080people leaving? It's not always just money. I mean, maybe it is, but if it's a if it's a adjustable fix, maybe that's something to look at. And again, not to answer now, but just uh you know, that's the lens I look at it through. So, um yeah, because six is a lot, you know, >> it is. It is. I have three candidates right now that are going through the process. I'm hoping that we could close the deal, bring them on board, and hire them. And and there's two other in the in the runway. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. >> Thank you, Dr. Walter Moran. You worked hard. Use it, you know. Uh but thank you. Thank you for all that you do. >> All right. Well, I appreciate the support. It means a

081lot. And to the men and women. Thank you. >> Okay. So, now we move on to our consent agenda. New business. Would anyone like to pull any of the items from our consent agenda? >> I would like to pull number four. and number 12. Um, simply for the purpose of abstaining, no comment. >> Okay. Anyone else? >> Yeah, I would like to pull number three. And I can't hear Christian, but I think he said 12. I'd like to pull 12 as well. >> Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Um, the consent agenda permits the board of education to make effective use of its time by adopting a single motion to cover these relatively routine matters which are included. Could I please have a motion to approve um consent agenda items 2 5 6 2 5 through 11

08213 and 14. May I have a motion please? >> So move second. >> Brendan with a motion. Christian with a second. All in favor of approving the consent agenda. I >> I >> opposed. Abstain. The motion passes. Okay, let's go to consent agenda item number three. Personnel actions. Um, this is where I get tripped up. Do I have to do a motion again? A motion. Can I have a motion to to um approve personnel actions item number three? >> So moved. >> A second. second >> discussion. >> Okay. So, the reason I pulled it is um it seems that we're create we created a a position that was not in the original budget. So, I guess my question is more to John when you gave us the budget presentation in the fall before the budget

083vote. um this was not part of the budget and we had to make a lot of tough choices when we were creating that budget and we ended up cutting some positions last May. Um and so I'm just curious how why we're adding a position now and I guess where did the funds come from since we they weren't budgeted. uh this position wasn't budgeted in the original budget that we created in the spring. So that's the first part of my question if you want to answer that and then I have more. >> Sure, no problem. Um we did budget for this when I came on board in December. Um the audit committee had heard from the internal audit uh internal auditors about um some concerns um they brought to the district office about separation of duties

084um that was taking place in HR and payroll. Um so at that time u in the transition with Harvey it was a recommendation to add personnel because in the corrective action plan the response the district provided was you know we are thin um we don't have the staff to do the work. So we budgeted for a part-time position for that position um in HR and benefits to create the separation of duties. While the auditors didn't say you should add the the position, um it's implied in what they were writing us up for. >> Okay. But then why wasn't it in the the budget? Um you know, in the presentation, like this position wasn't there, the the amounts of money wasn't in the the funds that we were presenting as our budget in the spring. This

085is a again a part-time position, so it's maximum of $35,000. It was beneficial to us because the uh payroll person was retiring and that we could keep that payroll person on board as in a part-time capacity with not paying additional benefits and paying a low amount of money for them. >> Oh, I I'm I'm not questioning the need for it. I guess what I was questioning is that it wasn't in the budget and one of the things we took out was our strategic plan. Um, and as I said before, also cutting other positions. So, I was just confused when I looked at at the agenda that this that there was a position now that was put back in that wasn't in that original budget. And I'm sorry, Christian, I just realized that I think I

086cut you off a couple times. So, I'll stop talking now. I just feel like so with with due respect because I was on the audit committee in the presentation last year and you had not come but I think that so and I spoke about this extensively at the time when I made the recommendation early October. The auditor as you said cannot make a recommendation for like what we should do. they point out a issue that needs to be addressed and the issue at the time was that the same person could create a payroll position and authorize payment to that position and that was a challenge of internal control because the point is someone could create a job for theoretically not really happening but let make that clear is like okay I'm going to hire my

087uh my my uncle I'm going to create a position and then I can authorize the payment and given our software that was done by the same person. um the corrective action plan that was passed and I talked about this pretty extensively I believe in the first meeting of October of last year was that um they would look at changes when there was a difference in your payroll from pay period to pay period and those would be specifically addressed and that the super and the superintendent has to sign off on every payroll I believe and that would be the check that was in the correction action plan and the recommendation that was made at the time was that it would be uneconomical to hire a person simply because we're talking about an internal control, which is

088just that you don't want the same person to in a sense um authorize a check and then uh make the decision and also authorize the payment. And the question is whether that is worth $35,000 when there are other things such as smaller things that had to be done in the budget process such as substitute teacher pay um seats for UPK. So I understand we passed that. But the point is that we didn't do that in the middle of the year. We did that because it's a decision about how to allocate district resources. So I as someone who made that report that that seems and we it's on video from the meeting. I don't think that was a recommendation of the committee and there was a reason for that. So this is not I so what

089I'm I guess what my point here is that there is a proper I guess this should be in the budget process. Um we make decisions to do certain things we make decisions not to do certain things. all of them are kind of worthy and that priority means that they should be given the same scrutiny as other things that might have been a priority in the budget process and I think that is the point that Miss Fosio is making about this should not be something we did this in the previous year where in the budget there was a part-time or to make a physical education teacher full from a point8 to a full FTE and it was not in the budget because people wanted to have a budget number in terms of the tax levy And

090I'm not describing motives to anyone, but the point is then it was put onto the budget in during the summer and that just does not seem like the most the best practice and I think we should go forward thinking about where those decisions are made. Now, I said at the time that I support creating this position because we do have a lean staff in the district office, particularly in the business office, and it is amazing the quality of work they do given how small it is compared to some other comparable districts. So, I do think this is a need. I just want to make sure that we do this in I think the best the proper channels which means that it's transparent because what about the person who didn't get their program and why does

091this get priority over that is a question that I think any member of the community could make and that's what I would urge us to do going forward >> and and I think that that thank you Christian I think that that was what I was the point I was trying to make is I'm not saying it's not necessary um I I just was a little takenback when I saw it because it was not part of the budget presentation. And as someone who was a teacher in the district for many years, I can speak to the fact that many times we were denied or principles were denied needs that they had because it was not in the budget and were told it wasn't in the budget. So, you know, I think the point that Christian just

092said is that the priorities um you know, this I guess has become a priority, but then how do we go forward and tell other people that their needs are not a priority as well? >> Um, okay, Elanor, >> it just, you know, it wasn't in the budget and and yet now here it is. >> Other comments or Oh, sorry. >> So, my apologies. It was my understanding that this was addressed and that the position was discussed because again the auditor is not saying you have to add the position but there was an advantageous opportunity to take a retiring payroll veteran payroll person to utilize them in this capacity and help train our payroll um staff and HR staff at the same time. So again my apologies to the board. This was in the 2526 budget.

093We did have it in there. Um, so yeah, I do apologize for not calling that just >> for if I could just clarify. It was in there, but it was I'm just clarifying for me. You didn't have it called out on the sheet with like these are the additions, correct? But it was baked into the overall number entirely. And I would assume that if we have a full-time person who's been here for a number of years retiring, there is some cost savings in terms of replacing that person, the delta, is that a fair assumption? is um I was curious why we are going to a 4-year contract um as opposed to I don't know I guess which is consistent with our other all but one other non-aligned employee in the district. Right? So when we

094did our non-aligned contracts following the settlements with our collective bargaining agreements in the spring, uh the board made a decision to align those contracts in terms of uh the number of years with uh the clerical unit, which is three years. So all of our non-aligned employees with the exception of one is on a three-year contract. Thank you. All righty. May I have a motion then to combine items three and 12 from our consent agenda? >> Brendan, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Jim, all in favor of approving items 3 and 12 on our consent agenda. >> I >> opposed. Abstain. Okay, the motion passes. Thank you. That leaves item number four, placement of CPSSE and CSE. May I have a motion to approve the displacement? >> So moved. >> Christian, a second. >>

095Second, >> Richard. All in favor? Oh, excuse me. Discussion. >> So I pull just abain. Uh there's no no discussion. >> Okay. All in favor of item number four, placement of CPSC and CSSE cases. >> I opposed. Abstension. Thank you. The motion passes. Okay. So that is um the consent agenda in total. Thank you everyone. Now we're on to new business non-consent agenda. Everyone in has in front of them a copy of the draft board goals and Linda, thank you. She posted it on our board docs as well. This email was sent out to the board on September 12th um where everyone was asked to take a look add any comments, suggestions, corrections thing. This and let me back up. This is a result of the work we did at our working session. If you

096weren't here for that, we had posters around the room. We were walking around with stickers and markers and so everyone had some input in in terms of um what rose to the top for the board of for the board of education in terms of what we wanted to focus on this year and the main categories are pulled directly from the New York State Board as well as the national board association in terms of board's responsibilities. So with that, I asked everyone to take a look at it, provide any commentary so that we could come to this meeting prepared to discuss further. I as of today I did not see any um notes on the document but if I miss them I I welcome the discussion um and then you know based on our discussion today

097we can just determine what we're going to do in terms of the next steps at our next meeting. So does anyone have any questions comments? >> Um so thank you for the very creative exercise that went into the creation of this. That was very helpful. um made us all and the pictures made us all look like uh we were in like our first week of kindergarten which kind of feels like that sometimes. Um so I have one suggestion that um and I apologize for not getting it to you earlier. It uh sometimes things just you know hit you too late. So um under the instruction the uh advanced student achievement and equity uh so we're currently saying ensure instructional programs are designed to raise achievement and close opportunity gaps. Um, you know, one thing that

098we we often talk about with equity is giving uh is is just as described, you know, like closing uh gaps, but I think the um I'm going to look at it through another lens or or expand it and it's in particular how it relates to the differences in the schools and I just this is something that is a trend that has been going on for for years. I think we're all aware of it. CES has continued to grow. um it's just the it's the one with the more space and I just want to ensure that we have on our radar as a board that we are making sure that any uh that the experience at I'm using this school as an example but all the schools uh mirror the others so that you know kids

099in one school are not getting a different experience are not getting uh exposure to different programs that uh these kids get you know my I was the uh I am the youngest of five, my my father would always say, "I'm not going to do for one that I can't do for all." Uh, which is probably why, you know, we got the shaft so often, but I don't want I don't want to make I don't want to have that same um it was usually used as an excuse to say no. Um, so I I just want to be sure that we're observing that. So that's a long prelude to a uh an actual suggestion. uh ensure that in the instructional uh and enrichment programs so end enrichment programs are designed to raise achievement, close opportunity gaps

100and are made accessible to all. um often thinking of, you know, how does this relate to the board? Because I know we can we can create or write goals that aren't really something we can uh impact. But I think that this is written in a way that we can because these are funding decisions that uh we can keep in mind and and and look back on this um particularly during budget season, but at any opportunity that we get. >> And that's a really important point. If any of this language in um sends the message that we're going to actually be doing something, you know, other than budget related, uh we probably want to fix that a little bit because these are things that we would support. We would, you know, um clear the path for

101etc. So, you know, thank you for pointing that out. Other comments, additions, questions? Um, so I guess my, you know, ideal would be that these were more measurable. Um, but as I said to you privately when we had the agenda meeting, you know, I think these are good enough to go ahead as they are and that they're not going to get tremendously better for more discussion. Uh, but I'll just say my regret from our goals from last year is that there were many items that were in our goals that clearly were not necessarily pursued. So, and I'm not blaming us. them to saying this is we need to make sure that we actually are not just posting these goals and they stay there on the website but they actually do influence our decisions and they're

102our commitment as you said so like on last year's goals one was the capital project for v variety of reasons that did not happen last year um UBK was one of the goals that didn't happen strategic planning was one of the goals that didn't make it into the budget it was cut and so the point about it is when we set goals we're also probably setting priorities ities and that you know that they don't get lost to other priorities that we develop in the flow and that's part of the reason to have goals is to kind of allow ourselves to mark our progress to market that these are things we committed to do and measure our progress against them and I think that's why you want them to be measurable um it's not because of

103intent I think everyone these are all worthy goals but I just think that in our process in our board retreat in our board self-evaluation in mid year that we actually revisit these and and ask ourselves whether we are actually following what we set out to do. >> Yeah, I think um you can ask people I work with. I'm the master of uh measurables, key deliverables. How do I know it looks we succeeded at the end of the year? What does success look like? Did you want to add something, Jamie? Sorry. No, I I I'm all for that, but everyone's got to put put work into that, right? In terms of what is what does success look like? What's the measurable goal? And I'll just add that um I did look at a lot of other

104boards and their goals and not that you know it's it's not to say if that's right it's right. Um but I found a lot of boards were more generalized like this because I agree Christian I think last year we had strategic planning that was a clear goal. We wanted to do it and then when budget came we said we're going to cut it you know and we didn't have to do that. We didn't have to cut it. So um I I aired on the side and what I presented as as possibilities were more general in terms of what was going to guide our decision-m certainly open to refining those sharpening the the pencil and making them more specific. That just would require everyone to put in some time. >> I was just going to say

105I agree with you Christian. They should be measurable but I think next steps will determine how to measure is Hello. There we go. Sorry. I was just saying I agree with what you were saying. They should be measurable. They have to be measurable. But I don't think we can say how we can measure them until we determine next steps. Like I think talking about next steps, how we're going to enact them, then we can take it a step further and say this is how we'll measure our success by the end of the year or whatever. Um what's it >> and I'll add that if we approve these that is not to say we can't come back and revisit them with refined um language right in terms of you know for instance I know policy development

106and oversight I know that is a big p focus in terms of making sure they're all aligned and correct and I know that's a a passion of yours Christian we could probably come up with a deliverable on that pretty easily you know in terms of what that might look like at the end of the year so um you know I would offer that we can we can do that as we go as well. Other comments, Jim, >> so I'll make my annual comment during this process that we need to have a strategic plan and that this process is not a great process every year. Um I hats off to you guys for coming up with a different way to do it. Um, I guess my question is I I I kind of have So, I

107I will say I have no problem with any of these as written. I think they're all laudable and well written. Everything's fine. Um, I they're not super measurable. Um, to me, they're more trending towards mission vision type than goal type. Um, so what is the goal of our goals? I think our goal process is not good. I think we need to have strategic planning as a district and then we'll have better goals fall out of that. So, um I guess I'll I'll just I'll make that and reiterate that comment and hopefully we will uh launch strategic planning uh and budget for that. And if I can just piggyback on what you just said, Jim, I think you've heard about we've come back to the need for a strategic plan and many different people and different

108like things and I think that that there is a a desire for it and I I know in the budget discussions last year this was something that you put onto the budget and you know and certainly I personally I support because for the same reasons I think you value it. it would it allows us to kind of think in a longer term perspective and allows people to evaluate what we're doing as opposed to kind of the drifting that might occur when we're responsive to events. And I think we certainly should perhaps spend some time this year thinking about that since it has come up by so many different people and whether that's something that uh um independent of the budget process we can you know take another hack at. Anyone else? I think it was

109my first meeting at the board at the high school where I said we need a strategic plan because otherwise we are just kind of doing the best we can do. you know, um I will say I talked to John Fink about the current budget and if there is a way to work strategic planning um you know more to more to come on that discussion, but um I have started to explore what could be presented to the board as options because I do think um and it's up to all of us but I do think it's something worth at least pursuing as a discussion um earlier this year rather than waiting for the end of the year for the budget because that just means we're starting again next year, right? So, um, it is critically important.

110I I will challenge everybody, um, you know, Jim, not to put you on the spot, but in terms of facilities, right? There's some stuff on here about facilities, we could go back and say, okay, how are we how are we going to involve stakeholders more in that process, you know, and so I'm not picking on you, but that's just a concrete one when I see it more so than some of the vagger ones um that might be on here. So, we can continue to evolve these as we go. Um, you know, same with the finance, etc. So, I think um our best way forward is to vote on these at the next meeting. H okay. Um to put them on the agenda for the next meeting to vote on them. In the meantime, if anybody

111wants to add some some measurable elements to them, you can just shoot me an email or add it to the document or I'll post this document because this is um edited a little differently. Um you can add it to that so that it's refined by the next meeting. Um but I think this is a good way forward, right? It's not progress, not perfection is what I like to say sometimes. So, um I I thank you for all your input and uh we're going to get this done. Thank you. All righty. And our final um portion, recognition of visitors. At the end of the meeting, the board, if you were here earlier, this is a repeat, but the board of education welcomes comments from the public. Each person wishing to speak is asked to speak into

112the microphone, identify themselves, and respectfully limit their comments to three minutes. Two opportunities to speak. Oh well, this is the second part of the meeting. Um, you may address the board only once and there is no cross dialogue between the board and members speaking. All speakers are to conduct themselves in a civil manner. Obscene language, lielless statements, threats of violence statements advocating racial, religious, or other forms of prejudice will not be tolerated. Persons wishing to discuss matters involving individual district personnel or students should present their comments and or concerns to the superintendent during regular business hours. Would anybody like to make a public comment? You can step forward. There's microphones at the end of each table. asked that question before I read off the whole big uh slew of rules. [laughter and gasps] All righty.

113Um I didn't write in my notes. Do I have a motion to Yeah. May I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Jim, may I have a second? >> There are closing comments. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Sorry. >> I almost got out. closing comments from the board. I'm so sorry. That's okay. Um uh so M we have closing comments at the end of each board meeting. I won't start with you to put you on the spot, but if you're you're welcome to provide a closing comment at the end, so we'll come back to you. You can kind of hear how it goes and see if there's anything you'd like to add, but it's typically just an opportunity for each board member to um share whatever you know is relevant to them or

114related to the meeting itself. So uh Jamie, you're first. All right. Um, I just wanted to thank Dr. Moran again. I feel like I learned a lot and I'm excited for you to share that presentation so I can go over the numbers again. Um, I just it's all new to me and I felt like it was really insightful. So, thank you. Um, and Christine, I'm really excited to work on these goals and make them measurable with you. And I think uh that's it. Thank you all. >> Hi. Um, first thing I want to do is I wanted to thank Oh, I'm sorry. I wanted to thank Megan for the excellent job you did over at the uh ribbon cutting ceremony. I think you did you did a great job there. Um, visitation's going to be

115meeting next week at 7:30 right here. We'll keep you posted on everything on through emails. And my last thing is is reminders of events coming up. And um on the 31st we have one at the elementary uh Halloween parades all all elementary schools. The uh CCHS fall drama production that'll be 117 to 119. Now the first one is going to be at 7:00. That'll be um 117 and 11. That'll be at 7:00. And the the uh 9th will be at 2:00. And then we they're gonna have the multra cultural night 11:13 uh 5 to 7. And the last one, I'm going to try to do this every month, different ones, but just to keep everybody posted because I need it. National Honor Society induction night. That's 11:25 at 6:00. And that's it. All right. Um,

116first welcome to our new student reps. Thank you for staying this long. I know it's late. Um, but we all look forward to hearing from you this year and, you know, getting that that true student perspective. Um, I want to thank and recognize David and wish you well. You know, like she said before, you're the reason that we can be broadcasted and everybody can hear us and that we're transparent. So, thank you for your 5 years service. So, thank you. And just a reminder, I did send out an email, I believe last week, for the NISPA ballot. I'm requesting everyone to fill that out, please. So far, I've gotten one. You still have time, but just a friendly reminder to get that done with that. >> What's the deadline, Richard? >> I think it was

117the 10th, but I'll double check. October. Yeah, October 10th, please have >> I was thinking it was next week. The way you said that, I was like, "Oh, no." >> Well, >> I'll keep you. Yeah, keep reminding you. But anyway, have a good night, >> Jim. >> He had his words. >> Friendship. >> Um, uh, yes, Mave and, uh, and Jocelyn, obviously, uh, thank you for, uh, for stepping up and we, we look forward to to all the contributions that you're going to make. Uh, and welcome aboard. Uh David uh just uh double triple everything everyone has said. Um good luck. Hope that we are a very small part of the uh your your biography one day when they tell of all of your uh you know where did he come from? Uh and thank

118you for all of the uh the the great service over the years. It's been a the community I'm sure uh the community would thank you if uh if they were here which some of them actually are. Uh, Walter, again, can't say enough. Um, I I'll I'll try at every opportunity, but uh, yeah, you've done an extraordinary service to this district and thank you for, uh, great presentation tonight as always. Um, regarding the ceremony, uh, Megan, fantastic job. John, uh, thank you. John was running around, uh, shephering us across the field, concealing his frustration that we weren't wouldn't really listen, uh, in an admirable way. Uh, thank you for that. Uh, and finally, um, you know, it's that it's that time of year we're all having the the back to school nights. Um, this is one

119of the I I I try to, as a parent and board member, you know, really separate those two, but it's always difficult when it's it's something like this. You you want to just brag about, you know, your kids teachers and schools and everything. Um, so I'll take liberties um in this one moment and and wear both hats, but I was just so impressed. Um, so I have a fourth grader here uh at CES last year at CES, which is, you know, itself kind of hard to believe. I have a uh seventh grader uh at the middle school and uh I was I am always impressed. But this year I was just blown away. Maybe I was just in a better mood about both days, frankly. But um just top to bottom uh everyone I interacted

120with um every every teacher that gave a presentation uh everyone uh it just fills you with a lot of confidence and gratitude. Uh frankly as a parent when you see the uh level of professionalism that these people have and and the passion you know it's one thing to be good at your job it's another thing to love your job which kind of makes you better at it as well. Um so could not be happier with uh just the uh very unofficial uh reporting uh that I have to to bring back from the schools. Uh and very excited for for the year to come. Yeah. Okay. Mave, anything? Oh, Elanor, I'm sorry. Sorry, Eleanor. Good. Okay, Mave, >> you can let me go. I just want to say thanks again for having us. I know Jocelyn

121had to leave, but I know I speak for both of us when I say we're really excited to work with you guys this year. And thanks again to Mrs. SGO for the ribbon cutting ceremony. I know like and a lot of people can speak to this. Yeah, especially seniors. I know, but um it's just like the football games have never been more fun and I know it's it's a lot and it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it really is just like the sense of pride and unity with the new field and with just everything has been great. So, thanks again, >> Eleanor. I'm sorry you said you have something. >> No, that's okay. I was letting I was letting May have go because she was already started. Okay. So, um, I want to, uh,

122welcome our two high school students that have joined us. And Mave, if you could please extend my hello to your parents and give your sister a big hug for me, I would appreciate that. Um, I also would like to thank our presenters for tonight. They did a great job. Congratulations to our students and our teachers and staff for having a wonderful start to the school year. and Shauna Toba. Happy New Year to all of our friends out there in our district and beyond who are celebrating starting this evening. >> Thank you, Christian. Uh so a lot to reflect on the last few weeks and um one of the things I was reflecting on is uh you know George Orwell who famously survived being shot with the neck during the Spanish Civil War and he was

123very clear in many of his writings about the criticism of those who romanticize political violence particularly in his essays inside the whale and also homage to Catalonia. But he also very much in the same way in his essay on Charles Dickens made a very point that simply being nicer to each other is not really a solution to a lot of problems and attribute that to Charles Dickens and I think it's would be instructive to read that. A second thing it just published this morning was an essay about you know kindness and neness and I'm just going to read a selection from that. Um, what does it mean to be truly kind? Being nice is all about how you wish to be viewed. Whereas being kind means doing what is right, never mind the optics. Nice

124is telling your friend or speech is fantastic. Being kind is pointing out that it's filled with bad jokes, none of which will work with the intended audience. Being nice can be actively harmful. When it's disingenuous, it's a superficial kind of action. It leaves us to do hurtful things because our focus is on ourselves and how others perceive us. Kind people, on the other hand, often cause scenes. They stand up for what's right. They put themselves out and do not worry about their personal convenience. They rarely concern themselves with how other people see them. Their energy goes on to doing the right thing no matter how difficult that might make them make things for themselves. And it reminded me of a book that um called Beautiful Souls written by Yao Press. And it was all about

125what enables people to do the right thing in difficult situations. And he looked at a variety of different people, people who saved Jewish refugees during World War II, um whistleblowers, and it was a book that was read in Penn State, required reading for their freshmen, um after the Jerry Sanduski scandals. And he he made a very interesting you know conclusion. He says the people who do the right thing are not saints. They're not heroes. They're almost universally people who are very difficult who are not wellliked very commodly because their superpower is the fact that they do not care what other people think. And in that meaning they are able to do the right thing in that situation. And I've always had you know cuz I share something with y press because our formative moment with

126political violence is the same. Um, I went to school in Buffalo and um, I'll just say a name. And in Bar um, Barnard Slepion and if you're not familiar with the name, that's part of the point. So in 1998, Warner Slepion was shot in his kitchen. He was an OBGYn after coming home from memorial service for his father at his synagogue. He went home. He was preparing his dinner and he was shot through from someone waiting waiting in the bushes. They shot him through the window. And the bullet not only just killed him but also almost killed his son who was standing right next to him, his wife as well. And the reason why is that I was in Buffalo at the time and I knew that neighborhood very well. And Amherst, New York was

127the safest town in New York State at the time. And Ya Press was in high school. the son of another OBGYn OBGYn in Buffalo and he wrote a memoir about what it was like to live through that experience. And so I think it's kind of like when we think about political violence, you know, there's a lot it's this was a time before Coline, before social media, before polarization, before the internet as it is today. Um, but very much a same similar type of incident that occurred in the last few weeks. And it should make a reflect about even if you look how people reacted to that and what people said in the wake of that and I think it would be um instructive to us to reflect on that. Thank you. >> Thank you Christian.

128Um I quickly Googled cuz you made a comment about kindness and defining it and one of my favorite and if I could piggyback on that if you don't mind. One of my um favorite things about kindness is from Bnee Brown, who's a social psychologist, and she emphasizes that kindness is a sign of courage and strength, not weakness. And she states that clear is kind, being clear is kind, being unclear is unkind, highlighting that direct communication fosters healthy relationships. Um and she goes on to talk about, you know, self-kindness, etc. But really, it's something that I even talk about at work as it relates to, you know, when you're giving feedback, when you're trying to um help somebody be the best version of themselves, we, you know, we try to be gentle, but that's not necessarily

129being kind because it's not, you know, to what you describe. It's not necessarily telling the truth or um giving them a view in terms of um you know, what might be most helpful. So, thank you for reminding us of that. And with that, I will take a real motion to close the meeting. So moved. >> Jim >> second. >> Brendan second. Do we have to vote? We just close. All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? All right. The motion to close passes. Thank you.