Board of Education Public Meeting | Live Stream | March 12th, 2026

001our cross country track standout and a member of our jazz ensemble in which he plays the piano. Noah has committed to Amherst College where he plans to study chemistry. And now I will let them tell you a little more about how they made it to these very prestigious seats. Good evening members of the board of education. is my pleasure to be able to speak here before you tonight and my utmost honor to do so as the valadictorian of Albany High School's graduating class of 2026. As a student who spent her entire educational journey within the City School District of Albany, I can say with confidence that I wouldn't have had it any other way. As an elementary school student, I attended um Albany School of Humanities or ASH. It was there where I developed a

002strong foundation of my scholastic identity, which I have since built upon. While attending Ash, I was able to participate in a variety of diverse art forms. Whether it was learning how to play the clarinet, acting in a scene from McBth with my fourth grade class, or painting an Andy Warhol style self-portrait, the arts shaped how I experienced learning. I learned how to express myself. And what's more is that I learned how to not just look at the world through an analytical lens, but through a create creative one as well. By allowing me a space to build the framework of a creative mind, Ash forever changed the way the manner in which I approach education informed who I am as an individual. While my years at Myers Middle School were largely overshadowed by the CO 19

003pandemic, I'm appreciative of the chance I had to take courses such as algebra and living environment biology, which challenged me as an eighth grader and prepared me for high school. At Albany High School, I have been enormously influenced by the variety of different course offerings. I have kept in touch with my creative side in classes like AP two-dimensional design and wind ensemble while also exploring future educational goals in classes like AP environmental science and AP biology. I'm grateful for the opportunity I've had to combine my broad range of interests by studying in an interdisciplinary manner because I was able to explore my interests rather than being confined to a strict pathway. I was able to come to the decision that I wanted to pursue the natural sciences in college after previously attend uh dreaming of

004attending art school and I am excited to begin my journey to becoming an environmental scientist. While I have decided to major in a STEM field, the arts will forever remain a part of my life and Albany High has given me the opportunity to expand my artistic horizons not just through certain courses but through extracurriculars like National Art Honor Society and Olympics of the Visual Arts. It's incredibly moving to be surrounded by such talented individuals in these communities and their passion for the arts has fueled that of my own. In general, the drive and enthusiasm of others has pushed me to go above and beyond. My experience at my Irish dance school, for instance, has made this clear to me. My fellow dancers love for the sport motivated me to compete more, renewing a childhood joy

005and fueling ambition in my other endeavors. Had I not been encouraged to strive for more, I don't believe I would have become the person I am today. For that, I thank them for helping me when I struggled and challenging me when I needed it. I thank my teachers for inspiring me with their desire to create a more just world. I thank my peers and fellow soon-to-be graduates and for instilling in me the importance of education. I thank my family. The academic and artistic communities, a strong support system, and the ability to educate myself in a myriad of disciplines has set me up for success. I know that everything I've learned, be it personal or academic, in this first leg of my education, will will provide me with a strong footing on which to begin the

006second. Thank you. Hello, Albony High School Board of Education. I would like to first just thank you so much for having me and Juliet today. I feel so honored and privileged to be given the opportunity to speak in front of such a capable and dedicated group of individuals as the Alb High School Saludiatoran. Instantly after beginning my time at Alb High, it became clear to me that I was attending an exceptional school. However, I never really spent much time at all thinking about what exactly made Albany High so great. It wasn't until someone explicitly asked me what set Albany apart from some other some other school districts in the area that I really came up with an answer. I was at a track meet going for a cool down run with someone who I just

007competed in a race competed against in a race. We began a nice conversation and at one point Albany High came up. He turned to me with a smile and said something to the effect of, "Oof, Albany, I feel sorry for you." And I replied by telling him, "Actually, I'm having an incredible experience at Albany." He seemed genuinely surprised and intrigued by my answer and proceeded to ask what made Albany such a positive experience for me. I told him that to me, Albany High's two greatest qualities are the opportunities that has to offer as well as its faculty members. At Albany High, there really is something for everyone. Partially thanks to the sheer size of the school. Albany provides such a diverse and extensive list of course offerings for all kinds of students. Whether it's AP,

008mainstream, the wide array of art and music classes, CTE classes, financial, and even parenting classes, Albany High offers educational opportunities for students with diverse interests, career pursuits, and learning styles. And I'm not only talking about classes when it comes to opportunities. Students can explore so many different interests through the incredibly extensive list of extracurricular offerings. I personally chose to involve myself in the cross country track and field and Albany High jazz ensemble. As for the faculty, whether it's a matter of self- selection, a strong hiring process, or a combination of factors, I just adore nearly every single teacher that I had. Most of my friends feel the same way. I hear these horror stories from out of district friends about this one teacher that they absolutely can't stand or other faculty members that act in

009a way that really makes you wonder why they chose a career in education. But I simply never had an experience like that. Throughout my time at Albany, I formed so many close relationships with relationships with teachers. Their passion and genuine care for the students are so incredibly evident. Why do I feel the need to touch on why do I feel the need to touch on these points? Well, I can say with confidence that had it not been for the extensive opportunities and fabulous faculty members, I would not have achieved the degree of sess success that I earned throughout high school. To elaborate, I'd like to briefly discuss my athletic pursuits and achievements during my time at Albany High. Since signing up for cross country my freshman year, I worked my way to becoming one of

010the top middle distance athletes in section two. I qualified for various championship meets and my running has even assisted um me in getting admitted to my college. Not to mention, I absolutely love the sport and the people on my team. I originally signed up for cross country my freshman year in order to meet new people as 9th grade would be my first year in the Albony city school district. I stuck with the program largely due to the positive, supportive, and cooperative established team culture. Albany High ensured that their cross country team was run properly and it was my coach, Coach Whe through his encouragement and genuine passion for coaching who played such a large role in my development as an athlete. In other words, the wonderful cross country and track program programs that Alb High

011has to offer. The opportunity coupled with the incredible coaches, the staff is what ultimately has allowed me to achieve my athletic success. Onto the academic side of my life, I was fortunate enough to explore so many different passions due to the many courses that Albony High offers. I was able to choose my classes from an extensive list of graduation and elective courses, allowing me to tailor my course though to my personal interests and passions. I've always been a big music and STEM person, so I chose to enroll in classes such as piano one and piano 2 and the jazz ensemble and many math and science courses. Being able to pick which classes appeal to me the most was a major motivating factor that pushed me to earn high grades in school. Additionally, I challenged myself

012with AP courses throughout my time at a at Alb High, 11 if we're keeping count. And there have been times that I've struggled with material, but my teachers were so kind and accommodating and provided me with the assistance when I was in need. It was once again the staff and the opportunities that enabled me to excel academically. Between strong academics and my participation in the jazz ensemble and athletics, I was certainly able to accomplish a lot at this school. But I know for a fact that had it not been for the wonderful opportunities and the wonderful teachers and coaches, I certainly wouldn't be where I am today. Albony High has given me so much and I will be eternally grateful. So really, thank you so much for everything that you all do. >> Thank you.

013We'd like to take a few photos now with the board and superintendent. We could ask any of Julia and Noah's family members who are here to join us. So to stick with our theme as we move along with district highlights, speaking of academic high achievers in the class of 2026, we are excited to congratulate Kayis Bjay on being named a finalist in the National Merit Scholarship competition. Kay, who you had the opportunity to meet earlier this school year, already was among the top 1% of students nationally when he achieved semi-finalist recognition in the fall based on his PSAT results as a junior. He's now one of just 15,000 finalists nationwide and will learn this spring if he is selected among the fewer than 7,000 students nationally who will receive a national merit scholarship. And we

014are keeping our fingers crossed for him. We also are excited to report that Albany High's unified bowling team won its division championship earlier this week. The Falcons rolled Thank Absolutely. The Falcons rolled to victory over Saratoga, Scotia, and Mayfield led by Jer Jeremiah McCra's high game of 151. Other top performers for the Falcons included Julius Murray who bowled a 120, uh Kimar Pulium Watson who bowled a 119 and Jonathan Bartwink with a 115. We are proud of all of our bowlers for their individual and team success and to our unified bowling coach Alicia Erisim and her staff for their leadership and support throughout the championship season. And it is now our pleasure to welcome Tony Clement, Center for Education Principal Chris Martell, to tell us more about the great things happening at his school this

015year. And I was going to introduce assistant principal Teresa Adele as well, but I hadn't checked to see if she was in the audience. And there she is. So, welcome to you both. Good evening, Superintendent Hawk Rider, members of the cabinet, President Chhatur, and all of our board members. And thank you for inviting us in tonight. We're excited to share some of the work that we've been doing at the Tony Clement Center for Education. So, there's So, we start with the district vision, vision, mission, and goals, which I know we've discussed already this evening. Um, want to talk a little bit about our school's um vision and our goals. And because I can't read my tiny print here, I'm going to read it off the board. At the Tony Clement Center for Education, students are

016empowered to realize their individual aspirations, goals, and potential for greatness. And our school's mission, the mission of the Tony Clement Center for Education is to provide students with a safe, nurturing, and supportive educational experience that is responsive to every student's cultural, emotional, and social development. We ensure equity and access to rigorous and relevant learning opportunities through flexible, innovative programming. Through positive relationships and collaborative partnerships with our families, community, and each other, students will develop the skills to become responsible citizens. Uh here's a snapshot of our leadership team, myself and Miss Adalian along with our homeschool coordinators. Uh Malcolm Gandandy who works with our high school program. U Terl Terrell Terrell Strick I always mispronounced his first name. I always call him Strick. So um is our home school coordinator on our middle school program and

017Antoine Morrison is our home school coordinator for our choice program and Mr. cancer. Isaac Cancer is our senior hall monitor and uh we really couldn't do it without these folks and um they do amazing work. So this is a snapshot of our students. This is as of the 2nd of March. We currently have 30 students enrolled in our middle school program, 53 students enrolled in our choice program, and 57 students enrolled in our high school program. And here is a little bit more about our students, who they are. And the next slide will Sorry, still not used to driving this thing. It uh talks a little bit about where our students come from. And I think it also illustrates some of the challenges that our students have faced and why they might have benefit from

018an alternative program. This is just our breakdown of our um students by program. We included our evening tutorial program and so that's the uh green number at the top and we have seen our numbers in that program grow as well. That's for students who are either on a long-term suspension or might need an abbreviated schedule or some um different supports than we're able to provide in our day program. I'm going to ask Mr. Dian to um discuss a little bit more about our student risk screening um results and what they tell us about our students. So, this here is the buildingwide um data for the screening >> and um the student or I'm sorry, the teachers districtwide, I believe, do this um in the fall and then again in the winter and it's a screening

019basically um to see maybe what type of supports students may need um according to their risk scale. Um so you can see in the fall um we had um a low percent of the um inter uh I'm sorry the fall was the internalizing behaviors. So the low risk for that um was 58%. And then you can see um the externalizing is where we have more of our students fall into that behavior category. So most of our students um rather than hold things in and deal with things inside there's a lot of external um behaviors that we see and um that really did that increased um into the winter. This we only rated students that we had from the fall to the winter. So it is the same group of students. This is just a breakdown

020of the choice in high school team or I'm sorry the high choice and high school students. And um again you can see like the internalizing behavior is low. The externalizing behavior is high. Um our building wide behavior uh our data actually we felt like didn't really look um horribly this year. Um and then we said let's take a look at the middle school slide and it was a very different story. Um which uh really does align with how we run the programs. So um the students I would say the students based on the data that we got from the teachers and the screening it does appear that the students are well placed in the programs within the building based on the needs that they have um throughout the school day >> for our um comprehensive

021education plan focus. our two key strategies which are aligned with uh many of our other schools. Um our first one is evidence-based instructional methods and we're focusing this year with our instructional supervisors on differentiation and um helping our team to develop their skills and techniques to meet the needs of our students. Um, you know, we talked a little bit about some of the um risk factors that our students have, but you know, no one no two students in our building are alike and their stories and how they um came to us to an alternative program are different. So, we want to make sure that we're reaching each of our kids and meeting as many of their needs as we can. And uh we've really focused on working with as I said the instructional supervisors but

022also leveraging the expertise within our building our teachers who um have seemed to unlock some um potential in kids that other teachers may have struggled with. So we've seen really positive um engagement from our entire faculty through working with their colleagues to learn more about how to better support our kids. We've we've also this year um began to work with our coaches across all programs. Um and we have been tackling vocabulary and strategies for students. Um that has been a really great addition to what we've been doing this year because we talk about differentiation with our students, but we also need to differentiate with our staff. and um other buildings have multiple teachers of English, math, science or we're singletons um in each program. So there's not an English department to come together to work

023together on different things. So we decided that we would start to focus on what are um what are some strategies that all teachers can use with all kids so that the teachers can support each other and that the kids are starting to understand that they can use strategies across content areas. Um and that has gone very well so far. Um the second strategy is for MTSS and um we've really tried to work on student voice through MTSS. Um we've done some surveys this year. We analyzed the data and um we've taken that data and then brought it back to both the students and the staff to get some feedback on that. And through that feedback, we've been starting to build some different uh ways to do things within the building. For example, um we have

024to focus on a lot of tier one strategies at Tony Clement Center. Um because we have so many students with so many needs, it would be nearly impossible to give everyone their own individual plan. So we have to look at the things that we really need and try to support it on a tier one level. And um one of the things that came out was retaching PBIS expectations in a different way. So we took that feedback and um most recently we just rolled it out um via the support of the MTSS team where we actually made scenarios of things that would happen throughout the day and um gave the kids point sheets and they had classroom discussions and they went through to determine like if I was the teacher, how would I determine what this

025behavior looked like in the classroom and what would give that student. And so they had some discussions about that. And um I did get to talk to at least one student about it and they were really psyched about the roll out. They're like, I gave my teacher four points because she didn't appropriately use her skill the first time. I was like, okay. So um that was nice. And that we have um a lot of that work is coming out of the connection to our equity goal number three, which um we'll talk about at the end. It's one of our slides. Thank you. Just a quick look at our attendance and you know with our students at Tony Clement we have found um in this in my third year most of the students who are referred

026to our program have already in the past uh year had been designated as chronically absent. And um so we're really trying to build a stronger program where each kid feels connected and supported and uh to try to increase our daily attendance. And we have seen some progress. So this slide here just shows our um attendance rates versus districtwide attendance rates. And these are our chronic absenteeism rates. And again with our students, many of them with um some of the challenges that they have both uh in school and outside of school, um we have to work really really hard to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to get them into school and keep them there. And this is our attendance by program. Um you know, the choice program is in red, the

027high school students um are in the purple, and the blue line is the middle school program. And you know, generally speaking, our middle school attendance rates are higher. Um, but what we're seeing is that we're starting to see our high school and choice closer, more closely aligned to our middle school attendance, which is encouraging for us. And our three-year attendance ratio show where we were in 23 24 uh compared to where we are this year. miss alignment. But again, we we're happy with the trends we've been seeing. >> Do you want to talk about suspensions? >> So, um suspensions are still higher than we would like them to be. Um, however, we have been um this this is now our second year in the middle school program um with all students receiving an SEB class

028daily >> um which has been fantastic >> and our belt team just started to discuss um how do we get SEB classes into our high school program? Um what does that look like? how can we make it credit bearing because we realize that um it's very important to be able to teach behaviors to students at all ages. Um however, it is a competing interest with credits um for our high school students who often come in behind the eightball. So that is something that our belt team has just started to tackle um and we're hoping to um move forward with that in the very near future. >> Yeah. What we realize is that our students um need more support in learning conflict resolution. Um and so we're trying to build that into courses that are already

029offered within the district um so that we can give the kids what they need but also make sure that they're earning the credits um that they need to graduate. These are our unique suspensions, out of school suspensions. And um you know, one of the things that as Mr. D and I were preparing for our presentation this evening, we discussed was that this year uh in particular, we've really tried to um be more mindful about when students are joining our program. Um, so we really have worked on like a fiveweek cycle throughout the interim periods to meet with our um, middle schools and our high school teams to discuss students who might benefit from our program and make sure that we can meet their needs. But what we have found is that that has helped because

030our school is small and it's it's a bit of a delicate ecosystem and one change in the environment can have an impact on many of our students and um sometimes that impact is positive and sometimes kids can react um less less positively to new students in their classes especially if they have existing relationships and possibly existing conflict with those students. So um being more mindful about how we bring new students in I think has really helped us to kind of bring down our unique uh suspensions as the year has gone on. Um the unique suspension being you know a first time a student has been suspended with us and um you know recognizing that there are still going to be behaviors that suspensions are appropriate and possibly required by the code of conduct. And this

031one just um lists our referral counts. And one of the things that um with our increase in February, we recognize that January and February both months were the schedule's pretty disrupted. We had our regent week. We had our our vacations. We had some early release days, some snow days, and some uh snow delays. And we know that our students struggle with um attendance. And so building and sustaining momentum can be a challenge. the schedule so disrupted. The other thing we want to make sure is that we're reminding our entire staff that when there's a problematic behavior, it needs to be documented so that we can address it. So, um we're hopeful that that increase is really more of just uh having more of our kids in the building and also making sure that we're reporting

032and and responding to those behaviors that are problematic. So, our school highlights, um, we we're, you know, trying to figure out how to capture the work that's happening at Tony Clement on these slides, but I do want to just make sure that I mention one of the most important things that needs to be highlighted is our incredible team. We have, you know, we talked about some of our leadership folks, but really our entire school. We actually, we refer to ourselves as a family, the TCC family. And I can't say enough about all of the people in that building and their dedication not only to our students but to each other because the work that we do and the environment we work in can be challenging and the level of support that our entire team provides

033to each other. It really is inspiring and it keeps me coming in every day and glad to be there. So um I want to make sure I recognize all the folks who contribute to our school. Um, one of the things that we did differently this year was we tried to pair our parent teacher night conference with a um, employment opportunity um, presentation. So, we invited in some um, employers in our area both for students um, whether it be prevocational skills um, or summer youth employment. We also had folks from our very own city school district of Albony human resources there to talk to parents about potential job openings and uh where they might uh want to fit into our district and uh youth and workforce services. We did this for two reasons because first of

034all we are constantly trying to engage our families and given some of the complex histories that many of our students have had with schools um bringing them into school building those relationships can be a bit of a challenge. Um, so we wanted to give them something to come in that would bring multiple family members in. Um, and also give the students who attended with their families some more information about some of these programs that are available for them to build their employability. Uh, it came again out of our belt team is specifically with regard to our equity goals um of student voice and you know building their employment skills. You want to take this one? >> Sure. So, um, the belt team planned, um, also planned our black history celebration. And, um, again, using our

035equity goals one and three, we really wanted to see, um, how we would, um, really connect this to our students in the building. So, we surveyed the students. We asked them like, "What are some careers that you are interested in when you grow up?" And um we took that survey data and from that we um invited in some guest speakers with the careers that the students had picked. So we had a social worker, a restaurant worker slash owner sorry slashontrepreneur and a nurse. So based on what the students picked, they went to the presentations, learned a little bit about the uh career and um about the story of the person um how they ended up um in that career. Um just a lot of them spoke about their life struggles and how they were able

036to turn things around for themselves to become what they wanted to become. Um which was really awesome. And then um we all came together in the gym where the guest speakers did a little five minute speech about themselves and their careers for everyone because everyone didn't get to go to every single um uh presentation only the one that you really wanted to go to. And then um we had a really nice lunchon and the kids all did projects so they were displayed in the gym and um families were invited and it was just a very nice um day at Tony Clement Center >> and our guest speakers really did focus um or reflect a lot of the work that we've been doing with our students. um try to build perseverance and grit, making sure they

037understand the importance of supportive relationships and maybe finding support from people that maybe they don't expect it and when sometimes when people who they might expect support from aren't there for them, there's always somebody there to step up. Um and it was really refreshing to hear those remarks um echo what we've been working on all year. Some of the other work we're doing, one of the things we did this year on our high school and choice program was we adjusted our schedule so all of our students start today with um an opportunity to work in credit recovery and we have seen a 24% increase in the number of credit students have been able to earn through using uh Edenum courseware this year compared to last year which uh is is really been a very positive

038respon response to that change in our schedule. Um, with the use of the Desmos, we did a uh our math teachers on the high school and choice program did a pilot with some of the other teachers in the math uh department using the Desmos calculator. And with that, we saw 33% of our students pass the algebra regions in January, which is up from 12% of our students last year. And uh it's very exciting response to that. We're really excited to try to build upon that. And in fact, our math teachers on high school and choice program met with Mr. Dulsignor and some um vendors for a new curriculum program that is um tied to that Desmos and it comes out of the same work and we're excited to try to implement that in our school

039next year. One other thing we did was every year we in every Martin period we've done an honor role celebration for the students who reach honor role. this year in some conversations uh in our belt team and coming out of our work with our instru instructional supervisors, we tried to expand the number of students were recognized. So we we use the phrase honor role, but really it's about kids who are showing progress that might not have reached that honor role uh criteria. And so this past um marking period, we invited our kids who in the high school have earned additional credits through courseware. And I'll let Miss A talk a little bit about the high the middle school students who how we identified them on a role. >> So the middle school uh students do

040something called the top 10 challenge. So um every week we look at their um averages for um overall average for all classes. And um anybody who has um an average that would be in the top 10 gets on the top 10 list. And the kids have been so excited. um they are really trying to work really hard to get on there. So, what like what was really nice this time because it was the first time we brought kids to the breakfast that were not on honor roll. Um they got to see the ceremony and they got to be part of it and then they started talking to their friends. So, it's been a little bit like contagious. they are talking for the first time since I've been at Tony Clement which I think 10 years.

041Um the conversations have shifted from behavior to academics and it has been so awesome like to hear kids saying like the kids from the middle school that went last um to the breakfast because they were on the top 10 have come back and said to everyone I'm going to be on the honor roll quarter three. Um, and then some of the kids who didn't make top 10 were saying, "I'm going to be in the top 10." So, I'm like, "This is awesome." The conversations are awesome that they're having with each other. And it's just been really awesome to see that shift from always talking about behavior even though it's important, but to have that shift to becoming learners and they're so proud of themselves. And similarly in the high school and choice program students who

042were invited to join the honor roll breakfast got to see that the students who receal get to invite guests in family members um and we do a a ceremony where we recognize them and present certificates and they get a gift and the kids are like wow I can do that if I make honor roll. Oh I'm going to be on honor roll next morning period. So, it's been really a positive development and again thanks to the work of our belt team and trying to find new ways to bring more kids in and get them excited about learning. So, challenges and next steps. You know, I will say that the last few weeks for Tony Clement have been particularly challenging. Um the work does continue and what we are all trying to do is continue to

043be flexible and adaptive to meet the needs of all of our students and also trying to focus on our increasing our capacity to meet the needs of our new referrals um as we work with those sending schools to determine exactly what students need and how we can best um accommodate them and work on their needs. We're also, as we said, working on trying to find uh opportunities for social emotional learning in our credit bearing high school and choice classes. And we are continuing to work with um our belt team and um our other school leaders to build partnerships with community providers. This year we just started a program with the uh YMCA called Y on the fly where they come in and work with students who have been identified as needing additional support and they

044focus on um you know building their skills and leadership capacity and we've seen a nice turnout so far from the students and we are starting to see other students who really are getting interested in participating as well. These are just some of the things that we um identified as our successes. We in the beginning of the year where we started with kids their vision boards and their graduation road mapaps trying to figure out what is it they want to do when they're done with school and how they get there and that is as we said that continues to inform our work as we work on bringing in employment opportunities and other learning opportunities for kids. um trying to bring in more parents for open house and pair teacher conferences and I work I mentioned the

045Y on the fly program and we're always working to improve the culture and climate of our school and making sure that our students um feel valued and connected to our school and that our staff feel valued and um supported in their work. These are the equity goals we mentioned earlier. And there is the um the video just showing some of the images from this year of the work that's been done. Heat. Heat. That's all we have. I want to make sure I thank um Abby Baker from our communications department for her help in putting that video together as well. And uh thank you for your time and your continued support. >> Thank you. >> And that concludes tonight's district highlights. >> Excuse me. Okay, a couple updates as uh Nikaya gets our PowerPoint together. We

046would like to thank the governor. The governor came and visited us last week at Albany Schools of Humanity um to celebrate National School Breakfast Week. Uh we had a number of um elected officials there joining the mayor or joining the governor. Mayor Pierers was there and Senator Fehee and Assembly Member Romero uh and a couple other um members of the Assembly and Senate that sponsored a number of bills that um have supported students not just uh in Albany with breakfast and lunch and snacks, but throughout New York State. So, we thank the the governor for uh choosing the City School District of Albany to uh celebrate these policies and and share some of her vision. It's um we're always delighted to get a call from her from her team to uh show up and and

047work with us. We had a number of schoolboard members that were with us as well that enjoyed uh it was brunch uh that day at Ash. So, it was it was breakfast for lunch. So, thank you to the governor and of course, thank you to Marie Kolahan and her team for uh welcoming everyone. We want to remind folks that you can still vote through March 19th for our high school director of bands, John Halverson. He is in the running. He's one of 10 finalists for the Benny Barry Manalo Music Teacher Award. Uh this would include a $5,000 cash pride and grants for uh additional classroom instruments. You can go on our website um in order to vote, but uh we hope that you do vote. can vote early and often before March or through March

04819th. And uh the winner will be selected at Barry's final show at MVP Arena in midappril. And speaking of Mr. Hverson and music, it is music in our schools month. Uh and we will have our all city concerts, our our chorus concert on March 18th. The 25th will host the strings and on March 31st, the L city band. All concerts are at 6:30 and in Albany High School. And it's so great to see um students from throughout our 12 elementary schools and middle level programs uh combined for uh an outstanding concert. It's uh we're very fortunate uh with the completion of the high school auditorium that uh for the first time in a long time we're having all three uh concerts at the high school. And that is on purpose so that young students and

049families can see the high school and we may be able may be able to work in some tours for families as well uh as of course we officially cut the ribbon on the high school uh in late August. Continuing with our uh artistic and talented students, Mean Girls opens up uh in fact they had a uh debut tonight. Uh so if you want to see them, you can catch them tomorrow and Saturday at 6:30 in the Sunday matinea. Uh an incredible cast, a really fun story. Uh and we had a number of the um of the cast join us. Uh about two weeks ago, we hosted a um statewide leadership concert or conference and they were able to open up the conference with uh a number of their uh selections in advance uh of the

050curtain rising this evening. We also have a number of art exhibits. We have uh a handful of high school students that were selected among 515 submissions for the annual high school uh art uh exhibition. Uh this is taking place downtown on Pearl Street at the Albany Center Gallery. Uh you can see all of these 127 pieces, but certainly make sure you stop by to see the work of our talented Falcons. And the gallery is open uh from noon to 5:00 on Tuesday through Saturday. And if that's not enough art for you, you can head over to the Empire State Plaza. Uh throughout the month of Mar throughout the month of March, but closing on the 22nd, uh is also National Youth Art Month. Tonight, uh they had their opening reception. So, we had a number

051of of our staff, including our fine arts uh supervisor over um at the um Empire State Plaza, and we have a number of students who are exhibiting their artwork. So, if you have an opportunity, please make sure you stop over there. And closing out March on March 31st is our annual autism spectrum fair. This will take place at Monasuri Magnet School from 5 to 7. Uh if you need transportation, we are providing free transportation from a number of uh venues throughout the city to make sure folks can get out to Monasuri. It's a great event um to draw awareness uh as well as for student uh exhibitions and a number of different uh organizations we'll be tableabling um to just uh continue to draw awareness uh around uh those on the autism spectrum and also

052to provide resources to families throughout our community uh and of course also statewide. And lastly, um we want to make sure we continue to encourage folks to take place in the Activate Albany survey. This is uh on behalf of uh Mayor Aleair's transition team as she settles into her new role as mayor. She is trying to uh get as much feedback and input as she can around uh activities in the city, what folks want to see changed, what folks uh want to see continued. And certainly there's a significant opportunity um to provide input if you are a student or a young person or a particularly young professional in Albany. So we ask folks uh to make sure they uh engage with the survey. It takes le less than 10 minutes. Uh and her transition team

053is certainly committed to sharing those results and building some action plans around that. And before I uh close my my formal uh update, I do want to um make sure I acknowledge we we heard some comments uh at our last board meeting um from some parents uh that are early on in their high school years or for some from some parents who have students transitioning into the high school run our ELA curriculum and our ELA uh course continuum. Um, we've heard from a little more than around a dozen families, whether in writing, whether uh comments that were made to the board, uh, or certainly comments in meetings that I've undertaken. So, I want folks to understand that if they have, uh, any questions or concerns about our ELA curriculum, our content, uh, and certainly our

054program of study throughout the high school, uh, we have heard you. Uh, I had a number of conversations with our curriculum team today, including um the uh Albany High School principal, Principal Cummifford, and we will be reaching out to those families to uh be able to sit with them and uh understand some of their concerns and hear their ideas uh to make sure that they feel very comfortable and confident about the experiences their students are having or that their students will have uh as they enter high school. So for those that have have reached out and uh perhaps those that may um register additional comments today um you will make we we will make sure that you hear directly from us and invite you in to further that conversation. And that concludes my report. >>

055Thank you superintendent. Port colleagues as a usual practice I ask you to prioritize your questions first and ask your most important question. If there's more time we will go around for a second round. Uh with that said, uh Miss Brail, do you have any questions? >> No comment. >> Okay, >> Mr. Wolf gang. >> Uh no questions. >> Mr. Almani, >> uh no questions, but I did want to congratulate the validictorian and the saludiatoran. Um, I love how they both have such Albany pride and so much affinity for creativity and um, I think they have a really bright futures ahead of them. I also want to shout out all of the student art highlights in the update. Um, I think I mention this every time it's mentioned, but when I was a senior in high

056school, I was in the jured high school regional art show. So, I just love that it continues and um yeah, go students. Go opening >> Miss Penn. >> I have no comments. Thank you, >> Miss Savage. >> Miss Wilson, >> no comments outside of I appreciate the update and the materials that you outlined that are coming up. I don't have any uh questions either, but like Hassan said, you know, it's it's great that people are finally seeing the opportunities that exist in our district and our students have seen this and are grabbing those opportunities and making the most of it. Um it's a little um mean I was tearing up a little bit because it brought back memories from three years ago when uh someone that I know of was sitting in that chair as

057a validictorian giving that same speech. And I met Noah three years ago when he joined as a freshman uh at one of the pasta parties. Another great tradition that the cross country team has where the team goes from, you know, different parents host the pasta parties and these kids meet each other and um it's amazing what what the kids can do and but we haven't seen anything yet. There's more to come. So, oh, Miss Grrey, >> hi. I just wanted to say I'm very sorry not to have a chance to meet and greet the validator validictorian and saludiatoran in person. I can't see from my little screen if they're still there, but congratulations to both of you and I look I look forward to meeting you in person soon. And thank you very much for

058the presentation. I am also happy to hear from the superintendent that you're looking more into the ELA issues with the combined classrooms. Thanks. >> Thank you, Miss Cr. Okay. Moving on. This is the time we set aside to hear from members of the public. Um, we have a few people signed up for public comment today and we have one person signed up for virtual comment. Um, and we have one letter that came in uh by mail. Um, we always welcome input from the community about the decisions we are making. We set aside 30 minutes for each meeting to hear from our district residents, parents, students, and other members of the community. If there are more comments that can be accommodated in 30 minutes, which we don't anticipate today, we may choose to extend the length

059of the public comment period or have a a second session at the end of the meeting. Uh we'll also accept comments virtually on the same basis as those in as those in person and we accept comments in writing and by voicemail. We welcome comments in English or any other language and we'll provide translation when when necessary. All comments must include the commenters's name and place of residence. We do not accept anonymous comments. All information about these many ways to share your thoughts with us are available and addressing the board information at albonychools.org/being. We ask all commenters to keep in mind that information about individual students and specific district staff cannot be shared. Not only that is that a violation of privacy, but every student and every staff member deserves to know that concerns about them

060will not be aired in public. Um, and when board members who read written comments, they'll pass over uh or substitute alternate words if individual names are mentioned or eliminate those names and uh descriptions from recorded voicemails. Please keep in mind that public comment is not the best place to first alert the district for a concern you have. We ask you share your concerns first with the relevant staff such as a teacher or a principal. If you feel that concern is not addressed adequately, you may appeal to the person's supervisor up the chain of command if necessary to superintendent and decisions made by the superintendent may be appealed to the board. Mr. Wolf Gang, do you have >> uh Yes, we have one comment that was uh submitted via the I believe online form. Um here

061we go. Uh my name is Ariel Zilberman. I am a proud father of three children in the Albany school district, grades 3, 8, and 10. And I value the role public schools play in our community. I also speak as a professor of philosophy at U Albany, a field that depends heavily on strong reading, comprehension, and writing skills. From that vantage point, I have watched with concern as the lit literacy skills of incoming college students have steadily declined. Increasingly, many students arrive at college unpre unprepared to complete sustained readings or produce clear structured writing. Against that backdrop, Albany students risk arriving even less prepared than their peers. The current structure of honors level English in grades 9 and 10 where students of widely varying abilities and needs are grouped together does not serve anyone well. A

062one-sizefits-all approach inevit inevitably fails both ends of the spectrum. Students who need additional support do not receive enough targeted help while students ready for deeper challenge are not pushed to develop their potential. The district itself itself recognizes this principle in other subjects. In mathematics, Albany provides differentiated pathways, additional support for students who struggle, and accelerated opportunities for those who are ready to move faster. If we acknowledge that differentiated instruction is essential for math literacy, it is difficult to see why the same principles would not apply to reading and writing, skills that are foundational across every discipline. With pain, I've seen the effects of the one-sizefits-all approach in my home. My children love reading. They see books as a source of curiosity and enjoyment. Yet the English class they've taken have dampened that enthusiasm. At times

063instruction instruction seem structured in ways that distance students from the very activity the subject is meant to promote. For instance, my daughter has been reprimanded reprimanded by an English high school teacher for reading the assigned book instead of following a YouTube video as a readalong. I understand that some students the video might open doors, but English should never close doors to those students excited to act to read actual books. If we agree that a cookie cutter approach to English instruction does a disservice to students, then the conclusion is straightforward. The district should correct it. When the policy undermines literacy and student engagement, delay only compounds the problem. Our students preparation and their future opportunities depend on getting this right. Please make these changes effectively as soon as possible. And that is the end of our

064online submissions for public comment. >> Thank you, Mr. Wolf Gang. Um, can we get the virtual comment first? And and while we wait on that, can we get Kathleen Banagan to come and take a seat? We'll start with the virtual comment before you start, Kathleen, but you can take either one. Um, when I recognize you, please state your name and city of residence. Statements are restricted to a maximum of three minutes. And today, Mr. Almanawi will give you a 1 minute notice and a 10-second notice. And I will notify you if your time is expired. It's a good idea to look up occasionally to see those notices so you will not be surprised at the end of your 3 minutes. And please note that the board's policy is not to respond during the public comment

065merit period. If you need a response, please contact us by email, phone, or personal mail. And our contact information is available at achools.org/bee. And either I or a member of our board will respond on behalf of us. Can we get Mr. Ali? He's virtual. >> Good evening. Can you hear me? >> Yep. Oh, >> late. Um thanks for providing me an opportunity to speak here. Um I'm a parent of a kid who is uh in PRK right now. However, um I wanted to share a small concern um regarding the cut off debt for the enrollment in prek. Uh usually it's December 1st. So when I inquired I learned it's a hard cut off date. I mean it's strict which means that if a kid is between certain dates the birth date is between certain dates

066um they're going to enroll him or her otherwise he or she has to wait for another complete year. So I completely understand the need for clear and consistent guidelines. However, I was just wondering if board might ever consider whether there could be some room um to look at some additional factors like uh if a child misses um his or her school with the difference of just a few weeks. So could there be some other factors that may be considered in order to accommodate him or her or something for her his or her first school experience? Um for example, if I speak about my kid, um she is well trained and I personally believe that she is welldeveloped and she can be uh I mean her enrollment may be justified. However, she is um her birth

067date is not lying in the in the time frame which is um for the coming prek. So, I just wanted to ask or put this up if there could be additional parameters that may be considered some kind of evaluations um in order to get them in order to see if they are good fit for the program. Thank you, >> Miss Bakan. >> Thank you. >> And and before you start, can I also get Liy Forbes to come and take join you on that scene? >> Can I let the kids go? >> Okay. Can I get Courage Stone, Miss Man? >> Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all. In my 36 years as a proud employee of the city school district, I've never felt the need to address the board directly

068until now. The issue doesn't impact me personally. It it impacts some of the lowest paid, hardest working members of our district, the members of ABSU. And I cannot remain silent while they're being treated in ways that are inconsistent, inequitable, and unsupported by and unsupported. ABSU members are being stripped of overtime opportunities as a form of punishment. A hall monitor who has used their allotted 10 sick days is called into a meeting and told they may no longer work overtime. Others have been written up are told the same. Overtime is being taken away not because of operational need but as a disciplinary consequence. Nowhere in the absute contract does it state that overtime may be revoked under these circumstances. Nor has there been clear communication outlining a formal policy change. Yet this practice is happening. To

069my knowledge this is not being imposed on members of ABSA or ABSA under similar circumstances. If this is accurate, then we must ask, why are the employees who earn the least, those starting in the mid30,000 range, the only ones facing this consequence? For many ABSU members, overtime is not extra spending money. It's grocery money. It's rent. It's heating bill. It's survival. Removing it without clear standards or contractual grounding is not punitive. It's destabilizing. Equally troubling is the incon inconsistency in how this consequence is applied. Some employees are losing overtime while others are not even in cases involving similar or more serious infractions. This lack of uniformity raises concerns about fairness and equity. Through years of equity training provided by the district, we have been asked to examine disparities in discipline among our students. In that

070same spirit, I must ask, are similar disparities emerging among ABSU members, particularly those that are black and brown? My grandmother always told me that if you bring forward a problem, you should offer a solution. With that in mind, I respectfully ask that the board consider suspending the use of overtime removal as a disciplinary measure until clear written protocols are established. These protocols should ensure transparency, contractual alignment, and equitable application across all employee groups. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Can I also get U LCB Mackenzie? Sorry if I'm not saying this right. I can't read your Can you take a seat there? And Courage. >> Um, good evening everybody. Um, my name is Courage and I'm a statewide organizer with Revolutionary. Public transportation is how youth get to school, to jobs, and to opportunities that

071shape their futures. But across the Capitol region, too many young people are being left behind because they can't afford the fair or they're denied access to the buses altogether. Right now, students who live within 1.5 miles of the school are told they don't qualify for free transportation. They're sent outside the door after dismissal, expected to figure it out for themselves. Some of them stand at the bus stops watching buses drive past them, and others wait 30 minutes to an hour just to get where they have to be, whether that be home, work, or to pick up a sibling. That shouldn't be normal for our students. Our friend free transit campaign is about making sure every young person can get to school, get home, and get the opportunities that help them succeed. When transit is free

072and accessible, students show up um show up to school more consistently, families face fewer barriers, and our communities grow stronger. We're asking the school board to stand with students and be a part of the solution because transportation is not just a transit issue, but it's also an education issue. If we want our students to succeed, we have to make sure that they can actually get there. With that being said, we want to invite you all to our walk with us walk from West Capitol Park to Green Techch High School on March 23rd to show the distance in the 1.4 miles youth have to walk at 7:00 a.m. every morning from Monday to Friday through any weather, no matter how hot or how cold it is. And we also want to invite and ask you all

073to partner with We Are Revolutionary so that we can teach the young people about ACES and emotional intelligence. And we'd also love to invite staff and contractors who deal with young people to those teaching as well. Thank you. >> Thank you. Can we get Ana Davis to join? Anya Davis. Sorry, please. Miss McKenzie. >> Hello. This is I am Elissa Blue and I'm a youth organizer. We are Revolutionary. I would like to speak about the free buses fairs for youth in the Albony city district. We are constantly getting drove past and not let on the bus by bus drivers. See, even though they see us, no matter what the weather is, even if we have the money for it, if we don't, we constantly have to wait for the next bus or for the next

074bus after that. As a high school um as a high schooler at Albany High, I see this almost every day. Now they have signs at the bus stops where they are not allowed to pick us up from 3:30 to where we get out to 4:30 or push that far. I don't think that's okay. We are still children. We still have to find our way home even if it's from going to work, going to school, going to other activities after school. I don't feel like it should just be for youth because they only mostly do that for youth. They usually see us at bus stops, drive right past just to think that we don't have enough like amount of money for it, even though we possibly do. It's not safe for children to wait outside for

075over an hour to wait for the next bus dives to arrive. Um, and I think it's only cuz if you live closer than 1.5 miles, you don't get accepted for the bus pass and it'll decline every time you get on. So that will cause conflict between you and the bus driver because you're just trying to get a way home knowing it could be raining, snowing, any weather conditions that can be possibly like advertised for your absence. It is also shown how a lot of the city district they or schools in general they like to go after the children for our absence. but how are we going to like go after that when we have no way of getting to school or back? So, I feel like that is something that y'all need to really take

076into consider consideration. Um, we invite you to join our 1.4 mile walk from Cap from the Capitol Park to Green Tech to show the Albany district how far children have to walk from school into their homes because just because they don't live 1.4 miles. I hope everyone could partner with we are revolutionary so we could teach the young people about ACES and emotional intelligence and we will love the staff and coaches to deal with young people. Thank you. >> Can I get Lie Forbes? Okay, she's not signed up but go ahead and sign up. Annayia, go ahead. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Annayia Davis. I am a youth organizer with We Are Revolutionary. Just an FYI, we would like everyone to partner with We Are Revolutionary so we can teach people about ACEs,

077adverse childhood experiences, and emotional intelligence. We would also love to invite staff and contractors who deal with young people so we could build connections, further create stability within the youth and lower the amount of fights, stabbings, and gun violence amongst the youth. Additionally, our organization works with the mayor's office, and we are planning on scheduling a meeting with the CDCA, and we would love if Superintendent Joseph can be a part of that meeting along with some other school board members. And because you have the ear of the governor, it would be amazing if you can invite her to be a part of helping us in solving OB's transportation issues that we know causes safety issues, excludes folks from opportunities, and adds to school absences. Now, I would like to address the board. As you all

078are aware or as you should be aware, the rate of chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed has skyrocketed amongst the students of today. Across all grade levels, students are underperforming, disengaged, and cannot perform the basics of tasks. This is still even after New York State passed the no cell to the bell legislation in May of 2025, eliminating all personal electronic devices from classrooms and also requiring students to lock up their phones in a yonder pouch. If y'all took our phones away and our performance levels are still low, the sell to the bell legislation did not solve the problem. It just put a band-aid on a much deeper wound. In addition to struggling in school, students are struggling to get to school. Why, you may ask? Because the Albony City School District and most likely many others are

079telling students that they are unable to get a free bus pass because they live too close to the school. That's right. If you live within 1.5 miles of the school, you cannot get a free bus pass to get to school, unlike your peers. Now, imagine a young person having to get up extra early in the morning in addition to having to get ready, then be forced to walk 30 or 40 minutes. They ain't doing that. Let's not forget that we live in upstate New York. It rains, snows, and gets very cold. But students still have to walk to and from school in these conditions. But that ain't even the only issue. How about CDT bus drivers driving past young people because they believe they aren't going to pay? That's discriminatory. I just can't believe in

080I just can't believe that in this day and age, people are driving past or not allowing individuals to get on the bus because they don't have a $150 or a $2 fair. What happened to human decency? This is not only a young people problem. This is a community problem. Those who come on the bus with only a share of their fair will be kicked off. Those who ask for a courtesy ride will not be granted one because of the fair required campaign. individuals. >> Times up. Can you send your comments to us? We can read it. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Mr. Forbes. >> Good. Miss Ella. >> All right. Hi, Albany. Quiet. Can you hear me? Yeah. Sorry. Is that too close or Okay. Hi, Al City School Board. I am

081Fedra and I am a youth organizer with We Are Revolutionary. And I believe that the bus fair should be free because it'll help families save money who are given free buses to most kids in Albany City Schools are filled with living in poverty. And the slide shown earlier showed that clearly sometimes families might not be able to afford the bare necessities because they need to pay for those fears. Those fears also add up as time goes on which is taken from families who are barely able to maintain their homes and provide for their families as of now. So if a parent has to pay for themselves to get to work and home their kids to get to school and back home, we are asking for the school board to help us support the families of

082Albany. I am just 14 years I'm a 14-year-old student who sees a problem and has identified the solution. If you look over there to the second to last line, it says child center focus. We need your help in helping us achieve our goal and work with us to get exactly what we are asking for. I invite you all to our 1.4 mile work walk on March 23rd from West Capitol Park, which is on the corner of State Street and South Strong Street to Green Tech High School, 99 Singerland Street. The meeting behind this walk is because students who live within 1.4 miles of their school will not be given a bus pass, which is unfair. I also like for ev invite everyone to partner with we revolutionary so we can teach the young people about

083ACEs and emotional intelligence and we also love to invite staff and contractors who deal with youth. Thank you everyone for your time. >> Mr. President, before the last speaker, I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda. >> Sure. I'd like to make a motion to move forward the child safety zones component of our agenda to be immediately following public comment as it's directly pertinent to the item that these gentlemen and um ladies have been speaking about. >> I'll second that. >> Um and I just wanted to just moment of commentary. It does not solve the whole problem, but it is a small step towards solving the problem I think you'd like to hear. So I hope you'll stay for that conversation. >> Second. All in favor? So be moved. Okay. Mr. Forbes. Hello

084everyone. It's hard to follow those kids. Hello everyone. My name is Lukie Forbes. I am the executive director of We Are Revolutionary. And as someone who works closely with the Alb city's young people, I see I I see the deep issue that young people are going through within our community. There's a lack of opportunity. And right now, Albany faces a serious challenge with cra chronic absenteeism. Students are missing school at alarming rates. But we have to really be honest with ourselves about the deeper question as to why. Why are kids often like just being left behind? And too often we talk about attendance as if it's just simply a disciplinary thing or a motivation thing. But for many young people that I work with, the problem is long before they even enter the classroom. It

085starts with just getting there in the first place. Transportation is not a luxury. It is it is literally a part of life. It is about survival and opportunity and access. Across the city, young people rely on oper um buses that are operated by the CDTA for getting to school, after school programs and jobs and other safe places. Yet, we have been seeing, hearing, and personally experiencing buses drive directly past young people. Specifically at Albany um high school, there's a sign that lets young people know that buses will not stop there within the hours that they are being released from school. Just imagine being a young person who is dismissed from school, who wants to get home, but you just can't. you have to wait hours or you have to walk blocks down in order to

086get to the next stop. That moment right there might seem small to some people, but for young person, it sends a powerful message. You're alone. And right now, our city is leaving our young people alone. And we're standing with our young people asking for them to not only have your support, but for you to call on your colleagues and your peers to also support the young people. They're missing school. They're missing mentorship programs. They're missing all the resources that have been named that other young people actually have access to. And the reality is Albany had 57 homeless kids in 2024 within the school district. Those are families who h are fa and we we continue to see a increase in families who are facing housing insecurity. But these are the students that we serve within

087our school district. And by just acting with us to really call for a fair free transit campaign, we're not only sending a clear message that we care for our families, but we're also sending a clear message to the young people that Albany has said, according to the Child Opportunity Index, is one of the worst places to raise a black child. We actually stand with you. We're going to sit here and provide you opportunities. So, thank you for listening to us, the young people that came here. >> Thank you. You know, while I well, we don't usually comment, I just want to point out I'm amazed by the students who came out and spoke. Blown away. Great job. Keep up >> and we've seen your we've seen your video. >> Okay. So, since we changed the

088agenda, the next topic would be a discussion on the child safety zones. Mr. Leco I just want to thank you for your flexibility and jumping in ahead. Thank you so much for being willing to go next. >> Yep. I'll go ahead and get started and then turn it over to these two gentlemen to tell you a whole lot more. Uh my name is Ron Leco. the director of communications and operations and uh with me our direct miles our director of transportation and Paul Overbball who was with on the bus a company that did did a child safety zone study for us uh earlier this fall. You'll learn more about Paul a little bit a little bit later in our presentation. Uh and we are glad for the opportunity to come here tonight to talk with

089you about the possibility of establishing child safety zones to assist with our transportation needs uh next school year and beyond. Child safety zones uh are a um uh a mechanism in place at the state level to provide additional transportation below uh the standard eligibility levels based on based on uh very specific criteria. Typically that criteria historically has been focused mostly on rural and suburban types of communities. uh things like well I'll get to that on the next slide but there haven't been there have not been a lot of criteria that have been germanine to uh city school districts uh the fi the main benefit for school districts of child safety zones is it allows you to get reimbursement uh for transportation under the 1.5 mile uh state eligibility guideline which is obviously a significant benefit

090for for a community that it's not it does not put the additional burden on on taxpayers for providing transportation services at state otherwise would not reimburse a school district for and there's a very defined point system that you that the state uses and school districts have to follow uh to have an established child safety zone. Again, historically, most of the criteria there have have been more germaine to rural and urban communities, things like uh highways with 55 mph speed limits, uh intersections that have crosswalks that or insufficient crosswalks along uh high speed highspeed roads, railroad crossings, those those kinds of things. Uh we have historically had one child safety zone in in our community where uh Southern Boulevard come comes Route 9 comes into the city from uh from Bethlehem and sort of it starts

091to intersect with 787 there where we first get on and that that has met the point total and there are about depends on the year but about a dozen students give or take who qualify for transportation in in that part of the city based on based on that historical criteria. Uh in recent years with uh primarily led by the advoc advocacy of this school district, the state amended both the state child safety's zone law and regulations to add in additional criteria that was more gerine to communities like ours. Uh things like vacant properties and vac violent crime statistics. And we als we've also advocated for uh the addition of um industrial properties and those and those kinds of things as well. That has not quite yet made it into the regulations and we'll continue to

092advocate for that. Uh the the last category, the violent crime statistics is the category that's going to be most remained to us in this conversation tonight. Uh as I mentioned at the start of our presentation this year we contracted with on the bus to do a child safety zone study for us and they conducted that work this winter under the direction of Mr. Overberball who uh formerly was the director of pupil transportation for the New York State uh education department. So a lot of expertise and knowledge on this topic in that area. Uh and with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Overbought to tell us a little more about the work he and his team did in our community this winter. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's a

093it's a privilege to be here and to address the board uh understanding your input and your desire to transport students and keep them academically successful. So with that, the governor recommended that the department of transportation revise the regulations and I was in the chair as the state director when that directive was given to that agency who was also going to work with the state education department and we worked together for many years to draft these regulations and they came out to include crime as a addition additional criteria that would qualify a district for the child safety zone uh act. So with that uh we looked at the district and we looked at the school zones and we looked at the uh area through which these students are walking and come to find out the data

094is very evident that your crime rate is significantly higher than the state average. And the crime rate according to the statistics and what has been reported by the police department is 10.03% where the state average is 3.9%. So with that you are like 157 times higher or one and a half times higher than the state average. meaning that the rate of violent crime is qualifying your district to establish the child safety zone at the discretion of the board. And with that, um, the regulation states that any district that has a 50% or higher, uh, than the state average would receive a a 24 point certification. And with that that accreditation of 24 points, you have to understand that if you're in grades K through eight, you need 12 points to establish a child safety zone

095with one hazard, which this is well above that. And if you have multiple hazards, it would have to be 22 points in K8 and 15 points uh for grades 9 through 12. So with that um you know you're exceeding that threshold on this one criteria which would qualify the district if they desire to create the child safety zones >> and um Ron touched on it earlier. I just want to Ron touched on it earlier. I just want to piggyback on it and um give the board um a lot of credit. I know you guys have led the way um on this topic even before my time um and not just in the district statewide. I think part of my role um is to just lay out some of the challenges that are going to be

096before us as we you know continue to have this discussion. Um you know uh as the study shows based on the local crime data, Albany clearly qualifies for implementing a district-wide child safety zone. The data supports the argument that many of our students face safety risks when walking to school. Um, our biggest obstacle isn't going to be determining policy, isn't going to be setting eligibility. I think our b biggest obstacle is just going to be our transportation capacity. Um, our current transportation vendors simply do not have the operational capacity to support a full district-wide implementation right now. A full expansion would require a significant increase in buses, drivers, and monitors which exceed what is currently available in the transportation landscape. Because of these limitations, we've evaluated several scaled imple implementation scenarios that balance safety with

097realistic uh operational um abilities. I think another thing to consider, you know, a big focus is going to be vendor capacity. you know, our work, our driver, our drivers, our bus fleet capacity. Um, I think another thing that kind of gets lost in it last year when we brought on two additional vendors. Um, an unintended uh consequence I think was just the inability for some of our buildings to take on more buses coming in and out of their lots. Um, it was surprising to me. I thought we, you know, we did a really good job of um kind of spreading out our our routing and spreading out our fleet and we were able to add more district uh more buses into the district. Um but I got some push back from some of our building

098leaders who uh either didn't have the staff available to accommodate the extra buses or just didn't have the space um in their lots to take on some of these extra buses. And u I just think it's something that we should keep in mind as we continue to have the discussion. Um, in scenario one here, it represents the largest possible expansion of trans transportation eligibility. Under this model, all K8 students who live less than 1.49 miles from the school would become eligible for transportation under a child safety zone. This would essentially be allowing all of our students to now become eligible for transportation. Um this would impact approximately 3,650 additional students across the district. Uh to transport uh this number of students, we estimated that we would need roughly 66 additional buses uh with an annual

099cost of approximately $9 million. While this scenario provides the greatest level of student safety coverage, it off also represents the largest operational and financial commitment and would be really difficult to execute um in today's state. Uh scenario two narrows the focus slightly while still expanding transportation access for a large number of students. In this model, transportation would be provided to K8 students who live a half a mile to 1.49 miles from school. Uh this approach prioritizes students who have a moderate to longer walking distance distances. And under this scenario, approximately 2,70 students would become newly eligible for transportation. Meeting this demand will require approximately 41 additional buses uh with a estimated annual cost of about 5.73 million. This scenario reduces logistical burden compared to serial scenario one while still addressing safety concerns for many of

100our students. Scenario three represents the most operationally manageable expansion. I still anticipate we would still have some challenges, no doubt. Um, this model provides transportation to K8 students who live between one mile and 1.49 miles from school. By focusing on students with the longest walking distances within the safety zone, we maintain a meaningful safety improvement while limit while limiting operational strain. Uh, this scenario would add approximately 1,200 newly eligible students. To accommodate these students, the district would need roughly 22 additional buses with an estimated annual cost of a little over $3 million. Uh this scenario offers a balance between improving student safety and maintaining a level of operational feasibility. Uh before moving forward with any recommendations, I think it's important to look at the financial impact across all three scenarios. Um each scenario represents a

101different balance between student safety coverage, operational capacity, and budget considerations. Uh when we compare all three scenarios side by side, we see the expanding transportation for K8 students will require an annual investment ranging from approximately 3 million to $9 million. Uh this would require between 22 and 66 additional buses depending on the level of expansion chosen. However, an important factor to consider is state reimbursement. Uh the district would be eligible for approximately 80% reimbursement in state aid the following year. While we must initially fund the expansion, the long-term financial impact would be significantly reduced once reimbursement is received. And based on our analysis of safety needs, operational capacity, and financial impact, we are recommending a targeted policy action, uh the proposal is to establish a child safety zone within a onem walking limit for grades

102K through five only. Uh this approach focuses on our youngest and most vulnerable students while remaining realistic about the limitations of our current transportation system. By implementing this policy, we would bring more than 400 additional elementary students onto safe and reliable transportation. we'd be looking at roughly nine additional buses with an estimated cost of $1.24 million. After the 80% reimbursement, the district would uh would pay roughly $247,280. Um, this recommendation acknowledges the staffing shortages and capacity limitations currently facing our transportation providers. Um, but it also represents the intersection of improved student safety and operational reality, allowing the district to make meaningful action while maintaining system stability >> and we're glad to answer any questions you may have. >> Thank you, Miss Brimill. >> Um, you can come back to me last. >> Okay, Miss Mr.

103Bulkan. >> Yes. Um, well, let me start with thank you both for your work on this. I know this has been, you know, a longer process, predates me even. Um, going through this presentation, I only heard the high school students mentioned once and it was kind of as a throwaway comment. Have we looked at the high school students, the 9 to 12, what it would what the impact of busing them on those same ranges would be? Um I think our focus was mainly on our elementary and middle school students just given the um I think some of the challenges that we're going to be up against operationally. Um even just you know uh scenario three where it's going to be the most limited um expansion. I still think there's going to be some just challenges

104moving forward. I I'm not sure and I I'll certainly allow Ron to comment on as well um what that what adding the high school on top of that would look like. I think it would be um just a very challenging for our for our transportation vendors especially given I don't know if we want to go into CDTA but um we've already had conversations with CDTA um and you know we've been leaning on them and pushing on them to provide additional buses just for AIA for example um and they're not able to provide a single additional bus. I I don't think I'm certainly not confident that they're going to be able to handle any expansion for our high school students. I think it would have to be on a yellow bus and I would imagine um

105just from the conversations we had that we want to focus on our youngest and more vulnerable students. >> Yeah. And I would just I would just echo what what Darrett said generally. We want to give a ride to every single student in the community. this school district. We led the to say we led the charge is even not giving us enough credit for for the work we did to establish this as a concept statewide. Then we led the charge and with support from Pat Fehee and John McDonald and Neil Breerlin at the time we were able to get the legislation and the regulations changed to accommodate this. Our goal is to provide a ride to every single student in our community. We we understand the challenges that our students and our families face in in

106getting to school, weather, and all the other factors that that that come into play. As Darrett said, up what we realiz is, and you know, we we learned this the hard way through the pandemic, but certainly post pandemic as well. Transportation vendors have been deeply impacted in in recent years. And a bus driver shortage is not anything new in our community, but it's something that we did experience significantly in the in the pan during the pandemic. And you know through the through the work that Direct did to diversify our yellow bus partners uh since in the last couple of years that part of our transportation oper operation has stabilized. CDTA continues to struggle. Uh they've uh they've downsized their regular routes. Nothing to do with school significantly and maybe do maybe doing more of that.

107And as he noted, we've tried to get additional tripper capacity for for AIA and even two school years or last school year in the fall for North Alb Middle School when there was a need there as well and they couldn't they couldn't accommodate that and we had to turn to our yellow bus partners to do that and that's something that uh for our non-special education students we just have never done in the school district right it's always been CDTA they just don't have the capacity they may we've had the conversation with them around the middle schools as it relates to this child safety zone uh expans expansion of eligibility and they may be able to add a few buses. But for example, at Hacket Middle School alone, more than half of the students at Hacket

108Middle School live between one mile and 1.5 miles. That would be, you know, I was an English major, so give me a second with the math. Five CDT buses all by itself just to just hack it as as we're expanding. And that's it would take us five new buses for all of our elementary schools. And Hackett alone would take five would require five CDTA buses in addition to the needs we'd also have at Meyers and at North Albany. Almost everybody is already eligible. So there wouldn't be much additional capacity need there. But we don't believe that CDTA and I think CDTA would be very honest about this. They don't have the capacity to to add additional significant additional service currently. So even that's why our recommendation tonight focuses on K5 alone because we don't even

109believe that operationally we could add uh we could add the middle schools in spite of our best intentions. >> Gotcha. And I absolutely do remember the work that you know you were talking about during your transportation division update um on expanding those yellow buses and that's is really important. I guess I'm just a little disappointed. I was under the impression that we were going to have I guess three levels of three scenarios. So there would be nine boxes. So would be able to consider the 9 to2 as well even just from a cost perspective. Not obviously the operational is a separate but together piece. Um but I mean even just looking at expanding the CDTA cards that we put on students IDs for the one to 1.49 even if we aren't able to expand the

110tripper system. I know we heard about the you know the signs outside the schools and I actually just noticed a new one outside of Meyers recently. Um, I don't know if it got replaced because I think it's been there, but finding a way to open up more transportation for those students. I was 1.4 miles away from Hacket and let me tell you, that's not a fun walk. There's like four hills between my house and Hackit. Um, and you know, some days I was able to sneak on the bus and a lot of days I had to walk home. Sometimes I got a ride from my parents if they were around, but a lot of people's parents aren't. So, I just want us to even if we start here, we're always how can we get to

111those older kids? >> And those are conversations we're glad to have with continue to have with CDTA. And I did hear the comments that that we had earlier and there are a couple of things there that irrespective of this other conversation, we absolutely will follow up with CDTA about buses passing students who are waiting to get on the bus. I do know that the high school has uh in that immediate afterchool time because of some challenges they had with student behavior at that first intersection by the high school, they they did ask CDTA to to not stop there. So that's intentional and we can we can revisit that question. Uh but uh so that's that is something that the high school put in place intentionally this school year and something that the high school has

112had in place uh in past years as as well. That's not that's not new. Although we do we do recognize the challenge that was that was expressed tonight and we'll we will have that conversation with CDTA. We have had the conversation with CDTA previously and it's unfortunate that we have to have it again about them not necessarily at that stop in particular but elsewhere in the community passing up students are waiting to get on the bus and that is that is a that is a concern. We will follow up with CDTI on that question. >> Awesome. Thank you >> Mr. Chairman. Uh first I'd like to thank all the folks who came in for public comment actually really inspiring really great speakers and I am looking forward to the things that you guys do in

113the future in transportation honestly. Um I also want to commend this uh the presentation whoever put the presentation together. It is um a nice peacemeal way to look at it. I would like h to have seen what 9 through 12 would be, but I can only imagine it might even double that number or close to double that number. So it' be 120 130 additional buses potentially required. Um that's just me hypothesizing. But given that fact, I always like to when I talk to my kid, I I say don't jump and run, right? Meaning, don't go for scenario one. Don't go from zero to 100 because you don't know what that's going to actually do. Um I do think this is a strategic plan. You know, if we start K through five onem limit, it really

114should give us a little taste of the ability for our service providers to meet that de demand. But I also want us to give them signals saying, "Hey, this is year one. Year two is going to look a little different or maybe year three was going to look different." Just step it up to get to scenario one. And then once we feel really good about scenario one where we can then tackle every student in the district. Of course, I'd like it to happen now. I don't think that would be wise despite um potentially even our you know financial ability to do so. It would I can tell you right now an additional hundred something buses in the city would create havoc in the morning and evening uh commutes especially if our schools are not prepared

115for them in terms of their site plans because we might even need to change site plans for the high school in the front of the high school. We need to work with the city. Um so this is a great start. I like the energy behind it and my only suggestion um would be to keep our partners in the loop about what we intend to do a year or two from now. So even this the scenario three if we're not going to do it next year which is because it's coming up we talk to our partners right now and say we're going to expect these things in the 2728 school year or 2829 school year whatever it might be. Thank you guys. Miss man. >> So, first of all, Miles, thank you for your presentation. And

116I I do want I know we don't respond to public comment, but I want to respond to public comment and say to the young people that um you know it was very moving for a board to study an issue and then it's like okay so we understand the issue and you know and and folks are lobbying and doing everything that they can to get um child safety zones passed. And then to have four young people come up and say in a very real way, you know, buses go past me when it rains, when it snows, or even when it's nice outside. Um, or to say, "Join us for a walk. Let's walk the 1.4 miles." Now, I used to run, but I'm 58 years old. I I want to support that walk in a whole

117bunch of ways, including you know what, and folks didn't share the date of that walk. >> 23rd of March. So, I'd like to support that walk. I cannot commit um because I'm 58 and I'm a little older. No, but yes. Okay. So, um No, but really all all puns aside and all funniness aside, it um it was just very moving. And the reality is the option that seems to be the option that we would recommend and we would go we would go with it's not enough. It's not enough. It may be enough for this moment in time with the understanding that we're going to work with our um community partners to build capacity because that's what I'm hearing that there's a lack of capacity um whether it's for um uh uh bus drivers or whether

118it's from CDTA or that there's a lack of capacity. We don't have enough buses that that sort of thing. And we've got to get together with our partners with the same level of um fervor and energy that we had and years that that uh had to happen to bring child safety zones around. We have to get together with that same level of energy um to build capacity. Otherwise, we're transporting children K through eight, then that's it. Then we walk away and and and we have students coming up sharing the same the same concerns. So, um um so I so th that was my that those are my comments. Um and I I do trust that Ron, you're going to have a conversation with CDTA about um how folks are treating our students. Um because that's

119not fair. And what I know from experience is that when my children left Albany High School and went home, they weren't going this way. They were going this way. and there was a much easier time to catch a bus. And so it's just being disrespected every single day, it kind of does something to your soul. And um and I think we need to take this very seriously. So that makes sense, >> Miss Savage. >> So I just want to take a trip down memory lane as I do because I've been sitting in this seat for almost 12 years. Um, and I want to recognize the urgency of this issue and how frustrating it is that things take so long to get done. We've been talking about our need to get every student on a bus

120pretty much since the day I got on this board pretty much. Um, and the many challenges to getting every student on a bus that are conrict that are constrained by state law and the way the funding system works and the way the voters have to approve things and all the different things. And the fact that this district fought so hard to get this law passed, to make it possible for us to bust any child under 1.5 and have a fiscally sound district, required us to get a state law passed. If anybody's ever tried to change a state law, which I try and do on the regular, it is not an easy thing to do. And we fought to get the law passed and then we fought to get the law signed. Um, if you go

121back in the TU history, you'll find a lovely um, op-ed piece signed by the then superintendent and by me. I was board president at the time saying, "Governor Hokll, plea, or governor, sorry, wrong governor. Governor, please sign this bill because we need this bill to become law." Then we had to fight for two years to get the regulations passed because when they pass a law, it doesn't mean you get to make the law real. First, somebody's got to write the regulations. Two years it took us to get them to write that regulations. And then it was co and then there were no drivers. So it has been seriously close to a decade from the time that this idea that child safety zones could be our mechanism to putting every student on a bus to getting

122here to sit here today to actually get to discuss it in a very real way. And the fact that all y'all had this um protest march coming up and came here to visit with us tonight and had your excellent reel out just a couple days ago. It's like fate because you guys could have done that two years ago. You could have done it four years ago because this has been an issue for a really long time. But the fact that it happened tonight as board member man said it just brings it all together in a very real way. So I just want to thank everybody on this board who's been working on this and the folks who are at home who were working on this. This is a long time coming and it doesn't just

123affect Albany. This is a state law that has changed and we know that the city of Pikipsy has been trying to do this too already. Same similar kinds of demographics to us. High needs kids trying to get to school. And so I'm really proud of our district for the incredible level of leadership because this didn't just happen. This happened because we fought for it. We as a community fought for it. So, I will now get off my soap box and just say um I would like to echo what uh board member Almani said. I'd like to see the other three boxes on the chart. Even though I know it's not operationally feasible, let's put them on the chart because I want it to look like a long-term plan to get every child on a bus

124because that's what we want to do. Um then I want to just say whenever we're thinking about this, I want to keep in mind what Mr. Miles said. It's not the money. This isn't about how much things cost. It's about what we operationally can deliver. Because the only thing worse than knowing that the bus is not coming is thinking the bus is coming and it's actually not. That is very disruptive to your life. So we I really respect the work that Mr. Miles and Mr. Leco have done to make sure that we're going step by step through this process so that when we say a bus is coming, a bus is coming because we can't be in a position we where we tell our kids a bus is coming and a bus doesn't turn up.

125So please put the nine boxes on the chart. We recognize that we won't be able to deliver the nine boxes, but it is not about the money. It's about the operational reality of how many drivers there are. and I'm I'm looking forward to you guys growing our driver pool so that we can do more. Thank you, >> Miss Wilson. >> Thank you for your presentation and I thank um everyone for their public comments today as well. Um a question that I have is must it always be a bus? Can we leverage other things like those Mercedes vans or shuttle buses or things of that nature? I think back to when um COVID happened and people were in the manufacturing business of other things and they pivoted to you know masks and PPE and if people

126know or if we work with the state city however to sort of say we're scaling up you can respond to this need can we do things like an RFP to have smaller subcontractors respond to what we need? >> Uh we would certainly want to make sure we stay compliant. Um we can definitely look into alternative options. Um you know a lot of um vendors that were non-traditional um you know school bus operators have turned their businesses into into that um just to try to take advantage of the you know uh fiscal opportunities with the lack of drivers. So we can definitely take a look at it. It's just um we would have to make sure that we're staying compliant as we are putting on an RFP or looking to bring in additional vendors. Thank you

127for your wonderful presentation. Um I remember the first day when this legis talk about changing the legislation started. It can be done. Why can't it be done? We're always thinking outside the box and even right now we're trying to think outside the box. Is there a way that we can do this differently? Um unfortunately the problem is that things take time and moving with the state. It takes longer because of all the bureaucracies that you have to go through. But more importantly it is important for us to do something that is sustainable. You don't want to rush in and do something and then fall flat a week later. And you know because that is even more of a worse it's worse than what we have right now. Right. So I hear what you guys have

128to say today. Um and I think I agree with Mr. Almani. We would like to see the numbers. Um so we have a full everybody has a full understanding, right? So it's not just whether you go to city school district of Albany schools that we're talking about busing. Once we pass the law, once we pass this thing and voters agree to to do this mile change, it is all students in the area, right? So the students who go to the charter schools, students who go to the private schools, students who go to the parochial schools. So now you're thinking about, oh, it's, you know, it's just 400 students. No, it's a lot more than 400 students. And that's where the busing needs get complicated, right? Because you got to think about everybody whether they take

129that bus or not. You still have to provide it, right? And so that that is a challenge, but it would still be worthwhile to see what can be done with those numbers. And maybe maybe we don't go down to one point to a mile. Maybe it could be 1.25 for you know that is something that we got to look at whether it it's the same mileage limit for all age grades or could we do one mile for the little ones and 1.2 for the older ones, right? And so and and then maybe we don't need a bus route then extra bus it could be the same buses but I have to walk two blocks to catch a bus that already has a route right so there might be ways in which we can start thinking

130about this a little bit more creatively um if you don't have to have a different bus then CD just has more ridership and I know they're going through some challenges themselves and that's why each board says fair required fair required they will get a fair as long as they off for our students, right? So, uh let's let's look at this a little bit more closely and work those numbers and see if it's feasible. It may not be, but at least we'll know that we've looked at it, addressed it, and then start trying to think more creatively. How else could we do it? If it's not CDTA, what else can be done? Could it be a different bus provider? Or um maybe it is um you know something that is closer distances and then a walking

131uh what was it? We had the safe um the safe not safe schools um safe streets people come and say little walking bus I think Rochester or somebody did that did that uh kind of thing. So we might be able to explore other things but we need to get the thinking juices going. Um, and I know that the district has been looking at it, but let's look at it slightly differently as well and present those options so people are fully aware that it is not for lack of caring or lack of wanting to to transport all our students. It's the feasibility and making sure that sustainable five years, 10 years from now. I mean, one question that came up was, okay, let's say crime rate goes down. Do this child safety zone still exist or

132do the point system now get reconfigured? Now those those get taken off because if it's child safety zone then the state will reimburse you. We can decide today that okay we are going to bus everybody without a child safety zone. The state will not reimburse us for anything less than 1.5 miles. Right. >> Can I just interrupt for one second? We actually can't make that decision. The voters would have to make when I'm saying >> I just want not everybody in the room is as familiar with this situation as we are. It would have to be passed by the voters of the city of Albany and it would probably result in a looking at these numbers I don't have the right in front of me but like a five to 10% property tax increase which

133we don't think we could get. If I finish my problem, that is exactly where I was going is the fact that we when I say we, I mean this the the public. >> So it goes it'll go on the ballot and it may fail >> because that is going to lead to a 10% 15% tax increase, right? And that is the danger we run into. So those are the challenges. Um >> Oh, okay. Board member Kerichi. >> Oh, yes. Thank you. I just wanted to thank Miles for his presentation that Mr. Miles is excellent. Um it really ties in very very appropriately with the other comments that we had this evening and I just wanted to say, you know, it's somewhat sobering to learn that our that our entire city qualifies as a child safety

134zone because the high crime. something. We're happy that this is able to work out in a way to make it easier to get rides for our students, but it it emphasizes what our commenters were pointing out about ACES and trauma. This is the reality for a lot of our students that they are not in a safe environment. We know we've experienced that with the students that, you know, come to school with weapons because they say, "I need to carry this to feel safe on my walk back and forth to school." And, you know, it ties into the bus stops that we moved because people were spending a lot of time out there right after school, right by the high school, and then there were sometimes altercations happening. And I'm glad we're taking the first step

135to make the transportation safer for our youngest children. I echo what my colleague said about wanting to see just to see as a goal what it would be like to get transportation for all grades. Let's say all grades within half a mile for example. We I'd love to know what that would be in case we were able to grow to that capacity. Who knows someday we'll have robot school buses and we won't have to worry about staff anymore. I we won't have to worry about drivers anymore. I don't know. But I and I also wanted to point out one thing, you know, for the sake of for the sake of the people that are visiting here, which is um you know, CDGA does not give our students free bus passes. Um the district pays millions

136of dollars to for CDTA to bus students within 1.5 miles. And I understand their capacity with the drivers. I understand their physical issues, but they do need to be treating all of their customers with the same sort of respect and courtesy and not, you know, drive by people like they're not there or not be fair in terms of the courtesy rides. I know, for example, we've had some high school students say, "I didn't even know I needed to swipe in at the bus." We never do that. we just get on the bus and we all crowd in because it's so crowded you can't scan your pass anyway or I've had a kid who lost his wallet for two weeks at a stretch and didn't have an ID and I said how do you get back

137and forth to school he says no they don't check so I'd like them to I really think we may need to work with CDTA and make sure that they are treating all our students uh fairly and courteously because that's really important you know important to how you start the day and how you end the day having that I understand their job is not easy we I know sometimes there have been problems in the buses, but I'd really like to see all of our students treated with courtesy courtesy and respect um when they're when they're riding the buses back and forth. I think that's that's about more than money. But I'm glad that we're moving forward in the right direction with this child safety zone and potentially getting our children that are over a mile at

138elementary age on the buses. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any Mr. Briml? >> Hi. Okay. So, first I'd like to talk about the presentation. Wonderful presentation by the way. Very much in depth. And if I'm able to address the public commenters and the young people who talk today, what you're doing here is great. Advocating young is a really wonderful thing. I hope you know today that how you did make an impact and that how you continue to do so. So, because this is something I'm quite new at, this really puts stuff into perspective for me because during the public comment, I was wondering, yes, why isn't this something that how we do for these children? Why can't we have them, you know, people who are able to come to school have that full funding, right?

139And then this presentation just really puts into perspective that it's just so much money to be able to take care of the children in our district. That's just like, wow, we have to pay so much money for the buses. so much for employees, so much to get children from here to here. It's just so much work that would take so much time to get done. So, it really does put stuff into perspective for me. Like, I was rubbing my head the whole time like, "Wow, this is so much money." And just Yeah, it really does put stuff into perspective. But, I hope like eventually at some point we would be able to service all the children in Albany School District, but it is it's quite clear that how it will not be happening this time

140soon. Any other questions, comments? Mr. Wilson? >> Yes. I'm thinking of um you know, it's a bifurcated conversation because there's the buses that we contract with for student and others. There's other companies. And then of course there's CDTA. They're a standalone entity. And I do hear the calls for free. I know a former legislator um put forth a proposal like a study um and I know there's other countries I believe like Luxembourg that has um free transportation and what I'm trying to really grasp the concept of is maybe maybe not the entire Albany could be free but what if our students were free and could we legislatively um identify a source funds for that? I know there was a proposal made in the common council before to um basically tap the newly found funds from

141marijuana when Merta came out to basically um restore that money back into the community in a restorative practice. It didn't pass. Um, I know at the state level there's a study of that going on and I'm curious, can we identify sources of income that we could possibly tap to, you know, tax, if you will, to pay for that for our students and what would the financial impact be? What what is the number per ratio? Because it's not only um our district students, there's also charter school students we buzz. So, what is that fiscal impact? What is the actual cost? whether it's free universally for everybody in Albany or free just for students that are um facing the issues that were outlined today. >> Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Oh, Mr. W um Wolf

142Gang. >> Yeah, very quick followup. Um because I noticed we had the eligibility criteria for the CRZ in here. Um but again, it only talked elementary and middle school and it sounded like there was different criteria. Do we also meet the criteria for the CRZ for 9 to 12 as well? >> Okay. If cab if we can just make a note to make sure that when we make the CRZ it applies K to 12 so that we have that in place. >> I just want to add my understanding and we'll see what the legislation what the legal language says but I believe the child safety zone itself and Mr. I forgot how to pronounce your last name Mr. Paul I'm going to call you for now. Um I believe that the child safety zone is

143a geography. The level of implementation within that is up to us in terms of our operation. But when we establish the child safety zone, will it be it'll just be a geography that is the zone? Is that correct? >> Correct. You can you can establish the zone based upon the the the district, but understanding that you're going to have a long range plan to actually get every student on a bus and transported safely. >> Correct. Okay. So the the zone itself will say co-terminus with the city and then the uh what goes in front of the voters for them to approve the additional expenditure will be based on this criteria that we established in terms of operational capacity. >> Yeah. I just want to make make sure we're clear because it seems like there are

144different eligibility criteria. So they might be different things that we want a CRZ that applies to the whole city for all grades. And this the current issue is the implementation, but the CRZ is still set up. >> I see. Yeah, >> that's the recommendation from the study from what I understand. >> Yes, the the criteria is different for high schooler. They need 15 points. K8 needs 12. You start out with 24 because of the crime. >> So, everybody qualifies. >> K12 is all set. I mean, in a perfect world, if you had unlimited funds and you had unlimited bus drivers and and unlimited buses, you could transport everybody. The city couldn't handle it like we talked about, but you would be able to do that because the child safety zone would enable you to qualify

145as a child safety zone and get the money back from the state. >> Believe Miss Crime. Yeah, I just wanted to echo the follow-up comments of some some of my fellow colleagues, especially Miss Wilson and her ideas about expanding transport, even if it's not free buses for everyone. You know, I visited San Francisco recently, and it was totally free public transit for everyone 18 and under, regardless of whether they were a student or not, and that was really, really nice. It's not the same as completely free for everyone, which I realize is not necessarily feasible when you have a transportation system that needs the money, but it's really great for students and families. I mean, one of the nice things about the transportation is just having that ability for young people to move around, whether

146it's for home, for school, to be able to work. Um, and it really makes it easier for families to be able to take their children with them places. I think it's a again it's a little bit out of the school realm, but it could be something important to help our community just in some of the just like some of the other community related initiatives that we work on. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Grchie. And thank you So, I'm going to do that thing I just did before, and I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda. I People may have seen me wander over and asked uh the school business official, must we talk about the budget tonight? And he confirmed that we could delay our further conversation about the budget. There's not

147much new since last time. So, I'm going to make a motion to amend the agenda to eliminate the policy discussion and the budget discussion um for tonight, moving directly through the rest of the agenda. >> I see and seconded by Miss Man. All in favor? Okay, that's unanimous. Okay, so now let's go back to our previous agenda and go to routine consent. So, during this portion of the meeting, we approved routine matters for the district. These include items like contracts, field trips, personnel matters, and like. Each board member reviews each item carefully, but we vote on them together as a group with no discussion. This allows us to use our meeting time more efficiently. Nonetheless, each board member has the option to set aside any routine consent item in order to require a separate discussion

148and vote on that item. With that introduction, I now entertain a motion to adopt the routine consent agenda. Miss Wolson. Second. Mr. Wolf gang. Are there any sides? hearing none. All in favor of adopting. >> Sorry, I was going to set aside um number three. >> Okay, number three. There is field trips AHS. So, all in favor adopting routine consent agenda everything except number three, field trips AHS. That's unanimous. Okay, that number three, field trip CHS motion to adopt. Miss Savage, second, Miss Wilson. Discussion. >> So, I just wanted to um just take a really brief moment. Um I think I do this every year where I'm I'm very excited about the um the field trips that are happening. we have to make sure that the high school students have transportation to get there um

149to get to the school for the buses to to leave on time. Um but I was especially excited to see that um high school students are heading to uh this is the Smithsonian Museum of African-American History. It's probably one of the most moving museums I've ever um been to and um one of the most moving museums I've ever been to. and I didn't go to the bottom because I couldn't I I just wasn't able to get there emotionally. So, um but um it was it was a wonderful learning experience and it was wonderful to be um uh just in that building. So, um so I'm very thankful for that and I want to point out the um CTE field trip. Um Mr. Waver and Miss Valentine are um doing this again and um they really

150um have students that deliver um some quality uh skills. So I want to wish them the best on their on their field trip. So that's it. Thank you. >> Okay. Any other comments or Okay. All in favor? Okay. That's unanimous. Mrs. Superintendent, do you have something? >> I did. Uh, with the board uh approving the consent agenda item, we'd like to um I don't know if we want to welcome Alex Santana. We certainly want to congratulate him. Alex is one of our uh longtime district employees and uh until June 30th, assistant principal at Sheridan Prep. But on July 1st, he will become our elementary STEM supervisor and he will succeed uh the young lady to his right, Sarah McGra, who has been with us since 1994. And so um we'd like to uh uh wish

151Miss McGraw well and and Mr. Santana has some big shoes to fill. But, uh, one of the reasons we expedited this process was to make sure, um, that Alex and S and, um, Sarah had plenty of time to transition throughout the spring, uh, and also for us to conduct a search for, uh, Alex's replacement at Spa. So, congratulations and welcome to a a new part of the school district. We look forward to it and and Sarah will recognize you at a event later in the spring, but thank you for your your long service and we look forward to you um handing the uh what not the baton or the torch, the Bunson burner or slide rule or something uh to Alex. Yes, congratulations. Okay, as is a normal practice, we arranged our agenda with all

152the action items at the beginning. Unless something unexpected happens, we don't anticipate the board will take any further actions tonight. The balance of the meetings will be items for discussion, some of them which could lead to an action either at our next meeting or a future meeting. And so that brings us to the next topic which is a discussion on the smart schools bond. Good evening, Board of Education. Uh, as you know, John Wild. I am the director of technology for the school district. Uh, I'm going to ask Mr. Davis to to come up and accompany me uh as the director of safety and security. Um, next slide, please. Uh as in all the decisions we make, we always have the district's vision, mission, and goals uh in the forefront of our decision- making. Next

153slide. So, tonight we're going to be discussing the smart schools investment plan. Um just for folks that are not aware, uh just a little bit of historical information. Uh back in uh 2014, November of uh 2014, New York State voters awarded $2 billion to school districts to purchase uh certain technologies and other u categories that the the money could be used for. Uh presently, the district still has about $2.9 million of that allocation remaining. Next slide. So for smart bonds, we've uh the the next investment plan we will be presenting is for school safety and security. Um we were actually able to be we always try to be as fiscally responsible uh within our division uh to really focus on the um areas that need to be improved. But we've been able to use uh

154other funding sources to complete those other areas uh those other categories. for example, when we use certain money for the phase 4 of Albany High School for classroom technology. Next slide, please. So, as I mentioned, the uh smart schools investment um plan will be completely focused using the remaining balance of our allocation for school security and safety. More specifically, it will be used for um adding and um improving security cameras as well as replacing uh outdated network video recorders. Next slide. We did hold a uh community stakeholder meeting. Uh I did want to just share with the community certain feedback that came from from that uh group. This is fully reimburseable um by by New York State. So, we would be in re reimbursed for the $2.9 million. Um, all of the remaining smart buns

155remaining smart bunds funds will be used for cameras and video recorders. Access control and by access control I mean badge swiping access into building into rooms uh will be covered in other initiatives that the district is plan planning. Um, but the district does understand the importance of student elopment from buildings. Um and the the final feedback was uh re regarding the design team that takes a look at the buildings that are going to be to be worked on. Um the the design team which I know Mr. Davis and Mr. Barber on our in our division uh are both part of uh they go through the buildings with a fine tooth comb. They start in entryways. They look at the exterior. They ensure there's no no blind spots. Next slide. So really the next steps uh

156we held our community uh committee meeting uh back on January 6th. Uh we then presented uh to the facilities committee on February 1st. This evening we are presenting to the board of education forformational purposes only. The next part of the process, our SSIP, uh, a smarter schools investment plan, is then published on the district's website with an email address, uh, for 30 days, which brings us to April 11th. Next slide. Uh, we then hold a public hearing on April 16th where we will review the feedback from the community. Uh and then we would have the board then take action on April 30th to approve said plan uh which we would then submit to New York State Education Department and then we wait for the state's approval for the SSIP. Next slide. Finally, we welcome the

157community uh to ask any questions about the investment plan. Uh we have an email address set up smartchools albany.k12.ny ny us. Thank you. Are there any questions? >> Miss Briml, >> no comment. >> Mr. Wolf gang. >> Uh, no comment. Our facilities chair has been keeping us pretty informed. >> Mr. Levi, >> uh, no questions. I'm looking forward to all these pro uh all these new progressions in our schools basically keeping our kids safer. >> Miss M Savage. >> So no questions just an appreciation for having been involved in the process early through facilities committee and through the community committee. Um I also want to make two comments for my board colleagues things that I've learned through looking at this from different angles. Um first of all this um is not going to be something

158you're going to see in the facilities plan, which we're going to look at later, because it's being paid for through this mechanism, which is wonderful. It allows us to extend our facilities dollars even further. And I think something we need to think about is how we convey this to all to our community because this is work that's going to be do being happening sort of coexisting in time with the facilities um project. So I'd like to convey to our community that this work is happening without making them think it's part of the but the facilities vote. So I just think that's an important thing >> and I did feel it was important to add that for the classroom technology and other for for -ate for network equipment we we have been trying to do our

159best to be fiscally responsible and and use smart bonds specifically for security >> and we appreciate that. Um and then the other thing I just wanted to um thank Mr. Wild for his recognition and as we always have to when we talk about security that security is twofold, right? It's always the students who maybe are not well um positioned in school because they have some significant special needs or whatever to stay in school and we need to keep our keep our arms wrapped around them. Um so whenever we increase our door monitoring or our camera work, it has two ways of looking at it. It's both keeping our students in and making sure that there's no security implications from the outside in. So, um I really appreciate the way you frame that. Thank you, >>

160Miss Man. >> I have no comments at this time, >> Miss Wilson. >> Just thank you. >> Thank you for your presentation. I think this is a smart way of using the smarts money, right? So, thank you for everything you do. >> Thank you so much. Okay, going on to the facilities draft facilities recommendation. >> Good evening. So, >> um I'm gonna hold for a second. As a superintendent, it was supposed to do the introduction, but I will start the introduction. Um So, uh, we have our architect and engineer firm that was conducting our building condition survey, uh, that is helping out with the, uh, initial facilities plan for a capital project in 2026, uh, vote in May. Um, we have Matt is still in the audience. I guess he's going to stay back there.

161Uh, then we have Rich Little from SEI and, uh, sorry, Will Calhoun as well. Um so we are very excited about this project. Uh it's something that the facilities committee and the district have been working on together is to address uh essentially every building in the school district. Um every student school building I'm sorry. So the ones that are uh adult facing do not get as much in this capital project. So it's focused on our students. the large space um uh equity and education for our students uh updating certain areas um and updating certain areas that have been in need of repair. So um I will kick it off and let SEI start um with page two of the pro the uh presentation. >> Oh, hold on. Here's the superintendent. I'm sure he's going to

162have some words. >> Thank you. I'm going to uh kick off this very important um discussion. So, uh, over the last 12ish months, we've been updating the board in the community on, um, the next steps, uh, per New York State Education Department regulations around, uh, building condition survey. Building condition survey is a mandated report that all school districts have to submit to state ed. It's on a five-year cycle and basically uh school districts have to hire a a third-party independent group um to go through a survey to identify um areas of improvement in all of our facilities, studentf facing facilities uh and any district uh facility. This is one of them uh as well as Academy Park uh and some other places. So our building condition survey was recently submitted but during the um process

163the evaluation process uh our facilities committee um had been regularly meeting with SEI and SEI is the group that um we interviewed and was uh hired about a year ago um to conduct the building condition survey. What we realized is we had a number of of o where opportunities met timelines where we could discuss the potential of a capital project for our community um to consider uh and maybe approve on May 19th. Typically a building condition survey you submit it to the state committee uh committee reviews it. they work with um uh public constituents to identify other opportunities and needs. But what we have realized uh is that given our timing and given some very interesting uh interesting timing around financing that uh we could make a dent in that building condition survey much sooner

164than any of us expected. And that's a really good thing. Um, and the reason that's a good thing is because if voters were to approve a capital project on May 19th, we have a number of months of submitting paperwork to the state education department, a number another number of months of of the state reviewing it and going back and forth uh with SEI and our facilities committee. So, you really don't put a shovel in the ground until about two years. So, timing is really really important. So, what we want to share um tonight with uh the board and the public is the opportunity um to conduct a capital project in upwards of $100 million with absolutely zero tax impact. Uh so, Nikai, if you'll go or are you driving? Who's driving? Nai. Uh the next

165slide. We want to um introduce our our friends from SEI. We have Rich Little with us. We have Matt Schools with us. and Will Calhoun. Um the uh facilities committee is led by Mr. Elmani and uh members Savage and Man. Um myself and Mr. Carris, Fran Riley, and Don Operman participated. And almost every principal, assistant principal, director, curriculum person that lives in the building and has responsibility. Uh this is just a sample of of who those folks are. um they have been um instrumental in providing feedback to SEI on the state not only the state of their facilities but also a vision uh of what teaching and learning um can look like here in Albany. So at the 30,000 foot level before I hand it over these gentlemen um we have the opportunity in May

166of of 26 so in in about six weeks uh for the public to consider a $100 million capital project that does not increase taxes. I've done this um I've done this a long time in a number of different districts and and this is this is unheard of. Th this is a really special moment where opportunities uh and long-term financial planning on behalf of the district come together to be able uh to continue to make investments in our facilities for almost 10,000 students. And we will not be asking the community for a dime. we do need the community to approve it even though we're not raising any new revenue for it. Um but if the board chooses to go forward with this project, we will we will make that abundantly clear. So, uh, part of tonight's

167discussion, uh, is to talk about the here and now, which would be a potential of a phase one hund00 million project, uh, for the public to consider, uh, on May 19th, but also the potential of a phase 2 project uh, in May of 2027. that would address other areas that the building condition survey has found that we just need more time to vet, to discuss with uh our constituents, um and to receive a little more information on. So, this very well could be phase one of a of a two-phase plan, but we want to make sure everyone understands um that we really are able to leverage uh different funding streams um so we can invest $und00 million for our 10,000 students without impacting taxes. So, we broke this uh project into five pillars. We have

168the NAERTA grant uh a little north of $10 million that will basically serve as seed money uh for us uh as a catalyst for uh this project. There are a number of energy efficiency opportunities throughout our district um that uh the NAERTA grant will pay for. We also have an energy performance contract. Our district has a long-standing uh practice of engaging in energy performance contracts where basically we make improvements over time that will reduce our bills and reduce our um our long-term financial commitments and these projects certainly pay for themselves. Uh we just heard a moment ago uh about the smart schools bond. Um that that is just a little u a little taste of a larger safety um safety and security focus that uh the committee and the board has had for quite some

169time. um that these would include improvements in infrastructure in foyers and vestibules, but also uh security and safety technology, the ability to know when doors are open, the ability to uh lock down buildings quicker from your phone, um to access security and safety information and protocols much quicker. Um certainly equity that is uh a a staple of our work here in Albany and we'll talk a little bit more about equity but to make sure that large instructional spaces throughout the district we're talking playgrounds, auditoriums, cafeterias, gymnasiums um that they are upgraded um as best in and in a responsible fashion as we can given some of the constraints of our facilities. Many of our elementary schools, for example, are landlocked. We can't build new playgrounds. We have to uh improve existing ones. Uh this this

170board has had a um a history of of buying vacant property in order to create playgrounds or parking lots or you name it. So um the equity piece in the large instructional spaces is really important because uh to some degree our hands are tied with the ability uh and our opportunity to either expand spaces or really invest in certain spaces. and and we'll share one example from uh Gifin Elementary School later on. And then the last piece, the the last pillar is is infrastructure. These sometimes are are not the most appealing things uh or improvements that you'll see with the naked eye, but these are the backbone uh these are the backbone infrastructure uh systems of our district. Um uh two days in the last two weeks, we've had a a water issue here at

171HG. We've unfortunately had to cancel school uh because of HVAC issues or or other infrastructure issues. Uh and what this $100 million project will allow us to do is make a major dent in inroads in some of those so we can um have more assurances not only to our students but our but our families that our facilities are ready every single day for our students. Um so we want to share this infographic before I turn it over to the gentleman. um that NAERTA grant 11.3 million that um that serves as the local share typically when you conduct a uh capital project let's let's use the example we heard today about transportation and and child safety zones that we pay 100% upfront and then we get reimbursed the following year. That is also how um that

172is also how capital projects work. The difference is this NAERTA grant will serve as that local share to kick off uh the project. So without that NAERTA grant, it we could argue that we wouldn't be able to um really efficiently or affordably conduct the other uh 89 million in change of of this project. U the project includes weatherproofing doors and windows in 15 schools, lighting improvements in 14 schools. Those are requirements of NAERTA. So, if you're a school and says, "Hey, wait a minute. We're not being touched." That's because either you don't qualify for the Kniferta grant or those improvements uh were more recently made um or basically they just don't qualify for that for those grant dollars um to be allocated there. But all 17 of our schools, every single school building that has

173children in it will experience some uh upgrade or another. and we're going to walk you through where where those upgrades fall uh in those pillars across the 17 schools. So, with that, I'll turn it over to our friends from SEI to get into some of the specifics. >> Just real quickly, first of all, thank you, I can't echo enough about thanks to the the facilities committee and also the stakeholders groups that we've already met with. Um it's a lot of time and effort that's been put into it. We appreciate all the data and collecting. And the other thing to recognize is that what's pushed this urgency is that the NAERTA grant has a a schedule and a time frame, right? So that's an important reason for if if you don't meet those time frames, we

174we're we don't have the ability to leverage that and it's great that this board is is looking at the opportunity to leverage that uh to offset local community. >> All right. So we'll get into some of the uh me the scope of the project. So, one of the pillars that Joe had mentioned uh in a slide couple slides ago was district-wide safety and security. So, as part of this uh pillar, the three main goals are secure vestibules uh at as many buildings as we can get into this project. Uh card access for exterior doorways as well as perimeter door monitoring at perimeter doors for all schools. So these charts that are included with each one of these uh pillar uh initiatives uh tries to lay out which buildings are being touched as part of this

175scope of work. Uh you can see was sorry you can see with the secure vestio work that uh there are a couple of buildings that are left out and it says future work for the next phase of this scope. That's just because those buildings require uh a bit more study to really do those schools proper. Um and then for card access and door monitoring, some of that work has already been completed in a previous initiative. So equity in large spaces, the big goal here was to bring comparable spaces across the school district up to about the same level. Um, so the types of spaces that we're looking at, auditoriums, cafeterias, cafeteriums, libraries, gymnasiums, and playgrounds. So, not every building has an auditorium, but if they do, uh, we're going to try to bring those spaces

176up to the same standard as their neighbor. So highlighting some of the auditorium scope uh things we'd be tackling uh not necessarily for every space it all depends on the level of that uh space level of that space is now so things like uh audiovisisual systems uh lighting rigging stage curtains finishes and spaces but uh here we've got a picture of Gifin Memorial uh I'd say that's probably one of the uh auditoriums in most need uh throughout the district. So, we'd be doing uh an extensive amount of work here to really bring this one up to the standard of the rest of the buildings, cafeterias and cafet. So, some buildings just have cafeterias. buildings that don't have auditoriums have a combined sort of cafeteria, auditorium space or cafeteriator. Those spaces um for cafeterias, we there's

177a there's been a lot of discussion about acoustics for those spaces being noisy spaces during lunchtimes and gatherings. So, uh we'd look at those spaces for acoustic treatments. Uh we'd look at lighting for these types of spaces. Um if they've got uh if it is a cafeterium type space, we'd uh look at audiovisisual systems, lighting, things like that to improve their ability to have uh larger uh presentations or plays in in these types of spaces. >> I think the the key point here about the equitability is just ensuring that everybody understands not every school has a full cafeteria or a full auditorium. So in the equity of that is that if they have an auditorium, we want each of those auditoriums to afford the same experience. If they have a cafeterium, then we want to

178do that same comparison. We're going to look at the other buildings. Uh we already have looked at the buildings and look at how do we bring them each up to a similar experience for all of our students. >> Uh libraries and media centers. So again, similar idea here, bringing everybody up to the same standard. Things like lighting, technology, furniture. Uh a highlight here, Eagle Point. One of the things we've been talking about with that principle is maybe providing a STEM space within the their library for greater fix flexibility and use of that space. gymnasiums. Um throughout the district, we've been looking at things like flooring replacements, equipment, uh hoops, those sorts of things. Uh this highlight here for Albany International. This is a unique a unique space to the district in the sense that they

179don't have an auditorium or cafety and auditorium type space. I think they would like to use it more uh for those types of uh gatherings. So uh here we try to enhance the stage uh for greater use playgrounds. Um so throughout the district we've been looking at uh improving uh the use of the playground spaces. So looking at uh the age of some of the equipment in at the various schools. So if uh some of that's aging out to replace some of that. Also making equipment age appropriate uh throughout the district and looking at sort of safety and security of some of the spaces infrastructure. So, not the uh flashy part of the project, but obviously the necessary component to keep the buildings functioning and safe for all the occupants. So, um the district wants

180to be very proactive with this type of work. So, they're addressing these things before they become an a real issue or an emergency down the road. And the things that we've identified here are things like fire alarm systems, public address systems, and roofing. Sure. So along with each one of these components looking at the this chart here is demonstrating the uh portion of this this budget that would be allocated to each one of these um areas that we've talked about each one of these pillar areas. So for example, you can see in the blue is the equ equitable large spaces, you know. So if you if you go back through across each one of the components, you'll see that there's a uh varying amounts of them of the budget that go into this, but this

181is kind of the breakdown of each one of those across the projects. Uh this is again reminding everybody there's zero tax impact. taking advantage of this grant and the leverage that you have is of huge strategic value to your community and and the buildings themselves. So, this is demonstrating where the funding sources are coming from. A significant portion of this is still coming from the state building aid that comes back to the district. Um, we are still working with uh fiscal uh your the district's fiscal advisor team and uh Joe's team, Joe K's team in regards to the the capital reserves that that would be necessary to help offset it. But you can see the other components, the grant and the contributions of 11% of this project. That's a significant trigger in opening up these

182opportunities. Uh this is uh scheduled. We talked about this a little while back, but we just want to remind everybody um that there are specific dates that we have to meet and accomplish. Uh we're here tonight. Uh we'll be back again on the 26th. Hopefully, if there's any questions or concerns, we can review that. Um for this to be on the May vote, uh the board would have to make a recommendation prior to April 1st. uh we'll need to resolve uh some during the 20 between now and the 26th we need to get some additional information surrounding seeker and other uh required legal documents that we'll need to have placed in front of you. Um this information has to be out to the public prior to the April 1 date. We want to make sure

183that we're accommodating that. Uh a couple of other dates in there that we're talking about are some opportunities for uh public presentation and also input from the community that potentially could be April 16th and April 30th. And then other uh other groups and work with stakeholders that'll be out be going on throughout that time. So if you have any uh questions or concerns, please feel free to share them. And we thank you very much for your time tonight and allowing us to be here and present this Thank you, Miss Burmel. >> No comment but wonderful presentation. >> Mr. Wolfkang. >> Yes. Quick comment, but you know, I'll start with my thank yous. Thank you guys for the work, the presentation. Thank you to our uh chairman Elmanoi for his work on the facilities committee and

184our other members. Um I have one specific project I wanted to ask about. Um and if you guys don't have the answer for that right now, that's totally fine. Uh when we got a kind of like a a draft of the building conditions themselves, they were ranked like by letter. Um I noticed that one elementary school wasn't on the list of having a library or media center. It was GIF. Do you guys know what's going on with that? Was that like just left off the list? Do they have a another, you know, gym library kind of thing that so that's why it was on the media center list? Do you guys know what's going on with that >> or is there a plan at all? >> Um, I think I have to go back through

185our notes to see exactly what um there's a lot of buildings in the district obviously to remember uh each individual piece of scope. Um there was a lot of discussion obviously about Gifin's auditorium and bringing that up to speed but um I know in some cases you know if that evaluation of that space was um you know that space being in particularly good shape. You know we weren't allocating a lot of effort or or money toward that. But we can definitely kind of go back and look and see. >> We'll confirm that. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. >> Thank you. Salman, >> you know, Miss Brown might be able to answer that if she's Yeah. Um, so I want to back up a second here and um just acknowledge the work of the

186committee and the work of SEI and the administration and the principles. Um, it's been a year or so of collecting data adjusting data, saying, "Hey, did you check this?" and then running it to ground. Um, there's been a lot of work and I would be remiss if I didn't give both uh member Savage and uh member man a shout out. Um, who essentially this project has evolved because of their work. Uh it was smaller initially and then member Savage said, "Well, what about this? Can we do this to can we expand this to get our students what they deserve?" And you know what? If you don't ask, you're not going to get. So, I'm so glad. I'm so glad because um as the superintendent mentioned, it is a hund00 million dollars worth of projects on

187some of the city's most important public infrastructure. You know, um and it's not going to raise taxes on the city, citizens of this city, and it's going to definitely uplift our students. So, that's definitely a positive. Um this is really wide ranging project. So I know the plan is to break it into kind of two sections. And um I think that work might need to be laid out a little bit more. But I am I am happy with where we landed and I certainly can um I can lend my you know lend my voice in support of what is being proposed here. So thank you guys and thank you to the committee. Uh and I'm going to pass on to the next member. >> Miss man. Well, I do want to um thank the leadership

188at um uh all of our many schools. Um and I and I want to thank um SEI for the work that you've been doing. Um and I want to support this plan. I'm very excited about um um everything we're going to do during phase one and um and I'm super psyched about GIF and the auditorium because that's been something that um that's been something that I' that we've um pushed for and now we have the opportunity to transform that that space. So so I'm very thankful for that. So that's all I have. >> Miss Savage. Um, so like my colleagues have said, I just want to thank all everyone for the work. The foundational data collection to make it possible to actually decide what we needed to do is a huge yman's effort and actually

189slightly unimaginable to me. How you do that um in every single building in our district. Just trying to maintain my own single family home seems like a lot to me most of the time. So that's a lot. Um, I also really admire the strategic and smart way this was put together financially. I really appreciate you all, but also the superintendent and and assistant superintendent for business for their thoughtful attention to how we can leverage funds. This is my third five five-year plan. So, this is how long I've been around. And in my mind, five-year plans are paid for roughly a third local share, twothirds state aid. Because some of it's like, you know, you can't you're paying for things in the Academy Park which aren't aidable at all. And it all kind of boils out

190to a third local share, twothirds um state aid. This plan is like less than 10% local share, more than 90% other people's money as I like to think of it. Um you know, it's really all our money because it's state money. Um it's comes from our state income taxes, but it's not falling on our property taxpayers, right? Not falling on the people who own the apartments where people are paying rent. Nobody's having to increase their rent their rents in order to pay their property taxes because there is no tax impact at all on this and that's because of this strategic effort to build on the NAERTA grant to build on the EPC money and to use the money that we have strategically put away a little bit at a time each year so that we

191would have some money in the capital reserve to make this happen. So, this is very smart and it's very strategic. And I love the fact that it also gives us another year hopefully or maybe even two to think about some of the more difficult and complicated projects. Like these are kind of the most straightforward ones. We need a roof. Let's put a roof on. Right? Those are the kinds of projects that are here. The ones that require a little more design. We have more time to do the design, but we're still able to leverage the NAERTA money in order to reduce the local share. Um, so I just really appreciate the the deep work that went into it. Um, and I've learned a lot. I'm back on the facilities committee, which I haven't done in

192a long time. So, I'm um I'm learning a lot as I go. So, I appreciate it so much. Um, I don't actually have any questions because I've asked more questions than I'm entitled to at the facilities committees. >> Miss Gr. >> Sorry. I apologize. Thank you for the presentation. It was really great and I think I don't remember perhaps we did do it this way on the immediately previous five-year plan but I don't remember looking at the buildings before not just in isolation in terms of what on this building is broken but in terms of let's look at this across the board and strive for equitable facilities in all all of our buildings. not just fix what's obviously broken, but try to make sure that all of our students have equitable access to resources and

193facilities. It's something where when we talk about equity not being a specific food, but the whole plate on which everything is, it's it's really important to have that. And I'm also delighted, one of the things that I think has been really great in the past decade is us realizing playgrounds aren't aren't a nice extra, but they're critical to have to have that play and outdoor space for the children. And I really love to see that on the slide. I've learned, I think, a lot about playgrounds in the last 12 years that I never knew before as just a playground visitor. You know, the pros and cons of having artificial turf, how much how much uh how much how deep of wood chips you have to put down to have a safe playground, what kind of

194play surfaces, you know, you should have. And I noticed that the pictures of that playground you had had like sort of an artificial one of those sort of spongy soft play services. It made me think because I was visiting some of the elementary schools recently and visiting this time of year with all the snow and ice puddles. It was hard for some of the some of the younger kids to access the play space just because of the water and the puddles on the asphalt. So, I'm wondering if we can think about one thing with our play services and finding a way to make them more weatherproof, you know, accessible year accessible year round, like better drainage or whatnot so that they don't have to like basically have a moat around the playground at this time

195of year. I know I know it can be challenging, but it'd be great to be able to get the kids outside all the time. Oh, the other the other thing I wanted to say was it my understanding is it's still the case that playgrounds are funded as long as they're connected with some other capital work at the building. Is that correct? >> Yeah. Any anytime you for you to do any work on the exterior of the building, you're required to do a certain a minimal amount. I believe it's $10,000 minimum work inside the building to open up that opportunity for what they call incidental aid on the outside. That I think that's what I remembered. So, it's important to make sure we get all our needs in these areas together so that we can take

196maximum advantage of the aid. Thank you so much. >> I just wanted to clarify because I think that was a really excellent question board member creri asked that I don't think we did ask in facilities. It's why it's always good to have seven heads. We looked at um drainage issues on playground spaces, but what board member Crerache just described was drainage issues on paved spaces. So, let's double check that we've incorporated that um because those paved spaces are used as play spaces in many of our um >> some schools have got it recently. >> Um definitely. and actually watching children play, it's often the paved spaces that draw that draw them because the ball bounces on the paved spaces best. So, um, so I appreciate that quote and maybe next time we're on facilities committee,

197we can just quickly make sure we've got that incorporated. >> Mr. Wilson, >> thank you for your Thank you for the presentation. Um, it's great to revisit this. I just had a question. Um I guess slide seven could be where we ground for um Thank you. So I understand just thinking in terms of frameworks that and like we're we're addressing equity kind of categorically here. So auditoriums, cafeterias, libraries which I think is brilliant and you can see at a glance. Oh, one more. It may not be slide seven. It's the one with equity and large instructional spaces. >> So back one more. I miss it. >> Back. Yep. Yep. Yep. >> The other direction. >> Yes. Yep. >> Yep. Keep going the other direction. Yep. >> There. Thank you. So, I see we're approaching this

198categorically. Is it also um because when I think of equity, I think of prioritizing >> um the most need too. So, are we addressing it in terms of like I'm just going to throw a school out there. DCS hasn't been touched auditorium wise like the you know or they're in the most um desperate need. Are we going to address them first? >> Well, the good the so the basis of this was an evaluation the BCS. So we looked at each building based on their needs. So that was the driven base of of it is need driven. So even though we may be doing work in two different cafeterias, they may not get the same level of work because one cafeteria may not need the same level of of improvements as another cafeteria does. So they'll

199each be evaluated based on what they need. And then the goal is to bring them up so that they're, you know, they're not going to be the same space. They're not going to be the same, you know, same look, but they're going to be the same quality, the same experience. So if there's a if it's a cafetum and it has a stage, the elements around that stage, if there's some kind if there's some sound, uh if there's a, you know, any kind of additional lighting that's provided, any experience that can happen on a cafeterium in one would be brought to the other. So, I hope that answers your question. >> It does. And I'm also asking it for um the perspective of the lay people in the public like what does that mean? So, thank

200you. >> Thank you so much. >> No problem. >> I just wanted to add one quick thing from the facilities committee conversations around that and also one point of clarification that I think we should think about about your question. So, we're not just picking our top level and bringing everybody else up to that standard. They went to folks in the outside world to say what is a high quality elementary school auditorium look like and we're going to bring all our auditoriums up to that level. So it's not just setting our best as the best. It's setting a standard from across the way. So I think that's um I think everyone will see improvement. It's not just bringing everyone up to our best. And then you asked when you asked the question you partially used the

201word uh about uh will people be dealt with first? Right. Um, and I think that's something that won't happen. That decision won't be made yet. It'll be part of the operational decision making after the bids come in and we have the contractor selected. But I do think at that time would be a good time for us to say, "Hey, look, if you could do either playground first, let's do the worst one first, right?" Um, in terms of ordering. Um, so I think that's an excellent point and we can deal with that. And I don't know if it has to be in the contracting bidding documents what order things go in or if that can be made. Those decisions can be made later. So what we can do is in the bidding process, part of that

202is to include a a schedule and a scope and we can highlight those things in that schedule up front. There's always going to be a negotiation when the contractors come in and we go through it. But that's where you have the opportunity to kind of build that, you know, kind of preface it and talk about the priorities because there's going to be lots of other factors, you know, o access to the buildings, when is it right, all those types of things, too. Thank you for your wonderful presentation. Um the last time we did this was I believe 2019 and and and uh Ellen we did we did look at equity even back then. Um it was just that the stars and the planets hadn't aligned like they did this time and so we had a

203limited budget and there was a tax impact at that point in time. We had to minimize that. So, we had to make a choice between a roof at uh Sunshine versus Gifin's Auditorium. And that was to me a no-brainer, but we went with this roof on Sunshine because we need to keep that building, right? It was cheaper than putting what it would cost us to fix the auditorium. So, I'm glad that, you know, the GIF auditorium is is is sorely needs fixing is is getting its um time, its moment. Um, I'm so happy that we're able to do this largecale project without costing any money to the taxpayers who are already paying a lot. Um, you know, 63% of the property in Albany is taxfree. So, it's everybody else is taking on the burden. So

204I'm glad that we are able to find new ways in in funding our things and still maintaining our properties in the you know because this is as it's public property right so making sure that they're they're kept up they're kept up to shape and and then modernized. It's not just being kept up to shape. It's also as things change, needs change, and we're evolving and and using all these different bonds and what have you to to fund for all the different safety needs or the instructional needs. Um, and all these and today's questions were wonderful in the fact that, you know, let's think about drainage. Let's think about drainage in spaces where we are not normally thinking about drainage because these are the places where, you know, we we'll use whatever we have to use.

205If you if you can get the kids outside running, playing playing instead of sitting in the classroom and use that play play time, um we will do whatever it takes and and some of these buildings got some parts of things fixed but not all of it. And I'm glad that uh to answer your question David last time when we did it we broke it up into three phases uh three parcels and they were bid separately and and depending on what was happening in one building uh maybe the access wasn't available for that one. And so we decided okay let's do a playground and at the same time or paint this one you know while that's happening we tried to maximize the scheduling to get the uh most work done uh in that that summer time

206when students were in there but at this point in time I mean I since we only got the presentation today I mean I haven't had a chance to digest it and um if you have an electronic version of this sheet that'd be great to have that. >> Yeah I did want to mention that's supposed to be on board docs. Um I don't know. Did we get to that point yet? >> I just shared it with Nikaya, so I'm sure it'll be put back up there. >> So, Miss Tibbons will put it up. Can you add this the sheet to the to board doc so it stays with the thing when when you get it? >> Did you Oh, maybe we just need to refresh. >> We haven't refreshed. >> We shall refresh. >> Um >>

207because even with my glasses, I mean, this is too small for me to read. >> There's a lot a lot of data. I use cheaters and cheating still doesn't help. So um so I don't have any questions but I'm I'm glad for and thankful for all the work that you and the facilities committee have gone through and u you you've involved all the parties involved and you know all the building team leadership teams and principles and and and tried to get their priorities addressed in this master document. So uh thank you. I want to just add on to that piece too, which is that this, as we says in the the opening slide, this is chunk one. I'm not going to call it phase one because there's going to be phases within this chunk, but

208this is chunk one. Um, and as it's been mentioned a couple of times, it was done so that we could do the things that were the easiest to design and cost quickly. There is still going to be plenty of money left in our capital reserve because we're keeping we're only using something like $6 to9 million. They're working that out with the bond people to figure out exactly what the capital reserve piece will be. But we have $22 million in our capital reserve right now. Um and there's an additional $3 million in a different reserve that we anticipate will be able to move to capital reserve which would make 25. As my facilities committee friends know I like to say 22 that is 25, right? And even if we pull out 10 of that, which we're

209not, we're max we're talking about is nine, is that would leave $15 million in the capital reserve, right? And that money is will be matched by state aid at 88%. So it can justify another large chunk of work without having to um add any property tax impact for our taxpayers. So if there's something a principal was like, "But I really need X, Y, and Z, and it's not in this project," that doesn't mean it's not going to happen. It just means it's not in this project. And there's plenty of time for us to get to that down the road. And I just want to keep that front and center in everybody's mind because I know people are going to be like, "But I didn't get X." We're we're trying to get to everything as much

210as we can. Um, and of course the the need is will always exceed the amount of money available, but we're trying to get to as much as we can, >> right? And not to mention some of those complicated projects have to go through the ACD's design approval and all of those things which takes time. Forget about the money and all of that stuff. Just physical time. So >> this is if I could as well. Um, so I know we covered all of this, but I just wanted to touch on a couple of matters in this infrastructure uh spreadsheet. So, there's a few things that I thought were um didn't get as much coverage, but as PA systems, secure vestibules, we talked about card access and perimeter door monitoring, but these things um they're extremely important

211for both just the logistics of our school. You know, parents come in, they need to drop things off. Um we need to keep our students safe. So, we're You know, every school was looked at thoroughly in terms of how can we maintain a little room, you know, a front space, vestibule room that is secured, people can come and drop their stuff off where it's not totally open to the school. So, I'm really happy we've been able to get a lot of work done there. Um, PA systems, I've been in schools where the PA systems are antiquated. they don't necessarily work well. People are using walkietalkies instead. So, you know, a lot of these projects are going to make life so much better in the school and make things more efficient. So, and also keep keep

212our keep our students in and keep those who are not supposed to be in the school out. So, thank you guys for this work. Um, that's all I've got. I don't know if you want to have another round, but Does anybody have any comments to commission? >> I've got one quick final comment. Um, also about Given. Um, because we're going to talk a lot a lot about that. Um, because they're getting a ton of work done. Um, and I just wanted to shout that out because that is something I heard I think that's the school I heard the most about when I was out running for this seat was that GIF was old. It had issues and it needed the work. And I think it's going to be really uh, welcome in that community. not

213only the acknowledgement that they need the work, but that we have a plan to start addressing some of those long-standing issues. So, I just wanted to shout that out because it's something I hear about a lot. So, good work. >> I wanted to add one more. This is very picky and this is not something necessarily that most members of the community will want to know, but I think the board needs to understand. You see how there's like two columns over on the right that are like different? There's like this big chunk on the left and then there's two columns over on the right. Those two columns are going to be paid for using a different mechanism having to do with the safe act that has to do with making our buildings more secure. And so

214the way we present it to our community will have to be really clear. It's kind of like I was saying about the cameras and that we're going to pay for with smart schools money. This is the same kind of thing. We're going to pay for card access and perimeter door moni monitoring with a different funding mechanism. It's going to happen. it's just not going to be part of the capital project money that we pay for through the capital project process. So that's why those two columns are hanging out. And I just want to thank you guys for the color coding of the categories. So everybody notice the beautiful color coding on the top so you can see how things align. We've got the green means security and why one green is over there and two

215over there is how the funding works. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. Moving on. Board committee reports. >> Facilities. I guess we talked a lot about >> facilities met uh two weeks in a row in the last two weeks, Tuesdays, and um we kind of hammered all of this out with SEI and Mr. Opperman and Mr. Harris and uh Superintendent Hawk Rider. Um so thank you to all of and uh Fran, I'm sorry. Um no, >> he like saves us a million dollars every time he opens his mouth. So keep keep him coming. Save us more. Um yeah, I'm probably missing a few other people in there obviously. Um we've been working on this for a while and I am I am pleased with it. Thank you all and uh hopefully you get back

216to Buffalo safely. SEI crew. >> Trust you. But >> gotcha. Oh, nice. >> Policy Miss Cr. >> Yes. Hello. Policy committee is I was thinking about changing the date of the meeting, but it would not work for all the committee members. So, we're meeting as originally planned on th on next Wednesday the 18th at uh 5:30 at Harry Gibbons. That's it. >> Audit. Yes, ma'am. >> Our audit committee met um a number of weeks ago and um we accepted the findings from the internal audit. Our next meeting is going to be in a couple of weeks. >> Okay. Say again. >> Oh, okay. Great. Let me stop. Let me turn my mic off. Thank you. >> The Savage Adart Committee, government relations. >> I actually have no committee reports on additional committees because I have

217been very focused on facilities. I know that there were a couple of um school visits that had not been accomplished. So, if anybody um can keep me up to date on Eagle Point, Sheridan Prep, and Roots, those are the three that I don't know where they are. if somebody can give me a heads up on those. Just send me a text. Um, besides that, I believe we have one that's still being scheduled and the rest have all been done. Um, so we are in very good shape with our school visits. Um, government relations like we're just watching the budget. That's what we're government relating on. And what did I miss? Ad hoc routine consent. Like we've been working on facilities committee stuff. Ad hoc routine consent. We are going to make good progress at our

218next meeting on the um conference request forms which will be a new process for us um all digital process and so we expect to get a good report on that at the next meeting. >> All righty. Any other matters to discuss? If not motion to adjourn Mr. Wang, Mr. Almanavi, all in favor and okay. Okay, we are ajourned. Thank you. Good night to everybody.