001you have to pay the college tuition um at a reduced rate. In high school, you could earn three credits per class. So perfect example of this is our um senior year students can take English their regular English class but it's dual enrollment with Nassau Community College and that's three credits for the first semester and then three credits for the second semester. That's Sunni credits which is transferable anywhere at a very reduced rate. Right? So it makes college access better for families because they're going to go into college with anywhere from 30 credits to 40 credits which is our goal. Um, in addition to dual enrollment courses, we offer a tremendous number of AP classes. Um, AP classes are similar. Student has take the assessment, pay for the assessment. If they pass that assessment, they could
002earn college credits for that particular course. We offer 29 AP courses currently, and we're going to be adding on to those, which you'll see in a minute, including the distinguished AP capstone diploma program. Um currently 50% or so of our students are taking some form of dual enrollment course which is fantastic. Uh we have also launched a um selfpaced uh program called TOSSA certification which is really like a Corsera where students could take um a certification course independently on their own to get an Adobe certificate or Excel certificate which is job readiness skills. uh miraculously uh our students are thriving and um we have on-site college admissions to show this. We have several schools that come to uh Boulder High School um Farmingdale, St. John's, Malloy, LU and they meet with students in the high
003school and on the spot look at their transcripts and offer them scholarships. So um you'll see that uh we have 93 acceptances and nearly $2 million in annual scholarships have been earned uh this year. Continuing with our program highlights, we have um schools career initiative. Um we have our senior experience course which is very unique across Nashville County. Students are taking their social studies and English class together and they do work-based learning periods 7 89 at the end of the day. Approximately 30 students are enrolled in that. Um we have our signature academic academy program. We have uh Balden Middle School has our pre-academy programs which feed into the academy programs. Uh last month we presented on our K12 M trial program. Uh we have our Schubert program which has CTE courses in there. Um
004there's four total CT courses there. Police science, uh medical office assistant, and most recently the one flight up sound studio, recording studio, and our uh jewelry coalition with black and jewelry for students to become future uh bentures in jewelry. Thank you to Mr. Esca and her organization for supporting that. Uh we have a very robust and strong mentoring program at uh throughout the district from um adults to students as well as a peer mentoring program studentto student. Uh and I'm sure many you've heard this and see our um belief in extending learning outside of the four walls of a of a classroom and getting students to go out on what we call leaving it to learns where they're engaging in hands-on learning inquiry based learning connected with what they're learning in the classroom. not just
005a traditional field trip, but more rather getting out to see and meet um people in the workforce that they might be interested in. Another initiative that our programs covers is the overall wellness initiative. Um elementary schools use the Yale ruler program. Uh we have restorative practices in our secondary schools, mindfulness electives at the high school. Um and uh we have a wellness center at the middle school which helps serve students K8. And we also have a wellness center which opened uh last year at the high school which is not only mental wellness but also physical wellness for our students. They are very enrolled in the program. Another initiative is technology. Um, so our students, as you know, your children have a Chromebook that they take home. We have to replenish those Chromebooks every few years.
006We have a robust array of instructional technology applications for students to use to pro personalized learning or for practice. Um, behind the scenes to protect data, we have to invest a considerable amount of money into cyber security and our technology infrastructure. Um and we're always looking to incorporate new technology to augment instruction. So this year at the high school we have added and this was on channel uh 5 news um medical mannequins which are simulators which are teacher a program and students have to practice analyzing what the medical condition is and then assessing it. Part of our medical academy with first school public school that has it. These are nursing training mannequins um and our students are flourishing with them. We also invested in some Misti 2 robots. Uh these are robots that our computer
007science students, AP computer science principal students are using to code. Uh they're coding on a computer, but what does that mean? Right? So they take the code and they transfer the code to these robots to see the robot actually work. Um so again, taking learning and transferring it to real life situations is is part of our um goals. Bless you. We also have a very uh amazing fine performing arts program and that's something that we cherish and need to maintain. We're going to see our middle school students tonight um as our preview. Uh we saw the high school students in their program not long ago. Um I could read this but we'd be here forever. Um but with Mr. Propillo and our art and music teachers, students are flourishing in, you know, art and music.
008The program also covers athletics, right? So, um we have a fantastic uh array of teams at the high school and at the middle school. Um athletics starts in seventh grade, not sixth grade. K6 is um PAL. So, we highly suggest you coordinate and work with PAL if you're interested in getting your child involved. Great organization. Um but once they enter 7th grade, they can start joining athletic teams. So, um, we have over,200 student athletes, 24 varsity teams, 14 junior varsity teams, 16 middle school teams. Um, and our students are also scholar athletes. We received an award for that, meaning they are able to maintain a certain GPA as well as beyond on the team and that's recognized by the New York uh state um, high school athletic association. Another one of our initiatives has been
009small class size and we thank the board of ed and the community for um supporting that. Um we're constantly looking to see what our class size mean versus the rest of Nassau County and we get these reports. Um this is from Boseis who collects the data. Um and uh for us our elementary class sizes is still ranked number one. The median class size is 17 and that's really K through five. something we should be very very proud of and um definitely a continued focus in this budget presentation. So all these programs I quickly went over has led to the district receiving a tremendous number of accolades. Um this year we were invited to join the league of innovative schools by digital promise. Um we received best schools from US News report uh AP scholar honor
010role. Um, we've been, um, recognized by college success by greatschools.org. We've had teachers, administrators recognized by the best of Long Island, uh, no place for hate designations. We've had schools of character designations. I could go on and on and on with the number of accolades that the district had received because of the fantastic work taking place in our classrooms and our programs. Uh, we have also um received numerous awards for the champions of change. they represented here. Uh we currently have five total awards. Um but we've had the most recently the future jewelers program um recognized as well as many of our academy programs. Okay. So as we plan for the future, remember I said Baldwin's constantly looking at the future and we're future focused. Um we've been speaking with students. I've hosted a student
011advisory uh panel this year which has been fantastic. Um, speaking with parents, we know that there are some areas that um, we want to grow in and there are based on what's going on in our future world of work. When we look at the McKenzie report, which I'll talk to talk to you about more in a second, we know there's some new programs we want to add. So, uh, next year we're planning on adding, as long as we could match the revenue with the expense, a new science research program. Um we currently do not have a science authentic science research program at our high school. So um right now we have 15 kids starting in year one which is a perfect size. Ultimately they compete in a lot of competitions and that um Regeneron competition
012which is a real big one by the time they get to their senior year. Uh we're starting a 3D design and engineering technology class. This is taking CAD to a whole another level. This is a dual enrollment college level course. So we're adding to our college level coursework. We're adding AP cyber security. Um, it's a growing field, right? A lot of people that go in cyber security could go directly out of high school if if they're fortunate enough to pass some certification courses. We're starting AP business principles course. Um, we're starting an investigative journalism course, a film studies course, and that's to really enhance our film and um, news media academy. Um, we've noticed that for some of our native speakers, because they are so advanced, by the time they're senior, they might not have
013a language to take. So, we're developing a new course to meet their needs called Advanced Spanish for native heritage speakers. Um, we're constantly looking at curriculum and revising it. An example here is we have a beautiful TV studio, but we're going to create TV studio 1 and two, where we go really deep in the skills that students need to learn in that profession and skills. And uh we would like to expand middle school athletic opportunities. So for instance, one of the data points we looked at is we have one seventh eighth grade boys basketball team with 80 kids trying out. We want to make sure that there's some more opportunities for those students. So we create a seventh grade team as well as an eighth grade team. Same thing for girls volleyball. Hot sport, super
014successful women in varsity. And right now there's only one seventh eighth grade girls volleyball team with a tremendous number of kids trying out which unfortunately leads to them being cut, right? And we're trying to create more opportunities for them. So in our plan for next year um we would like to expand on some opportunities for all students K12 in short. Okay. Um we have an expansion of our school's career program. Um I would like to expand elementary uh enrichment club opportunities child program in particular. And lastly, expansion of our UPK program. Um, this year, if you notice, if you have a 4-year-old, we did the lottery much earlier than in the past. So, this way we know how many seats we need. Um, so we have about 140 students that are enrolled and there is
015no weight list for next year because we're expanding the number of seats for all our four-year-old children. Okay. Um, so we're very proud of that and and as long as the budget passes and successful, we'll be able to do that. All right. All this is contingent upon the budget passing in May and your support. So you heard me mention earlier we were starting this by talking about why why why do we do this right and the budget is for students so they're going to be prepared for the future. We're constantly looking at those signals and drivers. And one of the things we look at is the Mckenzie report and World Government Summit which looks at skills students need to be successful. Um and they really look at a couple different domains that they identified. Uh
016companies want students who who are cognitively sharp and have strong cognitive skills that can adjust and um have strong social emotional skills and who have strong collaboration skills. Those are some of the skills that companies look for. Not so much, believe it or not, the content knowledge. Obviously, that is important, but what can you do with that content? What can you do with different scenarios that are presented to you? Right? That's what they mean by the cognitive ability. Um so when we look at the McKenzie report um and we look at New York State New York inspires plan uh we've developed our own future ready competencies which we're very proud of. Uh and again we're ahead of the curve where New York State wants us to be. So we've created and you heard last year
017is called the six C's. But we know based on these reports and looking at future world of work and readiness, character, creativity, critical thinking, communication, citizenship, and collaboration are all essential skills. So all the coursework and programs that we are creating are really going to zero in on students being able to develop these skills to where they are college and career readiness. Whether they go to college or career, we want them to be ready. Okay. Um, and within each one of these competencies, we've identified certain elements which you can't see right now, but they're in there. Okay, this document is aligned with our previous Bolden 2035, which we're talking about the future ready um needs um developing the proper skills, the positions to thrive in that complex um unpredictable world. All right, and once again,
018this is aligned. You've probably heard New York State talk about their New York Inspires plan, profile of a graduate. this is all aligned with that and um supports that work. So very proud of the Baldman teachers, students and um admin for helping uh organize this. Okay, so that's our program in a highlight um what we currently have which we need to maintain but also build upon. So once we get to the over overall expense side which you'll see in a few minutes, you'll understand why that expense side is there. So this this covers that first portion of the three-part budget which was the uh program. I'm going to ask Dr. Robinson now to speak about the capital portion uh of the expense side act. >> Thank you sir. >> Thank you. Sorry >> that's okay.
019>> Uh thank you Mr. Mala. So uh starting with the capital if we Oh went the wrong way. If we look at our long range capital planning and everything that you just heard about, uh the interesting part is we refer to that as the software side of the equation. It's all of the programming and all of the things that create student opportunities. And we realized many years ago that our buildings are in some cases over a hundred years old. And while we're developing all of the software side, the programming aspects for students to thrive in, we didn't really have the infrastructure to support everything that's needed. So we embarked on a long range plan and and what we studied very carefully was in order to accomplish this and as we go through some of these
020details you'll see that over the next 5 to 7 years uh our intent is to invest about $250 million into our infrastructure, our buildings in terms of expansions and improvements. Uh so to do that you can't just write a check and call it a day. There's multiple ways to go about it and we're trying to do it in in the most careful and strategic way to minimize impact to min minimize interruptions to our program. So a few ways that we go about that is our general fund appropriation. So in our general fund budget, you'll see that in a little bit. Uh we do allocate a certain amount of money in the general fund budget to do some projects. Some of them are upgrades, some of them are maintenance type projects. Um, but there's a small
021portion that's allocated there. We do literally every day try and maximize grant opportunities. Some of our state and local senators and assembly people have been very, I'll say, forthcoming and generous in offering opportunities for us to utilize funding sources that have no other strings attached. They come from a legislative grant or or something to that effect. Uh we have ongoing development and use of our capital reserve funds. And a capital reserve represents money that the district is able to kind of put away kind of like a savings account that anyone would have in their own household and then utilize that uh for future projects. The best part about it, the win-win is that it takes community support to establish the reserve. Then the board has the authority to fund the reserve. and then it takes
022community support to spend from the reserve. So, it's a very transparent but very effective way uh to maximize the ability for us to expand our our infrastructure. Uh right after uh the the COVID um time frame, we realized that moving to onetoone initiatives, which means students having a device, a Chromebook, a laptop, something of the sort, um we realized that there's going to be a replacement cycle needed. So instead of funding that through a general fund budget which would create another burden on our general fund, uh we created a technology reserve to help fund some of those components which will happen on an annual basis. Again, that gets voted on by the community. Um and we'll talk a little bit more about that as well. And you should certainly recall that in 2024, we did
023have a successful bond referendum. That was a proposition that the community supported by an over 70% margin. Um, and that really was a major step for us to start to implement some of these capital infrastructure um, uh, programs. But there's significant uncertainty certainly that remains. Um, you read in the paper every day about state funding issues and deficits and federal government funding deficits, uh, government shutdowns and all of those type of things. And those are things we look at very carefully every day. So as we move on to our list of uh multi-year, multifunded capital projects, here are the three typical categories. Our capital reserve projects that transfer to capital that I was referring to. And then I want to give an update on the status of our bond projects. So recently completed, Mr. Mella
024said it just a short while ago, the high school wellness center is now up and running with terrific feedback. We are nearing completion of a fire fire alarm upgrade that uh spans all of our buildings. Um the roof replacements, those were partial replacements at our elementary schools. We're in the final close out and punch list phase of those. Um and then the bathroom renovations that we've done at uh we've touched on all of our schools at this point. I will say that we're not nearly complete, but we've taken a nice um step in the right direction on renovating bathrooms that um were old. I guess that's the best way to put it. Um project still under construction. We have a lead remediation project that we are working with um a contractor on trying to finalize
025the details. We hope that that work will be started and completed over the summer months. this upcoming summer. We have electrical uh upgrades happening at many of our schools. Uh and the Plaza kitchen was the first elementary school that we started where we are upgrading the kitchen space. We are building an actual kitchen. As you may know, our elementary schools were built at a time where most of our students went home for lunch. They didn't stay in school. So, the spaces are completely inadequate and we had most of our kitchen equipment kind of shuffled into a closet. It just wasn't functional. So, we're correcting that problem for the other schools uh the other elementary schools. We do anticipate that work to start uh by this coming summer. So, these are some of the projects that
026we are just in the final stages of preparing for uh the bid process. Uh the phase one of our bond is the athletic center. And I'll just go through this. This will be uh at the back end of the high school. Uh it is a new construction. It will be a new gymnasium. If you look on the Brookside side of the campus uh and where the softball field is, there will be a roadway that goes back to this section back where the tennis courts are, uh that's where this will be built. Um this is out to bid as we speak and we hope to have that bid opening and start the project as early as this summer. Uh I had just talked about the Brookside Lennox and Steel and Meadow kitchen additions. Um we are
027uh getting ready to open those bids. Um we anticipate the award to the contractor by March and again that project would start. This following uh rendering is just one example of Brookside. This would be uh a new addition on the back side of the building. So you wouldn't see it from the street side. Um but that is where the new space will be created. You may know at Brookside there is no cafeteria space. The children eat in the gymnasium and that's really hard to do when you have a gym class. Um a scheduling conflict as they call it. Uh this is just a rendering of uh Lennox. Um not as advanced as the rendering we have obviously for Brookside, but this would be on the back end of the building where the field is. um
028a new space for the kitchen and the existing area would be the cafeteria portion. Uh this is at steel and this would be on the south side of the building. Um you can see where the uh playground is over on the side there. Uh and again that would be starting this summer. We also have uh some roof replacement sections that are being prepared for bid uh at the high school and the middle school and also uh the turf field which would be on the south side back side of the uh middle school and that would also be on the west side of where the current track is. How's that for directions? You can call me ways later. Um, but that uh that will also be uh we're hoping that we'll be actually starting this springtime
029so that we complete that project by the start of school. And as you imagine with all of these projects going on, we want to minimize any interruption to our students and their activities. So some of the work that's going on at the high school will impede that softball field. We want to make sure this field is done so that some soccer practices and other activities that happen on those fields on the Brook side of the campus of the high school have another place to go. Uh this next one is just a um elevation of the backside field that I was referring to. That is the um the red line around the perimeter is just the construction fencing. Uh but this will be a multi-use turf field at the middle school. So this is a list
030of our proposed transfer to capital. As I mentioned in the earlier part of my comments, this is the portion that would be included in our general fund budget. Um it's been we do a what's called a five-year plan and we look at all of our facilities with our architects and engineers and we basically assess some of the maintenance items that are coming up. And one of the issues that's been ongoing for a few years now has been uh brick repointing. they call it when you um basically redo some of the mortar joints in between bricks. It's long outstanding and a maintenance project that we definitely need to spend some attention on. Um we're looking at new bleachers at the middle school. Uh the drop ceiling replacements that will be districtwide. We won't be able to
031accomplish all of that at once, but if you walk through the schools and you look up at the ceiling again, they look very old and we shouldn't have schools that look that way. Um, so we're going to start a campaign, if you will, to start doing wing after wing to improve those. Um, we have some concrete slab and lintil repairs. A lintil is the little window sill on the exterior side. Some of that cement work has degraded over time, so we want to stay on top of repairing it. Um, we have some exterior doors that need to be replaced. Uh the stage curtains are at a pretty good level of disrepair uh particularly at steel. So we do want to replace those. Um a sump pump, not a very exciting project, but one that really
032is needed um for the building to function the way it's supposed to. Um the main office at the high school um is due for a little bit of an upgrade. It's a highly trafficked area. There's a lot of parents and meetings and things that go on in there. Um and it's certainly showing its age. Um, we've been on an ongoing campaign for classroom redesigns. We, as you probably know by now, do not believe in just rows and columns of desks, but we want students to learn, even at the elementary level, uh, what it's like to live in a world that exists today, what what the workplace looks like today. So, that's why every time we look at a classroom and we try and do a redesign, we really have that 2035 vision in mind. And
033then we also have some uh window replacements. That's an ongoing thing that we'll look at that districtwide as well. We've had conversations about the gym windows in Lennox and their inability to open uh just due to their age. So we want to uh pay some attention to that as well. For the technology reserve, these are items that as I mentioned earlier are now replacement cycle things. We do not want to put these into our general fund budget because you can see the size of the cost and the increase. If we kept doing that to our general fund budget, it would impact other things that we need to do with our with our funding. So the reserve we created was in the immediate aftermath of uh the the um co I'll say issue. Um and the
034ongoing replacement the cycle would really be focused on third and eighth graders. So you can see uh from this we've identified some of those technology um pieces that we would look at. The beauty of the reserve is the money already exists. So when we do this kind of a proposition, we are basically asking the community for permission to spend what we already have without any additional increase in taxes. So it truly is a win-win proposition. So we look in budget to budgets. when we develop our budget, it's not just for one year. We're looking at multi-year and we're really trying to get a sense of all of the economic factors that exist. Um, so there have been some concerns about federal funding. Um, you've heard a lot of news reports about the United States Department
035of Education and what its history may I'm sorry, what its future may or may not be. Um the financial and operational stability and sustainability is really what we're focused on. We don't want to create an environment where we put something in place one year, we can't fund it the next, and then we're making cuts. We're trying to make sure that we have a sustainable plan multi-year out. Um we do have major cost drivers. We'll talk a little bit about that in a moment. And and certainly with all the federal news that you hear, um there's just tremendous uncertainty at what the financial outlook will look. We're not just talking about next year. We're not even talking about now, but what it looks like 5 years out. So this is just a summary. I don't want
036to be u the news reporter for you. So I I won't go through these bullet by bullet, but you can you can understand that when we look at this um we're looking at all of these factors and how it's going to impact our financial stability over time. So recent news uh just in New York alone um I will say about six to eight months ago uh New York State was predicting a double-digit billion dollar deficit. Um as it turns out now that um that financial outlook for this year end turns into a $2.4 billion B billion dollar surplus for New York State. That's the really good news. But if you look at the reports from the state controllers's office and the financial outlook over the next few years, there is still a projected growing deficit
037that New York State is projecting. What that means for a school district is when we look at our aid package and how we have two two components of uh state aid. One is the foundation aid formula that's just driven by the formula state aid where the New York state says here's what each district is going to get. And there's expensriven aids. That's the other major component. So for example, if we spend X amount on transportation, we get a portion of that back in state aid. If we spend a certain amount in construction projects, we get what's called building aid back. So all of those aids are uh what's called expensriven aids. Uh this goes to the major cost drivers I was referring to. These are mandated items and they have certainly become more unpredictable uh
038than we could have imagined. Um, transportation. We are uncertain of what our transportation impact will be going into next year, but I will tell you last year we had a 30% just in terms of the contract cost, 30% 30% increase. That's a multi-million dollar increase just in transportation aid alone. Um, special education is a a major cost driver for us. You could have a situation where a student moves into the district that has high needs uh and can cost in the six figures justifiable needed services but it is a major cost driver for the district to fund and the Boseies um services we've seen double-digit increases in virtually every component of what we even go through with Boseies. So Boseies is a board of cooperative education services and what that means is they go out
039and shop or provide services hopefully at aggregated prices. So each district participating can pay less. So even if we're paying less because of the increases from a market condition, we still wind up having significant increases. So the next uh few slides are very important and these are independent. They are conducted by the uh state controllers's office and they basically create what's called a fiscal stress report. They look at every district in New York State and they do an assessment based on your cash position, your liquidity, um the financial condition of the district overall. And I will say I'm very proud and happy to report that uh these scores that you see uh 3.3 in terms of the physical stress score and the environmental stress score uh representing 10 which is we really have little to
040do with we don't have too much input on that. It's really the condition the cost factors the combined wealth ratio property values um and so on that make up the environmental stress score. But you can see that based on the state controllers's assessment um we in Baldwin come out with what's called no designation. That's the best uh position that you could be in. So that is what I would consider testimony in terms of our current financial condition and our ability to s sustain what looks like a little bit of a bumpy road in terms of financial condition over the next few years. So m Mr. referred to the three components of our budget. It's administrative. So that's not administration. We pay a lot of attention and focus on that because it's not the administrators at
041the buildings. It's really the business operations of the overall school district. Um the capital component that we're talking about now and the program component that Mr. Mella was talking about earlier. If you broke that up into a pie chart, um this is exactly what it should look like. Um the the threshold is really in that threearters that 75.88% that is focused on the program. That is money that's going into the classroom for students to do the work that they need to do. Um the other components capital that refers to everything our entire infrastructure and then certainly administrative is really all of the other things uh that go into running a school district. This is what our I will say preliminary budget outlook looks like and I assure you this will change. So you can see
042uh budgettobudget this is tentative but it's a 5.12% increase. I will um say that we are looking right now we know that based on the current forecast on the revenue side we will need to make reductions but as Mr. Mella said we also are hopeful. I'm waiting to see what the final state aid numbers are because there's a lot of programmatic things that the school district would like to add um or bolster to provide more opportunities for our students. So, this will change. Um March, the March budget workshop will look most likely very different. Um but this is our current uh snapshot in time. I will tell you that just today we got news that even uh the foundation aid preliminary reports that we have the state is running different numbers and they have these
043out it's called an output report and they'll be sending new output reports out and there will be more changes to come. So it's very difficult for us to predict specifically where we are at this point in time. So currently we do not have a balanced budget. Um we were in the same situation last year, but I will say that last year's gap was far greater than this year's gap. Um so that's I'm going to say good news. Uh we do have some solutions in mind, but we also don't want to execute any of those plans until we have the final numbers from New York State. So this is definitely just the current snapshot in time. We don't have a budget balanced yet. So, as we look to our long range plan, um there are challenges
044ahead. Uh we we will continue to monitor our reserves and use them effectively to make sure we can minimize the impact on our taxpayers. Um the our long range financial planning has proven um a benefit for us. We've been able to anticipate many of the hurdles that we've addressed over time. Uh we want to continue as we work on all of these projects to minimize the disruption to our learning spaces. Um the SED uh finan um forgive me the facilities planning submissions. We have to submit all of our plans to New York State. I will say on a positive side, they've gotten much faster at returning the results and giving us our approvals. Um but that does remain a challenge. um are still um our state aid and financial outlook from New York State remains
045a challenge and we have had some issues with uh the the biders and and contractors that have worked on our project. So finding the right bidder, the right contractor and making sure they stay on time and on budget is something that we are looking at every day. Um I'll go through these very quickly. Uh with the bond we broke it up into four phases. So this is really a summary of phase 2, three and four. Um we will be looking at uh the phase two which is the 600 wing at the high school. Uh the third phase is uh career and technical education and our performing arts center at the high school. And then the last one uh four is over where the 300 wing. If you go into the main entrance of the high
046school, it would be over on the right side. Um, that would be remodeled as well. We also have future considerations, as I mentioned earlier, about the roof replacements and future toilet renovations that will remain to be on our radar scope. Um, I'll go through these very quick. This is that phase two that I was talking about. I know it's hard to see. We are in the process of finalizing those designs. This would be phase three, the performing arts center, which is the first thing that you'd see as you drive up the uh FLT Cloberg at the high school. These are some interior shots of that performing arts center and the stage itself. And then phase four on the other side is that 300 wing which would be completely remodeled. This is another viewpoint there. So,
047I will turn it back to Mr. Mella, but we remain future focused and committed to seeing the projects through to completion. >> Thank you, Dr. Robinson. Very thorough. So, we are so happy that so many parents and residents were able to listen to the presentation this evening. Um, for anyone who missed anything, all this information will be posted on the district website. Um, so please make sure you go on if you have any questions, certainly you can feel free to reach out to district clerk, myself, and we'll answer the questions for you pertaining to the budget. This is the first of several different budget presentations. There'll be another one in March. So, we invite you to come to that one. Um, and we hope to have more information from the state regarding the revenue side
048that you heard Dr. Robinson speak about. Okay. Um, I do want to mention with all the amazing improvements that are going to be taking place, many of these are starting this summer as you heard Dr. Robinson say, the high school gymnasium, that's the bond one edition, plus all the kitchens. We will be updating the community about those upgrades and providing opportunities to visit the sites when safe so you can see the work that is taking place and see how your investment is going to be making a difference in all the children's um educational experiences while they are here. So please be on the lookout for those communications. Um okay so we're a few minutes over but I think we have a special presentation tonight highlighting some of the programs that are taking place. So if
049I may, President um >> yes would like to introduce uh Mr. Marillo to the podium please so he can um introduce the wonderful middle school fine performing arts students. Yeah, we're going to work Okay, just give me a second. I'm just waiting for our gathering of students to get a little closer. Oh, they're coming in place. Okay. Thank you for your patience, Mr. Manella. Thank you so much for inviting the fine and performing arts department for a very brief presentation. Our middle school students are very excited. Thank you so much. Want to thank the board of education for making a little time for us in your otherwise very busy schedule. Much appreciated. Uh Dr. Taylor is here also our middle school principal along with uh Dean Sochi were very well supported. They're here to cheer
050on their theater students, their theater company, but you're going to see it's more like a theater army. It's a lot of students. But I did want the board of education to focus on something. I wanted to peel back a little bit of the curtain for you to understand what we're doing at the middle school. One of the things that we're trying to do is establish a culture of excellence very early in our arts program and we really want to ramp it up at the middle school. That's one of our focus uh of the middle school program particularly with the theater program. So, we want to move our students from casual participants to active, engaged, and accountable participants, which is uh a little different, feels different. It's a little bit more demanding. It's a little more
051discomfort. And but we know that once the students know what that feels like and they see what the payoff is from that kind of work, it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy after that. So, tonight, tonight is a little bit of an example of that. you're going to see something pretty amazing that our teachers and students put together in a relatively short time. We also do this very early because we want parents to understand what that culture looks like moving from casual to more rigorous and demanding. It's a lot of demands for you too. It's discomfort for you. So, think about what you're doing uh when you're coming late to pick up those rehearsals, figuring out dinner and snacks and dealing with moods and all the stuff that comes along with adolescence. Uh it's all for
052a good cause because once your students are in the high school, they'll have that culture of demand busyness that our students are known for. So, with that, I'm going to happily turn our program over to our director, Miss Trisha Wilder, and the creative staff, and they're going to take you on a journey that will end on opening night, March 12th, with Beauty and the Beast Jr. And tonight you're going to see Be Our Guest Good evening everybody. Beauty and the Beast Jr. is a beloved musical based on the classic tale about finding beauty within. The story follows Belle, a bright and independent young woman and the Beast, a prince cursed to live as a monster until he learns to love and be loved in return. Filled with unforgettable characters, humor, and heart, this musical reminds
053us that kindness, courage, and compassion truly matter. We have been working with our creative team on choreography, musical numbers, and acting. And our students have been working incredibly hard. We are especially we are especially excited to be working with Brandon FTH, who played Ren McCormack, the lead in the High School Musical Foot Loose. Brighten has been working closely with our director Trisha Wilder and our musical director Christine Benedetti supporting students in all aspects of the show. Our choreography has been brought to life by Nikki Seleia whose creative energy has helped elevate every number. We are thrilled to announce that we will be performing Beauty and the Beast Jr. from March 12th through March 14th at Baldwin Middle School. Last year, both our Friday and Saturday night performances sold out, so we encourage you to purchase
054tickets as soon as they go on sale. Tonight, we are delighted to offer you a very special sneak peek of our production with a performance of Be Our Guest. Just like Lumiere and the Enchanted Objects invite Bell into the castle, we are inviting you to step into our story. This lively member features our entire cast of 80 students and captures the energy, teamwork, and joy that brings this magical tale to life. So sit back, relax, and be our guest as our cast serves up a taste of music, movement, and magic you can expect in March. >> Thank you guys all so much for allowing us to perform for you this evening. We hope that you enjoy the performance and we truly hope to see you all at Beauty and Beast Jr. this March. Mer Manos
055is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you here tonight. And now we invite you all to relax. Let us pull up your chairs as the dining room rowdy presents your dinner. Be a guest be our guest. Put our service to the test napkin around your neck and we'll provide the rest of we only live to serve. Try the great stuff. >> Don't believe me? The dishes they can sing they cond our guest we our guest be our guest be on some we prepare and solar cav >> you're alone and you're scared but the banquet It's all prepared. No one's fooing or complaining. While the flatwear's entertaining, we tell jokes >> and I do tricks with my fellow candlesticks. >> Go on and your glass. >> If you're stressed, it's fine dining. We
056suggest >> it's a guest. It's a guest. Stakes alive. Well, I'll be blessed. Wine's been poured and thank Be our guest. >> Life is so unnerving for a servant who's not serving. He's not whole without a soul to wait upon. Ah, those good old days when we were useful. Suddenly those good old days are gone. 10 years we've been needing so much more than dusting. Needing exercise, a chance to use our skills. >> Most we just lay around the castle. request. It's been yearsbody and we're obsessed with your cand. stillow. Let us help you. We'll keep going by one till you shout enough. I'm done sleep. Please be our guest. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right, let's go. Thank you. and Brandon. >> I'm not I remember. >> All right. Uh that was absolutely amazing.
057I'm sure you could all agree students for their age, the singing, the vocal harmony and and for 80 plus students to be in such sync with the dancing. Great. I'm I'm in awe though I shouldn't be. Um but very impressed and excited to see the actual performance um March 12th, 13th or 14th if I remember correctly. >> Yeah. >> Um just want to give a special thanks to Miss Wilder, the director, Miss Benadetti, Miss um Smith, and Miss Seleia. Um and I'm probably missing someone, but special thanks to that their hard work, countless hours and dedication to the parents for bringing your children to the constant practices. So, uh thank you very much. Um Dr. Robinson, if you don't mind. Uh yes, just very briefly and I'm sorry that she left already. I know during
058our budget presentation we were running a little bit late and we didn't want to impede on the students time, but I did want to just say thank you. I know she literally just went out the back door, but uh Jen Jen Walsh who works in the business office with me side by side um I just want to thank her uh I'll say publicly for her dedication and efforts. Um it's a it's a great team in the business office and through all the planning and everything she she has a lot of attention to detail details. So I just want to say thank you >> noted for that. I saw her sitting up here and yes ex extend our gratitude to her tomorrow as well. Thank you. Okay. So we are going to move on with our
059agenda items. So be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education acknowledges receipt of the revised treasur treasurer's report for the month of November 2025 as well as the treasurer's report for the month of December 2025 as detailed in the Friday mailing. >> So moved. >> Moved by Miss Dresca. >> Seconded by Miss Smith. All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Okay. Motion carries. Okay. All right. I'm going to go back to uh approval of minutes from our previous meeting. Forgive me for that oversight. So, be it resolved. The board of education hereby approves the minutes of the special board meeting of the January 29th, 2026 board meeting as detailed in the mailing. >> Moved by Mr. Smith. >> Seconded by Miss Kohl's. All those in favor?
060>> Okay. Opposed? Okay. Right. Uh be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the minutes of the regular board of ed um regular board meeting of the January 14, 2026 board meeting as detailed in the mailing. >> Moved by Miss Kohl's second >> seconded by Mr. Smith. All those in favor opposed. Okay. Motion carries. All right. So, next on our agenda, we have our superintendent of schools, Mr. Anthony Mcnalum. Okay. And he'll come forth with his reports on our wonderful district. >> A brief report tonight because the main report was the uh budget presentation. Um, but I just want to highlight and um, send a big thank you to Coach Darius Burton, our boys varsity basketball coach, who earned his 450th win yesterday with a defeat over Valley Stream Central. Um, all athletic
061programs are doing remarkable, but the boys team is definitely tearing it up on the court. So, if you haven't seen them play yet, please come and support a game. um 450 wins is is uh an outrageous accomplishment to make as a high school basketball coach. So um in addition, I'd like to uh give a quick recognition to um Fahheim Jenkins, a uh senior at Olan High School who is a finalist for the Roger Ree Awards for a student reporter. Um so wait to see what happens as uh continues in that competition, but congratulations to him. He's doing he does so much for the high school in general from recording games, students, interviews, puts together news uh broadcast. So, we thank him for his constant support and um you know, good luck to him as he
062continues in this uh competition. Um and then just um lastly, I'm sure you're in the news. Um, Boulder's been highlighting Black History Month celebrations around the district from uh programs in each building from assemblies to partnership with uh museum in Hemstead where some of our student artwork displayed. Um, so honoring Dr. King's legacy this month has been going around across the district. So that's it. Thank you. >> Next agenda item, comments, reports from our board. any liaison boards? >> Okay, Mr. Smith. >> Uh, so I'm the liaison to the um Balden Chamber of Commerce and we they just had their monthly meeting today actually um at Balden with a twist. Painting with a twist. >> Painting with a twist. >> Yeah, Painting with a twist. Thank you. Um and uh pretty well attended. The main
063speaker, proud to say, was a Meadow parent. um he's got a tax uh tax preparation business in town and he came to just give everybody in the chamber um some tips on because how laws have changed. It was a great presentation. Um you know, make sure you look at this and make sure you look at that. Uh it's always a good time um an informative time with the Chamber of Commerce and I will just say that they accept uh citizen members uh resident members too. You don't have to be a business owner. So that was um my leison on report. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Smith. >> Schools. >> Oh, >> Mr. Res. Everyone can go ahead. I have questions about the budget since we didn't get to ask them. >> Okay, Miss Smith. >>
064Okay, David. >> Here we go. Yeah, a few things I wanted to look at. Um the first thing was just updating for those who are interested the next superintendent advisory committee meeting would be March 30th and we discussed that the previous topics including the themes that students were interested in that's something that we're going to continue at that next meeting. Um I mentioned that student um student led pitches are going to be discussed at that event. So when it comes around the 30th there'll be multiple groups exploring opportunities to expose students to postcolgate opportunities and preparing for those. Um we've had a few things in the district change that have helped with that. Students now have um Outlook internet which means that they have an internal network which allows them to email their teachers or
065faculty and that's something that we have alongside Canvas. So they can open up their Outlooks and they can send regular emails with their Baldwin schools accounts and that helps us a lot now in having direct communication with anyone we need to whether it's a teacher that we have for a class or anyone outside of it. So it's direct communication and that just rolled out this month. That's something students will be using I think at all grade levels. >> Yeah, >> all grade levels. 9 to 12. >> High school. Okay. So, it would be the high schoolers who have access to that. So, grades 9 to 12 would have that for all their classes and ISOGAD certifications which is something we mentioned about rolling out for the second semester. Um the students who were interested in
066that just got their invitations. I would know cuz one of them. So looking at that and getting prepared there certifications for Microsoft Office suite or for Google including Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word or like Google Docs or Google Sheets or the equivalent and graphic design. So there's a multitude of opportunities for all students there to get certifications that'll help them out in their post high school endeavors. Um the student government has hosted multiple student sections. We had one at a girls basketball game and one at a boys basketball game and we've seen good attendance. Both teams are are doing a great job. Um, combined, I think they've only lost three games so far. One game for the girls and two for the boys. And they're both leading their conferences. So, they're expected to make great runs.
067The athletic programs are doing very well. Um, student government just finished up putting up a Valentine's Day fundraiser in the cafeteria. So, they'll be raising funds to end out the week, giving out special candy bags. So, all students can get those. They'll be sold for only $2. and those funds will go toward the plans we have for March, which are still in the process, but we're getting things ready for the final few months of school. Um, the student government was also able to put up an art display in the commons where students can provide inspirational quotes on the wall. There's a big in the front by the cafeteria there's a sign that says joy and it's made with postit so students can add their own quotes from inspirational since Black History Month, African-American figures, and
068spread messages of joy. and that's going to be there for the entirety of the month. They put that up at the start. We had two of our um executive board members here today who are with the theater program, Mia, the vice president, and Celeste. And they've been doing a great job alongside the rest of the student government as we look forward to March. One notable upcoming event, and this would be the first of its kind and something I'm involved in is the National Honor Society is looking to introduce something we call the academic classic and it's an idea I had that would incentivize students who are the most successful. We all know that the students at Baldwin, they're very hardworking, especially those at the top of their class, but I I personally don't feel that
069maybe they're able to see that support on a clear basis from their community. It's obviously there, but this is an idea of sort of showcasing these students firsthand. The thing about it is it's a sports event. Maybe these students aren't necessarily the best athletes, but it act it acts as sort of a highlight. It's say for instance, you have athletes who are highlighted and they get their moment on stage. This would be an opportunity for the best students who are in the honor society, who have high ranks, very high GPA, who have done notable things to have that space and it's something that hasn't been tried before and this is something that we want to do. It seems fun and exciting. It could become a new tradition and we're working on rolling that out for
070the next month. So, those are some of the things we have going on right now and and hopefully they come to fruition. Planning for the next few months, of course, the break coming up and that's what we're looking at for time. >> Thank you, David. Okay, I just wanted to comment on um my trip to DC. So last week I attended the uh NISBA which is the National School Boards Association Advocacy Institute and that was held in uh Washington DC. So, I was joined by other school board leaders across the country um to just advocate for the equitable public education and funding for our students, which speaks to budget time. So, our message to the members of Congress, it was pretty straightforward. We came as partners. We realized that we um there was a difference
071in political viewpoints. Um, we differed in strategy, but we share the natural national national interest of equitable education for all of our students regardless of the zip code. We realize that strong public schools, they reduce the reliance on social services, they strengthen the communities, and they expand the workforce pathways because we know that college is not the only pathway. And that's why we we focused on um we had workshops centered around CTE which is career and technical education programs and we discuss the operational realities of running schools uh for 180 days a year and what does that entail? We look at the programs, we look at the um staff, but what actually goes into keeping our schools open for those 180 days and open in an efficient manner and that does include um the snow
072removal and and what the keeping the heat on and keeping the lights on. So that was a great discussion and we also discussed with Congress the commitment to fully fund um I IDA which is the Individual Disabilities Educational Act. Um, it was intended to be intended to be funded at 40%, but when we looked at the statistics, there's only a funding of maybe 13 to 15%. So, the true intended funding level was never really met. So, we are continuing to advocate on that piece. and we looked at um the the concerns we addressed the concerns about vouchers and the diversion of public funds away from public schools and as we know in our areas that would include the charter schools. So that was a great discussion. And just one point um that was brought up
073is that um when we look at special ed funding that special education is a service and it's not a program. It was never intended to um be considered a program with funding. Okay. Um even though this event takes place annually around um in the month of January, we realize that advocacy is not a one-time event. So we are going to as a district continue to meet with our local legislators and fighting with um fighting for funding for our district and um surrounding districts. Thank you, Mr. Resta. Thanks. Thank you for that report. That was helpful and thorough and for attending on our behalf. Um I just wanted to first uh thank the PTAs for uh inviting us to the founders day celebrations that have taken place. I know many of us have attended um well
074I've attended two the Baldwin High School Middle School one and Meadow uh myself and Miss Green attended yesterday and I know there are more schools celebrating Founders Day um which is where the PTA celebrate the founders uh which focuses on the focus being our children and advocating for them as well. So thank you for that uh invitation. The other thing I wanted to just bring up or ask is going back to the budget. I had a question slashc comment one um Dr. Robinson, Mr. Manuela, it had to do with it said uh the projects and design the addition three. I guess this was probably phase three, the CTE and performing arts edition. Can you remind me what we're saying is happening with the CTE portion? What addition is that? So if you look at the
075current um auditorium and the current section of the building where our wood shop classes are um that whole area is going to be redesigned. Okay. >> Um the current auditorium will be redesigned and and to be like a practice area um a small black stage like where you could go in and it could be like school quick performances and there's a whole new theater that's going to be built. Um, and then three brand new large multi-purpose rooms for wood shop, stage craft design, >> for our uh coding, robotics classes in another area. Um, and then thinking about the future and one of the things that is emerging is um underwater robotics. So, we're looking to also have a so like a clean room, a dirty room, and a wet lab. So, we could start maybe
076looking at offering underwater robotics type classes, right? um cuz we've been in conversations with the Navy and um different uh engineers and that's an emerging field on Long Island. >> Okay, that's amazing. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh the other thing I wanted to I don't know just keep in our minds as we do talk about CTE I know the Schubert building and this is not for us to I because I know we've have our plan already based on the bond but as we talk about Schubert and these great programs that exist there and the programs that exist there. I don't know if there will be a conversation maybe in the next two years for us to at least as a board consider the look and feel of that building as well because it is
077an extension of CTA and it to an extent. We have some great programs there but the the aesthetics of that to to complement the aesthetics that we have at the high school. So I just wanted to point that out and state that out loud. It's a good point because it is it's an elementary school so it does have to um >> but with the high school programs there the so um kind of keep that in mind and >> maybe it's a year or two later. Uh and then the did you want to ask your question? You had one >> sure. >> Okay. just uh just just for the benefit of the uh the parents of Plaza and those of us who live in the neighborhood. Um is there a rough ETA on completion of the
078new kitchen? >> Uh it's a moving target. >> Okay. So, so it was supposed to be completed right about now. >> Okay. >> Um if you notice when you pull up to the building on the front side, uh I know there's construction fencing there. it it you know not really the ability to look in but I certainly have some pictures we can show on the website or share with you >> but there is a uh I a sizable trench sizable excavation that goes from the building all the way out to the street for a sewer connection >> there's been some back and forth about the equipment used the um the piping the manhole covers and all of those have to be very code specific so there's been some delays in getting that resolved with our
079Department of Public Works and and so on. >> Um we're working on that and and pushing along. Uh the inside space is still in the piping phase cuz all of those connections that go out to the outside have to go underneath the floor into the kitchen space. >> Okay? >> So all of that work has to be completed and that's the cause for the delay right now. M um once that happens and the floor gets sealed up, then the pace will pick up dramatically. >> So, our our objective was to be finished right about now. >> Um I'll also say that because of the electrical upgrades that are underway, um we'll need that work to be completed before we can power up all of the new equipment and the spaces that that it's in. So,
080our objective is to finish all that work, I'm going to say throughout the rest of the school year, get all of those connections done and be ready to open for students by by uh September. >> Cafeteria to be open by then hopefully. >> That's correct. Y the whole operation, that whole space, kitchen, cafeteria, new space underway. >> Got it. >> Thank you. >> And then the other one I wanted to ask is can you explain addition four apprenticeship edition? Just these are more probably reminders. I know we've talked about them, but some of >> Yeah. Well, this is all going back to 2024. So, that's why we're constantly bringing them back up to remind um the community about what was passed and that is starting to finally um come to fruition. So, phase 4 is
081looking at the current section of the the high school to the right of the main entrance which is called the 300 building. >> Currently in that section is some social studies classrooms. We have our fashion classroom and we have a um kitchen in there. Um the goal of that section is to create a fully functional culinary kitchen. So we could run like a CTE culinary class um a better fashion institute uh to augment uh those offerings um and that whole area would be redesigned larger class sizes you know higher higher ceilings etc. >> Okay. Is that the same building with the conference room that we occasionally? >> Correct. >> Small conference room. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Great questions. >> I wanted to thank Plaza's PTA for that wonderful founders
082day. Your theme stuck in my head, spreading love the Plaza way. So, it was a beautiful uh beautiful event. So, thank you for that invitation. Spread love applause. Oh, it was nice. >> Okay. >> Anyone else? Pam, I have one quick question. Um, so what is the ultimate goal once we build the kitchens at the elementary school? Are we from a food program for our kids? Are we still doing what we do now where we offer them whatever I believe is being shipped in and distribute or do we plan on cooking on site? >> So, um, as you know, going back a few years, we had a company called Preferred Meals that did our prepackaging. Um, and we made the determination to end that contract. Um that was done with a long range plan in
083mind and the first win that we had was our food service staff much to their credit were the ones I I met with we discussed what our strategic plan was and they were the ones that stepped up raised their hands and said we want to bring it in house and do it ourselves. Um I will say standing ovation to that entire staff. Uh we've had, I will say, um tremendous progress, but we're kind of at a plateau right now. And we uh changed the menus. We upgraded things. We started quote unquote warming things. So, we weren't necessarily cooking, but we were preparing all of our own food. And the issue was that we didn't really have the storage space at the elementaryaries. So we have a box truck that creates uh a delivery pattern using
084the high school and the middle school as a hub for our deliveries and then we kind of do our own deliveries to each one of the elementarymentaries and we anticipate after the kitchens are up and running that they will have further storage better storage right that was part of the plan so that we can minimize the the I'll say inter building deliveries and have it there. So we do we find um I guess the percentage of children who are getting the hot lunch and actually eating it has that increased since we've changed that model >> substantially. >> Okay. Cuz I know that was something that my daughter would come home sometimes and say she didn't eat. So I just want to make sure our babies are definitely being taken care of from that perspective. >>
085I will say that was a very premeditated because the feedback we got from the old model which was just delivered in kind of plastic shrink wrap. was just not good, >> right? >> Um so we wanted to end that um rather quickly and we did. Okay. >> Um the progress we've made has been very very good and as soon as we kind of get into the new spaces, um we do have a food service consultant that's been working with us to kind of revamp our menus and revamp how we carry our inventory and do a lot of those things. I think there will be a lot more movement in the next year or two. >> Oh, that's great news. Thank you. Thank you for that update. >> Any other questions, reports? Miss goals? >> Uh,
086I just wanted to say I was honored to also attend Founders Day here at Plaza. Always a wonderful time as well as the high school and middle school founders day. We we love going to these events in our schools. Uh, so thank you very much for a wonderful evening. Okay, >> thank you. Okay, so now we are moving on to our comments and questions portion of this agenda. So questions and comments can always be submitted in advance by noon on the day of the meeting by emailing our district clerk at baldwinschools.org or in person at our board of ed meeting. Again, just as a reminder, public discussion on matters relating to staff and students at which their reputation, privacy, or right to due process of those of or those of others could in some way
087be violated is prohibited. Okay. Um again the this portion of our meeting is limited to residents, business owners or as well as employees of the Baldwin School District. So out of courtesy and fairness to the entire audience, we're asking that each person is limited to a maximum of 3 minutes. We cannot again comment on issues of personal or individual students. We'll call you up to the microphone to ask your question. Please state your name and share your comment and then please return to your seat after you ask your question. Okay. Do we have uh Dr. Cunningham? We're We're eyeing your jacket. Beautiful jacket. >> Okay. All right. I'm a H.B.CU graduate, Virginia Union University. >> Okay. I don't want to infringe on your three minutes. Okay. I know. Um I'm just going to just start
088off. I wrote a question to try to summarize what I was going to speak about, but I'll just read what I prepared just to kind of condense it all. Um so members of the board, I'm standing here after months of patience. I've spoken with teachers, the principal, and program director about a pattern of harmful behavior by a specific educator, not naming names. I've waited for answers and actions. And what I sense is a hope that I'll get busy and maybe this will just fade away and that life will move on. But what happens when the next child faces this? I asked you guys today, what is the concrete process to address a teacher who repeatedly harms the well-being of students? If administrative action will not be taken, do we as parents unite and kind of
089put together a petition? I'm asking for direction as we cannot let there be another moment where we just silence this and that's the solution. I'm just asking for a clear path forward. Not for me but for any family that could face this in the future. Wait till she comes. Wait till she comes. Um, hi Dr. Cunningham. So, I want you to be rest assured that the district takes all those matters very seriously. Um, we can't go into detail as you know about personnel matters. There are protections under labor laws but we take full extent that we can to make sure that patterns of behaviors are not repeated and um in education there are labor laws and agreements. So it's not like you do something once and then you could get terminated. So we follow the
090labor's laws and we I promise you take care of those matters. Um the high school sorry the middle school administration often contacts human resource office. they collaborate to have conversations and we take these matters very very seriously um and we resolve them. You might not hear about it because we cannot share those type of outcomes or what action steps are being taken but I promise you things are being done that as far as that we can push them if that makes sense to you. else from >> this is correct. Yes. >> Okay. Is uh Dr. Dale Coffin a here coffin star. Good evening members of the board. I have been a Baldwin resident for 28 years. Two students graduated from the high school. My third child is severely disabled and handicap and a wheelchair user.
091This is the third year that she has been without receipt of physical therapy services within the school district. After one year, we were able to get her ancillary services in the home. And I know for a fact that the district has tried to recruit therapists on a part-time basis. As an occupational therapist who works at Stony Brook University, I can assure you that new therapists do not want to work part-time. It is my understanding that there are enough students within this district to hire a full-time physical therapist to service the needs of the children that are here. It is a legal and ethical issue that this has not been corrected up to this date. So, food for thought. I don't know what can be done. Like I said, this is the third year that this
092has been going on, and I would really like to see some change. My daughter's graduating next academic year, and at that point, she would have been owed over 200 sessions, which I'm sure she's never going to get. So, I really think that something needs to be done. Thank you. Uh, thank you for bringing it to attention. Um, we'll make sure someone from district does contact you to have a further conversation. So, just to add on, we don't just look to hire part-time people, but look to have contracts with people to fulfill those hours. But certainly um I will have someone contacting myself or someone from the office special ed office PBS office to have a further conversation. >> Thank you. >> Okay, Miss Kenya Phillip Weeks Okay. Hi, I'm Kenya, fellow weeks. Um, thank you
093for taking my question again. Um, so I'm just here to follow up about the bus transportation delays after the snowstorm with a focus specifically on what lessons were learned and what plans are in place to prevent this from happening again and how do you plan to increase communication with parents regarding specific bus transportation delays during extreme weather. We had, as you know, you know, 10 inches of snow in Bowwin and those who were able to be close to school all day, get the schools back open. There was significant bus delays that we discussed many times through emails, phone calls, etc. Um I think in total my bus route was affected by at least four school days where the children were outside for 30 to 60 minutes waiting for the school bus with very little communication
094from the school regarding this. Um very little awareness initially about the problem. Um and you know at the end of the day it's the children that are standing outside and if it was cold the temperature during that time was about feel like a 5 - 5 degrees. So most of them 80 um and then you know we just did a really rectify the problem I feel like in a timely manner or recognize that might be the children but still standing outside and parents. So, I've emailed about this, spoke to you guys about this. Dr. Robinson was supposed to follow up with me. I did not get a followup. Um, President Green emailed me back with no solutions offered. So, I really want to focus on again what was what has been um learned from this
095problem. What is the plan that you guys have in place to be aware of transportation problems and how are you going to improve your communication to the community regarding bus transportation problem especially given a weather emergency. >> Thank you. So right now, so thank you for expressing that again. Um, so right now we are at the point where we're exploring the applications to inform you of the um the GPS system. Okay, which would note the ETA, right? Okay. and we're looking at the bus companies the flexibility in in terms of how feasible it is and then we will follow up with you. Okay. Thank you. No, you can't. Thank you though. Okay. Okay. Next agenda item. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approves the recommendation
096for services of the committee on special education subse4 committee and committee on preschool special education moved. >> Moved by Miss Kohl's seconded >> seconded by Miss Dresca. All those in favor? Opposed. Okay. Motion carries. Okay. >> All right. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approves the personnel actions report dated February 11th, 2026 as detailed in the mailing. >> So moved by >> moved by Mr. Smith, >> seconded by Mr. Reser. All those in favor? Okay. Any opposed? Motion carries. Home tutoring. >> Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approves the home tutoring and special education service report for this month as detailed in the Friday mailing. >> Moved by Mr. Smith, >> seconded by Mr. Esker.
097All those in favor? >> Okay, motion carries. Home tutoring. >> Okay, motion carries. Okay. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approves acceptance of a donation of Matt boards and supplies from Stewart Art, which is Jacqueline Ray, with an approximate value of $6,70, which will be used for art work by the fine arts department as detailed in the Friday mailing. So move >> moved by Miss Kohl's. >> Second by Miss Smith. All those in favor. >> Opposed. Okay. Motion carries. Thank we thank Stuart for that donation. >> Thank you. >> Is is that the business on Grand Avenue? >> On Grand Avenue. >> Oh, okay. >> Oh, that's too bad. >> Okay. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board
098of education accepts a grant and the amount of 1,200 from Ridgewood Savings Bank that has been awarded to the district to assess with our mentoring program needs as detailed in the Friday mailing. >> Moved by Mr. Smith, >> seconded by Miss Smith. All those in favor? Okay. No oppose. No opposition. Motion carries. Thank you. Again, another donation. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education accepts a donation of a halfsiz violin estimated value of $200 from Miss Desiree Gileiam, a member of the Baldwin community to be used at Steel Elementary School as detailed in the Friday mailing. Moved by Mr. Smith, seconded by Mr. Reser. All those in favor? Any oppose? And we thank Miss Gilliam for that donation of the violin. Okay. We have another donation.
099Okay. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education accepts the donation of a grant in the amount of $750 from the Mark Shan Shaunwer Holocaust Education Foundation to support the district's bridges and barriers uh program and to be used to bring two Holocaust survivors to Baldwin schools to share their personal stories during a schoolwide assembly as detailed in the Friday mailing. Move moved by Mr. Esca, seconded by Mr. Smith. All those in favor? Okay. No, none opposed. Motion carries. Okay. We think we thank yes the mark shown winner for that donation as well. Okay. As board president, I'm calling for consideration of a consent agenda for business items 1303 through 1315. Are there any items members would care to withdraw from consideration under the consent agenda for
100further discussion or a separate vote? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Okay. Second. >> Okay. So, moved by Miss Kohl's, seconded by Mr. Smith. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Okay. So, do I have a motion to approve business items 1303 through 1315? >> Moved by Mr. Smith. >> Seconded by Miss Smith. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. So, we're going to skip to facilities. I have a question. Well, I I know we have, but I can still ask um regarding the transportation. Why do we question? This is a um a contract with a um coach bus because we have a group of students that are going to Albany to meet with some legislators and do a presentation. >> Um so that's why it's
101a separate contract. >> It's a separate contract with a coach company. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, they're going in that March 9th and 10th if I remember correctly. >> I was like all the time. Why did they come out? Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So be it resolved. It's >> 14. >> Okay. I'm on this. >> Yeah. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approves the updated use of facilities report from July 2025, June 2026 as detailed in the Friday mailing. >> Moved by Miss Kohl's second >> seconded by Mr. Resca. All those in favor. facilities report. Yes. Use of facilities. >> Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approves the calendar for
102the 2026 2027 Noith ask for a motion and then >> Smith. >> So someone has to second it now. >> Second >> and then you could ask a question. >> Okay. And then I ask my question. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> Seconded by Mr. Smith. >> Okay. discussion. >> Love the calendar. I just wanted to know when people ask there's a difference. It's the first day is on a Wednesday versus the Tuesday right after Labor Day. >> Usually go back, >> right? So, usually we start school on >> on Tuesday. >> Yeah. So, this year um Labor Day is late. It's September 7th, which is a Monday. So, um, we have students conference day for staff on the 31st and the 1st. First day of classes with students is on the second, which is a
103Wednesday. >> Wait, were you saying Labor Day? This is usually when >> I mean, again, I like this. Don't >> Yeah, it's it's late this year. >> Um, September 7th. >> No, not first. >> That's why that's a tense conference convocation. Welcome back. Okay, this might be better. Here's a color. >> Ah, >> this is correct. Yes. >> So, even more comp complicated now. I understand. So, this is changing it up even more. >> Labor Day is not on >> Okay. >> It's late. Labor Day is on. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yes. Yes. That's when Labor Day runs late um until like the second week of September. You start school prior >> that. >> Okay. So, school starts before Labor Day. Correct. Thank you. >> Have four days of instruction before Labor Day. >> Okay. Superintendent
104Mala, did you want to talk about >> June? Did you want Yeah. >> Yeah. Go ahead. Um, as we look at the calendar, we're always looking to ensure um that all holidays are honored. Um, this particular year, I know they request for Dwali, but that falls on a weekend if I remember correctly. Um, um, and, uh, this year, Junth, um, which we honor been honoring now, um, falls on the 19th, which is a Saturday, but, um, due to its regulations, we're honoring that on the 18th um, to keep consistent with our other approach. So, on Thursday, I'm sorry, on Friday, June 18th, schools will be closed. It's a rating day for New York State, which means high school students would be um not taking a regent anyway. So, they're off. So, it's because they're already
105off to begin with, the district is honoring Junth on the 18th. >> Okay, that's >> instead of on the 19th, sorry. >> Okay, thank you for explaining that. >> Okay. All right. Any questions? You good? >> Good. Okay. So, be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. The board of education approves the memorandum of agreement with Nassau County Board of Elections to rent the DS200 scanning machines and automark for May 19th, 2026 budget vote and board election as detailed in the Friday mailing. >> I have a motion moved by Mr. Resca. >> Seconded by Mr. Smith. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carries. Okay. All right. So, just some important dates to note. We have winter recess where schools are closed February 16th through February 20th. Kindergarten screening is on
106March is March 3rd through March 6th and that's at the district office. Progress reports are published to the portal which is the third marking period for the high school and middle school and that is March um March 10th. March 11th is our next board of ed meeting budget work session that's at the middle school at 700 pm. Please note that on your calendar and also oh to follow would be the board meeting at the middle school at 8 p.m. >> Also reflection meeting >> and we also have the PTA reflection meeting. So note it that would be a long meeting. Okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn at 911? >> So moved. >> Okay. We will be going back into executive session. Moved by Miss Dresesa. >> Seconded by Mr. Smith. >> Okay. >>
107Thank you. >> All in favor? >> Okay. None opposed. Motion carries. Thank you.