001Call the meeting order. Everyone stand for the pledge of >> allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, welcome everyone. Uh, we have first up public to be heard. Do we have anyone? >> We do not. >> All right. All right. We're going to go to the good news portion. We have a couple different things here. Uh, first off from Jackson, we have Mrs. Lockton, our assistant principal. Jackson's seal committee organized by, excuse me, organized an incredible day of play for our students to learn and play. On February 4th, new school psychiatrist Chris Manfrey helped to organize a walking challenge for staff to beat those winter blues with exercise and fun competition. Our
002students are learning about the Winter Olympics that was done February 9th through the 13th during phys class while they move their bodies and complete different stations. uh from Mrs. Weeps at the principal. Isabella Stevens joins BHS replacing a retired ELA teacher. Isabella is an excellent new teacher. She did her student teaching at the high school and has made a wonderful addition to our staff. So, welcome to Miss Stevens. Uh from Dr. Corey, director of curriculum and instruction. On January 30th, several new vertical professional leadership teams met for the first time. The goal is to improve instruction in key areas by bringing together key stakeholders. Kudos to our new PLT leaders who thoughtfully planned a productive day. Allison Dunn and Marie Bsby. Trisha is it Liber? >> Yep. >> Libergood, Jen Simone, and Lisa Robinson, Wendy
003Voluone, and Mr. Reed together will make important decisions to improve our learning. uh art art teacher Amanda Antonucci. The Tavy High School advanced art students are having an expedition of their work at GoArt from the 6th through the 25th. So there's a couple days left to stop in Goart and see our students work there. And then from our upk team at Robert Morris, we're incredibly grateful for Mark Marabella, Tim Baron, Howie Weir, and everyone from maintenance who have done such a tremendous job taking care of us and our building every day, but especially during the ongoing re renovations. We are lucky to have you on the team of Robert Morris and that's got to be a challenge for them going around all the construction right now. So, thank you for all the good news. There
004is more to be shared. So, feel free to log on and take a look at that. All right, we have our first presentation today be Mr. Lang for our budget overview. Perfect. All right. So, uh, tonight is our second, uh, draft presentation of the 2627 budget. So, we're getting some more um some more in-depth picture on revenue and um diving deeper into the expenditure appropriation side of the budget. So, today we're going to look at any revenue updates from the prior presentation that we had back in January. Um we're going to look in in areas and focus on areas of special education instruction and benefits on the appropriation or expenditure side of the budget. We're going to look at some changes there and then we're going to look at an overall draft summary and um
005answer any questions you may have about any of the information you see. Just to recap our budget calendar, um you know, January 26th, we went over operations, maintenance, debt, transportation, and a preliminary revenue projection. Today, we're going to dive deeper into revenue, but also look at areas of special education, instruction, and benefits. Specifically, um we have our next presentation, our our budget uh work session. Hopefully, we have a more of a final draft um both on the revenue and expenditure side um for the March 9th meeting and then I'll continue review on March 23rd. Finally, the board um adopts the budget hopefully on April 20th and then we proceed from there um to the budget vote and board of education election. So again, looking at projected revenue, uh the first thing we're going to kind
006of review is the um district's tax cap calculation. This is a prescribed calculation that the district uses in order to determine how much we can increase the levy on an annual basis. This is that tax cap calculation, 2% tax cap. Those are some of the things that you you've uh you've heard in the past. But again just going through this um at a high level there are two factors that we use to apply um uh during the calculation we apply this to the prior year's tax levy. Though some of those two factors are the taxbased growth factor and the allowable levy growth factor. Think of these as inflationary factors. These are assigned to us from either the state controllers's office and um and basically what it does is it determines how much we can uh
007on a factor level increase the tax levy that added to our um our uh tax our capital levy exclusions um determines how much our total our tax levy can be. For this year uh we can increase it to uh 2.8% 8% that's the maximum we can increase this year to be compliant with the maximum allowable tax levy calculation. This number was higher in my previous projections um because we were using um other capital exclusions at the time. We were looking at the Bosey's capital project which has kind of been um taken out for this year's budget um you know more looking towards >> say taken out I mean in the grand picture yeah the grand scheme of things they're still planning to do a project but it's not going to >> it's not going to
008get affect next year's budget. >> Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. So, the capital exclusion is going to impact the tax cap on the revenue side and on the expenditure side. There's not going to be any associated charges or debt incurred as a result of that project for the 2627 school year. So, that's one of the things that we'll highlight later on. But again, so we could increase the levy by $583,194 for the 2627 school year. Now, moving forward um throughout the budget, I've put 2% as a placeholder um in the budget on the revenue side for a tax levy increase. So, we're well within the 2.8%. Again, last year the maximum allowable tax cap was 2.22%. This year, it's 2.8%. For the purposes of this draft of the budget, it's 2%. 2% increase in the tax levy.
009This is just a summarization chart of the historical tax levy increases. Um, this looks at a 13-year history. So, as you can see, for the 2627 school year, we're we're proposing a $415,000 uh dollar increase in the tax levy, which brings our tax levy to $21,26,678. Um, that's a 2% change in the tax levy as I mentioned before, but as you can see, these are historical actual increases in the tax levy. So our threeyear average is right around 2.16% increase in the tax levy. Our fiveyear is 1.7% and then so on down to our 13year which is um just over 1.2% increase in tax levy over the 13-year period. >> Andy so the board understands or not understand but see the whole picture how much how much additional revenue do we bring in if we
010raise the tax by one more%. >> Yeah great great question. Yep. Great TF. So this this chart shows what the actual impact of the percentage increase in the levy. So you can starting off with a half percent increase all the way up to the the cap which is 2.8%. So you can see how that really impacts the tax levy. So each percentage you know for half a percent would be 103,000 75 would be 155,000 etc etc. So you can see that right now like I like I said we're we're proposing within our revenue side of the budget a 2% which is a $415,000 increase in the tax levy. So, uh other other component major component of the district's revenue side of the budget is state aid. Um this is our single largest portion of the
011revenue comes from state aid. Um well over 60% of total revenue comes from uh state aid that we've received from the state. Um foundation aid, we're projecting about a 2.9% increase in foundation aid. Um so you know not insignificant but certainly um you know won't cover many of the increases that we're going to show on the expenditure side of the budget. Building aid um we're looking at quite a significant increase about $720,000. This is in response to the district starting to generate building aid as a result of finalizing some projects u mainly the 2020 vision capital project. So we're incurring debt for that project but we're also incurring additional building aid. So you'll see that both on the expenditure side. You'll see our increase in debt service and you'll also see an increase in in
012the building aid as well. Transportation aid. I know you've all um heard this before, but we did settle several new contracts in in in prior years. So our our expenses have increased on the transportation side. So I am anticipating some additional transportation aid. The district receives about 90% transportation of of all our transportation costs back in in transportation aid. Um so we are going to see possibly an uptick in in transportation aid and then private and public highost excess cost aid. Um this is aid that is derived from students who are attending out placements such as at Boseies or Mary Curiola some private placements to these are students um with special needs. Um so um we pay tuition to those uh other schools and then as a result we get a portion of that in
013return in state aid. This again will drive further conversation on the expenditure side of the budget because what we've been seeing in the past couple years is kind of an increase in those outplacements um for students who are receiving special ed services at other schools besides the table. Uh all the other uh aids relatively unchanged. Uh our Bosey's spending um has increased a little bit in prior years. So again that's why we're seeing an uptick uh in in Bosey's aid as well. So on the local revenue side, so this is a smaller portion of of aid that or of uh revenue that the district receives. Um but it is from some of these um other categories of revenue. Um again some adjustments but relatively stable. Um we are anticipating some pilot agreements um expiring. So
014we're going to show um anticipate a little less on the pilot revenue side. Pilots are payments in lie of taxes. So we have we have agreements that um certain entities and certain properties are exempt from property taxes and in lie of that they provide us some payment. So when those agreements expire that revenue then is reduced and they go back on the tax roll. Interest and penalties again this is for penalties that are derived from um late payments for property taxes. That's relatively stable. Utility tax again is based on utilization in the area for utilities and the tax associated with those. Um again that's just a historical trend. We're showing just a little decrease in that as well. So we're trying to account for that on the revenue side. Interest and earnings um as I'm
015sure you're all aware interest rates had been kind of very high in prior years. We are showing that they're tending to now um lower. So we want to make sure that we're accounting for that on the record side of the budget as well. And then finally just uh you know other all other revenues you know sales scrap again just a a slight reduction as well. So again a lot of these are based on trend analysis and prior years but um a lot of them are based on actual unknowns. Um so uh the final portion or um component of our revenue side of our budget is how much we are utilizing an appropriated fund balance and reserves. So this is how much we're taking out of our savings account to balance the next year's budget. Um
016during the long range financial plan we talked a lot about our plan for appropriated fund balance and wanted to make sure that it doesn't increase above 4% of the following year's budget which certainly was in this draft of the budget. We're proposing $2.5 million of appropriated fund balance and that is represents just about 3.75% of the total general fund budget for uh 2627. So we're certainly within that 4%. That's certainly a great a great thing to continue to happen. Um we are showing the utilization of two of our reserves. Our unemployment reserve this is for costs for unemployment um that assessments that we receive from New York State unemployment. and then our reserve for retire retirement. So this is for our contributions to the employees retirement system for all of our support staff. So we
017are showing um utilizing those reserves next year as well. So that's a total of about a 1.78% increase year-toear in appropriated fund balance and reserves for the for that revenue portion. So again this is just a summary. So showing state sources increasing just under 5 and a half%. your property increasing 2% that's the 2% um that we're showing an increase in the total amount tax levy uh appropriated fund balance like I just said 1.78% and then other revenue a slight decrease of about 9.6% again that's the smallest portion of revenue that we receive so to in total I'm anticipating our revenue is going to increase about 3.27% year-toear so onto the uh expenditure side of the budget. So, um, one of the largest expenses that we're going to incur for next year is a significant
018increase in health insurance costs. The Jier Healthcare Plan Board, um, just approved a rate increase for 2627 school year of 30%. So, that's a a huge number for a large portion of uh the district's budget. Um, obviously health insurance costs have always been a larger portion of the district's budget, but this will really kind of um impact the district's general fund budget. >> And put you on a spot for a second. You don't know. What was the what was the increase last year? >> The increase last year, I believe, was 12%. Thank you. Um so like I like I I alluded to prior um we are seeing an uptick in the number of special education outplacements. Um so again that is a cost initially to the district. We do receive some aid back on it
019but again we want to account for that in the general fund budget. So we have some sort of contingency. Um you know it it wouldn't be out of sorts to have um a student move in that may cost us50 to $100,000 for an outplacement. uh outplacement tuition. So, we want to make sure that we're accounting for that the best we can. Um so, we have made arrangements and provisions within this draft of the budget to increase that so that we're not so that we're accurately um accounting for any potential placements and outplacements. Um we have a relatively small increase in foundation aid, so that certainly impacts the revenue side of the budget. Um, it could be worse. Um, I know some districts were held harmless and didn't see an increase as much as we did,
020but it's certainly still not enough to cover a lot of the increased costs, especially with health insurance. Um, we have accounted for um potential settlement agreements for our collective bargaining units. We have three that are um currently being negotiated. So, we wanted to make sure that we made provisions within next year's budget for that. Um in our first draft of the budget, we had uh an addition of 12 FTE positions that we had listed. Um we have since um taken those out of the budget. So there's no additional the the draft you're seeing right now are no additional staff at this point, no additional instructional staff. And then you can see crossed out that Bose's capital project. Again, as Mr. Smith spoke about earlier, um that's not going to have an impact in the 2627
021school year. So we're not not accounting for it on the corporation side and also not accounting for it on the record side as well. And then finally um uh we are transitioning some of our communication services to Boseies which um is also a reduction in the general fund budget as well. Here's just some general statistics. Um again you can read those on the screen but um so we have a grand total of about active um regular employees. This doesn't include coaches and substitute teachers and things like that. These are active regular employees. So our current draft budget for the 2627 includes over $30.5 million in salaries. Um so a significant portion of our budget in salaries and then um accordingly $15.3 million of that is benefits. So that's tier FICA um health insurance uh workers
022compensation unemployment all of those are considered in those $15 million. So in total salary benefits 45 almost $45.9 million of our total budget is just in in salaries and benefits for our employees. That represents 68.6 6% of the total general fund budget. So you can see like an impact of 30% on health insurance is significant and obviously any other collection baring agreements is is certainly impactful um when we when we're building the the general fund budget. So looking at the instructional summary um I'm not going to go through all these. I'm just really going to highlight some of the of of the areas. Um curriculum and development. We made some personnel changes in the curriculum office. Um so that was accounted for in that in next year's budget. Um let's see on the programs with
023students with disabilities that additional $900,000. A lot of that is um out placement private and uh private and public tuition. So those are that's where that adjustment was made obviously in in in that area. Um again teaching special schools. Um this is really our summer program our contribution for our summer program for Boseies and that's just an increased cost from year to year an adjustment to that salary code computer assisted instruction um a 14.9% increase a lot of that is a result of uh Bosey's services so our services through Winnick or services through Editech our services through Jennese Valley Bose software um shared shared techn technology staff. Um those hardware purchases, those types of things. And then finally, uh you know, just some some adjustments. Um we have some breakage in psych uh in our
024school psychologists, which is why you're seeing a a slight a decrease there. And then for social workers, again, as we mentioned, we're trying to fold in social workers as we um each year. So we've been adding social workers from our grant programs into the general fund. So again, this is um a response for for that as well. Um on the benefit side, so again, as we as we talked certainly a large portion of the district's budget, state of retirement, this is for um ERS contributions. Again, um we are provided those rates on an annual basis. So we just apply those rates to our salaries. uh it's always a percentage of the salary and that's how much the district is required to contribute for that retirement plan. So um a small minor change about $64,000 or
0256% um that's again as a result of increased contribution rates for ERS. Teachers retirement system on the other hand has decreased. So last year's contribution rate um was 9 point I believe uh above 9% this year it's only 8.75 at the high end and we're given a range. So again you'll see a decrease in the total amount of um contributions to the teachers retirement system. Social security again that is directly linked to the total salaries 7.65% of total salaries. So again that's an increase of about 5.58%. We're not anticipating an increase in workers comp or unemployment costs. Again you can see we appropriate $50,000 but we also appropriate from our reserves $50,000 to offset any cost associated that with unemployment. um in the 2627 school year, but you can see the largest impact, right? $1.7
026million or 21 a.5%. Um that's the health insurance. So um Jerea healthcare plan is the largest component of that hospital medical dental insurance code. So that's why you're seeing a 21 and a half% increase in that line. So um certainly one of the larger increases yeartoear um on the appropriation side of the budget. So um overall where are we at? So on the top is the total uh expenditure side of the budget and on the bottom is the revenue side of the budget. So you can see in total all of our general fund budget we're looking at a 66.8 million budget which is a 5.57% increase over prior year. And then on the revenue side, which is just below it, you can see a $65.3 million um budget, which is a $2 million increase year
027to year or 3.27%. Which means that we are showing a gap at this point in the budget development process of about $1.45 million. U Mr. Smith and I are and the administrative team are actively looking at both the expenditure and the revenue side of the budget just to make to see how and if we can close that gap um prior to our next board meeting. But um you know it's certainly something that we're going to continue to work on and develop as we move through the budget process. So in total this is just a boilerplate summary of the proposed budget at this point. The second draft of the budget again 66.8 it's a 3. It includes a tax levy increase of 415,000 or 2% which is below the amount that we could increase the levy
028to which is 2.8% or $583,000. So from that any questions? Go ahead. So you're saying without adding any additional employees and with the costs of insuranceances going up and all the things that you just explained that the base is 2%. For the tax level >> uh that's what I'm using. It can it certainly can go up to a maximum of 2.8%. Yeah. Or it can it can be whatever figure the board is comfortable at at using as a revenue. >> Okay. So with this gap, >> how do you anticipate >> closing closing gap? >> Yeah. So it's going to be continued look at a continued look at the revenue side of the budget. Mr. Smith and I had a a long conversation about this today. the revenue side of the budget. Um, we have a
029pretty good picture on state aid and the other revenue sources. Um, so the only other area you can really adjust on the revenue side would be the tax levy, but obviously within the 2.8% cap, we couldn't really go above that. >> On the expenditure side of the budget, we're going to have to do some more work on. Um, so we're going to have to look at areas where we could possibly uh cut um or reduce. Um, and that it's tight. That's tightening up any contingency that we have. The problem that we have is if we get into this mode of continually what I call pulling safety levers or pulling levers within the budget and reducing any any and all contingency um you become susceptible to um you know possibly deficit spending, right? If you're spending
030over what the total amount of the general fund budget is and we don't we can't do that. We don't want to do that. So we want to make sure that we're accounting for as much as possible in the general fund budget to account for any contingencies. Um but we're going to closely look at that and I'll work closely with this. So the other way the gap could be closed in addition to want to go above 2% that's kind of proper tonight or next the other option will be going he's going to go to the reserve slide I get that. >> Yep. Yeah. He's going to show you that one and that's another option too. So there is some room there. Wouldn't recommend much more. than what we're doing now, but that's another option as well
031or some combination thereof. If you want to go somewhere between two and 2.2 and 2.8% is an option. Obviously, the higher you go on a budget close the gap, but it's also impact on our our taxpayer as well. >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you could look at the amount of appropriated fund balance. >> So, that's the amount again that we're going to use out of our savings account to balance the general fund budget. the the concern with that is the sustainability of continually dipping in to appropriated fund balance to try and balance the budget. >> Um because again that can get you in a situation where you're deficit spending where you're just taking from your savings account to pay for bills and you certainly don't want to get in that scenario. >> Is is that the
032um the reserve balance right there? Is that >> No, these are these are the estimated expenses that we are having. >> So what is the reserve balance? Uh, so yeah, I can the reserve balance that we have for reserve for retirement is is much more than 1.2 $1.1 million and I can I can show you all of that in our reserve plan. Um, I don't have a slide on that right now, but we do have balances in excess of what we're appropriating. Um, the goal would be to sustain those reserves. So, we want to at least if we're using any of these reserves, we want to replenish that with any um surplus that you're on. so that we can maintain a balance in those reserves. The concern would be if you continually dip in those
033reserves, you may be able to do that for three, four years, but then that well would eventually run dry and you don't have that revenue source to balance your budget, right? >> Yeah. Material can. >> Yeah. So ideally what we could do is look at look at maybe on the expenditure side um some of the um annual expenditures that we can pull out like possibly equipment something like that but again those can only be done once or twice >> and that's why talking about the levers that we can pull um until you get to a scenario where um you can't cut anything. >> Okay. >> So another question I have the 68.6% 6% uh of the budget is salary and benefits. How does that compare to like other districts? Like would you know that or
034>> Yeah, I'd say it's probably in alignment, right? We are we're in the human business, right? We're our product is is is well educated students and as we need teachers and we need support staff to be able to do that. So, we're not a production, we're not a company, we're not making anything except for, you know, well-rounded students and we need people to do that. So, I think that's certainly a a >> it's going to come down to We only have time. It's going to come down to two or three levers. I just use the word levers too. The tax levy, uh the um reserves and then expenditures. I think between those three levers that should that should help us close it. >> Yeah. >> But you we need some direction on the board as
035to far. We don't need to settle them now in terms of the tax levy. We can go I mean you can go as high as you want. You go higher than 2.8 which we do not recommend. that that requires a super majority. I just for the record, you can't do that. I'm not recommending that. Um, but you could go as high as 2.8 and still just require simple majority. You could go you could go less than two. You could go a range between two and 2.8. Obviously, the lesser you go, the impact on the gap. Y >> Yeah. And I think as we continue on the budget development process, you know, we'll do our best to close that gap um before our next our next presentation. >> Um well, I think What might be helpful
036is at the 2% tax limiting what that is per $100,000 assessed value versus 2.8, >> you know, the increments up to that point so that people can actually see. >> Wow, you know, that's not that much money if we go to 2.2 or 2.5 or whatever. Sure. And see where they, you know, because that's their bottom line is how much more they're paying in tax. >> Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. My only concern with and and I say this because u we don't necessarily know for sure what assessment what assessment levels are going to be or equalization rates. So I can certainly make assumptions >> and and that way you can compare apples to apples. Um but again that rate may be adjusted once those assessments are finalized. >> Um but I can I can certainly make
037some projections. >> But I thought I read in the news that city was doing 100% evaluation on taxes this year again. >> Yeah, the city might also have assessments from the town and town of Stafford as well. So, uh until we get that whole picture, it's it's I can certainly do a projection with some qualifiers 100%. That'd be a good workshop. >> Yep. I usually do a slide on that the workshop. So, I'll make sure to >> Okay. >> to include that 100%. >> And you mentioned the social workers. um that's not eliminating or adding any that's starting to account for those grants that are already in place. Right. >> You got it. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, right now we're not increasing any amount of social workers, but we're shifting it from the special aid
038fund um which is separate from the general fund, moving that to the general fund to make sure that we're capturing it in the general fund budget so it's sustainable. >> I appreciate you doing that. I know a couple years ago we were in a position not knowing if that was going to be available and we just saw that last year too. >> Yep. trying to a little bit every year. Absolutely. >> Just for clarification, um special ed out placement, what is that? >> So those are students. So sometimes we have students that um during the cse um process, community education um their placement um we can't accommodate them at our buildings. It might be a program, a special program like a 611 intensive therapeutic program or something like that. So students can attend um through
039a tuition um like a what a private placement like a Mary Kariola or a Stanley G Faulk or School of Holy Child and they offer programs specific to their needs that the district can't accommodate. The district pays tuition and then we receive aid on that tuition um over the course of several years. We're responsible for transporting um they are our student. It's just they're attending a special program um outside of the district. Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you. Thanks, man. >> Just cases. All right, Mr. Lang, that your report wasn't fun, but we're going to bring up Eli, so hopefully he has a little bit better report for us here. >> Um, rehearsals continue for the school production of the musical Anastasia. Uh, opening night is set to be March 6 at 7
040p.m. Uh, rock band as a concert March 18th at 7 p.m. And then, uh, High School will be hosting the All County Music Festival March 20th and 21st. Uh rehearsals for Miss Bavia are in full swing with the show scheduled for March 27th. And then in sports, Betavia boys basketball will play in the first round of class sectionals on the 24th where they host 12 seated Greece Odyssey. Girls basketball plays at school of arts in sectional play. Uh unfortunately B&D lost in overtime to the number two seated Victor. Uh the ski team competed at sectionals with two athletes finishing in the top 20. And then the boys and girls indoor track team both won their section meets on Saturday um with several athletes um winning individual sections as well. See, I told you your report
041would be much better than Mr. Rex. >> All right, superintendent, right? >> You got to promote yourself. Well, and he did compete in the >> And uh were you also a sexual Saturday or too? >> Uh I might have been. Yes, >> might have been. And what was your event you did? >> Uh weight throw. >> Weight throw. How'd you do? >> 35. >> I have one more question for you. Who else do we know is in the pit or >> uh me? There you go. >> All right. Very good. Thanks. >> Um I want to just recognize we had a conference day at the end of January. Dr. Muhammad was here. was very well received. Uh Alison will be able to attend. I'll put her on the spot in a minute. But before we
042do that, I want to have Dr. Corey just kind of explain some of the highlights of the day. Uh there you see him meeting with some of our teacher leaders. They're called our guiding coalition. It's a term we use in the PLC lingo. He has some breakout sessions with them. And this you see here, he was with the entire f with the entire faculty and staff. Um the admin team had lunch with him. We had a booking lunch with him. uh his presentation was highly engaging. Dr. Corey did a survey. She can share with us some of the um highlights of the date >> and I have a handout of the comments that we collected that are in my office so I will get them to you. Um the I thought that it was a
043really good overall day and the feedback was very positive. Every person in our district learned what this PLC initiative is about with from an expert and I thought he was very compelling. He had really good statistics and stories that were compelling that connected to what we do here in Betavia. Uh when he met with the guiding coalition teams, those are teams that know a little bit more about the process. Um they participated in some of the online uh virtual sessions that we do with Solution Tree and they're the boots on the ground that are making decisions about making this happen. and he had a a special presentation for them and we we broke it up into elementary and secondary because they're each in a different spot. And um when he met with each group, he
044was able to ask them really good questions and think about what is your next step to keep moving this work forward. And their feedback was incredible. They it felt they felt like it really helped them to see what they can do next and how they can truly work as a team. One of one of his big messages is that it's not my initiative. It's not Mr. Smith's initiative. It's not a teacher leader initiative. Is everybody's. And as that leadership team works together, they're all leaders in making this work happen. >> Alison, you want to add you were there for the Good morning. Well, he was a teacher for so many years prior to um this program that he's out and about talking about and I would have loved to have been his students. Um he
045was very motivational, you know, and not being an educator myself, um I would have been highly motivated by what he had to say and and all the things that he thinks about and um started in his small community, the school that he represented as a teacher and whatever. So I can see why he's a very successful speaker >> and uh motivational speaker. It was it was a it was a very good day and the momentum is still moving forward with that. Before I go on, I just want to recognize David Low is here from NISB. You see Miss Car's here to visit us. Any to Okay. Uh preschool updates. We're still working this through. Uh we're making some progress there. We had make some requests to change some models uh to the state. That's in
046progress to improve the school at least uh when we'll have reduction of one full-time classroom. Might as well have anything else to add to that? >> It'll help us to really be efficient with the model. Um we know that we're we set the bar high with um had one thinking that we could acquire you know 48 students for the total program. We haven't been able to do that since it started. So we're by changing the models it'll just help us to reduce what we think is the right size for the students that are are needed for us and for the county. >> Some of it's happening now you know like in real time some will have it in place next year as well. So we're not relying on the general front to support this. So
047that's some good progress there. Um I think this was mentioned in the previous comment. We have the good news. I went to the um art show two weeks ago uh at go art and it was really impressive. I have to say I spent some time there myself. I was there with with our high school principal. They had they had very nice reception. It was very well attended and the artwork was truly impressive. There was some artwork I saw there. There were some sculptures. It was a very nice event. Go made some comments. Both Miss Russell and I made some comments. There were several parents there. So the work that our students did at the high school level art teachers also were there was just really fantastic. So I left feeling very humbled and proud of
048our students um what they can offer. Uh we had our annual um special person dance Kennedy as always that was always well attended. We track and field Eli mentioned this the both our boys and girls team I was there on Saturday night there's our team congratulations for being our coach. I think it's like the 49th consecutive >> 50th something to 50th overall >> overall. So it was a very fun night. Next is uh state qualifiers on Saturday. We'll see how that happens from there. Uh we also still recognize our sumo kum graduates. There are the names up there and our uh students uh who received honors that were recognized by myself and our principal and our counselors a couple weeks ago for our sum kumal students. Out of that group, there's going to be a
049speaker selected to speak at graduation. A global day of play was last week. Here's some shots around our schools. We let let kids engage in oldfashioned play and old springtime. That was always a fun day at our schools. Valentine's Day for vets. I was here some hall was here last week and spent some time with our students at Jackson and Mrs. and her staff. He gathered some Valentine's for vets. Always a special event at our school. Capital project updates. Um we're making some good progress here. I just spent some time this morning at Robin Morris. I was in the early morning and then in the afternoon teachers are busy unpacking. We appreciate having a day another day to have our classroom ready. contractor finishing up the final touches on the uh on that wing of
050the school. What you see there in the top left are the doors that have been installed at the high school. Top right, we added the fence of the Robin Morris playground. Um bottom right are some classroom cubbies of the Robert Morris rooms and then the bottom left is our security system PA system all updated at Robert Morris. My plan is to take you to Robert Morris and Mark to the March board meeting and have you walk through and see the classrooms. The students will come back on Wednesday. The classrooms will be set to go and then be working that other half of the school beginning this week as well. And anything else? >> So that's moving along and we appreciate the uh support from the board and from our contractors and capital project team. Um
051if any project there's headaches that happen if you then if you ever done any home improvement it's you know very similar to that but on a much larger scale. So our kids will return on Wednesday with classrooms ready to go with more time to work on Tuesday. Uh the winter hosted their annual home show a couple weekends ago. I think the group came in second. Uh it's a very nice show. There is a full video of the whole performance and video news service if you want to watch that. Um, it's definitely worth watching and they're still going through various competitions this season. Upcoming engage with the board, we have the art show. I recommend you you try to get to that before it closes on Wednesday. On Friday, I'll be on the radio with our
052cast from from Anastasia. Uh, I think I usually bring three or four students to the radio. That'll be Friday morning. Of course, Anastasia is the first weekend of March. Um, along with Eli, I'm looking forward to playing in the pit again as well. The rock band concert is March 18th. All county we're going to host here on March 21st. And of course, Mr. Betavia at the end of March. So, lots of things happening. We also have been there our music in the schools concert I think is at the end of March uh to celebrate music in our schools. March of music in our schools month. So, we'll have our annual music in our schools concert at the end of March. And I think that's it. Any questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next
053up, we need a motion to approve the grouping of our consent items. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Uh by Mrs. Lundre. Do I have a second? >> By Mrs. Bowman. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Thank you. All right. Nothing is under old business. That brings us to our new business. First up, we will need a motion to approve the annual district election, voter registration, and election inspectors items as listed. Do we have a motion by Mr. Schmidt? >> Do I have a second? >> Second >> by Mrs. Len. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Next up is our approval for the 2026 board member nominations to the board of Jennese Valley Bose Boseies. Do I have a motion >> by Mrs. Anderson? Do I have a second? >>
054Second >> by Mrs. Benedict. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Thank you. Next up be a motion to approve the updated 2627 BCSD school calendar. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Mrs. Do I have a second? >> Second >> by Mrs. Anderson. Um, >> we got updated >> or is that just >> that's the next one. So there's no update. This is the first read of the calendar. There's no there's no updates to it changes. I think that's the next one. >> So uh this one is just this this calendar was unique because this Labor Day is as late as it can be. So u with the cooperation of of the BTA we're going to bring our teachers back early. we got our days in. We're about to put the
055calendar team um last week or so with other members of the PGA and um we settle on that. We're going to have three days in February as opposed to a week. That gives us the ability to have all December 23rd uh for our families and also the Monday after Easter. So, so any other discussion, any other questions? >> All in favor? I >> next up motion to approve the 10 and 12 month 2026 2027 employee holiday schedules. Do I have a motion? So moved by Mr. Smith. Do I have a second by Mrs. Anderson? Any discussion? So the change here was to to be consistent with the calendar. We're going to allow our 12 month paid people to have the Monday off after Easter. We won't have school on the day we recognize Junth, but
056we can't have our staff work that day. The teachers won't be in session. The kids won't be in session. We'll honor Junth, but but we can treat it as a day of work. Obviously, our staff can take time off, but there was more momentum to have the Monday off after Easter as opposed to uh Junth. School will not be in session. It'll run like a typical day like like we were off last week during the February break Christmas break. Because Junth falls out on a Saturday, we're not obligated to have it. I think we should. I wish school's honoring it, but I think we need to um recognize Junth. So, just it's just a it's just a flipflop that I've made in cooperation with the associations. >> All right. Any other discussion? All in favor?
057>> I. Next up is for a resolution for the board of education approves the resolution to reopen Robert Morris School. >> Do I have a motion? >> Mrs. Anderson, do I have a second? >> Second by Mrs. Lenvig. Any discussion? >> Can you speak to this? >> Yeah. So, uh, when we whenever the district, um, reopens a building, any school district in New York State reopens the building, um, we have to petition the state to officially reopen it and assign that districts code. Now, the the building was occupied with preschool and universal prek. But once we put a grade level uh, a kindergart kindergarten in in that school, we have to now officially, you know, make it make it a K12 uh public school building. So, um that is this resolution and then there's an
058application that um uh succeeds this resolution. So, um >> is this something they can deny? >> Um it's >> I mean in theory >> Yeah, in theory it's the board's um Is that right? >> It's the No, like you said, we have to petition the state. >> Yes. Yeah. Well, yes. The the state wouldn't. >> Okay. >> We just want to make sure that we're we're providing all it's a box of checks. It's a box of checks we can get. Yeah. >> The state needs to be aware. >> Okay. >> Good question. >> That'll mess things up. >> Yeah. And that that also applies to reconfiguring grade levels, which is the second resolution here as well. Any other discussion on Robert Morris? No. All in favor? >> And leading into Mr. Langs here, the next
059resolution is to reconfigure grade levels at the Tate Middle School, John Kennedy School, and Jackson School beginning in the 2026 2027 school year to best serve the needs of the students. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> By Mrs. Benedict, do I have a second? >> Second >> by Mrs. Bowman. >> Uh, you want to just break that down again? So, >> yeah. So, next building. Yeah. So, test. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Robert Morris isn't listed here. >> No, it's not. >> Is that because it hasn't been approved? >> Well, we did the resolution. >> We did the resolution initially to reopen Robert Morris. >> Robert Morrison is going to house preschool, UPK, and kindergarten early childhood center. Moving to the south side, Jackson's going to house grades one and two. It currently
060houses grades one now and kindergarten is going to be moved from Jackson to around. Then moving into the north side, John Kennedy will house grades three, four, and five. Uh fifth grade is coming down from the middle school and uh second grade is going from John Kennedy to Jackson. Uh the benefit there is fifth grade is coming back out of the middle school into a uh K into a K5 setting um essentially a three through five setting. Uh the middle school will become now what I call for a long time a true middle school. Grades six, seven, and eight. Um fifth grades coming from the middle school to John Kennedy and high school is no changes. So that's the long that's that's the long short and it's we're looking forward to it. We're going to
061be working with our uh teachers meeting again transferring and having teachers assigned to the right spots and we're excited. >> Any other discussion, questions? All in favor? >> I. >> All right. >> We do have other administrative reports uh online. So, if you do want to review them, please log on and take a look at them. Uh, next up is our board goal updates. Do we have any updates from We'll actually combine the two. Any other uh comments from any of our board members? I >> know Dan, you had a you mentioned you had a great visit that one of the schools. >> Yeah, I was over at the middle school with Dr. Cry and spent a few hours over there and I just took some notes. Um, she's got a lot of vision, strong
062vision for over there, which was exciting to see. Uh, a lot of goals. uh she's doing a great job transforming the culture from really the top down. I mean that's really something that she's pretty passionate about uh from the teachers to the students. Uh one thing she said is that she'd love uh more for more board members to come and see all the great things that are happening there. Um I appreciated seeing so many students saying hi as we were just standing in the hallway. Uh so many of the students were saying hi to you know uh Dr. Crin or Mrs. crying and and just to see like their buy in with her >> uh was really really good. Um just shows that she's she cares about them. It was obvious. Um I uh went
063into the shop class and I'll tell you that that is thriving. It was it was just really just really neat. I was in there before the students came in and and um I I can't recall the teacher's name. >> Mr. Cummings. Yeah. um was was just talking to us a little bit and then we we kind of circled back around and saw uh the the classroom full and saw all these kids in action and they're pulling out uh shelves and and tables and all kinds of things that they made and with just such pride. Uh it it was it was really great. Um she had mentioned uh you know possible need for another full-time teacher, not just part-time. Um same with um Charlie Borhees, he's he's saying the same thing. Um the halls and the
064classroom environments uh were a place where students were naturally engaging. We saw some of the students in the science class uh pulling out DNA out of a strawberry uh which that was really kind of interesting to be honest. So just kind of being a fly on the wall and and watching the students. Uh she has a desire to create life within the hallways. Uh just so that's not so institutionalized walking through uh having paintings on the walls that the students are creating and and so on just to bring uh from the classroom into the hallways just bring the whole place to life. So anyway, she's doing a great job. It was it was just really honestly fun uh to go in there and see all the action. So just one comment I want to make
065that Dan kind of had kick in my head. On March 18th, uh there was an annual tech awards in GCC. So Dan mentioned technology. So our tech students have done a great job at the tech war. We've obviously won it the past couple years. It's a March it's March 18th. I don't don't know the exact day of the week it is, but March 18th. >> Thank you. So, I recommend if you can find time, I always go and it's at the college. Um, and Chris and Charlie's students do well in that competition. I actually brought them with me on the radio a couple months ago and you may have seen uh they had you made a wonderful Christmas shop set up down there. Um, I bought some pens and notebooks and ornaments and bookmarks and
066they really do a nice job. I just would on my date I would add on March 18th. Um, there would be pictures and stuff online, I'm sure. source of pride for us. So, thank you, Denn for that. >> Um, I went to a Steam event at John Kennedy with Mrs. Kandra. Like, again, I'd like to thank everyone who sends what's going on in the schools, you know. Um, it's at least I know what's going on at John Kennedy. Um it was a uh session with all of the third graders um having to do with magnetism, >> the magnetic convention convention. >> Yes. >> Um and they did the Olympics. So each of the students or the two uh a pair of students made up some kind of a athletic game whether it was basketball or
067hockey or whatever and use magnets to show how you know how that all works. And I think the thing that impresses me the most about steam is that it's for everyone. They offer it to everyone in third grade. And there used to be a program many years ago called ACE. And that was where they would ask specific students to come and do advanced science and whatever. And um some of the kids always felt bad that they weren't an ACE. And now they give steam to everyone. And every child, no matter how well they're doing in in sciences or whatever, gets exposed to those projects. And I think that they really get into them. Some of them, you know, they weren't hesitant at all as I was walking through to grab me and say, "Do you
068want to see what we I did?" And they would be playing hockey or whatever. And it was um loud. Um it's very busy. They let the other some of the other classes walk through and you could vote and you could give um your comments and they pasted those on the wall. Mrs. Philandra would have her microphone and read some of the comments from, you know, parents. And I was amazed at how many parents came to see their children's um um display and whatever. And they just made these things out of um cardboard and tape and magnets of course. And uh they're very ingenious, some of those, you know, what they invented and and they got they did have awards. Uh the art department was involved in that. um the kids that were in the art
069classes could draw a mascot of any of the sports and then they gave um awards out to those it wasn't first place or second place. It was you know uh just a mention that this child did this mascot and it was great and whatever. So for each of the classes and it was um it was a very interesting and engaging day or time two hours I was there. So >> yeah well thank you both for uh sharing your your visits. Um as a reminder our goal this year is to each of us try to get one event within the district. I think it goes a long way for our teachers and staff to to see us in the buildings and uh to really enjoy what the the kids are doing. So, thank you guys for
070for >> Well, John Kennedy was my elementary school, so it's very near and dear to my heart. So, I that's why I go there all the time. >> Excellent. >> Um I just want to thank our uh district leadership and uh the DTA. I know that's one collective agreement that uh you guys have been working on. It's uh great to hear that that's moving right along. Shows really why this district is one of the best and the collaboration between the two uh of you together working to to ultimately find the best solution for for our district and our kids. So, I appreciate everyone's hard work for that. Anyone else have anything? No. All right. Well, we have a call for executive session and we will not be returning afterwards, but the call for executive session
071will be to dis motion move to executive session to discuss matters relating to collective negotiations pursuant to article 14 of the civil service law. Uh, do I have a motion to go into executive session? So, >> by Mr. Smith, do I have a second by Mrs. moment. All in favor?