001to a regular meeting of the board of education for August 12th, 2025. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Uh if you please join me in standing for the pledge of allegiance. Want to leave us. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. All right. Uh, turning to the agenda. Um, right off the bat, resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint Karen Henner as interim district clerk effective August 12, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion passed. Uh item C resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent
002of schools, the board does hereby appoint Tracy Leon as deputy district clerk effective August 12th, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion passed. Okay. Moving along. Routine matters. Uh resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve the following routine matters. Board of Education minutes and the CSC recommendations for the dates given in your agenda packets. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carried. >> Okay. Okay. Uh, presentations number one, capital project update and I will turn it over to the gentleman from Turner Construction. >> Evening everybody. Um, for those who don't know me, I'm Vincent Zenowski, project manager with Turner Construction, and I'm
003Robert Papriot. I'm the project engineer here. So, it's a very nice. >> We also have with us Chris Prey, who's our executive of our Syracuse office. Uh, just to give you an update on the project. So, exterior, I'm sure you've seen it coming in. Uh site improvements are going very well. The north log, the PS drop off we call it, um is progressing. That'll be ready for school. They're looking at paving August 20th. They did more concrete today. Um the new lot, the high school drop off is progressing while that's slated for um as walk August 25th. What's not ready? So they'll have brand new parking lots, new sidewalks, uh which is the key thing. You had a parking lot before. We want kids to be excited about when they come back to school. What
004are they going to see? They want new pavement. They want striping. That's going to happen. Uh landscaping. Typically, your landscaping, your trees, your plantings, um even your grass at home, you want to plant it in May or October. Those are your prime planting times. And that's when we're going to see the landscaping coming in. That allows time for light poles to come in. We have light pole pieces going in to enhance the lighting that you didn't have before. Um, and then the light poles themselves will come in September. And then the exterior cooler freezer, we made an early decision, the project to keep that active instead of temporarily relocating it and spending money to try and do that. So, we left that active until the new cool and freezer online. Once that happens, that'll come
005down. We'll do that demolition. Um, inside the building, the cafeteria and kitchen area, uh, progressing along. As you know, coming out of the gate, we we are late to bid with SED approval. Uh we've been tracking materials was always a concern. What was what we had talked about up front was trying to get a shelf space for the kids when they come back in September. Um working with the district and some of the unforeseen conditions we bumped into and tracking the material lead times and equipment. Right now, we're looking at what's best for the kids. Do they come into a shell space that's unfinished? it's not as feasible to work around it or keep them where they're ready set up in a temporary serving line for a few more weeks and really get that space
006done. So when they come back, it's a wow factor into that space, the kitchen and cafeteria. So that's what we're working on right now, getting a firm date to the district to finish that. We're looking at that for early October. Um the auditorium is progressing along. That's slated for graduation of next year to be open. So we have a target of May 27th to be complete to allow time for punch list any finishing touches have that ready for graduation. Um we took on a guidance center so that was not in the original schedule for this year because of some of the other work that moved around in schedule. We moved that up. Um so we're waiting on some materials as far as frames but we're cleaning the walls up trying to get that as advanced
007as possible so counselors can move into that space. Uh we also took over art rooms 158 159 right down the hall. Um those were spaces that were available. It gave us opportunity to create some swing space. So we've gotten the abatement. There was some unforeseen abatement in there and demolition. The abatement is done. You'll see the plastic still up. They'll tear that down tomorrow. Uh continue the demolition. And what that does is come September, it gives the opportunity where do we go next? Where do we keep it productive? We get those spaces ready. And then the other areas, the other art room we move over and we can take that space on and keep everybody's perspective throughout the year. And we'll just keep going that way as we give the updates on the board reports.
008What's the next step? Where are we going from here? Um overall project, the engineering, the project, I'll let Rod Robert give you an update on that. Um so yeah as the engineer kind of responsible for a lot of things in terms of the request for information kind of document management correspondence and then budget are kind of those kind of key pillars of what the project engineer fills. So in terms of RFIs there have been quite a lot so far RFI is an acronym for request for information that's the contractor's formal way to ask a question and that response you know becomes part of the contract document. So there have been you know quite a lot of RFIs. there's good content in them and and really what I wanted to highlight here is that the design
009team has been turning them around uh in a in a very timely and expeditious manner which is key because that allows work to to continue in the field. So did want to give credit to the design team there in terms of submittal status. So you could kind of see overall we're about 40% complete. Uh that is a little bit lower than where we'd like to be contractually the contractors had a a time frame that they had to get their submitts in. We have since exceeded that time frame. Uh we did put the contractors on notice by issuing formal letters that they're behind on submitts and that they need to amplify efforts here. So uh we're hoping by the next board report and we are pretty confident that the way the metrics are moving now by
010the next board report that percentage complete should be substantially higher. Excuse me. Um it is nice to see that we have some of the closeout submitts already in. You know typically this is always at the very end. So, uh, some credit to the contractors for for getting we always say close out starts day one, but that's never actually, uh, realistic here. Um, in terms of contractor payment applications, so those come in on a monthly basis here. Uh, to date, we're about 6.2% paid out. Uh, a lot of project left to go. Uh, change order summary here. So, there's, you know, change orders come up for a variety of reasons. Uh, discovered conditions that Vince mentioned, uh, things that are changed in the field or, you know, maybe gaps in the in the drawings there. So
011that's where our change order summary comes. You can kind of see as of the board report, we were recording 29 um potential change orders. So we don't want to confuse you with our nomenclature, there's potential change orders and then there's what you would call your bonafide change orders, right? Those are what gets sent to SED uh and whatnot. So um as of right now, we have four change orders issued to date and that largely captured the credits we took back for the steamed hot water conversion which we needed to, you know, award contracts. So you can kind of see that that parenthesis represents a credit. So so far we've realized a credit of uh you know $1.65 million there. >> Sorry, can you explain that a little more? So as everybody's aware, when we award
012this project, the money was tight. So one of the things was let's go back to the drawing board. How do we open up savings in the project? We set a goal and working with the contractors very diligently, we've exceeded that goal in terms of realizing those savings and that's what that represents on the board report. >> Yeah, my apologies. I I thought that might have been brought up at a previous board report, so was just trying to build on that. But yes, for those that that may not have been aware, as Vince described, um these were necessary in order to kind of restore our construction contingency, which is how we fund these change orders in the first place. So, um, you know, that that was pretty key to setting us up for the future. And
013then just, you know, a quick budget update. More or less, we're set to meet next week, but we reconcile with the district on a monthly basis. So, capturing expenditures to date um so that our incidental soft costs, if you will, are aligned with the districts just so that we're we're um managing the budget appropriately, you know, if we need to move funds around and stuff. So, that kind of sums up a lot of the information on the board. We'd love to open it up if you have questions, things you want us to expand on. >> Questions? >> Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. >> Okay, moving along. Next on the agenda, uh, presentation, special recognition award for Cara Kitchen. >> All right. So, we're uh like every district in New York State, uh, every
014school board, every school, every district is now supposed to have a and required to have a student board member. So one of the nice things in Canesa is this is for four years we've actually had a student board member and u board saw the value of having that uh representation on the board. So it's not a new thing for us. It's been a great thing. I think it's there's been a really a consensus of that feeling that it's been a very positive uh experience for the board and for the district. So this year we were really fortunate that we had Cara as our representative. Uh couldn't think of a better student to represent the district. Represents the district so well in so many ways and and her accomplishments speak for themselves and are too long
015to list. And if you look at the way she's been recognized over this past year, it's been uh from her extensive amount of community service to participation on this board to involvement in school activities. Uh Era really uh again, you couldn't have a better representative. And so on behalf of the district, we want to thank you for the way you've represented the school all your time through and really appreciate your participation on the board. Um, so congratulations. U, we know you're going to be a great success in everything you do and we appreciate everything you've done. We want to present you this certificate um of appreciation for all of your uh efforts in working with our school board. And we also want to make sure that we have a picture. So I think Mrs. Spinner
016is going to orchestrate a picture now where we can have a picture with the board and car. >> We're going to assemble here in front of this bookshelf of the board. I want it to look the best. I better have the poor gentleman stand in the back. >> Yeah. And can you slide a little bit over so I don't get the word forward? >> Do some kind of shuffle. >> Defensive. And the rule of thumb is if you can see my face and my neck from the head up, then we can see you. So I think >> Scott cheese. >> Thank you. Good job. >> Congratulations. [Applause] You can give a speech too if you want. >> You've been practicing. >> Okay. Uh let's see. F old. There is no old business. So section G,
017new business. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby approve the following consent agenda items 1 through nine. Do I have a motion? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. Okay. Next, uh student board member update. We do not have a student board member uh appointed yet. Um I'll throw it out to Cara for old time sake if you want to come up here and say something. No. Okay. Uh moving on. Committee reports. >> Let's start with uh let's go. Uh finance committee. Mark, >> we haven't met yet, but I know we did get notice from the state about an audit from the state. Um so that will be happening this year. Sorry Tracy, but yeah, we meet. The first meeting is
018in October. >> First meeting was when uh scheduled for October. >> Okay. >> Uh policy committee. Courtney, >> we have not met yet, but we have our schedule of dates that are ready to go. Um our next meeting will be in November. >> Okay. Um academic committee Scott, >> we met on August 4th. Uh we reviewed ongoing work with regard to the graduation standards, the new portrait of our graduate items and uh how our programs are positioned to support those. Uh we discussed ongoing work with student retention and remediation. Um saw an overview of the current life uh cycle for professional development in the district, how those things are identified and selected and reviewed instructional planning tools, you know, pacing guides, strategy tool boxes, sample plans, and such that teachers have available to them. Um
019we're looking at uh curriculum status going forward. >> Okay. Uh facilities, that's uh me. Um we've had three meetings uh July 14th, July 28th, and uh just a couple hours ago. Um >> um basically, you know, to spare any of the rehashing some of the details, I'm just going to kind of defer you to what uh Vince was Vince and Robert were reporting earlier. Um, as far as what we're basically kind of keeping track of is, um, you know, dates when things are going to be ready, what this build, what it's going to look like when kids, teachers and kids come back to school. Um, but as far as the details of where the project stands, I think uh, Vince and Robert did a did a great job summing that up. Okay. Uh, safety committee.
020Jeff, >> not yet. Okay, we're cruising. >> Going too fast. >> Okay. >> I'm good. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh board comment period. Anything? >> Uh as many of us did, I attended uh the uh community cookout that is not a family barbecue of any kind in name. And uh just thank you to everyone who made that possible. It was a great event and uh seeing all the different organizations and families coming out. I enjoyed every year. It was great this year. Nice to have it outdoors for once. >> Yeah, it was well attended. I myself was in attendance tonight. I was remarked about how well it was attended. >> Good job. >> Anybody else? Nothing. Okay. Uh next is uh the superintendent's report. >> Echo uh Mr. Blanchers comment about the community cookout. Nice
021turnout. It was the fourth time we've done it. First time since the first one where we could be outside. So, it was very nice. Uh we were worried that yeah the weather the rain was going to hold off and then was the smoke going to where we're going to be smoked inside. But um that day was uh nice and clear and u number I got was over 550 meals um were served that night. know give us some we don't have the exact attendance of number of people who in total were there but it was well you know into the hundreds and and uh it was great to see people uh come to what has become our annual summer tradition. So, um, also something, um, that we've had going for a number of years, we've had
022another successful summer program wrapped up. We had, uh, close to 100 students this year were participating in in that program and it was good to have another year where um, we uh, invited our students back in and uh, we didn't want anybody getting rusty over the summer and sort of kept them in in the school routine and and uh, went well. Our opening of school is already just around the corner, just a few weeks away and it's an a relatively early step early start uh since Labor Day is the first and so the first day back for students and I'm sure people are are already aware of it, but to reiterate is is uh Tuesday the 2nd for staff. Um our students will be coming back on Thursday the 4th. So, um, for the students
023and staff enjoying summer, it's coming up, but there's still a little bit of time. Still have a few weeks. So, still a good amount of summer that, uh, we still have. >> Can we get them in sooner? >> So, volunteers. >> Anybody want to make a motion for earlier start to school? >> You might be in trouble when you go home with your kids. Um and then we recog it it was great to have Carara here and recognize her for her contributions. Having that position is not new to Canota. Um we are actively working to get everything situated um for um for our represent uh representation for this upcoming school year. Um part of that how we arrive at who is the representative is tied to u there's certain aspects of it related to being
024elected to by their peers and things like that. So we're we're getting that squared away, but we anticipate uh that we'll likely have our student rep here for September starting at the September board meeting. um car can come back and mentor them or give them some pointers from uh from college. But um and you know again we get to this point of the year you heard about some of the work that's going on as far as you know the facilities and uh every day um you know you see some new things happening. It's been great to watch, but uh really want to compliment the work of Nick Campbell and his his team are doing because they're doing the normal stuff of getting the school ready, but they're having to do a lot of, you know,
025shifting around and really being nimble as far as being able to adjust because they're having to adjust their work around significant amounts of work that's going on and still supporting that work that's going on. I look at Tracy and Tracy is as well has been heavily involved with that. So I just want to thank our team and not just our those teams but the office teams the people who are here during the year there's substantial disruption to their operation. So everybody's really done a nice job continuing the work of the district that has to happen still is still going on and things have been knock on wood have been relatively smooth. Um, and then also would just like to thank the staff who's been in doing work preparing for the new year. There's been a
026lot of of our staff in doing instructional related work to uh to prep for the new year, working with their colleagues, working on their curriculum and and uh just making sure that we're in good shape to open open the year um in a great way. So, appreciate everybody's efforts. Sometimes people don't understand the the breadth of all the things that go on on during the summer. still a very very busy time and a lot of good work is getting done. So appreciate everybody's efforts. That's what I have. Okay, good. Okay. All right. Moving on to personnel recommendations. All appointments are pending clearance and fingerprinting uh retirement and resignations. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby accept Lindseay Bazan's letter of resignation as an elementary teacher effective July 6,
0272025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby accept Jerry Mcdana's letter of resignation as a school monitor effective July 10th, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby accept Chelsea Visali's letter of resignation as a teacher assistant effective July 15, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby accept Angela St's letter of resignation as
028a school monitor effective August 30th, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby accept Alisa Anich's letter of resignation as a 7 through 12 math teacher effective August 31st 1st, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Sorry. Um all those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carried. Permanent appointments. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint Austin Meyer as a permanent teacher aid school monitor at 1775 per hour effective September 1st, 2025 with a 26- week probationary period. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed.
029Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint Angelus Dots as a permanent teacher aid school monitor at 1775 per hour effective September 1st, 2025 with a 26 week probationary period. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint Haley Curtis on a probationary basis in the tenure area of health with the understanding that the named individual has applied for a New York State certification appropriate to or required for that position. That the probationary appointment shall commence on September 1st, 2025. That the probationary appointment shall expire on August 31st, 2029. and that the named individual to be eligible for an appointment to
030tenure upon expiration of the probationary period. It shall be necessary but not sufficient that the individual has received an annual professional performance review rating of either effective or highly effective in three of the four years of the probationary service and has not received an annual professional performance rating of ineffective in the final year of the probationary appointment. as based on ratings derived in compliance with education law section 3012D at step two $50,361. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint Christopher Rudyak on a probationary basis in the tenure area of ele tenure area of elementary with the understanding that the named individual holds New York State certification
031appropriate to or required for that position. That the probationary appointment shall commence on September 1st, 2025. That the probationary appointment shall expire on August 31st, 2028. And that the named individual to be eligible for an appointment to tenure upon expiration of the probationary period. It shall be necessary but not sufficient that the individual has received an annual professional performance review rating of either effective or highly effective in two of the three years of the probationary service and has not received an annual professional performance rating of ineffective in the final year of the probationary appointment as based on ratings derived in compliance with education law section 3012D at step 9 bachelor plus masters plus 30 hours at $62,567. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >>
032opposed. >> Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools. The board does hereby amend Melinda Reed's permanent teaching appointment from a 7 through 12 ELA teacher to a special education teacher with no change to probationary period or salary. effective September 1st, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Uh second. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carried. Uh substitute appointments resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint the following substitutes. Kaylee Gallagher is a non-certified subteer at $120 per day effective August 13, 2025. Alexandra Lambo is a long-term non-certified subteer at $249 per day effective September 1st, 2025. Kelly Brennan is a retired, excuse me, retired certified subteer at $160 per day effective July 1st, 2025.
033Alicia Simmons as a non-certified subteer at $120 per day effective August 13, 2025. Charlie Frick as a certified subteer at $140 per day effective August 13, 2025. Deanna Dunn as a long-term certified subteer at $257 per day effective September 1st, 2025. Daniel Matthews as a sub cleaner at $1845 per hour effective August 13, 2025. Wendy Stevens is a sub cleaner at $1845 per hour effective August 13, 2025. Kristen Rereath Summers is a sub cleaner at $1845 per hour effective August 13, 2025. Aisha Kashif as a noncertified subteer at $120 per day effective August 13, 2025. And Patricia Vicaro is a non-certified subteer at $120 per day and subtypist at $1725 cents per hour effective August 13, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >>
034opposed. Motion carried. Uh no no civil service appointments. Okay. Uh moving on. Coaching resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint the following paid and unpaid coaches for the 2025 2026 school year as per the attachments. Do I have a motion? >> Some moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. Uh resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint 2025 2026 mentors Daphne Baldwin Tully, Brianna Riggs, Rain Martino, Amanda Schlaggel, Justin Krosi, Megan Hoy, Tina Davis, Jennifer Kurak, Brian Dwire, Linda Serasia, and Tracy Timmons. Uh do I have a motion? >> So move. >> Second. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools based on instru instructional
035staffing needs of the district, the board recommends the discontinuence of service of Raymond Garzia's first for-time 7-2 mathematics teaching position effective June 30th, 2025. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carried. Resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board does hereby appoint the following co-curricular recommendation for the 2025 2026 school year as per the attachment. Do I have a motion? >> Moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carry. Okay. next uh public comment period and uh I do have a request for public comment. Uh Mr. Deo, my name is Eric Deo. I'm the girls varsity basketball coach. Um I've been coaching in the district at various levels since 2017. I'm here tonight because I have
036questions about the care and safety of our joint force. Uh before I go any further, I want to make it very clear that I'm not here to disparrage any individual or any department in our district. Um specifically, um this is in no way an indictment on Mr. Veretta and his crew. Um Donnie is always taking care of me and my kids the whole time I've been here. Um but I do have concerns for our student safety. Um, and I believe that as a school district, we need to learn to take care of our floors in a more effective way. Um, I'm not an expert by any means in gym floor maintenance. Um, but I have learned some dos and don'ts by researching this subject over the last few years. Um, I understand that we are
037eventually replacing at least one of our three floors, um, which is great. and long overdue. Um I assure you all three of our floors need to be replaced at some point. Um this is even this should be more of a motivation for our district. Not only the most important thing for me is the is the students safety. Um but we need to learn how to protect our investment better. Um I have information I'd love to share with you. I can't do it in three minutes. Um but I just That's something we need to look into. Uh our floor is uh you know in the course of a basketball season we'll play on um including our four we play on 10 or 12 different basketball floors and ours is consistently the worst one we play on.
038It's very slippery all all of our I'm speaking specifically here about about ours. Um, but the play gym is is just as bad, if not worse. And it's something that needs attention because it's a safety matter for our kids. >> Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh, moving along, future dates, August 20th and 21st is new teacher orientation. September 2nd is opening day. September 4th, classes begin. September 9th, 2025, uh, is our next regular, uh, board of education meeting at 6:30 p.m. right here. Uh, at this time, I'll entertain a motion to enter into executive session to discuss employment history of a particular individual. Do I have a motion? >> That motion. Second. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carried. We are now in executive session and we will not be
039returning. Thank you.