001mean the time. Welcome everybody. Sorry for the delay. The water session please rise. To the flag of the United States of America to the standice. [Applause] Good evening everyone. I wanted to begin by thanking the community coming out to vote last week. We had a really really amazing turnout. We had roughly about 928 uh 9808 individuals that came out to vote and uh it was a really good night for the district. We passed our budget by 66% which was the highest that's been passed in the last 5 years. And we also passed our capital reserve proposition by 77%. Which is the highest in the last five years as well. So I really want to extend um a special thanks to the individual that helped us in the district to run the coaches around the world
002event Marino at the secondary complex as well as Jenny Bulger Christine Harrison all the teachers all the the students and parents that helped us. Also I want to thank the PTO. I think all of you probably came for the popcorn and the um cotton candy. So they were really helpful. They handed out books and they were there for an tremendous amount of time. I also want to thank Mr. William. He's not with us tonight, but he was actually our DJ for the entire night and that's his own equipment. So he comes with his own equipment. He sets up for the entire night. He's there from the beginning. He's there to the end. Uh so he really I think deserves, you know, special thanks because it is something that he just does from the bottom of
003his heart. I want to thank all the individuals that helped us with voting. Of course, uh, Miss Bar, our district clerk. Thank you, Miss Bar, for, you know, helping make sure things ran smoothly. I also want to thank our two brand new board members, Mr. John Thomas. Uh, congratulations for being successfully, you know, elected as a board member for three years. And of course, Sean Rosh. So, you both are welcome. I also want to thank and I think we're going to do something a little more formal in June, but I want to thank Miss Lawrence Lanski for her three years of service. It's been a pleasure getting to know you, working with you side by side. And of course, Miss uh Mr. Marcus Bazine, who's been with us for six years. He started in 2019
004and he's been with us for co bad difficult time and he has been faithful throughout the entire time. So Marcus, I'm going to thank you. We will have something a little more formal in the June meeting, but I do want to just acknowledge and thank you for your service. Yes. Okay. questions and comments regarding tonight's agenda only. This the opportunity for a person who wish to speak with question letters to the board regarding topics that are included on this agenda. Sign with the district clerk prior to approaching the board. Indicate your topic of comment. Keep comments brief and speak for no longer than three minutes. Members of the public will have the opportunity to speak about any topic at the end of this meeting. Is there anybody that would like to speak? athletic appointment. We
005have resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools, the board of education approved the following appointment uh for Brian Kennedy. I have a motion. Second. Yes. Yes. Agenda approval. A motion to approve the consent agenda items 8 through 12 A. Motion discussion. There's a couple things. I'd like to welcome our new assistant superintendent for curriculum and data management, Dr. Jamie Batra, who's in the audience and back here. Uh, welcome Jamie. I look forward to working with you. I think the whole board does, the whole community does. Thank you for trusting in us and making that leap some of your previous district and I see great things in the future for us. Yes, likewise. I appreciate it very much. And we also have uh Julia Ples who is joining us as an ENL teacher
006at the elementary school. And I've heard great things about you, Julia. I had a great conversation with you when we first met. I'm still looking forward to your baking. So forget about something tonight. You definitely should. But Julia, I think you're going to be a great addition to the elementary school. So welcome to sandwiches. And I hope you make sandwiches your home for the next 30 years. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Uh, no, we actually have something else. Um, I want to just acknowledge we do have a resation of Dr. Amy Mer. I want to wish her best. I want to thank her for four years of service school district and I'm sure she's going to continue being successful in the next district. The last thing we have, we do have over time who is a
007power professional in the district. So, I'm just going to read a few things regarding Joy. Tonight, we're proud to recognize Joy Monta, who will be retired in June 30th, 2025. After more than 27 years of outstanding service to our district, Joy began her career with us in March of 1998. As a powerful freshman, has been a vital part of supporting students in the classroom ever since. In addition to her main role, she also served for many years as a latch key group leader and later as director of the chapter. Wherever she was needed, Joyce stepped in with a smile and a positive spirit. Her warm reliability and unwavering dedication made her a trusted colleague and a beloved presence, especially at student holiday concerts where her cheerful support was always appreciated. Joy, thank you for your
008years of caring service. You will be deeply missed. We wish you all the best for a relaxing, healthy and joyful return. Thank you. General public comment for general public comment. Members of the public who desire to address question on any topic related to board are welcome to do so at this time. Speakers are requested to sign with Mr. Clerk prior to approaching the board. Indicate your topic of comment. Keep comments brief and speak for no longer than three minutes to appoint a spokesperson if concern is group concern and to supplement verbal presentations with written reports if necessary. Anybody? I have a couple of questions. So it sounds um so I was just curious all the genders previous up till now. Um we still have kind of a teacher tenders appointed. So do we have any
009teachers receive new tenure this year because it is kind of close to the end of the school year? We do. We normally celebrate them at the June meeting. So we have a meeting coming up June 17th. That's when we're going to celebrate the eight teachers that we have scheduled for attendance. And the teachers were told that they were the same tender. Yes. They will be invited to the meeting. The families are invited. We usually get them a pan. We make a like a nice celebration with them. Okay. Um and then um so tonight was great. Also awesome. I saw that the robot was there which is cool thing that we talked about connections. Um, I just felt like I was going in and out of classrooms and it's disheartening seeing the classrooms in distress and
010I know our budget is tight. However, I feel as though as a district you wait for things to get fully broken before fixing them. Um, so is there any way that we can kind of consider maintaining what we have such as painting, making things look, you know, aesthetically pleasing. Um, instead I've done a wait for things to fall apart and now we have bigger problems. Um, so it's just something that kind of caught my eye. We host the culture event there. We do um for Halloween all the kids go in and out of those classrooms. Um, the high school is a big part of our community. So which is something that I just wanted to say. Um, also makes me think budget after all these years with the money that came to pay. Um, so
011that was a concern that I had. Um and then the last thing was the summer programs at Buie. Um I know we spoke with um Mrs. Meyer about that and uh Mr. Richie. Um any update for our youngsters and how you can provide them with any sort of programs this summer? Well, the program has been ran in previous years. I think we spoke about that was co supported co funding. Yeah. So right now we don't have the same amount of funding. We are looking at ways that we can internally try to uh provide remediation support in terms of even enrichment support to the schools. So we are actively looking at that and hopefully we should have something at the next level in terms of plan is uh so that's like in over the summer something
012in addition yes we are looking at things that we can have in addition to what we have planned. Okay. It is going to be very tight because our budget for next year is very tight. So we have to try to pull funds from other resources to see what we can sustain and do in terms of what really students need in the fall. Right. I I just think from my standpoint um I know some of the teachers get pulled. So I know we're trying to remediate during the school year but if their um remediation through AI is being you know just kind of disjointed maybe right the teacher being able to cover I feel like we do have to try to then at some point make sure we offer them the proper opportunity to catch up
013before they start the next school year. So we don't disagree. Yes. I said we don't disagree. We are trying just wanted to make sure that we are still on board. Absolutely. We are okay. Thank you. You're very welcome. Maintenance. Yes. Yeah. Can I can I address that? I'm sorry. Um, so in terms of maintenance, we are looking at different ways to, as you suggested, kind of clean up the space. Some things that we can kind of discard that we are no longer using. Um, paint jobs. We did just hire a school leader. He is uh creating sort of like an inventory of the things that we can do over the summer. I think you know that a lot of our time is going to be focused on the renovation of the auditorium but there are
014other things that we can do. So we are looking at projects that we will include over the summer. Some of them will be painting some of them will be patchwork of walls and things like that because uh according to him he wants to make the building shine and I agree 100%. So is that allotting maybe some overtime to individuals that could work to do that to make it and sometimes you are correct in stating that sometimes it's just a paycheck. Something's as simple as that that uh something might be in disrepair in a classroom that we are no longer utilizing that we don't have to have in place. So, we are looking at creating an inventory of things that we're going to do over the summer uh and getting that plan uh implemented over the
015next like two or three months, especially in July 11. Thank you. With the summer, is still running their programs as well? They are. So, Michelle Craig is still a big person that looks into things conversation that we can have coordinate and we we are looking at that as well. NYO has been very good in terms of providing that extra support over the summer for our kids uh at you know at a reasonable cost. So we are looking at partnering with outside agencies to bring in that support as well in any way that we can because we do acknowledge that summer is a really interesting time where you can reach some you know sort of like stagnation with students. I mean, we know that our parents are very active. They're doing things at home, but if
016we can incorporate things in the building, that that would be helpful as well. We we realize that. I think also just I have children in the elementary, so just talking to parents um they often look for things over the summer um and often go to tutors or so I think having something in districts to offer many families and it would be something that would benefit us. Yeah, I agree with you. I know when my older kids are younger, I signed up for the scope program that has a lot of great enrichment programs and we do have some MI over the summer although I think could be more robust and of course there's the um the library programs that we've always been a big supporter of, but I think that there could be more. I would
017love to see like a packet of like resources of like here's some great opportunities in the area. perhaps some um curriculum or some um educational apps that could be um helpful, but I know it's like we don't always have the resources or the financial resources to provide parents. Um so I would love to like hear now that we have like a new um superintendent of curriculum. We're really excited to get to know you and learn more about how you can help us come up with ideas to support parents um that may be low cost um to help close those learning gaps and to help support parents um with that learning for the summer. that not to draw you on this project, but we Any other questions, items? Next board of education meeting is going to
018be on Tuesday, June 17th. uh acting at approximately 7 p.m. in the high school library and the reorganization meeting is Wednesday July Wednesday July 2. back into Yeah, we're going to go back into executive session, but um no executive session. Good night everyone. Have a good night. Thanks everyone. Good again.