001good evening everyone and Welcome to our Valentine's edition of the Board of Education in Chester if everyone would please rise for the pledge iedge aliance to the flag of the United States States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay we'll need a motion to adopt tonight's agenda I'll make that motion I'll second all in favor I uh and we will need a motion to approve the board meeting minutes from our January 24th meeting I make that motion are there any corrections or anything to note on the minutes all in favor I okay motions carried so that will lead us right into our presentations um we'll start with Miss bch in your lovely red for Valentine's Day good evening everybody good
002evening thank you for having me here Board of Education superintendent O'Hara um I'd like to start with um a few updates of things that have gone on over the months of January and February since I saw you last uh in January we had the first concert of the 2324 school year uh the CES Winter concert was held at CES and approximately 330 people attended the event um it was such a great turnout for CES fourth and fifth grade student families the concert featured the fifth grade band The CES jazz band which is an audition based band uh and the fourth and fifth grade choir Mr Sparkman is such an inspiration to these kids as well as to community members with the parent teacher conference band which accompanied the fifth grade band and the choir with
003a couple songs next month is music in our school's month and we're looking forward to the Frozen kids production put on by Mrs scall on March 20th uh there will also be two performances at the Academy that evening and then the that day there will be uh a field trip for students in at CES to come to the academy to see the performance during during the day so there'll be two viewings that day as well which is great um and the kids are very well prepared already and I can't believe they have a month left to continue preparing um they did perform at the gallery of Mall this past weekend and I attended and they did such an amazing job so I can only imagine how well they're going to be prepared for the March
004performance looking forward to it um we had our second I ready diagnostic assessments they are complete um and some general results I'd like to share with you all um in Reading students on or above grade level has increased from 27% to 47% since the fall so that's a 20% increase in on or above grade level students um student students W grade level below so approaching grade level uh decrease from 55 to 43% and that's what we want we want to see a decrease there because kids are coming out of that category and moving into the um onor above and students two or more grade levels below has decreased from 19% to 10% so again we want another decrease there so we're all moving in the right direction and reading in math um again results moving
005all in the right direction just the numbers are a little different stud students on or above grade level has increased from 8% to 25% since the fall so that's a nice increase students one grade level below decreased from 64% to 62% that decrease is not as much um as in the reading results however there's more movement on both sides and that's the result there's more Mo kids moving out of the two grade levels below and more students moving out of the yellow into the Green in math so that's good uh students two or more grade levels below has decreased from 28% to 133% so that's a much better number there uh teachers use their individual classroom data to develop and Target specific student needs uh the parent reports are being sent home with report cards
006tomorrow um an update on our Green Team nextrex Challenge the green team did another weigh in in January and uh we are up to 311 pounds of plastic which has us right on track to meet the 1,000 lb goal for November um that that's if we continue to collect the same amount of plastic on a monthly basis uh so we are shouting from the rooftops um please keep sending we did have a large haul in January but that was coming off the holidays um so we are sending out reminders and continuing to remind everybody that every day you can send in the plastic film or wrap uh for our next track challenge I do feel like we are going to meet our goal um but there is a lot of publicly highlighting it in order
007to get there which is good uh PBIS last month we reported that the December theme of safe chip uh earning had considerably less students earning the extra recess than our September and October and November um and I discussed at our last meeting um so we challenged the students as I told you we would uh for the same theme for the month of January and they outdid their previous number by 33 more students so that was a nice increase uh they really Rose to the challenge um and you know they did the work so the theme for the month of February is respectful and our next assembly is March 1st um PTA and sepsa the PTA hosted a special someone dance on February 9th and it was a very successful and fun event there were approximately
008300 people that attended which is a great turnout the sepsa also hosted a successful com room in the maker space during the dance as well the SE visited CES on February 8th and hosted a hydration station in the Teachers Lounge they had colorful reusable cups stickers and flavors for water for all the staff everyone has been scorting their cups around the school with their chosen stickers uh the PTA also honored c c staff today for Valentine's Day they provided staff with lunch and the theme was every Pizza me loves every Pizza you and they served pizza and salad and treats um and it was for all staff to enjoy and everybody got a nice special lunch today um and I would just like to say uh to the PTA and sepsa thank you on behalf
009of all the CES staff uh we appreciate all they do next Dei committee work um lastly uh we are going to share and I have somebody with me to help um some of the work that our CES Dei committee is working on and our future plans so I'm going to introduce uh Rebecca Davis she's one of our school psychologists she's shared psychologist between uh CES and the academy um the other committee members on our on our um Dei committee include Mel westenberg who's a AIS reading teacher cam sinku who's a fourth grade teacher Emily dck who's our visual arts teacher Doren Baptist the school culture and student Behavior support specialist and Alyssa Florentino who is the first grade teacher um and I'm going to turn it over to Becca yes welcome thank you for joining
010us thank you thank you for having me um I'll review the committee objectives as well as the most recent Multicultural spirit week that the committee planned so the committee objectives that were collaborated on at the beginning of the year include uh examining challenges facing our students examining disciplinary trends and how to proactively address these examining issues involving diversity equity and inclusion uh identifying professional development opportunities in regards to cultur culturally responsive teaching and how we can measure how we're doing Within These objective areas um this year we worked on planning the Multicultural spirit week which included um on Miss fly here so Monday was rep your Flag Day a fan favorite also at the Academy um Tuesday's day which will be rescheduled to the Monday after break uh was the black history month colors day
011which are red green yellow and black uh our flyer also included information about what these different colors represent today's was love is universal where pink and red for Valentine's Day uh tomorrow we're going to have Unity day which is where we wear our school colors or our Chester Spirit Gear and then Friday before break will be the Multicultural Show and Tell uh which was pretty popular last year we also had this day last year where students can bring in an item or a fact related to their culture and share it with their classmates and Chester staff um our committee also discussed how we plan to expand on these opportunities throughout the year next year um and we also plan to include a multicultural family night at CES and to move our cultural recognition events outside
012of spirit weeks um aside of and especially during February which of course is back History Month um we always strive to look at our different Spirit weeks whether it's this one or other Spirit weeks throughout the year to make them all inclusive um as you recognize that our student body is very diverse and celebrate different holidays and Customs as an example our December Spirit Week included a dress for your favorite holiday day dump back in um two of our committee members also got their classes together on a collaboration Where Mrs sinki fourth grade class wrote a poem about how they can change the world and Mrs florentino's first grade class Illustrated each line and I also want to give a special shout out to Mrs Randy and miss raldi the new uh steam Aid uh
013she they supported the production in the maker space that you are about to see we have a voice to change the world I have a voice to stand up for [Music] [Applause] [Music] myself I a voice spread [Music] kindness I have a voice to World holder [Music] [Applause] I have a voice to clean up the oceans and the [Music] lands I'm a voice to sa The Naked [Music] Animals I love ways to stop braing them I have a voice to respect all [Music] people I have a voice to stop a in order to stop [Music] War I have a voice to stop bullying [Music] [Applause] I have a voice to [Music] forgive I have a voice to create peace through [Music] calmness I have a voice to love myself [Music] i' work to use positive
014[Music] S I have a voice to encourage perseverance we are to change the world they did an excellent job um they sure did and uh you know um some of the discussions that we have when we are with our Dei committee um we meet monthly and we're acting as a focused group and we're sharing resources and ideas uh we participate in various professional developments this includes registering and participating in the uwd R which is the United Way of the duchess orange region um MLK Equity challenge where we each receive daily emails with something to read something to watch and something to listen to in reference to inequalities that people endure for various reasons including race gender religion identity and more uh the group is also looking at what we currently do both in practice and
015celebration of culture and thinking about the future of CES and how we can incorporate Dei into our school Community throughout this entire school year we are also aware and expanding our scope and lens to also be considering our special education population in regards to Dei we're looking forward to professional development for our staff and regards to recognizing implicit bias and how we can truly be culturally responsive in our teaching and learning every day so some of what we're doing now is going to impact the professional development that's planned for the coming and that's it I have any questions good stuff does anyone have any questions um well I I thought that was fabulous um that presentation that the students put together so um please pass that along um but it's it's nice to see that
016there is right now effort being put in to development of the Dei program and that will just become who we are it won't have to be program specific it won't be something that is looked at as a a special event it's something that we we just do um and we do we already do that but it is something that many um students especially the youngest ones don't necessarily have they wouldn't have had an opportunity to cross paths with others who might be a little different or celebrate a holiday a little differently or eat different foods so this is just a way to give that platform to all of the students to experience so well done thank you uh Mr Flanigan is unable to join join us tonight Mr agula good evening everyone I was really
017really excited to come up here because I I knew Mr Flanigan was not going to come up and uh he was unable to come up so I was going to try and steal a minute or two of his time but following uh Miss po and what team CES does that was amazing it really was uh got me choked up uh it's just beautiful to see um this evening I have my report uh again I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize I was unable to attend last month's report due to a a small misstep that I had um I I shared with you the our uh second quarter marking period uh results uh academically for our Student Activities and then um again as I'm always PR uh proud here to stay in front of you
018about our kids our hambos helping hambos uh there are several examples here in the past month alone that uh again uh and plus saying what we just saw uh I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize uh these young people uh first of all u i I'd like to recognize our students who are involved in our peer tutoring um these are the young people who give up their time they are the people they are the best of the best academically at this time who are involved in athletics in activities in student clubs they give up their time after school to help their fellow hambos um it's just amazing uh uh we have planned uh a podcast unfortunately yesterday put us behind today but uh I'd like to have that podcast for you so you can
019listen in um and also of course use our maker space a huge thank you to Alma Asis David train Alex tager Z ohen Zoe Arnette Sage Johnson Ariana AR Angelina scagnelli Faith villinova Teddy a cacella Ava stovi Rook Bato Ariana dhy and Sydney cravitz these young people giving up their valuable time after school to meet with our kids to give them assistance um if there's anyone out there who still would like to help us uh guidance is always looking for more people but again uh that's that's a hambo high five uh for for these young people giving up their time another great story um Miss SC as as you know as it was posted by uh Miss Garcia over the weekend Miss SC shared with me many Chester Academy students have been helping me with
020young actors from CES with we with weekend rehearsals for Frozen Frozen kids along with help painting on the weekend uh this past Friday evening and over the Friday break students signed up to assist with seating organizations costumes and even St two students took on their NHS senior project with Miss SC to organize plan rehears no easy task but once again our kids you know raising uh the bar um really stepping in but helping CES and which is something that we've always been U Pride uh taken Pride for uh again Michael Miller kayy kerans uh Elizabeth Doyle Juan Aguilar Ona CO's yamet Lopez Cortez Amman Curtis Lenny Lenny Quinto um GI Garcia Michaela Jeffers Charlotte new house and Jonah Bowman uh again uh just amazing and as you know uh that program that Miss scall runs
021here for the district is just amazing so with our kids jumping in and helping just makes it a little bit easier here here's another great story um senior Donovan Mooney was coming back from his senior lunch noticed one of our middle school students waiting for a parent he was waiting for his parent on the side of the school which usually doesn't happen usually happens in front of the school Donovan who came back saw what was going on and went up to the young man and asked him if he was okay uh the young man said yes he was and Don said that's great um he goes I'm going to wait here with you um he Donovan waited for several minutes with the young man until the parent came picked him up Ju Just again that
022was very organic of of Donovan to waight and that's what Chester is as as you all know and then on a personal note a personal thank you to Jack moate and Zoe ornette uh they are my hambos helping hambos I had taken a misstep during school both students were there to to assist me but when I returned uh they also checked on me and make sure that everything was okay and then I was okay so I just wanted to thank them personally uh again um some things that are going on I just wanted to say with Miss uh Amani Curtis uh her and I have been working together uh we talked about promoting our Student Activities so we're looking at the cafeteria and through her efforts as it's been led by by ammani uh we've
023gotten the word out uh in the cafeteria and outside the cafeteria we were able to reproduce um literature about each Club um amman's also also uh with her assistants helped gather a couple of the clubs and they did a a a presentation uh of of tables of various clubs last week for two days and then we have another idea that she'd like to have a guest spot a guest speaker during middle school and sixth grade lunches from various clubs so ammani you know again thank you for doing that in spearheading that um so that that's one thing again hambo's helping hambo's um you know just last week uh it was just something great to see we had some kids from CES who came to the boys basketball game on senior night uh it was fantastic
024to see um one of my kids from The Varsity Club je Bastion came up to me and asked me that we have anything for these kids and I said what are you talking about she goes well they're from CES do we have anything as we usually have things that we give away and sure sure enough every student that came from CES we were able to give them a little gift from us and I thank Gemma for thinking of that assisted by Stephanie Clark pH Niles and kayn Mos um we were talking about uh Multicultural spirit week uh so far this week we were able to have and recognize famous people in pop culture from around the world during lunch in another cahoot game and also famous designers uh also from uh uh from around the
025world uh the prizes students had the choice of either a themed food from various country or a dessert so I'm happy to see that students that have participated we've run this through all of our lunch periods not affecting instructional time um and then uh I had mentioned to you in my report before I was out that um working when we had our pep rally back in the winter and I I sent you the clip if if you want to view it uh Mr Rodman and his class that technology department how we integrated the robots uh in a robot race and uh I was able to come up with a clip just to show you briefly uh how well it was and something that we want to make sure that we move forward and see if
026we can get other uh various uh departments involved and when we do uh big events like this so if you have a quick moment I can call this up and just show you quickly so our robots are all the way to the right and for the first time we just asked the robots to go down and back and they were able to uh spin jump and run into each other but uh you know it was just great to see and and again that comes from the efforts uh and the support from this board Alone um as you could see our kids were amazing and uh again uh our seniors won the race and they'll get a pizza prize a pizza party prize from The Varsity Club uh from this event so again it it was
027great to see and uh you know again integrating technology in this event you know is just one example that uh amazing things that we're doing here at the Academy and that is it thank you thank you Mr any questions I'm sorry no does anyone have any questions um no questions but just um just wanted to express how wonderful it is to see The Continuous um collaboration between the academy and CES and you know um when I see the things of the students and C yes drawing a picture and then you know the students here in the home careers classes bringing those pictures to life and then you know hearing about the the students who are helping with the play it's so really it it I I don't think everyone realizes all the time how much
028the littles look up to the students in the academy you know the big kids um so they're they really are role models and you know we do appreciate the the time they put into to spending there so please pass that I will on will thank you very much all right Mr Brenan well it's time to open our public hearing on tax exemptions property tax exemptions for the Chester School District that it is and I have some handouts for the audience members who have come specifically for this never mind so I do want to go through the public hearing this is a requirement whenever exemptions are added subtracted or modified so we need to do a public hearing prior to get the input from the community prior to the board making action on any changes additions
029or subtractions so I want to go through what an exemption is which exemptions we have and want to look at specifically as well as changes that are required for the exemption code number in one case we changed a letter and that's all the change that was required to need to redo this from the from the start and also finally end with the measurement of income and we'll get to that when we get to that so first of all an exemption is the same from The District's point of view we will always collect whatever that tax warant is authorized by the board and by the community it's how that is divvied up among the taxpayers that exemptions plays a part in anybody who receives an exemption pays less real property tax than it would be on
030the property if there were no exemption and that additional funding is spread over the rest of the tax Bas now as a example the total of all of the exemptions that we're going to be talking if you talking about tonight if if you were to put them in one bundle it would be less than 1% of the tax um assessed value of the whole District so this is a really very tiny piece it's actually 7% or 7/10 of a percent of the total uh assessed value so it's not a huge amount but it is something that we can do to recognize people's age physical status and more importantly I think volunteer and service-based work throughout the community so the first the senior exemption for those over 65 years old I'm asking that the board look
031at the income levels and when you look from District to District around the county the level at which this is granted differs primarily on when they were approved by the boards of education so the earlier the approval the lower those limits are currently were at $24,000 for the maximum uh benefit so anybody with incomes of less than that we're asking the board to consider the income levels and maybe move that to the State Maximum which at 50,000 or below of income you would receive the maximum benefit or 50% and then that ratchets down all the way to a total income of 58,4 that is the the current State Maximum uh next year that may change again in the year after and certainly we can revisit this when that does happen a number of towns in
032the area have already moved to the max I think a lot of school districts will be having this exact same discussion this week and you'll see a lot of movement I know I shared with the board the status of exemptions throughout the county that is probably going to be vastly different come next month when the when they all get in there is another those with persons with disabilities and lower income it's similar to the senior discount unfortunately this one is available for those participants that are disabled but are less than 65 years old one major thing to point out here that if you do get the senior exemption you would not be eligible for this exemption and vice versa if you've got this exemption you would not be eligible ible for the other so the
033recommendation is to adopt this exemption at the same income levels as the senior exemption that way there's no sliding back and forth where the benefit is better in one than the other the veterans exemption the board passed this a number of years ago and we're currently I think in a very good place with the wartime combat zone disabled and all of the veteran exemptions are at I think at a good level and I would not suggest at this point in time any action by the board to alter that particular category of exemption next is the I think the impetus for why I expect a lot of districts to be having this discussion and that is the volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers exemption now in the presentation you'll see that I noted it's formerly 466 F
034and we are asking the board to consider an exemption under 466a so previously a through H were exemptions based on the size of the counties so f it just happens to be where Orange County fit in the category of 300,000 or so residents so each section of law covered one to three to four different counties depending on what the population within each County was the state has condensed them all into one the other change here is that the 466 a through H were limited to how much assessed value could be reduced this it was still the 10% but there was a cap on that 466a does not have a cap so the assessed value times the equalization rate does not produce a new cap but it is the same principal exemption and that would be
035something that has to be certified by each of the fire companies to the town's assessors in which they operate and then it's the Assessor's job to verify that they've met the criteria and to apply this exemption where it's appropriate in that we can choose a service range of between two and five years this recommendation that I've set forward is to adopt the lower end which most of the all of the districts that have put this in place prior to Chester have adopted the 10% 2-year standard which is what I would recommend for this board there are two additional pieces well three additional pieces excuse me options one two and three which makes this exemption a lifetime exemption for those that have given 20 years or more of service in the volunteer capacity within town the
036next extends that lifetime exemption to any unre remarried spouse that may be surviving the passing of that volunteer in which case they would have that exemption available to them as long as they remained in the home in the the district and still unremarried and the last would be to extend the tax exemption to any unremarried spouses with the same criteria of members that were killed in the line of duty with at least five years of service and my recommendation here would be to adopt the new 4 466a exemption as well as options 1 two and three for those members that are eligible so there are two other issues we which to talk about that are exemptions currently on this the books that the district has the option to opt out of and I would suggest
037in both cases that we do opt out because we really don't control how much of this exemption or how much property and property taxes might be Exempted from the creation of solar wind or other energy generating facilities in which case if you were to build a solar farm you would be in know in the realm of a pilot you would have to take 15 years to actually tax that property at its full value it would start to ramp up after the first year but very slowly so by the end of 15 years when the property has reached half its useful life is when we would start collecting the full tax on that property unless we opt out of this exemption the other is the business investment property this again is is a tiered pilot type
038schedule that people it's very easy to apply for and any construction in excess of $10,000 you can apply for this exemption it's similar to the Ida but without the Industrial Development agency's oversight or input it it's a one-sided application it's I shouldn't say this until the board acts but it's actually very quite easy to to apply for and to receive so my recommendation would be that we opt out of the 487 and 485b I know that we've gotten some mail from our state senator indicating the 485b status but again I would indicate that the board would opt out if if appropriate for those two exemptions and I've put together a little uh scorecard for all of you scoring at home home to see just what it is we're talking about here so we've got the
039senior to increase the income limits yes no or in modified yes but maybe not to the max we have the disabled adopt the exemption yes or no and again maybe not to the max I would suggest whatever we do on one we do on the other for income limits the volunteer fire we just talked about the four categories there just a simple yes or no and as far as not to the max we could require three years four years or five years of service before that kicks in but again that's a discussion of the board and the community and then the two opt outs now this is a public hearing we're not expecting any action from the board this evening we will have depending on the direction that I'm given I will bring resolutions to
040the board for the 28's meeting for Action at that point and then they be can be conveyed to the ass processors in real property so that they would actually become eligible starting with the March 1st um Assessor's year and again all of these are managed by the assessor so we don't really get into checking people's income or checking their housing Arrangements this is all done on the assessors level which brings us to the second point when this was first discussed with the board I was even unclear C on what this what the need for this piece of this presentation even was because we got notice that the legislation changed the way we would view income in the from the dawn of time income was measured by state law on certain criteria certain items would be
041added back certain would be deducted from your federal adjusted gross income to determine whether or not you met those income limitations well again with all due respect to the state of New York I don't understand this legislation but it is here I'm presenting it to you this evening and we now have five categories of income that we get to choose how they're how they're added subtracted or calculated what this means is that each individual taxing Authority a town a county a school district a fire station can all set different rules that's I I couldn't imagine that anybody would put something like this in writing pass it through two houses of budget and then two houses of the legislature and then sign it into law it doesn't make any sense but we own it so the
042recommendations are based on five categories taxable IRA distribu utions and I've put a note here because I reached out to each of the assessors who actually has to do this work hoping Beyond hope that everybody would have the same answer oh we're going to add this and oh we're going to no it was all over the board it was like figuring out shotgun pellets which one went which direction so I've given the board a little bit of a a taste of the three towns that are within our school district now with whatever this board chooses to Define as income it may differ from the Town of Chester it may differ from Monroe Woodberry who's also in the Town of Chester so I do not with this change in law I do not envy the assessor's
043office in any way because one application may need to be calculated three different ways and in which case the results may qualify you for a town exemption disqualify you from a school vice versa it's it's all over the place so the first is taxable IRA distributions this is a category on your 1040 that is one of the areas of income from wages taxable interest taxable dividends one of them is IRA distributions how it's taxed I would suggest that we actually do include it because it is a category of income it's a pretty good measure of what you're actually bringing into the household and again with the increased limits I think this would be the fairest way to calculate that particular piece Social Security benefits not in fagi federal adjusted gross income that one is interesting
044because as some of you may know a portion of Social Security benefits that the taxpayer receives are taxable and some portion are not taxable the theory is you've already paid your 7.65 for FICA and Social Security withholding so you've already paid a tax on a portion of it that's why a portion is not taxable we as an all knowing taxing Authority have the option to include that or exclude it um this point all three towns in the school district treated this the same way and in one possible case where we can show some consistency I'd like to take their lead and have the school district calculate it the same way as the others just simply for a consistent measure and the amount of non-t taxable Social Security I think maxes out at 24,500 so it's
045not a huge swing one way or the other so I would suggest that we do as as the others have done now there is an uninsured medical cost deduction again you'll see here that the towns differ Blooming Grove and Chester do not deduct this while Goan does um again a truer measure of income is income this is an expense I I'm not sure why they've carved out an expense from income as an accountant it kind of makes my eye twitch a little when you do that but it's a state maneuver that's often done it happened recently with the star exemption anybody who's gotten a new house at after 2015 realize you can't get a reduction in your taxes in your school tax bill anymore you have to get a check so that way it doesn't
046affect the New York state budget it's a negative Revenue again I twitching uh tax exempt interest in dividends if you were to buy Chester bonds for construction of something of this building for instance we are able to sell Bonds on the market less than the going rate because the people buying the bonds know that that interest is not taxable so this would add back that untaxable portion so if you've received a dividend or an interest payment from a school bond it's actually income you're you're getting that money in and you're not paying federal tax on it but I think it still should be considered income when you're looking to qualify or disqualify for an exemption loss limitation if you've got to farm a rental property a business limit we we're looking to put a limit
047on those losses so if you claim that you lost $50,000 on your business this year your federal adjusted gross income is 50,000 less this would actually limit that to 3,000 per schedule so if you had a schedule seed de and F you would see that 3,000 for each and you might have five or six Schedule C businesses this limits those losses that can be deducted from the AGI to $3,000 per schedule or 15,000 in total and as I've noted here Blooming Grove is consistent with those exact limits I'm not this time sure what Goan and Chester are going to do I know that their Chester is meeting this evening I didn't see this on their agenda but it's time its time is running out if it isn't they may be adding it at the last
048second as a as a hearing so that one I would suggest that the board adopts those limits and once again this is an income scorecard I've listed what the current law indicated what the current law does and you can make your selection whether to keep or change what the current processes so having said that and my uh I guess disdain for this new income calculation law was duly noted um I will certainly open it up for questions of the board questions of the community um if you want to just throw things at me that would be fine too no I don't want to throw anything at you because you know what I would rub my much rather be sitting at this table than a table in the assessor's office because oh yeah they really have
049the the tough work and um Orange County's real property did take their time out of their day their whole office to come last Friday and meet with all of the business officials from Orange County to discuss all of these because it's on everybody's agenda right now that 466a has to be done before next year I mean we have a little bit of room but not a whole lot right so it is a Hot Topic in this one of the suggestions they made is reach out to your assessors make sure that everybody's calculating the same way and nobody is um well thank you for breaking it all down and and making it very clear um and giving us the the work sheeet the template to to look at and you know it's an A or a
050B you know you have choices um so we will take a look at that and make some decisions but I I mean everything that you have outlined tonight certainly makes a lot of sense um in terms of of keeping Pace with what other districts are doing what other what the towns and municipalities are doing so thank you for for doing all that night work and most of this can be seen as winners and losers but I don't really think that's the case here I think that these exemptions the folks that will benefit the most from these exemptions are the ones that are most engaged in our community and as you said it's a very very small percent oh absolutely um so it's I I think it's a way of of thanking those in our community
051who give back where they live and I know that we had some representation at the last board meeting of our local Firehouse I'm sorry they couldn't be here tonight but I'm I'm sure they're stretched all over they're at every town every meeting that's happening it's say tonight and that's unfortunate sure uh does anyone have any questions or concerns for Mr Brennan tonight I just had one clarification and I just caught I noticed that the exemption for and I just want to make sure I understand clearly for the volunteer fire one of the choices was we can add if it's an unmarried spouse as long as un remarried un remarried yes that does not apply for the veterans correct no okay I just want to no totally different section of law okay anyone else thank Youk
052you thank you Mr brenon well thank you and at this time I would ask the board president if she would close our public hearing I would like to close our public hearing well thank you we'll we'll be back to visit this at our next meting on the 28th yes thank you very much um we'll pop over to Miss O'Hara what do you have for us tonight okay good evening everyone uh just a reminder this Friday February 16th is a half day due to scheduled parent teacher conferences and this is an improvement this year to extend to the Chester Academy for midyear conferences uh previously it's only taken place at Chester Elementary school so if you were not contacted by your child's teacher or the school um regarding Friday's conference you're always welcome to contact your
053child's teacher to schedule an alternate date to discuss your child's progress whether it's through phone uh a Google meet or iners uh conference days are not the only days that you have available to you to reach out to your child's teacher to discuss their progress and so as we um you know it's a it's a yearr round partnership and just wanted to express again to our families that if you're not participating on Friday you're welcome to contact your child's teachers to schedule a mutually convenient uh time to discuss your child's progress the 20 2425 school calendar is on the consent agenda this evening for the Board of Ed uh to consider following uh should the calendar be approved this evening we will share that on our district website and as mentioned earlier this week is
054Multicultural week and both at Chester acad Academy in Chester Elementary School today in celebration of Valentine's Day the theme was love is universal and so I would say it's important to acknowledge uh on this day and every day the collective efforts of our teacher staff Administration Board of Education parents families and community members because working in Partnership is truly at the heart of what we do which is everything centered around our students um I think our Chester Elementary School students uh in their presentations made it very clear that it's not only the achievements or our achievements that Define us but empathy understanding and support that's provided to one another so uh with that said we truly appreciate your partnership and we look forward to working together to impact positive change for our students nicely said
055thank you that's it that is it okay Miss lus do you have anything to add tonight just very briefly with um Mr Flanigan not here I just wanted to thank sepsa who did a hydration station here at the Academy as well so they were here on the 7th um and then at the elementary on the eth and um just as Miss bch noted um I see folks walking around with their hydration cups still and there was um a lot of positive feedback they felt very appreciated so thank you to sepa for their hard work put that together very nice thank you all right so now we'll go to the opposite end of the table Amari how are you uh good evening um I have a few things to talk about tonight um first um NHS
056members are brainstorming their senior projects um some are going to be working in nursing homes and some at blood drive some with the G Garden you know in the back so I think that's really cool to see and they're going to be working with the Juniors on that too um again with what Mr agular said with the future Club Outlook um we've been trying to help people get more informed with the clubs that we have um Memphis Bailey for example um has been um a great help for that um she came up with the idea for a club Fair during the lunch school lunch periods which is what we did last week uh students and their Club ADV advisers for their Club came out and gave information and hopefully this will help if not not
057this year hopefully next year to get some people to to join uh there's a lot of new updates with chorus um there's some very excited things upcoming uh the Chester Academy chorus and voice Ensemble won a grant of ,200 to have the Yale spiz winks and AC capellic group from Yale College perform this spring uh which they have done in the past um and the cast of Frozen um also won a grant of $900 to have Timothy huge who played um pby in the original Frozen on Broadway and strong man and the greatest showman um to conduct a work a workshop in March um and just last week I believe um Bobby wise came in um to miss G's class Sixth and fourth grade classes to talk about his father George David who wrote uh
058What a Wonderful World and the lion sleeps tonight um he brought an artifacts about his father and you know him working with leis Armstrong and other various musicians um uh recently back in January or the end of January uh chorus and band had four musicians perform at all County and they sounded great um and as mentioned earlier the Frozen kids performed at the Galler of mall and they were actually the first non- High School Ensemble invited to perform which I think is really cool and um yeah this week is our multiculture club SP at week um the snow day and stuff kind of mess us up halfway through but um we have seen people um participate today and on Monday and then we have the Black History Month assembly on Friday uh we've been struggling
059to get people to sign up for some of our activities but I think it just has to do again with getting people more informed and just doing our best cuz um every year it's been turning out good and it's been a little tradition So yeah thank you well thank you than you for bringing all of that to us um you have really been working so hard this year um showcasing and spotlighting all of the clubs and other extracurriculars that are available outside of sports so thank you for doing that and really elevating um the opportunities to the SE to the students so um thanks for doing that does anyone have any questions for Amari all right right well thank you does anyone else um I was derel I I skipped right over public comment so
060I'll apologize now um but we'll continue with round table uh is there anyone else who has anything for Round Table I do I have an update on the Orange County school board meeting that took place last Wednesday and was virtual uh the guest speaker for that meeting was Dan Higby from mid city transit who spoke about the shift to electric buses that is as of right now scheduled to take place in 2027 so 2026 is the last year that a district at this point can purchase a diesel bus and by 20135 all district fleets are required to be electric um we've SED on a few of these meetings over the course of the last year but this one I think was the most detailed and informative because it um included the perspective of districts and
061companies who have just started incorporating the electric buses over the last six months uh so now they're really getting a bigger picture of some of the challenges that are coming along with that transition um so Middletown at this time has shared that they've taken on four electric buses and they shared a lot of feedback with regard to the learning curve that has come along with that um everything from charging the buses to creating an infrastructure to host the buses um they're finding there's a lot of factors that despite some of these trainings they didn't really consider everything from charging off peak hours from 1:00 until 5:00 in the morning and then how do you offset that with uh increased maintenance cost to handle that so it was very informative um up to this point I
062was also under the impression that only those districts who owned their own buses would be required to have to provide the infrastructure and the charging um but it seems like every District regardless of whether you're small or large or contract with a third party bus company will have some responsibility in that so um how much yet we don't know there's still a lot of information and details that are coming um there was a very very detailed um overview that was just sent out by Orange k School Board yesterday so I'll make sure to forward that on along with the video um of the zoom feed it was it was really um very detailed and informative so you well thank you um yeah I agree it was very informative Dan did a great job um and
063unfortunately when you don't own your own buses it makes it e it adds another layer of complication because you don't necessarily have all of the information that your third party provider has in terms of what costs are looking like and there has to be a great deal of partnership between districts and the bus companies so we're better able to forecast going forward what that means to us in in terms of costs so more unknowns Mr Brennan I'm afraid sorry um but thank you for sharing that uh does anyone else have anything for round table tonight I just a reminder that our winter RAC winter recess is uh February 19th through the 23rd so that's next week um we're on break and uh our I ready assessments have come to a close and just to let
064families know those um reports have become available our District Administrative team has just met uh to review the data analytics of student performance midyear and March 22nd the halfday professional development on March 22nd is targeted specific to data analysis of not only I ready but other assessments uh such as midterms and regions and identifying areas where our students are performing well and Concepts or skills where uh we need to pay added attention to and and making targeted plans for the remainder of the year to support our student growth excellent all right um that will bring us to our consent agenda I'd like to make a motion to approve consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.14 second all in favor I any oppos okay that will carry that will lead us to our second public comment section
065and since there is no public in the audience we will assume there will be no comment um so that will lead us to adjournment like to make a motion to adjourn I'll second all in favor I I all right have good night everyone and thank