001Testing. Testing. All right, we're going to get started here. Um, welcome to our February 12th board of education meeting. Can we please rise for the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nationice for all. >> All right, we're going to start with introductions. Can we start on this end and introduce yourself to the lovely crowd there? >> Good evening. Scott Ashin, assistant superintendent for human resources. >> Good evening. Kelly Nevin, assistant superintendent for business operations. >> Dana Schultz, board trustee. >> Bill Hender, board trustee. >> Dr. Cox, superintendent of schools. Gus Suber, board of vid president. >> Sue Harmer, board of vice president. >> Nicole Goldstein, board trustee. Tim Russo, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. >> Debbie Verga, district clerk.
002>> Kyla Gubber, student exeicio. >> All right. So, welcome everybody. Um, we're going to start with our administrative report. I'm going to turn over to Dr. Cox. >> Sounds good. Welcome everybody to our February 12th uh 2026 board of education meeting. Couple of agenda items that we have this evening. First, we have a couple of community updates that Mr. Russo is just going to share with the community. Um, next we have a update on our smart schools bond public hearing. Our wonderful Kyla is here to give us an update on uh her student report. And then the last piece is something that I'm going to share with the community. It's sort of an update on the governor's aid proposal and how that impacts COMAC and a little bit about the process from when the governor
003releases her state aid runs in January until April 1st when she has to adopt a budget. So, I wanted to provide the community and the board just a little bit of a timeline of what that looks like and what takes place in between. So, at this point in time, I'm going to pass the baton to Mr. Russo to give us a quick update. >> Thank you, Dr. Cox. Good evening, everybody. Uh, just two quick updates. really two things um that we're really excited for. First off, our multicultural festival um this year at March 7th uh from 12:00 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Comarmac Middle School as we speak. Our adviserss and our um students are are planning a great day once again. Um really a wonderful wonderful community event over the last couple years. It
004just continues to grow. So, we really hope to see as many people out there as possible. Like I said, it's just a great day to celebrate all the different things that go on in our buildings um and the different uh cultures and traditions within our district. So, looking forward to seeing everybody there. And then the next thing is if we can save the date for our CMAX summer programs, our cougar camp, our discovery camp, and our music programs. Uh once again, we'll be we'll be running those summer programs. We're excited to uh uh as we start talking now about planning for it and all the different activities we'll have and looking forward to again having um some more information out about that shortly to get the opportunity to have our families register and and be
005part of the fund this summer. So looking forward to all of that. >> Thank you, Mr. Russo. At this point in time, we have an update on our smart schools bond public hearing. Dr. Informer. >> Thank you, Dr. Cox. Um, I'll split this tonight with Miss Poleium. Uh, there's two parts. First, we'll talk a little bit about the process and where we are with our latest smart schools plan, and then Miss Poleium will have the opportunity to share all the shiny things that we'll be using those funds for. Um, so my role is really just talking about the process, right? So, we've started this a couple of months ago. Um New York State outlines a specific uh set of activities that have to happen so that we can put forward a plan to SED for
006approval. So we've had our stakeholder input meeting. We put up um or rather we put together a preliminary prelim preliminary plan. Um we came to the board last month. We presented that plan. We opened the 30-day comment period last month as well. Tonight is when we have our public hearing which is at the end of that 30-day comment period. For anybody who wants to provide any comments, they certainly can before the board um takes a look at the final plan in which we anticipate approval um so that we can send it to the state at the March board meeting. So that's where we are in the process. Um you know, we're very close to the end there. We got two more steps left and I'll pass over to Miss Pium to share what we plan
007on purchasing with this plan. >> Okay, everyone. So, as a reminder, uh this process is being split into two plans. one uh mostly because uh instructional technology and what you purchase for instructional technology does not have to be be reviewed by the office of facilities. So while these plans will go up simultaneously, they are in two parts and we hope that our instructional technology portion of the plan will get a quicker approval. Within that plan is our um ability to replace the remaining interactive flat panel boards in the district. We will be taking down the remaining projector smartboards or older model smartboards and replacing the remaining uh classrooms with interactive flat panel boards. We will also be adding in the portable boards that we've spoken about. And we are going to be adding wireless um
008into the auditoriums in both the middle school and the high school to make sure that those can be um uh instructional spaces for both of those areas. Um we are also going to be updating one of our art labs. The gaming den in particular is going to be updated within uh this smart schools plan. And then in the school connectivity plan which is the separate plan we are going to be updating our firewall and that is where the wireless will come through. So again that is what is incorporated in both of those plans and any questions or comments can be done during the comment period. >> Thank you Miss Pium. I'm going to ask if you can share the clicker with Kyla so she can provide the community and the board her update. >> Hi
009everyone. So recently I was able to visit Wood Park which is my final primary school and all the primary school students across all four of them really were so excited to tell me about the things they loved at their school. A lot of kids obviously, like I said at the last three, love their art classes, love getting to spend time making new friends in primary school, all the things that they're learning and just the experience they have overall. At Wood Park specifically, they were really excited to be able to show me their gym, which every after every new year, they change up the scenery of their gym, and they have so many different stations of activities that they're super excited to participate in. and I got to visit right after the new year. So, they
010were all super excited and it was super new to them and they really really loved that and all want more pee time in that super fun gym. Um, something interesting that Wood Park has is they have the 200 club and basically the 200 club I found to be very interesting, especially because the kids really did love it. Um, in their hallway they have a 200 club like poster board and there's a bunch of circles and spaces for the kids to write their names. And the way they get to write their names is by any teacher or building like um anyone who works in the building basically that sees them demonstrating positive um like kindness or any of the comarmac champion traits. They get a little 200 club ticket and then they get to pick a
011number one to 200 and write their name on this board and then when either a row or column gets filled up, they get a prize which is something either like a toy or extra recess time and they really love it and it keeps everyone positive and demonstrating these traits. um at Wood Park. They also were excited to tell me about their Wood Park weekly, which is their news channel, and the second grade students can give updates to the school, which is a great leadership opportunity for these young students. At the other primary schools, um there's been a lot going on as usual. They all took part in literacy activities. So, at Indian Hollow, they had literacy week where all week they had a mystery themed literacy initiative. They had a scholastic book fair. They also
012had a children's author come to the school. And one of the mornings, kindergarten students were able to come in early and read books together. Um, at Northridge, the first grade students participated in stuffies and stories, and they all got a book and a stuffy, and all the primary students at my visits told me about how they love stuffies, and the teachers are including it for them. At Rolling Hills, they had literacy night where the students were able to come back to the school in their pajamas. They had crafts and a schoolwide readaloud. So, all these schools were really incorporating the literacy and reading and the kids had a great time. At the intermediate schools, they also did incorporate literacy as well as many different events and activities going on. At Sawmill, they had their winter
013reading initiative, which they have every year. They had mystery readers which were their teachers and at the end of the school day all the students got together for a schoolwide readaloud at Sawmill. They also were participating in the first in math challenge thanks to Dr. Fennessy. They're very very thankful and they really do love this initiative. They're super excited to be a part of it and it's great cuz it's math. Um at Burr they had the chill out and read and this took place at the end of their school day. They all got together and were able to read as a school. They also started their burbucks initiative which is where students that demonstrate the com champion traits will get a burbuk and then they can trade them in for different prizes at their school
014and it keeps them demonstrating the traits. At Comarmac Middle School, they always have a lot going on and in February so far they've had their student government carnival. The student government carnival is for all the community to come. The students, they have a bunch of food, games, prizes, and the student government students really do put in a lot of time and effort into making this event great for all the students to come enjoy. So, it's something they work really hard for, and they had a very successful event. They're also having eighth grade curriculum fairs which they had. Um, and the eighth grade students were able to meet with COMAC high school students to learn more about electives and courses that we have at the high school so they could like solidify what they want in
015their schedules next year and also learn more about what they're getting themselves into. We also had the peer leadership students, which is a club at the high school, go down to the middle school and talk to these eighth graders again about different more of the fun things going on like all of our spirit weeks, our events, again, our classes, and they were able to ask more personal one-on-one questions. And lastly, for the middle school, more high school students going to the middle school. They had STEM night at the middle school where this high school students held this event for fourth grade to eighth grade students. There were plenty of activities. I know that they had fingerprint forensics and 3D printing and the students really loved it and they enjoyed it and it was a great
016experience for both high schoolers and the younger kids at the high school. We're currently celebrating building confidence week which is also this year known as acceptance week. every day is focusing on accepting a different um like type of thing to bring awareness to. Today the students all wore blue for disability awareness and acceptance. So every day this week students have been wearing different colors. Teachers have been mentioning things. There's activities going on in the cafeteria to build confidence and bring awareness. We also had the play at the high school which this year was Mean Girls. It was a great play. Hopefully everyone got to see it. And the students, both acting in the play, the musicians, the stage crew, all the staff that put their effort into this play really did dedicate their mornings, their
017nights, their school days, a bunch of time into it, and they did a really great job. So, yeah, I hope everyone got to see it, but it was really great. And lastly, over at the high school, we had um our Wilson Techch culinary students. They were able to actually take what they're learning and bring it to our school. And they cooked lunch for over 800 students. Staff got to enjoy it as well. They made chicken teriyak and they had tofu options for those who don't eat chicken. And they also made a brownie jubilee. And everyone said their cooking was amazing. And it's really great because they're getting to take what they're learning in Wilson Tech and bring it to real life. Thank you. >> Amazing. Thank you so much, Kyla. I think next month we
018will be highlighting Burr. Um, and we had just that visit the other day. I'm sure many of you have seen it on social media, and it was just chalk full of information. So, we look forward to you sharing that out next month. And of course, at this time, Kylie, you're free to stay, but you're also free to leave, >> right? Yes, >> all right. Thank you everybody. So, this is an opportunity to share a little bit about uh the governor's state aid proposal um and how that impacts um comarmac for the 2627 school year. So, although the governor releases how her first uh release of the school aid runs in mid January, our budget starts pretty much as soon as we pass the budget in in May. we start right back into budget season again.
019So, couple things here. At f at first, the release of the state aid runs happen in mid January and then in early March, the legislature produces their budget proposals and then by April 1st, the governor releases her final budget. I wanted to take an opportunity to talk to you about some of the factors that impact uh state aid because when you take a look at this slide you will see that over the last couple years the percentage of state aid that com has received has declined. So at one point it was 3.71% in 2425 you'll see that it went down to 2.92% and this for this year going into next year we received an allocation increase of 1% which was a little bit shocking. So um I want to talk about some of the things
020um that ma that the major impacts of how this has sort of changed over the years because the governor has taken a look at the uh state aid formula and she has placed an emphasis on certain items which have impacted um what com receives. So the first one that I want to talk about is something that's called combined wealth ratio. This is something that every school community receives. Now the state looks at a baseline at 1.0 0 and as you can see above that anything above 1.0 the state considers wealthy. So when you look at the combined wealth ratio for comarmac you can see how it's pretty much stayed across the board above 1.0 and it got bumped up to 1.183. Now what plays into this is things like income taxes, home sales. So as
021those go up the state looks at this and the state produces this number. They produce it for every school community. Now, there are a majority of the communities on Long Island who have a combined wealth ratio above the 1%. So, when we talk about um combined wealth ratio and we look at if I go back to this slide where there was a 1% I will share with you that we're not alone in this. Okay? So, there's probably close to 80% of the schools this year that received only a 1% increase in foundation aid. The other piece that plays a factor into the formula is enrollment. So as you can see in this slide, this shows the numbers, but in the next slide, you can see a little bit about the enrollment trend here in comarmac.
022So you can see back in 2015, uh even before that it started to decline. There's no, you know, there's no secret that at one point had two high schools, two middle schools. Um that was a long time ago. Enrollment has gone down. It continued to go go down. But you can see that even in 24, 25, 26, and 25 there was a little bit of a bump. And for the most part, it's starting to really level off. As a matter of fact, when we look at incoming kindergarten this year registrance so far, we usually see incoming classes that are under 400. We're looking at close to, if not over 400 students entering kindergarten, which is actually an increase that we've seen over the past couple of years. So you have definitely uh seen it level
023off but it has certainly it has certainly declined over the years. So the governor has you know put together um this timeline but I want to talk a little bit about this because now's the time that we advocate. So, I have spent some time I have met with some of our local legislators or senators um and Senator Matro recently submitted a letter to the governor and he is advocating for this region uh to see an increase in that 1%. What typically takes place is that the governor produces her state aid proposals in January. The assembly and the senate submit their proposals and then negotiations takes place and we are looking to hopefully see that 1% go up. But I wanted to uh share that wi with you. And you can see the the decline in
024the uh foundation aid over the years. But I want to talk even more so about building the 2627 budget. Regardless of those state aid proposals, there are certain non-negotiables here in CMAC. Though the governor um has decreased the amount of foundation aid over the years for COMAC, we are continuing to commit to protecting our elementary class sizes. So you will see we have a budget workshop and I'm going to share that timeline with you in a little bit. Um where in March we're going to do have our first budget workshop and we'll talk a little bit about those elementary class sizes and maintaining them and keeping them well below the do not exceed as well as preserving secondary opportunities. We have spent a tremendous amount of time creating opportunities and access for all students in
025com. everything from our students with special needs all the way through to some of our students that need to be challenged and as well as the students in between. So preserving those secondary opportunities, things such as enri en enrichment, access to courses, those are something that we're truly proud of. So we're going to continue to maintain these. I just wanted to present a timeline for what's coming up. So on March 12th, we'll present our first budget workshop. We will present the tax cap levy increase um to the community. We will also present on how we're going to maintain and enhance our instructional programs. The second B uh budget workshop is going to focus on facilities such as capital projects update on the 2019 bond work. We do a tremendous amount of work in-house which leads
026to a tremendous cost savings because we have a a very talented crew inhouse that's able to take care of the lot of projects whereas most stu uh school districts will go out to have those done. We're also going to present on some of our security uh enhancements that we're looking to implement in uh the 2026-27 school year and as well as some innovation and technology that we've done this year that we're going to look to continue to build upon and um and maintain in the uh 2627 budget. And of course on April 16th uh we have our budget adoption. Uh we'll be presenting basically the numbers an overview of the budget that leads to our May 7th budget hearing. then ultimately we have our vote on May 19th. So again, I just wanted to take
027this opportunity to share with you some of the trends. Um but again, although the governor releases her state aid proposals in January, now is the time to advocate. I do know that the assembly and the senate across the state, um we're like I said, we're not alone with the 1% uh increase. So they're going to be fighting for that to go up and uh we look forward to seeing some of the results of that advocacy. um in the next in the next few weeks and months. And at this point, that brings us to the conclusion of our administrative report, and I open it up to any questions from the board of education. >> Questions? All right. Thank you. >> Yep. And so March again is our budget workshop number one. Thank you folks. All right.
028At this point, we're going to move into our public participation. So, I need to uh have our statement read by Good evening everyone and welcome. We're so glad you're here with us tonight. Your voice matters and we truly appreciate your involvement and interest in our schools. There are two opportunities for public comment during this meeting. The first is for comments related to items listed on tonight's agenda. The second, which takes place at the end of the meeting, is for comments on any general school district matters. If you'd like to speak on an agenda item, please take a white card. If you'd like to speak during general public participation, please take a green card. The district clerk will call speakers by number. When it's your turn, please come to the microphone, say your name, and let
029us know if you're a resident of the district. Each speaker has up to three minutes to speak, and we'll kindly notify you when your time is up. Please direct your comments to the board only. These public comment times are for listening and gathering feedback. We won't be responding in real time, but if a question is raised that requires follow-up, we'll be sure to get back to you afterward. To maintain a respectful and welcoming environment, please avoid discussing individual students or making personal remarks, positive or negative, about specific staff members. Lastly, we want to make sure everyone feels heard. So, we ask that comments remain respectful, focused, and not repetitive or disruptive. Thank you again for being here tonight and for your ongoing support of our students and our schools. >> Thank you. >> Okay, this
030is it for anyone that has a white card. White card number one. Okay, no one has a white card. Okay. >> All right. So, we're going to move on with the agenda. Uh at this point, I'd like to acknowledge uh correspondence uh as listed. I would like to have a motion to approve the minutes from the December 18th uh board of education meeting. Can I get a motion? >> Motion. >> Can I get a second? >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I'd like to get a motion to approve the personnel agenda. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I. >> All right. I think we have a special announcement here. >> Yes. So, we have someone in the audience who we're recognizing tonight who is moving on to the next chapter
031of their life and that is Mrs. Tenredi who is retiring at the end of this year after 20 plus years of service as the principal of Sawmill. And we just wanted to acknowledge and say thank you and we're so grateful for all of your service, Miss Encredy. And I'm so glad that you're here tonight. And uh we wish you the absolute best. But the journey is not over. There's still plenty of months left in school. Um, but we just wanted to say thank you for all your years of service. It's much appreciated. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, at this point, I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented andor amended. Can I get a motion? >> Second. >> All those in favor? Hi. >> Hi. >> I'd
032like to acknowledge the statement of professional services from Bon Shonikin King for the month ending December 31st, 2025 in the amount of $19,576.40. Acknowledge the receipt uh for the December financial reports as listed. Acknowledge receipt of the internal uh claim auditor's monthly update. Acknowledge the CSSE and the CPSSE recommendation as dates listed. and the board of education of the com Free School District shall hold its regular meeting on Thursday, March 12th, 2026 at 6 PM at the Hubs Administration building, 480 Clay Pits Road, East Northport, New York. It's anticipated that the board will make a motion for the purpose of adjourning into executive session at this time. And at 7 p.m., the board will reconvene in public session for the purpose of holding its regular business meeting. Uh immediately following that meeting uh will be
033the board or the board will be holding its first budget workshop number one. Uh the board of education at the comfree school district shall hold its budget workshop number two on March 26 2026 at 7 p.m. at the hubs administration building. And at this point we're going to open up an opportunity for a second public participation. >> Okay. This is for the green card. If anyone has green card number one, green card number two, anyone with a green card? Okay. >> Okay. Before we I make a motion to adjurnn, I'd like to just recognize Frank Palpole and his crew. Uh we had a quite a storm, I believe, if you might remember it. Um, even driving in today, uh, you look at how much snow there really was like in your own communities and and
034every one of these buildings and that was a lot of work and I just wanted to thank you and and maybe on behalf of the board extend our thanks to the to the crews out there. Uh, it was cold, it was deep, it was uh, not easy. So, I I appreciate all the efforts and uh, we all do. So, thank you so much. Yeah, please pass that on. And at this point, I'd like to make an a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting. Can I get a motion? motion and >> oh a motion to uh >> oh >> motion to uh exit the meeting and go into executive session. >> Correct. Motion second. >> All those in favor? I >> All right. So, thank you all.