001All right, good evening everybody. Thank you so much for being here this evening. If I may ask you to take your seats. Well, actually you don't have to take your seats cuz we're going to call the meeting to order this evening at 6:38 p.m. and we're going to begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. Uh we are going to begin on I need my glasses. Sorry. Let's see. Do I have my glasses? Oh my goodness. Declan, turn down the um microphone. Yes, I'll make it bigger. Oh, there we go. I made it bigger. Uh okay, so um as many of you know, each month we like to start our meetings with some recognitions. Uh students, staff, faculty, community members that have gone above and beyond um and are uh making us proud. So, our first
002our first recognition of the evening is Odyssey the Odyssey of the Mind. >> [clears throat] >> Uh, we had several teams competing this two two Saturdays ago? Two Saturdays ago? Yes, two Saturdays ago. Um, the high school Odyssey of the Mind team took second place overall in their problem and in their division, which earned them a trophy and an invitation to the state tournament in Syracuse on March 21st. Uh, they were just shy of 30 Is it 33 points away from the top score in the Say again? Oh, 0.3. Excuse me, 0.3. I need my glasses. 0.33 points away from the top score in the spontaneous competition to place first. So, they had one of the top scores in spontaneous for the entire region. Um, and we're super proud of them. The elementary Odyssey of
003the Mind team Uh, excuse me, and I mean Odyssey of the Mind had three teams compete this year. Um, let's see. The team called Lost in Omerland took third place and will be advancing to the state tournament. Team Off the Rails placed fifth. And team Epic Quest placed eighth. I love those names, everybody. That is amazing. So, um, congratulations. Are there any Odyssey people in this in the audience or Odyssey parents? Um, congratulations. We're really proud of you. All right. Uh, up next we have mid-winter sports and sectionals. Uh, boys basketball finished with the best record in class C at 17-3 and uh, were co-division champs. Girls basketball made it to the class D semi-finals with a roster that was half eighth graders. So, a very young team. Very, very cool. Uh, bowling finished ninth
004out of 24 teams at sectionals. Awesome job. And then wrestling had six members make all whack teams. And is that mean all-star whack teams? Okay, all-star whack teams and sent two wrestlers to the state tournament. So, our winter sports have been on fire. So, we're really proud of you for that as well. All right. Oh. And then this was written last week that our upcoming event was going to be Once Upon a Mattress, but that has occurred already. So, I will mention that we had I don't remember the number the total number of students. Do you happen to know, Santino, how many students participate in that? Don't know the exact A lot. Um we had students on stage. We had students backstage. We had students in the pit orchestra. Um and I was going to
005encourage everyone to make sure that they didn't miss it. Um if you did miss it, I'm sad because it was really quite quite delightful. Um the whole thing. So, congratulations to all of those students. Um that is months worth of work uh for them to entertain us for a total of about 7 hours. Um and it was really really spectacular. So, that is that. I don't know how to move this over and make it big at the same time. All right, will try to help me. No, I don't know where they are. It's okay. It's okay. Oh my goodness. I'll just use yours. >> I'll take yours. >> All right, sounds good. Okay, next up uh we have the discussion of the board agenda and we do have um a change. We are striking item
006uh 13.02 um as it is as it is covered under item 13.08. So, just for your information, that be struck from our agenda. Um any comments or questions about our agenda this evening from the board? Okay. Um all right, and that is the only change, correct, Serena? Okay. Great. So, we'll start with our first resolution of agenda changes and approval. Uh be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education approves the agenda for the Excuse [clears throat] me, executive meeting and regular meeting um with budget hearing for this evening, March 10th, 2026. May I have a motion? >> I'll motion. >> Thank you, Francis. A second? Thank you, Tony. Comments or questions? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, next item. You know what I'm going to do?
007I'm going to take my contact out, and then I'm going to be able to see. That'll be great. Oh, that's much better. Okay. Uh next item is uh Board of Education minutes. Be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education approves the minutes of the executive meeting and regular meeting on February 3rd, 2026. May I have a motion? Thank you, Lisa. A second? >> Oop. >> Thank you, Michael. Comments or questions about last month's meeting minutes? All in favor? >> Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Next up, we have uh two presentations, student presentations. So, I will invite um the robotics club, and I believe Mr. Gauthier is here with them, but I'm guessing you're sending your kids up, too. So, thank you. >> You think you want to start? Or
008do you want me to start? >> I'll say start. >> Okay. So, um this is the robotics club's ninth year. Um we do First Robotics, which we'll explain what that is in a little bit. Um we were actually here today right up to the board meeting working on our robot because our competition's in 3 weeks, 4 weeks, something like that. Um so, we had pretty good turnout today. We had about 15 people after school today. So, it's pretty good. So, they're going to do a little presentation, talk to you about uh what we do and just a few pictures and Declan, you're up. >> All right. So, here's the next slide. All right. So, this is our team. We don't have everyone here today, but um I'm the president, Declan O'Connor. Uh we got Evan.
009He's our secretary. Um Andrew, who's also not here. And Connor's our other senior cuz Preston's not here, either. And then we have a lot of uh younger students, which we're really excited to see cuz we want to teach them all the cool things we do here. All right. So, build season. Evan, you want to talk about this one? >> Uh the build season typically lasts from early January to the late March or early April. The competition is later this year, so we have more time to design and build the program and the robot. Um the best the game is announced at the beginning of January, and then from there we build our robot. Uh we work with both electronic and automated systems, such as CAD and CNC, as well as uh manual tools like drills,
010saws, ratchets, and other hand tools. Um the building is essential to the STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math, and also incorporates teamwork skills. That one? right. >> So uh unless someone else wants to talk. Uh so the competition this year, it's 3 days. We get to skip school cuz uh it's during April. Uh after break, we get to compete against like 50 teams, some of them being international. There's like teams from Turkey and Brazil and China, but uh we kind of aren't as good as them, so don't tell everyone about that. Um yeah, so it's First Robotics. It's a big worldwide tournament, and uh we go to MVP Arena in Albany. I don't know. Schenectady? I don't remember where. Albany, okay. Uh so this year, there's like these yellow balls, probably like 500 of them,
011and you just The goal is to pick a bunch of them and shoot a bunch of them. Uh it's like it sounds like it should be more complicated than that, but it's really not. And uh it's pretty hard, and we're working on a robot that can do it. That's last year's robot though, cuz our current robot's not done yet. We still have some time. Uh there's also like a really big ladder to climb, and that's really cool, too. We're working on that. So uh hopefully we do great in our competition, and uh we'll be here soon. >> Uh this is Mr. G's LEGO Club. >> Yeah, I'm not part of this. >> So, they uh I also do elementary school LEGO Club on Thursdays after school. Um this is the group the first group I
012had this year. I did fifth grade from October to January, and then the fourth graders from February to June. We meet on Thursdays. Um we have uh LEGO robotics kits for the older group, and then we have LEGO engineering kits for the younger group. So those are some examples. Um yeah, forgot to bring one of the projects I made last week, but uh so I'll be seeing them again on Thursday. We have about 15 kids per session, so it's pretty good. We can do up to about 20 kids, but we have um this year we've had about 15 for both sessions, so pretty good turnout. And then we do that all year on Tuesdays. That's about it for that. And the kids love it. Like they The elementary school kids are so excited about LEGO
013Club. They're like asking their teachers questions all day long about it. And then And then we're ready to go. And it didn't And this year we actually um the fourth graders They're the second group. So in the beginning of the year we used one of the fourth-grade classrooms after school. So I think I have at least 2/3 of that fourth-grade class is in LEGO Club cuz they were so excited that there was people using their room with LEGOs, they wanted to do it, too. So it's uh it's pretty good. >> Thank you, Mr. Gauthier. Does anybody have any questions from the board? Um will it be live-streamed cuz I've watched on the live stream in the past years, and it's pretty cool to watch. So letting everybody know that that's a possibility, too. >> Yeah,
014no, it will be live-streamed and um and we'll get that link out there. Maybe we can do a Parent Square for that. So everybody can watch it because it's The competition, like they said, is a few days. It's When we're there on Thursday, we're getting a robot ready. Then Friday we have qualification matches, and then there are semi-finals and finals on Saturday. So all that's live-streamed, so it's pretty It's pretty good. We'll do Every team does at least 10 matches, so all those will be live-streamed. Just if you're going to tune in, tune in later in the day cuz you don't want to see that first match. >> [laughter] >> I I would also say, Declan, I know you I know you described it as sort of a simple problem, but let's all just remember
015that those are spheres, and so you're going to go pick them up, and they're going to go all over the place, I assume, right? So it's it's probably a pretty challenging problem with a simple explanation, right? But in in in the works, it's not that easy. So, great job, guys. Anybody else have any questions or comments? Yeah, Michael. >> One. Um is this going to be the only competition, or will there be additional ones after this? >> So, So, this is we only do one competition cuz it's so costly because if we were to do another one, it would be staying over for 3 days. Um but, this is the biggest one in the state, and it's local, so we'll just do this one competition. If we place, the top three teams are invited to
016go to the world competition. So, there's always that in the back of our mind, too. So. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. Um I will just call Yo, yes. I will call attention to one more adjustment to the agenda. Um we have a typo. And our agenda says Leo Club, which is also a club. So, um what we meant was Oh, Leo's here, too. Oh my goodness. Okay, so Leo Club is up next, but we also got the added bonus of Lego Club. Excellent. All right. So, who's here for Leo? Oh, I see them. >> Look. It's Jen Patino. >> [laughter] >> Okay, so this is Leo Club. In other words, I guess community service club. I'm Evelyn. I'm co-president with >> Me, Jennifer. We meet again. It's nice to see you all again.
017>> It's nice to see you guys for the first time. >> Oh, okay. >> So, I guess Okay. I guess a little intro again. Me and Ab are co-presidents. Paige is our vice president, Harley is our treasurer, and Ari is our secretary. And our advisors are Ms. Egon and Ms. Crasto, who just had her baby, which is super super exciting. Right? All righty, so this is an overview of our club. We're a very like volunteer-centered club. So, we volunteer whether that be here at the school, for the community, or even like around in like another like Albany, for example. Still community. And then we work to help our community and build understanding amongst each other and everybody else. And we hold monthly service projects. We have We try to do them like every month to
018keep it consistent. >> So, we're going to just give you a rundown of what we've done every month. So, in October, we had like our first big, I guess, service project, which was our Eagles Outlet Clean-Out. And the Eagles Outlet is a free outlet for students, and it includes hygiene products and clothes and school supplies and a bunch of other stuff that's like all free for our students. And it's really cool because on like spirit week days, when students don't have anything to like wear or they just want to participate, a lot of them go down to the Eagles Outlet and just get stuff from there. And yeah, so that project just consisted of organizing the outlet so it was ready for students for the rest of the year. >> And then in November, we
019do It's usually annual. I think last year we did it. I was not there, but this year I got to do it for the first time. So, we make wreaths in right around the area, right off of North Mansion Road. And we in November, so So, like close to the the you know, the holiday season. We create the wreaths and use like trees from around here, I believe. And it's like we It's like a crafty session where we just like take the leaves, we hammer it, we have other people decorating them. So, we're all on like an assembly line, basically, without, you know, the manual [laughter] labor part. And they're all hand-crafted by students here, so we can sell them and help raise money for adopted families for the holiday season. Oh, in December, so
020we didn't actually have a project that time, but we did go on a field trip, which was super exciting. Thank you, Ms. Marvin. We appreciate it. Uh we traveled to the Northeast Association of the Blind of Albany, and we toured the facility, and we learned a lot more about what it is to like live as a blind individual. Um we used simulation goggles, which simulated different like types of blindness that people live with, and we also learned about certain devices that people use to make their life easier when they're blind. And we also learned how to like guide other people, which is pretty cool. Like they taught us how like usually like you keep the blind person in front, and you hold them by the arm, which is actually like pretty interesting to learn about.
021So, even though it wasn't a service project, I think it was still like a really good learning opportunity. All right. And in January, kind of recently, we worked with the Letters Against Isolation, which Paige knows a lot about. I believe she does it on the side. And then, we kind of like funneled that into our club, and we wrote letters, simple letters to senior citizens, so we could ship them out, and they go to places like rehab centers, nursing homes, where they can like feel isolated, so they feel a little bit more welcomed, and they know people are caring about them even if we're from Duanesburg and they're from who knows where. And everybody was able to contribute like unique and meaningful letters. We can talk about our lives and anything and kind of ask
022them questions to make them feel like they're having a conversation even if it's from afar. So, yep. >> This one was so fun, and I really liked it. I thought it was so cute. Um we were wondering what to do for our February project, and what we ended up doing was we wrote appreciation letters for our lovely teachers over there. Thank you guys so much for everything that you do. Um I hope you guys enjoyed your letters. Uh so, we gathered like a list of teachers, and all the members wrote letters to them showing appreciation for their hard work and dedication to their students. And after that, all of the letters were put in their mailboxes. So, I really hope they enjoyed them. >> Of course. Thank you guys. >> All right. So, it's only
023March. That was February, so we haven't really gotten to it yet. So, we have some upcoming projects. We are thinking about reading to elementary school students for Read Across America Week, so it can allow all of us cuz March is a busy time. People are just kicking off with spring sports. So, it kind of it gives people more of like a lean opportunity to volunteer and still do like something during school the school day that is beneficial for the students at the elementary school. And then, it's usually an annual project. We go to the gazebo right in Duanes- or Delanson and partner with the Delanson Beau- Beautification Committee, so we can engage with the local community and, you know, make it pretty. It's pretty dead in the winter. But, we plant flowers and make it
024colorful. And we really just like to remind everybody that it's spring and it's it's better now. And then we're also planning on painting rocks for the community, which adds even more sprinkles of kindness and color. >> [laughter] >> So, everything can just look beautiful. And we also have the annual Lions Club barbecue in June. Um where we can strengthen club relationships with the Lions Club community because they're kind of like the the upper version of us. They're like the older and just they're they're basically guiding us in what we do. We look up to them as our volunteering >> [laughter] >> mentors. And we get to help them out while also strengthening strengthening our relationship with the whole community itself. And eating good food, of course. >> Okay, so I think that's it. Thank you
025guys very much. We appreciate it. Do you guys have any questions or anything that you would like to say? >> Yeah, I do. >> Ooh, perfect. >> Um do you guys have like an open enrollment throughout the course of the year or is that something a student can just decide, "Oh, it's January. You guys have already started projects. I I want to join the Leo Club." >> I mean, we're not really strict with it. Usually like what we have done is like started off in September. We usually have like the roster in September, but someone wants to join, they can join. Like we're not really going to be like, "No." So, like yeah, it's basically open to anyone and everyone at any time. >> That's great. >> Yeah. >> Great. Thank you. >> Sort of
026a follow-up to that, Jen. This is a You You You folks are doing a lot of work in these projects, right? How many students are part of the Leo Club? Even like in total. I know probably not everybody can come to everything, but how many students are participating? >> I think we have around 16. 14 to 16 students, yeah. Yeah. >> And I do want to give a shout out about the wreaths. They come out beautiful every year, and they're actually still hanging on my house, and they're still green. I just haven't had a ladder to go take them down. So, I hate to take them down. They're too pretty. >> I know. Thank you. We appreciate it. It gets cold, so we just like trying to work on those, so we appreciate it. >>
027Any other questions? All right. Thank you, guys. >> guys. >> [applause] >> I just need technical assistance. I'm not No. No, I don't think so. That's why I need I don't know. Of course, here. Yes. So, they're not working, and I can go through. >> You think so? Okay. I think so. Okay. Oh my goodness, Jen. You're small. I'm tall. All right. Uh okay. So, good evening, everybody. I'm going to move on to the next presentation. Um for those of you that don't maybe know me and can't see my name up there, my name is Melissa Thim Peterson. I am the president of your Board of Education. Um and I'm here tonight to talk about the building of our school community. >> [clears throat] >> And I want to start um with an acknowledgement that
028there has been a lot of hurt and a lot of frustration and a lot of um difficulty and and frustration I said frustration upset um throughout our community over the last couple of weeks. Um and I I I am sorry for all of that. Um we uh we as as your um community leaders here, what what we intended to be a transparent communication to you, our community, about a number of concerns um and how we have been trying to address and will continue to try and address them. Um it impacted you very differently than what we had intended. Um and for that um all I can do is apologize um and uh and hope that we can move forward. Um we are all hurt by it. All all of us, everyone. Um and it happened
029to all of us and it is our responsibility as your leadership team to listen, to do our best to communicate effectively, and to find our way forward. So, I'm going to give you a little bit of information this evening. Excuse me, and um and we'll go from there. Can one of you pass my water down to me, please? >> [cough] [clears throat] >> Okay. Oh, we have all the waters. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. All All the waters. Thank you. Okay. So, let's start with the big question. What is the concern? Okay? Um and this This is This is it in a nutshell. Um our concern is that the climate within our buildings is not safe, not safe for or respectful toward all students, all teachers, and all staff. That's our concern. I want to
030talk for a moment about what that does not mean. It does not mean that all students are behaving disrespectfully or unsafely. It does not mean that all students are using inappropriate or intolerant language. What it does mean is that there are some students and staff members in our school community who are directly experiencing disrespectful or intolerant behavior. This disrespect can take many forms. It can be verbal. It can be relational. It can be physical. There are even more students and staff members in our school community who are hearing and seeing and otherwise indirectly experiencing disrespectful or intolerant behavior even when they aren't participating in it. None of that is acceptable to us. Our students and staff, every one of them deserves safety and respect in our buildings. This concern is not unique to Duanesburg. School
031leaders around our area and around the country, >> [cough] >> excuse me, [clears throat] are faced with similar challenges. What we weren't willing to do was say, "Well, it happens everywhere, so what can you do?" And so that's where we are with our concern. Uh I'm not sure why my >> It's there. >> It's It's not there. I'll make it smaller and then we'll go back to making it bigger. Um so, the next the next follow-up question, we know now what our concern is is how do we know? How do we know that we have this concern? And we we know we think we know we know because of converging data points. We have some historical data including referrals, disciplinary referrals, um and community surveys. Uh many of you know that over the past few
032years the district has had several surveys within our broader school community including parents, community members, staff, and students. Across all of those surveys, respondents from those various groups report very similar strengths in our district. They say we are a strong We are We are small but mighty. We are a strong small school district of dedicated staff, of high academic standards, of parental involvement, and of opportunities for our students. That is across the board. We hear that in all of those surveys from all of those people. Respondents to those surveys have also expressed similar concerns about student behavior and about discipline. And that has ranged from disrespectful language to at times pretty significant bullying. And that has also been reported across those groups. We as board members have had stories shared with us about student and
033family experiences. And while those stories may be small in number, it may be just a handful of individuals, every child's experience matters and deserves our attention. Over the past few days, we have some recent data. >> [snorts] >> Some of our board members uh have participated in some forums. We uh met with staff and teachers on Thursday. We had the opportunity to meet with students throughout the day on Friday, and we had two which became sort of one big uh community forum yesterday afternoon evening. Um everyone has expressed their upset. We share that upset. Everyone has ex- expressed their hurt. We share that hurt. They have expressed their frustration that we are in the public eye. And even through those forums, many have expressed that these concerns do exist and agree that we should do
034our best to address them. I'll try my slide show again. There we go. So, then my next question is why does this matter so much? And the reason that this matters to us so much is that there is a human being, often a child, that is hurt by disrespectful and intolerant language and behavior. Every single one of these situations hurts someone else. And we feel that every student, every teacher, every staff member, every community member deserves respect and a safe place to go to work or to school. And when seemingly small unsafe behaviors, unkind behaviors, when those things happen repeatedly and there aren't disastrous consequences, which I'm glad we don't have disastrous consequences, but when they don't have disastrous consequences, then they start to become accepted as normal and then we increase our risk for
035major and very serious incidents or problems. Re- tells us that what appears as a sudden serious incident is typically the culmination of a long build-up of small disagreements of a lack of communication and lingering and sometimes seemingly unaddressed hurt frustration resentment. Discussing these concerns and bringing attention and resources to them is not an attempt to blame any one person or any one group of people for the challenges that we face. What we are attempting to do is to prevent this escalation by shoring up how we identify, manage, and discipline the behaviors that are at the bottom of this chart. We know that teachers don't see or hear all of those 300-plus disrespectful behaviors. We know that. We know that. And we also know that when they do, they often address it. At this point what
036we also know is despite their best efforts these challenges do persist for us. And so we want to find different ways more ways, effective ways to support them you toward meaningful change. That's all really great. Good idea. Sounds good. I'm hoping folks can agree that we want kids to feel safe and and we want people to feel safe in their work environment, and we don't want kids to feel hurt or be hurt. Um we also need to hold ourselves accountable. So, we have some action items that we're going to start with. Uh the first is to finalize and disseminate a disciplinary reference guide for faculty and staff. The hope of this is to provide clearer guidance to our first responders, the teachers, our support staff, of the behavioral expectations of our students and their role
037in addressing them. Our neck Our another action item is to train all of our faculty and staff on this reference guide in detail with specifics and examples. We want to ensure that all adults understand the expectations for students, and that they feel empowered to activate the disciplinary chain, and that they feel supported in those efforts. We have uh We will have We will complete faculty training, excuse me, on restorative circles. For those that may not be familiar with restorative practices cultivate empathy and allow students to learn from their inevitable mistakes. We're all human, right? We all make them. So, select faculty are currently engaged in this training. We also intend to resume the use of lunch detention and resume the use of in-school suspensions, so that we are able to add additional channels for consequences
038that don't remove students from school. And lastly, we have some metrics for you. Some things that we're going to be paying attention to, that we're going to be collecting. So, we're going to take We're going to really be enhancing metrics that are are already used in our school. Um to support us in in being accountable for these changes. So, the first item is to document instances of the code of code of conduct violations, no matter how small they may seem, with detail. We are asking for enhanced tracking of referrals that go to the principal or the Dean of Students. We are seeking enhanced tracking of the number of referrals that require a Dignity Act investigation. Enhanced tracking of the number of founded Dignity Act investigations. And enhanced tracking of the number of detentions and suspensions,
039either in-school or out-of-school, that are issued. When it comes to these instances of of code of conduct violations and the number of referrals, we expect these numbers to go up. Maybe significantly at the beginning. If we're working together as a community to be mindful and to and to uh hold ourselves to the standards that we have set in our code of conduct, then we may see an increase in those reports. For those of you that may not be aware of the Dignity Act, one-time major violations, as well as persistent violations, even if they are lesser in severity, they require an invest- investigation under the Dignity Act. Detentions and suspensions, again, we might see those go up. Right? As we're paying attention, as we're listening, as we're as we're working toward maintaining those expectations. We're going
040to be tracking those patterns. And we are going to be looking at that information over month over month, quarter over quarter. Um and we and we will be reporting at some interval. We haven't quite figured out what is going to make the most sense yet. Um what we what we're finding to you. Uh what we can report is always limited more than anyone would wish, but um but we do intend to be accountable to you. So, um I will return to the beginning of my message, and that is that I truly do believe that we will be stronger if we take this on together. And that the experience of our community members over the last couple of weeks and and our experiences as community members have been difficult, have been hurtful. And while we didn't
041intend that, that was the impact. And we hope that you will come with us on this path forward. I open the floor to the board if they have comments or questions? >> Um, yeah, I'd like to um take the time to make a comment um to our community. Um, we are all hurting. Um we were hit hard with the uh headlines in the recent Schenectady Gazette. Uh, let's be clear. We are a diverse community. We are a diverse board. And we are a diverse student population. We are all hurting from the article headlines. I must commend the transparency, ownership, and progressive steps that we are taking to start the healing process as we are that we are all in this community in faculty are taking on staff as well. I'd like to take the time
042to thank the people who come out last night. I personally chose to listen because we are all hurting as a community. Every single one of us. I believe a healthy start to assist the school community is the uh is to be embedded with our students and staff in the building on fellowship. Thus, taking ownership, acknowledgement, and reversing in reversing the current challenges in our community. We all care about our students, staff, and the community as board members. We hold ourselves to a high standard. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. It's on our currency. It's the same as skin in the game. And that was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who's an a Lebanese-American polytech professor, an analyst, mathematician, statistician, and former uh risk analyst. He penned Skin in the Game. Look it up on
043Google. This is what it means. This is a concept of fairness, justice, and efficiency that decision-makers must bear. They must bear the risk of their decisions. And that's what we are doing now. We all have skin in the game. Our school community and board members and staff are addressing social and societal issues that are across all communities. Let's just be clear. All learning communities. So, I say again, e pluribus unum, out of many, one, and we all have skin in the game. Thank you. What's that? >> Nothing. >> All right. Uh yeah, hi. I'm Francis Spore. I graduated from here in 1997. Um I I grew up in the early '90s out here. I was Well, how would you describe me, Tony? A nerd? >> Yes. >> Chunky? Yes. Uh I heard it all. My
044name was Francis. I got my butt kicked in the locker room down there. I used to eat lunch in room 103A, which is probably about here. Um because it's real. This is all real. It has been real. Um and everyone is right. It hasn't changed. And we want to try to make a change. Because you know what? It It sucks. It sucks, and it changes who you are dealing with it. It's awful. So, yeah. Yeah, it Things may be a little unpleasant for a while, and I'm sorry, and I do feel bad that it went wider than the community and the conversation took a negative it took a negative tone. But, we got to deal with it. We're bigger than that. I've I've never and this is going to get me in trouble. Again, she
045can stand with me on this. I've never cared about Dwayne Sports at all. It's never been my thing. I'm a drama geek. I'm a hero guy. As we said, nerd, chunky, heavy, fine. Um but I've always cared about this community. I've always had a tremendous pride in this community. I didn't move out here to fifth grade, and it hurt me that there were people that had better connection than me. Uh this was my first job. I was cleaning the elementary school. Um it was my second job. I pulled wires through the old building, wiring it with internet for the new computer lab that they put in for a crazy amount of money. Um I care about this place so much. So, I'm a software engineer. I could have gone anywhere on the planet to work.
046I could have gone to Silicon Valley. I chose to stay here in Dwyane Sports. This was my choice. This is my family's choice. I have a 10th grader and an eighth grader. This is what we are. This is what we are, and I want it to be the best it can for them. Thank you. >> I'm not going to say a ton um cuz I'm losing my voice, and I feel like I sound um not as kind as I typically would like to. Um I I do kind of want to just say hi. Um I know >> [clears throat] >> that when we are up here it feels like we are separated in some really significant ways from the community. So, I do want to just say that I I live here. I'm part of
047the community. Everybody up here is. We are all doing everything that we can to make this the place that we want our kids to to say feels like home. That they feel safe and comfortable. Um >> [clears throat] >> And again, I apologize for my voice. Um I really just want to say that last night listening to everybody that came out, um really moved me. Um in a lot of ways. It was difficult to hear some of some of the things. It was important to hear some of the things. It um it matters a great deal to me and I am sure that it matters a great deal to everybody in this room. That we have the space and the ability to have difficult conversations with each other. To be able to be hurt and
048angry in a place where we can be listened to. Um I just want to say that I am listening. Um I hear you. Everybody that's here tonight, thank you so much for caring enough to come out here. Um and and and step into this with us. I really do appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. >> Uh I have a question. >> Oh, sure. Yeah. I have something to know. >> There's been a lot of questions in the student body. I mean, you talked about there's tons of data to prove that there are instances of cruelty, that sort of thing happening in the district. I was wondering if you could elaborate on why we can't go into detail on that, and why we can't mention specific instances, that sort of thing. Cuz there is a little a
049little bit of disconnect. I mean, you all talked, you seen what happened, you know what's going on, but everybody else, you know, get the details, and I was wondering if you could give an explanation why. >> I will do my best, and then I will probably ask Ms. Ross to help as well. Um I I I would say that that the board sent, you know, it's a really good question. The board knows more, but still doesn't know all. Um and the reason that we don't know all, and the reason that we don't share specifics, is is to protect the students that are involved in these situations. Um even in a large school community, it it it it's hard to be anonymous, but in a community this size, when when specifics are shared, it can pretty
050easily be identified, and that can make situations more unsafe. Um and and beyond all of that, it's the law. We are not able to provide details um about disciplinary actions, um about individuals, students, teachers. Um and so, we're we're following the rule of law as well. I maybe there's more that you would like to add? >> Um you're pretty spot on, right? We know we're governed by rules of we have to protect personal identifiable information. And so, um you know, when we had um the audit of our discipline, and the independent auditor came in, they just provided us a document, but there is too much personally identifiable information, so we've requested that they redact and make it more public facing, so we can share that. Um what their findings and recommendations are. Um and I
051know we have been tossing around what is what is the the best way. So, um you know, thinking more globally of like so that we can track trends, like look at last year's baseline as a baseline data point um of what we have within fractions and offenses and and discipline outcomes. And then just progress monitoring that through the rest of this year as well. So, making sure, you know, again, just to echo what Dr. Peterson said is that we want to make sure we protect our students first. And making sure that like the report we received last night doesn't have even student's initials are easy sometimes too to identify. And we want to make sure we're protecting all our students cuz even if our when our students make mistakes, they still deserve our protection and
052support. >> Thank you very much. Any questions? >> Any other comments or questions before we move move next? Okay. Our next item is uh our ex officio student board members' reports. So, Santino and Ari. >> All right. I want to move on from the doom and gloom a little bit. So, um you mentioned the drama club production that happened this last Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Um I wanted to give some more detail on that. Um it was a great success. We sold over 300 tickets. And uh thanks to new improvements, like we had a choreographer this time, expanded director crew, etc. That sort of thing. And um it was a lot of fun. All the actors loved it, and it's an amazing program. I know. I've had a ton of fun doing it. And um Ari,
053you have something to say about the new classrooms? >> Yeah, so between last meeting and this meeting, we finally got to move into the new history hallway, which is great. We love the new classrooms. Especially now cuz it's so nice out, we got to open the windows and it was sunny. We do need blinds though because it is very sunny. Um but it's great to see everything coming together. And also, we've been at the elementary school for track. So I've got to see what's going on in there and everything's looking more finished. So it's really exciting to see everything is finally coming together. So. >> Oh yeah, I know I heard some jackhammering today during track practice. That was some nice ambience. Um you also mentioned before, Odyssey of the Mind, um they got recently
054earned a trophy from their second place and going to states I hear, which is very cool. Along with that, um today we had our Sweethearts and Heroes assembly. Um and there was a lot of doubt beforehand, preceding it, as to whether, you know, this would have any measurable impact on the student body, but from what I've seen, it's in the short term at least, it's been been taken very well by a lot of students. Like people took it seriously. And it I think it had a strong effect. Now obviously we have to wait till for the long-term effects of it, but I think it's that look is very positive. You have something to say? >> Yeah, I have something to say about that, too. Yeah, so like I feel like we have a lot of
055like assemblies and stuff. We bring in a lot of different speakers. I feel like there's usually like at least one or two every year and I feel like Sweethearts and Heroes is one of the best ones. I actually they were here when we were in elementary school and I feel like I was not in like maybe in first or second grade, but I have a very vivid memory of sitting on the floor in the library and listening to them come. I'm pretty sure that's the only speaker I remember from all of elementary school. But yeah, so So, was nice to have them back and I feel like people did take it, like you said, pretty seriously. Yeah, it's pretty engaging. So, I feel like that was like nice to see because, you know, sometimes the
056assemblies like they really like hit home and sometimes kids just laugh at them, but I feel like this was a little more of the former. So, yeah, it was definitely it was good. >> Do you have anything else? >> Uh no. >> Okay. Do any board members, excuse me, have have any questions for our students? >> So, you mentioned the track has started. >> [clears throat] >> How's the track? Is it Is it like a pond? >> It is like a pond. >> Okay. >> [laughter] >> It's the swim team now, didn't you hear? >> Cool. >> All right, thank you. >> beyond >> Okay. Thank you, Santino. Thank you, Ari. Um I appreciate that. Okay, uh our next item on the agenda is our uh period for public comment. Um the board encourages public
057participation at board meetings during this specific portion of the agenda that's entitled privilege of the floor public comment. Um it's important to recognize that uh public comment is restricted only to residents of Duanesburg. Um so, we do ask for your name and and um where where you live here. Um we uh I'm sorry, I'm going to just read I'm reading through this. I was going to try to spare you the the all the language, but I guess it's probably best for me to just read it. So, um we ask that this is This is not the time or place to register complaints about individuals um or items that have not all otherwise been addressed through the channels that are appropriate that are closest to the issues. Um when you're making a statement during pub privilege
058of the floor, we do expect um participants to be courteous and respectful, modeling for our students how we can participate and we can have our voices heard, um whether we agree or disagree. Um you will notice if you haven't been to a meeting and and participated in public comment before, you will notice that those of us sitting up here will not speak. Um and that is by design, that is the the rule. Um so we will we will listen. You might see us jotting down some notes, but we're not allowed to speak back to you. So, um please know that we are listening. Um again, we uh we will we have a 3-minute time limit. Um so, Mr. Spore has these handy-dandy paddles to let you know when you have 30 seconds left and then
059to let you know when you uh your time is up. We will work very hard not to cut folks off, but we do ask you to be respectful of everyone's time and limit your your comments to those 3 minutes. Um again, we cannot address you um and we do ask that we are mindful that again, to your to your question earlier, Santino, uh this is a small community. So, even using someone's title um identifies them. And so, we ask that uh we're mindful of um avoiding personal uh persons individuals' names, titles, et cetera. Um so, I Oh, here it is. So, I have a list uh of folks that signed in and and checked whether they would like to speak. So, I will begin um with Melissa Gregory. We ask you to come up here
060to the mic and state your name and your address. >> Good evening. I'm Melissa Gregory. >> Okay. Is that okay? Okay. Good evening. I'm Melissa Gregory and I live on Cole Road in Delanson. We are here this evening as members of the junior senior high school to publicly respond to the recent articles and superintendent's commentary that have been posted on the district website and in the Daily Gazette. While there was an opportunity for discourse this past Thursday among the staff, the superintendent, and a few select board members, we still felt it necessary to publicly voice our perspective for the entire board and our community at large. The generalizations made in these articles paint our district as racist and sexist. The language implies there is and has been a long-standing negative culture within the district because
061of our unwillingness to address these issues. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, many of the initiatives highlighted in the articles are not new, yet they were portrayed as such and diminished years of work done by students and staff alike to promote a positive culture. The Responsive Classroom began in the elementary school in 2022 and the recently retired elementary principal established Zones of Regulation. The Sweethearts and Heroes program in the high school dates back to 2019 in addition to numerous visits to the elementary building. Multiple high school staff members were trained on restorative practices in 2022 and in 2021, Generation Ready provided training on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and social emotional learning practices. The board has been extremely supportive of these initiatives, helping us build a positive culture for years. We appreciate the
062support the board has shown our students throughout the years and at the same time we acknowledge that additional change can be necessary and is welcomed. In addition to our district the articles have generalized our student body as having a culture of racism and sexism. They have stripped our students of their unique identities and distorted the reality of the situation by applying the limited biased observations of a few individuals to the whole student body and many of our students are rightfully hurt. In the days following the Gazette articles students objections to the comments echoed through the halls. Many students were offended by being generalized and stereotyped in this way. They displayed passion and outrage at the comments made about them and rightfully so. And now they are feeling the real world effects of this mis- these
063mischaracterizations. Our boys basketball team was heckled at sectionals called racist as they entered the court. What will they encounter when spring sports competitions begin or when they mingle with other schools? Thank you. >> Oh, are you switching? Sorry. Just give us a moment while Declan switches our mic so that it's a little bit louder for everyone to hear. This one feels very loud. Um, thank you Mrs. Gregory. Uh, the next person I have on the list is um, April Hoffman. >> Good evening. My name is April Hoffman and I'm a community member. Can everybody hear me? Awesome. Thank you. I also teach here at the high school. Our students have worked hard to build a culture that they are proud of. They are supportive of one another. They welcome newcomers. They lift each other up
064and build programs within their schools that support what they care about. Students regularly mentor one another, participate in leadership and service organizations. They actively make changes to improve our school. Though the high school is being portrayed as a cold climate, newcomers often comment on our welcoming attitude. In addition to the students' responses to these articles and comments, we too are disheartened. While our years of service vary, we have worked at Duanesburg long enough to know it is a special district. We have a long-standing tradition of excellence from our graduation rates and our academic scores to our athletes who compete at the state level, our students exhibit Eagle pride and so do we. Yet the articles and the superintendent's comments paint us as complacent and apathetic teachers. As if we stand by and allow racism and
065sexual harassment to haunt our hallways. That we are a part of a complacency creep. That is not the case. We care deeply about the character and well-being of all our students and we would neither intentionally nor negligently promote a culture that jeopardizes their well-being. We recognize that conflict, racism, and hate speech has occurred at DCS, but within a limited group of students. To call the efforts to address these intolerable occurrences apathetic and complacent is a mistake and is baseless. We are committed to working with one another, parents, students, administration, and the community to support students, model respect, and strengthen school culture. And we always have been. This past Thursday, the staff had an opportunity for open discourse regarding these recent publications. In this discourse, it was repeatedly asked, "What can be done to fix this?"
066We believe that you, the leader of the district, need to correct the message sent to the capital region regarding our school community. If not for this community, [cheering] for the reason we are all here, our students. They deserve better. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Mrs. Hoffman. Excuse me. [clears throat] Uh next on my list is Nathaniel Lind. >> Good evening, members of the board and school leadership. My name is Nathaniel Lind. I live at 180 East Shore Road. I am the senior class president and an NHS NHS member and the captain of three varsity sports teams here at Waynesburg, which equips me with a unique and deep understanding of the school culture. I'm speaking in response to the recent Gazette articles describing a normalized subculture of racist slurs, anti-Semitic remarks, and sexual comments in our
067district. Before I continue, I want to say this is a problem. There are comments and remarks that some of the student body makes at school that are inappropriate, and that is completely unacceptable. But when a problem needs to be fixed, the first response should not be to publicly release a news announcement on the district website that claims that students have normalized racism. Additionally, referring to teachers as apathetic and complacent implies that teachers are not taking this problem seriously. That is simply not true. Teachers, never in my 13 years of attending the school, lacked motivation to address a comment that was racist, anti-Semitic, or sexually inappropriate. Maybe when teachers address these sort of remarks, there has been a lack of support from the administration. I question whether passing the blame for the administration's mistakes onto teachers
068and students was a good message for the community. When I read the article in the Daily Gazette, it is very similar to the messages posted on the district website. There are multiple examples in the article that are direct quotes from the district message. The Gazette has simply taken the message from the presentation at the last school board meeting and the written communications from the district. Because of this article, when I graduate, I will graduate from a school that its own superintendent considers students to be racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. And no amount of backpedaling or attempted reversal will ever fix that. The impact of this article has already been felt. When I went to the boys varsity basketball game against Stillwater to support my friends, I saw them being called racist as they were on the
069court. When I looked on Instagram during the game, I saw an account from Stillwater labeling our team and school as racist and homophobic. Now, when athletes go out to play baseball, softball, and track this spring, they will be representing a school labeled as racist. We must also consider recruitment and retention. Duanesburg already pays teachers among the lowest in the region. Imagine a prospective teacher reading the article when comparing districts. Imagine a young family researching where to move. The narrative present presents benefits no one with what presents issues that benefit no one and has actively harmed our district's reputation. You need to do better. We are watching. Thank you. >> [applause] [applause] >> Thank you so much, Nathaniel. The next person on the list that has indicated uh that what they would like to make a
070public comment is Nancy Paludi. >> Good evening. My name is Nancy Paludi and I live right here on Alexander Road. I'm not here to continue the conversation about whether the article should have been written. It is already out there. Now we need to focus on how we move forward and how we keep our students and our school safe. I say safe because as a result of this article, our school has become a target. There's now a target on our school, our students, and our athletes. Some of our athletes are worried about wearing their Dwaynesburg uniforms because they fear retaliation against what is being labeled as a racist school, a racist student, and a racist athlete. In sports, there's very little to prevent someone from intentionally causing harm in the moment. There's nothing to stop a
071pitcher from hitting one of our batters. Of course it would be wrong and there might be discipline afterward, but by then it's too late. The athlete is already hurt. The same could happen in wrestling with an illegal move. The referee might call it, but again, by that point, the damage may already be done. So, my question to the board is, what is the next move? I know there's a 5-year DEI plan in place, and that is important. We absolutely should address and improve what may be happening internally. But, what is the immediate plan to keep our students and our school safe from potential issues outside our school walls? I believe there needs to be a plan that includes immediate action to address the damage that has been done. I also strongly believe that our resource
072officers should remain in our school. So, I will end this in a question that I know you cannot respond, but what will be our next move? Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Nancy. Uh the next person on the list that has indicated they would like to speak is Diana Fox. >> Hi, I'm Diana Fox. I live on Weaver Road in Delanson. Uh so, everything that you presented up on the screen is great. That's fantastic that you're doing that, but that should have been protocol the whole time, right? That should have been happening this whole time. But, what I didn't hear in any of that is what's being done about the person who allowed all of this to happen. Uh any of this all of this is happening because this district and certain individuals were
073were called out on the carpet um to address this. I know I personally have had many phone calls over what? Months? Years? With people sitting in front of me? Did any of that happen? No. I spent hours in offices trying to have this conversation. Did anything change? Absolutely not. I spent many board meetings coming and talking to you. Did anything change? Absolutely not. It didn't change until somebody I did not go to the media. Somebody alerted the media to something and the board here, as you stated last night, okayed the superintendent to go to the media. You say that everybody is hurting. You're hurting because you okayed a process to happen. And anytime that you have not held the administrator accountable for things that have been done, you have been complicit in the problem. It's
074not just about the culture that's created. It's about other choices. About There's There's a multitude of issues that are happening that go beyond the culture here. There things that need to be examined that I have I have that not just me, but other people in this community have brought to you ad nauseam. And there has been no response to those things. This feels performative. This feels like you're trying to cover for something. And there has been no indication of anything being done about the person who allowed this to happen. In any other job, a person who allowed this to happen would in the very least be put on administrative leave and definitely would lose their job. There has been no communication about that. Instead, the board sits here, covers over somebody and the choices that
075they made, and okayed behaviors that have caused all of this pain. Every person in this room has trusted you to make choices that would protect our students and our community. When this district suffers, it brings the whole community down. As the people before me have said, it brings down uh people don't want to move here. Teachers don't want to come here. We have a whole uh uh wealth of of teachers behind me, young teachers who I wouldn't blame if they left. Uh so, the other question I have for you is you're talking about all of these things that you're bringing back, in-school suspensions and detentions. What are you going to do about the students who have suffered for the reasons that you haven't had those? Are they just fodder for your mistakes? Are you going
076to do nothing to offer them any kind of restorative justice? Are they just there to to be the bricks that you walk across in your process for learning? It's ridiculous. So, until you do something about the person who really let all this to happen, everybody here is absolutely complicit in allowing it to happen. >> [applause] >> Thank you, Diana. Excuse [clears throat] me. The next person on my list is Ava Sanchez. >> I'm so short. Good evening, everybody, the board. I appreciate their presentation and the apology, but honestly, I can't believe that any of you were aware of the publication of the article. And I don't think the apology should have come from from the board. I think it should have come from the superintendent who stated those words. >> [applause] >> And I'm going
077to provide a little HR information for the board. This is This is the article what is a part of defamation. And that is grounds for termination of the superintendent. >> [applause] >> And I am formally requesting that she be removed from her position immediately. >> Avis, I'm sorry. We we can't carry on with individuals. I I know you know, you were on the board. >> Yeah, well, I'm I'm up up here to say that I am embarrassed that I was a part of bringing her on board. I really am. Avis out. >> [applause] >> The next person I have is I think it's it's Marcy Fuselier. Forgive me if I pronounced your name Marcy. >> I am Marceline Fuselier on Duanesburg Road in Delanson. Good evening. First, thank you to all our principals, teachers, staff,
078support teams, niceit for their continued work on behalf of Duanesburg students. I'm speaking tonight about transparency and trust. In December's capital project vote, 40% of the voters opposed a tax-neutral proposal. That level of opposition suggests that communication and public confidence may need strength strengthening. I have located consulting contracts in board docs totaling nearly $38,000. Because these are public funds, I believe the community would benefit from a clear explanation of the purpose, cost, and outcome assessment of these services. Additionally, public board meetings sometimes start late or are delayed. Microphones are not being used consistently in the auditorium. Clear audio and timely starts are basic elements of accessibility and transparency. Several community members shared thoughtful feedback during yesterday's school culture discussions. I hope those perspectives can become part of the district's official Board of Education record. In
079our small district, direct communication and visible accountability are so valuable. I request that the board prioritize clarity, timely meetings, and transparent reporting of expenditures. Thank you, everyone, for listening. >> [applause] >> Ben Yockler. >> Thank you, Marcy. Good evening. My name is Ben Yockler. Um this is not rehearsed like some of the comments uh by the board tonight. Uh I'm a third-generation kid. I'm raising third-generation kids. I'm a second-generation parents uh graduated from here. Proud to be a a graduate from here. Uh I'm I'm speaking about uh the frustration with the article but more about the response from last night. Uh when somebody does something wrong, uh if one kid were to speak out, we would hold that kid accountable. Uh when 60 people showed up, 60-plus people showed up last night, it kind of
080felt like it was falling on deaf ears and that you weren't listening. Um I actually took some notes from the presentation today uh and the president's comments uh hurt uh people are hurt by disrespectful and intolerant behavior and or language. You guys showed a pyramid of of what uh shows a serious versus uh, disrespectful things. You showed discipline that comes off of that. You showed metrics, uh, accountability were the words that you guys used. Uh, in all of that, in everything that you guys put together there, it comes from the top and goes down. There's nothing in there that goes up. So, if a student screws up, that that they get punished. If a if a union member who who are showing up in solidarity tonight, they screw up, they get held to uh, accountability
081and they get disciplined. Yet, when someone who made a comment that painted a whole entire community as something that we're not, no discipline, no accountability, no investigation. When I asked the question last night, "Are we going to stand behind and just continue?" It wasn't even like, "Yes, we're going to talk about it." That was the correct answer. It would have been, "We [clears throat] will we always review these things." We We was the political answer to it to say. We just came out with a flat yes. We're just going to follow blindly. If a union member were to make these comments, what would happen to them? What would happen to a teacher if they make comments to the paper and were published and then were the community was painted as something that they weren't? You
082would have outrage to that. The superintendent would have outrage and right by the contract to do things like that. To to discipline. So, uh, I am uh, really disappointed for our school, our business, uh, businesses around here, the community, most of the students. They don't deserve the the feedback that they've been getting, uh, no matter where they go. And you can't you can't undo it. They're we're going to have to pay for it. Uh, Nancy, uh, can't see your name, the lady before here that asked what the what we do from here. I can tell you that I am uh, I'm proud to be from Duanesburg. I'm I It's where I was born, it's where I'm going to die. Uh, I built a a house here with a family. Um, it starts with me. I
083wear my Duanesburg stuff with pride. I wear it wherever I go uh and I hope people ask me, "Am I racist?" Because I can give them an earful, but I can point to someone who made those comments that doesn't represent me and doesn't represent represent my family. Thank you. >> [applause] [cheering] [applause] >> Thank you, Ben. Uh Alexis Casey. >> Good evening, everyone. My name is Alexis Casey. I'm a junior at Duanesburg High School and I'm here to speak to the board on behalf of myself, my peers, as well as in defense of the staff and parents of Duanesburg. We have taken time to reflect on the harsh words that were stated about our school by our superintendent and I am here to share some thoughts and feelings. As a community, we are we who
084are here tonight all agree that these statements were loud, wrong, and not fact-checked. I would also like to bring to light how our superintendent claimed to be taking a listening tour, but is almost never in our school and barely has relationship with many of the students of Duanesburg. >> sorry to interrupt you. I just have I have to ask you not to use titles and names, okay? Thank you. I'm sorry. >> [clears throat] >> What was said about our school was felt purely malicious and the students and staff >> [clears throat] >> um at our school have been nothing but considerate of the students' feelings and voices. In this article, our school is depicted as racist and sexist on he said, she said statements that are not fact-checked by the teachers or students that are
085supposedly involved. Duanesburg is a good school. It's inclusive and safe, but we are currently letting unreliable sources and generalities define us. We need to stop the teacher blaming and start enforcing stricter consequences for behavior. We also need district leadership that is present and active rather than disconnected. Let's stop talking in circles and start communicating directly with the parents. I myself and over 150 of my fellow peers have signed a petition saying that this wasn't okay and we're not saying that racism is okay. In fact, many of us have stood up to racism before. This is not a problem that This is not This is a problem that should be taken seriously. But creating a news article to bash the students, staff, and Duanesburg community definitely isn't the way to fix this. And a private apology
086doesn't fix public grading. So. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Okay, and finally, Stephanie Telmach. >> My name is Stephanie Telmach. I live on Schoharie Turnpike. I attended this school as well. Um I don't have a lot to say cuz I said quite a bit yesterday, but just based on body language alone, it doesn't feel like there's really much concern here and it's very um disheartening. That's it. >> Thank you, Stephanie. >> [applause] >> I turned it I thought I turned it on, but I turned it off and I must have had it on the whole time. [clears throat] Uh okay, thank you, everyone. Um we appreciate you being here. appreciate you having uh taking the time to prepare and and and to talk to us. Um and we're going to carry on with the rest
087of our business meeting now. Um which begins, if I can find myself in the right spot. Um we're going to have assistant superintendent of management services Jeff Rivenburg. >> Tony, you see I loaded that into the board docs this time for you. All right. Yeah, I hope everybody can find it in their board docs. Yeah, I'm sure it is. So. >> [laughter] >> All right, so tonight we'll talk about another budget planning session. Um sorry, this clicker is not working. All right, so at the beginning of budget we had said that I was presenting it in administrative program and capital as a part of the component budget. So, tonight we're going to talk about the administrative part of the budget. That covers costs for BOCES administrative costs, central data processing, salaries and benefits for administrators,
088supervisors, and administrative clerical staff. Uh school board costs, tax collection, legal and auditing costs, property and insurance costs, mainly everything that goes with the business of operating the school. Uh this is a general draft of the administrative budget. Um overall there's a around a 4.4% increase overall for the administrative budget. Uh and I highlight those things on the next slide real quick and I can jump back in a moment. Uh so one of the items that kind of I kind of highlighted some of the larger items that are increasing. Uh the board had in had added a a new policy service. So um in order to add that new policy service that you're going to see that jump for that for that new service. >> That will only be for like 2 years I think
089it's a 2-year increase right though. >> So in order to to make that work that's going to you're going to see that jump. Uh and then annual increases for contracts and personnel, that's not really uh not really above above any average. It's kind of you know, it's less than less than 3%. Um and then the the county Schenectady County is is actually covering our second SRO at this time. So we need to add because it's a part of our agreement um was to pay for half of that that SRO. So um we have to eventually meet that and and pay for that second SRO. So as a part of our our phase-in plan we are uh putting that in the budget so we can make sure that we keep our SROs in the in the
090district. Uh and then insurance rates are as sure I'm sure that everybody is seeing this as well. Insurance rates are are above that standard, you know, what we'd like to call that standard 3% increase. Uh, this also goes so um above health insurance. >> that health insurance? >> No, it's it's actually not. So, this is actually what I'm referring to is our facilities insurance for facilities, student accident insurance, vehicle insurance for buses, everything else that is not a benefit. So, um those increases >> numbers? >> So, we're looking it looks around almost a 9% increase on our um So, almost near 10%. So, one of those numbers So, I get them proposed back to me. They're still working on that. Insurance company still working on it. Right now, it looks like it's going to come
091around an average of around 9% for everything all together. So, >> 20% on here is >> The 20% So, the 20% is because our rates came back after budget last year. So, we're making up for the deficit in that budget line from from last year because of the fact that we had to transfer money into that um because >> spread then? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thanks for explaining that. >> And um all right, so uh and then state aid numbers came out for the month of February recently and still showing almost where we were last month. However, um So, the the larger things that I'd highlighted last month, again, the larger increases, you're going to see that 1% foundation aid. We're still waiting again for the state to finalize their budget, so
092we don't know where that's going to land. Um but as of right now, it looks like that's where we're going to be, so we're going to have some deficits, especially with uh increases of everything else. You can't cover 4%, 8%, um you know, 11% increases when you only get a 1% increase on foundation aid. Uh the the district is utilizing BOCES though for uh for services that that we do that we do need uh for students and for staff and uh for the function of our of our district. Uh Fortunately, we've done pretty well with that and we're we're receiving some aid back because we use that BOCES service. And uh special education services, high excess high cost excess cost, um that's that's another large item that's coming back and it's just because our our
093services are again, it's a higher expense for us. And then uh building aid uh in perspective of what we're going to be uh bonding out or paying for bonds for our building struction, you know, we see that that aid coming back to us because um that's a part of our our building aid plan. And then I will highlight. So, uh this is actually showing lower numbers from the February run uh compared to January, so they actually came back with their February runs were a little bit lower. Um you're universal pre pre-kindergarten, I believe that that's because they don't have enrollment numbers, so that tends to fluctuate. Uh but some of those other items, I mean, they're not while they're not large, again, it's a it's a deficit, so uh it doesn't really help us in
094that matter. Uh tax cap was calculated and uh submitted to the uh comptroller's office. The calculated tax cap came back at 2.93% and um this has not changed since the last time that we uh that we had that discussion, so it was submitted before the uh uh March 1st deadline. And then uh in order to uh to make up for the deficit, uh we're assuming a tax levy increase of uh of only 2.9% increase. Uh this is this is less than what we had uh what we had gone out with last year. Uh this is just an estimate that I am showing here on the bottom screen just to show what that what that tax impact would be on a home home's full value. And then uh so the current budget status, we're assuming increased
095building aid for construction debt. Again, we don't have those state aid numbers because of the state state budget not being not being out yet. So, we're not going to have the uh the finalized numbers on that state run yet. Foundation aid, well, it started at the 5% or the 1% due minimum. Uh this is what uh all the school districts across the state are getting aid as a minimum if they uh were not getting any other increases in foundation aid. So, the safe harbor schools will be getting that 1%. Uh currently assuming that 2.9% tax levy increase to help fill that gap uh in the budget. And then a lot of the uh contractual and supply costs are are assumed to be up and uh as things start to trickle down, uh you know, some
096of those numbers like insurances and all that, those will be finalized hopefully within the next couple weeks uh before April. And then um the double-digit increase assumed on health insurance costs, uh it it may be coming down a little bit, so uh we've been having some discussions in our health insurance trust. Uh we do have a strong health insurance trust, so right, uh when when we were beginning this process, I was assuming around a 13% increase uh on our health insurance. Um I'm hopeful that we come in closer to like 10% or 11%, so uh still while it's a while it's better news, it's it's not great, but um you know, hopefully lessens that that deficit. Uh and then uh so our next uh time that we talk, we'll be talking about program uh and
097revenue updates. Hopefully we'll have some updates from the state, but um I wouldn't hold my breath. Um a lot of the uh discussion the next time will be instructional and uh all the all the great things that are provided for kids. I'm sorry, I did not I did not put it in. I'll put it in next time cuz we're going to talk about transportation. >> [laughter] >> Was it a picture of you on a bus? >> No, it was even better. >> It was even It was even better with all the inclement weather. I You get a little punchy at 4:30 in the morning. >> I do. >> [laughter] >> Are there any questions from the board? >> I mean, it looks like it's going to be a a tricky year, but not a knock
098on wood hard year. >> Right. >> Have you been hearing from neighboring business officials and and your your buddies how how they're doing? >> Yeah, it's doom and gloom. Yeah. Doom and gloom. Uh yeah. So Yeah, it's uh most of the districts are saying that, you know, they're they're having the same problem because we're all having the the health insurance uh the health insurance challenge. Uh we're all having the uh you know, the the regular general liability insurance problems. Uh so it's it's a common theme across the board. Um it's it's not just it's not just us, and then we're also looking at the energy, you know, energy fuel costs and all that. Um just recently with the uh you know, with the attacks on on Iran, uh of course that's driving our fuel costs
099up. Um so where that lands and and how long that lands, you know, that's that's going to be something that we have to try and assume where it where it's going to be. >> [cough] >> Um so a lot of our, you know, our heating fuel, uh fuel for the buses, and uh electricity. So it's not like it's not like an electric bus would even save that problem because we're also paying for the electric costs that are skyrocketing as well. >> Any other questions from this? Go ahead, Cynthia. >> Um I have a question. >> Yeah. >> Um in terms of third-party consulting fees, like for private investigations and that sort of thing, um how much of the budget is spent on that? How does the allocation work? Like under what category? How's it impact
100taxes, and what does it provide for the district? I don't know that was a mouthful. I can repeat if need be. >> That was a lot. So you're asking about consulting services. Um I I don't have that number exactly in front of me, and I would have to uh drill down on what you're actually looking for. I'd be glad to have a conversation with you. Um it's it uh typically it would depend on what type of uh consulting there's there's being done. Um like if it's for instructional, it would be in the in the program portion of the budget. Um and uh that would be actually in the next section uh next next time. So that's what I would be referring to as um the uh the program portion of the budget. So you would
101see that likely in the in that center. Um how much would I mean, I could give you a number, but I'm not going to give you one off the top of my head. >> The more important thing was like what does it provide for the district? Like um all those private investigations maybe towards like um instances of you know, culture, that sort of thing. Um what service does it give? >> Oh, I'm sorry. I think what he's asking is um so, the most recent audit, the culture audit um that was a BOCES service that we subscribed to. So, um it would be within our BOCES coaster. I think that's what you're asking, right? >> That that that answers it. Okay. >> You're used to a wireless mic. You're spoiled. >> [laughter] >> I did it,
102too. Um Santino, that's a great question. So, when we don't know in advance, obviously, Mr. Weinburgh can't provide you with numbers, but if you do if you want to put that in an email to all of us, then he could be prepared to you can ask the same question again at the next meeting, and then he'd be able to answer it publicly for everybody, so that so that everybody knows the answer to your question. >> All right, sounds good. >> Okay, cool. Any other questions from the board? Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate it. Hey, we're going to do our superintendent's report with some accountability data. Um >> I just so you know, I did narrow down I was up to 56 slides, so I did narrow. It's not 56. And I promise I'll go fast. >>
103Oh, we got to turn. >> Oh. I am in the wrong person. Hi Declan. Oh, my phone's going to need my attention. Uh I need it cuz it's going to do the two-step authentication. Okay Declan, I'm ready. All right. So, we would have talked about it last month, but they just Sorry, I need the mic. They just released the embargo data late in February. I think it was a couple days after um our last board meeting. So, it seems odd to be talking about this year's accountability when it's based on last year's data. But that's how the cycle rolls, and they notify districts in late November, and they give them time to um review and potentially ask for a waiver, and then the it the um accountability is released. So, very quickly, it has shifted
104over the last years. If you're as old as I am, it used to be called focus, and then it focus districts, and then target districts. And now they they um the accountability um still elementary middle 3 through 8 assessments and the high school assessments. the things that they have changed, oops, recently is that um attendance is not I mean we call it chronic absenteeism, but now it's individual student attendance. >> [clears throat] >> And then same as the elementary level. Um let's see. And then within the assessments at the high school level, we'll talk about that in a second. Um so they look at two different things both through the 3 through 8 and the high school. You have your weighted average achievement and then you have your core subject performance. Now, they also take
105in a um in 3 through 8, it's the ELA, math, and science exams. And at the secondary, they also include social studies. Let me go back really quick. Here's the biggest difference between and I was going to pull up the formulas and I know it's getting late. So, the biggest difference is that between weighted average achievement and core subject performance is is continuously enrolled students. So, meaning from bed staying in October until the assessment. But the the the denominator changes between the two. One denominator is the kids who actually tested. And in the other one, it's the kids who are eligible to test. So, that's what changes the two formulas. Then at the high school level, there's college career and civic readiness. Again, so I was in a hyperlink. I I don't want to spend
106too much time on it. It looks at the number of diplomas, credentials, advanced course credits, career and tech, seal of civic readiness, seal of biliteracy, and participation in smart scholars. And then if you look at the table in the lower left corner, it's a point system. And so how many points each child gets for did they get a local diploma with CTE, a Regents diploma with advanced placement, local diploma, high school diploma, common seal, or no diploma. Attendance, again, is no longer It used to be holistically as a group or percentage that were considered chronically absent. Now, they look almost like a growth model, like they they do at the elementary level. And again, there's that magical formula. Performance levels are 1 through 4, where 1 is uh they're considered insufficient for expectations. Two is
107as well as insufficient, but partial. Three is they met expectations, four is they exceeded it. All right, here's some looking at some of our accountability data. When we we're doing great. And I've said this for a year and a half now. As I comb through data, that um regardless of who is sitting as in administration or in my seat, that the children are succeeding, and they succeed because of their teachers, over and over again. Um the commitment of the teachers to make sure that our students excel. Now, you're going to see these levels. The twos are the areas we have to look at. These are the ones we have to focus at. I've always said twos are an easier place to be cuz those students are easier to shove forward to a three. So, we
108know that when we look holistically at our district, again, we have those two formulas, the weighted and the core. And ELP is our English language learners, but we don't have enough students to get a sum. But, we know that our economically disadvantaged students district-wide, both elementary and at the secondary level, um aren't coming to school at the same rate as the rest of our of our students. Here are the outcomes. Um again, made solid gains in the weighted and core, and we had a little bit of a downward trend um in the chronic absenteeism which is a new indices. Statewide ranking um a couple organizations credible organizations actually gave us some information over the last few weeks. So when we look against the um the rest of the state in ELA in 2019 to 2024
109to 2025 so a one-year change and a five-year change that grades three through five um we had a slight dip in the last year and just a slight dip over a five-year change. Um when we look through middle school six through eight um we saw no change last year and then a dip in in the last five years. Mind you the test has changed. Please Please be mindful of that. It has changed since 2019. And for all grades overall um a one-point change. Again, this is against statewide. It's not just our scores, it's against statewide. That's a similar I told it to skip but it This is a prettier graphic. Okay. Um Oh, I'm sorry. This is math. Uh math, this is where we're seeing a a really good jump in um in 2019. Obviously,
110we were doing better wise statewide. Again, that test has changed. But from just last year to this year, we've we're making gains. And then look at grades six through eight. Wow, what an incredible leap 35 points against the rest of the state. That is something that we all should be very proud of. Growth, that's elementary, right? They don't just look at achievement, they look how each individual child grows. When we look at proficiency, 25% of kids proficiency is level three and four. And then state proficient, we take a state proficient, right? 47% We have close to 5% that lost and then stayed non-proficient 35%. Now, if we look at math proficiency, we have a nice bump of 20 out of 21 students um gained proficiency. We had 14 who lost proficiency, 105 and then 58.
111This is where I want to give a a huge shout-out as um you know Danielle has stepped into the leadership role taking this um department and these um and these students and bringing programs in including really great reading. I mean this graphic shows you it's a slow and steady progress upward. Even in math, right? We saw a small we saw a pretty big dip in math scores last year, but then really pulling up a positive trend in both areas. So, in addition to the special ed teachers opening up their hearts and minds to trying new things and Danielle leading the charge, we've made some really great gains. Economically disadvantaged, even though um we'd like to see them come to school more um we are seeing significant growth and positive trends both in ELA and math
112as well. So, here are some trends. ELA trends, so we have a 7% proficiency growth um year-over-year from 23-24 to 24-25. 4% growth uh proficiency growth in math and then in science we have a 2% proficiency growth. Long term from 2018, now the test has changed a lot since then, but we're still seeing an increase of 4% in ELA 13% in math and then long term a proficiency decline in science. Now to be fair, they changed grades with a science test. And and addition changed to the next gen standard, so the test changed, but on my previous slide from year to year, we're actually seeing a nice trend upwards in science. When we look around the neighborhoods and the districts that surround us and or are similar to our size and demographics, you're going to
113see where Dwainsburg is highlighted from grade three, four, five, six, seven, and eight, and this is ELA. If you look the right column in each grade level is this is our current accountability. You're going to see that in our region, we're in the top three. Right? In grade three, the top three in grade five, the top three and grade five, I'm sorry, four and five. We are in the top five in grade six, the top four in grade seven, and the top two in grade eight. So, something to be completely proud of when it comes to our ELA assessments. Same thing for math, right? As we're making grades. Now, this is competitive. I found this really interesting. It's quite competitive in the region math scores state assessments, but we're chugging along. We're making great gains,
114right? We're looking in grade three math, we're in the one, two, three, we're in the top we're in five in the top five in the region. Grade four, we are in the top five as well. No, sorry, six. Grade five, we are in the top five in the region. Now, these are surrounding districts who are bigger and have more resources, so just keep that in mind. Like, this is excellent results. Grade six, quite competitive. Grade seven, we are in the top five. And then in grade eight in math, we are in the top three. Performance levels, math and science, if we wanted to look at that comparison. So, this is grade eight math plus the Regents, but then we also have our grade five science and grade eight science. Um between 25 24 and 25,
115we have nice gains. And then, um you're going to see that little dash for grade eight science. It's because they took the living living environment Regents exam, so it's not going to show up. But, we are actually again still outperforming most of the districts in our region. Growth, again, that's another indicator that uh the state looks at. So, um looking at growth and um where we have gained proficiency, 12%. Stayed proficient, 47. Stayed non-proficient, 35, which is similar what we saw earlier. All right, Regents pass-fail trends. I'm going to skip over this quickly. I want to make it really, really clear. When the state looks at a Regents scores, it's not just one test in a nutshell. It's all three. Right? It takes your August and your August, January, and June. It's not just one
116test in a a snap snapshot. And sometimes it looks skewed because it says, "Oh, I have 15 students who didn't pass." I didn't have 15 students who didn't pass. That's 15 students over three tests. And it could be the same student not not not finding a not being successful each time. So, always keep that in mind. So, when we look at graduation rates, right? They look at four-year trends, five-year trends, and six-year trends. And um you're going to see that we've had um from 2021, we had an uh we had a 98.28 4-year, 5-year, 6-year. And then we've been pretty consistent and in '23, '20, and '24. And then in our '25 school year school year last year, um we had I don't see where the four is. It's missing. All right. Attendance index, remember
117it's not chronic absenteeism even though we say when they're absent absent 10% that they are chronically absent. This is a nice graphic to see um by grade level who is um the green is good. Um we know that sixth grade last year, our current seventh graders, and our current ninth graders um in our uh our struggle they struggled the most with uh with their attendance. The 12th graders have now graduated. We see that number a lot for 12th graders because there is a thing called senioritis. Um I always like this graphic because I always like to look like when are when are people absent? Well, Fridays and Mondays. Well, we all would love to have Fridays and Mondays off. Um and then what months are that the hardest? And it um January came out as
118it's one of the toughest months. It could be flu season, right? And then June, that certainly kicks in with our chronic absenteeism. And then November. I love this this map. Um this is a map of Twinsburg. And um we have something These little dots are our attendance. So, those are students across our district and it's color coded where you can see um pockets of where, you know, in larger areas these maps are helpful because do you have certain communities or areas in your district that seem to have increased absenteeism? So, I just think this is a kind of a cool map to look at. The system we use that um BOCES developed called Tableau actually allows you to like scroll in and see exactly where where we have these pockets of where we see like
119more yellows and oranges. >> [laughter] >> Oopsie. It is uh it's interesting. I I just find it it's a cool feature. For our attendance index, um again, by month is percentage-wise and days of the week. All right. Again, remember these are three exams really quick. Um when we talk about Algebra 1, um we have 63 students took it over three three of those three of those those exam dates. 39 passed, 22 were not, two were exempt. Um usually exemptions happen for students with disabilities who can demonstrate they've tried taking the test numerous times and based on their disability, um we have the authority through state ed, the school counselors then the principals say, "Hey, we or in and or Danielle will say, 'Hey, let's let's take a look at this kiddo.' And we can do
120a a waiver for them." If they have a life event, we're also allowed to do those kind of waivers. Geometry, uh total number of students 18, seven passed, 11 were successful. Earth and space, the new one because it changed, again, we have new tests. They keep giving us new tests. Um 30 students took the new test. Uh 24 passed, 10 got mastery. That's amazing. That is a huge That's a huge uh accomplishment. The old test, we had nine students take it. We had two pass and seven weren't successful. Looking at life science, the new test is 89 students took it. 45 passed, one mastery, 41 were not successful. The old living environment, we had 10 students take it and six were passed and four were not successful. Physics Six students took it, six passed with
121five with mastery. Chemistry, we had 38 students take it, 32 passed and nine mastery. That is that is amazing because chemistry is a hard exam. >> [snorts] >> All right, shaking her head. Common Core ELA, now we just had one in January and Mrs. Marvin had said that it is excellent. She was pleased at the number of students who passed. This is not in our accountability data, that'll be next year. But we had 63 students take it, 45 passed, 18 received mastery, 18 were not successful. Algebra 2, 56 students took it, 37 passed, six mastery, 19 were not successful. Yes. Um It's funny that some of the tests have one through four and have one through five and it's not consistent and I don't know it's a great question. I never understood why they do
122that. But I'll ask. I'll ask my dear friend Teresa Billington who is the assistant commissioner for accountability. Like, why? Why is there five? Um global history is 47 students. 34 passed, 14 mastery. Yay, being a social studies teacher. US history, um, 52 students, 39 passed, 10 mastery. Go history. And then here's our proficiency trends. So, we've seen a decline in our global history. Um, again, the test changed and it was given it was given in beginning of June, right? Okay, it was given I I if I remember correctly. And we've seen a really nice uptick in our common core. So, when we say 25, that's really the 23 24 school year. So, where you see the year 24, that was the 22 23 school year. It's confusing, I know. This is a lot of arrows,
123I know. Um, but I won't belabor it. Um, again, here's the good thing. I love all the green arrows in the 2025. Another group, I'm going to end with this, another group, uh, the ECA group, um, compiles data. They actually like give you a little taste of something and then they they like, "Please, we'll analyze all your data for you for the low low price of too much money." So, received a report that they looked at our school report card, that the narrative is that this is percentiles in the state. So, our percentile in the state is we are 83rd percentile on elementary middle school performance weighted index. We are the 56th percentile in high school AP proficiency. And overall, we're 30th 30th percentile on what we spend pure per pupil spending at $23,176 per
124student. Go to Jeff Rivenburg. That's keeping our cost down and I know we all pay taxes, um, but we do maximize as much as we possibly can. That's it. Questions? >> I mean, first off, that that spending number is amazing because the bigger districts are who you usually get the the best rates because it's just economies of scale. I mean, when it comes down to it, this is an institution. It's a factory. Input, output. >> Yeah, when the Rockefeller study came out, do you remember, Jeff, it listed Duanesburg give or take a few years ago. Remember when they listed all the districts in the state? And I was having a discussion with another superintendent who had a different metric for some place, and it was like 32,000. I'm like, "No, that's not right." So, this
125makes me feel better that when the Rockefeller study came out, it was an accurate number. >> Um earlier on you were showing that there's a real uh correlation between economically disadvantaged students and their attendance rates. What are we doing about that? What's the plan there? >> [cough] [clears throat] >> Because this da- data was just released or I should say unembargoed, um I know Mrs. Marvin and myself and Ms. LaBarge and have been talking about, okay, here are target kids that we know are have slipped to a two, right? And again, I'm say this again, it's easier to take a two and shove them to a three, and it's based on individual students as opposed to a whole group. >> Sure. >> So, it's only been a few weeks. So, where we just planted the
126seed, but there they'll probably be um you know, more discussion within within their MTSS teams because it covers attendance as well of what they can do to um obviously try and push that needle. >> I mean, but one of the nice things about attendance is it's ongoing. >> Right. >> You have this year's data even if it hasn't been turned into a two yet. >> Right. So, if as of today, because we still have 15 week 15 weeks left 15 weeks left. There we we can turn that around. So, you know, the principals will work with their MTSS teams and um that is inclusive of attendance. >> Cool. I have a question just because I don't understand the difference between the biology living environment versus the old biology. And which are the Is it just
127a different test because I I also thought it was a different course. Is that >> It is a different course and I am not a science teacher and we luckily have some. So, please correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's the next gen standards that shifted what the course was. But it is holistically similar or completely different. Right. Style of question, too. Okay. So, like at the core of it is still life science, but it it is new standards new new York state standards based on next gen standards and the test questions are different and the style of the test is different. Did I get that right? >> So, so we're still learning the same biology content. We're assessing it differently. Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. Yep. Previous test was? Oh, the one the
128the new test. >> Ah, okay. I see. Okay. Okay. I um it's Yeah, that's an That's an interesting shift. Thank you. I appreciate that. I guess I just find it interesting, too, because I feel like there's been statewide and like federal initiatives for more like clear language. So, this I don't know. I I comes across to me as a little interesting. >> I think what's super frustrating to me is was it 3 years? They're saying they're not going to be Regents tests. >> No, there is going to be Regents tests. So, the portrait of graduate, a kid a student could demonstrate proficiency by taking a traditional test. >> Okay, it's not going to be mandatory. It'd be It'd be It'd be one of paths. >> So, yes. >> Changing the tests along with changing the
129entire curriculum. >> It is This is not science anymore. >> on the portrait of graduate 6 months ago, but now they said April. We're going to get guidance in April. That's all the tests have shifted over the last 3 years, right? Um including the science um and it you know, everyone's like, "What are we going to do about portrait of a graduate?" Well, we don't know because All we know is that kids students will have the ability to demonstrate proficiency in many types of mediums as opposed to a read But, if they want to sit for a Regents exam, they can. Some kids like tests. All right. >> Is that it? >> Any other questions? Great. Thanks, Kim. Okay. Next up, uh Mr. Goodwin. Are you still here? Capital Project Report. I think I think
130I know you normally stand here, but the mic's over there. Oh, no, Declan's giving you the mic. Okay, great. >> Everybody hear me okay? Good evening. >> [snorts] >> Um fast, short, normal What's our appetite for time here? What's up? Okay. Um I don't think I have anything to talk about for Ursena. So, I do have an update on our current status. Sorry, I always feel like I'm screaming into this thing. Um so, elementary classrooms, we did the other three classrooms that were in the elementary uh 300 swing. Those were completed at the end of break. The only things we have really left in the elementary school other than the kitchen and the cafeteria for that wing is we need to do the floor down the hallway. We weren't able to do that in its
131original time frame, which was last summer, because when they took the floor out, um they were supposed to have about 3 in of depth they had to make up. There was a little bit less than that, almost like half, which meant they had to switch a product, which means we had to get that product. Um so, they were able to get that down, but it had a 30-day cure time, and by the time that went down in August, it wouldn't have been enough time to put the floor down. So, we pushed that to this coming summer. Um the ceiling through there has been cleaned up. Um so, once we hit summer, they're going to do that floor. There's also some seating and some open area seating that happens through there. That'll be wrapped up in
132the summer as well. Um but everybody is in finished classrooms at this point now. So, that's a really good step in the right direction. Um we were able to further holistic part of that process, stick to their dates once they had all the stuff. They started those first four in November around the Thanksgiving break. They wrapped them up just past the holiday break. We did the room swap. Then we did the next four, sorry, three again, and then they were able to finish those up by the April break, which were sorry, the February break, which was what always the plan was at that point. And now we've sort of transitioned over into the cafeteria and working through there, cuz we were able to free up the library to take that as a temporary cafeteria. Over
133at this building, um the three classrooms up front are almost there. Uh, now that the snow is melting, we can get on the roof and deal with the rooftop unit that feeds into 108. And that will allow us to button up 108. So, we're hoping that will happen, excuse me, in probably the next two to three weeks, once we know the snow will not impact the roofing process. Kitchen cafeteria, um, they're continuing to work through that here. Um, we have anticipated time in the, um, kitchen cafe as um, May and the cafeteria finishing up towards June. We're working on trying to get that sooner. That will be a similar situation though. There's a similar type of flooring in the old pit area, is what I call it, um, where they are putting down a similar
134floor, so that'll probably spill over into the summer as well. They've started working on the second floor where the, um, student space and student commons area is going to be, and then they'll transition to the third floor where they're pretty much renovating all five of those rooms. Um, bus garage, the anticipated time for completion there is the end of April. So, we're just about there now. The, um, they had tile in when I was there, uh, early last week. Most of the rooms are painted. Um, we're waiting on windows. They've got some trim to finish up on the outside of the building, um, but all of those items should be buttoned up here in the next month or so. Um, in terms of financials, um, I do we want to talk about the five change
135orders that were sorted out? They did, okay. So, um, the first thing I want to say is all the ones that we're talking about here, I know we talk about change orders and that process. These are allowances. So, the difference between a change order and allowance in the traditional sense is change orders would change your contract amount. So, let's say the general contractor's amount is $5 million. If we did a change order for 50,000 more, they would be $5,050,000. Allowances are in contract amounts. So, you'll see in the allowances on some of them we had two different pots of money for the GC. We did one specifically for abatement cuz we had a understanding we're probably going to find some items, which was for $200,000. And then we had a general contract allowance, which was
136for everything else really, which was about $400,000. So, you'll see those in the paperwork as you've looked at them. Those don't change their base contract amount. They're part of what they bid as part of this contract. So, they're allowances in that traditional sense. SED doesn't see them differently. We would still submit them to SED for review and approval. They would still dictate that approval. We still have some paperwork that you'll see inside of these that gets processed as part of that. So, um that was just the first piece I wanted to go through and that was I've had this sort of conversation with you, but I know there's public here and just having them understand some of that as well. But, I will start with the first one, which is uh the high school abatement.
137So, it's a pretty substantial one. It was for 95 or sorry, 91,500 dollars. But, it was a combination of things. So, we did as we were doing abatement through this building, we found um four additional classroom classroom ceilings, excuse me, that we had to abate as part of the construction process. Found two rooms of floor tile that weren't identified that we had to abate as part of that process. And three doors that had asbestos material inside the doors that had to be abated. All those items were confirmed by testing through your testing and monitoring company. Um and then once they were confirmed as hazardous material, we solicited the proposal that you see in here. So, SED has a process where you're supposed to be under a threshold of 35,000 for anything that's deemed a change.
138So, it's not that we try to get around that, but SED allows you a process of saying we have encountered these things. We could do them individually as a change order or an allowance, and we could do seven or eight of these that are each classroom is a ceiling, each this classroom ceiling, etc. Sometimes they'll allow us to lump those together even though it's above that total. And then we can write them sort of a dissertation sort of to say, "Hey, we did this this way because of these reasons." Um so that they won't affect your aid and things like that. That's a pretty common practice. I know you've probably heard there's thresholds and things like that. There absolutely are, but it's not like um if you hit this number, you have to do this
139extra thing. There are times where we get pricing, and we say, "You know what? This doesn't make sense. Maybe we should consider going to bid, or we should adjust the scope, or things like that." So, when you see something large like that, especially in as allowance, the first thing is thankfully it's already part of their contract. We're just basically paying down out of that. The next thing that's typically the concern is, "Will SED approve this?" And we'll go through that process with SED as to why it is this total. So, when you flip through some of the back up, you'll see it kind of highlighted through here. This amount was for ceilings, this amount was for flooring, this amount was for doors. Okay? Do you have any questions on that? Do you want more clarification?
140Okay. Yeah. Please. >> Yeah. Um can we get some sort of printout on this just so that >> Absolutely. >> if we could. Um just so that I followed along about a third of what you said. >> That's fair. You >> But if we're if we're able to look at it and on paper or or send send it to us on email or something. >> Of the actual changes? >> Yes, please. >> Oh, I apologize. I thought you did have them. Yeah, absolutely. We can make sure you have a copy of it. Yep, that's my fault. >> No, that's my fault. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> All right. The next one follows the elementary side of that abatement through that process, which we talked about a little bit over the past summer, where we had
141a number of additional glue dabs we found behind plastic laminate panels around sinks, chalkboards. Um we also found a number of um what this is called asbestos-containing elbows, which are piping connections and things like that that we had to remove. Um and then again additional ceilings and grids and things like that. So, those are indicated also on the follow-up page. They're marked in red. Um when you see that copy of it, you can look through those. Uh the total of that for the elementary school was 32,500 dollars, excuse me. Questions? >> Yeah, just in any case, like high-level, is are these changes going to impact us on financially on the back end, where this whole project as a whole will end up costing more cuz we kind of kicked the numbers down the road. >>
142Can I answer your question after all of these? Cuz I think I'll I'll sort of fill in maybe some of the gaps there. >> Yeah, no problem. >> And that's okay cuz I do have a a little bit of financial information of where we are as of February that will sound a lot better cuz it is, but it won't lessen the impact of what you're hearing. Okay? Sorry, I just went those over there. Sorry, questions on that one other than that? Sorry. All right. The next one is um the bus garage steel support of the mezzanine. So, the bus garage, this is not the foundation one, that'll be the next one I talk about, but inside the bus garage where the original office was, there's actually a mezzanine above that. A mezzanine is a second
143open to the rest of the area. That was all bearing masonry, which isn't what was represented on the existing drawings when the designers were sort of putting that together. That was determined as we were getting ready for demo and they had started sort of that process. So, the structural engineer came on site, they reviewed what was there and how the new space was supposed to look. They designed a beam and support columns to hold up and re support that mezzanine so that we could continue with what was the original design intent. Uh the cost for that was not cheap. It was about $48,000 to do that. Um but that's the process of getting the steel approved, installed, and working within what is really a tight area of that. Um that's one of those that certainly
144if it was a change order would be above that threshold. But, it would be odd and SED would likely agree to break that into smaller parts. You wouldn't write them a change order to do the steel itself and then the install or you wouldn't write them for just the foundations for those. It's all really a collective thing. And they'll likely take it that into account when we present it to them. Questions? Okay. All right, the next one is the foundation. Sorry, I apologize. Which is the one we talked about where unfortunately over the summer we had 15 different thought processes of how we were trying to either keep or reinforce reinforce, excuse me, that existing foundation. It was basically the whole front apron of the bus garage from all the overhead doors. So, I don't
145know if you remember the video or picture I shared of the contractor grabbing the foundation block and basically crumbling it in his hand. Um certainly after 50 years, and I don't know that I would say that's unexpected, but certainly could have been something we could have avoided if we could have. Um, they ripped all of that out after they had gone through several iterations of re-supporting the existing building before they could do that. And they did that by stretching cables across all of the beams. If you looked in that space, you would have seen them stretched across there that basically held the building from not kicking out as they did that cuz that's what the foundation was doing. Then we formed, poured, and then backfilled, and then finished the work as we had originally planned.
146The cost of that was 57,000, just a little bit over, it was 57 it's 57,017 dollars. But that was brand new footings, brand new foundation, and then the excavation across that. Questions? Okay. The last one I have here is the elementary school floor excavation. So, originally the designers had indicated on the drawings that under the 300s wing, that was all crawl space, which to a bidder says, "Hey, you can actually get under there and install all the things you want to install." In reality, that was on grade, and we had to cut and excavate all of that to install every bit of underground piping that was needed for the bathrooms and the relocation of the bathrooms that happened in that 300s wing. So, that was also a fairly sizable one as well. Um, it was
14745,703 dollars. Um, it's an unfortunate thing. We should have really been able to tell that. I don't know if they had something from existing drawings. Like the bus garage pieces, they had some definitive information. I We haven't been able to determine how they assumed it was a crawl space. Yes, sir. >> There were bathrooms in that wing. >> 100%? >> Were they under the ground? >> Yeah, everything was underground. Okay. >> So, in order to do the work, you had to go into the ground and >> We had to. Yeah. If we unless we didn't want to change the spaces. Yeah, there was no way around that. Um up unless nobody would do this, you could put in grinder pumps for every bathroom. Nobody's going to want to do that, and that would be at
148a detriment to you guys. That would make Onan's life 10 times harder for all of those spaces. >> So, Chris, do we have a crawlspace now? >> You do not. >> We do not. Okay. >> have The only crawlspace you have there, I believe, is um near the existing cafeteria running down It's probably not first and second grade anymore like when I was there, but whatever the main hallway is, I think it's kindergarten and first grade. I think there's a little bit through there, and it comes up actually in the um front lobby um right by um where the stairs and the ramp and everything are. >> So, we're going to write down that we don't have a crawlspace, so in 75 years when they have to redo the bathrooms, they'll know. >> They will
149know at that point. Um so, questions outside of that on this? So, again, all of these five that were presented right now are allowances. They're not changes. We have had changes. And so, one of the things was your question, Sarah, is what will this do in sort of the overall impact? So, what will be shared with you soon, I just cleaned it up at the end of the day today, is where we just sit financially now. So, I'm going to do phase two first cuz it's basically the worst piece of this cuz it's the biggest piece. Right now, your contracts are sort of stagnant. They haven't gone up yet. I think the GCs will by the time we're done just based on what we've seen, what we have coming. Um but, I think the mechanical
150contractor, electrical, those guys, we haven't spent a good chunk of their allowance for everything. So, I think that may be okay. What I think is really telling is phase one. We're almost a couple hundred thousand dollars less in change orders cuz we really had no changes through those, no allowances, either. We carried budgets for those. And we're And we're taking those back, and we've already done that. So, that's what you'll see on here. I don't recall I didn't have a chance to look it up what the original amount was for phase one in terms of what was awarded, but it was probably I want to say it was like 4.9 or so. That's down now because of that allowance and that gets back from not having to spend it. So, you're seeing if you were
151to look at I think our budget as of the award of phase two, we've probably saved money. The project itself doesn't reflect that because it's just not how you track the funds. So, right now I think you'll be okay. You won't overspend your totality of this, but this will still change by the time we get to December of '26, which is when we do finish. And really it's looking to finish before that cuz Jeff has to submit the final costs by December. So. Um right now, our incidental budget at 4.1, that hasn't increased or decreased. So, we're still holding that as a budget. We're going to see as we get closer through June and July where we may be able to pull from some funds from there because we'll be comfortable at that point knowing
152there's not much more coming for hazardous material testing and monitoring and structural testing. And then the same thing right now, the construction contingency at say we haven't used any of that. And that is the fund we would typically use for all the asbestos and things we found if we were to find it more than what the allowances had sort of provided. Okay. And I apologize you guys don't have this. That's my fault. I literally just finished it today. So, um and this will reflect these allowances as well. Um but again, it won't change your contract amount cuz that's an allowance. Anything else? >> Any other questions? >> Uh I have a question unrelated to the allowances. Um it's regarding building practices. >> Okay. >> A lot of our students and teachers near the middle school
153wing of the high school have about reports smelling um wood stain. >> Oh, okay. >> And there's a lot of concerns over the safety like with the fumes and everything. >> Okay. >> Just some words alleviating that sort of concern. >> So, um please share them with the building administrators and they'll filter them through us. And we're happy to address any other concerns, especially for students or faculty. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks. >> Any other questions? Thanks, CJ. >> Thank you, everybody. >> Appreciate it. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Next up, um policy committee report. We do have some policies that we're retiring, so I'll let Francis speak about that. >> So, we've started the process with New York State School Boards uh with the actually with the the policy service that Jeff
154called out in his uh admin is um budget presentation earlier. They have gone through our policy book and begun identifying policies that we don't need. It's rules written down that we don't need to have because they exist either as laws or we state them in other ways. So, we're actually going to be respo- uh retiring one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight uh policies um that are covered by federal and uh state law that we don't need to then restate in our own broken way. And then additionally we'll be retiring policy 7540 which is named suicide um because it's covered by the school safety plan. Uh the school is not changing its feelings that suicide is bad and that we're going to support students to make sure it doesn't happen. Uh we are simply
155removing unnecessary language that describes it. Um that's sort of where we're at. We have another policy meeting next week where we'll be uh beginning the code of conduct work and sort of moving forward with um um uh more of a policy book update. Any questions? Awesome. >> Wait. Okay. All right. So with with regard to policies, um I'm going to put these two together. Um I don't resolution to retire some to retire some policies. Everybody okay? >> [laughter] >> And that's okay. Um All right. So be it resolved um based that upon the recommendation of the student Oh my goodness. Let me try that again. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent the Board of Education hereby retires the policies that are listed in item 11.01 and 11.02. May I have a
156motion? Thank you, Tony. A second? >> I'll second. >> Oh. Thank you, Ray. Comments or questions? >> Just to be clear uh 5681 is mentioned in resolution 1102. We are not retiring 5681. We are only retiring 7540. >> It was just for everyone's reference that that language is existing in another policy. Okay. Any other questions? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Next item uh is with regard to the capital project. >> I can No, I can read it. I'm just I I can do them together. This is No, no, no. Um okay, so uh we have an approval of phase two capital project change orders that um CJ just uh reported to us as well as approve Ashley McGraw Architects phase three Centennial Capital Project contracts. >> Wait, wait, this says change
157orders. He was sort of clear that they're not change orders. >> Oh, I'm sorry. You're absolutely right. He was talking about the ones that were within the scope. >> Yes. >> Sorry. Thank you for catching that. So, these are approving the change orders. Which were not the ones that he just mentioned because the ones that he just mentioned were less than $50,000. I have Do I have that right? Yeah. Okay. Uh so, be it resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education hereby approves I'm going to do them separately. Um the phase two capital project change orders as presented. May I have a motion? I'll motion. >> Thank you, Lisa. Second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Francis. Comments or questions? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Next item, be
158it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent, the Board of Education approves the contract between Ashley McGraw Architects and Duanesburg Central School District for the phase three Centennial Capital Project effective March 2nd, 2026. As recommended by the superintendent is probably not necessary. Serena's listed twice. This agreement should not be binding on the parties until authorized and signed by each party's respective representatives. May I have a motion? >> I'll motion. >> Thank you, Francis. A second? Thank you, Michael. Comments or questions? >> So, this is bringing Ashworth Group and his architects for the for the phase three project that the district approved in December. Okay. That That is primarily the gym, the counseling center, and there's a floor issue. Okay. Cool. >> Any other questions? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Next, we'll
159take our our financial Excuse me, my financial items. Uh be it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the Board of Education approves financial items 13.01, uh 13.03 through 13.08. So, we're skipping 13.02 because we've stricken that from the record. Um may I have a motion? >> I'll motion. >> Thank you, Sarah. A second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Alyssa. Comments or questions on the financial reports? Or financial items, rather? All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Any abstentions? Next item is instructional personnel. Be it resolved that upon the recommendation of the superintendent that we the Board of Education approves um the non-instructional items 15.01 through 15.03. May I have a motion? Oh. Oh my goodness. I'm sorry. No, it's not you, sorry. But I did I did skip instructional, didn't I?
160Sorry about that. Okay. All right. >> Ronald going to hand you our glasses. >> Pause. Pause, rewind. Our next set of items are instructional personnel items. >> Oh, oh, oh. >> Oh, wow. Thanks. Um, I hope these ones are broken, but that's Thank you. >> [laughter] >> No, I'm not complaining. It's just if they fall off or or the the thing falls out. Uh, okay. Um, be it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the Board of Education approve instructional personnel items 14.01 through 14.03. May I have a motion? Thank you, Tony. A second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Francis. Comments or questions on these items? >> I know you've said it, but 14.01 should probably not be under instructional. >> It's It will It will. >> Does it matter? Okay. >>
161Really, it doesn't matter. >> All right, just checking. >> But thank you for picking up on that. >> Any other questions? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Next item are non-instructional personnel items. Be it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the Board of Education approve non-instructional personnel items 15.01 through 15.03. May I have a motion? Thank you, Sarah. A second? Thank you, Tony. Comments or questions? All in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Next item. Uh, accept CSE and CPSE minutes. Be it resolved based upon the recommendation of the superintendent the Board of Education approves the CSE and CPSE CPSE minutes from the meetings on February 3rd, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 24th, 25th, and 27th of 2026. May I have a motion? Thank you, Sarah. Second? Thank
162you, Francis. Comments or questions? Busy month. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, our last item is simply an uh an informational item. Excuse me, that um on our Board of Education calendar meeting calendar, we had the March 24th meeting as um listed as if needed. Um and we uh we will be holding that meeting on March 24th, 2026. Um the the the date and the time are are as typical. So, we will be here 2 weeks from today. Um I do not believe that we require an additional executive session. Uh so, I will request a motion to adjourn our meeting at 9:14 p.m. May I have a motion? Thank you, Sarah. Second? >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Ray. Comments or questions? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you
163very much, everyone, for being here and staying late with us. Travel safely.