001Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Heat. Heat. Heat. Thank you and good evening everyone. Fire exits are located in the side of the room in the back in the front and in the back. In the event of a fire, you will hear a fire alarm. At that time, please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest exit. Um, we will now move on to public speaking and a little different than usual. After public speaking, we will be uh have an update on the our superintendent search. Um, I will now make a motion to open the floor for public speaking. Do I have a second? >> Second by Miss Charles Pier. All those in favor say I. >> I. And oppos. Motion carries. Speaker number one. Good afternoon, interim superintendent Rulesko and members
002of the board. My name is Emily Sigara and I am a senior at Ramipo High School. As many of you know, the situation in Spring Valley has recently created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty for many of our neighbors and immigrants who are our friends, classmates, co-workers, and community members. These individuals are people who shape our daily lives and bring the sense of life, culture, and companionship that make a community truly feel alive. Being Ecuadorian and coming from a family of immigrant descent, I have personally witnessed how hardworking and hopeful immigrants in our community are. Many came here with the same aspirations that many of us might hold to work honestly to build a life and to reach the accomplishments and dreams we strive for ourselves. These individuals do not impose harm on our community.
003Rather, they give a depth and diversity, the very qualities that make Spring Valley beautiful and vibrant. We see this every day. I see it in the achievements of students and the friends around me who excel within our schools and strive for something that although we have always been limited to by society have always strived for regardless. We see it in the community service and dedication of family members who give their time and energy to help others. We see it in the small children growing up with big hopes for their futures. All of this reflects something deeply human and universal. The desire to belong, to contribute, and to build a community that feels like a home. Yet, harsh immigration policies have made that sense of home feel for many frightening and uncertain. Because of this, I
004stand here today to advocate for protective policies that safeguard immigrant students and allow our school buildings to be a place of shelter, dignity, and compassion rather than fear. Protecting our schools from ICE enforcement, ensuring that students can focus on their education without fear and anxiety are the type of policies that can help restore trust and security within our community. We have an example of a model policy that we want to share with you interm superintendent rulus so that the district can take a step in the right direction. Immigrants are the backbone of our community and our country. They contribute their labor, their talents, and their dreams. They step into vital roles as doctors, teachers, workers, caregivers, and leaders. They are not aliens, and they will never be threats. They are our neighbors, our classmates, and
005our friends. They represent the very values of our communities and what it stands for. Growth, resilience, compassion, and the extraordinary beauty that comes from a place rich in culture, understanding, and hope. Thank you and have a great evening. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Do you mind passing over Excuse me, young lady. Hi. Do you mind bringing over the policy that you have? Excuse me. Thank you. Speaker number two. Good evening, members of the board. My name is Jayen Kiha Palma. I am a high school senior at Ramo High School and a public education committee leader in the New York Civil Liberty Union's Teen Activist Project. I have attended ERCSD schools my whole life and I can attest that the majority of the students I've attended school with are or have family members that are
006immigrants. Many of these families are deeply rooted in our community and contribute so much to our neighborhoods and our schools. Currently, students and their families are afraid for them to leave home even just to attend something as important as school. I feel it is the district's responsibility to ease this fear and create a policy to protect students and their families right to attend school. Students should never have to choose between their safety and their education. The culture I experience at Ramapo is truly one of a kind. I attend school with individuals of various backgrounds, and these various different backgrounds blend beautifully into a lively environment. As I walk the halls, I hear various languages and accents that reflect the diversity of our community. This diversity is something that makes our school stronger and helps students
007learn from one another every single day. It should be the district's main goal to protect its students and creating a policy that would outline the procedure followed if ICE were to enter or attempt to enter our school is important to ensure that protection. We have a model policy to share with you all tonight to help establish a structure. Having clear guidelines would help both students and staff feel safe, secure, and prepared. I strongly urge you all to reflect and act urgently to create this policy, especially in today's political climate. The fear that many immigrant families are experiencing is real and schools should be a place where this fear is reduced, not increased. Us students deserve protection for our classmates and we deserve to feel safe and secure knowing that our teachers and other supporting staff
008are dedicated to protecting us regardless of immigration status. Creating this policy would show that our district is truly committed to all its students. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Speaker number three. Good evening, interim superintendent, board president Rose, and members of the board. My name is Rhina Senor, and I am a student at Spring Valley High School and a member of Niklus's teen activist project. I'm here today to support my classmates as we call upon the district to ensure policy is implemented that protects the students in East Ramo. I urge the district to take this seriously and put a policy in place so that every student in East Ramo can learn in an environment where their safety is truly prioritized. I want to bring attention to another moment as well. Earlier in February,
009we had a snowstorm that caused schools to shut down for a couple of days. When we came back to the school, the fire alarm went off and students had to follow procedure and exit the building. But some of the doors were snowed in due to the lack of shoveling and plowing. This hindered the students in exiting the school building within a timely manner. When the doors opened, the students at the front were hesitant to proceed forward because of the thick snow, while others in the back were pushing their way ahead because they're trying to exit the school. A situation like this should never occur as it presents a clear fire and safety hazard which is unacceptable. Safety is the first priority, first priority when it comes to the students and then learning comes after. If
010school grounds are not plowed enough to the point ensure student safety, then schools shouldn't open up until they do so. I hope in the future the district will implement some kind of policy that will guarantee that this isn't a possibility that will happen in the future. I fully believe that this is attainable. Students should never have to question whether they can safely leave their school building during emergency. Situations like the one we experience show why clear standards and preparation are essential. By ensuring that entrances, exits, and school grounds are properly cleared before reopening after severe weather, the district can protect students and prevent unnecessary risks. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Speaker number four. >> Good evening, members of the board. My name is Katie Vasquez, a student for the civil civil liberties union teen
011activist project. East Ramo should create a policy to protect student protect immigrant students because many students here have immigrants. >> I'm sorry. Can you hold on just a moment, please? Can we raise our volume up, please? >> Okay. >> East Rampo should create a policy to protect immigrant students because many students here have immigrant backgrounds. They already deal with challenges like learning a new language, adjusting to a new culture, and worrying about things like deportation or money. We should not make things harder by allowing them to feel unsafe at school or be treated unfairly because of where they come from. Every student deserves a fair chance at a good future. A policy that helps immigrant students feel welcome and supported is important. For example, the school should keep students personal information private and only share
012it if the law requires. This would help a student students focus on learning instead of worrying about their own or their family safety. Another policy that could provide for students and families, for example, schools should offer English language programs and translators for both students and parents and counselors who understand the challenges immigrant students face. This would help students understand and adjust learning education to succeed. The last policy that schools should create will create a safe and clear system for any immigrant student to report any type of bullying. discrimination or unfair treatment without fear. Staff should seriously take action to investigate and solve any type of problem to make sure every kid every student feels welcome, protected, and respected in school. Schools should be safe for kids. Students should feel safe at school, especially with everything
013going on with ICE. School should not be part should not be partnering with ICE to detain kids or get their information. Schools are supposed to be a safe place where all students can learn without fear. Students shouldn't be worried that immigration officers might come to their school or that their family members might be taken away. It is it it makes it very hard for kids to focus on their education. Schools have a responsibility to protect the well-being of every student, no matter no matter the their background or immigration status. In February, kids took time out of school to walk out and protest about what's going on with ICE. It was a cold afternoon and kids went out to protest for what they believe in. And this is what I'm doing today as I share my
014words with you. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker number five. >> Good evening. This is just a reminder that on Thursday we will have the fifth annual Regent Judith Johnson Shirou celebration. At that time we will be honoring 14 dynamic women from the East Ramapo. Well, not only from East Ramapo but from all over. And these women have really made a difference uh as far as the education of the children of East Ramapo. Now, another thing is we need the support of everyone we can possibly get due to the fact that the readers that did the videos for the Shirou's event are our students and we need to come out and show support. We're also very honored that uh Commissioner Betty Rosa has consented to be one of our sheros. So, thank you and I hope
015to see you on Thursday. The event starts, the reception starts at 6:00 p.m. and it's from 6 to 6:45. The actual program starts at 7 and it's from 7 until 9. And we were very lucky last year we finished before 9:00. And hopefully we're going to do the same thing. This year we're going to start on time and end on time. Thank you. >> Thank you. That concludes public speaking. Um I I thank you all the students that came out to talk about um about creating a policy. I would turn it over to our superintendent. Um do we have a policy? What's our current policy and what can we do to enact I'm assuming we need to go over with legal, but what's holding us back currently from >> doing a policy that can protect
016our students? >> Sure. No, no, I don't believe that we have a specific policy for ICE, but I do want you to know that all of our building level administrators and central office administrators receive professional development um um about this issue so that they would know exactly what to do if ICE comes to our schools. In addition, I uh created a summary sheet for them giving them guidance on what to do if an ICE officer approaches the school. Yes. uh your information is private. Um there's a lot that we can do to protect you in the schools. Um but there is a limit to what we can do especially once you're off school grounds. So but in the school developing a policy and um I did share all of this information in writing with our
017uh team but I can share it again regularly. But I want you to know we've been working >> which is virtual. Um if our families do feel like they don't feel safe to come out uh do we have anything planned in the next few weeks for that? >> Well um no we don't but that's a good idea. So we can certainly utilize family university um to do that and um we could have um a discussion about how to share this information with the students so they at least know more about what it is that we're doing. Um so I'm happy to facilitate those communications. I want the community to know what we're doing. I want you to know that we are working on it. We're aware of it. And I want you to feel safe
018in terms of a policy. Certainly, we'll look into the uh possibility of developing one. >> And like I said, also also um providing resources, community resources um if they need to reach out. >> Okay. I would like to add to uh Sabrina not only resources but uh the community should know their rights and the students should know what the rights um what rights they have >> and I I just want to say I commend all the students for adv being an advocate and speaking out. Your voice is is heard. Um, we appreciate all of you coming this evening explaining right and advocating and we need to as a a district, you know, we need to look at this and try and create a policy to make our students feel safe because when you go to
019school, it is supposed to be a safe place for all of you. We want you to be able to go to school without worrying about, you know, something happening. We want you to be able to focus in on your academics. So, I commend all of you for coming this evening. stressing your concerns and coming to this board and advocating for yourself and your and your classmates. Thank you. >> Thank Thank you colleagues and thank you Vice President and I I agree and we're going to we're going to get back we're going to start working on a policy and we we heard you >> president. Just a quick >> I'm sorry. Sure. >> President, >> if I may. Uh I really quick looking very quickly. New York State has guidelines protecting students safety against immigration and
020customs enforcement. I think this is something that we should take into consideration if you like. I could probably email this to you, but maybe we could use this as a >> as a way to create that help with that conversation. As Vice President McIll just mentioned and ensuring that once again, as Vice President McIll just mentioned, we you should be able to just focus on your education and that's it. and enjoying your life and enjoying your youth and and and doing what young people do, which is, you know, sports or whatever, you know, and so this is something that we take very seriously. So, we do sincerely appreciate that you're here speaking on behalf of yourselves, of your neighbors, of your friends, of of of our loved ones. Thank you. Appreciate you. >> Thank you,
021Mr. Vera. Okay. Um, I would now like to give an update on our superintendent search and read a statement on behalf of the entire board. This is a statement that we all um reviewed and agreed. I will just be reading it out um and then I would allow some of my colleagues to chime in with some further comments. The board of education of the East Ramapo Central School District wishes to provide the public and community with a detailed update on the current status of the search for a new superintendent. At its March 10th, 2026 board meeting, district clerk Kathy Ki shared an update on the search firm on the search provided by Dr. Harold Kohl's, excuse me, district superintendent of the southern Westchester Boseis. The district had originally thought sought to use the Rockland County
022Bose's district superintendent to conduct the search, but the commissioner of the state education of New York and the state monitors directed the district to use the resources of Dr. Kohl's and Westchester Boseis. The board followed that directive as Miss Kei shared. The board followed every step of the process that Dr. calls and the southern Westchester Boseis team developed. The board identified characteristics sought of a new superintendent. The Boseis team met with members of the East Rambo community to solicit input and feedback. This was shared with the board. Dr. Kohl's and his team then posted for a new superintendent. 28 people responded to the posting. The board was not provided the names or information of these 28 candidates. Instead, the Boseis team with the input of the state monitors reviewed the applicants. From this, the Boseis
023team selected 12 candidates who met the board's expectations for a new superintendent. On Tuesday, January 22, 2026, the Boseis team presented six candidates to the state monitors for feedback. The monitors removed two of those candidates. The remaining four candidates were presented to the board on Tuesday, January 27th, 2026. From this short list developed by Dr. by by the Boseis team and the state monitors. The board selected three for the first round of interviews on Thursday, February 26, 2026. The fourth candidate was held in reserve. First round interviews were scheduled for Thursday, February 26th, with three of the four candidates. On the evening of February 25th, 2026, one of the candidates dropped out of the search. Unexpectingly, Dr. Cole's working with the state monitors and the board added the fourth reserve candidate. Three candidates, including the
024newly added one, were given first round interviews on Thursday, February 26, 2026. State Jallow was part of the first round interviews. SPA state monitor far was attending virtually. The board selected two candidates to return with monitor approval. The monitors did not disapprove or object to either of the two finalists. On Thursday, March 5th, 2026, the two candidates participated in a second round of interviews. Again, the board and state monitors participated in these interviews. In those interviews, the board and monitor Jalo presented suggested round two interview questions to Dr. Kohl's. Monitor Jallow actively participated the round two interviews, including asking questions of the candidates in those interviews. Following this very complete process, the board unanimously decided on a finalist. The board was highly impressed with a candidate who is not only a seasoned educator with experience
025in a multicultural and diverse population of school districts. She is also a bilingual Latina and lives in East Ramapo school district. The board felt there was no better candidate to serve the students needs and provide the dedication and leadership our district desperately needs. and our district desperately needs. The board truly felt this was not only the best choice of candidate but an excellent choice overall. This was also a candidate the monitors approved moving to the final stage of the process. Again, this was a candidate the monitors approved moving to the final stage of the process. The board sent its letter with its unanimous recommendation to the monitors on March 5th, 2026. In a letter dated March 13, 2026, the state monitors commended the work of the board during the search process done in coordination with
026Southern Westchester Boseies. It then disapproved of the board's recommendation. Again, this was a unanimous decision, again being disapproved by the state monitors. Despite being involved in every stage of the process, including the allowing the chosen candidate to advance to the final round, the state monitors disapproved the board's unanimous choice without explanation, rationale, or guidance. This leaves the board in a quandry about the criteria being applied and or how future decisions will be evaluated. Yesterday, several board members met with the state education commissioner to express our concern about the monitor decision. We explained how we followed the complete search process, the complete search process established by Dr. Kohl's and the West Sabosi's team. We also explained why we selected a candidate what we we did. Dr. Kohl's was at the meeting and confirmed that he and
027the monitors were part of the entire search and selection process. The commissioner offered no explanation for the monitor's disapproval on the weekend. Over the weekend, the board also learned that Westchester Boseis reposted the superintendent vacancy. The reposting was done without the board's knowledge, input, or approval. This bypasses the board's role in directing the search process and raises concerns about governance and communication. In addition, applicants on this posting were directed to respond by April 3rd. The board is concerned about the timing of the repost. Good Friday and Passover and close to Easter may limit the ability to attract a complete representative pool of candidates. Hiring a superintendent is the most critical of responsibility that a board of education has. This board cowed out carried out that responsibility diligently and in full compliance with the process established
028by the search consultant by the state uh the the Westchester Boseies and state monitors. We selected a candidate approved by Westchester Boseies and the monitors and then only for it to be rejected. The board remains committed to work it to working collaboratively with all pro parties. We expect and hope for the process for a process which is clear, accountable and aligned with the best interests of students and the community we serve. We will continue to keep you, the public we served, we serve informed and aware of this process. Our hope is still is to hire a qualified candidate we can rely on for the long term in time to start July 1st, 2026. This concludes the statement. I would like to request um Kathy if we can post this on our district website in addition
029together with um our letter we received from our state monitors. Um I believe some other and just to add we me and trustee Charles Pierre were today in Albany advocating for our district and advocating for our choice of superintendent and we will continue to advocate for that choice. Um that concludes my update and I welcome any of my colleagues who have any other comments or statements to to speak. I I mean I President Rose uh you basically stated it all um in the letter but um I do want to say that you know as a board some of the board members yes we did go to speak with the commissioner um because we were really really trying to get the support um from the commissioner based on the decision that this board made unanimously um
030in regards to this candidate Um, so we are a school district that basically needs to move forward. Uh, we need a superintendent that's going to be the CEO to make sure that daily operations are functioning properly. Um, especially for our students, our staff, um, families, parents, guardians. Uh so it is this is very very important. I know that it was uh very frustrating to have gone through the process and followed the process for our decision to be rejected and rejected with no explanation which I couldn't understand and it's very hard for me still to understand because I felt like the candidate that was brought forth that made it to the level the next level was approved by the search firm as well as our monitors. So, it's a little disheartening knowing that we are in
031a situation where we need to get a superintendent to serve East Rample Central School District and move us in the move us forward. So, um I'm hoping that something takes place quickly for the sake of this district because we do need a superintendent. and the superintendent again and again, I'll say it over and over again, I still can't understand how we were presented with finalists from our search firm and state monitors for that individual to be rejected. I I still don't get it. I don't understand it. Um, maybe you all can make me understand it, but um, right now it just doesn't seem right. Um, and we shouldn't even have to be going through this process. Um, we made a decision and I and I know we made a good decision um, based on what
032was presented before us. So hopefully things will change sooner than later because what suffers is our district and our children and I and and and the teachers, our staff. So I hope that change comes about soon. Um and that's about it. But it is very disheartening. Very disheartening. Um, for nearly 11 years, I've had the privilege and responsibility of serving on the board of education in the East Rample Central School District. During that time, I have witnessed many challenges, difficult decisions, and moments where our community had to come together to advocate for what our students deserve. However, I must say with complete honesty that I have never been more frustrated or more concerned about the direction being imposed upon our district that I am and that I am today. For years, East Rample has operated
033with New York State appointed monitors. While oversight can play an important role in accountability and improvement, it should never come at the expense of collaboration, respect for local leadership, or the long-term stability of a school district. Unfortunately, the recent decisions and actions taken by the state monitors and with conversation with commissioner have left many of us questioning whether the goal is truly to support East Rample's progress or to continue perpetrating a narrative that undermines the work being done in the district every day. Most recently, our board of education identified a selected candidate to serve as a permanent superintendent of schools. After lengthy search process and thoughtful consideration, we believe we had identified an individual who could provide the leadership, stability, and direction our district needs. However, as we just heard, that candidate was was rejected
034by the state monitors. This decision has only added to the instability that has plagued our district for years. In the last 10 years alone, East Ryan has had five superintendents or interim superintendent. In the last five years, the board has has had to appoint four different leaders to fill that role. That level of turnover would disabilize any organization, let alone a large and complex public school district responsible for educating thousands of students. Quite simply, no district can thrive without consistent leadership. Strategic planning, academic progress, and financial stability all require continuity at the top. When leadership changes repeatedly, it disrupts momentum, undermines long-term planning, and creates uncertainty for staff, families, and most importantly, our students. At the same time, we are currently seeing decisions that raise serious concerns about the long ter long-term physical health of
035the district. Positions continue to be created while critical student needs remain unmet. As someone who has served on this board for over a decade, I cannot ignore the warning signs. I fear that if this pattern continues, East Rampa could once again find itself facing a significant financial def deficit within the next few years. We understand the challenges our district faces. We see the dedication of our educators, staff, and families who show up every day committed to helping our students succeed. Progress in a district as complex as East Rampa requires partnership, trust, and a genuine commitment to building solutions with the community, not decisions imposed. We understand that no candidate will meet every expectation. However, we identified a candidate who we believe is an excellent is an excellent fit based on her knowledge and experience. Is
036Rample is a very unique district and we cannot continue to operate under the current conditions. We are asking for transparency in the decision-making process and a clear explanation for the rejection of our candidate. Our students cannot wait for politics to be resolved. They need leadership now. This is not just about a candidate. This is about the future of East Rampo. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Charles. >> President, I want to thank you, President Rose, for reading that statement from us. Um I just want to add on the disappointment uh that I feel in that we as a unified board something that I'm very proud to serve along with these ladies and gentlemen to my sides that we collectively voted unanimously for the candidate that was presented to the board. after many many many hours
037of deliberation over resumes and speaking with the candidates. So it there is a level of disappointment in having our voice that came as one to be given a big no. And so uh I am once again thank you President Rose. I want to thank all the board members for all the work that we've done in making every move possible to help our community to help our school district to grow, to build up on our students, to build up on our staff. And uh again, I'm disappoint disappointed in that we were told no. Thank you again, President Rose. >> Thank you. I would just like to remind um that this is not the first time that the state monitors have done it with us. I'm here for my fir I'm finishing now my fourth year on
038the district. The first two years we had Dr. Ellias and then we went out looking for a superintendent also with a search firm the way it should be done. We brought we we had finalists and we did all the steps and then the monet rejected our decision and we had to go look for an interm because we couldn't find a a permanent. So we looked for an intermallo to be here which everybody was very happy. The board and the parents and the community was very happy with him. I remember all the speeches of the community begging us to reinstate Dr. Dallo. We were about to reinstate him and there was a meeting with you in the monitors and Dr. Dalo and then he said that he wouldn't stay which I don't know what that meeting
039was because before that he didn't say that after the meeting he said that he wouldn't stay. So we got an other interimm superintendent for a year and now we did the same stop step steps and again we were rejected by somebody that wasn't a finalist. We do not run the search. We only get what we are given. And what we were given, we took the best that we could. And as Shima said, the candidate that we chose, we all believed that it's not only the best what we got. It's really a really great candidate that we believe that East that she will be able to lead East Ramapo in the direction that it needs to be leaded. And again, we were rejected. It makes us believe that there is an agenda within the state to
040make sure that Israel fails and not succeeds. >> Thank you. I I've been here for a lot of years and I could I could say one thing is that this past year the board has gotten together and working together for all the kids really really trying very very hard for everything that's put in front of us to give to all the children and I can what I can say is that the moners should be ashamed of themselves be ashamed what they did over here because we followed everything from A to Z all the way to the end and then just to throw us that curveball and and do what they did. I the last couple days I'm I I think it's a dream. This is it's it's it's I I am in shock what what
041what happened because we all did it together. We picked the right candidate. someone from here, someone who would be very good with for the community and and just to just to knock it I I really feel what he just said is that I feel like they want to see us fail and we had we had someone who was very very good, a very good candidate and it was just thrown away just like that. So I I have nothing else to say. >> Thank you Effie. So yeah, thank you. Thank you colleagues and again thank you for you know taking the dedication to make the these interviews happen and readjusting your schedules to make it happen to we should follow the process and we should try to do the right thing. Um and and you know
042to echo the thoughts of my colleagues, you know, we we did everything that we were directed to do by the state and by the our search firm and the the Westchester supposedly did a great job. We were very satisfied with the candidates presented to us and we followed every timeline and every directive from the state and from the team and to reach the unanimous choice for someone who who's we feel we all felt who interview who had great experience great resume answered every single question amazing someone lives she lives in the district bilingual Latina woman and someone who we listen to the public and somebody the public would love we feel and just for it to be rejected is is extremely extremely disappointing and disheartening and we're really requesting for the state to reconsider the
043decision and to to let us continue what we our job to improving this district. Um yeah that's that's my feeling as well. Um >> so before you move on um to the agenda um I believe there were questions asked that we as a board and I believe uh the public as well would like to be answered and with our monitor um Dr. Jalo who's sitting here and Sean Far who's on Zoom. Can you please provide us with a response on why the candidate was rejected? >> Not in public. No, I'm not going to talk about a candidate personnel issue in public space. >> Well, in the past you you did give out reasons. I mean, you don't think the public deserves to know why why this >> I do believe the public deserves to know,
044but in for the privacy of the candidate, I am not >> Well, we haven't named the candidate. Well, we're not asking for any >> to talk about the candidate or why >> it was it was presented last time. Why >> it was presented last time why the candidate was not was rejected by the monitor. So what's the different what's what's the different now difference now? >> I don't know what you're referring to but what you're asking me to do now in public space I am not going to talk about a candidate for their future for their future employment and current employment. I'm not going to talk about what our concerns were about that candidate in public space. >> Basically, what we're getting is a lack of transparency in the letter of the decision and the
045lack of transparency in general. >> Yeah. Unfortunately, it's not surprising. >> We had a discussion yesterday with the commissioner and it was a lack of transparency of the year as well. >> There's no words to add. Mr. to get hurt. >> Okay. >> As our attorney, is there any thing that the state monitors can share that would not I guess damage or put candidate in a position where I mean we're we're asking a general >> Yeah, I I I understand the desire not to talk about an individual in a public space. I I respect that. Um, I think what I heard from all of you in your comments is the your confusion as to how the search consultant and monitor could approve two candidates as finalists and then disapprove one of them. Their approval of
046those candidates going forward is tacit approval of both to be hired. So perhaps procedurally it might be helpful to understand how that process could happen. Why would someone be put forward as a candidate who would then be rejected? I guess that from a process standpoint, how does that how do those two things work together? I guess is maybe the question that really what should be answered and could be answered publicly because it's talking about the process not the person. Okay. Perhaps Dr. Jolly you could talk about the process then if we're not talking about specific people should probably start with we didn't approve candidates. You approve candidates. We did not approve candidates to come before you. That is not something that we do or did. >> I'm sorry. I I hate to cut you off,
047but can I Kathy, can you perhaps speak to what you spoke to us about what you witnessed? >> So, OSIS said that you sat with them and reviewed >> their six candidates and that you dropped two of them. >> Yes. >> And actually on the Zoom meeting yesterday with the commissioner, Dr. calls admitted that you vetted the candidates together with him. >> Vetted candidates, yes. Approved the candidates, no. >> I mean, rejecting removing to me means that you don't approve of those two, which means you did have a say in the final six or five that was presented to the board. >> Only the two candidates. I was involved in rejecting two candidates for specific reasons for the benefit of the district. They should not have been moved forward. But still that's not an approval.
048>> Vetting the process of carefully and critically examining something. >> Were they not critically examinally examined? Is that what you said? Yeah, we did examine. Yes. >> Mean that's the process. critically examining. That means that they were if they were vetted. That means they were they had reached a level that for lack of a better term checked off the boxes in putting out this announcement so that we could get a candidate to lead our district. >> They were vetted and moved forward. They were approved to move forward. Not approved to be your superintendent. That was still part of >> Then what? Then what does it mean move forward? just to sp to spend our time. No, >> you had 28 people. You right away shorted the list to 12 and then shorted the list to
049six only to have four which three and then just waste our time basically. By the way, I would like to ask >> I'm not interested in wasting your time or my time because I was there. I was there too. The issue is that we did vet, we did look, we did reject to >> Can I know what the meaning for vetting means? No, first when you say the word >> vetting means review, >> I think there's much more there's a there's a bigger definition to vetting. >> I'll tell you what vetting is. Vetting is the thorough investigation, evaluation or screening of >> company. Can we let our state monitor finish talking, please? Thank you. >> I can tell you what I did. You can tell me the definition of vetting. What we did was review.
050We read the applications and I wouldn't even say it was a deep reading because it was many documents. Yes, we did read the applications. Yes, we did reject two candidates. Yes, we approved certain candidates to move forward, not approve them to be superintendent. We approved them for you to review and interview them >> to what? To do teaching >> because the truth of the matter to what? The truth. Can I finish? >> The truth of the matter was we're not approving candidates for superintendency at that time. Otherwise, what would be the point of bringing them to you to interview? They would have already been approved. That's exactly what's the point. Then it wasn't by the way needed to be. >> I would like to I would like to ask council, is that part of the
051monitor's job? >> Is that part of the law that authorizes the monitor to be in part of vetting a candidate? >> No, it is not. So the monitor basically overstepped her doing >> the monitor legislation gives the monitors the authority to approve or disapprove the the selected candidate for the board. It does not give the monitors the authority to be as in as integrally involved in the process as as they were >> based on it doesn't and let me be clear the legislation does not overtly give them that authority. Could they I mean I I guess >> um there's nothing there's nothing prohibiting it. >> I mean it does present a bit of a an interesting circumstance if the monitors are involved in every step of the process but then have final authority essentially you
052know o to overrule the board. You would think they would they would want to be removed from the process that leads up to their final decision. >> And based on the process, we feel the board was set up to fail. >> That's exactly suggesting Are you suggesting we're involved with every level of the process? Because that's >> we feel that we were set up to fail from the beginning. And I think it's a I think it's also a I think it's also a conflict of basically a conflict of interest to be a part of the process to ask qu to ask candidates question and to still be um the one who has a final say uh when it comes to making um the final decision of what the board recommends. And you know, as it
053was stated, you were involved from beginning to end and still the same person. >> That was never stated. >> Who who decided was who decided was just bolized that I was involved from beginning to end. That was never stated in what was just was what was just read. >> Excuse me. >> It was stated in what we just read. >> Who decided to go with Westchester, not Rockland? >> In the past, as a board, we came. We were we were we were told that that's what the state wanted. Who was that? >> That was a directive from the commissioner. >> Are you talking about me or are you talking about someone else? >> That was a directive by the commissioner. Absolutely. >> That's pretty clear. >> How many I think Dr. Jallow you're arguing about
054honestly about semantics. You're arguing if vetted or move forward or rejected. I mean it's pretty clear you said yourself that you reviewed all the candidates. You decided two of the candidates not to move forward. So essentially if you rejected that means you accepted the other four and you admitted to move forward. We're arguing here over vetted or approved but it's clear that you were intimately involved in this process and you approved these candidates to move forward as in your own words move forward that means you interviewed them you were satisfied as my colleague Mr. They were very sad. Checked all the boxes. >> Interviewed, never interviewed, never met, never >> vetted. Correct. Vetted. >> Read their applications. >> Correct. >> How many more times did you meet the Boseies than the board? >> Once. >>
055So, what does that translate into? >> Reading applications. >> Is that what purpose? Is that part of a search usually that the district should read applications and vet or that's part of the of the of the search firm >> or the board? >> Maybe Dr. Cole could let us know how usually search works. >> We clearly feel >> you can please you can >> we clearly feel a new search is just here for a show. we end up we to get go from the to to fail and at the end it's going to be disapproved again. That's what we feel wasting our time doing searches, vetting, interviewing and then come back with a rejection. >> And to that point so we were told that um we couldn't do a search where we could find a
056f a candidate by January, February. We would have to wait till July first. And here we are um with a a candidate that was rejected, but we're being well, we're not being told our ass. It was posted that the search has reopened and now we're giving two less than two weeks to allow people to even see the posts and um be able to submit their applications. So, how is that, you know, ample time for candidates to to apply for us to go through the process to have someone in place by July 1st? >> And I believe that the wording on the posting changed some also about the qualifications of a candidate we are looking for. >> Yes, they put >> can you elaborate on that, Mr. Guber? Just to detail what you mean by that.
057Uh I believe that they changed some of the qualifications for a applicant what the applicant has to >> I think it was superintendent experience preferred to superintendent experience required I think that was so it shows that they we're changing the rules of the game as we go along >> in middle of the game actually >> and as as a district >> unless unless it's unless it's not the middle unless it's a new search which again somebody started not the board didn't approve the new search it wasn't even asked not didn't approve they weren't even asked I believe previously the bo the board had to approve the language of the uh criteria. >> I believe usually it's shared with the board and we um let our district clerk know if we agree or if anything should
058be changed or added to it and then it gets submitted. That's how we've done it in the past. Um our district >> unless we don't know that the state to totally took over the district and they do whatever they want. We are just here pundits playing the game. >> I've asked the commission yesterday. There's no question that reposting should have never happened. What should have happened instead of the position being reposted is a conversation communication with the board before anything that should have taken place before anything >> and with the public because this is a this is a search where we're looking for a superintendent for our district. Um, I know our community members, our families, our parents have asked to be a part of the process. I know there's only so much that, you
059know, we can allow them to be a part of, but the fact that this was done, um, nothing was shared with the board. No, there was no conversation with the board. Um, no information was shared with the public. Um, I'm pretty sure they're all hearing it for the first time tonight. You know, I don't think that's us as a district, us as a well, you know, being transparent. We can't talk about transparency. We can't mention communication when we're not doing it. Um, and like I said in the past, uh, things were done differently. This is not my first search for East Rampo. I believe this is my fourth, fifth, or sixth search. And there's been consistency at least with how we've ran a search in this district. And I feel like the last few um,
060searches has not been ran properly. I feel like it hasn't been transparent. I feel like um has been tampered with and moving forward we just want to make sure that whatever the decision the board makes especially if the monitors is going to be part of that process is that we sit here and we work together to do what's best for our students. Um we don't get paid to sit up here and do what we do. So when we say waste of time and you said well you wouldn't waste your time. You're getting paid to do what you're doing. We don't get paid. No, don't please don't take my words out of context when you say I'm trying to waste your time. I spent as much time with you in this process. >> You're getting paid.
061We don't get paid to do this. I we President Rose and I took our time out of work today to go to Albany to to advocate for our district. >> When I sit here and I go to different events and we do different things on behalf of the students, that's us volunteering our time. We don't get paid to do that. And trustee Charles, don't forget too. Don't forget too. There's some of us, right, that >> when we had that Zoom, some of us had to have a meeting in a closet. In a closet because things had to be private. I didn't want other people to hear. I literally had to have that meeting, that Zoom meeting in a closet so that other people could not know what's going on. So you mean spending a lot
062of time, this was a lot of time and dedication. I mean that's why we're here. Our dedication, right, is first of all for our students, parents, right, staff, the community. It's very important to us, but we're here with all the dedication that we're putting forth. Again, yes, I agree with you. We don't get paid for this, but we're doing it for the love, right? because we care so much about the students, the staff, the teachers, the the parents, the the community where you know what time is, and I'm I'm going to go back. Time is of the essence. We need to get a superintendent. We have to have a superintendent. >> We need to move forward. We We need to I You know what? And when it comes to East Tremopul, it hurts me dearly
063because I look at other school districts within our county. We're just as good as they are. When we go to some of these programs and we see our students performing, they perform just as good as any other students in any other district in this county. Think about our our East Rambo Central, the marching band. I'll go there. Look how phenomenal they are. We got to move this. We have to move East Ramapo forward. We made a choice. It was unanimous. A good choice. From all the three choices that we the three individuals that we had, we made a good choice. Trust and believe in us. We're not just sitting here for no reason. We are educated. We know from right and wrong. We're going to do what's best for this district. We made a decision.
064Support our decision. support the candidate so that we can move this this district. I was about to say village, but so we can move this district forward. Look at what look just look at what's happening. We got to get some We have to change policies. We got to add policies so our kids feel safe. We got to make sure there's resources and programs for our children. So when they do graduate, they're ready for college or trade trade school. It's very frustrating. Let's move forward. We're working together for the betterment, right, for the children. We need a superintendent and we need a superintendent now, not later, but now. And that should be >> and today too when we met uh President Rose and I met with um Senator Shelley Mayor she provided some concerns that was
065presented to her from a few of our parents and you know what I mentioned to her was we are aware of the situations that are happening in our district but because we don't have consistent leadership it's hard to address those issues Because every time issues are brought up and we start to talk about how we can address those issues, people people change. You know, either they resign, they retire, they you know, it's there's no consistency in leadership. And that's starting and I I'll say it. I said it to the commissioner and I said it to everyone we met with today. We've had over 10 plus monitors come in and out of this district. We've seen over five to six superintendent or interim superintendent come in and out of this district. There is no consistency. There
066is no way to to to address issues when we have no one to lead the district. I'm not just a board member, but I'm also a parent. My son is currently in this district. So, he is going through the same thing that every student is going through in this district. He's eating the same food that these students well he's not eating the food I should say that is provided to them. We have complained about the food service. We have complained about the way transportation is being ran. We currently have no one running curriculum and instructions. Our students haven't been able to take the SATs. Our seniors haven't been able to take the SATs. It has caused major problems where students applied to certain schools or military, navies, armies and they were rejected because of the
067fact that they were not able to take the SATs. There was no alternative provided to these students. And we sit here at these board meetings, meetings after meetings asking questions. Nothing is being answered. And everything that we try to do to move this district forward, we are put 10 steps backwards. And as we all have stated, we just want to do what's best for kids. And that starts with putting somebody in a position where they can lead this district to move this district forward. >> That's it. >> Thank you, colleagues. Couldn't have said it better myself. And we are frustrated and upset. And >> this decision can still be overturned. We hope so. We hope so. >> It's affecting thousands of students being at disadvantage because some hidden agenda uh which we don't know about,
068you know, with no transparency and no justification. Um you know, it's deeply concerning. >> Yeah. Our biggest issue is it's agenda against logic. You bear this in mind that we here are all elected and we give our time freely. We speak for you but you have a voice too. Just as these young people stepped up earlier with their voice, speaking up for not only for themselves but for their friends, their neighbors. You can do the same. You can call those in authority, like your legislators, like state ed, and demand that they respect the decision of a unified board for the betterment of our district. Thank you, Mr. Rivera, and thank you, colleagues. We still have some orders of business to get to. So, we will move on now to our superintendent's report. Superintendent Rusco, good
069evening. Take it away. Okay. Oh, thank you. So, our first slide on transportation uh transportation update. Um, as we've been discussing, we are moving towards an affidavit system to collect um the applications for non-public transportation. That's moving along quite well. Uh, and we invite all of our nonpublic schools to respond uh to us via uh the affidavit system if possible. They don't have to use it, but we invite them to. I also want to mention that we are aware that there have been a number of issues um regarding bus safety in our district. And uh I want to inform the public and the board that I've assigned a team of of central office administrators to work on this. They're developing safety protocols as we speak and we'll be training uh building leaders um on it
070as well as working with our um um our vendors um who are have hired the bus drivers themselves. So we'll give you more of an update on that as we move forward. >> Mrs. um with the transportation. Um >> I agree with you about the safety on the school buses. >> Um perhaps we can dive a little deeper in that. Um maybe see and make sure I I don't know, but I'm I'm I'm presenting this to you to see if all our buses have cameras on them. >> We could we can check. Can you please check into that because um I mean even though we don't want things like you know things happening on the school buses but I think that safety wise we should make sure that all school buses have cameras inside on
071the buses >> working cameras >> I believe most of them for sure do. The question is if somebody monitors them. I know for the outside they for the tickets somebody monitors. Is there anybody in the district just taking one day look at one bus one day and another bus having cameras and nobody looks at it until you have an incident then it's a problem. If you see how the kids act on the bus every day taking every day another bus or a few buses then you it won't be a surprise if you have a brawl on a bus because you saw it yesterday and two days ago that on the bus the kids misbehave. Mhm. >> So, let's, you know, we'll we'll double check that, make sure, please. >> I'd like to bring up a
072concern about transportation. Actually, Senator Shelley Mer brought up with us today. Um, there were one of the complaints was about um some of the bus monitors for special education students for that, especially where their IEP requires them to have a bus monitor, and they're not receiving the bus monitors. Um, can we speak about that? Do we know why? if it's if it's an IEP for someone, why they don't have a bus monitor. Um, >> so you're you're saying that you heard that some students that require a bus monitor don't have one. Is that >> correct? >> Um, Karen, >> I'm not aware of any students that have the accommodation that is not being provided, but if there's anybody in particular, they can certainly reach out to our office. Unfortunately, the Senate didn't give us specific
073details with any names, but I mean, you know, >> we work with transportation. We provide them a list of all the accomplishments. >> So, just to be clear, we do have monitors working for us and they are going onto the bus. So, according to your understanding, we don't currently have any students that require a monitor and they don't. Okay. Would you be able to just send me an email so I can just report back to her? >> Sure. And I'll double check my transportation. >> That would be great. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Okay. And so now moving on uh to our next slide and it's about uh just kindergarten registration. Just you know reminding everyone that uh you know they can register their student for kindergarten. The children must be 5
074years old on or before December 1st of uh to be eligible um and you can register via um our website or you can come to central office. You can also email us if you'd like more information. We are encouraging families to register early. >> Have we um reached out to all the UPK locations letting them know that um to share this information with their families? >> Julisa. >> Yes. Good evening. So this information has been shared and our staff is also going to the preschools to share information and also register students and families there. So they are giving fam the preschools are giving families appointments so that they could be registered on site. Uh the next slide is uh regarding our math audit. Um we've shared in the past that we are uh in the
075middle midst of a math audit and um some of the information that we want to collect comes from the community from families. We do have a survey and it is available on our website. You can also access it via the QR code on this um slide. and we are hoping to hear from from as many families as we can. We encourage you to provide us with feedback. And just as Miss Anderson mentioned earlier today, we um are hosting here in the PLC center uh room the Shirou's celebration and recognition. Again, it's Thursday, March 26. We have a reception that starts at 5:45 p.m. and the program starts at 7 p.m. We encourage all to come as we look forward to celebrating the women that support our district and our community. >> We also want to
076recognize this year's valadictorians and salutatorans. Um, in both of our high schools at Ramapo High School, we have Janealum Madua Quay as our valadictorian and Deborah Agira Lopez as our salutarian. In Spring Valley High School, we have Pablo Monson Lemus as the valadictorian and Christian Veti as the saludiatoran. Congratulations. We look forward to hearing more about them as the year progresses. Also, we want to just um you know let folks know that there have been a couple of great plays. Annie at uh Spring Valley High School, Mean Girls at Ramipo. I was able to go to Annie. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to Mean Girls, but it was wonderful. And so, I just want to acknowledge the students. I want to acknowledge the staff that work with them. and of course Michael Smith who oversees the
077department. Beautiful job and uh congrats to them. Upcoming events. First, we do have some job fairs. They're going to be right here in um in our district u Saturday, April 11th, uh Wednesday, April 15th, and Thursday, May 7th. Um and so we uh invite folks to um look at our vacancies which will be on our website and also on Olas and uh we're hoping that a lot of folks from our own community will come and um and apply for appropriate positions and all three is from 10 to 3. Um Mr. Kravitz >> yes all three are during the day 10 to 3. >> Have we thought about maybe providing a evening? >> We >> fair. We have not thought about that. We could add time to one of these dates. >> Yes. >> Thank you.
078>> We have in the past. So, we can certainly. Thank you. Okay. We also have um some uh two musicals. One is um Disney High School uh musical at Chestnut Ridge on uh Thursday and Friday, April 16th and 17th, 7 p.m. And the other is the Disney uh The Little Mermaid at Pomona Middle School on May 7th, May 8th. also at 7:00 p.m. And reminder, no charge for these. So, please come out with your family and support our students. >> I know I asked this for the last three that we had and I noticed it wasn't done. Can we please send out a K through 12 robocall or remind inviting the entire district um to be able to support our students? >> Sure. Okay, next slide. Oh, this is a reminder that on Monday, March
07930th and Tuesday, March 31st, the district will offer remote instruction. Um, and so here are the steps on this slide to access remote instruction. So, please, you know, make sure you're working with your your child to be prepared. Um, these directions will be here. They're also available at the schools. >> Do the non-public schools have to go remote? >> I'm sorry. >> Do the nonpublic schools have to go remote on those two days? >> It it is open. Uh, yeah. Available for those days. >> Can they be in school? >> Bus transportation. >> Yes. Um I I had thought that the request last year was that we be closed those days to facil to um support Passover preparation. >> I believe Monday there's definitely there's school. >> I'm sorry. >> The upcoming month >> Monday
080should be school. Uh Passover is only starting Wednesday night. >> No let me think. What are the rules on it? >> Yeah, there there shouldn't be an issue. >> Provide transportation for the nonpubliclix if they if they choose to be open. >> So, you know, um >> it may it may already be part of the the schedules that have been given to us by the non-public schools. So, so that is that wouldn't be an issue >> that what there's no school. >> I believe there is school. >> I don't think we weren't able to hear what you said. >> I'm sorry. the so the non-public schools share a calendar with the district and if that if those days were originally part of those calendars then it's then there shouldn't be any issue at all >>
081but in the past when the district went remote they were taken away from the from the schools >> yeah and not having been here I can't really answer to what what that was about but it may have been about snow days and and uh weather issues there I don't anticipate that there will be any weather issues So, can we just >> Monday and Tuesday? So, >> can we just reach out and confirm that if there will if they will be in person and that way if we do have to provide transportation absolutely >> it's taken care of. >> Mhm. >> I believe um Trusty Fedra, I believe the issue was when the district cancelled due to a snow day and the and the private did not cancel. Those days was an issue of paying transportation.
082But these are makeup days and they definitely could do it in they should be able to do it in the buildings. >> Yes. >> Usually when they cast on the snow they there's no remotes for public schools. >> Okay. So we'll we'll be able to provide trans >> we'll provide clarification to all of the non-public schools. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> May I ask a quick question on that? Sure. Not to not to believe this, but if if right there was a supposed to be a submission of a um waiver, what happens if after the fact it gets approved? >> So um well that's the interesting piece. So the commissioner did wave one day and the other two days we had a total of three. The other two even though it was a state
083of emergency is not an automatic wave. So, you have to apply, but they won't app they won't um act on that application until the summer. So, in our case, we don't have snow days built in. So, we would lose um a lot of funding up to my understanding over a million dollars for the two days. So, that's why we Yeah. are going. >> We're better to air on the side of caution. >> Yes. And though do they end up providing us with more funding if we did go in for the two days even though they technically we we get >> we would have been we would receive those funds that we not been in school. >> Um if we're not in school we won't receive them unless those days are waved. If we uh are
084in school or or offering it remotely we will receive what we're supposed to receive for Right. Not a plus. No >> nothing extra. >> Yeah. >> Good thought but >> not a plus. >> Nothing extra. Okay. Um and now I'm gonna I'm gonna ask Eric to introduce um our next slide. We have I understand the visitor here today. >> Sure. So um one of the items on your agenda today is to approve the financing for an energy performance contract. So I wanted to just clarify that uh we are not asking the board to approve the energy performance contract. That is actually something that the board did in 2023. Correct. >> Um at the time in 2023, um the district was had its credit rating downgraded. Um was unable to obtain financing, but the district does
085have a contract in place with Amoresco for the project. Um earlier this year, as you uh many of you will remember, we uh accepted an RFP for a new financial adviser for the school district, which was the fiscal adviserss um out of Syracuse. uh they began work with us immediately u and we did an RFP for the financing of this project and that is what is on the agenda for approval tonight. The financing piece we actually do have a contract and have a responsibility to perform on the contract. Um, in fact, um, Amoresco has been very gracious in waiting, uh, for the district to to try and get the financing because, um, they've actually had costs, uh, upwards of a million dollars that they've already put into the project that in the event that we
086never move forward, they would actually, uh, have to charge the district for. Uh, we've been very fortunate to get good financing. That being said, that's on the agenda later. We knew that probably many members of this board were not on the board when the project was introduced and passed and the contract was done. So Matt was gracious enough to join us this evening to give us an overview as to exactly what was in that project and uh to give us a quick overview. Um, so I'd like to introduce Matt Fina of Amoresco, which is the uh ESCO that was selected by the board back in 2003. I'm sorry, 2023. >> So, yeah, we did get financing. Now, >> finally, >> we we have uh we we have a proposal with a recommended bidder that we
087are asking you to approve this evening. So, yes. So there is a a financial institution that is willing to lend us the money. >> We actually had two and have chosen the more responsible of the two biders to present to you. >> Oh, that's good news. >> Yep. >> All right. Well, uh, good evening. I got Matthew Fina from MRSCO. I see some familiar faces and a few new ones. Uh, but, uh, Eric, thank you for the quick introduction. And so, I was going to give you a brief overview of, uh, is that better? There we go. A brief overview of the project. Right. So, uh, we were selected late in 2021, uh, through a competitive bidding process. The district has an owner's representative called Eneria. Uh, we were one of, I think, four biders
088at the time. Uh, we were selected to that bid. We were lucky enough to go on to the comprehensive energy audit phase. Uh, we developed that throughout uh, 2022 and then in March of 2023, presented the project to the board and uh, the board did approve the project. So uh that project is um it is five individual energy conservation measures. Initially we had developed upwards of 12 but uh we were working with the district architect and realizing that there was other projects that you were including in that work along with the general capital project and uh a project that was being funded by the um uh the ARPA program from the co funds to federal government. So working in concert with the district and the architect, we will that down to actually five individual measures.
089Um so in order right it is lighting system improvements. So all but four of the buildings in the district that be retrofitted with full LEDs. The only ones that won't be retrofitted, you already have new LEDs throughout those buildings. Uh the next item which is very very important is integrate a new energy management system. So that's the district's ability to control the heat, cooling, ventilation, and even security measures um of the facilities through uh any online source. Some of them actually have the ability to go through your cell phone, but typically we recommend going through computer. So that way if there's a school day, one of those storms comes in late at night where you weren't anticipating things change um whoever's in charge EMS system actually put keep those buildings in unoccupied mode save the
090district more energy versus now the district unfortunately has situations where it's physical on off switches to actually control heat cooling and ventilation throughout the district. So you have situations like that. You have uh air handling units and other ventilation units and boilers that are actually running 24 hours a day. And then you also run into situations where let's say if someone did heat up those buildings, turn those on early enough, the buildings could be a little bit uncomfortable for the ch uh the students coming in. >> How safe are those online platforms as not to be able to be hacked from the outside? >> Uh very safe. So they're actually we work with um many school districts throughout the state and we always go through the IT directors and typically what those have is a
091complete uh island mode um and the in the encryption to even access those is is very very strong. >> The last thing you want is somebody from the outside coming in and creating havoc by turning off AC or turning on heat or >> Absolutely. And on top of that, um they do come with several alarms as well. So that should the boiler lose water pressure, should the uh areas be too hot or too cold, you're going to find out through the alarm systems, the new EMS system, well in advance of a custodian showing up on site and saying the building is 45 degrees. You'll know well in advance of when that happens. and we actually work with the district um with the business office, the facilities department to figure out how you want those um
092alarms to go out, who do you want them to go to, whether it's a text message, a phone call, email, or all three. Uh the next item, when this is really the the largest um capital impact to uh the project is replacing unit ventilators. Um when we started doing our audit back in 2021 2022, we realized that the existing unit of ventilators, the boxes of which the actual fresh air and heat are brought into the classrooms, a lot of them aren't operating correctly. Some of them aren't operating at all. Uh a none of them do not have the ability to provide fresh air into the classrooms. So that is really the the most capital intensive item um for the project. So that includes one, two, three, four, six, seven of the buildings getting all new
093unit ventilators. Uh the remaining of uh uh buildings throughout the district um a lot of those were handled by the capital project which was paid from the ARPA funding. So we took on those and it was really a effort by all parties that providing as much fresh air and comfortable heating and cooling for the district and for the students and teachers. That was the biggest priority. Uh the next two items uh one is the infiltration reductions. This is a measure in which that's going to reduce complaints from the students and staff in the building. Right? It's it's something you don't necessarily going to see, but it's everything from door sweeps, window installation, roof wall uh installation. Uh and those items along with a few others, uh it stops the drafts coming in from the uh
094from the outside, right? those bitter cold days in January and February where certain students don't want to sit next to those windows because it gets cold and the rest of the buildings uh rest of the rooms are very hot. That's the measure that's going to reduce um the most uh complaints uh from the district. Then finally, >> can you repeat the can you repeat the last the last thing you said? >> Yes. So that particular >> what is it what type of >> Oh, infiltration reductions keeping the heat that you're paying to heat inside the building. But if your buildings are not insulated, what is that going to help you? >> Uh that's the that's measure is actually to provide insulation into the buildings, >> right? So whether it's the roof wall area where >>
095the entire walls are not insulated. >> Oh, we won't be doing that. No, this is uh this is reducing the amount of outside air coming in. So you for example, you have a door sweep, right? You see light underneath that. Let's say if you have a quarter inch gap over four feet, imagine it's you even though it's a quarter inch, right? Imagine rolling that up, right? And putting that hole as you roll that up into a wall. That's the same effect, right? That's actually the same amount of air is going to transfer through that. So those that this particular uh measure will reduce well, excuse me, will ultimately increase occupant comfort in the learning environment for the students. >> FYI, Mr. Feather's profession is that >> Oh, excellent. >> He does he does energy code.
096So >> Oh, wonderful. So, and then lastly is a vending misers and just um and the two high schools. So, that's a little unit that goes on the vendetting machines. So, right now they run 24 hours a day. Uh it's a little sensor that goes in because those are essentially gigantic um coolers, right? Insulated coolers. So, they don't need to be running all day. They monitor the interior temperature of uh the beverages and snacks. And so they modulate when they need to actually, you know, turn on the compressors to cool uh the products versus uh just letting them run all day. >> I do do you mind I I mean I I know you presented to us in this p in the past. Do you mind and I I believe some of our colleagues has
097some other questions about the you know how you know in relation like to what we did already with the ARPA funds and then essentially but would you be have a second maybe you were planning to to review with us again how the funding of this all works uh >> yeah absolutely so the way >> like what we anticipate I remember we were kind of guaranteed that we were going to be covered the costs with with with the savings that we're going to be having essentially Of course. So the way an energy performance contract works is that you have individual measures that you implement and some of these measures have a very very fast payback period such as the energy management system in the lighting and some of these measures have a very very long payback
098such as the unit of ventilators. Okay? And so what you do is you combine all the individual measures into one project and we have to by law under New York City SED uh energy codes it has to pay for itself uh in 18 years or less and on top of that because um the way the laws are written we have to provide that guarantee that this project will meet its energy savings. Um, additionally, the project was reviewed by engineers of the ST education department. Uh, when we're done, we provide what's called measurement verification reports um, for three years, which even though we have provide the reports, you have a secondary layer of assurance because those reports are then reviewed by the district's um, adviser for this project, Energy, and they provide full reports of questions
099and answer. Do >> you do you do an energy modeling report beforehand? Oh yes, absolutely. That was the the first step is going in establishing a baseline uh and figure out the EUIs for each one of the buildings in the district. Energy usage index essentially how efficient is each individual building uh throughout the district. >> Can that be shared? >> Uh yes, absolutely. So it's in uh the comprehensive energy audit which uh is actually of an SED. I think um Mr. Stark has a copy and yes absolutely. This is a question attorney you met just uh could we be updated by by buildings and grounds as to far what was done because I remember a lot of ventilators were changed with our performance >> just if we could just it has been a while since
100just building per building what was done what wasn't done which building because he's mentioning seven we still outstanding seven buildings how many were done with our plan and how many are we still outstanding >> uh that's a great question. I obviously don't have that with me right now, but uh actually Carl is here um who is uh our interim uh director of facilities and I'm not certain that he has that information with him right now, but um certainly you might have some of it, but we can put together a detailed report of what was originally in the energy performance contract, what was done, and the changes that were made and how both of those tie together. >> Sure. Uh, I do have some of the information and as Eric said, we can put the rest
101together for you. Um, there was scheduled initially to be a substantial amount of HVAC energy performance work done in the ARPA funding and we were actually required to uh pivot and abandon that and go in a different direction because of um basically arbitrary deadlines that were established by the federal government for expenditure of the ARPA funds. So, for example, if um new HVAC equipment was uh uh during COVID and and supply chain uh backups and so forth, there was equipment that was scheduled to take a year in manufacturing or eight or nine months in manufacturing. So by the time we received that equipment and then installed that equipment, got it operational, did the testing and checking and so forth, we would be past the federal deadline by which we were obligated to spend the money.
102So we recognized that and in order to make the best advantage of the district's money, we actually pivoted away from the HVAC line and we did uh substantial numbers of uh elementary school windows, for example. And so we do have some energy savings that we will have to review with MRESCO as we move forward, but there is still a tremendous amount of energy savings that can be obtained uh through this project. >> So if it could be shared with the board what was done because I remember that HVAC was the one of the top things that we were intending initially to do with the ARPA funds. >> So if you if I don't know who will have that information, but if you could be shar Well, not only that too, um I know for the
103past few months um I've been asking we've been asking for an update on what have you know what's been done what hasn't been done um and once again we're being to we're being told the same thing um we'll get it to you at the next board meeting how many board meetings do we need before we get responses to our questions at this point um We used to have it to where whatever capital projects were done in the past um we had a tab for it on our website where all the updates were provided there. We also had it done in the past where updates were provided whether it was quarterly or um you know at every board meeting what we did where we are what needs to be done or what the timeline looks like
104that has not been done in years. So once again, moving forward, how can we be provided with these informations at a timely manner so that we're not asking the same questions every board meeting to be told the same answer at every board meeting where we get no information whatsoever. >> I can bop into that real quick. So, with regards to the existing OR >> I'm sorry, just before you continue, um I think Trustee Charles Pierre brings up a very valid concern. We've been requesting this um just to update on which what was done in the capital projects, what else needs to be done um for many months already and we would appreciate if we get the an update. I don't know who supposed to be doing it, but I'm just putting out this out to
105the our administration. >> Sure. Eric and and Carl, can you work together to provide that? in general how the buildings score up to the tests every year. How are we we with the doors? I was under the impression that we did all the doors. Recently we found out we only did interior doors and now we are going to do exterior doors. So if we could get like the report card of the buildings, each individual buildings boilers I know we only have two buildings as far as my information is only two that have old. The rest already have no >> Yeah. And those and those are in the works. Yes. And the boilers is also part of Moresco's >> contract. The boilers are also part of Euro Moresco. That's a separate >> No, no, no. >>
106So, if we could get an update on these things to know where we are putting the money for what we got from ARP, what we found or what we tried to get from other places. And if possible, um, >> Anna, if if I'm sorry, I should say Miss Rusco, >> um, if possible, maybe our director of facilities can make a presentation with all these updates. Mhm. >> And uh for future reference too, um I don't know how much more work needs to be done, but something else we've done in the past with the big capital project that we had um when we were doing the turf um you know the football field and other works in our district. we had a committee put together where we had um community members, board members um and depending
107on the project, we would either have the coaches involved or others involved. So I think moving forward if we can uh create a committee if needed um it would be great because then updates would be provided there where it can be reported back to the board and the community. Um so that might be something we want to visit in the future. Thank you. >> Any other questions or >> folks? >> That wasn't addressed to you, Matt. That wasn't >> I think that's it. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay, let's move on. >> Surely. Uh so, um Mr. Stark, you'll provide a financial update. >> Yes. So um at at some of our previous uh meetings there have been some questions regarding um the current year financials and >> can I'm sorry
108I'm sorry Mr. Sorry. Could we please go to the next slide? Thank you. >> Okay. So, there have been some uh questions regarding the current year financials and how they relate back into the use of fund balance and our total fund balance and the reserves and so on and so forth. So, I've prepared uh um a presentation um prior to the budget presentation on the uh updates of where we stand this year um both in terms of the revenue and the expenditure budgets and then how those tie together into um a change in the fund balance um and so on and so forth. So when uh in this first slide here, we're looking at the the revenues and what you have you have you have uh a couple of different columns here. The first column
109is uh historically the um the revenue from the 2425 school year. The second column is the revenue budget for the current school year. And then the third column is the projected year-end revenue uh which in some cases is is very different from what was budgeted. So um then that fourth column is um a comparison of the projected year-end revenue uh to um what was budgeted and and what those differences are. So you can see that there are two areas in which our revenue uh projection is larger than what was uh originally budgeted for. The first of those is state aid. Uh so you'll see that we had a budget for state aid of 167 million uh plus and it is currently um projected to come in uh just about $8 million greater than that. And
110that is due uh in large part to the fact that the district um had uh done work on its non-allowable pupil decimal which is a factor that is used in the paying of transportation aid. Uh districts are uh allowed to do that uh once every three years. We worked um with two of our consultants, Anthony Casera, as well as the Ammon Consulting Group to redo our non-allowable pupil decimal. Um they went route by route uh and calculated everything uh that was required. How that was done in the past, I am not sure, but they um made a significant change to that non-allowable pupil decimal and that was accepted by the state immediately um and uh will be used in the calculation of state aid moving forward in the 26 27 years. but it also is
111used immediately for the paying of the aid that we received this year for the expenses that uh occurred in the 2425 school year. So, we will actually we we will not receive that revenue by June 30th, but it will be um payable to the district. That will be paid uh early in the in the 26 27 school year, but it will be accounting uh it will go into the accounting year of our fiscal year for 2526. So, we will receive approximately $8 million more in state aid >> for this year as well. >> Say that again. >> For this year as well. $8 million for this year as well. >> Um when when we get to the revenue budget for next year, you'll see that that we have a substantial increase uh for >> So,
112it's going to be 8 million for next year as well. 8 million >> and it will remain. It will remain. So what what's happening is we based on the change in our non-allowable pupil decimal, we actually receive for all of our transportation expenses a greater percentage back in aid because of the the reworking of that factor. And that continues until the next time that uh the non-allowable people decimal is uh done, which will be three years from now. >> So the $10 million that is transferred this year for transportation is going to be just as a loan. I'm sorry, I didn't Can you say that again? >> So, we just transferred $10 million for transportation. Correct. >> We we transferred $10 million from the fund balance into the revenue budget for increase the transportation expenditure
113budget. Yes, >> correct. So, we we will be getting $8 million. >> So, yeah. So when when when we get through all of this, you'll see how we have additional revenue, we have additional expenditures, and I'll show you how that all nets out as we go through this. Okay. So the other, as I said, is is you were just bringing up the the the fund balance used increased by uh just under $1 million. There was one transfer early in the year um and then the the one recently for the $10 million. So overall, our revenue increased by $18.7 million, but again, um it's important to note that a a large portion of that increase is coming from our fund balance. So it's not as if we actually receive cash payments for that. Okay. So then
114>> but that puts money back into the fund balance because it appears that we used almost 12 million. >> Is that correct? We used our fund balance 11,862. >> We used a total of 22 million 22.8 million >> that's projected for the >> what's the difference between the two? This was actually and this was projected >> the difference between what? of this was we are projecting that we are going to use 11 million almost 11 million more than initial uh budget >> than what was in the budget correct and that's on the revenue set okay so then we move on to the expenditures and the expenditures are also um in several areas uh higher I have also included uh on this chart um the actual UAL expenditures from the prior year, the the year ending
115uh June 30th, 2025. And you see that the total there was 323 million plus. And uh the budget for the um 2526 school year was 348 million and change. And what we are projecting currently uh to be the total expenditures at the end of the school year is 352 million uh 352.7 million which means that we are projected to overspend the original budget of uh what what was uh approved and voted on by the by the district uh by the district district's taxpayers by 4.4 4 million. Okay. >> Um, a question about contractual. >> Uh, when we budgeted last year, we intended to fill a lot of vacant positions. Did we fill all all those vacant positions that we used up all the money or we just hired expensive positions? Because I see it went
116up with three million. And I'm not sure that all positions were uh filled. >> So that's correct that not not all of the positions that were that were put into the uh budget were filled. Um but as you can see there are several areas um uh that involve um personnel um and positions and those are general education, special education and MLE. Um and what you can see is that um if you net out those three categories um we are below budget uh in total by a little over a million dollars. So you see the MLE area, the multiple language area is uh under spent by $3.5 million. That is an area where we had a substantial number of vacancies. that way we would wanted to have the more but I see in the general education
117this is where we went up with almost 3 million which is interesting why over there which was the least issue we actually over paid with 3 million and where we needed it the most was by multiple language we actually under three and a half million. >> So that's correct. There are um there are still um some areas that we are looking at in terms of where individuals when they were hired are coded. Some of those have been corrected. It's been a long process in terms of um working uh with payroll and with uh human resources on position control. It's been a very long process. We are um working on that continuously. So there are um areas where we have um expenses that are uh potentially coded still in the wrong areas. We're still correcting all
118of that. We're working through that those issues on a daily basis. Um but when you net them all out, what you see is that we have uh not filled all the positions and that we are under budgeted in the personnel areas. I'm sorry, we're under budget for the year in total in the personnel areas. >> So I have a a question. Um, how many of those uh positions were not filled? Like how many of those positions were not filled? And not only that too, with the positions that were created, how many new positions was created and where exactly has that been allocated in the budget knowing that it was not originally budgeted and presented to the board or before the voters um back in May? I'm not sure that I understood exactly. Were you saying
119that we didn't present any of the new positions? >> So, for example, we have there's a restructuring going on and and when it comes to the HR department and how we're uh aligning, I guess, or creating these new positions. Um, for example, instructional coordinator um coordinators where we have over 20 plus um individuals that we board approve within the last few months. We have director of literacy which is being added. There was I think a list that I shared that I noticed that was on Olas um which where we're looking for to fill those position I'm assuming for the next school year. Um, but what I'm saying is that the new positions that were created this year that were not budgeted last year for this year, um, where has that been, I guess, allocated in
120the budget, and how many vacance how many v how many positions have not been filled for this school year? >> I just want to clarify that. >> I'm sorry. I just want to clarify that the instructional coordinators were in last year's budget for this year. >> Correction. We when we when I asked that last time, we were told that we were taking the dean's position and replacing it with instructional coordinators. We we had we had um it was presented to us that we would have deans this year. I don't remember how many we were allocated in the budget, but I know when I asked this question last time, what your response was that instead of hiring deans, we've decided to hire instructional coordinators. And I do not remember it being 20 plus deans that we
121had planned to >> to hire. >> Sure. No, no, no. Let me let me just clarify. So in last year's budget uh we had 24 instructional coordinators and we were had uh five in um coordinators of culture and climate that we had initially called deans. But we changed the title to coordinator at the request uh quite frankly of um the teachers union because they felt that there's a a history here. It didn't matter. The job description was the same. Um but it was an instructional coordinator. The money was the same. All of those positions were in the budget last year. We did not create those new. We just hired them this year. But we did go over with 2970 almost $3 million on positions. Where where did we go over? >> We went over >>
122We didn't f Yes. On the general education we went over budget with $2,970 382. It's almost 3 million. Where is that 3 million? What positions? How did this become? If everything was in the budget, why did we go over with 3 million? >> I I would have Eric, which line are we talking about here? General >> he's talking about the general ed line. >> Oh, the the 2.9 for general ed. >> Okay. Eric, can you provide is that that's not general ed personnel? >> It it's a it's a >> it's it's whole combination of of of categories. So, in order to um parse that out, we'll have to to do a uh a deeper dive to give you an answer on that. It's not something that we can't just identify positions that made up the
123$2.9 million because it's not >> a report of the current actual Do you have a report of the current actual cost to date of the expenditures? This is projected at the end of the year. What do you have? >> And that's that's this is a this is a projection for the end of the year which um involves um incumbrances incumbrance of payroll. Um how did you calculate contracts of of all different categories? So >> how how do you reach that projection? Did you do you have a calculation? You know, do you have a current cost to date on these? >> Yes. So for example, with payroll, right, we have payroll um encumbered for the for the full year. We know that we've made um however many of the payrolls can payroll. We look at that
124and estimate how much is going to be paid for payroll through the end of the year. We have Boseies codes and we receive a Boseies bill on a monthly basis from Boseies and that you know uh it's it's a month or two behind. So we're estimating the payments for all of those um in in all the different categories. We're we're we're making um our best educated estimates for what will happen between now and the end of the year. Of course, there are things that um we won't necessarily know. There will be um there there could be people that will be uh resigning where we will have lower personnel costs in one area um and we might have to use point 2s to make up for that which might increase some costs. We might have um
125a boseis coaster where we did a lot of PD in the first six months of the of the year and in the last four months we wouldn't be doing as much so the building will be less. So we're we're making our educ our best educated guess on how the last several months of the year will um come out. And what you would notice if you are looking at a projection each month um on your projected expenses for the rest of the year, it will change slightly uh each month as as you go through that. So, if I were to give if I were to give this to you, and I I can and will, um, each month as we get toward the end of the year, um, you'll see that the numbers will actually change
126um, and then they tend to get more accurate as you get closer to the end of the year because March is actual numbers in there. >> The report up to March is already actual costs. >> So, the the actuals um, in this report are through February. So we we have the actual through the end of February and then it's projection for March, April, May. >> So going back to my question, how many positions did we budget for that have not been filled yet? How many vacancies do we have? >> We it we can provide some of that information. If you have very specific questions, then we would may have to go back. Um for example, we have a lot of vacancies. Um I think 18 or more that are filled with 2s. So they are
127vacancies but they're filled with point 2s. We have some of those. We have some vacancies in last year's budget that we're not recommending to continue for next year. So um you know we >> the question the question is the past few months I have been asking where are we how many vacancies do we have throughout the district? >> Sure. So you did we did submit a vacancy report to you um a couple of days ago. I >> and so if you have questions on that report, we're happy to answer, but we may need some time to uh collect that information for you. So >> that question was asked publicly. I expected it to be answered publicly. >> Um when will that be done? We you've been saying that for the past few months. >> No,
128I I have not. But I'm happy to provide you with what you're asking for. >> But if you're saying us to provide a public uh list of the vacancies, we're happy to do that. >> Okay. Why haven't it been done yet? And if you're saying that you did provide it two, three whenever you said you provided it, which I have not received, why can't it be um shared with us publicly now? Why wasn't it added to the superintendent report? >> It can be. I provided it to you in my weekly report. You asked for it and we provided I'm happy to do it in the superintendent's report. In addition, we do have vacancy information that we're going to be sharing this evening. So, we have a lot of slides we'd like to get through because
129it will be a long evening and um after we share our vacancy information, if you have specific questions, we're happy to answer them if we can this evening. If not, we will go back to the office, find the detailed information you're asking for and provide it to you in the future. >> So, I'm I'm sorry. So, you just said two different things. So, do you have it in the report to present tonight or do you not have it? Because your first response was you don't have it. we can get it to you now. You're saying that >> No, that's that's not you know, if I may, we have plenty of information here. We're happy to share it with you once we're done. If you have questions, we're happy to take your questions. If we can
130answer them tonight, we will. If not, we will provide it the next time or in between. It It's fine. >> I'm asking my question now. My question has to do with vacancies. We're talking about budgets right now. And I'm asking based on the budget that was created for this year, how many vacancies do we have? Well, we have some information later in this presentation if we can just get to it and those those um that information may answer your questions. >> Okay, that's all you had to say. >> I think I've said it a few times, but in any case, Eric, if we could continue, please. Okay. So, um when we when we take our projected revenue um from the and the projected expenditures from the previous two slides, what we project there is a
131surplus of $14.2 million. But I very important to to explain that that is not really a surplus because what we have included in the revenue projection is the use of um 22,800,000 of fund balance usage. Right? So we part uh $22.8 8 million of the $367 million that is in the revenue budget is actually from our savings account, right? It's not money that we're it's not receipts that we're bringing in. >> Could I bring it out in a different way? >> Sure. >> It's not that we gained above the 74, but we still ahead of where we thought we'll be with $14 million. Um, no, not exactly. Before >> when we when we took 22 million out of our fund balance and put it into the budget, that's was a way of how we thought
132we'll need to fund our budget. So now that we didn't need it means that above the 74, we still have 14. or if the 22 came off the 74 and the number was was uh more of 50 52. >> So the 14 goes above above the 52. So we're at 66 million s um fund balance which is >> you just did that in the reverse of the way that I have it here. So that's but you're correct if you look at the bottom of the of the chart um essentially because we use 22.8 8 million in the in our fund balance. Um that comes off of the surplus that's listed at at the at the top of the page, which means that in terms of our fund balance, we have a decrease of 88 $8.5
133million. The beginning fund balance was 74.8 million. Um and after the decrease in fund balance of the 8.5, we are projecting that the year ending fund balance will be at 66 uh just under 66.3 million. Okay, the next slide gives us >> just a just a second if I may. >> Sure. >> I'm trying to understand if the on the expenditure on the expenditure the only two items that I see that were increased was transportation which was uh $7.6 million and then um the large items I'm talking about and then the uh general education was 2.9 million. >> Right. >> Correct. Yeah. >> So, but since since there were other items that were decreased, I would take the general I would take the um general education and that would be a wash with all the
134other items that were decreased. The other items will cover for the general education, right? >> More or less. Um well what? >> Plus minus >> plus or minus >> or or even more and then I'll take >> a little bit more. A little bit more. >> Yeah. And then I'll take the transportation service that was increased by $7.6 million that should be covered by the increase of the revenue from uh state 8 that was increased with $7 million plus. So what's the reason that you had to take additional $10 million to cover for transportation >> that we're putting back? This is what we said we it's going back. So >> the the reason that that we needed to make a um a draw and a transfer from the fund balance was in order to it
135was a large it was a large sum. It's $10 million. So, um, in order to create the purchase orders for the, uh, increased transportation contracts, we have to have that money available in the expenditure budget. When you have an amount that large, even if you know that you might be putting some of it back into the fund balance at the end of the year, you can't search for it throughout all of the different codes within the budget to try and find things in the middle of the school year that may not be spent. So that's why we take the draw from fund balance um in in uh in our projection of the 10 million that we that we talked about in taking for that uh for for that increased transportation uh amount. We're projecting that
136we're going to spend um almost $8 million of that. Um but we had to do that in order to put the money into the expenditure budget so that the purchase orders could be created because we can't um we can't pay our vendors without purchase orders. >> So where's the 7.9 from? >> If it's if it's a small amount we do a budget transfer that that um or also report it to you. But when you have such a large amount you need to make the draw from fund balance and if any of it is unused at the end of the school year it rolls back into the fund balance. >> So where's where's the 7.9 from state aid increase the revenue? Where did the 7.9 what >> in the 14 million surplus? >> No, because that's
137being deducted by the that's after that that's being deducted. >> Now what Eric just for to step back a second. So what you're explaining to me in my business for instance and few of my colleagues here are in the same boat. I do a building and I project that electric is going to cost 70 million. Sheet truck is going to cost 50 and plumbing is going to cost 150. It ended up being that the plumbing only cost her 120 and the sheet track ended up costing 70. I'm not going to change much of draws to take more money and then to put it back. But it seems that in the way the district works or maybe this is what government does. I have to do a draw out of whatever if it's a bank or
138a lender to put in for my 70 for my sheet truck even though I know that in the end of the year end of the day my plumbing is going to be with 20 less. So in essence the way you're explaining it is correct because we have to do purchase orders for each of our um expenditures out of the correct accounts. Right. So, if we had a plumbing account, as you're suggesting, um, and I'm not certain that I'm not going to spend all of that plumbing money, um, early on in the school year, I have to pull from the fund balance to, uh, set those expenditure accounts to levels where I can create the purchase orders because we're not permitted to um, to pay for expenditures without the requisition uh, the requisition system turning those
139purchase orders into um, direct turning records into purchase orders. Um and in fact those all have to be done in advance of any of the work being done which is part of the whole um uh that's in order to follow general municipal law and our purchasing policy. >> So you have to go with so you have to have the physical money. It's not like I have accounts on the QuickBooks page which shows the money. It has to be physically there even though it's not it's not numbers only on a sheet. It's physical being the money in the account >> in the different accounts. Correct. >> We we also cannot create a purchase order if the funds are not available in the account. >> So that that's part of the the issue that we have. We
140>> keep on having in our agendas a lot of these >> say that again. >> We keep on having in our action items a lot of these go back though. >> Yeah. So very dry. Um any case, yes. So as we get down to the bottom, what we see is for the projection, we do anticipate that we will have a decrease in the fund balance of approximately 8.5 million. Um and I was also asked um if uh we could provide a breakdown of what that fund balance would be. So, what you have here are all of the reserves um that we have for the district. Um and the numbers that you see here are the year end balances for the year ending June 30th, 2025 plus the um the interest that has been earned plus
141the expected interest to be earned um through June 30th of 2026 in each account. >> for this current squeeze. >> Correct. >> Yeah. So, so the these are the balances from last year's audit plus interest earned to date plus a projection for interest earned in each of the accounts through June 30th. Um and then um the uh balance um so the first um one two three four five six seven numbers are um I'm sorry the first six numbers are our reserves. The um 11.862 million is the amount that we are designating in the revenue budget uh in the proposed years in the proposed 2627 revenue budget and the 29.7 million would be unassigned. Any questions about that? >> Yes. So basically we're saying at the end of the day of June 30th, 2026, we're supposed
142to have 66.2 almost three million in the bank untouched >> in fund balance. Correct. >> Okay. Thank you. >> And and that that that is approximately $8.5 million less than um June 30th of last year. >> So if we're averaging that, we've got probably about less than seven years left of this fund. If we were to if we were to access fund balance at that level, yes, we're not antic. >> It would be zero in the next six possibly six to seven years. >> That would if we were to access the fund balance at that same rate, yes, it would disappear in six years. >> But do we anticipate accessing the fund balance at the same rate currently? >> No, we No, we don't. >> What what percentage of what percentage of our budget is
143that? >> 20%. >> Uly 20% of our annual budget. I think it's supposed to be what? What is it allow? What's the allowable number? 4%. What? >> The the the the allowable um undesated is supposed to be 4% of your budget. >> Okay. Um we also have uh here for you um the projected cash flow through the end of the year. Um, as we have given this to you in the past, there's a lot of information here, and it's a monthly 12-year projection, your your your um your amounts here are actual through February, as stated before, and then projections through the end of the year. The first, this is uh a very large um spreadsheet, so it's split into two slides. The first is the receipts and the second is the dispersements. So um this
144is giving you a monthby-month um actual through February and then a projection as to what the beginning of each month uh would be in terms of the receipts and >> is revenue. >> Say that again. >> This p this slide is revenue or expenditures. So this slide is receipts, right? Money coming in and then the next slide is um the money going out. So what you can see is that um uh generally what you'll see uh when you're looking at um the earlier part of the year um in October, November, you see when when we're receiving uh the large portion of our tax levy. So you'll see that our balances um then are up to 141, then 131, and then then we're starting to draw more as we're spending. Um and we'll continue then we'll
145then we'll get a bump from the payments of state aid um in uh the spring. Um and then we'll be drawing down toward the end of the year. And we'll be looking at a cash balance, a projected cash balance of uh approximately $60 million when we get to um the end of June. And again, these are the last four months are projections um and they are the best estimates that we can make. >> Why is why is the hike in May and payroll? Um so in May and June in in payroll um we have um many payments that um we have uh contracts that allow for um employees to get some of their they hold some of their we pay we pay everybody for 10 months, right? >> But we hold you may have this
146in your district. We uh offer a pay a payment a payroll plan that allows you to take less during the year so that you get a lump a big lump check in the summer. So we have some larger payouts for payroll as we get toward the end of the year. I wouldn't understand. >> And we also have um we also have uh larger payments in uh the months of May and June for our uh coaching stipens and and other stipens that are paid out once once or twice a year rather than throughout this the school year. >> I would understand somebody want to budget their lives so they would divide their income in 12 months but it should go up with that much. The your second explanation maybe the coaches does add some but I
147don't believe that people ask to get in the summer more than they get the whole year long. Maybe. >> No. What happens is what happens is they the summer is a is a new year, right? So we don't pay them during the summer but we're holding back some of their pay throughout the first nine months of the school year and then we give them a larger payment in June. That helps keep them through the summer. >> I understand that. that you you're giving them each month seems and it seems like they're getting more than they would get if if let's say somebody makes 120,000 for the 10 months instead of giving them divided $10,000 a month you're giving him eight a month and then you will divide it it will come out to eight throughout
148the summer but what appears here is that you're giving him six during the year and then you're giving him eight during the summer or attend them during the summer. Otherwise, it should have been mostly level. >> I'm I'm I'd have to do a little bit more work on on on what that actual math is, but uh the reason is that we have we have some some larger payments at the end of the year. >> I'm sorry. I'll go back to my previous question. If we added uh I'll go back to my previous question. I didn't understand the answer or I redid my calculation. I'm sorry, I don't get it. Um, if we had a revenue of 367 million, okay, which included the 22 million out of general fund balance, right? >> Mhm. >> Okay. If
149we take out take that 22 million, put it aside, >> we don't use it. >> Okay. >> We only have 345 million, right? Our expenditure was only projected to the end of the year was only 353 352, right? >> Mhm. >> That's only increase of $7 million. If you take $7 million out of the 22 which we put aside, we should still be left over with about $50 million. >> No, you're the the the $7 million that you would that in in your calculation that you would be taking out of you' be taking out of the beginning fund balance of the 70s something million and that's that's coming down to the >> No, because I took the 22 million and put it aside. I'm not using it for this year, for example. >> Okay. So,
150we're only using the 345 which we had in revenue, right? But at the end of the year, we're going to have expenditure of 352 or 353. >> Mhm. >> So, that's an increase of that were short with $8 million or $7 million. Yes. >> If you take that $7 million out of the 22 that we still have an aside, >> we we put that aside. You're not using the 22. We still have left over from the 22 $50 million. >> That's exactly. >> So that $50 million should be put back in the general fund. >> That's why we have 14 back. They put back 14 million. >> Oh, but then it's being minused with the 10 million. >> It's not minus. There's a surplus of 14 million which is that exactly that. >> But it's
151not being put back in the general fund because it's being minused again with the 10 million and all the other numbers. Bottom the bottom says 66. That is being put back in the general fund. >> But but we be >> we began with the 74, right? >> Yes. If >> 74 included technically 11. >> We started with 74. >> Yes. >> And we took out initially 22.2 supposedly we put it away. So 74 - 22 is 52. And we added up back the 14 that was left from the 22. >> 66. >> And so it's 66. Right. Um we'll move on to the uh the budget update for tonight. Um, just to review, there'll be several things that that you've seen already that we'll review quickly. This is the maximum allowable tax levy calculation that
152this the district had for the year. Um, without going into uh great detail on this. Um, again, it's a formula that is set to determine what the maximum tax levy increase that the district could have uh in order to go out to vote with a simple majority vote. Um, that uh amount is would be an increase in the tax levy of $6 million or 3.71%. We're not looking at a budget that would require anything near that. Um so um just wanted to have that um there for you. Um this is the um state aid projection that we have. Excuse me. And the state aid projection is based upon the executive uh department run. Um and we will we're hoping to receive the legislative run. Um the the legislative deadline is April 1st. We know that
153last year we didn't receive it until after budget adoption day. We're hoping that we receive it um on time. Um I did have a question from a board member in an email like what happens in the event that it goes down. in the event that it did go down um after the adoption date, that would be something that we would have to deal with um as a board um after uh after the fact. Um if it happened before budget adoption, there could be conversations about making changes to um both the revenue and the uh expenditure budget. However, in terms of history, um, in almost every case in the past 10 to 15 years, uh, if anything changes in the overall aid runs between the governor's run and the legislative run, it's that the legislative run
154is higher. Um, so it could create a positive uh a positive delta for you in terms of the aid as opposed to a negative. So, as history just in terms of using history, we're generally we try to be conservative with the governor's run. Again, that's why you you see that um we make an adjustment in foundation aid because we do have some de declining enrollment. So, we decreased the the projection in the executive proposal by $2 million. Um the other piece that is not a part of um the executive run is that when the executive run was done, our non-allowable pupil decimal that we have already talked about how it's going to help with our aid this year and next year that was not used in the calculation for transportation aid um that was in
155that run. we uh are told that that should correct itself for the executive run because it should be a part of the system at that point because we know it's been approved. Now um that being said, we also have a positive um um uh projection for an additional $13.25 $25 million in uh transportation aid, thereby um giving us a projected um total aid of 185 um 185 million uh just under 186 million um which would be an increase of uh $10.6 million. Okay, we take that and we add it into the um the overall revenue budget and just trying to get there on my screen where my glasses work better. And uh what we have here uh there have been some modifications made to uh the overall budget and uh what we are presenting to
156you tonight um as opposed to uh at the previous meeting where we were suggesting a budget that required a tax levy increase of 1.9%. Um we have reduced that to 1.28% or a total increase of just over $2 million. Again, you still see there the um increase in New York State aid uh to $185 million. Um and then all of the rest of the categories going down the page, which are um as we know, not quite as large. Um bringing the overall revenue budget as it will the overall expenditure budget to just under 370 million at 369,734708. Do we anticipate student enrollment to fall or to stay the same? >> We anticipate uh the the enrollment numbers to decrease >> decrease and uh so the state aid will also probably decrease some because of the
157student >> right so that was that was in the >> am I going the right way that was in the um foundation aid adjustment on on the state aid okay up on the screen here in front of you we we do we decrease the the state projection by $2 million. Okay. So, um again just uh you've seen this a number of times. This is a graphical representation of the full value tax rate history. Um we do have in the East Ramapost Central School District um the lowest um full value tax rate in the county. um 25 years ago that uh the district was right in the middle of all of the uh districts within the county, Rock Crocklin County. This is the table that shows all of the numbers as opposed to in graphical form.
158So you can see that in 2000, East Ramapo's full value tax rate was $20. Um and it has gone down over the years. um now to the point where uh it went under $10 in 2024 and it's at $945 um per,000 uh whereas the next lowest in the county is uh which is 15 sorry >> which we added um per thousands right >> that's that's uh that's the amount paid per thousand correct >> I'm sorry >> I mean the highest in the county is uh North Rockland $20.65. >> Let let me ask this question. Um, we used to have a a a previous board member, Harry Gman, he used to talk about presenting the budget to the public is like it's like a sales pitch. Um, we need to sell the budget. We need to
159sell it to the people to approve the budget. Um, because this is just a question that I'm going to be getting. So I just want to understand >> what what specifically is causing us to put in the increase of 1.28%. Um what is it? I mean we we went over the reserves the you know the different state aids. Um I can you present to me just in and something that we can sell that you know because we want our budgets to get approved. That's what we're here for. >> And I I believe that we're going to do that. >> I 100% I'm with you. >> So just give give me the pitch. >> All right. >> Let's keep it short. Well, >> we're talking about 1.28. Why do we need this additional $2 million? >>
160Much of that explanation will be when we get to the expenditure side to show the things that we have >> that we're going to be spending the money on. >> But I'll explain I'll explain the president's question which we always get is your budget is going to be 360 whatever million. Mhm. >> You couldn't find this 2 million somewhere. What's cost that much? What went up that you couldn't find these 2 million in in in the budget? This is a question that people will ask that we would try to need to how to explain your budget is as you say it's only 1%. You couldn't find this 1% somewhere. You had to add it up to the tax. >> Okay. And I I believe that we have uh some explanations in here. So just just
161to round out the conversation on on the revenue budget. This is the graphical representation. Um the uh the thing that's interesting in in this slide uh which where we go back um four years is that um New York State has really come to uh the plate and provided the district with uh very nice increase over the 4-year period in state aid which has actually led to this um donut chart uh changing to where uh property tax was over 50% of the revenue budget in the 23 24 year um and that is now uh down to 44.6% and whereas state aid in the 2023 year was about 45% that is now for the first time in um maybe the history of the district over 50% of the revenue budget. So now we'll move along to the
162expenditure budget. Just um >> just a note on it. The percentage of tax that went down is less is actually more than >> the state rate went up. Why is that the interest made the difference? >> So this the the these percentages are not increases and decreases. This these these percentages are how much a particular category is of the overall budget in each particular year. Right? >> I understand. But when you look at it, you see that 52% of the budget was covered with tax and now it's only 44. That's a different that's a different of like 8%. >> Okay? >> And when you looked at your state aid was 45 and now it's 50. That's an increase with 5%. So just a >> So the the other difference there is that we've also um
163uh there was there was a use of fund balance that was at zero um and that's now at 3%. So that's that other >> that's the 3%. Okay. So this answers the question. Thank you. >> So moving on to the expenditure budget. Our uh priorities within the budget were uh three-fold student outcomes, infrastructure improvements, and transportation operations. So in terms of um the budget priorities that we that we just showed you um the uh on the educational side um as as we said um looking at um student outcomes and what we can do uh within the budget to improve those outcomes. These are all of the uh or I shouldn't say all. These are many of the uh bigger um initiatives and um items that are within the expenditure budget uh that have been added
164into this year's budget um that total up to uh just under $4 million. And uh these are some of the things that are of the utmost important in improving our student outcomes. We have a literacy initiative that has approximately $1.6 million tied to it. We have um um training and materials for English language arts of just over 200,000 math training and materials. Uh we had a math audit this year and there are um items within the budget earmarked towards looking at major improvements to our our math curriculum and our math scores and uh a little over $750,000 is tied to that. Uh similarly for science um and social studies 384,000 there 141,000 um for social studies um we have included um $700,000 for a high school support initiative. We have um issues with um student
165outcomes in our high school. But something you like to comment on or >> Sure. Sure. So, um, and I'll and I'll ask, uh, Miss Maronei and Miss Renon Thomasawa to help as well, but the 700,000 that we put aside for the high school initiative, that's actually uh in support of something that's in the long-term plan. So, we're looking for uh to support our 9th graders, our our 12th graders to improve our graduation rates. And um we we're and everyone in between as best as we can, but uh we haven't finished the plan for that initiative. we wanted to put the money aside to to make sure that we could address that. Uh in terms of our literacy initiative, we've uh we're a couple of years into that initiative. Uh we started two years ago. This
166year we're in our second year and so we want to continue that obviously. Um uh and that includes uh PD and training materials um uh ling English language arts as everybody knows. We um hired uh directors um at the secondary level for ELA, math, science, and social studies. They have been uh looking at our curriculum material at the high school and middle school levels. Um and they have ordered uh new curriculum materials to update um the materials that we've been using and to provide um instructional support for our teachers. Um and then uh in addition there's um money put aside for leadership development. Again, all of this is uh reflective of in the prior of the priorities that are in our long-term plan. Um and we do have at this point um PD for executive
167leadership as well as some of our principles, >> Mr. Lusco. So some of those uh high school support initiatives would be something like the like the Saturday programs or the Saturday Academy. Am I correct >> at this point? >> Does that fall underneath that? >> Not really. That that that would fall more under um our our grants and title programs. This is about curriculum material. Just making sure that we have it. For example, in the science, we had to update our science labs. We had to update um the curriculum so that it it matched our curriculum materials matched the standards. Um we were far behind in many of all of our areas. So, >> so wouldn't that fall into the English K through uh I'm sorry, uh the English 7 to 12, math K through
16812. I mean, why is high school support initiative separate if it's still materials that we're adding to what we already have? And not only that, too, I know we do professional development with our staff. Um, when you say training, what exactly do you mean by training? >> Professional development. >> So, it's the same thing. So, the same PD that we've been doing year after year. Um, I'm just trying to get a better understanding of the details, >> the purpose of this slide and how it's different from what we've been doing um in the past because we've been doing professional development and you're saying it's the same thing as the training. So are you saying you're I guess more explanation on the details of what this means and also what is your vision for the high
169school support initiative if it's not directly um providing resources for our students >> the materials is providing resources for our students referring to the high school support >> curriculum. Oh the high school support initiative. Um so >> what's the vision? >> We have um as we've mentioned as I've mentioned uh we are developing that uh vision. >> So how do we know it's going to cost 700,000? >> We're estimating that it may be more it may be less. We're estimating that we will need that. It looks something like potentially um ninth grade support maybe eighth graders rising into nth grade. These are ideas that we are thinking about and working with. Um so these are the types of things we're thinking about. We want to identify the kids in the middle school that are struggling
170that'll be likely to struggle in ninth grade and then we're talking about what types of supports we might be able to give them and it might look like different things. >> So what does All right. So what does those supports look like? I'm just trying to >> what's an exampleision? >> Well um a potential example at the high school level might be that we offer an additional period at the end of the day. At this point, we're very restricted based on the um um the schedule that we have at the high school level, right? So very restricted. So um one of the things that we might be able to do that we've thought about as an idea is to add an additional period for some of our students at the high school. Another issue that
171we have at the high school is wait. So an additional period, right? Yep. >> An additional period to to go through curriculum be curriculum based I'm assuming. >> So again we are what we are doing is we're in the process of collecting data and taking a look at needs. But one of the things we know is that some of our kids can't read very well. So part of it might be that we would offer reading instruction as in in that period. Part of it would be that might be that we offer intent regions preparation in that period >> program. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, for us for us to be able to um >> Can I add a period to the to the to the school day, >> wouldn't we have to extend the
172school day? And not only that, too, we've received complaints after complaints about the lunch period timing. Um, even when we went to Albany today, that was brought up with uh one of the reps that we met with where >> our high school students >> do not have enough time to grab lunch and eat lunch, right? >> And also where they don't have, I guess, the space um to the point where they're sitting on the floor to eat. >> So, >> I would think we would address that as well >> um before adding a period. Like adding a period to me sounds like we're extending the school day, >> which means then we would have to deal with the union contracts. So I'm just trying to get a better understanding on >> I'm going to answer
173part of it. I'm going to pass it on to Dr. J. >> I'm going to refer it back to the long-term plan. There are things in the long-term plan that will require funding. >> Uh depending on how you do it, you need more dedication to your freshman freshman academy. You need more money and dedicate I won't say money. You need more resources for eighth grade transition to ninth grade. You need resources for possible alternative high school or twilight program for your high school students. Many of them are not coming to school and we're hoping that offering other opportunities will increase your attendance. You also need to put some resources aside for the state initiative called portrait of a graduate. Um, thus far the district has done little work in that area. That's going to require
174a whole transformation of your schools, more CTE programming, more training for teachers, more connections with industry coming into your schools. These things require money. These are some of the things that are already in the plan that will require money moving forward. So, those are some of the things that I think um you might be referring to. In addition to the fact that you see your science scores are very low, there are things re um that are needed in terms of changing the curriculum, changing your labs, changing assessments. Uh your high school courses and content and resources have been neglected over the years. They're a little behind, so you're catching up. So those are some of the things that the $700,000 could go for. Well, I know a lot of >> I know a lot of
175a lot of the things you just uh mentioned it's it takes a process. It takes um you know a lot of planning. So, and I don't think it's a lot of the things that you mentioned is are things that can be done overnight to where um we going to where we're going to see all of that happen in the next school year. So, is the plan to do all the things you mentioned by the 20 to have in place by the 2026 2027 school year or I think some of the work, you know, to be honest, has already started. Um, but they're at a point where it's time to execute and some of that execution requires more resources. Um, >> so I I I I guess the question >> I I know you want to
176answer to the plan. I can't speak >> No, no, not answer to not even really answer to the plan. is just that if we're presenting an initiative for next year's school year, I would expect that, you know, we would be able to be provided with a detailed um outline on what that looks like. To say that we're doing high school support initiative and it's going to cost $700,000. That's not really saying anything on what that looks like and what is going to be expected of the 2627 school year when it comes to our high school students. That can mean anything. I agree. So once again, we just want a complete detail of each of these. Like I said, you're mentioning training, but I know we do professional de development and you're saying it's the same
177thing. So if it's the same thing, what what is the purpose of this slide? >> I I might just offer an observation. This is not a legal conclusion. This is not a legal opinion. This is a total of $3.9 million in a $380 million budget. It's not even 1% of the budget. So, I understand the idea behind the detail. I would suggest that having all of the detail for 1% of the budget is not something the board needs to get into the weeds of. >> Well, with no offense, Douglas, I think the question is extremely valid when we're talking about putting in a a tax increase of one and a half% 1.28%. So I think uh trustee Charles Pierre's questions are very valid because essentially what we're selling is a plan that doesn't have any
178detail. >> There's no plan to the plan >> and this is being pointed out as what we're focusing on and this is why we need additional money for. I'm assuming this was part of what your response was going to be. >> I I have a further question. Uh do we have any estimate of what percentage this will bring up our students? Because we are being throwing money at a problem that the results were zero for the last four years. This 4 million is going to bring us up with how much? Any projection? Our grades have fallen in the last years did not go up and we threw a lot more money into the budget without any objection. But here again $4 million dollar nice fancy names. Do we have any number of what we believe
179this is going to help? >> I'm going to try to to answer as best as I can. Okay. The the first is that we in the middle of a math audit. >> So with that math audit is looking at our math programs K through 12. After they're done, they're going to make recommendations for us to up upgrade our curriculum. Okay. So it's outdated. Our curriculum material is outdated and the training that the teachers have had is outdated. I've heard that for four years in a row. >> I'm sorry. >> I've heard that same expression for four years in a row. >> Well, we >> we've been sitting in meetings and being told that stuff is out there and we're renewing. We're renewing. We're changing. I know it's not you because you're only a one year.
180I'm four years. This was constantly going on. And the results are zero or even worse. >> Okay. Well, here's um what what what the board approved last year was hiring directors at the secondary level that have specialization in the content areas which >> the board approved what we were asked >> and we were explained that this is going to help until now it didn't help. So what is going to change this year from the last four years that East Ramapa won't be at one of the bottom schools performing? This is my question. My question is not what I I we do. We hire an we hire an administration. The administration should do their job. This is what we are this is what the board is here for. We have an administration. The administration tells us
181they have a plan. This plan has to is going to yield these results. The results were not yielded. Why do we think that this this 4 million is going to help our problem? Is this going to be magical somehow? So um last year um well for this year's budget you approved hiring these um directors right? So these directors have been working with us and assessing our programs. What we didn't approve last year was a change in in all of this. So uh these folks have assessed our programs rather well and have are making recommendations to change what's been in place for years. So we can give you detail but we wouldn't have if we provided you with the details of all of their plans it would you know you pages and pages but if you
182want the details of what materials we want to order and what training we want to continue for our literacy initiative we can provide it. Same thing with our uh English language arts what materials we want to order and what training we can provide it for all of them. These folks have been working very closely um and carefully and they have um they know what what materials they want to order. They've been working with our executive team on it. Um and you know we trust them because they have an area of expertise in the content areas that they're hired for. >> Could you also provide what we spent the last three years and we were promised the last three years and they did not have any results because I've the same the same statements I'm hearing.
183I'm only here four years. I believe some of my colleagues are there longer and the same thing the curriculum is not we're changing curriculum we change director we change this director we change that director the results of all the same >> well I I understand I guess >> your mic is off >> I guess that what I would say to you is I understand okay but we are faced with the performance that we have with our kids and the team that we have now um is making this recommendation So at some point I I can understand your frustration. I don't blame you. There has been very little movement in student achievement and 10 or 12 years in this district. I know. But um so last year when we h when found out that we had
184the extra money, they created a plan that was approved for this year's budget that hired all of these administrators. And these administrators are at the at the literacy level working with programs. We need to continue that work. At the secondary level, they have assessed and they are making recommendations for these materials and this training for next year. So, um you know, I understand the frustration, but our students are performing really low and this is the best um recommendations that we have based on uh folks who have areas of expertise in these areas. So to to be clear when it comes to asking for details, me my ask for details was specific to high school support initiatives. Our high school students, some of our high school students are not performing at the level they're supposed to
185be performing. >> Some of our students in the high school level are not showing up to school. We have a lot of issues going on in the high schools that we would like to be addressed. I know I have mentioned programs we've had in the past that were taken away. For example, night school credit recovery, Saturday Academy, um, and the list goes on. Yep. >> When you said high school support initiative, >> my expectation, I guess, was to hear that maybe some of that being brought back to the district to help support our students providing regions review SA SAT prep. Um, but it sounds like there's a plan to support, but we don't know how we're going to support, but this is how much it's going to cost. So my ask about details has to
186do with high school support initiative and what exactly are the plans to support these high school students. >> Sure. So what I can tell you is that um of of everything on that list that's the one that we have not fully developed. So um we wanted to put money aside because we know there's a great need and um we want to create it. So if we don't have the money aside, we won't be able to create it. Now part of it is there are a number of things that we have to consider and we're in the planning stages. So I don't have the detail for the high school support initiative. I can only tell you that it's in the long-term plan that we have discussions about it. We're looking at data and we'll be making
187recommendations for how to use best use that money >> in term. >> But it goes back to my other question too. How do we put a price on something that we don't know what that something is? >> Sure. So, we're estimating that um based on the limitations of what's in the U budget, we know that if we want to impact a lot hundreds of kids, which is the answer, we do want to impact hundreds of kids that it's going to cost money. Um a twilight program costs a lot of money. Um having a continuous offerings for kids and and different types of offerings cost a lot of money. So, um, that's why we we created that as as an estimate. >> And something else that I have brought up, too, that I'm still waiting for
188a response when it comes to this school year, even though the school year is pretty much over. Um, what are we doing about after school programs um, K through K through 6, K through 8, uh, to help support our students in these areas? I mean, I see training for staff. I see materials, but what are we doing exactly to help support our students directly? >> After school programs, K through six, you're asking specifically about >> K through 6, K through eight. I mean, right now, right now, we currently have no after school programs for our students. >> I'm passing it on to these folks over here. So, Dr. Shanahan, >> and if you can also add uh the update with what's going on with the MLK after school program that has not been >> Sure,
189Dr. Shanahan and then Mone. Um Thomas Aawa if you can help. Go ahead. >> We have plans right now for the elementary and middle school after school program starting in April. Um we have postings out. We have um a lot of teacher interest. We're going to beginning uh begin to interview the teachers and and make the assignments for all the elementary um at this at this stage all the elementary schools. And do when do we plan on starting this after school program? >> April >> 13th. >> Why April? I think something like this after school program should be year first of all should have started in September. >> Yeah. Year round the beginning of the school year >> and be consistent until the end. The more support that we have for our uh elementary level,
190I think the better. I don't know why we're starting in April. Is there a reason, Dr. Shanahan? >> Um, this is where where I don't know I >> where the district dropped the ball once again, not doing what needs to be done for our students. I mean it it's it's it's clear that our focus our is is not on the needs of our students because if it was there's no reason why it we're close to April and we're still talking about after school program. We've had it in the past where it it continues on. We still have some of the same people in position that were here in previous years who you know carried th this uh this role to to make sure that we have certain things in place. And I just don't understand
191how we are at the end of March and I'm still asking the same question about after school programs for our students to help support the same students that we're saying is not meeting state level when it comes to these ELA ELA and math uh test scores. And and that kind of explains why some of our students are behind. We need to start working on the elementary level earlier so that they can carry right carry their educational academic it gets better and better. So we really need to really go back and and start these afterchool programs beginning in September and go throughout the I wish we can even do the summer something. Um but that's another story. But at least until the end of the school year, there should be something in place for support because
192I know there's a lot of kids that need the the support. And I know you said it's a story for another time, but it's actually shouldn't be a story for another time because I know it was a question that I asked at the last board meeting as well or a few meetings ago asking what plans do we have in place for our students for the summer? Will there be summer programs? I mean, we've had summer programs in the past. I feel like instead of carrying what we've been doing that's been working in terms of um summer programs, after school programs, it looks like we're just trying to reinvent the wheel and and and create something from scratch. Why aren't we implementing what we've had in the past to to make sure that, you know, parents
193are aware, students aware, that way if they want to participate, they're able to participate. We have budgeted out the summer program. There will be a summer program for all grades. >> Okay. And then um just bringing it back uh as we spoke about the high school support and I know Dr. Jallow mentioned you know we have students not showing up to to to school. Um another question I've been asking is what is the update on attendance? Where are we with that in terms of numbers? Uh it was it was publicly mentioned that there's about 900 students that does not show up to school a day. What are those numbers now? What are we doing? >> So we uh at this point >> Sure. Sure. So I I I believe um I asked the district clerk
194to forward you our attendance report which I I indicated in my not my um my weekly update to you that we'll be providing that on a monthly basis. So we provided you with the first one. If you want in public, we could do it in public as well. doesn't matter. So, um we do have the attendance report and we also have an uh um a new model for attendance monitoring that was developed with uh central office administration. We're working at the building level to train building level teams to monitor attendance and to provide interventions for that. So, um that's what that's what we're doing now. Um, so do you have that update to provide to us now? Um, because once once again to >> when we publicly ask a question, we expect these questions to
195be publicly >> I'm fine. I'm happy. >> If I might finish, if we we expect those uh questions to be publicly answered. Providing an update is perfectly fine, but I just checked my email. When you provide an update the night before a board meeting, it does not give us enough time to review and even ask questions if we have questions. >> So, I believe it was provided yesterday. And yes, um what we informed you >> yesterday, last night, >> we informed you that we will be providing them on a we a monthly basis. We're happy to provide them and put them in the public um as well. That's not a problem. In the meantime, like I mentioned, we have this new um uh program to monitor attendance in each of the buildings and we're in
196the process of training uh building level teams. And I would like to say moving forward, if you can please provide that update in your superintendent report, that would be great. Thank you. >> Shall we? >> Okay. Um the uh next priority uh that we just wanted to uh give a little more information about. Um I was going to ask Carl to come up and just um re briefly review the um the breakdown of what we intend to use the 5.25 million for capital improvements that will be coming from the fund balance. Um so uh we have a significant amount of HVAC work to do. Uh as we mentioned a little bit earlier um we were not able to do much of what we had hoped in the ARPA. So we will coordinate some of this
197with the energy performance contract. Uh exterior door replacement districtwide. There are significant numbers of doors that and frames uh exterior doors and frames that are um in uh they don't shut properly. They're very difficult to secure. They're rusted at the bottom of the frame and or the bottom of the door which allows all kinds of uh potentially rodents and potentially um you know air infiltration as you also heard in the energy performance contracts. We have a significant amount of work to do on exterior doors districtwide. Um last summer we completed a substantial amount of of u pavement repair around the district. There's still a little bit left to do. So, some of that and along with that the concrete and sidewalk repair. There's substantially deteriorated sidewalks across the district. Um, and then flooring replacement. We've
198done the vast majority of uh the district. Um, but we do need a substantial amount more here in this building. You've seen that we've done this room here, but there are uh the the remainder of the building has uh some very aged and terrible carpet uh that we need to replace as well as some asbesus flooring. And so that's what we're hoping for in this coming budget. >> The state gives you um the state doesn't have a grant for exterior door replacement for security to fund that in full. >> Uh there is. Yes. So we will uh apply for that funding >> and you make use of that. >> Yeah. So that's part of this that's part of the state aid in the budget. >> That's correct. >> All of this work would be eligible
199for state aid. Uh and um there is a specific funding stream for uh exterior doors. >> Any way we could get a report, we've been asking for it for a while. I understand it's not you people changed but to get a report where we're up to with each building and exactly as you said we did a lot last summer we want to do this summer what was the lot we did and what are we up to which building what percentage was done like this we should have some sort of a picture to understand what was done and what we want to do thank you >> yeah and I I think that um that was partially asked earlier and we said that we'll uh Carl and work to put together u a detailed report. Um another
200thing that we can tie into that is the district's 5-year um plan that was the last done by the district architect >> and als tie all of that together for you. >> And also now that we are getting funding from the loan that's going to repay itself by savings, what if that in if that affects the 2.75 million? So that um the aid that we will receive on uh the energy performance contract uh we will begin to receive but there will be a year lag on that because the u the state aid is paid based on expenditures that are paid. So our first expenditures will be paid in the 26 27 school year. We'll first see that the building aid on that in the 2728 school year. >> I'm not talking about the aid. I'm
201talking what um the company that was there Matt before I believe that what they explained us before was that they are borrowing money against savings that we are going to save from the budget. >> So yes, >> so the question is that money that we are borrowing which is going to be paid back with savings would that not include the 2.7 million that we are talking about AGAC replacements? >> No. So the the the the guarantees in the energy performance contract are based upon the work that's done in that contract, not on additional work that we would be paying for outside of that. So >> this is not >> No, this is not No, this is an addition to um and one of the things that we are looking into um what and Carl you
202can feel free to correct me on this because you're have much more expertise in this area. Um the HVAC work that is being done in the energy performance contract is the H not the AC. So it's heating and ventilation. It is not air conditioning. Um and as you know we have the new requirements in terms of temperatures in buildings that uh the state put in place uh earlier uh in I believe in earlier in 2025. Um so we will be looking to potentially uh make modifications to the unit ventilators that we are getting to uh that are that are for heating and ventilation to also potentially provide air conditioning. U but that is not um a part of the energy performance contract >> question. I know u Mr. Gandhi is not here. I don't know
203if Tom Carton is still here, but um I remember that um we recently did make a few well replacements throughout the district for our doors which was covered I believe under a bond. Um the name of it is not coming to mind right now. Um, but wasn't that recently done or was it just the internal doors? >> We did substantially we did substantial numbers of internal doors in all the >> So exterior doors were not included >> but it was not correct. It was not exterior doors >> and that wasn't in the original plan to be included or >> not not to my knowledge. No. >> Okay. I know some of the colleagues some of my colleagues asked for I don't I didn't I don't remember they asked uh what which building was improved how
204it was improved but um last I remember we were presented with a report for the condition general condition for each building that was that wasn't updated since some work were done after the report was generated so I would like to see that report general condition on each building how it's categorized especially after the work was done um last last summer as well. >> Yeah, that's what I was referring to as the five-year plan. So, we're going to tie all of the all of that information together um so that we see what what has been um um proposed by the architect and in that 5-year building condition survey and then the work that's been done in ARPA, the work that we are potentially looking at in the budget this year and giving you a complete picture
205of that. So um we will uh I believe be able to have that at the next meeting >> and that will be present presented during the uh superintendent report. >> We can present it >> during the meeting. Yes. >> Okay. >> Uh the final area um and we um are all aware that there's been large increases in um transportation. So, um uh the three main areas uh in that one is obviously the most main area is our um contracts with all of our uh transportation providers for both public and non-public. That amount um is increased to just under 78 million for the year. The personnel um in our actual transportation department within the district is uh just under 900,000. Um and we have consultants and contractual amounts of 431,000 um totaling these these items total
206uh 79235. The overall for the department is slightly larger than that. Um but obviously um it's a much bigger percentage of our budget than it is for most of the other school districts. I would say all of the other school districts. So when is it time to audit this to find out why is it so >> financial >> climbing up almost you know every year seems to be climbing up by in the millions every single year. So um what I will tell you without doing an audit um uh one of the big drivers of that was um that for many years uh many of our contractors were renewing their contracts um with a small um increase in um the um CPI um and last year um >> what's the C C >> the consumer price
207index uh inflation So um last year a large number of of the contractors for both public and non-public this is not just this is universal this is actually happening throughout the industry um decided that they were not going to accept that and um said that they you know we're not renewing so we had to rebid and the bids came in substantially higher. There are a lot of reasons for that. Um many of those reasons affect are affecting um transportation contracts throughout the state. Um uh we seem to have gotten hit particularly hard. I'm not sure if that was because we had uh lower increases over the years or not, but we had substantial increases to those contracts. Um some of those reasons include inflation over the past several years, which has been higher than it
208has been um in uh recent history. Uh another piece is that um we we don't purchase our own buses. Um and there is a mandate by the state um that uh buses moving forward have to be um non- fossil fuel burning. Those buses cost more. So those are being uh those costs are being passed through. Bus companies are not going to just um eat those costs and not charge their their customers back for it. So >> I think one of the main drivers also the insurance cost but like doubled >> insurance has gone up quite a bit as well. >> No but I mean that's that law was um I know that they didn't extend it right um that's what for 2035 or something like that that that's what you >> I'm not sure why
209we paying for that now. >> So it's not it's not necessarily 2035. So 2035 is when all um vehicles must be used >> that are all electric. There is a limitation on purchasing which was extended once and I believe that's to 20 either to 2028 or 20 to 29. So within the next few years, any new purchases of buses are are required unless the unless the state extends it again will be required to be purchased um with um only electric non- fossil fuel burning uh buses. So >> they will defer it because there's no there's not enough electricity and the infrastructure is not made for it. >> Clearly there are lots of conversations about whether or not it should be extended. Um, as you mentioned, um, this doesn't apply just to school districts. This applies
210to New York City's whole fleet of buses. This this applies to all of the the trash, um, uh, vehicles in in New York City. It's every vehicle statewide that's a municipal vehicle. And as as you just so um, >> put there is not a an electric infrastructure in the state to handle charging all of those vehicles. So hopefully there will be some changes made to that, but but that is still what uh exists at this point in time. So uh those those are all of the the priorities that we had. And >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Not not to not to go backwards, but I I just have a qu a question um concerning with this year um if we were to go back to the student outcomes and how we talked about the plan
211for next year. Um, I know that when our students return back from spring break, um, they will they will be coming back um, and getting ready for the state assessments. Knowing that we currently have nothing in place for our students to provide them with the resources that they need, um how are we supporting and preparing our students uh to be tested come April for the New York State exams? Currently we have um an afterchool regions uh prep program that is um either um underway well in the process of being planned for all of our I think all of our teachers were already um on the list to be hired um or right am I correct I didn't want to speak of turn on that one um >> I'm sorry not to cut you off the
212state assessments grades three to eight >> my apologies Mhm. >> That's what how are we supporting those students? >> So >> to prepare to take the exam in April, >> their daily instruction, believe it or not, our teachers are working really hard with the daily instruction that they receive, including the support that they get uh in small group instruction. Um some of our buildings are as part of their um using their SIG funds to run after school programs. Um in addition to that, we have planned like Mr. uh like Dr. Shanahan said an afterchool program come April 13th to support our students for the remainder of the year. Our students are working very hard and so are our teachers. Um we just had a mock nices slide like all of our students are working really
213hard and I know that our teachers are working hard to prepare our students for that assess for those assessments. So, um, >> in consultants and contractual, >> what does that line consist of? $431 million uh,000 >> on the on transportation. >> Correct. So that is a combination of um the consultants that we are using uh for the reorganization of the department as well as the contractual obligations that we have for our um software with Tyler Technologies and um professional development um contract with Tyler Technologies. >> I believe the board was presented to the consultants through phase one as an evaluation. >> That's not true. The board approved they were not present. >> That's not true. The board approved. >> They were not authorized to go any further than that. >> Approved. >> Board did not
214approve it. >> Yes, it did. >> No, they were not approved. >> The board >> definitely not. >> It was probably presented to us in a way that we shouldn't know what we're what we're approving >> as usual. Can we get a detailed report of what they've done? >> Yes. and what they're projecting and uh see if we're willing to go further with them. >> Yes, they made they made a presentation to the facilities and transportation committee at its last meeting. We're planning >> a very poor presentation. You know good and well it was a very poor presentation and they weren't even listening to what we were telling them. So the presentation was a very poor presentation. Okay, we >> I do want to remind my fellow colleagues that it is at this point 10:45
215p.m. and we do have an extensive executive session coming up as well. So, you all are asking very valid questions and valid discussions, but I I do think we should um keep in mind of the time. So, >> I understand that. The only thing I will say is that the budget vote is in less than two months and unfortunately we're being put in a position where we're not being provided with enough details and information um to understand what is being presented before us right now. Um I don't I don't think we want to prolong this any longer, but like I said, as board members, we're here to ask questions. Um, and we're here to get answers. So all I'm saying is that, you know, we want to be done with this as well, but unfortunately
216>> we're being put in situations where qu there's questions and unfortunately questions are not being answered and it's a um full expenditure your budget by um category. Uh you can see um in each of the areas um you have an actual from 2024, the budget from the current year, the 2526 year in addition to the budget for the 2627 year and the budget tobudget increase and percentage change in each of those areas. Um as you can see um the the largest increases are in the areas of uh teaching and learning um pupil services and as we've already discussed on uh numerous occasions uh because of the the change in um the the transportation contracts a very large increase in transportation and then as as is um quite normal. Um benefits tend to increase based upon
217increases to uh medical and uh increases in your um salaries lead to increases in the um pension contributions. Debt service has a 24% increase this year because of the projected um increase that would be in debt service for the energy performance contract that uh the financing is on the agenda for today. When we look at all of that um it's an overall budget-to-budget increase of $21.4 million or uh 6.16% increase. >> How much percent of the transportation increase will be funded by state aid? So um with our um new pupil decimal um according to our consultant we are getting back um for every eligible dollar not every dollar is eligible because of um distance and so on and so forth but approximately 80 to 82 cents on the dollar that we will receive back. So
218this 12 mil almost 12 million will give back about 10 million from the state on that. >> Correct. And if you if you saw what the adjustment that we made um uh in the revenue slide, we showed an increase in transportation aid projected at about 13.5 million additional over last year. Right. >> Um and just in terms of that 24 uh that 21.4 4 million. Uh we just wanted to give you a little view of of some of the larger buckets as to where that increase came from. I just mentioned some of them as we were looking at the chart. Um the mill about a million dollars increase in debt service. Um just under 12 million in transportation, 2.5 million in employee benefits. um the the new um and continued learning initiatives that we were
219speaking about at $4 million and then the rest of the categories uh total out to another 2.1 million for that total increase of 21,400. This is the graphical representation of all the different areas. You see um that as as is the case in most school districts, your teaching, pupil services, and benefits make up a large very large portion. Our transportation is much larger than in other districts, which is typically uh between five and 7%, but we transport a much larger uh number of non-public students than uh any district actually any district in the state. Um so uh we have a larger percentage uh of transportation services at 21.4%. Um, at this point I'm going to turn it over to Matt. >> Good evening. This is um the slide is regarding staff vacancies and some of
220the hiring we need to do um beginning now for either July 1st or September 1st uh depending on the type of position that we're looking for. We currently have um and just so everyone knows this includes um current retirements that we currently have. We have um 42 people who've put in for the retirement so far. We do expect that number to increase over the the coming weeks. This also includes unfilled positions um as well as newly proposed positions which will be the next slide in just in just a few minutes. The we have 21 administrators who we're going to be looking for. We have two retirees. Um there are 10 central office administrators, principles and assistant principles are six and coordinators are five. The coordinators just so you know I know there was discussion earlier
221about um instructional coordinators but also the coordinators of climate and culture who are the ones who um budgetarily replaced the deans that you mentioned Miss Charles Pierre. Um the deans became the coordinators of climate and culture. the we've currently filled two of those five. So, um, Spring Valley has a coordinator of climate and culture, dean, but not really dean, as does Pomona. And we are looking to still fill those other three slots as an example. >> So, where does the other instructional coordinators fit into the budget under what line? >> So, they're they're all under Well, they're under the building line. And do you mean which specific code or? >> Well, I don't remember us. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't remember us budgeting for instructional coordinators. That's not a a terminology that was ever
222mentioned during the budget process. Um, which is why I'm asking the question. >> I believe just if if I recall correctly, they were listed in the in the budget um presentations last year as instructional coaches. >> Okay. Um, and before you move on to one thing I will say is that it's very concerning that I asked a question earlier about staff vacancies and no one um mentioned that it would be coming up in the upcoming slides. Instead, the interim superintendent responded in a way where um it's like a back and forth. Oh, I sent it to you via email when clearly it was going to be presented tonight. Um this is supposed to be the superintendent report and if this was included in the report, a simple response would have been we will get to
223it in the ne the next upcoming slides and that's not what happened. So, as the interim superintendent, I hope that the report that's being presented is being reviewed by you as well, so that when we do have questions, you know, to say, you know, we're getting to that point or if it's not in the update in the report that, you know, it will be provided. I just want to say if you if you go back and look at a video of this meeting, you'll see that I did say to you that we're going to be reviewing it. >> I'm talking about when I just asked the questions a few minutes ago. >> Yeah, I I said >> you said you sent an email. >> It's fine. Instead of saying things, I said I sent an
224email and I said that we're going to be reviewing. >> You said that afterwards, but >> Okay, >> please, Mr. Kravis, continue. >> Thank you. >> So, um, thank you. As far as teachers, that 107 number includes 38 retirees. We also include uh 18 positions that are currently being filled by 2s. I I know point2s have been a topic of conversation at different points during the course of the year. Please keep in mind that 2s tend to be um more expensive in a lot of ways because they are doled out by seniority when we can't fill a a specific position. In addition, the this number also includes positions that have gone unfilled. Those were mentioned earlier. Um Erica had mentioned that there had been a number of positions um particularly in the MLE department that
225were budgeted that were unfilled. As far as related service providers, security, these are the positions that we're looking to to continue to hire. Um security, you'll you'll see on the next there has been a request for two additional um senior security aids. Not quite yet. Um the clerical team is from across the district. um as well as buildings and grounds is obviously a buildings and grounds and then permanent subs permanent building substitutes. We're still looking for five. I know that um to piggyback what was mentioned earlier about the monthly update or monthly report that could be given as far as attendance. We can we'll do the same thing as far as vacancy. We'll create the template and we'll update that every month. So you have that. Okay. >> One question about the teachers. Uh I
226asked one of the previous meetings if we have any classes that don't have any teachers in front of them and I was answered everybody has a teacher because they have the number twos as you call it 38 and 18 is 56. How does it end up 107 when we actually lose students? >> So I'm sorry when you actually lose >> lost students. So that means that classes are getting either smaller or closing >> right. So for next year I can I can say to that point especially at the elementary level when we see enrollment decrease then that means that we won't need as the same number of sections per building. So we've have it mapped out so that and that's that's common place as enrollment goes down. We if a if a particular building is
227going down x number of students we may say you know what they may not need the same number of third grades next year or the same number of fourth grades. So they would go down reduced in a second. My question is uh we have we are losing 38 teachers and we have 18 positions that are filled by teachers that take an extra period. Yes, >> correct. >> So that's 56. Where is the other 100? 100 the other 50 are the empty classes classes that don't have currently. >> No, there the majority of No, the majority of those um hires are our support staff in the form of some of our AIS. Last year, my understand last year, there were positions that were budgeted as far as additional reading support and additional math support. Some of
228those positions, >> so they're not actually teachers. They're support for classes. >> No, no, no. They're they are teachers. They're certified teachers, but they're not general education teacher or they they're either certified as as maybe certified as reading teachers or they are um academic intervention support math teachers, which is additional services that could be provided for a student. Does that make sense? >> It makes sense. But it uh when I asked if we have classes, they don't have teachers. So, this is additional things that we're going to add as to help out the students. >> No. So, what we're look we already have those budgeted. We're looking to if we could fill all these positions. We don't we don't want to fill them with 2s. We'd rather fill them with our our own full-time people.
229Um is it is one of our goals. We are looking to do that. They're typically in our higher need positions, our bilingual content areas, our, you know, we have ENL students or ENL positions that are being filled by point2s. So even though we don't have the number of teach the number of full-time equivalent teachers that we want, we're still servicing those kids by those points. It's not the most ideal model by any means. It's certainly not the least expensive model. So we are continuing to try to to fill those. >> I get it. Right. like like for example, I'm a math teacher and if there's a math class that doesn't have a teacher in that class, they could come to me as since I have seniority and say, "Mrs. Miguel, can you pick up another
230math class and then I would be that 2." So that's basically what you're saying. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> I just have a quick question. I know we have all these vacancies. Um, with that being said, the vacancies are still allocated as an expense. Correct, Eric? With within the budget, the next budget, right? >> So, yes, in terms >> Just want to make sure. >> What you're seeing right now is is for the current year, right? >> No, this is what we're looking to hire for next year. >> Okay. So, so this is >> Yeah. If there are vacancies that are in here, then there are allocations for them within the budget. Now, some of them you'll actually see listed when you go into the code by code as vacancies. Uh, but when the um
231when the salary projections are done, that's a point in time, right? And those those are done actually at a point in time in November. So, a lot of the retirees that you see on here, those retirees are actually in the salary projection. So, um, they'll be it won't necessarily be listed as a vacancy in that code, but the the number for that for that retiree is in there. So, the the salary is cut. >> Okay. >> Does that make sense? >> Makes sense. >> And when we hire for those, chances are we're going to have breakage because we're not going to be spending the same amount of money to hire somebody who's going to be brand new versus somebody who's, you know, retiring after all their years of service, >> right? >> At a higher
232higher salary. Okay. Okay. And then the next slide, if you don't mind, Eric, the next slide are are our newly uh proposed positions um for for this year. There are they fall under three uh areas uh district leadership and operations. Um I believe that, you know, these have either been discussed or written about, you know, or shared with you um prior to this meeting. So I just want to do a brief overview. the executive director of business and funded programs. Um our our title funds is a a large operation. Um a lot of a lot of money goes through there and that would be that primary focus that that person would be the fiscal monitoring of of our title or our funded um programs. the directors of transportation. I know it's been discussed here the
233idea of having um support for both our public stool our public school public school students and our our non-public school students in the form of of administrator to help oversee those those two. That's what the 2.0 FTE is there. The director of attendance and funded monitoring. We've talked about attendance not just at the the public schools but also at our nonpubliclix. Daniel, do you want to give a brief overview of the attendance and funded monitoring position? That position combines uh the um overseeing the attendance initiative that um that Miss Ruskco was talking about before um a district-wide initiative to increase attendance in all the schools as well as to um to oversee uh monitor and ensure compliance at the non-public schools of all the title funded programs that we have there. We have a a
234partner that we work with now, Community Education Center. Um, but we need someone, it's a growing program and we need someone from our um central office to help oversee um monitor and support and provide technical assistance to those programs, all title funded. >> Why why is the funded monitoring being combined with the director of attendance? It is a um we we do that sometimes with positions. We have different functions, right? So if we just called it the uh just non-public um funded program monitoring um and then had this attendance initiative as part of it. We wanted to show we wanted to create a program and a title that really saw spoke to what the um the position was. But I I think the issue we have right now having to do with attendance. Um we
235need people in place who is solely focused on attendance. And I think I mean me personally I think funded monitoring is something totally separate from attendance which should probably be its own um should have its own pro title. Just my opinion. um the director of under instructional leadership um there's been discussion about the director of literacy which would be a K12 director um who would help support our students in terms of um their their initiatives as far as reading. Um and then lastly the school level leadership and safety there there are four positions I mentioned the two senior security aids to really help um Mr. Carton and his team as well as two additional assistant principles. I just want to take a few seconds to to explain those. One would be for Kathy. >> I'm
236sorry. Before you explain that, >> sure. >> If this if the director of literacy is being budgeted for next year's uh budget, is there a reason why we're looking to hire someone now? If it's not included in our budget and it's included for next year, this is a you just said it's a new position that we're looking to um fill next year. >> Correct. So, we're looking for a July 1st start date and which is what the that position would be. Um, so it wouldn't be we had hoped it could be now, but we it's it's going to be for July 1st start. So, it would be part of the 26 27 year. >> I see I see you have two directors of transportation that you're adding. Do we currently have a director of transportation?
237>> We have a coordinator of transportation right now who oversees transportation and this would be an opportunity. >> So, this is not a new position. This is a position that's vacant. There should should have been vacancy that we don't have a director of transportation. It's not that we're creating new positions in transportation. Transportation is just not filled with the right people. >> Can I take that one? >> So, yeah. So, it's it's actually a little bit of a change there. We currently have a director of business and uh the function of that director of business was uh 50% transportation and 50% in the business office and that position is being removed. So that uh that position will not be existing. We're going to have a a a director of transportation that's directed that is excuse
238me um 100% um for transportation department. We're looking at one position for um public and one position for non-public transportation. Um, as part of the work that we're doing is trying to separate the two uh to work independently of each other so that they uh do not have negative effects on one another as what we found at the beginning of the school year this year. Uh, many of our um of our packages that combine public and non-public um schools um led to a lot of um late buses at some of the non-public schools. So we're looking to uh bifurcate the two programs, make sure that they're running independently so that they don't have uh negative effects upon one another. Uh do you believe I believe then if we're going to do that then it's going
239to increase our transportation more than 11 million. That fact that we were able to use the same companies to do packages for public and nonpublic helped out the contractors. you had a meeting with him, so you should know that. >> Yeah. And what so that that was a concern that was brought up and we did have uh a meeting with um all of the u contractors that uh did um either packages or packages and a combination of that and non-public. And they felt that um that the new the new plan would would work and that they would uh be able to bid um either way. when we go out uh looking at the new bid. So um I we we believe that our um that our projections uh will be ample for uh what we
240need to do next year. U there was an increase from the original budget uh that we uh proposed um two months ago um where we've increased the the transportation cost by 1.4 million from that proposal to this one. It will definitely increase probably 25% in transportation costs for do for separating it. >> An increase of 25%. >> At least >> we don't see that. We have we've had we've have uh a large percentage of the uh transportation operation is already being um paid for um on a per pupil basis. And those are the contracts that were all increased substantially last year. So we do not see that that that it would create an overall increase to transportation cost of 25% that that the the numbers don't make sense in that way >> recalculate. So then
241just to to wrap up this slide, um the two assistant principles, one would be for kaciat. Those who don't know, kaciat has over 800 students. They also have a unique model in that they have an elementary school and a middle school where all of our elementary schools have a principal and an assistant principal. Our middle schools have a principal and two assistant a principal and two assistant principles. Kaki currently has a principal and two assistant principles. So we're looking to increase to help cover the the elementary end of that. and Hemstead. Um there's been a request particularly um due to some of the uniquenesses with some of our our students who attend Hemstead. So an assistant principal would help guide the um overall administrative team there and provide support not just to the students but
242also to the the staff and families um who need it. So those are the the proposed new positions. and you're up. >> And that uh that brings us to the end of the budget presentation. Um we do have a list here of some proposed meetings. Um one thing that we did want to mention, the first one that's listed here is for April 15th. Um I think we are going to look to reschedule the April 15th meeting as that could be a date prior to the board adopting the budget. Um so we will look to uh we're go we have we have to make sure that the uh facilities are available. Um it's that that's the one that's in our boardroom. So we believe that it should be fine. We'll be looking to potentially um make
243that date April a week later on April 22nd. Um and then we have the others uh April 27th at Yeshiva Spring Valley Girls. Um and Monday May 4th at Chestnut Ridge Middle School. The budget vote um is on May 19th. We will have a budget hearing May 6th. Deadline to file petitions is April 20th um at 5:00 p.m. Any other questions on the budget? >> Student voice. Thank you. We don't have student voice obviously. >> Okay. Student outcomes. >> We do have student outcomes and we have uh Paula Lean who's going to present a short presentation on um the January regions results. >> Hi Paul. I try to keep it brief. It's after 11. Thank you. >> Good evening. Uh yes. So I'm going to provide uh a district overview of our January regents. I'll
244I had a longer presentation but I'll condense it just for the sake of time. Uh so this year we had approximately 1885 uh students take the January regions as compared to 1958 students in the previous year which accounts for 73 fewer students. Um despite uh administering slightly fewer exams we saw meaningful improvement between the two years. uh a total of 634 students earned regions credit in January 2026 as compared to 475 students in January 2025. This represents an additional 159 students that successfully passed the region's examination. Uh at the same time, the number of students who did not pass declined significantly. failures decreased from 1483 students in 2025 uh to,251 students in 2026 representing 232 stu uh let fewer students with unsuccessful attempts. As a result uh improvements the district overall uh improved the pass
245rate from 24.26 uh% to 33.63% 63% which is a 9.37 percentage point increase. So overall while slightly fewer exams were administered this January uh the district saw meaningful increase in students earning regions credit uh and a significant reduction in failures. Uh Kim uh the next slide is focusing primarily on the core regions uh that students need for graduation. So we're looking at the algebra 1 uh ELA uh living environment global and US history. When we analyze these exams together again we see meaningful improvement uh compared to last year January uh 2026 1835 students passed as compared to 1922 students in 2025. um uh despite administering uh fewer exams, 626 students earned regions credit as compared to the previous year. Uh this represents an additional 161 students that successfully passed a core region's uh graduation requirement
246examination. At the same time, failures uh also uh significantly declined. The number of students who did not uh pass dropped from 1457 uh students in 2025 to,9 students in 2026 uh which accounts for uh fewer unsuccessful attempts. As a result, the core overall core region's pass rate increased from 24.19 to 34.1 uh1 uh which represents a 9.92 uh percentage point increase. Uh next slide. Uh so overall uh four or five core exams showed improvement. uh algebra 1 uh increased from 14.87% to two 27.85% representing a 12.98% increase. Uh English regions uh ELA regions increased from 26.93 to 49.07 07 representing a 22.14 point in percentage point increase which was the largest among all of the uh exams. Uh global increased 32.04 to 44 uh uh% representing a 12.4 uh 0 percentage point increase. Uh US
247history also had a 18.48 uh% increase. Um these improvements contributed to the overall increase of the core regions pass rate. However, it is important to note that living environment was the only core regions exam that's we saw a decline. Uh this pass rate decreased from 2579 to 19.93% which represents uh 5.86% percentage point decrease. uh the number of students passing decreased slightly from 123 to 111 which represents uh 12 fewer students earning uh regions credit with this exam. One possible contributing factor may be the slow uh the low uh student participation uh available in support programs. uh schools offered afterchool regions prep uh sessions but attendance in those sessions was extremely low uh despite the significant outreach by teachers and administrators. It is also important to note that the this June will be the final
248administration of the living environment regions exam as the state is transitioning to the uh life science biology exam. Um so uh districtwide the core region's failure rate declined uh uh from 75.81 to 65.89 representing a 9.92 percentage point decrease. Uh failures uh rates improved in the four exams. uh the largest reduction uh was in the English regions where the failure rate dropped from 73 uh.07 to 50.93. Um I'm going to jump ahead a little bit if we could uh go to the next. Yeah. So uh so the district instructional response and next steps in response to these results the district is implementing several targeted instructional strategies to continue strengthening student outcomes. We are uh strengthening uh professional learning communities at the elementary and middle school levels to support uh regular analysis of student work assessment
249data and regions aligned expectations. Uh this collaborative work allows teachers to identify learning gaps and to adjust instruction to better support students. We are also expanding PLC work to the high school level to ensure strong alignment to instruction curriculum and assessment practices across courses that lead to regions examinations. Uh the district is conducting a K to2 uh mathematics audit which was mentioned a few times tonight uh which will provide recommendations for strengthening instruction at the middle and high school levels in particular around the algebra 1 uh readiness and regions performance. We are uh also prioritizing the mathemat mathematical literacy across the district uh helping students build deeper conceptual understanding and reasoning and problem solving uh necessary for ski uh success in regent level coursework in English uh ELA. The district is working toward the adoption
250of a common high school ELA curriculum to strengthen alignment, increase rigor, and improve preparation for the region's examinations. Uh both high schools are incorporating core regions preparatory courses directly into student schedules uh ensuring uh students who previously took the course but still need to pass the exam receive structured inday uh instructional support. Our content directors are collaborating with external partners like New Visions to implement high impact uh instructional practices through learning labs, embedded professional development and targeted uh coaching cycles. And finally, we're leveraging uh the work of our content directors who have been amazing in supporting schools this year uh who are working closely with principles and teachers to analyze regions data, identify instructional gaps, and guide targeted curriculum and instructional improvements across schools. Uh so while we recognize that there are still there's still
251a tremendous amount of work ahead, these results show encouraging progress with more students earning regions credit with fewer students failing and meaningful gains across the core of region's exams. We will continue to build on this progress uh through targeted instructional support, strong collaboration across schools and data in informed decision- making throughout the district questions. All right, thank you. >> What's a PLC first? >> Uh professional learning community. Okay. >> You I noted here this I think it's great providing in day regions preps courses. Does that mean students would have to give up a lunchtime or is this going to be actual like how does that work out when it's in day regions prep? Um >> the region's prep course is after school. >> It's saying providing in day regions prep >> at ninth period. >>
252That's a ninth period >> like you know classes go to so extra support. >> Thank you. >> So that's correct right thank you. So, this is just because my brain is thinking if we've got all these kids that are not doing really well with this and I think you mentioned earlier that students were not taking that additional help. Have has any surveys been done with the students to find out why they're not taking it to determine could it be that students need to leave because they have to go work because they have to help support their families or like what if the babysit like what's the reasoning behind it? like why are they not coming for the extra help? Why are we going to set up extra help if they're not going to come? >>
253Yeah, >> we need to we need to reach them and ask them why aren't you why can't you come? You need this help. >> Great question. >> So, for the region's prep program that is going to run currently, we've set up a model where the guidance counselors are going to be meeting with the students directly to talk with them about the importance of coming or talk to them about why they can't come as well as um involving the parents in that conversation as well. Have we gotten back any feedback to that end to say this is why I can or I can't? >> No. >> I mean I mean I appreciate and I'm grateful for the increase in improvement and passing of the exams right because this is you know reg is necessary for graduation
254right sort of kind of but um I thinking we once again I think this goes back to what my colleague Mr. Guber said earlier that you know we it seems to be that we're throwing money at a potent at this problem but we're not looking to see like what's the core what is at the core of the problem why they're not coming for the extra help and you know and they're sadly they're not passing you know at the end of the day. >> So I know Rising Stars and the Liberty Partnerships program provides regions prep at both Spring Valley and Rampo High School. Could that be a reason why students are probably not showing up to whatever the district is putting in place knowing that those two programs started back in September and October? >>
255Yeah, I'm I'm not sure. But I mean, we can certainly work to survey students to find out more information about why they weren't coming. I can say this, I can give my own personal experience as a math teacher um where I was um providing regent review after school 9th period. Um my numbers were low too um in terms of them not being able to attend. they wanted to attend but due to um obligations outside of school such as babysitting or you know watching a sibling or even some of them having to work um was an issue. I I don't really know what's the solution behind it like what we can do. I know that I would kind of as a teacher and I know most educators um we do try and give little incentives like
256okay if you come I'll you know have a little snack for you but um sometimes that doesn't even work. Um but we got to figure out uh a way in which we can get them to come. But I do know that they do have other obligations just from my own experience. Um so we we just have to figure out what we can do different >> to get them there. Yeah, I I know we definitely need to investigate that further, >> right? >> So, for sure. >> Yeah. So, we'll definitely follow up with you on that. >> I think that would make sense. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> And um something else maybe I don't know if this can be looked into how this would work, but um we do have universal lunching lunch in the
257high schools. Um is it possible for teachers or certain teachers to be assigned to provide um region prep help during lunch? I mean, I know time is limited, but is that something that can be looked into if it's not already being done? >> Yeah, I I definitely think so. Well, but I think we need to obviously invest in investigate further, but I I think we should, you know, look at all options. >> Thank you everyone. Excellent. >> Okay. And I believe that concludes our superintendent's report. We will now move on to consent and agenda items. Before we move on to consent and agenda items, is there anything that we'd like to discuss? We'll move to action items that we can discuss it. I don't think discussed but I think we mentioned that um we were
258going to look into removing um sorry hold on >> any more hires >> uh number four for certificated >> yeah I'm okay we can like to remove that for further discuss So, a second. Can we >> We'd like to remove the appointment um the number four of certificated personnel recommendations council. Mr. Gearart, what's the best uh course for >> I think we just amend the agenda to remove consent agenda item number four to put on the action items to be >> No, no, we we don't want to put on the action items. We just want to pull one of the items for further discussion from certificated one of the appointments >> number four. You know, I I see where you're looking. I I'm not I'm maybe I'm not understanding. Do you want to >> you'd
259like to pull it from the agenda for further discussion? >> Not necessarily tonight. >> Correct. >> So I think >> I mean we're going into exact. We can bring it up in exact but right now we'd like to pull it. >> Well then I think what we want to do is remove it from the consent agenda for further discussion possible action following executive session. >> I'm sorry. >> Because you don't you don't want to table it because then you're just pulling it off the agenda entirely. It sounds >> Yeah, that's what we want to do right now. >> Well, then then we can and then you make a motion >> just item number four from that. So, we can make a motion for the whole thing. Just minus >> remove item number four from the
260consent agenda >> certificated >> for purposes of further discussion another time and amend it accordingly. Amen. Amend the agenda accordingly. So, >> okay. So I will make a motion for items 1 through six with the removal of item number four from certificated second by Mr. Cth. All those in favor say I. I. Anyone oppose abstain? Motion carries. >> Excuse me. Which Mr. Cth? Thank you. >> I'm sorry. Simon Cth I'll try to remember better next time. Moving on to action items. We have action items 1 through 11. And do I have a motion for action items 1 through 11? Moved by Mr. Weiss Mandel. Few Weiss Mandal that is. Do I have a second? >> Second by Mr. Gruber. All any discussion? >> Yes. Item number nine. I believe there is a motion to approve
261an application for an extended day program. Okay. I believe it's a 5-year program. Uh number one is uh is what does the grant give us? Just the does it give us operating expenses as well? Would cost anything to for the district, transportation, security, anything else? Hiring more teachers and I believe it's only a five-year program. What's going to happen after that? This is a a grant from New York State that is a five-year program u and it offers the kinds of opportunities that we've been talking about tonight for afterchool programs. Um we would capitalize on the uh activity buses that run already for transportation and it would be for programs that would help on in academics, social emotional learning um um vocational um um initiatives, vocational education initiatives um and and other programs. After today,
262we have a committee that we'll be forming to to create this application. Right? So, the application is due later. What this is right now is just the board's approval that they give the permission for the district to in fact pursue this application. >> Thank you. Is this any is this similar to um the grant that the county has provided in the past? >> I'm sorry. That the county has provided. >> I'm not I don't know which grant you mean. The grant has also um the county in the past has um they have had a school violence prevention grant program where uh they would I guess have outside organizations apply and then they would have to implement something in the community for children um programs for children. So I I know for rock and bosis um
263we've partnered with different organizations having to do with this grant. So my question is this similar to that grant? >> Well, I don't know. >> Are you not aware of that grant? >> I don't know about that grant, but I know that this grant has that component that component as an optional component and it's been around for many years, right? It comes out every five years. So perhaps Rockland County was a past applicant and awardee. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. All for items 1 through 11, all those in favor say I. I. Anyone oppose abstain? Motion carries. Um information reports from the board. Uh the only two things I want to mention is um on Saturday the F FRC's had a creative art uh event for our families. Um it was
264a I just want to say that it was a a great turnout. Um I think this is the biggest turnout they've ever had where they had over a hundred families show up where they did um painting art, different artworks. So, I just want to say, you know, thank you to our F FRC's for always um putting together these successful events. And lastly, I want to say congratulations to our East Ramo marching band. Um on Sunday, they participated participated in the St. Patrick's Day parade where there were about over 40,000 um people in attendance. um it's something that they participate in every year that I uh usually join them in marching um which is fun. So um congrats to them. >> Just really quick because I know we've been here for a long time, but I
265do want to just say to our students that participated in the um Mean Girls play at Ramapo High School, which I attended, it was phenomenal. our children um that participated um have various um actress, actor, they could sing, musical skills. It was really great to see our students participating in the um the play. I I didn't get a chance to get to see um Annie, but I heard that too was was phenomenal. So, I just want to say to our students, we're very proud of you and just keep up the great work. and and this is another reason why we're all sitting here today to make sure that they're able to participate in programs such as as such. Thank you. >> Thank you, Vice President. Um and just to reiterate, me and uh Trustee Sabrina
266Charles Pierre, we went up to Albany today to advocate for the district and to speak to legislators about our superintendent search and the process. and we met with uh assembly womanto, chairman of the assemblyman education committee. We met with the majority leader leader, Assemblywoman um people stokes and we met with the senate um chairman of education committee shel mayor as well as a few staff from speaker Carl Hasty's office. >> Yeah. Uh Philip Yeah. Mr. fields um from the Ways and Means Committee as well um that we were led around by Assemblyman Aaron Weider and Senator Bill Weber. So, thank you for them both for you know hosting us and we were taken to the floor of the Senate of the Assembly which was interesting experience. So, thank you Sabrina for joining me on this
267and uh thank you to my colleagues. Um, future meeting dates. A regular meeting is scheduled for April 14th, 2026, beginning 7:30 p.m. right here in the PLC room, the administration building, 105 South Anderson Avenue, Spring Valley, New York, 10977. Written communication. As noted, since the last board meeting, the board received a letter from the state monitors regarding the superintendent search. I'll now make a motion to enter executive session. Kathy, what are we discussing? to uh discuss matters related uh sorry regarding the possible employment or termination of particular persons and an update on contract negotiations. We do not expect action following. >> Thank you. Do I have a second on the motion? >> Second by Vice President McIll. All those in favor say I. And on oppos. Thank you. Okay, good morning everyone. I'd like to
268bring this morning back to order. >> Um, how's everyone doing? Coffee, anyone? Um, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting. A second by Mr. Rivera. All those in favor say I. Anyone oppose of state?