001okay uh I'd like to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stand na indivisible andice okay it brings us to item number five on the agenda which would be the student leaon report uh hi everyone um so we had a pretty short month last month so there's not much to talk about but we did have our pep rally and one of the highlights of our pep rally was that we were able to bring back the pting contest for the first time since Co so I think all the kids had a lot of fun with that one nobody managed to finish a pie but I think it was still fun either way um we also had our spirit week that went
002pretty well all things is considered and we plan to have one or two more spear weeks before the end of the year and upcoming news we have our Winter Dance this Friday in the ahhs gy gym um so that's it for February and we hope to have a great dance and have a few more events for the rest of the year thank you thank for that um PTSA do you have a representative from PTSA for an update okay we're going to go with the superintendent report item number seven thank you thank you everyone a little bit of feedback I just want to welcome everyone tonight especially on a rainy and uh stormy night so it's really wonderful to see everyone I want to thank uh everyone who participated in the 100th day celebration that we
003just had this past week and we thank Miss Andrea Cleveland who coordinated the day at Dixon and students dressed up and engaged in activities that allow them to count to 100 and other uh activities such as whether you would like to choose to do 100 sit-ups or 100 push-ups and uh I think that it was interesting students really wanted to do 100 uh sit-ups versus push-ups in some cases and I said I'd rather do a situp versus a push-up to uh we also want to congrat congratulate our Alexander Hamilton High School students who presented at the United Nations uh several students from the high school had an amazing opportunity to work with the nonprofit group Intercultural virtual exch exchange on classroom activities um which has special consulted consultive um status with the United Nations economic
004and social Council we actually thank uh Dr Jim Ryan who was also a panel speaker that uh evening and what they did was they together developed goals that support the un's 17 sustainable development goals and they focused their efforts on two Life Below water and Global Partnerships so it was a wonderful experience and we applaud our students for that opportunity we also thank our College counselors who had a college information night and so for parents uh who are of Junior students with Rising seniors next year they had a very comprehensive uh presentation that was given by Miss Ahern and miss luchon so we thank them for for that we also just celebrated Black History Month and black history week was first celebrated by historian Carter Woodson in 1926 and later expanded to Black History Month
005by President Gerald Ford in 1976 and the bo a focus of both was to create an opportunity to honor the many contributions of black Americans in society and culture and so we had all three of our schools celebrate with songs and dance and original poems music and even at the high school students performed original uh songs as well as we had some of our faculty sing uh at this wonderful day so we just thank you so much for allowing us to celebrate this wonderful month together and we know that um our students are really gifted and talented in these areas I I just hope that uh we can capture some of this on video as well we want to also uh announce that uh the nominations for Alexander Hamilton High School's athletic Hall of Fame
006class 2025 is being accepted for their program on September 6th this year and um we congratulate our girls and boys varsity basketball teams that participated in section one class B playoffs quarterfinals um over the weekend we discovered an issue with the inner stairs at Dixon Annex and uh this week we moved students to the main building while uh the scares were being repaired and we are happy to report that the repairs were completed and tomorrow teachers will begin to move their materials back to the classrooms on Thursday and students will return on Friday we thank our Dixon first grade teachers and our AIS enl and special Edge staff um as well as our students and our building and grounds crew who are so flexible um and we're thankful for Mr Freeze's Direction in making this
007Swift repair possible uh this past Monday we had the entire staff and faculty come together for our superintendent uh professional development day grade level teams and departments spend time in professional learning communities we also had an opportunity to grow and learn together really talk uh in ways in which we could begin to really think about what we want to do uh for our coming school year we had cross uh schools also uh have conversations and the entire staff and faculty also met in the auditorium to learn more about next year's budget we thank everyone who was able to come out um on Saturday and we really appreciate the feedback of the board on that day for the proposed budget I'm going to do just a very quick synopsis of that proposed budget presentation that we
008did in detail on Saturday we also have the slides that were presented on board docs for anyone who is interested some of the priorities that we have for this budget is to maintain a fiscally responsible and sustainable budget within our tax levy limits we want to continue our support for all of our academic and co-curricular and extracurricular programs we want to continue to have um Safety and Security be a top priority in all of our buildings and grounds we will continue to upgrade our technology infrastructure if you look up top you will see some of our new technology infrastructure that's already embedded in our schools for the PA systems we also want to continue to uh repair and maintain our facilities while also continuing our capital projects we are also looking to have a transparent
009process um for this budget season as you know we need to balance the budget and so we need to ensure that the expenses and our revenues uh so that means that our money that is going out as well as the money that's coming in are equal they're balanced and so what we hope to be able to present to the board of education is a proposed budget that is balanced and reflective of the revenues that will be coming in as well as the expenditures that we would like to have so this theme of this budget season is excellence in action we truly want to uh congratulate Alex Alexander Hamilton High School for a 94% graduation rate that we had last August and we thank Dr Jim Bryan's leadership for that uh to occur what you will
010notice is that this is not something that happens overnight it's a Continuum and we congratulate our staff as an entire district from K through 12 for this graduation rate and so how does our budget continually Excel that action the quick highlights and I shared this on Saturday I often like to read the end of the book to see if this is something that I want to invest in and so I want to start with the quick highlights that we're proposing a budget that is 47 m280 511 53 this is a proposed budget increase of 4.34% and a proposed tax levy increase of 1.75% which is below the New York state tax levy cap our proposed budget increase again we said was 4.34% and as you see from last year our budget was 45 m315 3278
011and we are asking to increase the budget by1 milli $965,000 23353 um and the tax levy increase would be $614,000 uh $ 5353 53 seems to be a very lucky number for us right there I propos round that up some of the highlights of our budget will be that again we're complying with the tax levy cap we're maintaining favorable class CL sizes sections and Staffing levels for all existing programs would stay exactly the same all of our K through six classes would be at four sections we may have class sizes at small as 15 um and then nearing as high as potentially 24 students however these class sizes are exceptional in the Westchester County area we want to continue to meet all of our contractual obligations um and make sure that we are paying every
012one of our staff members their obligations in health insurance uh their ERS TRS retirement and so forth we want to ensure that we do that one of the things that we are going to continue is our investment in the curriculum that we have adopted for this District in the art reading reveal math science 21 and the puton Westchester buy social studies um for the K the elementary program one of the things that we also want to emphasize is that we are focusing on the science of reading implementation so there will be an increase in uh the fness instruction throughout our schools we're excited also to state that we're going to have a new kinesthetic lab that we open up at Dixon so that we can have a multi-sensory approach to reading that we're very excited
013to introduce um we know that movement and its ability to help students be able to learn how to read is fundamental we're also going to add 22 new courses at the high school level um we're going to have uh courses that reflect some of the interest that our students have been asking especially in the stem areas we're also introducing as a another language offering American Sign Language we want to also continually support our Athletics our co-curricular and enrichment programs we have a robust programs that we are continuing that are still continuing after the essr gram we want to create additional uh Staffing positions uh a district registar Hamilton art teacher a Hamilton subject area bilingual teacher as well as the Hamilton bilingual school counselor position um we also want to refresh technology for all of
014our staff and students and this has been a real uh Herculean effort uh as you will see throughout our district that we have not only brand new equipment for our staff and laptops uh and refreshes for our students and their Chromebooks but we're also going to have um new PA systems we're going to have new Safety and Security uh cameras and features that will be available for all of us we want to also continually invest in our staff and we want to give them cuttingedge professional development that we want to continue and finally we want to really emphasize that the Improvement of facilities and maintenance repair projects is something that we want to continue in our district this somewhere we're going to be working on roofs at Hamilton and Grady we're waiting uh for State
015a state education to approve us as well as HVAC repairs at um grade A Elementary again we expect that our student enrollment is not going to change dramatically so which is why we do feel as though we will be able to have favorable class sizes and we do feel as that somewhat uh you'll see that there's a little bit of a decrease um at Grady that is because we have seen a decrease in enrollment at Dixon however overall it is somewhat a flat flat uh student enrollment again we we are offering all of the four sections as well so one of the things that we want to really talk about uh in this presentation is just really looking with the board on the enrollment and class side conversations over time and this is an area
016that I think the board will have to discuss over time as we're seeing that class sizes are fluctuating and you know what does that mean at the high school level what does that see at the elementary level uh and so I I did edit my slides uh one of the things that we're also emphasizing is scheduling it is a part of the ETA contract and we hope that uh we can have a conversation where schedules uh will raise achievement increase opportunity and maximize resources one thing that we do want to mention to the board is that we discussed this last time was that we would like to fund many of our repair projects uh through the repair reserve and so we will be coming to the board with a request for a public hearing to
017be able to expend those funds from the repair Reserve so that we can begin to repair items uh that we know to date are going to be on this repair reserve for example haac temperature controls um the pneumatic systems at Hamilton as well as Dixon uh some of the uh staircases that need fixing and so forth so we'll bring that to the board very shortly we want to really look at the budget and the tax levy history so if you look at this as a a board of education you'll notice that last year we had a 1.76 tax levy and we wanted to um just really demonstrate that we are trying to be fiscally responsible and that increase is a 1.75% that we are requesting if you look at the tax levy limit calculations uh
018this is a wonderful way to visually see that and when you put in this calculation we were allowed to increase the budget by 5.25% we are only asking the board of education for 1.75% tax increase our proposed revenues that we see as you can also see from this presentation is that most of our revenues do come from our property Texas and that we are very grateful for our entire community and their support one of the things that I wanted to point out is that we did receive just a little bit of a state aid increase and I wanted to kind of talk through a foundation a history understanding for those of you um who have heard about the Rockefeller report you have heard about how uh the Rockefeller report really talked about how to really
019uh be able to go back to a a different accounting version of how Foundation age should be accounted for in schools so if you look at this phas in process you will see that in 201819 if the current full phasin had happened in 201819 we could have had a foundation Aid of 3187 million we only received in that year 1.5 so now we have a full Foundation Aid phase in and what we are thankful for is that Foundation Aid is now at 5.3 million for next year this is just a snapshot of our proposed expenditures and as you can see 67% really does go to salaries health insurance uh TRS RS contributions and so forth the cost drivers that we have for next year are are indicated here we're expecting an ERS um increase of
02015% and a TRS increase of 10% we also see an increase in Bosey services but this is a very important point that we want to make for the bosei services that for a large portion of our bosei services we receive a 52% state aid reimbursement so what does that mean if we spend uh you know uh a million dollars let's say in that uh in a Bose line item and we we we uh cross coaster for aosi service that we would get 52% of that back in the prior year so that is what we're trying to do one uh huge increase in our budget is the investment we're making in career technology education which is CTE this is our vocational training offerings for our students and we want to increase those opportunities for students so
021you'll see that in the budget as well one of the areas that uh I I want to thank truste uh dintino to point out to us and I wanted to just give an update on this about Transportation there was an inquiry about how is transportation um provided there was an inquiry last weekend about what do these salaries uh really count for so there are portions of the salary that goes to uh an individual on our in our business office who manages all of the transportation and the non-instructional salary but we also have bus monitors and the bus monitors pay for the portions of that uh salary uh differential up there as well as well as for the administrative aspects of that Transportation cost so um we want to also say that we have a very
022generous Transportation policy one in which we have a 05 distance uh Statewide it says that education law requires that we provide students with transportations in Kate who live more than 2 miles and then for students in grades 9 through 12 it's for students who live more than 3 miles so we are very generous in that Transportation um provision for our students these are just the another way to look at the expenses that we have and again we talked about this earlier in the revenues that the large majority of our funding does go to pay our incredible amazing staff so these are the budget components for um next year and you do see a little bit of a difference with the capital uh maintenance line and that's largely because of the fact that we are going
023to be using uh the repair reserves to repair items that we want to uh be able to ameliorate uh before they become in any way unsafe for students so we are being very proactive in the repairs that we want to make in our facilities so what is a contingency budget so if our budget does not pass what does what is the impact that the administrative component which I Just sh showed you here would not be able to increase and it would not be greater than the prior year which for us would be a minus of $29,000 equipment only for health and safety reasons would be allowed and the Board of Education would have to determine that and then individual um contracts would be Frozen including managerial confidential employees and Civil Service employees not covered by
024the collective bargaining agreement agreements um and teachers administrator superintendent other um positions would and may receive salary increases lastly uh we have been receiving uh petitions that are available that have been available since February 1st there are two vacancies on the board of education um seats held by uh president Hep and trustee Phillips and that 25 qualified voter signatures are required for the petition and they must be returned no later than 4 p.m. April 21 2025 so this is our budget uh calendar and we continue to update uh the board and the community on April 5th we will have the final line by line budget that we will present to the board after all the puts and takes into discussions with the board especially um one in which we hope to be able to show
025uh line by line how this budget is going from the 10,000 ft view down to the street level View and we thank truste Totino for giving us that analogy and then finally on April April 10th the Board of Education will adopt that budget there's a public hearing which we open up to our entire community on May 8th and then the vote is on May 20th here at Grady Elementary so that is my presentation for this evening thank you superintendent um so we've got another presentation for special education and I'm going to turn that over to Mrs Joan doin all right welcome I've never been accused of not being heard so I can probably do it without the microphone there we go okay uh good evening everyone um I'm Joanne Dobbins I'm the director of special
026education and people Personnel Services and I've been asked to give a slight presentation today um originally I had over 50 slides but then I met with superintendent and she said you really have to to cut that down she said your slides are very informative but we really don't have the time for this so this is going to be the abbreviated version we always start with what is our mission values and vision this is standard throughout the district every building every teacher every student this is what we follow just to keep ourselves in line and aligned with what our standards are supposed to be so my goals for tonight's presentation are going to focus on special education overview the current numbers and historical Trends assessing special education and map out the future work so let's talk
027about the special education purpose why is it here it allows students with disabilities to access the general education curriculum with their non-disabled peers as much as is educationally appropriate we try to develop students understanding of their own strengths and challenges while protecting and growing their self-worth it's to teach students self- advocacy skills and Foster increasing Independence throughout the students educational careers and it's to help students with disabilities develop postsecondary plans that consider their challenges but focus on Max maximizing their strengths and interests mandates we have unfortunately with special education we have both funded mandates and unfunded mandates but regardless of the fact New York State Ed makes us follow them no matter what one of the things that New York State um education department department is changing at this point is graduation requirements um they're
028looking to phase out the region exams and give students at least four different Pathways to obtain a high school diploma the details of the new graduation requirements have yet to be determined but the effort is to have more flexibility in content and assessment these changes will certainly change the way we do things you know as of today we don't know what it's going to be I have a feeling it'll be unfunded um the state's focus is the need for students to have good inquiry collaboration and thinking skills in addition to a comprehensive base of knowledge those skills are going to be fostered much more effectively in inclusive environments so more to come on that but as I said it's a mandate we're going to have to follow purpose of special education is to keep things
029balanced we want to include children in our educational settings through direct instruction is what they get in the classroom the academics of what they have to learn versus the social emotional components of the lives that they live we want to do more General interventions as well as less specific interventions to make them a balanced student csse has a Continuum of services and this is mandated by the state state and federal government those uh Continuum of services consist of a consultant teacher service resource room integrated co- teaching special class out of District placements residential placements home instruction so so you become from the least restrictive environment to the most restrictive environment and districts are obligated to provide that free appropriate public education here at um Grady and Dixon we have both integrated co- teing and special
030classes that our regularly assessed students participate in participate in in both English language arts and math again it the fake that is required by the state our current staffing needs at the the elementary level we have nine special education teachers 6 and A2 enl teachers one shared psychologist two shared speech therapists two shared occupational therapists one shared guidance counselor one shared behaviorist one shared social worker five teaching assistants one Aid one mental health specialist and two nurses so we do have a lot of services offered right here in District for our students that we are educating at the middle school and high school here at Alexander Hamilton we have the consultant teacher Services we have resource room and we have special classes in English language arts and math our staffing at the secondary consists of
031eight special education teachers three and a half enl teachers one psychologist two shared speech therapists two shared occupational therapists two guidance counselors one shared behaviorist one shared social worker one teaching assistant one Aid one mental health specialist and one nurse on Saturday I was asked about the per student cost including Transportation um so I did that um La this current school year we had 45 students that were paying tuition on and busing for a total of $ 7,359 900 excuse me $ 35,940 53 now I'm only kidding about the 53 uh that brings the cost per student to $156,300 for next year I'm anticipating out of District students to be 51 students for a total with transportation of 7,537 671 the cost per student is $147,700 um there are different reasons for it um doc
032as I said on Saturday Miss yam had me do a whole dossier on all 51 students and we agreed that this is what the students need and we really need to provide for it um hopefully the year after this we'll be able to bring back a a number of students uh based upon the new Ken athetics lab that's going to be built which is going to be absolutely beautiful and we'll address the needs of the students that we bring back the trends in special education each year we have to identify the needs of the students through evaluations yearly evaluations are based on class performance State and District common assessments progress monitoring of goals teacher feedback and parent concerns which is a very important component of of a child's IEP we do comprehensive evaluations for all
033referrals and on a three-year cycle therea for those already identified as special education those comprehensive evaluation consists of psychological evaluation and educational evaluation and related Services then we develop goals for the students we meet students where they are and make ambitious but realistic plans for Progress over the course of the year the goals are developed to support the students identified needs and the goals are based on progress towards identified curricular standards so even though we address the needs of the student we still have the curriculum of New York State education department to follow to do progress monit monitoring the special education teachers utilize a variety of methods to determine if students are making progress some examples include classroom work samples portfolios exams when they're directly related to the goals recorded observations of students completing a
034task interviews focusing on desired student advocacy skills exit tickets and do Nows we collaborate with families IEPs are living documents the school of parents can call for a program review at any time during the year to discuss progress or adjust recommendations every trimester at the elementary level or quarterly at the secondary level we provide parents with updates minimally annual reviews take place where we have to meet with the parents and the teachers at least once a year and that's the CSC team to assess progress and develop new goals for the upcoming school year plans for the road ahead The Next Step at the elementary level is to monitor the social emotional disabilities and the need for additional related or educational programming monitoring of autistic students and the need for specific program which I mentioned on
035Saturday too that number needs to be watched it is increasing dramatically continued mtss RTI development to expand Universal interventions and pre-referral services and the continued professional development for ICT and special classes at the middle school and also at the High school we want to expand our Continuum through consultant teacher in special class again offer the professional development in specially designed instruction and new high school graduation requirements and continue with the RTI response to intervention process questions no questions uh no that was extremely I really appreciate it thank you I'm not finished um question I had asked um Miss John if I may give us a personal speech at this time I have to try and do this without crying as this is the last time I will probably be addressing this audience I wanted to
036take this opportunity to thank the elm Community faculty and staff for the past 11 years it has been an honor and privilege to serve you retirement to me is a very bitter