001That's it. Okay. Good evening everybody. Um, we're going to call the meeting to order. If we can all stand and say the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Nice to see so many people on such a beautiful day outside. Thank you for coming. Um item 1.03, approval of revision of agenda. Um so we are going to um move item 7.02 O2 personnel actions out of the consent and move them uh later after executive session. Any Yeah. Can I have a motion to do that? Thank you, Darl and Dan. Thanks. Anybody all in favor? Anybody opposed or abstaining? Great. Thank you. Okay. Item 2.01. Uh recognition. So Trish Fogerty has some recognitions
002to do. Good evening everyone. Thank you for having me tonight. I'm excited to present to the board and recognize the dedication and impact of our teacher aids at Wellwood Middle School. I'm going to start by asking our teacher aids who are here tonight to stand with me as I share my acknowledgements of gratitude for their work. Could you guys come up really putting them on the spot? Not everyone's able to be here, but I just want to read the names of the people that we're recognizing. Ally Grldine, Donna Stevens, Eurie Vanderwater, Jen Burton, Joe Lanassa, Laura Podesta, Luke Tusi, Beth Capella, and Julie Dam. Thank you all for being here. Every day, our teacher aids show up with an unwavering commitment to fostering a welcoming and affirming school environment that aligns with the principles of
003culturally responsive sustaining education framework, ensuring that all the students at Wellwood feel seen, supported, and valued. Our teacher aids assistant consistently go above and beyond in their daily interactions, demonstrating a deep commitment to student well-being. They greet our students by name, offering high fives, fist bumps, starting the day with positivity. They check in with students regularly to provide encouragement and support, whether it's sports, just their day in daily life or activities that are going on in their life, noticing when a student appears upset or isolated, and ensuring that every student receives appropriate care. Often reporting these concerns to our counseling or administrative team. Their proactive approach extends to contributing ideas to enhance our school environment, monitoring our hallways and our restroom spaces to maintain a safe and comfortable atmosphere, and ensuring students are where they
004need to be and feel secure in their surroundings. I deeply appreciate how they are always willing to entertain and support my wild ideas to make our school community fun and inviting. I thought I'd bring up back in um January, we had a cultural day and we really highlighted the Chinese Lunar New Year with our students and the students made um lanterns and I thought it was this great idea. Me and Mrs. Leslie, the enrichment teacher, were like, "Let's hang them. It'll be wonderful. When the kids come back, they'll be able to see them a couple days before we celebrate." Well, 650 lanterns is a lot of lanterns. But they didn't bat an eye. We all work together to hang all 650 lanterns around the building in the in the cafeteria, our main foyer, and the
005office spaces. And I appreciate, and it's just a one example of how they don't back away from the wild things that sometimes we ask. Each year they're always assisting with simple tasks and and big tasks in the building, hanging our new fifth grade photos in the hall. Another one of the many examples to showcase their dedication to fostering inclusivity and cultural awareness and helping to create the inviting school environment that we have at Wellwood. Again, just a few of many examples, but their efforts continuously enhance our spaces and make our school a great place to be. These exceptional individuals exemplify what it means to be truly student centered, reinforcing the values of respect, inclusivity, and care that define our school's culture. It's often the little things from the warm greetings, the attention to details, the
006quiet check-ins that make a big difference for both our students and staff. These are the things our teacher aids do every day, creating that sense of belonging and support that's going to have a lasting impact for our students at Wellwood. It's important that I recognize that each and every person brings value to our school community and it really takes a village to support the needs of our students. Our teacher aids go above and beyond every day and I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to acknowledge their presence and efforts every day at Wellwood. We extend our deepest gratitude to them for their continuous efforts and making Wellwood a place every student feels a sense of belonging and support from each and every one of them. So, thank you. [Applause] Thank you. [Applause]
007Thank you guys. That was great. Um, so continuing on the theme of recognition and good news, um, I thought it would be appropriate to give a shout out to some, um, significant accomplishments by our studio student body over the last several months. Um, and I'm sure I may be missing, it might not be a completely exhaustive list, but um, and if I am, you guys can send them to me and we'll get them at the next meeting. So, I just wanted to acknowledge um we had two recent sectional championship teams, the girls gymnastics team um and the boys swim and dive team. So, just give a a shout out to those kids. Um additionally, our girls indoor track and field. Um we had some student athletes who made it to the state championship meet. So,
008that's a significant accomplishment as well. Um, we had over 144 awards at the CNY regional scholastic art and write writing awards. So, congratulations to all of those students. Um, more than a hundred students have been selected to participate in one of the New York State School Music Association allstate festivals. Science Olympiad. We had first and second place winners both from Eagle Hill and Wellwood. So, congratulations to all of our science students there. Um, Eagle Hill Math League had a first place finish. So, congratulations to all the students and staff that supported them. We had two students, one from Eagle Hill and one from Wellwood, who uh qualified for the final regional spelling bee. Um, Enders Road did a diaper drive and um, generated over 15,000 diapers that were donated to the CNY diaper bank. So,
009that's terrific for our community. M Road um had a reading everything all day event over the month I believe of February. Um, and over 91,000 minutes um, of reading were taken place over the students. So, congratulations to the M Road kids. And then, uh, last but certainly not least, I just want to, um, acknowledge all of the incredibly talented students and staff, the cast, the crew, the adviserss, the pick crew, the lighting, the makeup, hair, all the things for the prom. Um, if you haven't already had the opportunity to go see the show, it's phenomenal. Uh there's one weekend left, so buy your tickets because I think they're going to be going fast. Um but congratulations. It's such a great opportunity for all those students. Um so just wanted to say more good news. Okay,
010now moving quite along here. Um item 2.02, we have a presentation on the budget. Thank you, Brad. Awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you everybody. So, I thought I'd start out with capital tonight. I'll do administrative portion next. Um, capital is kind of the one I thought would focus on and kind of set the stage to tell the tale of how we're going to start out for our 2526 budget. Uh, so overall capital components projected to increase uh 2.13 million, excuse me, or 13.8%. Uh, current projections call for a budget of 17.6 million. And we'll talk a little bit about kind of what's driving that. Uh, one portion within it is debt service. So you can see here up on the top there's uh capital project debt related to bonds, bands, uh purchase debt for buses,
011capital transfer, etc. Overall within debt service, uh it's a $9.5 million budget and year-over-year that debt service component is projected to increase 21.4%. The first thing being bonds, construction bonds specifically. You can see in 2425 to 2526, uh relatively uh small decrease there overall. And you can see as far as the bullet uh the decrease due to paying down debt from previously completed capital projects. This is really what's going to drive the whole budget. So capital project debt in regards to the ban. So bond anticipation note. Uh you can see in the in the middle there the 715,000 at 2425 and then in 2526 you're at 2.8 million. What I tried to do is kind of tell the tale there through uh what I've got below broken down in that box. Uh basically you've got
012principal construction ban is what you started this year at 1.192125. So the actual principal portion of the ban at about 1.2 million. The interest portion of the ban uh was at 3.5 million. I think that's the number I've shared with folks from facilities committee to early discussions in regards to the budget. So overall beginning ban debt we were looking at about 4.6 million. Um what we decided to do was to pay interest payment or projected to do uh for 2425 was to use surplus funds in 2425 that we're projecting and to use 1.8 million to pay down a portion of that debt to get us down to 2.8 million. So overall with playing down that 1.8 million you can see how we're going to go from 715,000 and 2425 to 2.8 million in 2526. um
013that was basically driving the entire budget. Overall, the budget normally increases somewhere around the $5 million mark. So to start right out sitting at about somewhere around 3.9 million overall was really going to dictate kind of how we're going to be able to do everything. Now the good news I'll keep going through the budget uh presentations and everything else is basically we are going to maintain all programs and services. We'll just walk you through on how we're going to do everything. But that's basically the driver of kind of how uh basically we went through the budgetary process. Are there any questions on that on that slide, Brad? Yeah. And and thank you for asking that because I know we'd normally wait till the end, but on this one obviously, as you said, this one's going
014to stick out. Can can you help walk through because I I I honestly don't recall if I knew or recall what I knew on this. So why the interest component on the band is 3x the principal amount. Uh basically at this point if you think about the project overall you did borrowings for when it started up through now we're kind of headed into uh I guess phase three basically if you will um the vast majority of it is related to that corresponding interest that's tied into that uh the debt that's being borrowed. So at that point I think we're sitting somewhere in the ballpark of around 52 million give or take of whatever that's been. So is that as what you're asking me ultimately is like how we got to excuse me how we got
015to that interest. I'll defer to the account. Okay. So is the I I guess when when we look at the schedule right and it says interest construction band of 3.4 million is that interest on $52 million. Is that what that is? Yes. Thank you. Yep. Because the the re the slight confusion is is that just above it you have a principal amount of 1 million. So we thought the interest calculation was off the one. We didn't realize it was off the 52. No, I don't want that interest payment either. Sorry. What I was trying to do there was really to walk you through how do we get from 715 to 2.8. And that's kind of what I fought with about how to tell that tale because I knew we talked about three and a half
016million being the number and I wanted to kind of get you back. Ironically, what had happened was I was saying 3.5 million and the number really when we got a corrected memorization schedule from uh our adviserss, we ended up being at 3.9. So, it's another 400,000 we had to overcome. But, I'm going to walk you through I'll show you like basically how we got there and that from that aspect and we'll keep talking if there's further questions. Certainly, don't be afraid to to bring them up. Uh, bus purchase debts the next thing. So, bus bonds increase in overall bus prices and borrowing costs. You can see there it's basically just a shift in that basically higher prices uh is really driving that from that increase uh year-over-year. Capital transfer. This is another one to talk
017about. So in the past I think couple years we've we've hovered anywhere from 2 million 1.5 million and I'm proposing to bring it down to 1 million. Um the main point here is is really that the there's a fuel storage tank that needs to be replaced. Uh it's basically at the end of it of its useful life at 30 years. Uh the costs range anywhere from 700 to 900 900,000 from an estimation perspective. Uh it's something we'll be talking about in facilities committee. uh the extra 500,000 or the difference I should say between the 1.5 million and the million from past year. We're really focusing on being able to take care of things like that between the capital project we've got the $15 million project that we just got approved and and uh I think
018is on the agenda for tonight and a lot of that work will be related to it. Uh my hope will probably be in the future next year the year after etc. I'd like to bring that number probably back up given what we see with additional work that needs to be done. But again, that's something that uh we tend to scrutinize pretty heavily in the facilities committee and we'll bring it forward from there. Uh maintenance and custodial is the next area. Uh salaries, wages, equipment, materials and supplies, contractual services, gas, electric, water, and security are really the main components in there. You can see the overall budget being at 8 million and year-over-year it represents about a 6% increase. Salaries uh is basically this slide. You'll see custodial salaries on the left uh subs as well
019as extra duty. Uh everything there from a salaries perspective uh really represents negotiated contractual agreements and the extra duty piece uh being you seeing an increase there. It's really at a point where we looked at it from a budget to actual standpoint and just looked at what we really are doing and tried to uh provide the detailed analysis into that. We really feel like we're getting closer to that 180 mark. We are 140. So it's just a true up really from that budget to actual on that. maintenance salaries. You can see here uh the increase really being in that top line, the maintenance from going from 1.474 up to 1637. Uh the real the change, the shift I should say is really uh going to be that bottom part of that sentence being indicated that
020includes two additional maintenance positions. There were two positions that we've had. We haven't been able to fill them. We want to put them on the budget. It's something that Jeff feels pretty strongly about. We'd like to have I think it's a maintenance worker one and maintenance worker two. So we want to make sure we got those in the budget. We don't have them filled yet, but in an ideal world, we'll have that filled uh sooner than later. The other ones being subs and the extra duty, the relatively flat year-over-year and just really represents again from an actual cost basis. Maintenance of custodial equipment. You can see here there's an increase uh 200,000 and 2425 from budgetary perspective and then in 2526 going up to 253. The increase is really related to two items. Uh replacing
021a plow truck and a maintenance van. Uh we've had some fleet changes as far as where we've got to the point end of their useful life. Uh the funds there are really it's something that uh we just at this point we can't basically mandate it anymore. Uh so they'll be we'll be uh trying to replace those two items within that 253,000. Uh it's going to be used for that and then other items are really going to be more towards maintenance related things in the buildings. Gas, electric, water and telephone. Uh gas you can see we kept it flat year over year. It's really just that at the previous there was a little bit of surplus in there because we weren't sure what's going to happen with fluctuations especially going on with the high school and
022building projects and things of that nature. We kind of feel like the 632 that's sitting there really should be able to uh uh basically provide enough uh support in there that we would cover whatever increase that would be out there. Everything from what we've got with uh construction kind of moving forward. The electric is the one that sticks out. uh you can see at 714, in2425. That number was higher even last year where we had jacked that number up to 714 and based on what we're seeing from meter readings to what we're projections to what electric rates are that 96 is really where we're projecting to go. Some of it being kind of what we've already accomplished, which is good thing. Everything from HVAC upgrades where we're going to have AC and things of that
023nature. If you think about it also last year with the high school, we had a lot of it down uh from the water, electric, things of that nature where we didn't have those corresponding costs because we were down doing work. This year, ideally going to have more of that electric will be on and there will be uh AC in places that we hadn't had in the past along with those corresponding increase in rates. Water uh relatively flat 53,000 up to 54 and then telephone we're just keeping it flat from 40. So that really represents kind of what's going on there. uh conference fees and dues uh just relatively flat year-over-year. Custodial maintenance supplies um you can see a little increase there in in the and supplies themselves. There's a small increase in items but overall
024just rise in prices. Um same thing in maintenance supplies themselves basically addition budget needs and then higher prices. Outside services uh there's actually a decrease here. Um, we projected to be slightly lower overall to less needs with current building projects. Some of the stuff that historically has been in there is HVAC repairs and controls, maintenance agreements, uh, building repairs, uh, roofs being a key word there, and windows, etc. So, again, to what we're going to be dealing with that 15.4 4 million project specifically. Uh we're identifying ideally uh that some of those needs will be taken care of within that project and therefore you'll see a slight decrease there at that 20,000 uh services from Boseies. You can see there is an increase from the 153 up to the 219. That's really added software. There's
025preventive maintenance service that Jeff has identified as something that he would like to have put in place for everything from the work order systems, preventive maintenance checking schedules, things of that nature. That's something that we'll be providing uh that we get through Boseies will be providing in 2526 year security uh the equipment you can see flat year-over-year. You can see the outside services decreasing from the 131 down to the 28. It's really again that whole uh premise of the of the 15.4 capital project. The majority of security upgrades are included in that 15.4 project. Uh intrusion system, panic buttons, things of that nature, HVAC controls, all that. So, a lot of that focus will be on that. I expect that number will probably ramp up. Uh subsequently after that, we'll be identifying additional needs that
026we need for upgrades as well as going through the security audits and things of that nature. And supplies is relatively flat year-over-year. So, next steps program and revenue component uh March 24th, overall budget 21st, adopting the budget the 21st, budget hearing on May 12th, and the budget vote May 20th. And if there's no and if there's any questions, let me know and I'll go into the next portion of the budget. Just have two quick ones. Yeah. One is not major dollars, but every dollar is going to count in this budget obviously on the maintenance salaries. I can find that slide here again for a second. With the hiring of the two additional roles. Yep. Do you expect the maintenance subs and maintenance extra duty to decrease? Are those are those existing because of the lack
027of those two positions? My goal would be that yes, the extra duties um the items that are in there are stuff that's probably unique to us a little bit. Pipe watch for instance specifically. I never heard of that until you get FM and probably outside of FM people are kind of like I don't know what that means. Uh here it means something very big. So I'd love between construction as well as additional people that we can wipe out some of them. Some of them for instance with pipe watch specifically, it's something that we won't be able to get rid of until later on. But yes, the goal is is this point and with anything if we can basically have fully staffed then ideally that sub number or those corresponding overtime or extra duty should go
028down. So that's the thing I chase. I tend to look pretty heavily at those details for every department. So that's when I've really meet with them quarterly at the most. I probably should say and we talk about kind of where we're seeing the overtime and does it make sense. So, and then the Thank you. And then the second was, you know, adding to your list of ever having to budget for unknowns and unpredictables. Sure. Um, obviously there was a fairly significant increase in, as you called out already, in electrical. Yep. Um, I'm assuming budgeted to that is not tariff impact, correct? So, I mean, we don't nobody can predict tomorrow, the next day. This is like whiplash right now, but New York's one of the three states that's going to get hit starting today, 25%
029up. Um, obviously, electrical rates, gas rates are regulated in New York that they can charge. So, there's a delay process on that. But I'm just wondering, are you taking that into account the possibility of that at all? between gas and electric. So, I wondered when I'd hit this part of the budget. Um, and so we're here. Um, as I build it, I kind of have certain parameters that I go through that I really want to check off and kind of find where is the sweet spot? What are we looking at for year-over-year with the budget? What are we looking at with tax cap? What are we looking at with tax levy? What do we have for surplus funds to be able to to balance the budget? What are we going to appropriate? What are we
030seeing from a state a trend versus overall versus expenses? And if all of those things can kind of come into the sweet spot and certain in the line, that's kind of where you want to be. Some of it with gas and electric, you're going to have a little bit of money built still in gas. I've got about 150,000 in there surplus. What I'm hoping is whatever I'm going to see electric because that's jacked up as as high as I can foresee it at this point, not knowing anything beyond that with tariffs, etc. that additional coverage would cover it. So that's your question is probably what is your safety valve? And that is the safety valve for that. we go above it. You know, in the long end, I don't really want to go there, but
031you have reserves, but I don't want to touch it. I'd rather just ideally it's within that 15,000. Y any other questions? Anybody have any questions? Okay, thank you, Gra. I'll head to the next one. Awesome. Thank you. So, the next component we'll be talking about will be the administrative component. So, that's the second out of the three. Um, overall with administrative, we're looking at a year-over-year increase of about 224,000 or 3.27%. Uh, the actual budget itself is approximately 7 million. Within it is the district portion uh board of education salaries and wages materials and supplies contractual services and Boseie services within the district part of the budget it's 3.45 million as that represents and then the year-over-year increase is approximately 3.83. So within it board of education the first thing you can see the components
032on the lefth hand side conferences and travel fees and dues outside services boseies and general supplies for the most part everything is relatively flat. The only thing where you'll see a slight increase and it's very slight. It would be the outside service portion. As you can see on that bottom bullet, that increase in cost is really projected with a new superintendent search. Uh both we understand will be taking the lead, but there will be some additional costs that could be uh related to that corresponding search. In this case, they're pretty minimal. Uh the next item, district clerk. Uh within district clerk, you can see there uh the main one would be the outside service portion. uh we had a budget of about $10,000 or 10,350 and 2425. That number was really inflated uh because we
033weren't sure what we're going to have for the number of votes. So if you have anything where we'll have an actual capital referendum or some kind of separate referendum with that, there's a corresponding cost to it. If you kind of take the number uh that you can see over to the right, you double it, you're kind of in the ballpark of what it costs at this point uh given what we know as far as the voting process. So in our case, we're only expecting the one vote for now. The next one that'll be coming will be the next capital project referendum which we'll be discussing probably within facilities committee. That might be somewhere in that 26 time frame somewhere in that. That'll be the next one where we'll have to kind of talk about when
034we're going to put that in and that corresponding cost for that. Uh the next thing is general supplies and that's really just decreased there again where it's that one vote district meeting. The next thing uh relatively flat year-over-year. Uh the only thing there was outside services. It decreased a little bit and it was really due to service needs. Chief school administration uh you can see their salaries, conferences, travel, fees, dues, outside services and general supplies. Everything was pretty relatively flat year-over-year. Uh the increase really in salaries was just a contractual negotiation adjustment. That's all that was. Business administration again similar things. Salaries uh being reflected there as projected contractual adjustments. equipment. There was an increase. We had zero in the previous year at 10,000 and 2526. Basically, we're at the end of the useful life
035for the letter folding machine and it was an item that the business office felt strongly about. So, uh it's $10,000. It's something that we've had I forget how many years, but it's been several and um that was a very strong wish on their list. So, that that is on there. Uh so, let that be a shout out. Uh the outside services is the other one. And it's really an increase in a negotiation item I think with a contract and it was just staff tuition reimbursements. So that's something as there we're trying to put a budget number aside to that for uh increased tuitions. Uh Bose service had an increase there. Uh that was really more related to like fees and and some of the usage. Other than that it was relatively flat. Auditing tax collector.
036Uh the main one being auditing. uh we had a change in in one of our firms and the increase there really represented with that increase with that new firm that we have coming aboard where we went with look it's like projected somewhere in that $15,000 mark uh which would be provided with added value at the same time an additional cost fiscal agent legal uh relatively flat year-over-year um there'd be a slight increase we've got with with fiscal adviserss but for the most part uh we feel that what we've had uh in the budget at this point historically at least last year. Uh really representing kind of what we have for projected costs for uh what we anticipate in 2526. Personnel you can see there uh for the most part again relatively flat year-over-year. Conference travel
037was just a slight increase in really in training and conference needs that were projected and then Boseies we had an increase there a slight increase and then some annual program costs that we're looking at otherwise relatively flat. uh public info postage uh the main one being probably the Bosei service there as you can see in the second one uh that's really tied to the communication service we went 181,000 and 2425 and 2526 we're budgeting at about 118,000 uh that decrease is really uh dedicated in this case the less contracted usage with Boseies and their communications team uh I think I sent an email today providing maybe a little more context to it this point that's kind of where we're at I know uh it's something that you know we're looking at trying to define what
038our needs are and then trying to line those up. Data processing, you can see there uh software being the one item, there's an increase about 329 going up to 438. That's really a smartboard uh remote management increase is really what that's drive driven by and that's again related to that software and the Bosei service. There's an increase. Uh the really the big thing there is an employee benefits portal. It's something that we've been chasing for a while. We've looked at vendors. We've talked to some of the folks that we currently have and Boseis ended up having three different options and one of those we really liked a lot. So, our HR team is looking at that and that would be something we'd be able to have here for our staff uh with that added employees
039benefits portal. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about that with with some of the different uh items that Tracy and those folks will be working through with wellness, etc. Insurance tax and assessment refunds uh for the most part relatively flat insurance. there was an increase there somewhere around the 7,000 mark. It's really related to uh cyber insurance. That seems to be the one category that drives kind of what goes on here from an insurance perspective. So again, the $7,000 increase year-over-year projected there. Uh water and sewer at this key in this case is basically looked at as flat. Um and that's kind of where that stands from from from those components. Bose administrative fees basically relatively flat. Uh year-over-year. uh we didn't really see any change. I gave some examples of some of
040kind of what they represent for the administrative fees or Bose services facilities rental costs for the anything we use and capital project pass through fees to district for some of the stuff they're working on their capital but again relatively flat year-over-year from that aspect. Supervision is the next part of the budget. Uh there's the four main category salaries and wages contractual materials and supplies and equipment. Supervision budget represents about 3.6 6 million overall increase is about 2.7%. So curriculum develop being the first category you can see there within salaries assistant superintendent uh that's really tied again to the contractual adjustments. Next one being clerical you can see that there was a slight jump there just a little bit and that was really more to some of the working through what we had for needs and
041what we were going to have for for use for clerical from that aspect. Other than that, it was really tied to contractual adjustments and the rest of them are are basically are flat uh year-over-year. Supervision the principles, assistant principles, you can see there the first line uh there was a decrease going from 1.7 million to 2425 projections in 2526 put you around 1.62. Uh that change is really due to retirements and breakage that we had at that level. um clerical you can see went up from 869 to 937 that was again just really contractual adjustments and equipment there was a decreased equipment need to high school project where in the past I think we had an item that was on there that was around that 11,000 mark and there was nothing that at this point
042given everything that's going on at the high school from equipment perspective and the remaining items are relatively flat year over year so next steps again uh program and revenue compon March 24th overall budget April 21st adopts on the 21st budget hearing May 12th May 20th and that's the two uh sessions of of the budget. Are there any questions in regards to the admin component? Okay. Well, thank you very much. Okay. Um, item 2.03, president's report. So, I wanted to give just an update regarding our superintendent search. Um, as the board is aware, we have determined that we're going to be holding a confidential search, which means um that the candidate identity will be kept confidential throughout the entire process, but we're going to be actively working with our search partner, Dr. Cook, um to gather
043as much input and feedback from our stakeholder groups early on in the process. So later in March and early April, um the first round of stakeholder surveys are going to start to be distributed uh electronically to start to gather input. Um and as a reminder to all board members, um you have an couple emails in your inbox from Dr. Cook to complete the board survey as well as the scheduling spreadsheet. Um the brochure to advertise the position is um being finalized within the next couple of days here and then um we're going to have a due date for applications of June 13th. So give us time and flexibility to conduct interviews summer fall and so on and so forth. And I think that is about it for me. Does anybody have any questions on anything
044related to the search at this point? Okay. Item 2.04, superintendent report. Thank you, President Fitzgerald. Uh, the backup information is in board docs. Item one, capital project update. As reported earlier, the expanded cafeteria edition, which is part of the high school capital improvement project, has been enclosed, which will allow the contractors to begin to work on the inside of the new facility in order to help it become operational for the upcoming school year. I'm also pleased to report that uh state ed facilities planning recently approved the 15.4 roofing safety and security project, which was put out to bid over this winter. And I'm hopeful that the board awards the bids at this evening's meeting so that work will be able to commence during the upcoming summer months. The Big Reed, unfortunately, the Big Reed special
045event, originally scheduled for January 28th, was cancelled due to inclement weather and now we have a date of Monday, May 5th for the panel session. We were able to get all the panelists back for that. As far as item three, school start time committee. Our school start time committee continues to meet in order to recommend a new alignment uh that's uh congruent with the proposed bills that are in the Senate and the Assembly right now. The committee has added faculty members and will soon add other staff members as well as students and family members in the months ahead. The committee is not only looking at adjusting start times, but is also exploring revisions to the existing bell schedules in order to take full advantage of new facilities such as the expanded high school cafeteria mentioned
046earlier. The committee will be sending out a survey to families and parents in advance of having the representative students and families join the conversation. Item next, next year's school calendar. Later this evening, I'll ask the board of education to adopt next year's school calendar. It's congruent with the OCM Bosey's component school districts and has four emergency closing days embedded within and provides for five professional learning days for the staff. Speaking of emergency closing days, as you are aware, we've used three of our four appropriated emergency closing days. And thanks to the January thaw which is occurring in late February and March this year, uh things have warmed up a little bit. But in the event that a fourth day is employed, the district is planning to pivot to remote learning days and both faculty and
047staff will need to transport their electronic devices back and forth between the home and the school in order to have unless they have technology access at home. Because of the impromptu nature of the inclement weather closures, the remote learning days will resemble a Wednesday asynchronous instructional day from the hybrid learning model during the pandemic. While some teachers may elect to utilize virtual Google meets for synchronous instruction, most educators will post assignments and lessons and materials on the learning management system entitled Schooly. The nice disconnected regional conference. I'd like to thank board member Chrissy Purcell and the administrators and teachers who attended the recent regional workshop on the governor's efforts to institute a cell phone policy which will deter the use of technology uh cell phones during the school day as we work together on a
048draft policy which is due by August 1st 2025. We are looking to host an informal informational workshop this spring which will be open to the greater FM community. Please look for more information which will be forthcoming at the home with through the homeschool associations and the district. And item last I'm pleased to report uh ASA recognized FM officially with the National Lighthouse Demonstration System. I'm pleased to present our school district with the conferral of the ASA Lighthouse National Demonstration Award uh which was handed out at the conference this past week. Um, Fagville Manlas district was recently recognized at the National Conference in Education in New Orleans. FM was one of six districts honored at this year's conference and is among four school districts in New York State to earn the recognition and one of only
04937 across the nation to receive the accolade since the program's inception in 2022. And if we're lucky, thank you. I won't go through this in real time, but I just wanted to give all of you an opportunity to see uh the presentation that was delivered in New Orleans last week and uh for FM being one of just a few school districts across the nation to earn this prestigious honor. The accelerator that we were recognized for was community alignment in part because this board governance team administration teachers have made an effort to really connect with the community. It's evident from our strategic planning all the way through all the different surveys and uh involving the uh local industries that partner with us for instruction as well. It really is a partnership that I think uh shows
050that the community values education and values the FM district and it's reciprocated as well by the governance team and the staff. Uh one of the things it was looking for was authentic family and community engagement. I've mentioned the surveys, the many different task forces, the fact that we started with the Wii surveys that went all the way up and down uh through faculty, staff, governance team that which led to our draft uh strategic plan uh that we put out in a brochure style format. Originally, we cross things out, chalk things up, move things around, and ended up, as you know, with a poster that identifies not only our vision, our mission, but the four core priority areas that have been the core organizational values that will extend no matter who the superintendent was, uh, who
051succeeds me, that are the things that we're the most proud of here in the district and the building blocks for future success. One of the things uh that the award looked at too was the collaborative leadership and certainly sharing uh with our teacher leaders the FM Zen group the fact that uh we have done the big read as you know we've done a lot of read uh uh summer book readings over the years and certainly that often involves the staff administrators members of the governance team but it's unique for a district like FM to involve the community as well. So over the last few years, as you know, we've uh read a number of books. We've opened our doors, invited the community in to be able to share some thoughts and to have that give
052and take. And certainly at the national level, this was appreciated by AASA. And it also informed our strategic planning process early on. As you know, we didn't want our strategic plan to be static, to be part of the vinyl museum in a three- ring binder collecting dust on the shelf. That's why the posters are swapped out every year as we update the uh strategic plan, adding items, taking items away as we accomplish them, and certainly over the years pushing out uh in three-year intervals. And this was something that was brought up at the conference. They said the year or the days of a five-year strategic plan, they're outdated the minute you print them. And so the fact that we were kind of ahead of the curve d doing three-year plans and as you notice, keep
053pushing the dates out as we accomplish the different tasks, but still looking out over the hood ornament down the road in terms of what we want to accomplish next. And that was certainly something AASA took full uh awareness of in giving us uh this award. So certainly very proud of our strategic planning efforts over the years. Uh the third part item C here incorporating all the surveys that we've done uh whether it's the school climate and culture surveys for the students uh the faculty and staff as well as the parents and the families. They've been very telling the fact that this governance team deliberated over confidentiality and anonymity going through a local vendor in Baldwin'sville in addition to our work with the BIM mass mental health screener. Our work now uh under Amy Evans and
054looking at Panorama education that the staff is starting to use uh through training and we'll be able to customize and do our own surveys going forward eventually. Uh, next item certainly our partnerships and not just external partnerships as you know I'm very proud of our uh work with the tri-state consortium in terms of sticking our head out of the gopher hole and looking around and certainly partnering with high performing districts in New York uh New Jersey as well as Connecticut uh but also AASA nationally being recognized as one of only 37 high performing districts across the country. It also includes the internal partnerships. As you know, we're working on our fourth edition of our action research. And the action research was certainly lauded by AASA in terms of having the staff not only learn more
055about action research tying in their graduate work which you know we reward here at FM but also knowing through little bets our book read this year that a lot of good ideas the way we have to go with New York inspires and certainly personalizing instruction going forward starts with little ideas not certainly uh one big plan uh but many little ideas from a lot of individuals within the organization and as you know we've been part and parcel of a lot of the uh work at the national level in terms of not only learning at that level but also contributing and presenting uh back when Dr. Kaufman was here as assistant superintendent in the model schools conference and being recognized as an innovative district. But not only at the national level, but partnering locally, as you
056know, those that serve on our facilities committee and the work of our safety and security audits, not only did we do an audit uh five years ago and probably six now, but we had them come back. And that's very uh unusual. A lot of districts engage in audits like this, check a box, move on. This district had the foresight to keep reviewing it at five-year intervals coming back and we saw thanks to the most recent audits getting the accolades, the added girls and add boys for the work that we accomplished since the first audit, but also recommendations going forward for the second audit. We participate with Anadiga County as well on the uh critical response committee. uh which involves uh local uh police uh fire EMS not only for the town of Manlas but town
057of Dwit as well. So we're very connected in terms of that in ter uh regarding statistics we use our statistics the board has gone through the different statistics books over the years but one of the things AASA recognized us for is having the courage to support risktaking and fail forward as we've heard uh from President Fitzgerald, President Mims, President Wheeler in the past. It's important to take those chances and we use the statistics to make sure we have a safety net. We'll see when the bottom falls out of what we're doing, but if we're ever going to be able to make the necessary shifts in terms of shifting more from content to skills is uh what we're seeing with the New York Inspires and the Blue Ribbon Commission. It's going to be having that data
058at our fingertips, much like vital signs, knowing, you know, our blood pressure, our pulse, our respirations. Another thing they were incredibly pleased with at ASA at the national level was our annual reports. Not only is our strategic plan the locomotive for going forward, but the fact that we bear our soul every autumn with the annual report. We have a uh Q uh QR code at the uh beginning in order to be able to do a survey and uh the fact that we actually gauge community satisfaction uh data through the annual report but also informing our stakeholders of all our success and progress over the years. In terms of panels going forward in the surveys through the mental health needs, we talked about the fact that we do our uh mental health support services brochures. We
059have a mental health task force. We involve the community with that in Central New York mental health counseling. We have parents who are community members but also experts in the area help co-f facilitate whether it's our DEI committee or our mental health task force being able to provide support whether it's an education connections and responsive services. And as you can see from all the different uh brochures that we've done over the years, sending it out around the holiday time when certainly depression could be at its highest as a way to be able to connect with the community. And one thing they were impressed is we just didn't send it to our families. We sent it to all members of the community as well, which includes neighbors. And then I kind of concluded with the shift
060to content and to skills that we're taking it most seriously and the fact that uh we're seeing the future focused uh framework uh domains leading away from a foundational learning eventually getting to skills to going in the other direction starting with this future focused skills working towards that foundational learning. One of the things that I was sharing with the board, some of the board members before tonight's meeting at the recent conference in New Orleans, uh I don't know if it's coincidental or not with the dismantling of the national the federal uh department of education, but uh Apple and Microsoft and uh Google have reached out to AASA to uh inquire about uh online programs for students that the employers are really focusing in on the skills. I still think it's important to have an instructor
061in front of students, but I think it's getting beyond just being a good idea. If we're starting to see Google and Apple and Microsoft mobilizing, I think it's pretty clear in terms of what the competition and the privatization of education uh is leaning towards. So, I think we're going to have to play defense with our feet going forward. And I truly am envious of the work this district will do to be able to make the switch to the portrait of a graduate focusing in on those lifelong skills. Certainly, we've got the blue ribbon commission here in New York State that I made mention to as well as the New York State portrait of a graduate as the slide I share every year with the faculty in a world that focuses on too much I think
062on evaluation and value judgments. That could be criterion reference, norm referenced, the old bell curve against a population or self-referenced, individual reference like happens in special education with IEPs. I think we got to focus more on assessment uh which comes from the Latin acidari meaning to sit beside and it's really timebased feedback and the fact that we whether it's our annual reports our strategic plans our statistics over time we've looked at ourselves before during and after to assess our progress and again not in an evaluation sort of way but in an assessment sort of way kind of charting the future on where we have to improve. And I finally shared the 360 surveys that I do every year, giving everybody a free shot in terms of anonymity. Uh because I think you have to model
063it as the leader. You learn uh uh a lot by opening yourself up, having a thick skin and taking that feedback because the end result where I ended my presentation is that in a world that seems to be fighting and pointing in different directions, it's one way to get all the compass needles focused together. So I applaud your efforts as a governance team. I applaud the efforts of our administrators and faculty and staff and the community which uh again with community alignment as our key uh indicator here that AASA recognized us for uh is really getting the community and all of us in alignment together. And we will be receiving a banner to add to that uh instead of carting it home on the airplane. nice because they count carryons. So, I just uh I'm
064having them mail it. So, hopefully we'll be seeing it in the next week or so and hopefully we can bring it to the March 24th meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions about Dr. Ch's update or presentation? I love all the end part. My question is more on the weeds of the earlier part of your superintendence report. Um on the specifically on the capital project, the million project including the roofing the roofing bids um that we're proposing tonight is is am I reading this right that all roofing work is going to a single contractor? Okay, Brett, maybe maybe I don't know which one of you can answer better. It might make sense at the mic. So, it's out of Connecticut, right? You said they're looking to expand into the area. Thought it
065was horses, but it could be. Here we go. Yeah. Uh so single roof single roofing contractor the bids that came in what was the timing of the work is it are they projecting to be able to complete within this summer work calendar or are we projecting because of the delays in getting state ed approval and then the bidding process are we projecting going beyond the summer months for it? So, just to talk through it, um it was it was interesting walking into this knowing one of the parameters that you're referencing is number one, you know, having the needs we have, you know, from a roofing perspective. Um we didn't really know what to expect. You know, one the biggest thing was the amount of roofing needed to be done and then two, what is that
066going to look like? Especially when we found out we were going to need additional steel support uh for snow load, etc. So going through the process um we had a pretty good turnout from the from the you know roofing aspect. The company that got us I believe was out of Connecticut and from what I understand uh they came up I think maybe a day after or a couple days after everybody else had come through the walkth through and they had a chance to basically have a private tour. Uh Jeff said you know he took them through a few of the buildings. They actually commented uh you know how how pleasantly surprised they were to see you know what shape the buildings were etc. And on top of it, they got to talk a little about
067everything from the structural steel where the person got a chance to ask, you know, what what is the need for it? Why do you have it? You know, that aspect. So, they did talk from what I understand in pretty great detail to the point where one, we want to do everything this summer. Two, there's going to be structural steel. There will be some sort of delay or time lag of like how long it takes to get that, but our expectation and hope would be the fact that we'd ideally like to capture it in one summer. I believe he did share with him the fact that we've captured the project separately from a state aid perspective filing cost reports etc. But we do have some critical areas wellwood etc that we're really hoping that we can
068focus on and we have closed on campus to try to accomplish that. Um so those were the main things that were talked about. The company itself to what I understand um you're kind of always fearful and you know this from your experience kind of going through it is one are you a new player what are you bringing to it are you lowballing you trying to get in the market you know why are you here kind of thing and the way everything we've seen and the research they've done quite a bit of work uh it's been primarily more as Craig as Dr. Tyson indicated you know in that Connecticut area they have come up this way I think they've done a school in Monaceel I think they've done a prison or you know, something to that
069nature and they're coming this way. We've had subsequent discussions in regards to the architect reaching out and kind of talked about it and they're looking to make more of a bigger footprint kind of more in that New York, central New York area. Whether it's tied to Micron or whatever, I'm not exactly sure, but the way I understand it for all your questions, one, I do believe they do have an understanding this summer. Two, they have the workforce to be able to handle it. They've got two different I think steel distributors or related to be able to get the steel from and everything's to go they were comfortable with their numbers. I think some of the questions we had today was talking about kind of how those numbers came and they came you know surprisingly that
070favorably. So everything actually went real well. Yeah. in regards to the approval. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. The wild card, Dan, and you know, this is going to be that steel. That's the piece I want to hear somebody tell me, you know, are we really at that 20 week? So, our next facility committee, that's the question I'm going to be all over of where you at? You've had a chance. And if tonight goes through the way it should, that's going to be, you know, probably tomorrow's question of can we get this thing going. Um, but that's definitely kind of that. But everything else I'm being told, you know, we're good to go. and we're going forward. If anything, we'll probably talk about maybe where the numbers came. Is there some things I put
071together today in that writing about with our facilities committee where we talk about maybe there even additional work that is, you know, we talked about the steel lead time being one of the biggest obstacles to a project and that order needing to go in ASAP. So, if we award this tonight, are they prepared to get that order in tomorrow or the next day? Yeah, I'm going to be on the phone tomorrow. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Why is I mean, great. Now the now the facilities committee is picking up on my sense of humor, but it's just as the facilities committee members know, I mean with the structural steel lead time and the architects have been great about as you know doing a lot of the paperwork ahead of the dates with fingers crossed that we
072keep moving this forward. We had talked in full transparency that the steel may not be in until beginning of August and so that's not ideal when you're thinking July and August, but keep in mind that we have the autumn as well as the facilities committee knows. So the autumn can be very good weather to be able to try to button things up as well. So we'll have to take the necessary precautions in terms of students and staff in the buildings. But um I just remember my fall being good weather and so we'll try to get as much done them as well. Thanks. So when the company bids on this um work, Brad, do they have any sort of requirement to meet deadlines or any do we have any leverage on that p specific piece of
073you know wanting it to get done in the time frame? Understanding that I would think they're aware of the lead times for the steel and all of that as part of the full bid package. So, this one's tricky in the sense of I don't think when we put that I know when we put that 15.4, you know, project together, we did not realize that that structural steel was going to be needed. Um, the wild card for us was always going to be the weather and do you have a big enough crew to take on that many projects at one time. So, we knew we had certain groups that, you know, were goodiz firms. It was just a question of what are you already going to be booked to and do you have enough labor to
074be able to allocate it to what we've got going. Um that structural steel through the wild card and then the 20we was the real wild card. So it was basically where you know for full transparency as Dr. talked about. We've been having this discussion September, October of where we've reached out and we actually did a third party review which was going to shorten our time to be able to get bids back and ironically I don't know what our luck is at state ed but uh we ended up having it where the reviewer actually moved on so it moved on to somebody else and it took forever. Uh we then made phone calls, we did emails. Jeff has somewhat of a relationship being the president of his chapter where we talked to Sarah Madison, a state
075ed and facilities planning and tried to move the project as best we could. We finally got all that through and I think we turned it around within a week. I think we found out maybe the last Friday and it took a week. We got everything together, got everything through. Um everything has been stated in full transparency up front to everybody that's there. I've talked about the fact of, you know, how many different folks we probably upset. we've had to shut the door on different things going on from around here from village town uh summer schools things of that nature and I just ask that you know it's that one kind of give from that aspect that we're going to go. So I don't want to extend this into where we ever have to where we
076can't continue some of the great things we're doing for the kids around here and some of the programs. So my hope is basically to come back to you that we can get as much of this knocked off as possible. We do have a bit of contingency planning in the sense of we looked at different things with that steel coming in, can it go into the area of where if there is going to be past September 2nd or whatever that first day of school is, can we segregate out and make sure we have, you know, appropriate safety, those kinds of measures in place to be able to still conduct that kind of work to get it done. Is there a way to kind of, you know, triage it as much as we can if we have
077to with Wellwood where we can just basically get it a point where we can figure out how to get the steel in play and then kind of handle that roofing but at the same time make sure there's no leaking. So, we're going to have some real extensive talks in that facilities uh group to be able to talk at the committee level. What are your plans? You know, what can you get done? Uh everything we've laid so far is basically come to fruition. Now becomes the wild card of of basically, you know, what's that weather look like? What's that steel lag? and then how far can we go? But everything has been fully upfront and on board and I think everybody knows what they're walking into kind of that eyes wide open approach. There any other
078questions on that? I didn't want to belabor it, but I took heart when um Lar Updike who's part of our construction management team said that the structural steel is basically the same piece over and over, right? It's going to be so whoever is fabricating it, it shouldn't be a big deal. And you think this company has two distributors at their disposal? I know they're looking at two uh Darl and I don't know if it's whether like one, can you do it kind of thing or two, what's the price or whatever, but I know they have two already identified. But I Yeah, you're you're right in the sense of the way I understood it too. It was more of a maybe lack of a better term cookie cutter in the sense of kind of what you
079kind of go through where as opposed to every piece is different. pieces I'm going to be interested in is going to be there's talk about anything from the approach. Do you have to go above when you put the steel decking on? Can you come from below? Is there any way to you know in a utopian world where the roofing could kind of some kind of coincide a bit with it? I don't know. That's the questions I'm going to have for them because I think they actually brought up you know are you open to listening to different ideas we have in regards to how we do it. We're open I think to anything. It's just the main thing is can you conduct it safely and can it be up you know on a timely basis. But
080as the facilities committee knows too, because of the improved roofing materials, means improved insulation, which means increased snow load, which means we need the structural steel. So that's where this came from. It isn't that the buildings are falling apart, it's just we have to accommodate the increased snow load. Thank you. All right. Item 2.05, 5 committee and representative updates. Daryl, you want to give a legislative update? Sure. Uh, speaking of surveys, on March 7th, you all received your NISBA uh, link to this year's resolution survey and I hope that you'll all turn it around by the 21st. The one that Dr. Cook sent us is very quick. I did that and you can do that in probably under 10 minutes, but this one will take you a little longer. I presume the resolution kits will
081come out 49 and then the deadline for new submissions will be 7:18. This is good information to have because last year we were right under the deadline. Um speaking of that, I talked to the president of the Baldensville um board today because I don't know what you thought of the article, but it looked to me like they were getting taking advantage of what would you call it? Speculation. Yes. in terms of their um but he said the slant was wrong in the article. They really are looking just to reorganize so that right now they have two grades in Durgy and two grades in Ray and they want to have three grades in each. So it's a matter of what am I trying to say the yeah right the uh so they're really when they went
082out for that amount of money it was to do that with classrooms so it's not on speculation that what happens with micron will affect their um they said they've been going down about 1% a year but you know as we know we everybody has more needs more rooms. Sarah did you have a question about that? Well, I mean, we're just sort of speculating, I guess. Um, yeah, I the way I read it was they were doing an addition on their they weren't mil building a brand new building, but they were doing additions to account for additional classroom space, right? Exactly. Um, but I guess that was unique. Yeah. Right. Instead of three phases, they did it all at once, you know. probably to avoid what we worry about, voter fatigue, you know. Yeah. I mean,
083it passed like three to one. So, yeah, they did whatever they did was effective. And they do have a lot of building happening in that district and they also have more industry than we have because we have none. Um, I also wanted to mention, maybe I mentioned it last month, stop me if I did. Perhaps you all have or some of you have an app called Five Five Calls. It's a cute little blue app with um you can if you go to it and I just learned about it a few months ago, but you can um immediately go to your own legislators uh John Manny and Kristen Gillibrand, Chuck Schumer pop up and then if you tap them you can look at the various issues and you all know probably that a phone call is
084much better than an email because they do keep tabulations on those things. So, you know, there are lots of issues that we can be calling about. Um, and I would encourage you all to do that as often as you can. Um, we need all the help we can get in education right now. So, that's it for now. Thank you. Thank you, Darl. Right. Bosey's update. Marissa, just the annual meeting is coming up on April 2nd. It'll be at 6 o' at the Thompson Road Bosey's office or facility. And Isa, um I just have a follow up on like plays. Our 2025 dance marathon has raised over 22,000. And uh last weekend we had a basketball game to raise more money on top of that. FM basketball versus the C CIO organization. And follow up on
085following up on the play, the students love the musical that we watched and they were entertained and learned new stuff. Um, just to an update, I I think all of us got an email today from Ethan, um, who is the one of the chairs of the dance marathon, and I think the number they've actually raised over $50,000 to date, but they still have like half to go. um and to support Camp Good Days. And I would just like to personally encourage and challenge all of the board members. If you haven't already considered a donation, it would be great to show the support um for the students for all of the hard work that they've done. So, I think we all got a link to donate and I'm sure Pat would take our cash and and
086submit it, too. Oh, one a dollar for dollar. Anybody? Um, great. Thank you, Isa. All right. Um, item 3.01, public comment. I believe we do. Sorry. Can we just Oh, I I know we had talked about doing committee reports just quarterly. Yeah. Can can we just delve into one piece of the facilities committee? Absolutely, Dan. And then I almost forgot Chrissy's update. Thank you. Um and and and Brad, if if I may indulge you again on this. There there was there was one piece of the facilities committee meeting. I wasn't at it, so I know what was discussed, but I'll defer to also to those that were there that I wanted to make sure was brought to everybody's awareness. And that was you know, and I'll I'll let me just tee it up. Red, maybe
087you can speak to it more. I'm sorry to put you on the spot on this, but but the district borrowed or got a loaner electric bus and you know, we've had see lots of information about projections of how many miles the buses could go and how much charging time they they need. And it was we thought it was really important as a district to actually bring one into our district, drive our actual bus routes to how they are actually performing in our district on our roads with our terrain with our hills with our elevation. Um I I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but as I was going through it, Brad, if you want if you're able to just walk through some of that information, I think especially as we're talking about budgets and
088upcoming propositions that would be really relevant. No, good point. Um it's something that we did discuss at at the committee level. Uh we haven't had a chance to to discuss with the full board, so it's a good opportunity. Um, thanks to the facilities committee, Dan, etc. kind of we that idea arose is basically, you know, it's been an item that we've been discussing here with the district for a while and and one of the things was basically can we come up with something that maybe we could kind of take a test drive and kind of see what we're we're we're looking at. Um, so we were able to work something out with I think New York bus sales. They were able to give us an electric bus. I think it was pretty similar to one
089that we would be interested in, you know, from a size, uh, capacity, things of that nature. uh we brought it in I think we had it for maybe a little over a week and then I know we used it specifically on two days of where we talked about the specific data that was gathered from that. Uh the days were relatively cold in the sense of where you'd want to probably have that data or that kind of uh defining categories to be able to mimic what it would be look like uh on a bad day as well as maybe even on a good day. So from memory kind of going through it, the one of the days we had we uh that the bus was parked outside. So it got started from outside not being parked
090in in a garage and the bus went on a mimicked day a run. Um I think we had just maybe a few staff members on it because the bus was brand new. It wasn't DOT certified so therefore you couldn't have any wrership. I believe you could have some uh non- studentents. So, uh, from that aspect, that's kind of what was on it to to match the weight criteria. Um, that being said, I think the bus went on maybe roughly around a 45 or 50 minute run. So, not very long. The bus when it was charged, I think was had a capacity of somewhere around 90 miles, if memory serves, and I think it went about 42. Uh, from a heat perspective, uh, from what I remember, it was basically at the point where it was
091pretty cold when you got on because it was parked outside. And by the time the bus actually ran the the the full route, uh it was basically still chilly to the point where uh the the people on the bus had indicated you wouldn't, you know, be comfortable kind of zipping down your jacket or or uh taking off gloves or whatever things of that nature. It was still pretty chilly. It wouldn't be what you'd consider comfortable for for student ridership. uh from the miles going that 42 miles. I think ideally in utopian uh kind of where it would be at it would be the situation where it might have had maybe 50% of charge or something like that left. This ended up I think with like maybe around five or 10%. So it basically used up
092full capacity. It was on a trickle charge. So when they plugged it back in I think it was going to require 22 hours to actually uh be fully uh fully charged again to be used. Um when they used it the next time they parked it side to try to just get different criteria where it was actually parked inside and use that as a measurable. Uh the bus did go longer. I think it still uh accomplished that that 42minute ride, but in the same standpoint when they got it back, it might have been more of where it was able to go 80 miles instead of being at a 5% left. It might have been whatever that was 25% left or something like that. The heating though, from the way I understand it, was still around the
093same issue where basically it took the end of that run where it actually was quote unquote comfortable for student use. on that side of it. Um the big things the price tag at 552,000 for that bus. I think last quote I had. Um the charging was one of the biggest concerns from that aspect where the only way really to alleviate that would have been to avoid the triple charger and go on what you call that fast charger. That's something though is kind of the way I understand it that if you put it on that you're going to depreciate that battery life where you might only have uh you know less you're going to have less years over what you would have with a trickle charger over time. Uh the million-dollar question I always still ask
094that Trump question that you know Trump card to play at would be you know at 9:30 in the morning after a bus has completed its run and there's a god forbid moment whether it's weather or you know terribly other is that bus going to be able to take whatever kids and complete that route and in that first scenario you know I think we can all agree at 5% left you're not achieving it the second one you're probably not either. So that's kind of the the some of the gist. I'm sure there's probably other data criteria that we'd have. Um but it was a great opportunity to do it. Um from what I understood some of, you know, the folks that wrote it, there was some positive. It was quieter. Uh there is a decent amount
095of power. They said kind of going up the hill, but what you'd have to use to utilize to, you know, to go through all that your residuals are all gone from a heat, etc. and you're left with basically, you know, not much battery life, you know, to be able to conduct it further. Brad, you have great command of all those facts, but day two it took what 85 hours to recharge. I I think day two it was it was still it was was it was it around I can't remember what it was with day two. Was it all right? And just to clarify, when you say it made a run, it did the morning run and it was out of a charge, so we couldn't use it for the afternoon and take the kids home.
096Correct. Yep. We could only bring them in the morning with it, right? Correct. Just that morning run and it was a short, you know, it's 42-minute run. Thanks. I'm sorry I get to put you on the spot on that. I, as I was reading back through the minutes, I'm like, we really need to talk about this. So the the the biggest takeaway that I had on it, one is is I'm really glad that we didn't put it on our roads, but we had been told very consistently that expected mileage would be like 120 103 miles. Put it on our roads on a normal day in our district. Y and the numbers, if I understood them correctly, was was between that it it made it between like 42 and 45 miles before it exhausted the charge
097on the battery. That's That's not as phases. We might get a run to one school, but then that bus sits on the shelf until the next day. And and I just I think that's, you know, it's really important to talk about actual set of hypotheticals when we're talking about purchases of that magnitude. So, thank you for doing that and getting the data for us on that. Yeah, just to echo that just quick, it's, you know, it's probably it probably is a good idea, you know, that to bring that up and have that quick talk. Now uh with it it was you know a lot of valuable data we've been chasing for a long time. I mean it's been two years from town hall meetings to emails to different groups that have come in and met
098with board members as well as you know sat down myself etc. Um at this point I it's not something I would recommend for the budget just given the data and the dollars and everything else. uh there is something there you know I wish there was something further along and maybe hydrogen fuel cell to something else but from electric standpoint I know I think I talked to everybody from the board aspect and we talked about just simply what we're going to do with our parking at the you know at the bus garage etc there is no more spaces left so with that whatever the conduit is going to be required to run it at 552,000 versus 210 I don't have the answer uh that budget that I'm going to put up as you start seeing tonight
099it's tight this This is probably the hardest budget I've ever worked on. And it wasn't for a lack of knowledge. It was just a game of chess. Every piece that you're playing to figure out how to basically keep, you know, maintaining program uh staffing and we are. It was just offsetting it with what's that going to look like if we basically go through with building aid to debt to what that's going to do and looking at that kind of forecasting it out. As I told Craig today kind of when he got back, I said it was my hardest budget, but that standpoint is probably the most rewarding. I feel comfortable to go forward with it. Um, but the premise on that budget is basically to maintain things for the future and to do a good
100job with that to ensure that we can keep everything going. So, with the electric bus with that wild card, I just don't think it's the time. Okay. Yep. Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Dan, for bringing that up. I just have one more kind of follow-up point to that. I think that would be valuable information for the community to see in writing. So whether it's working with our communications team just to have an article that discusses kind of the results of our test run, there were definitely community members asking seeing the bus out and there's definitely a portion of the community that feels very strongly about purchasing EV buses now. So I think kind of the results and then the rationale as we move towards the budget would be a smart um communication. Thank you Christie.
101Can you give a quick update regarding CRC and the conference that you recently attended? Sure. So um as Dr. I shared um last week we met two weeks ago. We had um a local um disconnected conference put on by NISET. Um it mimicked the um conference we had the statewide conference we attended in Albany. Um this time the panels were made up of local educators from a handful of school districts. Um we had Sherburn, Earlville, Liverpool, North Syracuse, Auburn, and ESM I believe were the school districts that made up some of the panels. um everyone from students to superintendent. We had the Onadaga County um sheriff department. We had a few representatives there along with pediatricians and um we had some leaders of um organizations um like common sense media and fair play. Um the
102panels were centered um there was three different panels. The topics were student mental health and social media uh cell phones in school safety and then teaching digital literacy and appropriate use of tech. So, school districts shared their experiences um with their current cell phone policies. They ranged every everywhere from um policies that are similar to what we have here at FM where cell phones are put away during class time, but they're allowed out um during passing periods and lunch. Um some districts have moved into a pretty much, for lack of a better term, like just a ban from bell to bell where the students do not use the cell phone at any time during the school day. And then um the another district is using yonder pouches where they are locking um the cell phones
103um for their 7 to 12 um grades throughout the day. So, it was really interesting to hear the different perspectives of the different districts and and how they're navigating that as well as hearing from the students. Um, and then also hearing from a lot of the counselors and mental health professionals in the schools um and the pediatrician about what um what they're noticing with the mental health of our um young people. Um, I think just a few few key points that um I took away was just the thought of kind of reframing that when we say phones, we're not really talking about phones anymore. Um, which again seems obvious when we mention it, but it's just really looking at it like um we don't use cell phones for phones. Most of the the use that
104we're using them for is really for computers and the internet. So kind of looking at it as um our young people are walking around with like supercomputers in their pockets all day um connected to the entire world um rather than when we say phones we just think of communication and it's much much more than that. Um and another key piece um was really um the the appropriate use of tech the digital literacy standards and how important it is to really teach. Um, a few um, district leaders brought up the point of when we had computers and they first came out, we had we took computer class and kids went and learned how to use them appropriately. And with cell phones, it's just here you go, have at it. So, really just beefing up the curriculum
105around digital literacy um, and how to do that um, effectively in schools. Um, and then the last point that I thought was really important was just the community effort and how important it is to involve all community members um with policies and with education and just um getting everyone involved in the topic and I have the program if any I can pass it down if you want to see who was there and what they spoke about. Thank you Chrissy. Does anybody have any questions? I I had a question. Um I guess it tracks back to the superintendent's report where you said schools must adopt a policy by August 1st or that we must. This is still proposed legislation, right? So this is only if it passes or I'm just trying to figure out what our
106next requires. It's tied to the budget. So if the budget passes so anticipating that it will then we that's something we're going to have to work on. And when would the budget pass? Yeah. So, we'd have just a few months to pull it together and I think it's coming to our policy agenda, right? And we were we're gathering samples. So, trying to take a look at that at least get some drafts out there to review. Um, does any other committee want to give a If I Sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. uh with the cell phones. One of the things we heard in New Orleans is involving the students that uh oftent times districts go just to the parents and it's important to involve the students first that they will bring the parents along and so I
107think getting their input as we go forward will be important. Be interesting just because school will be out and then we may be in a vacuum of doing a lot of this over the summer. So, we may want to do some pre-planning in terms of what stakeholder engagement we're anticipating wanting to have um so that it can be staggered and that the student first, you know, piece is there. I was also just wondering if there were any helpful takeaways from the school districts you connected with in terms of varying policies like the yonder pouches um or if those are districts we want. These are local districts in the county. um Sher and Erville I can't say that word is it Earlville Sherbet what they use the yonder pouches um but that they were the I
108think they're the only ones um that are regionally close to us I've reached out to a few other districts um and it doesn't seem like anyone in our county has made that leap yet to purchase them. Um some have contacted the representatives um and spoken to them but nobody has made those purchases yet. Um, and hearing from the students is always very important. And I'm glad that you brought that up. Um, a couple of the districts and some of the students said that, you know, like it's it's usually the parents that have the hardest time with the students are pretty adaptable. Um, and some of the um the people I spoke with said that it's they don't get a lot of push back from the students. It's more from the parents. So, bringing the students
109involved in first and having them bring their parents along is is pretty important. One thing to note and some of if you'd put your fingers in your ears and not listen to this. They in New Or in New Orleans they said that the students were conveniently forgetting the yonder pouches at home and not bringing them in. But what they found in this one district that turned things around is they bought the demagnetizer for every classroom. So not just at the exit. So that in the event of an emergency, which is the main concern from parents, I won't be able to get a hold of my child. And again, forget the cell towers being, you know, in the middle of an emergency and all that good stuff. But the idea that the demagnetizers were in each
110of the classrooms, then they found the students were willing to play ball and to bring the yonder pouches in and to use them, knowing that at the drop of a hat, they could uh access them. So, that's something to think about, too. There is one building in Syracuse, I think it's a middle school, and they have um it's not policy. It's not districtwide, but they do collect all cell phones, and I'm not sure what they put them in, but they've been doing it for months now. From what I understand, it's working very well. Um I can't remember what building it is, but it's the 68 building, whichever one that is. One of the rep was what was one of the counselors was there. She said it's the 68 building. I don't know if there's more
111than one sixth through eighth building. Oh, which one that is? 68 or they just collect them from the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. So maybe it's part of a We have several K8 buildings. Oh, okay. So maybe that was what she was referring to. But they just take them from the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Um they just put them in baggies, she said. And it's been working pretty well from what I understand. So that might be something to follow up on. I'm gonna say this through every part of this process as this goes to policy committ. We keep talking about the students, but when we talk about this type of a policy or exploring it, we need to talk about those students as broken down by age or grade or school level. What's needed
112in an elementary school isn't necessarily what's needed in a high school. What's needed with a second grader isn't necessarily the same thing that should be applicable to a high school senior. And so I think we need to talk much more specifically than students as we go through this. So maybe at policy we can talk about how to get a collective group of students to participate in the process and get feedback from different levels. Okay. Any other committee updates that anybody wants to share this point? Okay. Thank you. Um, item 3.01, public comment. I don't believe we have anyone. Anyone? Okay. Um, new business. Item 4.01, approval of minutes. Uh, be it resolved that the board of education of Fateville Manley School District approved the minutes of the regular meeting held on February 10th, 2025 as
113presented. May I have a motion? Thank you, Jason and Dan. Any discussion? All in favor? Anybody abstained or opposed? Okay. Item 4.02. Uh, be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Manley School District approve the 202526 school calendar as presented. May I have a motion? Thank you, Cindy and Chrissy. Any discussion? All in favor? Anybody opposed or abstain? Great. Everybody's out booking their trips right now. Um, item 4.03. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fagatville Manla Central School District hereby approves the NISBA 8000 series policies in second reading and defers enactment under the completion of the policy transition. May I have a motion please? Thank you and second Darl. Any discussion? just have a couple of just maybe they're more observations than things in the packet that we
114were provided the the broader updated 8000s PDF there are not just the marked up policies but also the um regulations and and I just want to make sure it's very clear that you know we we have preview over policies not administrative regulations even though they are in Um, so that was one. There were a couple of sections farther down where there were still insert comments of information provided for board or to be determined who would be responsible. There are a couple of sections on that very late in there. I I nothing that I think is an issue for tonight, but as policy goes through on the adoption side of just cleaning up those. And then I just have a broader question for policy committee is is there seems to be a kind of trending change
115in in some of these markups of moving away from the word shall to will. There's quite a few policies where every use of virtually every use of shall is changed to will. And I just curious to know why that may be. Shall is a very prescriptive specific word in the legal and policy world will is not well we will look into that and shall I I don't uh there's like 12 of them in one policy so just broadly that can be looked We shall look at that and get back to you. Thank you. Um and I believe the purpose of having the regulations just for context, but um we'll make sure that that is cleaned up. Any other comments? Great. Um okay, so all in favor? Anybody opposed or abstaining? Thank you. Okay. Item 5.01,
116board development. So, in this past week's um Thursday letter, there was a link to a variety of um opportunities for professional personal development. Uh there's an AI conference that's free um on March 27th. Is that the same day as the Boseies meeting, Marissa? Oh, April because it's at Boseies and Dr. Daget is there. Um, if that's a topic that anybody is interested in, I would encourage you to take advantage of it. Um, there's also a wide variety of Central New York School Board Association and National or New York State School Board Association trainings and events. Um, as Brad presented, we have line item budget to send folks to different trainings or register for some of these. So, um, be sure to look through those. And Sarah is generously offered her services to help us register
117for anything and everything. So, especially if there are topics, um, that we really want to kind of network with other folks about and learn more about. Okay. potential item 5.02 potential considerations for future meetings. Um I think we have talked through most of these um recently. Anybody have any questions or comments on anything related to this? Add on there. Let's let's flag earlier and at a particular meeting this resolutions discussion so that we're not after the fact again this year on that. Yeah, good suggestion. Since my name was mentioned, um I'm a very old English teacher, but I will say to you that shall is usually used with the first person. So if you're using the third person which I think in those policies we are that may be why the chain [Laughter] perhaps I'm
118sure that was why um okay item 6.01 future meetings calendar. So, we are back at it in two weeks time um on the 24th, but then we have nothing on April 7th. Does anyone particularly want to have a board retreat on that day? I I think we're okay for now. Um so, consider it a day off. You're welcome. Um okay. Uh item 6.02, 2 dates to remember. So, we have a variety of events coming up. Um, couple more that I wanted to highlight that aren't on here. Uh, this is a big week for high school and I believe both middle schools celebrating Pi Day. Um, Mr. Magnamera, will you be taking a pie in the face? Uhhuh. We'll find out. Stay tuned. And on the 24th, I think we'll have some some more good news
119to share on that than that set. Um, also speaking of fantastic thespians, uh, Wellwood musical is coming up this next weekend, James and the Giant Peach, so get your tickets. I believe there are still tickets available. Um, and we talked about dance marathon. So, that's lots of exciting things as well as a variety of band and orchestra concerts um coming up. Sarah, can I just add one thing that's not on? You bet. Thanks. So, um, before folks, well, I I guess they could partake in the St. Patty's Day celebration maybe before, but the National College Fair for a lot of our students. Uh it's really geared towards uh I would say really the junior class, but always a good idea for freshman and sophomores as well as seniors. Uh if they haven't made decisions about
120what they're doing after high school is coming up. It's going to be at the on center on St. Patty's Day. It's that night from Yeah, I know, Dan. I Hey, I didn't schedule it. Uh it's that night from uh I believe it's 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Uh and also they have it on the following morning. Uh but students in theory would be in class on the 18th, but they have it the following morning I think from 9 to 11. Um but just an opportunity for folks to get out and also I don't know if she's here. Is Heidi Green here tonight? No. Well, Heidi is speaking. So, they have uh some presentations that are going on and Heidi is, I believe, speaking on the college admissions process. Um, wonderful. Thank you, Jason. You can go
121to Coleman's in the morning, have breakfast, and then you can Sha Shaughnesses is probably more than happy to, you know, if you're stopping by, if you're part looking for a parking spot, right? Parking is always tough downtown. Thank you very much, Jason. Okay. Anything else we missed? All right. So, uh, consent agenda. Um, may I have a we resolve that the board of education of the Fateville Manly Central School District hereby approves the consent agenda as presented. And as a reminder, we removed personnel items. Thank you, Dan and Chrissy. All in favor? Anybody opposed or abstaining? Great. Okay. And now we're going to item 9.01. Um, proposed executive session. Be it resolved that the board of education of the Fagetville Manly Central School District enters executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment history
122of a particular person and proposed litigation. May I have a motion, please? Thank you, Cindy and Rebecca. All in favor? Anybody? opposed or abstaining and we will come back up. You don't have to stay if you do not want to. Um but we will be back. Thank you. How are you doing? Uh, so is it item 11? I don't know. 9 something. I don't know. 901. 90 902. Okay. Okay. Um, so be it resolved that the board of education of the Fateville Mania Central School District um approves the personnel report as presented. Okay. Motion. Thank you, Ann. And uh Dan, oh no dis there's no discussion. No discussion. Uh all in favor? Anyone opposed or abstaining? Okay. Thank you. Oh 10. Item 10.01. Adjournment. Be be it resolved that the board of education of the
123Fagetville Manley Central School District adjourn the meeting at 8:59. 859. Oh no. Christy wins and Jason. I don't know if we're on video. I hope so. Uh, we're all in favor of adjournment. Have a good night. We out.