Fayetteville-Manlius BOE Meeting - May 13, 2024

001call the meeting to order please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and through the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice first item on the agenda is approval or re revision of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda thank you Kelly second from Cindy we'd like to add one item to um the agenda actually and that's an executive session um for the purpose of discussion of superintendent's yearend and midyear evaluations so there motion to approve that agenda as um amended thank you um Rebecca second from sorry Jason go ahead going you didn't executive session is at the bottom it's already on there so it's already on the agenda so that's why I'm asking

002the question well I mean well we have to put the reason so that's the reason okay so I was second so it's still going to be item 9.01 correct yes but now we have the reason all those in favor please indicate I I anyone opposed or AB aing all right moving on to item 1.04 code of conduct availability the 20242 code of conduct is available for review the public hearing and Adoption of the code of conduct will occur at the next regular board meeting now there was a question earlier there was an email earlier today from Mr seberg uh right now this is just the announcement of the code of conduct it's like the first reading as I put in the reply email um I don't think you were disputing that you had some concerns

003on the language regarding artificial intelligence and I know that something as a district as you are all aware of as board members that we are working through our guest speaker this Autumn uh Dr daget uh broached the subject and I know that's been something that we're investigating so I don't want to speak for you you were talking about development of a policy through the policy committee which might help to put some bumpers in in terms of code my concern was was simply that um there was a change related to AI That's in the version that's now open available we're going to have a public hearing at our next meeting but there's there's a provision in there specifically dealing with AI and labeling use certain uses or not and we haven't actually ever had had that

004discussion in depth at this point in terms of what the policy is in this district and it I I think that putting it in there in this way at this time just opens up a giant Pandora's Box that I would be very concerned about so I would hope that we would have some productive discussions about what we're how we're going to approach Ai and in in in our schools before inserting it into a code of conduct that opens up that Pandora's Box well I know we had sent it out through legal to get vetted I think is the board is aware there's been some that like when calculators were first introduced years ago didn't want them to permeate the math classroom a Prohibition of that and then others said it's the way of the future

005and certainly your points well taken I do think we will see you know just like we couldn't stop a CO virus we're not going to stop AI from happening and I think we have to be able to develop a policy I agree with you because we don't want it to turn into the halves are able to use it and the Have Nots don't have access to it so that is something we're working towards we will have to navigate uh we can soften that language between now and June 30th when we adopt it but I think the caveat in there was to try to give control to the teachers who were struggling with it just as much as the students are as well I appreciate that I just think in the way that I read it

006in this opens up a tremendous amount of ambiguity and inconsistency which may magnify the problem it's here to stay it's only going to expand we need to deal with it and have something uniform in place on that totally agree and as Dr D it reminded us this is is it's only going to get more powerful going forward from this point forward so to try to even and I think we're going to have to be careful how we phrase whatever policy it is because this is the weakest it's going to be just exponentially as we all know it's just going to increase the power as we go forward so I think we it won't hurt to have some bumpers in place with that but at the same time things like plagiarism you know academic Integrity those

007are never going to go out style which I know you agree with it's just how do we use it as a tool for good moving on to item 2.01 the uh proposed 2024 25 budget presentation and public hearing Mr Corbin phone a friend and if you want to start certainly all right well as the board knows you adopted the budget uh at the last meeting all the requisite notices have been put together thanks to Mr Corbin's efforts as well as others and our Capital Region Communications Department from Bose capital region bosies has put the district uh budget newsletter out to the public as you know the budget is driven by our vision and Mission it's something we take very seriously uh in terms of uh how we organize our programming and basically around four core

008organizational values we call Priority areas and that includes our commitment to teaching and learning a positive School environment Service Learning and Community Partnerships in addition to fiscal capacity and responsibility something we are seeing other districts struggle with at this time so anything we do whether we Zig or whether we zag should make sure that our budget our goals our intentions there's an intentionality that it ties back to our core vision mission and organizational values as the board knows every year we update our strategic plan uh it's something that's been emulated by other school districts even our local bosis and if imitation is the highest form of flattery uh I take it our posters are around and certainly they don't have the devil in the details that's provided with our building action plans that you hear

009every Autumn as we go forward but certainly the overall strategic plan constantly pushes out three years goals drop off as they're accomplished new goals are added on uh as identified by the board as well as by the buildings it's definitely a dialogue it's a it's a discourse that is not just top down but bottom up as well and the new initiatives that uh as we've dealt with in terms of our program goals is certainly uh as the board identified this winter clearly communicate and Implement a plan for personalized learning as you'll hear in my superintendence report I just returned from a national Summit Invitation Only in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania uh thanks to the efforts of the grael foundation and remake learning and it's just exciting seeing what other districts are doing I know some of our

010own faculty have participated on Tri-State visits and seeing what uh changes in the landscape are occurring in schools that are part of the Tri-State Consortium and certainly I think it all ties together you're going to hear later tonight a presentation from our subcommittees for the district Dei committee and as I will close that presentation if you will allow me to foreshadow uh they will be partnering with the mental health task force that's running on a parallel track and I just think the power and team and collaboration between both of those teams uh will be important and part of that uh is that personalized learning path you are seeing uh districts starting to delve into options for assessments finding different ways for students to be able to demonstrate their understanding rather than a one-size fits-all model

011uh the second goal there leveraging data from the surveys uh whether it's bu mass or our school uh culture and climate surveys we want to be able to uh give ourselves some flexibility thanks to the efforts of Amy Evans in our district office uh we're looking at a panorama software that other districts are using as well and that's going to give us some flexibility whether it's School climate and culture or Bass screeners uh to be able to uh customize uh what we've been doing uh as we go forward and drill down into certain areas that are of concern for us as we go forward and then uh goal three uh and I know this is important uh to the board members I know they met uh last week and uh talking about selecting at least

012one recommendation from the Dei and the mental health committees and task forces for the upcoming year I think success breeds success and it's going to to be important to establish uh both of those committees going forward it's not going to be a quick fix and we're certainly going to need uh the power of the community behind it I believe our district clerk put in your backup information on the Thursday letter this week even though I was out of town you see the draft of the parent and family survey which I think raises a few uh things that we should be paying attention to as we go forward so uh certainly the work of our committees is is very important and critical but I also know we've got to be in for the Long Haul there's

013not a quick fix uh in there and certainly the parent and family survey Echoes that and lets us know that uh there is a lot of work to be done and then finally developing and communicating a prioritized uh plan for not only District facilities and zero emission buses but we've also talked about uh the school start times choreographing that in concert with our Capital Improvement Project work that's going on at the high school right now and uh we look forward to sharing more with you and the community as we go forward and then last but not least there are infrastructure needs there's a lot of work uh that has been done uh and we're very proud of the work that's been done including our Capital transfer projects that thanks to the work of the facilities

014committee uh smaller uh efforts uh we've used money to infuse hbac C systems especially following the pandemic uh when money could be earmarked for that and then certainly the projects at Wellwood and now at the high school uh those Renovations are going to allow us to change things like the school start time uh and for the entire district and certainly the high school's completion will be the Lynch pin for that needless to say with $161 million on the building condition survey there's more work to be done this is just I think an important first step and just like the Dei and the mental health committees letting success breed success I think there's additional work that has to be done as we tackle some of the other buildings so as far as the budget development process

015I'll turn it over to Mr Corbin at this part go through that thank you Dr Ty so this will represent our budget hearing which is basically the culmination of the budget process so I'll be going through and talking about some of the stuff that Dr Ty's already talked about and then we'll also have time for questions and things of that nature so the process itself as you can see starts in November budget guidelines established December with meetings with admin and supervisors February being administrative component uh March 11th a capital component March 25th program Transportation Revenue uh April 15th the overall budget summary and the adoption and then this evening being the budget hearing and then the budget vot being on May 21st from a components perspective you can see here in the pike chart uh

016you can see on the right-and side program representing the largest portion and about 75% or 83 million Capital representing uh 18 million or 16% and administrative being the smallest part at 10 million or about 9% of the budget from a comp comparison perspective you can see here in 2324 to 2425 uh admin program and capital uh admin um program and capital as far as the increases over to the right and then at the bottom being the main point being Staffing and program uh no cuts to either program or Staffing anything with salary increases you'll see me talk about it this evening being contractual salary increases are either negotiated or forecasted at this point in time and I'll talk more about that as I keep going okay capital budget again representing uh $824,000 increase or 4.8%

017represents again the $18 million uh as far as the overall budget administrative 722 th000 again smallest part of the budget so any increase there generates a larger percentage 7.8% overall smallest part of the budget at 10 million program largest part of the budget increase of about 4.7 million it's a 6.1% increase overall again $83 million and again that main point being no cut to programmer Staffing which includes mental health Staffing and services and I'll talk about that as well as I go through so Mental Health Services this is something we didn't really show in the beginning kind of as we went through things uh last year was more of a primary driver in the cost perspective where uh last year what we did from an increase in Services impacted the budget in that aspect this

018being more of just kind of talking about what we are providing from mental health services so you can see in the top part uh what we've got from a support staff perspective you can see their School liaison with six of them one at each school counselors 13 elementary schools one at each building middle schools two at each building and the high school having six psychologist next with seven of them one in each building and then District level then you can start seeing some of the Partnerships we've got so with contact Community Services we're continuing with our suicide safety mental health educator uh with wi Des sis continuing with our Student Assistance Program with drop in clinics uh working with Dr Carmen with the RFP she's done with us and the CNY mental health counseling services

019and then as you get to the bottom being the tier one student engagement specialist with promiseone fail Enders Road and M Road and then at the bottom being a rise on-site therapy clinicians at the high school Wellwood and Eagle Hill so expenditure if you take everything basically and put it into a summary form this would basically be the slide for that so overall you can see basically five main points uh salaries being the first 3.1 million uh negotiated or forecasted contracts these are something that I would call I think Dan talked about it maybe either last year or this year in regards to being a fixed uh aspect of it where it's negotiated or forecasted health insurance and benefit cost being similar similar kind of concept with increased rates with ersst TRX being basically a

020fixed rate portion uh we have an increase of 200,000 related to building security upgrades and that was really related to uh Panic buttons intrusion system and things of that nature and I'll talk a little bit more about that through the capital project uh bosis was another increase 700,000 uh we had an increase in education program software Hardware things of that nature and then the last one being Gas and Electric uh that increase was basically due to nmic we had a contract with them I think around 2017 that contract expired at that point in time electric and gas rates were much cheaper to the point where I think electric rates have doubled and now we're at about a $300,000 projected increase so overall if you take those five components that represents about $6.3 million and that's

021essentially kind of really what's driving that expenditure increase so the budget on a five-year Trend you can see the first year 2021 I think of it more probably in the isolated area of like a covid related it's 2.82 increase so uh less spending less things going on from a covid perspective you have that amount and then from 20222 forward it really is hovering kind of around that 6% uh Mark overall from a budgetary perspective uh the budget overall broken out I think this is what you kind of see in the budget program and this is uh the program portion and this is is basically broken out from Instructions aspect you can see again down at the bottom about $83 million overall on the bottom right increase of around 6% overall you can see the remaining

022two areas being administra excuse me Administration and capital those corresponding amounts and then that Grant total at the bottom being $111 million with a budget overall budget to budget at 5.99% Revenue uh basically similar in the concept of with the py graph here you can kind of see how it's made up tax levy the green portion represents about 65% so overall revenues are 65% made up with property taxes state aid being the second largest with the blue at about 31% other Revenue at four so state aid you can see there in the middle uh last year at at 32.1 million it accounts for approximately about 30% of FM revenues in 23 24 in 2425 it was projected to be 34 million an increase of about 1.9 or 5.9% and that would account for approximately 30.7%

023of FM revenues and I'll talk about what's driving that so state aid you can see on the le- hand side the categories Foundation Aid being first and and then you can kind of see down through with Bose se's high cost instructural materials transportation and building so Foundation Aid is really more of a formula based Aid that number we projected at a milliion 70 actually came in about $230 to $250,000 less uh so we're really sitting somewhere around 850,000 give or take in Foundation Aid and that's based end everything in the formula from wealth ratio to enrollment and things of that nature and again it's a formula based Aid the other ones like Bose's aid for instance it's basically services so we talked about expenditures with that $700,000 increase as most the expenditures go up the

024following year the corresponding Aid ideally flows and you get that increase in Aid so there's that 423,000 projected there you can see Transportation Aid the big thing being last year we talked about was upk additional routes things of that nature so as Transportation cost increase that Cor responding Aid flows and the last one being a little bit of anomaly being building Aid so if you think about the capital project the high school as that project gets closed out in the near future I should say a couple years uh at that point the corresponding Financial excuse me final cost reports will be submitted and then that corresponding Aid would flow at this point so at this point it's just basically a project where you've got expenditures going but you don't have the corresponding aid until it's

025completed at that point you'll see that flow at a later point in time with that property taxt being the next area uh you can see 2324 uh the levy was 70 million and you can see in the in parentheses there at 3.82% so last year the cap was 3.82 we actually went out at 3.82 that generated about 2.58 million this year the cap is 3.52 and you can see that line below that being the increase we're proposing to go out at 3.49% represents $2.45 million and the bottom one being the impact so if you take an example on a $100,000 home assessment it represents about $37 so that projected cost was using prior year assessments and Equalization rates at that point in time I think what's happened is the assessments have been received uh by

026most folks uh I have talked to some different things from internally from staff to I've had a couple presentations at the building level we've talked a little bit about it uh I did talk to Pat Duffy the assessor and just kind of said you know I'm going to be talking in our case from the actual uh Levy impact and things of that nature and maybe if there's anything I could share you know to the folks so the way I understand it P said I think 87% of the district uh fill manle has been reassessed he didn't give me an exact percentage overall of what went up but I'm thinking it's probably not too far from that number because most everything went up so I said you know how do you describe it it Telly I

027had 10 different or eight different townships in there so those different townships with assessors at some points they would go through some would go through and reassess periodically some would be consistent do it annually Pat said that's not the scenario here it it has done we are 100% Equalization rate things of that nature what's driving it is basically home sales it's two things home sales being the fact of what people are asking for they're getting or there's a bidding war going on part two he said the folks that maybe aren't doing anything maybe interest rates is impacting them where they don't want to do anything some of those folks are doing improvements on those homes and the assessed values are going up on those so he said basically those two things will be in a

028nutshell how we describe kind of where he's at with overall assessments I think for a number of purpose I kind of estimated somewhere talking to him at 10 I think it's come in higher than 10% for some folks where it's probably even some cases up to 15 to 20% so I know it does vary I do know it's it's significant um I think there's even an article maybe I've read locally in syracuse.com kind of talking about it but I did have a chance to talk to Pat and that was kind of the information I got from there I think I did have one person call up a Community member and just kind of wanted to understand the roles the school as well as the assessor and we talked about the fact that we don't do

029set anything to do with assessments you have the tax levy and then it's spread I said the good news is you know if there is any kind of good news Silver Lining is the fact that it's almost like I said a dinner bill and the sense if a bunch of people go out to dinner and there's more people that come in to pay for it you essentially can lower what you actually owe but that would depend on you know you know the the piece of it being of who got reassessed and things of that nature and I said I don't know that info but the basic thing as I explained to the Community member was you know we don't do anything from assessments with the school we did go down from 3.82 last year to

0303.49 this year here and unfortunately it's just the home sales are kind of the way they are other questions about that one that was one I've kind of had a couple questions at the building levels and stuff okay only I'm sorry go ahead Dan the only thing I would point out is is that across the district we not even after the reassessments in the town of manle has at 100% Equalization right because the other towns haven't done reassess like town of ppy hasn't done reassessments correct so some of the district is at 100% Equalization R cor man is really where I was focused yep you're right good point Jason so yeah Brett so I just wanted to emphasize just a a point that you made and I think it I think it's good for the

031community to try and understand this best they can so we can't with a silver bullet tonight tell you exactly how much your school taxes may go up or go down this fall um because we don't know what your individual home was assessed at correct what I can tell you is is that just because your home assessment went up 10% does not mean your school tax bill or your town tax bill is going up 10% it all depends to your analogy and I liked it was how is it spread and how many other people are at the table and what did their assessments go up so I don't want folks to get stick or shocked because we all got those letters in the mail and and my property was one of those that went up uh

032a fair percentage but understand that that doesn't mean your school tax bill goes up that same percentage uh if we all go up the same percent in the town I think to emphasize what you've got on the slide there Brad it's $37 per 100,000 of assess value um provided that we all went up the same percentage correct great thanks so much BR no good points uh so next we'll go to other Revenue it's again smallest part of the budget represents about $4 million you can see there some of the components and I'll talk about that uh in more detail so you can see here another Revenue uh there's about four main ones that really kind of drove it interest income being the first you can see it's the second one down 700,000 budgeted in 23

03324 we've increased it to for about a million dollars basically weren't sure with interest rates in the previous year those interest rates have kind of held we're thinking at this point they are going to be consistent from that aspect so it's more of a true up of budget to actual from that aspect to add that $300,000 of uh projected revenue and if you go towards the bottom you'll see donations I think it was a onetime solar pilot deal uh where we had actually received in that donation amount of 365 it was a one-time deal again and in that sense basically we're not budgeting forward for 2425 we've received the money that corresponding uh solar pilot has been received so use of reserves and assign fund balance these are really the two that I would focus

034on to kind of talk about when you're going to talk about other Revenue that's driving it so use of reserves you can see at 250,000 in 23 24 that's the amount of reserves we're going to utilize towards the budget to balance the budget that goes up to million 99 now as part of that milliion 99 uh there's portions of basically three reserves funding that's in there so there's 800 $160,000 of Reserve funds that's going to be used to offset the $15.4 million Capital project that I'll be talking about uh there's also some money for retirements so we'd be using our ebl reserve and then there's another piece of it towards the m road project that'll be used for that portion uh so those are basically isolated things where that it's that situation where uh you've

035got the capital project going or you've got the actual thing with the uh the portion with M Road things of that nature where there're onetime anomalies from that aspect the assigned fund balance is really the one that's kind of driving it from that aspect so if you look at last year you're 69,1 15 and that's an anomaly because we were at 3.82% last year we talked about whether or not we raise it up to the full 3.82 of the cap or do we use a signed fund balance to balance a budget last year we made the decision to go forward to the higher amount uh with the cap and then we went to that portion so the 69,000 was a lesser amount that actually we uh utilized for ass sign fund balance this year we're

036going down to 3.49% so basically you've had to uh take the million 67 to balance the budget so if you take up all the revenues you take all the expenditures what are you left with to balance the budget that's the amount of fund balance that's we applied to actually balance that budget uh from that aspect for a district our size at $11 million budget this is really a very small amount uh I was lucky where I got the chance to look at some of the other districts and what they're using to balance it from reserves as well as ass signed fund balance we're pretty small I can tell you tell you on a $25 million budget we were well on maybe 250 to 400,000 mark pretty consistently my goal try to be somewhere around that

037million to 700,000 so I'm feeling pretty comfortable from that aspect that we're able to balance the budget in that way so overall Revenue similar to expenditures onepage summary to kind of explain everything you can see three main points there state aid 2.1 million Foundation Aid Transportation Aid and Bose's Aid uh property tax levy again that 3.49% last year being 3.82 represents about 2.4 million other Revenue with fund balance use of reserves which I just talked about being that $1.8 million so if you add up those three components that gets you to your 6.3 million to offset those increase in expenditures of about 6.3 million so tax levy on a five-year Trend you can see in 2021 3.3% you get the anomaly years with covid related being 1.1 and 1.8 uh last year going out at

0383.82 and then this year decreased down to 3.49 uh next you're going to start seeing some of the propositions that are additionally on the budget uh this case it' be the bus purchase one I'll talk about this one probably a little greater detail given last year uh so this year we're proposing 6 71 uh passenger diesel school buses that would go out at 1.2 million for the proposition you can see an asteris there we have at the bottom to kind of talk about what the impact would be if this would be voted down I think last year we passed by about six votes so this is just try to give folks a little bit of insight in regards to what would happen so if the bus proposition is voted down then the district would use

039current diesel buses for another year I.E the buses be planned to be retired but need to be keep being used for another year and it probably cost more to keep all their buses working effectively so basically you're keeping something almost past it its life of obsolescence from that aspect so I kind of refer to it as quote unquote a coin slot when does something turned into the point where you're putting more money into it so everything from bodyw work on to it to how efficient it is from you know from diesel perspective mileage things of that nature that's kind of where you're at for FM purposes we go on a 10year cycle at the end of that 10 year is basically where those buses are turned in and that would be in this scenario I'm

040going to talk a little bit more about buses so the electric bus initiative uh this is something we've spent a lot of time with we've worked with folks from National Grid we've worked with a third party group called polara uh they came out they did a uh a survey for us or a fleet analysis I should say and some of the information from that going to be included here so in the fall we did two uh presentations one in the morning more for local districts and then in the evening we did one for more FM and community so here's some of the stuff that we had learned so the current Fleet represents about 64 buses includes 13 spares uh polara came through and they did this flute and rout analysis and basically taken our topography

041uh what we have for current routes um things of that nature what we have for our enrollment and try to project out and determine what would be basically could be electric so as you can see there it determined that about 32 out of the 51 bus routes can be electrified so that remaining 19 routes would at this point I'm assuming the distances are too great for those electric buses to do so I'm guessing it' probably be a situation where you'd probably take those routes cut them in half and apply two buses to it so you'd have to hire 20 more drivers you'd have 20 more buses in the current Fleet and then at that point that's how you would solve that uh fully electrified for those main routes if they have those existing routes that

042way in the future other issues are things to talk about parking at the main site being limited or would need an additional space basically the speech I've talked to assemblyman's therapy or I've talked to our local District bosies or even at the point where weay had some of our road shows our issue I don't really think is really an electric bus issue is more as I would call it a parking or or facility issue so basically we've got a 10-year-old bus garage that's down there it's working great uh we've had a lot of folks there we had presentations there everything we need is there and and our issue is the fact of is what we've got for spacing so you got the road in front of it you got private property on the one side

043you got Wellwood on the other the only thing you're limited to then is the back which you're going to start getting into fields at this point it's kind of like what I tell my wife or anybody that asks it's kind of like Wegman's or or Walmart from the aspect of trying to walk between you know the buses it' be similar to a parking lot aspect there there is not a lot of room so to add whatever we're going to need from our charging stations to potentially having to add 20 more buses from the 64 to get to 84 you're going to have to go to additional space and the only place I can see going is going to be back into some of those green areas if you're not doing that then the buses are

044going to get located somewhere else at a different facility I don't know where that is you'd IDE ideally try to have probably a garage where you have the buses because any kind of Maintenance work things of that nature you probably want it in the same facility but I don't know how you get rid of a 10-year-old bus garage it's working great to then abandon it to go to something where you just need more space so as I told assemblyman stpy and others ours is really more of an electric bus you than it is the really a facility use and how do we do that so some of the questions that have come up from everything be like what other options are there at this point I'm not aware of that the governor has something in

045the legislation that allows for hybrids I don't even know if they exist to be honest from that aspect to where maybe we wouldn't need as many charging stations to use that spacing or even something maybe like hydrogen fuel cell I know Central has buses that has that you know tractor trailers that have been using it things of that nature ideally we don't need then those charging stations to that capacity it's more of a green initiative in the fact not leaving that carbon footprint but at the same time maybe we keep that same facility we've got in the same parking area and we can still have the 64 buses with the 51 routes in that way but as far as I understand it I don't believe that the legislation that's out there allows for allows for

046hard un and Fuel Cell uh I know there's talk this summer I'll go out to Saratoga I'm sure this is going to be a very big topic with other districts and are there options to go out for that and go into that you know as an alternate but at this point I'm not aware of anything if there was so I'm kind of hoping that's something maybe they can see as a as a as another alternative uh additionally to electrical infrastructure uh basically the uh the analysis that went through there would be significant upgrades that would be needed to from the service aspect uh from the Pole to the service entrance Etc I think at this point we had them out there we were fortunate enough to have an engineer there from POA I think at

047this point they said with our panel we have enough to have basically one full-size bus and one small bus there and we're going to need you know an RC 64 to 84 somewhere in that ball park so that tells you some of the upgrade from that aspect from a cost perspective uh basically a diesel bus at this point is estimated from the the latest quote I got was somewhere around 200,000 for a 64 large bus it's 59,000 I believe for a similar size electric bus so a difference of about 300,000 there um from a funding perspective I didn't put this down here but from a funding perspective the way I understand it we don't FM I should say doesn't qualify anything from a need-based funding uh any funding that we'd be receiving uh would really

048be more of other options and at this point I think the last I talked to polara about it was somewhere in that 40% range so take whatever our costs are and then 40% of that be you know would be that corresponding number I don't know what the means for future aspects of you know for the second round of bus purchasing I know there's a lot of questions as you can see in the next steps everything from battery life and things of that nature so is that real cost of the bus really only going to be 500,000 40% of that or is there really going to be a secondary cost if that battery uh has basically can only go for you know some kind of less than 10 years which is our cycle I know with

049the topography and things of that nature with the route we have reached out to other districts everything from gates chly to Bethlehem and other ones and the way I understand it they might have had initial thoughts that maybe even up to 180 miles and they're getting closer to 100 during winter season with drag for anything from you know basically weather related to uh things of that nature so that battery life if you're putting the way I understand it a full-size charger on it instead of a trickle Char charger on it then it actually would reduce the battery life and therefore probably that battery life you're going to buying more than one for the life of that bus so the costs are really at a point where I don't know exactly what they would be it

050depend on the types of scenarios but it's probably going to be higher than 500,000 and from a funding perspective I'm not sure on all that uh next steps you can see it's really I've already talked about a lot of it but additional clarification regarding grid capacity cost of buses charging stations facility upgrades distance limitations battery life and purchase timelines Etc are there questions there I know there's a whole bunch I talked to I think the sports boosters and we had some good uh dialogue back and forth kind of going through some stuff there and trying to give them some insight I think some of the stuff was really the big one people didn't weren't aware of was it's electric or bus per se and the fact of uh not having that capability with hydrogen fuel

051cell or or hybrids or things of that nature it there I'm sorry we appreciate all that you've done and we have had many discussions about it and I think it's just really important that people understand that the board very much wants our children riding safe carbon free buses it's just the facts are right now we don't have the funding and we don't have the infrastructure but I mean you know lots of us drive hybrid and electric cars we we believe in it we want to move forward but I just I worry that people think that we're not interested we are interested but as you said faithful manliness will not be in any I can't foresee be getting any of these grants that are being banded about right we haven't so far qualified so but I

052thank you for all that you've done this is a lot of information Brad I think another piece to mention is I know sometimes community members see if you ever drive on any of the roads during school time there are a ton of traffic and a lot of parents are dropping off their children and so sometimes um we get the question of well do we really need all the buses that we have um and so that is New York State's law that we have to be able to transport every single child and in case of any emergency we have to have so we can't just decide if we don't want any more buses to eliminate some from the from the crew right yeah that's a good point I want to take that and expand it as

053well so that's accurate 100% you got to account for every you know every student every child in the district the other one I I I've talked about and I probably should have said as part of our our meeting when we had the actual um the fall you know festivities there the secondary the the news was out there and we had one of our bus drivers there I think the topic came up of how does FM handle currently with diesel and being ready if there's an emergency basis and the way I understand is we carry I think a half tank of gas for every bus so God forbid anything that ever happened so everything from weather related or the quote unquote God forbid you know type of situation basically we're really ready to be mobile and

054and evacuate from that aspect you know some of the aspects if the the fleet analysis route gets you to 32 out of the 51 I'm guessing some of those probably expended most of that electricity to do whatever that route was so if you did get to that quote unquote God forbid type status and it's fairly you know not too long after those buses return I don't imagine they're probably going to be at a point where they're charged enough to where they're going to take on a full route again to turn around and drop everything off so that was one of the concerns from our drivers from the aspect if we're going to maintain Ours from a safety aspect of where we have half tank of gas are you going to be able to somehow guarantee

055us that we're going to have enough capacity electricity wise for that quote unquote God forbid moment and that's something I don't really know how to answer but I'm guessing every district is probably feeling that same way because we all know kids and safety you know our priority from that aspect so coupled with that yes we got to have one for every every student but at the same time even with our own District running half a tank of fuel to make sure we can transport kids home that's another question we've got from the electric aspect are there other questions yeah just quickly so when you talked to um our legislative delegation um in hydrogen fuel cell is that is that something that they're actively talking about and I imagine other school districts you know I know

056everyone is having the same issues that that we're having so is that something that's really been talk talked about at the at the state level so I had the Good Fortune where we went out to a couple different events where we had either a representative from New York State ASO or my group The Association of school business officials or we've actually had uh delegates from you know from the New York state that were that were on you know listening and and trying to answer feedback and one of the main questions was are there alternatives to just full blown electric I.E the hydrogen fuel cell way I understand that they are looking at I think some of it's probably storage where is the hydrogen you know where is it going to be from that aspect to

057receive it is it something geographically that can be done somehow to figure out how that works the way I understand it as well is I think it s Lan stury talked about maybe some different opportunities with it I do believe we actually have something coming up I think it's this week where he's going to be presid will be able to you know provide some more of these questions and get some more feedback on that okay Rebecca do you have some I mean I was just going to add that in terms of the next steps we're just watching also closely to see that the prices go down and this technology for buses is still pretty new and the amount of Manufacturers are still pretty limited so from a consumer um standpoint we're looking to make sure

058we're investing in vehicles that are going to have that battery life that um the distance that we need them to to carry our students um and I think it sounds like they're still not the best products out there so we're also going to be looking closely to see um as new vendors come into the marketplace yeah I think I dated myself in the uh Sports boosters where I started mentioning Miami Vice and the you know the phones and you know things of that nature and the size of them from seeing it from back in the mid 80s you know for those of us at that age level um I I don't know you know kind of what I was talking about technology wise if you think about that you know laughing but think about the

059size of the phones and everything like that now with the capability you have in your own phones that's kind of one of the magic lines you're going to hear a lot was technolog is going to evolve the problem is is I don't know you know some of the folks do you want to have the mid 80s you know bus that's out there with that technology and maybe it's going to be so limited versus what we're going to have but as far as one that evolves from you know from a futuristic aspect to have that technology to where it's kind of doing everything you want it to and you don't have that quote unquote first generation I think that's kind of what folks are also looking into is that battery going to be able to last

060much longer and from that aspect and maybe we get rid of where we don't we can go all 51 and we're going to be ready to go on the emergency thing but at this point that's you know I think we've done pretty much everything I think we can do to try to gather data to be provide that everybody to you know at least here's kind of where we're at and from other options but everything else that's a lot of it unfortunately there a lot of the same questions we asked a year ago are still those same questions how long is the battery how much is it going to cost when's technology going to advance to you know things of that nature where they' even got further this year probably into fires and some of the

061stuff where originally we thought we'd keep everything maybe at some kind of a storage facility and go at that route to where people have seen probably some of the stuff they've had from Chicago to Toronto or whatever where they had issues with that and how do we handle that from a fire protection I don't know you know it's one of those I'm not sure how to how to best do it but our Point really I just know with the facility wise is really the spacing at this point and I don't know how to solve that without something changing are there other questions yeah but I really I I I I I wish people understood how much time and effort's been put into this behind the scenes and I really wish more had come to that

062town hall at that we had at the bus garage that you did um it was it was super enlightening super educational I actually came away from that with two things that were not from those who were presenting but from those who were there um one you touched on which was the concern of our bus drivers that they don't go below as you said a half a tank because if something happens they don't want to be stuck on the side of the road with a bus load of students unable to move that bus and it becomes a safety thing or if they're beneath that and we have an emergency or urgency at the schools where we need to evacuate a school building and we don't have buses that can get there the the drivers who were

063in attendance that night we're super concerned about that and the second was from our our maintenance folks folks and you know I think that there was a perception last year of people voted down the bus purchase that we would then immediately purchase electric buses and and you've been very clear that if this is voted down we're just going to keep older buses on the road longer and one of the things that that our mechanics were very clear about that night was that the new buses though still diesel are significantly more efficient than our 10-year-old diesel fleet so we may not be going to Electric this year but with the new bus purchases we are still moving toward a more efficient cleaner Fleet than running 10y old 11y old diesel buses that as as darl mentioned

064we're replacing them because they're not necessarily as safe as this District would want them to be and the families in this District would want them to be for their students on those buses and then the the last thing is just I don't think because I don't think you raised it is correct me if I'm wrong but the the number that we've talked about to Electrify our bus fleet was last ballparked at about a $40 million price tack so when we talk about what the tax increase is of the current budget increase um it's 40 plus million dollar to Electrify our Fleet corre and we don't currently have that funding in this District that I've been able to find so you hadn't mentioned that number I just want to I was trying not to scare everybody

065it's it's not a scare it's a reality I mean that is what the number is so okay thank you no you're right every one of the points you made that it's accurate uh from a costing perspective I know some folks are going to say you know what are you going to have from funding and the and the problem is at this point with the need-based and that's just unfortunately not FM but beyond that being at that point with the 40% level there's going to be you know whatever that portion is times the number of buses with our case as those batteries are with those routes or whatever the wild card is is the 20 more buses but on top of that it's 20 more drivers because somebody's got to drive these things so now you're

066going to go find 20 more drivers the corresponding Legacy cost tied to that you're going to have a route management system put in place from that aspect and then on top of it really being the big one is that have than of gas comment that's probably my biggest fear it's probably your biggest fear as well because I know I mean that's why we're here is to is to safeguard the biggest asset and that's the kids so uh that's the one I would like answered before we go forward before anybody is going to be if I would expect you guys to ask me how are you going to offset that half tank of gas to make sure if he calls something we go and we're going to get everybody home safe that's the number one question

067and once we can answer that I think everything else Falls in line so yeah Ang um thank you Mr Corbin for the presentation I was just just wondering um it seems that there's a lot of information um both like going on in the board meetings and like among like the school district on ebes I was wondering to better inform the students if they were already existing like brochures or web pages that could help inform them I I think there's information out there the piece I think that I struggle with is there's there's information but I don't know if there's the the complete answers and that's the piece where you know to give it I feel like you're kind of we can we can provide I think the PowerPoint and things that sure we provided is

068actually online the problem I don't have with some of it though is the answers to some of the stuff I've said here is like for those students am I giving you just questions or am I going to give you corresponding answers which I would expect you'd want to hear so we can certainly uh guide them to different areas of where they have information or or what's going to be needed but some of it's going to probably be spe specific to FM so for instance that half tank of gas I don't know if other districts do it I would like to think they do something like that to make sure that they are in that place ready to go so if those kind of you know information or ideas are out there uh we could certainly

069talk about it but we could you know put forward anything that you know that the board felt comfortable with doing whether it be the presentation the route analysis whatever that is uh I'm open to you know to sharing thank you it seems that um it seems that a good idea would be to gather all um like the presentations and stuff into like one area so that the students can better access it and kind of compare the information is that true okay we can certainly look into that okay I was wondering if there were a way we could put some of that information out through brojo or also on social media with some links to um our website because we know the students are very active on social media and a lot of them do watch

070the brojo um segment so if we can try to Target those at least might be able to reach a lot of kids I'm getting more and more technology Savvy having college students for daughters so they keep reminding me bringing me up uh we can certainly do something I know last year I think we did get to the point where we did a little I don't know if it was a two-minute video or whatever we did do with uh Joe's help from AV and we kind of put that out so we could certainly revisit it or if there's things we want to add maybe that's an opportunity as well to get some information out there uh so I know we've roached it uh with that I think Dr Tyson myself did something from that aspect yeah

071I mean I think it would just be good even to just outline all the work that you've put into like the steps and the the questions that you've tried to engage either the manufacturers or the state level for questions and what you found out or not found out because I think that would be enlightening for all you know whomever to see that the district's doing its due diligence to really try to understand what's a responsible decision to make and in terms of timing of when we would go that route or not just doing it because you know it's available right now but making sure we're doing it at a time that's right and we have the technology that's ready and safe for our students so maybe even just articulating like what what has been done

072to date in a concise way just so people know we're not just saying no we're we're really trying to do a lot of good work to uncover the the facts no that makes sense Sarah it's one of those definitely I mean nobody's here is just checking the Box quote unquote I think everything there's been a lot of work done um I know I've had other districts reach out to us specifically and ask us how we've done it who we've worked with our third party I've shared our presentations I think I had at least five districts including superintendents come up to me after uh the fall one and specifically asked for our stuff because they were going to use it to share with their own districts so we were actually at the Leading Edge you know

073from my the way I understand it from some of our bus manufacturing to top you know 10% in the state as far as how we were with Gathering data and how we were sharing it so it's a good point uh we have put a lot into it it's not like where we're kind of lagging behind or we haven't done our own homework yes um kind of going back to what Dan said at that presentation at the bus garage um one of the drivers was speaking about when the kids are on field trips or they are on sporting events where can they charge up the bus when they're away from home and that was a real concern for that particular driver um a safety thing for where they can plug in because it wouldn't be right

074at the school in particular so they'd have to leave the kids and then go plug in somewhere else if that is even available and so I think Dan's right listening to what they their concerns were and it was all about the safety of our kids so and I go back to what Daryl said that is what is most important yeah I think it ties into all of it to be honest it was one of those it was it kind of nice with the sports boosters the other night because it reminded me of different things that maybe I hadn't Revisited my own mind you know everything from Sports and somebody I went to tell just because of the 10 years and talking about there what they were going to struggle with so for them like for

075instance Beaver Rivers is basically I think a is a a team they play frequently but distance-wise it's so significant I don't know what they're going to do from an M FM purpose I would think you know we get States or things of that nature you're going to run into or co-curriculars you know everything from model un or things of that nature if we're using a bus how are we doing that where are we doing are we now changing up who we're playing or what sectionals look like to states to co-curriculars Etc you know and we're going to get to the point where if we're going to change the bell schedule and for triple tripping or whatever we're going to do with that that whole different thing is going to be something we're going to have

076to consider so then it gets into that second line being down of 32 out of 51 I don't know if it's 32 anymore you know maybe that's a different a different number a higher number or whatever that looks like so there's so many variables so when we did talk to POA we just talked about how does this work when we do change that bell schedule he's like I'm going to have to come back out and I'm going to have to do a reanalyze all your routes and things of that nature and we're going to put up new information to provide it so even the data we've got to to Angelina point it's going to change you know in the real you know near near future from that aspect to who we are and what we're

077doing at that point to kind of you know basically talk about what's even capable from that aspect so yeah that's some of the stuff it's just so much you know everything from academics to sports to everything else it just impacts everything so okay so the next item is the capital project proposition uh $15.4 million Capital project proposition it will include work at each of the district's six school buildings uh this is something just so folks know and I've tried to explain this to uh some of the staff things of that nature it's not common to have a capital project proposition tied in normally you do it Standalone separate and distinct but in our case I hope folks have seen had a chance to see some of the pictures and some of the concerns we have

078uh from the garbage pales I call them but some of the building level with the with the water and things of that nature so specifically from a project scope perspective you can see there the partial roof Replacements at the high school Wellwood eal Hill district office I know Wellwood for instance you basically had a project that was recently completed some of the questions I would think people are saying is why wouldn't you be able to do all the roofs in those situations you had everything from uh priorities and alternates to as well as roofs that were still under warranty that weren't leaking at the point in time uh it's partial roof replacement so I tried to explain you know in some scenarios you've got Roofing that where it was brand new and then it ties

079into something that was old it's been triaged or bandaged at that point to try to keep it where it stopped leaking but the more you go up and try to bandage it the more at some cases because it's so old and deteriorated it's just not holding and therefore you got areas that are brand new within Wellwood where you've got garbage cans trying to you know collect rainwater from causing any more damage uh other areas we're going to be talking about with Safety and Security upgrades across all district buildings and then there's uh HVAC or heating ventilation air conditioning control upgrades at fa FM High School uh Maintenance building and Conference Center another proposition F Library you can see there uh we going have another one as well being manliest Library proposition they're consistent every year

080but again it's collecting on behalf of the library but that's their own uh their own thing is separate and distinct from the school student more member proposition so there'll be I think this comes up every other year and that's for an ex officio member of the Board of Education similar to Angelina so we'll have be graced with that through that proposition and School Board election candidates for the board of election uh we have three seats open you can see there's eight people running that would be the order you'll see them on the ballot so if the budget's defeated uh here's some options here so basically you can present the same budget to voters a second time present a a rise budget to voters or adopt a contingent budget and again as you can see in

081the ASX on the bottom if a proposed budget is defeated twice the board must adopt a contingent budget so a contingent budget what does that represent so in our case it' be a 0% tax levy increase but there are impacts with that so everything from Community use to facilities outside groups paying full cost using facilities Capital expenditures Capital transfer related work would be impacted here equipment with most equipment that can't be purchased and some salary increase impacts being prohibited for confidential employees Etc voter information you can see here budget vote May 21st at Wellwood Middle School will be different this year for folks just as a reminder a new place being at Wellwood hours of 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 P p.m. absentee and early ballots can be obtained from District Clerk and you can see

082the corresponding phone number there and then corresponding voter qualifications 18 years of age FM District US citizen Etc next steps budget vote itself on May 21st hit the wrong button and at that point uh questions do we do the same thing that we do each year love so I've heard some comments from some community members about you know we have this 5.99% budget increase yep there's always this um disconnect among some in the community for understandable reasons of not understanding tax rate versus tax levy and and Jason touched on on this before the portion of the budget that goes to the taxpayers in our community is the tax levy we don't have control over tax rates because we don't control assessments correct and the tax levy increase the amount being build to the taxpayers is

083not a 5.99% increase it's a 3.49% increase correct and so I just want to make sure we are very clear on that that's the total increase to the taxpayers and I think it was on your slide 23 it's the same range that it's been for the last four years um nothing different on that um and on the overall budget the total budget year-to-year increase is 6.3 million correct 5.1 of that coming from contractual obligations and health and benefit insurance increases that we have exactly zero control over meaning that in the entire budget the entire increase that we in theory have any control over if we keep programs and Staffing which we have always remained committed to doing sure the total increase that we actually have control over is $1.2 million less than 1% of the

084entire budget so just to keep this in perspective for anybody that is listening to this the budget increase is contractual and matters that are out of our control if we are maintaining Staffing and programs which this community has been very consistent in wanting us to do for the education of the students in this District so just we have that discussion each year and then I want to just say one more thing on this capital Improvement project we've talked about the leaks in our classrooms and the fact that uh we have buckets and water coming into the classrooms um Dr Ty has communicated with us directly but not as publicly about um what happened in the high school a week and a half ago um so just to be clear about that there was a cabinet

085in one of our chemistry classrooms filled with all chemistry equipment glassware that came off of the wall due to water damage coming through areas that need roofing repairs yep and fortunately the students from that classroom were in in an assembly at the time there was the cabinets came down immediately where students would normally have been sitting and there were glass shards that went across the entire classroom we have to address these roofs we don't have an option this is not something that can wait for another year another six months another nine months if we're not taking care of the building so that we're providing safe learning spaces for our teachers and our students then we're not doing Our obligation to either of them so it's not an optional project it's a necessary project I'll stop

086there no good point so um everything you said was true and uh the second one I think tying into you know the fixed cost that was one I think I took it actually from you where I talked about it being the fact of you know that from that aspect being salaries as well as benefits things of that nature it is a fixed point you really you know there's negotiations that go on Etc but for the most part threeyear contracts those are fixed ERS TRS rates is fixed so to Dan's point it really is 1.2 of of variable cost you would call it from that aspect the capital project one we have had good luck from the Staffing as well as the PTO things of that nature talking about it the good news is those guys

087they living it you know from the Wellwood folks to the high school folks and it was very easy conversation you're right on what did happen recently uh I was fortunate where I got a chance to go up Friday and and meet with the high school principal as well as our director of facilities had a chance to talk to the teachers unit as well as the building rep from that aspect and it's something you know they had concerns obviously like anybody else would of kind of how are we what are we doing about this and it actually gave a nice little opportunity where I talked about facilities committee and I talked about the fact of everything from the house one wall to other things and I got a chance to talk about maximum cost allowance as

088Dr Ty echoed I think in the beginning of this thing talking about $160 million of it I said frankly there's more work you know that we'd love to be able to do it's just how do we do it all where do you prioritize this we talked about with a building condition survey how that originates you know everything from the architect coming in and it's basically in three different time frames 0 to2 2 to 5 5 to 10 corresponding dollars with also future costs I said some of the things we struggle with and I think it was Dan I said that brought it up himself we've done 40 42 million at Wellwood we've done 52 million at the high school but yet we still have $160 million to do and the math doesn't add up so

089how do you do that and that's some of the stuff I said we're facing so I said everything in here from the roofing Etc it's not that anybody missed it in the sense of they weren't aware of or things of that nature it was a fact of here's the money here's how far it goes postco the costs have have jumped up considerably and from that aspect I said you're you're trying to address everything but then you got to understand maximum cost allowance and state aid I said so with the high school have in the house one wall you know it more than anyone we've been talking about it for year you know 10 months whatever it's been and it's $5 million I said you can go do it tomorrow I said the problem is you're

090not going to correspondently go get the eight out of that so how do you go do something for five million and not take four million and apply it to a 6.3 million is what our total thing is I said I think taxpayers voters community members would have a lot of Heartache in the fact of it's $4 million we really we could use that money for program resources minimize tax impact Etc I said so it's kind of a trick in how you do it the big thing is knowing one you're aware of whatever it is two how do you marry that up I said the good news is we've got long range planning we've got building condition survey and we've been actively working at the facilities committee I said so I want that pipeline still continuing

091at the building level talk to the principal talk to those folks get it to the facilities committee that facility committee I said takes that information makes recommendations to the full board and we have these discussions and I said so right now I'm feeling a lot better where we're at with getting it but overall yeah we're chasing our tail a little bit with that 160 million from that aspect but we're going to make a plan and we'll figure out how to do it so are there other questions thank you very much thank you Dr Ty thank you Mr Corbin do you want me to open the hearing first so is there a motion to open the budget hearing uh Cindy second from Daryl and all those in favor indicate I I know as opposed or abstain

092okay so now we could take any questions from the audience in regards to the budget you have any you could come up to the podium to ask those questions no okay okay is there a motion then to close the public hearing uh Kelly and a second from Cindy all those in favor please indicate I I and no one's opposed or abstaining so we will move on to item 2.02 presentation the Dei committee recommendations Dr Ty certainly it gives me great pleasure to introduce members of our district Dei committee uh that are going to join us this evening four sub committees that worked on each of the tenants of the culturally responsive sustaining education framework as the board knows and those members that were part of the policy committee at the time uh this is a

093requirement uh from New York State uh bard of Regents uh in terms of establishing a policy uh our board uh policy committee worked diligently for closely near uh nearly a year uh transforming New York state school board's template policy uh to address our goals going forward and I know in the culture wars and the rhetoric that is out there uh it would lead one to believe that there was more to it than what is simply defined in the policy and the goals that are identified in that policy are to provide Equitable inclusive diverse opportunities for all students and two to promote a culturally responsive education and working environment through ongoing learning professional learning and support and you'll hear some of that this evening we also worked hard taking an Erie one Bose's policy Service uh

094policy and transforming it into our administrative regulation Erie one bosies as you know that uh provides a lot of detail uh in terms of the attorneys that work in that policy service and they're the ones who identified the the committee in terms of the different stakeholder groups that ought to be considered and we put together a uh committee that I believe represents those stakeholders uh we asked for volunteers as part of a community survey Community satisfaction survey in one of our first annual reports and we had as you know a vast number of community individuals indicate an interest in participating uh we had to winnow it down down to ensure that there was representation K through 12 from different parts of the community whether it be fville or manliest as well as from each of

095the representative buildings and the job was to include stakeholders that included students parents and Guardians district and building administrators teachers including at least one special ed teacher support services staff including at least one school psychology and one school counselor non-instructional staff Board of Education representatives and at llarge community members now I am very proud of this committee and I say that not to be self-serving because those of you that are on the committee know that I am not part of the committee and the reason for that is the committee reports to me and I report to the board of education and I sit in the gallery and I am tremendously impressed with their work over time we've been meeting for uh more than a year and a half and I think it culminated in our

096most recent meeting when the subcommittees practiced their presentation tonight in front of students and the students were able to share their hopes and fears and dreams in a very safe environment and we've been most fortunate to have two Community facilitators Dr iness Abdul mik and Dr John Palmer from Colgate University and I know when I was trying to twist their arm to participate they wanted to make sure that this just wasn't another committee for the sake of having a committee they wanted action and they wanted to be part of that and I think with their uh passion uh for the topic and the work of the committee I do believe we have established a foothold and I think there are some issues that we're going to have to address I gave the board a sneak

097preview of the family and parent survey School culture and climate survey and I think there are things that we're going to have to work collaboratively together so I said earlier there's not a quick fix here and it's going to you know it's been a long time digging this hole and I think it's going to take a lot of work together in order to provide opportunities for all as we go forward and I am pleased with the fact that this committee will be partnering with our mental health task force because I do believe there are elements not only from the Dei but from the mental health that tie together as well as instruction even the conference that I was just St and Pittsburgh all ties together in a very timely way so I think we're going

098to have to work together as a community as a school district possibly redefining ourselves in a variety of areas as we go forward but I think the end result is going to be a a better District that is committed to those goals that I read earlier in terms of providing opportunities so without further Ado I know we have board members uh we have four board members on the Dei task force some of which you'll hear tonight we have some district office administrators and we have a number of other stakeholders with us so I don't know which subcommittee is going first there you go I apologize for my voice I got laryngitis for Mother's Day thank you for having me first of all um my name is Dr Jennifer Copa and I'll be representing the welcoming

099and affirming uh environment subcommittee I have had the absolute pleasure of uh serving alongside my subcommittee uh co-members uh Dr Keon Coleman El Hanah car letters Lisa Wade and darl Wheeler our goal is to help create a more welcoming and affirming environment for all students across social locations and identities and to help enhance the school environment in ways that all students and Staff feel respected and treated with dignity the culturally responsive sustaining educational framework is a call for thank you uh for Collective responsibility for cultural learning and relationship building and in order to achieve this we were tasked with designing an anti-bullying anti- microaggression program as this is a priority area for social change in our district so first a bit of background and some shared language for how we are defining bullying and microaggression

100we all probably have a good General understanding of what bullying is but microaggressions are both subtle as well as overt actions that have considerable cumulative and long-term negative impact both bullying and microaggressions are considered public health problems in the social and psychological research literature um there are well documented associations between bullying and mental health outcomes including more severe levels of distress and you'll see that just a little bit of that information on the right hand side so this should shed some light on why this initiative is so important also before getting into our recommendations we thought it was important to lay out some program objectives so because bullying and microaggressions are so prevalent um and because the existing bullying prevent mention programs out there that are available to us involve comprehensive and multifaceted approaches we

101want all key stakeholders involved in this new program we know that many teachers and staff embody the values of creating welcoming and affirming environments for students daily we also have heard many firsthand accounts of aspects of the school environment where the work is not at the level that it needs to be student climate survey data also aligns with this and so therefore we want this program to be supportive in the sense that we can improve and learn from each other and also uphold and build accountability for doing this work this program will not be an end point it will not be a box to check uh it will be an ongoing continuous collaboration that requires assessment education monitoring and Reporting and we also want to integrate with the current curricul wherever possible we want to

102communicate and involve the community of caregivers that we have we want to promote continuous self-growth we want to ensure that this program is a priority across grade levels in school buildings starting at the elementary levels and adjusting for Developmental appropriateness and complexities of social environments at the middle and high school levels so we have six recommendations for a comprehensive bullying and micro ression prevention program the first is an inventory or assessment of existing strategies and social emotional learning program programming this is to identify gaps and opportunities for new program integration and also to prepare for this program to not necessarily all fall on the counseling department or the teachers for implementation this work will be spread across school department so here's just a little bit of what we know already and we need to add

103to this and make this more specific spefic the second recommendation is to understand current perceptions and experiences from the students and also from community members the climate surveys are wonderful and also they only give us Snippets of information with regard to bullying specifically so we really need to drill down to understand what's going on we can actually do that pretty easily with some current survey instruments that you see listed on the in the green box on the right hand side there are some current survey instruments available and we can also tailor these uh for our needs and also integrate some microaggression questions the third recommendation is the implementation of this new prevention program so we have two main areas professional development and the next slide is student development we have identified some programs you'll see

104again in the green box on the right hand side that are easily implemented and adaptable we've also identified some microaggression training for staff you'll see with perception. org we want all employees to be included in this effort so this should feel like a we're all in this together because we deserve better kind of program and we want teachers and staff to see this as an opportunity to create a calmer and more peaceful learning environment where everyone can feel safer for student development you'll see that we have this is for all students grouped by age cohort obviously you'll see that we have listed the same three program options and that is because they cover both staff and student training students cannot learn if their psychological needs are not being met and psychological needs include Safety and

105Security a sense of belonging and self-esteem so that really is the main focus for any of these programs that we select and we would expect the district to uh continue to research these programs and select something that fits their knes again integrating it into the current curriculum the fourth recommendation is to engage with the community in a messaging initiative Community involvement is important to improving School climate and as such it will be imperative to inform and educate and keep the community updated as they are Partners here as caregivers who are invested in psychological and physical safety and optimal inclusive learning so we need to be transparent and share programs and data and educational resources across multiple mediums number five is annual metrics tracking and some evaluation and Reporting so we would expect that after initially

106understanding perceptions of students and community members that we could then have year-over-year data for tracking so we could look at reported incidents in addition to the survey data other reporting tools and understand where we are improving and where we still need some work and we would also want to look at this data by demographic last but not least recommendation number six um consider a district position so because this is a substantial undertaking having someone dedicated to being trained in the selected program overseeing implementation the surveys tracking reporting and Community messaging it would be imperative to the new programs success we would also expect representatives from various uh key stakeholder groups to also be involved with this new position and perhaps work as a group hopefully I'm under time but just in conclusion I wanted to

107say that that a a bullying and microaggression prevention program is something that our district absolutely needs and deserves in order to address the incidents that are occurring uh and to begin to create a more welcoming and affirming environment so we see this program as beneficial to all and also as a likely Catalyst for both social change and improved mental health and wellness at our district thank you very much questions from the board well I'm glad to see the um connection and work being down bullying and microaggressions because a lot of time the microaggressions are are left off the table and it's just focused on the um obvious bullying when the microaggressions obviously can have the same impact on on our students and our staff's mental health so I'm glad to see that is going to

108be part of the work or recommendation for that to be part of the work I just have one question and and I I think it's going to be the same for most of the subcommittees because I don't know the numbers how many students are actually on the Dei committee and are they represented on each subcommittee we had talked about that we originally had four one from each uh class at the time but we have talked not only for the mental health task force but also for the Dei committee about having additional students we've even talked about it uh as Miss Fang would tell us uh even for representation here to support the student ex officio board member and one of the things that I did Witness uh in Pittsburgh is that they are having the

109students at the table as task forces take a look at curriculum uh it's funny that two of you should mention you know brojo and uh reporting out they had student reporters at the conference in Pittsburg interviewing us and taking it back and Reporting it out whether it's uh FM Hornet TV I mean it's just brilliant in terms of of getting the word out that I think the student voice which I know is where you were headed with this is under represented and underutilized so that would be something that I totally agree that we have to have a stronger voice but originally to answer your question there were four just to try to get a 40 member committee reasonable with everything else so there were four are there still four that's my first question I'm looking

110at our district clerk because we recruited as they graduated out and yeah two two or three okay all right and just as you know when we did the Wellwood task force it was unwieldy I mean it was clearly more than 40 folks there and and you want voice to be heard as you know but you get to a point that a committee becomes too large to get anything done so at this time we kind of structured the committee to make sure we had all the stakeholder groups represented but I just think and I you know what I saw in Pittsburgh was getting more students at the table as imperative whether they're actually part of the committee or we can bring them in like the de committee it did did at the last meeting to try

111to get more dialogue and discourse happening so I just I appreciate that we have them but it just it becomes the Practical question of what can we do and when can we do to try to elevate the the student voice in this not saying that there hasn't been I'm not suggesting that at all but but it's it's just such a critical voice to this and the mental health committee side that it's this it's this double-edged sword right we ask so much of our students already their plates are full but this is really important work that I know many of them would if they knew more about the opportunity might choose to participate in one thing that we did was we brought students in um to share their experiences with the full committee um I think

112that's helpful to do because uh many students can't devote the time to come to the different meetings but bringing them in for a particular meeting um and I think Dr Ty is going to talk later about the um possibility of having a student group um associated with the board so not replacing our student board member but maybe having a cohort of students who are working more closely with the board on different issues um and that could be flexed around their time and their availability it's we're at a Crossroads as the board knows as the faculty knows as the administration knows uh it came out of uh the superintendent's Roundtable in Washington and I think I shared it with some members of the board that uh we assumed The Chronic absenteeism with a lot of students

113was a result of the pandemic but they're voting with their feet uh they're they're just choosing they they need school to evolve as Society is evolved I mean you and I were having an artificial intelligence conversation minutes ago schooling is going to have to evolve and I know that's something we've all talked about but the students need to help us chart that direction at the table we're at a critical place I mean we all want something to be done it was a board goal that we echoed earlier I think the students would agree with us I just think we have to include them and move forward I I would only like to say that right from the beginning I felt the students were very comfortable they were equal Partners in this uh committee I really

114felt that they were comfortable to say anything on their minds I was impressed so of course we can we'll figure this out but even the disclosure at the last committee meeting they felt safe to open up I mean it was really touching to have them Express their vulnerabilities and their beliefs and I think it it's it's one of those you know Dr Seuss moments that be glad that it happened it was special what's that SAR sorry not to get off topic but Jen I did have a question on the presentation um so you listed them all out as separate recommendations but the way that I read them they're really one comprehensive recommendation and maybe their time phased based on capacity and and roll out and those kinds of things but I just want to clarify

115that with your group but yes absolutely it's it's meant to be cohesive there are some things that would probably you know need to happen initially so perhaps you know one and two recom recommendations one and two need to happen first but then the community messaging initiative I would suspect gets going and then right yeah um I have a question sorry um sure thank you for the presentation I was wondering like back to the like student representation topic um it seems like like at least according to the high school students that like I'm around every day that like a lot of students are eager to have their voice in this issue um while I understand that like whittling down the members is important to like get the key voices out I was wondering how plausible it

116would be if like um similar to the board meetings there could be like a small themed maybe public comment session for uh the meetings to make it public so that people who find it necessary can make a comment yeah are you talking about the larger EI committee that might yeah yes so good or yeah thank you or we could like I said earlier like was done in Pittsburgh have student reporters there and then to report back with broo yeah from the buzz I I agree I mean I think there are many opportunities to involve students not only in capturing the news but reporting it out too um not only in terms of like reporting like the news back to students but also like um having the students be able to like personally like have their

117voices in the meeting would it be possible for like to allow more of them to speak not maybe not necessarily throughout the entire committee meeting but throughout part of it as in this one I think it's a possibility and the last meeting was a perfect example of having a student group come in and to share their personal anecdotes well and all the meetings are public so maybe it's just even doing a better job of letting the students know when they're scheduled and actually you know making the effort to invite them to come as it you know as they're able to um because I know we also did talk about the reporting thing the only question I would have about that is you know we want to make sure that everybody who was participating felt safe

118enough to participate fully and that they like it wasn't necessarily being recorded or something that they said or brought up was um going to be disseminated outside of the room necessarily so um that would just be something we would need to kind of talk about a little bit I would think great job Jen thank you very much e hi good evening for the greater audience I am Debbie Capri the principal at Enders Road elementary school and I had the honor of being a part of or still being a part of the professional learning subcommittee so on behalf of our group which I very much appreciate was a a representative group we did have student representation Administration parents uh and certainly faculty so I appreciated the the mix of the voices as we discussed and moved

119forward with our recommendations the first part we wanted to just review according to the New York State crsc framework what what are kind of those key components that go into professional learning and the first is really making sure that learning and that teaching and learning that they're adaptive uh that we're constantly reexamining what is needed in terms of professional learning that when we look at Dei part of any training is is looking at that implicit bias that is within all of us professional Learners really using a critically conscious lens when we're looking at all different areas including instruction curriculum assessment history culture and institutions I think a really important part is seeing and looking at that that learning has to be self-directed we're all in a different place we're all in a different trajectory and

120so making sure that we have self-directed opportunities to seek that professional learning and the last part is that learning particularly by the CRC framework is not I think when we think of professional learning we might think of faculty and staff but it also is to include students and families and administration and our community at large and so all the stakehold stakeholders in our community so we have three recommendations the first one and you will see um some align ment uh that goes across all of our subcommittees which I think is really powerful um and shows that consistency so the first one is really looking at either a point person or persons in terms of a committee that's designated to oversee this work for for a few different reasons one feeling that just uh the volume

121of the work and the management of it making sure that it's done well and thoughtfully and in a cohesive way really needs to have someone or individuals take taking leadership and ownership of that work so feeling that if we're going to create strategic action plans related to professional learning goals for Dei and we're going to be reflective about them and look at those goals annually in our progress there really needs to be a set committee and process in place to make that happen as well as we talk about this and obviously having our di committee shows our commitment as a FM Community but having whether it's a committee or an individual in charge of this work I think shows even more so our priority as a district to this important work our second recommendation um

122I really appreciate actually came out of a fabulous conversation with the student representative that was in our group um she really taught us a lot about FM and how there are so many student Le activities projects and clubs that are related to diversity equity and inclusion um many of which I did not know existed and didn't realize the the important work that they are doing so we really felt it was important to build upon that and that whomever this point person or committee is could identify support and really promote those student Le Dei initiatives we have so many wonderful communication tools we've spoken about through social media and other ways that when these events and programs are happening that are led by our students there should be a full house there and so how do

123we publicize these efforts and really get the word out our students can be amazing agents of change we just need to give them the opportunity um and really help them teach us how to be learning focused as a community the last one is really looking at that professional learning piece in terms of FM faculty and staff and we thought it was important to have a two- tiered approach first we and this is reflective of what the previous group spoke of that it really needs to be all staff and so really whether that's leaders teachers support staff clerical Food Service Transportation custodial maintenance coaches everyone needs to participate in the same foundational level of Dei training that's grounded in the crsc framework so we all have that basic knowledge where we're examining and reflecting Upon Our

124Own implicit bias where we are looking to be culturally sensitive and really centering the identities of our students and of all students that we are being culturally responsive to students experiences I think also giving staff Tools in their toolbox to really respond to what can be very tricky Dei related situations so we make sure that all students feel supported and heard and having just a development of a cohesive language across all staff so when we know we talk about Dei as FM staff we all know where we're coming from we all know what is our priority and what's important to us and we have that common language one conversation we spoke of was an example as a possible resource is uh there's a training Dei Matters by Dr Meredith Madden from UDA University we have

125had some staff here at FM that have participated in some learning opportunities through her and have really been extremely impressed I know our English Department of the high school has been seeking uh some professional learning through Dr Madden so that's one resource obviously there are others but it's when we've heard some really positive feedback that could be a great place to start for that staff-wide foundational training and then the the second tier of that piece is that again because everyone's in a different place with their learning how do we create opportunities for those staff that want to take a deeper dive that want to learn a little bit more in a particular area related to Dei or to culturally responsive topics so make making sure that those opportunities are available as well so we're not

126stopping at that foundational level of training we're offering more and diverse opportunities for all of our staff to participate in so those are our three recommendations again I appreciate just hearing one group but I think you're going to hear it through the next two groups uh that there really is quite a bit of alignment and I think that's powerful in terms of helping us just to narrow our next steps when we're hearing that com voice across the the four groups so I appreciate your time and don't know if you have any questions um I guess maybe just a clarification yes on the recommendation to the point person for the student were you anticipating that would be a student or is that an adult in the school or or I think in terms of the initial

127first recommendation whether we didn't want to um specify exactly or pinpoint who would oversee all of this work but assuming I know in some districts it's a director of Dei in some districts it's a committee um in terms of the goal where it's specifically highlighting the the student L work um I certainly would be important to have student leadership working with whomever that uh director or professional is within the district so I think that would have to go hand in hand of having whether it's administrator or a committee that's overseeing this work there would have to be student leadership particularly in that part to be that bridge for that thanks so much Dr cupry um this is probably impossible but have you talked about when this kind of training might take place that's a that's

128a hard part right it is a hard part um certainly there's a lot of mandatory trainings um all equally important uh that need to be done obviously the sooner we do this work the sooner we're doing a better job in the district um I think many of those foundational trainings we do right at the beginning of the year on those August staff development days so I'm speaking my own personal opinion that I feel like if we're able to at least start the year with that foundational training when we on those days we do have everyone present on one of those days we're sitting with our colleagues that work in the cafeteria and in the in transportation that could be a great time to start start that foundational training so we all begin the year believing

129in the same thing and in the same place thank you very much Dr Capri absolutely thank you high expectations okay hi thank you so much for your time tonight my name is Amy BL long and my co-members and I represent the high expectations and rigorous instruction subcommittee um over over the last nine months as a subcommittee we've had deep and wide- ranging discussions and ultimately we zeroed in on three specific areas under this topic curriculum assessment and instruction and as has already kind of come up within this meeting um one of the things we know are in process are the um the the personalized learning um and so we just want to also emphasize our feeling of of the importance of student voice and choice um so student voice and choice will support what's already

130being discussed and it lets students feel valued for their opinions and allows them and their contributions it allows them to have a say in how they learn and what they learn how they're assessed and how Mastery is demonstrated um and the student centered approach it appeals to individual interests and learning styles and it motivates students to use problem solving and critical thinking which which are obviously crucial skills for their lives going forward um these discussions connected to force oh I'm sorry I'm not moving ahead um these connected to four specific areas of the crse framework student L Civic engagement Critical examination of power structures Project based learning on social justice issues and student leadership opportunities um we had a lot of goals but we prioritized three specific recommendations you will hear now in P to

131support the pursuit of these areas hi everyone I'm caral molan instructional specialist in special education at the high school so we began our work in the committee by considering the issue of disproportionality in special education classification particularly by gender and socioeconomic status this led us to a review of the 2022 District New York state report card data to determine the impact of disability classification on achievement levels as reflected in the assessment results so that review then coupled with a pretty robust uh committee discussion and the Mandate of our committee for higher expectations and rigorous instruction inspired us to broaden the focus and shaped our first recommendation which is that the district examined disproportionality in course enrollment through multiple lenses specifically disability gender socioeconomic status race and ethnicity and consider two fundamental questions who takes which

132levels of courses and what is the long-term impact in terms of student outcomes on early Co course level selections thank you good evening my name is Heather Taylor and I'll be discussing recommendation number two which is offer high expectations with deeper engagement to all students one of the key terms used to describe curriculum over the years has been the word rigorous which typically implies a harsh or a strict system our committee is seeking to redefine that something to something more meaningful and impactful in the class CL room high expectations in rigorous curriculum should be set in motion when each student has the opportunity to be an equal part of the learning process where students truly have a voice and a choice we are focused on bringing inquiry based learning into each classroom in order to

133create more Civic discourse in addition to integrating student reflection on learning and assessment practices beginning in the formative years and beyond our goal is not to dismantle top tier coures es that includes AP honors and Supa classes but greatly improve the courses that are currently labeled below that high high level especially in middle and high school additionally our goal would ensure all materials are digitally accessible and include interactive scaffolding or varied levels of support in learning activities and materials beginning in the early years a scaffolded inquiry based learning curriculum takes into account different learning styles different capabilities and understanding bias we would like to see the district adopt a more Universal Design for Learning and move beyond the one-sized fits-all as Dr Ty had mentioned earlier the emphasis needs to shift from grading to learning

134in order to give the power back to students and encourage them to have their own voice and their own vision and their own unique high expectations our committee hopes that every single student can experience FM's curriculum in a more personal meaning ful and individualized way thank you now I'll be followed by Ethan I was one of the student representatives for uh the committee and a big thing that this subcommittee discussed was the unfortunate reality that much of student learning um and engagement has gone stagnant um and so for that reason we are recommending to integrate uh goal setting and self-reflection into the formative assessment process meaning how can we enable students to identify their strengths and weaknesses but also methods that encourage ongoing reflection and the first thing that entails is more active student participation

135in this in this cycle what it really mean is how might learning be moved forward into the 21st century learning style and then the second thing is to integrate student reflection into all styles cultures and Linguistics something as simple as maybe an exit ticket which might be a little um simple for the high school but something as simple as an exit ticket uh in the class that reflects not so much on the direct learn topics learned but how might the things that have helped the student relate to that their cultures um impact their future learning and uh with that I'll turn over to Sarah okay so we tried to um project into the future if we were to take some of these recommendations and look um a decade out what would it look like here

136at FM and so we said you know we would look to see a more cohesive community of Learners so have more students be able to see themselves in different level classes not that it's just reserved for certain types of students that we would be able to have Project based that students would be working together and see themselves all throughout um the curriculum here at FM uh more productive in civil discourse so preparing them for life outside of FM as well as good citizenship um throughout the the community and in the world um activities that connect to and build on student strengths and assets so have students participating in goal setting and reflection about where their strengths are and where they would want to see themselves get better at it in different skill sets or different

137um Pathways that they want to explore in the future uh increase student accountability for their own learning and that's really um that they're engaged with their choices that they're fully um participating in the process and it's not just something that's handed to them that they are part of it and then uh finally individualize expectations in multiple avenues for Success so not focusing purely on grades but really um the individualized definitions of a success and focus on skill development um as opposed to purely on graded test or or homework from that perspective we have a question oh any questions that you might have we we were trying to think about what would make FM a a great place to move to you know it's not just about test scores it's about you know if you heard

138that this was that the the district you were moving into would you be excited to move there I think for me I this so recommendation three about integrating this students into the formative assessment cycle I think that's incredibly important I think that's I anticipate that's going to be a very difficult thing for I mean it's difficult for adults much less students to do that and I think that's where that com combined um work with the mental health committee might be really helpful because I know you know have helping students to understand how to look critically at their own work and and you know what they're learning I think it can be incredibly important for them in their development but I think it also can be a point of like a lot of maybe negative self-critique

139and I think kind of supporting the students through that um would be really critical so that they understand that you know self-reflection can be a really positive experience so I I just I really appreciate seeing that here so it's like how do we move from assessment of learning to assessment for learning you know and and just build in the formative assessment so that it's just not a a grade or a static description but how do you plan next steps so that might involve different ways to collect data or different what's the backend system looking and how do you connect into that and strength and assets sure um thank you for the presentation um it seems that it seems that like student self-reflection and like kind of self critique is a major theme for um this

140students here and um it seems at least to the high school student body throughout my four years that it is definitely a necessary point to consider um I was wondering if um uh the committee has like considered that like um one of the main factors that kind of hinder student self-reflection comes from like um may come from like the overwhelming grading and qualifications and assessments that cause students aversion from like um actually participating in their own study I wonder if like the commun had considered this as like a hindrance to self-reflection yeah I think that's definitely a way to think of uh with assessment how do you if it's not just the assignment grade assignment grade at one point is an assignment and you know having this where you start every unit where you're saying

141okay what do I know what do I learn next what do I notice what do I wonder and integrating having a space where there's discussion and it's not just we're not learning isn't bureaucracy like let's make it fun and exciting yeah one of the things we've talked about and I put the slide up every year for the board members and faculty and administrators who are there on opening day is the difference between evaluation and assessment evaluation to to miss Fang's point is a value judgment it could could be against a set Criterion it could be against a the bell curve of population and it could be against individual progress and I think that's important because we do have to to measure periodically but I think if I read Angelina right I think we need to

142do more assessment and assessment comes from the Latin word aadar meaning to sit beside and it's uh it's time based so there's diagnostic before there's formative as your slide indicated during and then there's Summit of assessment which occurs after and I think sometimes you're right we get caught up in the grades as your subcommittee pointed out and it's okay to do evaluation once in a while but I think we miss an opportunity as Angelina's referencing to have those open and Frank conversations what your assessment uh having in my earlier career as a a science teacher and baseball coach for a school district there's differences between games and scrimmages and I think it's we need not just you know not every exam as a game you know what I mean you have to do a few

143scrimmages in there too to take the pressure off start the drill over again uh there are no rules in the scrimmage you can go back it just is is in a pretend game you can actually work on different things and that's where I think those kind of conversations that you're hoping for open up because it it just doesn't have to be a value judgment every time so good point thank you appreciate that I know I'm preaching to the choir but any other questions we realize there's another group so anything else thank you so much use this one hi my name is Laura iodice and I'm a retired English teacher from the high school and a Community member and Mary Cunningham is also a Community member and uh Kim uh jaffy um the person who was

144supposed to be presenting had a very serious illness in the family so I'm going to try to pinch hit here um we started with the state's definition of what inclusive curriculum and assessment is all about and it uh elevates historically marginalized voices and gives opportunity uh to learn about power and privilege in the context of various communities it empowers Learners to be agents of positive social change change it provides the opportunity to learn about perspectives Beyond one's own scope and it works towards dismantling systems of biases and inequities and decentering dominant ideologies and and in education so our first task was really dismantling what the state was asking us to do having such varied members on the committee and the first um recommendation that we came up with was the curriculum audit we were in

145a peculiar position because we were trying to assess the status of the curriculum but we've yet to audit the curriculum so we were you know some of the things that we're going to suggest probably are already happening but because we don't have any formal documentation of that we really weren't able to uh eliminate items um so the first thing is to conduct a de Dei curriculum audit for all grades and that includes preschool through 12 in all discip you know all disciplines toward the goal of establishing a vertical Dei focused curriculum developmentally appropriate for each um thread of the curriculum and across grades so that um it becomes recursive you have a curriculum where in kindergarten you know you're going over some skill sets or whatever um materials you need and as you move forward

146in the grades it's built in such a way that you can go backward to go forward that you can as the other group was talking about self have students self-reflect in order to uh be be able to move forward you're going to include valuation of reading and film lists as part of this and I know Librarians are already some of them are already um attempting to do that but you'd also want to seek suggestions from Beyond teachers for parents staff administrators and students as well as curric uh Community experts in the particular area area that your curriculum is focused on and one of our group members U Mary Cunningham was able to put together a model of that that I think distributed in the packet of what that reading list might look like on a

147primary level and also what some of those inquiry questions might look like um and that takes us to the third bullet which is to look at specific questions and considerations such since such as those developed by our curriculum committee member um Who provided them for you to look through and the state has asked that we include social justice components for all of the curriculum so we absolutely need to include them in the audit if we're going to include them as part of curriculum our second recommendation is to consider the C the crsc framework and the rec recommendations that were made within it and some of those recommendations include rigorous instruction inclusive curriculum and assessment when annually assessing the revising curriculum map so this recommendation is asking us to use The Curriculum maps that have already

148been developed by teachers to incorporate Dei focused assessments so that at the um end of the year or in the summer when you're revising or you're developing curriculum uh for a new course you're going to specifically address an explanation of how that course map relates to the Dei um components that we're looking to build into the courses our third recommendation because this is inclusive curriculum and assessment is to do an assessment audit to look at the ways in which which we are currently assessing and I think some of this um refers to what Angelina was asking about Miss Wang Miss Fang um how do students do that when they're worried about grades this particular assessment audit would explore and include viable Alternatives um assessment strategies that look at things besides just a test score so

149um currently badging is becoming a big grading or assessment Trend across some of the states and in particular in public um education colleges are starting to use it and we've seen some Pilots we did some research and saw some pilot programs and some of the secondary schools now as well um some of them that mirror our constituents so it was interesting to see that they were able to incorporate it even in districts where there is a high emphasis on you know the outcome the grade because of college um applications uh there are other strategies such as portfolios and badging actually is tandem to that sometimes um uh courses would be able to use badges as ways of showing competencies moving toward Mastery and then you have as Dr Ty was saying the evaluation comes at

150the end when you're looking at Mastery and not just at um developing specific competencies but in order to be fair you want to be sure that students can also um incorporate some of their exhibits and projects things that that are not just designed by the teacher necessarily as part of that assessment so if you were doing a project um for something outside of the classroom let's say you were an eagle scout and you did some kind of environmental study and you were given an award for that that should be able to be brought in and a teacher might be willing to consider that if it was a course in Environmental Studies as an indicator of Competency uh we also would hope that students would have equal opportunity to achieve and be recognized for success and

151again that's about including a wide variety of way ways to assess a student's progress in a particular a specific competency rather than just um a test at the end of a unit and some of that actually uh and you know our committee really folds in with so much of what other committees have already spoken about because some of that deals with the reflective assessment uh the idea of students be able to being able to self uh reflect as a way of proving what they've learned because sometimes when you self-reflect you can actually articulate something that didn't show up necessarily as a Mastery on a test and those should be taken into consideration as well um our fourth recommendation is our other and that is we we were really very fortunate because uh one of our

152student one of the students in the the uh large group happened to be with us on a on our uh subcommittee and she was um enrolled as a t day in the rhetoric of race class which is actually a course that focuses on Dei in the high school and so she was able to give us a lot of input we were able to meet with the students our subcommittee met with those students and then those students eventually came and um connected with the entire Dei committee at the end of the um the last session that we had but some of the concerns they brought up which are peculiar to their course won't be an issue once the EI is a focus in every course but we're using them as a model right now just to

153explain that sometimes there are problems with the master schedule where students want to enroll in a course but they're actually in competition with a course uh so for for instance the Holocaust course and the rhetoric course were offered at the same time and the students that would be drawn to those electives might want to take both of those courses but they're only one semester so our recommendation is that until you at least until you have every course including something uh valuable about diversity and equity and inclusion it would be useful to have those courses that are already doing it have a priority in the scheduling so that students have that opportunity because it's G to as Dr Ty said it's going to take a while before we get to the point where we're fully incorporating

154these principles um in relation to that providing funding and opportunities for field trips I know that that particular course has done field trips down in um over on the West Side they've examined the Westside initiative they've gone to the Latino um Museum there eating you know eaten at a Puerto Rican restaurant in the area so being able to fund those from numerous courses for those opportunities to actually get outside of the classroom and for the community beyond our local community to become the classroom um there museums you know like the Harriet tub Museum uh the native Community has a an arena that you can visit uh and also to be able to provide academic credit bearing opportunities for students that are taking in internships uh in the community that they can actually get credit for

155that so for instance right now people who um um volunteer to become teaching assistants in our rhetoric class have a letter attached to their transcript explaining their service uh but they don't have anything offering credit for doing those kinds of um extra um responsibilities in their school day it would be a very valuable thing if some of those opportunities that their internships and other cours workor could be recognized with credit um this was something that came up a lot in the Dei meetings in general and in particular in our session because it involved curriculum and that is if the faculty are going to be making these changes in their courses they really want to feel that and know that they have the backing of the administration so that um if they get difficult conversations happening

156they know that they've got somebody behind them supporting them because they're doing what we're asking them to do as a district and then making sure we include um Community Dei professionals as part of the designing of the curriculum for instance on curriculum Council and also if they have a particular expertise as part of the Department's uh meetings when they're looking at curriculum and absolutely student representation on the curriculum Council and um and encouraging student focused uh panels and dialogues that are uh Dei focused questions and Craig I I'll ask this because I know that we offer so to the suggestion about the credit I know that within our music department now if students take private lessons and it's documented that they can get um credit for their transcripts how hard or with Pat coming in

157now at the high school is this something that maybe him and the administration could talk about to see if we can duvail that together I mean we can look at any in all of it whether it's music whether it's fed whatever I mean at this Pittsburgh Conference Michael nagler from minola was also invited and he actually and I think I shared this with the group uh purchased a vacant bank and opened it up and set it up like a college uh Library you know study hall kind of a thing and kids actually work on taking care of what's required in order to do some of their passion projects and that so that's happening right in New York state so we can visit that we can visit whatever's in Pittsburgh I mean there are different models

158out there to do exactly what you're saying honor what we have to check the boxes on and the kids blow through that in order to roll up their sleeves and collaborate with others and dive into passion projects so there's tons of opportun unities that just being an example thank you thank you just in clo closure I just think there's a lot of opportunities here uh not only the foresight of the district EI committee to want to partner uh with the mental health task force because of uh overlaps but there's uh things that we can do and start small I think as you look at the crsc framework which the groups did such an outstanding job tonight uh outlining uh each of those areas as uh we're called here it's really giving you know providing opportunities

159in a welcoming environment as Dr da is fond of saying calling people in rather than calling them out and we can try little things we're we're not lowering expectations the expectations are still high we're trying to allow the students to see themselves in their education uh some of you know in my own dissertation in skinny Atlas uh we bought the car length lab coats at the elementary level for elementary science and I had somebody wack bagg their finger at me saying I was perpetuating the myth of old white balding scientists and glasses and lab coats and the point was no we're perpetuating that they can see themselves in a lab coat so I just think there's a ton of opportunities here for us and one of the things with the board in front of their

160computers here one of the things that got called out at the Pittsburgh conference is little bets I don't know if anybody's read that book by Peter Sims I don't know Chrissy is at at the teacher Center at all uh Google it it's called Little bets by Peter Sims and it starts out with small little things is really what changes the world and so what our committee's laid out for us today are some pretty grandio plans and I think we can chip away at it but I think it's the little bits too and maybe there's some something that we can start with here with the board's pleasure and I'll look to Mr Corbin who's already settled out a budget yeah you can hide you can run but you can't hide but maybe there's opportunities for Hornet

161minig grants to try to encourage these little bets and so uh I will ask our district clerk to possibly order some of these books I have not read it yet but it was a big talk at the pittsbur conference is uh and it talks about all the things uh as you can read even if you're on the Amazon page right now like I am uh it's just all the things that occurred over time you know what I mean starting with little bets and one thing leads to another and so I think there's a ton of opportunities here for our students for our faculty uh to engage in in some of this as we go forward so thank you to the district Dei committee uh I must say job well done and looking forward to possibly

162having a lot of little bets as we go forward thank you we'll take a short break to allow the members of the DI committee to leave if they'd like long night thank you all very much we appreciate apprciate it e e e okay we'll get started again next item on the agenda 2.03 the president report um so just as followup to um recently the board received correspondent from the Sierra Club in regards to electric buses um their concerns in regards to the district implementing the electric buses um Dr Ty has a meeting scheduled on Friday at 11:00 a.m. with the um head of the Sierra Club local head of the Sierra Club and that meeting may include uh assemblyman stury um and some other people from the Sierra Club so that'll be a good opportunity

163for our district to discuss what we are doing with electric buses with some concerned community members job yes thank you Dr Ty um second um I did attend the town of Manlius is um initial meeting to discuss the possibility of a I'm going to call it Aquatic Center um was went very well I think um there are three four counselors present um two parents who have um some involvement or who've had some involvement in um the swimming and dive program um in addition to to um myself Dr Ty and Mr uh Corbin um and this meeting there was a lot of ideas talked about as to what this could possibly look like um not just um perhaps a um pool that the uh swimming and dive team could use but also there could be other

164lanes um other pools for U members of the community um they talked about gauging the interest of the community and seeing what community members would like to have a type this type of facility so there was some um activity at the um recent Earth Day to um solicit input from community members about what would you like to see in a facility like this um you know ice ring um Splash Pad um thinking about the different age groups in the community what would be something that might benefit seniors um and then students of all or kids of all different ages as well as adults so what would be something that would really um be beneficial to all of the m members of our community um they are looking for other people who or more people who

165would like to be involved um there's a lot of interest in um helping with this process um I suggested that they really take a look at making sure that there is representation from The Villages fville monoa and um manle as well as a town um making sure there's someone there who has um some experience and inclusion so that they can make sure that if we're um targeting activities towards being inclusive and having um programming for um seniors or people persons with disabilities individuals disabilities that we have someone who has experience doing that on the committee um also making sure that they have um representation from different demographics parents even though East Syracuse um they have elected not to send anyone from their District to participate um we do have um people in mon know is

166part of the town of Manley so I'm thinking that um I suggest that um it also include parents and students from that part of monoa so that they are represented as well um but I sent a brief little chart to John with some suggestions for different uh demographics that he might want to include so at this point it's open to people who'd like to submit their name to I believe you sent it to John and express an interest and what you might be able to bring to the committee um I'm sure there'll be opportunities for people who have publicity um fundraising um all sorts of you know people obviously who had a background or interest in the swim and dive team but um you know just to caution people they can't have a huge committee

167so just send an letter of interest um to um John Deere and um they will put together their final committee I believe the um other group the community Aquatics group also has a steering committee of some sort that's working um to develop some advice their Council for this town group I'm not sure how that's going to fit in yet um or how that those two will work together but um that's something for a later discussion but it was a good initial meeting meeting and I think um the the next meeting date actually they have that see if I still have it on my account next two meetings yes um boy believe it was we didn't want to do it on the night we had the board meeting uh was that June 3 I think it

168was June 3 put it out yes we can put that into board docs and make sure everyone's aware of those two meetings in June 3 um is the next one and then there's one in July and we're trying to make sure that that didn't coincide with the um reorganization meeting in July um so I believe the date for that might have been yeah it seems to not be on my calendar do you have that one Dr T July 15 July 15th so um and they met at 5:30 they had a virtual um options if people couldn't be at the town in person um and I think they tend to do those so um if people can't get there in person you can attend virtually but again just reach out to John and let him know

169your interest in what area you think you might be able to represent and he's going to build his committee from there um so I'm assuming like that the three of you participated for the district right are are we are you guys talking about from The District's perspective who the right people would be to encourage to get on the committee so you know if we're talking about just helping to support the school district I mean I assume that's why you guys are yeah I think this is I mean this is just was just the initial meeting I mean they talked about not only pool but they talked about indoor turf they talked about ice rink they talked about all they T so I think they've got to narrow it down and if they're going to focus

170on just the pool the exclusion of something else so I think if scope of the like it's Scott sugar for example participating because he would represent all of our athletic teams because if I assume it would we're looking at it from how it would benefit or our district our students and um faculty and staff really could utilize a facility like that right there are some Pro pool folks on there looking at it from the community perspective too that are part of that little subset that start so they're looking at it for senior citizens everybody yeah I guess I'm just wondering so obviously the town they have to if it's a town initiated thing they have to figure out who to get the right people in the room for from a broad point of view but

171if it's just we have to answer the question from the district right that's why so do you guys have you talked about who you think from the district you need to be encouraging to join J the Town's committee on how that process would work I think eventually we'll get there I don't know if you want I just I think eventually we'll get there this was just the organizational meeting and they were doing a short survey on Earth day so I just I think these are baby steps but eventually I think we'll get to that point yeah I think I'm want to try to maybe ask the question a slightly different way we had some emails about this um earlier in April and Sarah had raised the question that at the T of Manley's board meeting

172the board said they were planning this meeting that you all were just referring to and that Marissa was on that committee as FM School Board representative which was was I wasn't there was what I gathered from your email what their perception was so I just that's what I want to just understand is is the representation as a representative of the board in which case that's probably something we should talk about and open up or is it in some other capacity so what I've talked to John about is representing more of is a resident because as a board it's actually the district that's represented which would be Dr Ty and or his designes so to your point talking about who in the district would represent at that meeting they were very pleased to have Mr Corbin

173and Dr Ty there because they can sort of have that Global umbrella effect for all the different um for sports for athletics for finance for facilities all those different things um and I'm more looking at it as representing asking to be on the committee to as just a Community member and what I suggested to them is because John was concerned about the committee growth you can't have is huge committee um just making sure there were representations from all the different demographics in our community so students from both school districts parents from both school districts athlet athletes and non-athletes senior citizens um as I said someone who had some inclusive inclusion background um obviously they have Town counselors who are very interested in this project um perhaps people from the chamber Etc but that was just

174my suggestion I don't know how he's going to shape it out so what I would say to folks um I think as a district um the district represented by the super attendant and um Mr Corbin you know based on what I've learned at this meeting not I didn't learn that at the meeting but I'm just saying based on where I see this committee going and what they're looking for from us is they're looking for district representation which I believe which is the superintendent and his designes but then they're also looking for community members and he has not defined like what those different um uh groups would be but he has said that anyone who's interested should reach out to him under the understanding that he can't put everybody on there but he does want to

175hear from interested community members I think as a district we also should put it back perhaps on our website maybe or get information just to let people know about this because there is some interest in the community about um some type of facility um especially for our students because it would be really good to have um students not just from the high school but the Middle School involved so if we can figure out ways to make sure that um students are aware that this is an opportunity for them if you'd like I can get you the information for John and um um perhaps we can connect you two together to think of how we might be able to recruit um students from high school so Marissa just um because maybe you didn't hear the previous

176Town board meeting John specifically said he was trying to get a representative from esm's school board and from FM's school board and when he was asked who FM School Board representative was they said he said it was you so not Community member Marissa Mims it was School Board member so I just I think we just need to clarify right so I'm just saying after that meeting I think there's some clarification to that and initially um when John reached reached out to Dr Ty and myself it was also to the school board president in um esm as well as Donna so it was that parallel thing but now they've had some discussion and now they're looking at how who else do we need around who do we need around the table and um the district representation

177from the superintendent because that's who represents the district obviously um and there wasn't discussion of having like board members board president or um those type of roles it was more about who do we need specifically from different parts of the community to represent um certain demographics so again if anyone's interested um I think the best thing to do is to reach out to John and express your interest and maybe what demographic or what group you're representing and so he can kind of build his own committee because this is the town's committee and ultimately it will be up to the town to decide how it's you know who needs to be on the committee if you'd like to have someone represent the board on there then again you can or or other people then also reach

178out to John and say hey we think you know or actually would be through Dr tyon and say hey we'd like these specific people to be part of your contingent but again leaving that up to it's up to the town to decide oh so sorry so he does not want he's not asking for somebody from FM's board of education is that correct I guess Dr Ty he just this was exploratory all that I took away from this is I affirmed our interest given the success of our teams given the fact that we're combined teams we would be interested I said that we work all for the same taxpayers I just know I don't want to speak for other school districts not in the room they have their own opinion but I just I needed to

179affirm our interests and that we're behind this project whatever shape it takes any additional questions okay uh next on the agenda item 2.04 superintendent report Dr I've talked enough tonight the backup information is in uh board docs uh I was going to talk about uh the high school capital projects moving along uh we had a chance to tour the facility I'll let members of the facilities committee that were there uh embellish on that and the facilities committee report uh my next item was to remind the community about the capital project uh manyi Capital project uh referen uh proposition that's on this year's ballot uh that's something I had promised the facilities committee to do leading up to the vote uh these are the high priority area items from the building conditions survey that was recently

180submitted to the state as well as Safety and Security audits that we did last summer uh these are things that really cannot wait I had in here too what Mr seberg mentioned about one of the cabinets from the High School science classroom falling off the wall in part uh due to a persistent uh roof leak and then last but not least was uh what I talked quite a bit about tonight was the national Summit in Pittsburgh on a CommunityWide approach that involved nonprofits that involved public agencies the Carnegie Science Museum if you've been there in Pittsburgh and the CH Children's Learning life lab uh it's just fascinating all the different resources they've been able to pull together uh as you know this is the book uh that is our read this year our administrative councel

181has been going through it thanks to Dr dotton uh it's Greg Bear's book when you wonder your learning which Lads the foundational work of Fred Rogers in the Arsenal Family and Children's Center co-founded by our Rockstar pediatrician Dr Benjamin Spock whose book I think probably ended up on a lot of our parents bookshelves other luminaries at Arsenal included Dr Margaret McFarland from the University of Pittsburgh school of medicine and German American psychologist Dr Eric Ericson and uh as I talked to our district clerk when I called in to check on the status of the district uh the first day of the conference was kind of an overview on all the community uh support and that we often in education kind of look for the new research and the new fangled ways of doing things and

182actually this is a throwback that the things that Fred Rogers did with the neighborhood was actually grounded in educational theory and oftentimes in education we kind of look for the new fangled thing never really try it out and do it and what they've done in Pittsburgh is really a throwback to just take the Curiosity promoting curiosity with students the voice and choice that you heard our subcommittees talk about tonight uh it just really you know don't look for the new fangle thing sometime it's a throwback to the past and uh so the second day of the trip uh were site visits and then what I talked to Sarah about I said boy I didn't see it coming as the last item in there is that they had representatives from gelp Global education leaders program and

183what that is and I told her I said I didn't see this one coming uh they were the facilitators for the group uh discussions the table facilitating on the last day of the conference but they were from Singapore Finland all the things we've talked about whether it's Singapore math or how the fins are doing it and the bottom line is we're all working on this together together and it was just a powerful message you know for that conference to end with and that's why I told her I said I didn't see that coming because we're all in it together and we in a world where one District gets competed against you know competes against another district and what are these scores and politicians looking for quick fixes and to say that they boosted this or

184whatever the point is you know to have somebody from Finland there and from Singapore you know just reinforce that this is a global world you know that we live in and the world is small and sometimes it's looking back to the past pretty impressive that ends my report thank you well it's great to be invited but I'll tell you um uh there were four of us from New York I mentioned Mike nagler Dr nagler Dr gladus Cruz who's the president of aasa and then another person who I think all of you know uh another Dr Ty and she actually she actually uh sent a team from Onida there ahead of time so not that both Dr tyes aren't competitive but she actually sent a team from Onida they visited actually the the Monday and Tuesday

185uh kind of before the conference uh started and uh Greg bear who wrote the book said we're all invited so I mean if we want to take a road trip uh he says you're you're welcome here anytime so just very very impressive and it was nice to be part of that small group any questions for Dr Ty okay we'll move on to sorry go ahead I just have one not necessarily an answer tonight but just a reminder that there was still a pending question question we were waiting on an answer final answer for um pool arrangements for this fall there was a pending question from a Community member and it had gotten forwarded to you and I don't think that there's been a final answer on that okay I'll have to double check I thought

186I sent that out didn't I there was a follow-up to it Scott you were waiting for Scott to return the following month and I don't think we've heard anything since then yeah but I the memo I asked for him said that the the arrangements are the arrangements that I indicated earlier did everybody get that then there was a question we didn't want Brand X we wanted brand y right that's where I am and then the question was Brand X was after noon brand y would have to be later unless there was a cancellation right that here I know there was an interest in being in the afternoon versus later evening so I think that's where the one facility was selected over the other so I haven't heard back from him I haven't connected on if

187was there availability if that's what you're asking I haven't well Dr T the question I had to that was what was a preference of the students so did the students prefer to have their um practice time in an earlier time which would mean they would have to go to one particular school because of when it's available or would they be okay with having it at a later time so I was interested in hearing back as far as what students and parents because they're going to be driving a lot or um should have some input as well with they feelings were as regards to O earlier or later start time so do we do we have that information yet I will ask Mr Dr sugar I haven't heard okay moving on to item 2.05 committee and

188representative updates just in the interest of time um if there's they're all posted here but if um people do want to say something we could keep it short so we could um keep the board moving so let's see audit Finance met on the 3 not till June 10th not until June 10th next meeting community relations not meeting again till the 30th of May facilities next meeting is the 23rd is there any I just have a quick facilities question Craig what's the status of the windows for the tech edition that were delayed they're installed I think I think with the exception there's still two pieces of plywood up there what's that so since we did the tour everything but two windows are missing so there's two pieces of plywood but that tech edition yeah so then

189Craig just the followup to that so do we anticipate students using that space this Academic Year or do we think it's delayed now till next fall we had talked about that as an oacm team uh if we can get the windows in there and move things in uh we don't want to have any breach of security where things are accessible because it's just app plywood we have to worry about egress issues and fire escape so we have the the gift of the last couple months here so the decision was made if they come in they can move in but we're not going to rush them in we're not going to try to force the issue but it also sounds like we don't have a set date so I understand that we're at the mercy of

190getting in the windows I I get that but we don't have like right now there's not a new targeted date to say it's going to be you know before Memorial Day or whatnot correct at this point no but we want to be able to move in by the end of the year because they have to start demolition on the other facilities yep uh policy committee met uh most recently on the 29th next meeting is on the May 20th I'll set there okay um Dei committee well we just had a wonderful report from them so I think we're good there next meeting June 12th um then mental health task force next meeting is on the 15th May 15th um darl do you have anything as our legislative on I that I'm doing virtual lobbying tomorrow I

191program MH and Angelina did you have a report for us this evening um just some very short updates so um in May uh the Asian-American Pacific Islander month was kicked off on May 1st by um by um an assembly two mandatory assemblies um that involves poetry dance and martial arts and it was well received by the school community and some of the performances will be carried on and uh performed again at the out of the darkness walk that will be on June 6 happens and the entire Community is invited it's for suicide awareness and mental health awareness um and currently students are very active in fundraising door to-door and preparing for their performances for this um large event in addition um the ASL Club in the high school has um continued to advocate for the

192addition of Amer the American sign language course and uh they plan to kind of like add their input to the board whenever possible yes yes okay thank you um next on the agenda we have public comment and I believe we do have two people for public comment this evening um is Lauren here Lauren good evening my name is Lauren ruffridge I'm a mother of three children in the district and I am a speech language pathologist by profession my oldest child is in third grade right now at Enders and over this school year I have read the reminders in the Enders Express about when smart watches are allowed and are not allowed and I've also heard my son and his friends talk about kids in third and fourth grade who already have smartphones um I also

193worked as a long-term sub at one of the middle schools last year and it was my first exposure to this age range and the constant presence of their phones um about a year ago in May 2023 the US Surgeon General gave a public advisory warning of the risks of social media use for young people he noted that while we don't fully understand the effects of social media there is evidence that it can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescence um as a parent I'm extremely concerned and stressed about this Smartphone social media reality that awaits my own children um and in the last several months I've spoken with many parents who share the same concerns together with a few parents um I've been working with the

194faville library on setting up a community event to create a space for concerned caregivers to come together to kind of learn talk and support one another and navigating the ever evolving presence of the smartphone and social media as our children get older um I brought this idea to captain stanson of the town of Manas police department and she was kind enough to connect me with the Wellwood um school information resource officer officer Palmer who is going to give a presentation at this community event the topic is going to be something along the lines of parenting in the age of social media and smartphones um we have it scheduled to take place on Monday June 3rd at 6:30 p.m. at the fville library um the eagle Hill HSA president is going to be there to represent

195um as will a woman named Shannon Hudson of um kids unplugged Central New York to share some resources um our hope is to offer an event where parents can be more informed about social media and smartphones and also lean on one another um as we try to navigate this Uncharted Territory and also to kind of hear from parents of those who are already going through it with their middle schoolers and um high schoolers um and so tonight I'm here just to share about this event with all of you and to ask that you will consider sharing the event flyer districtwide so that we can spread the word and help facilitate bringing caregivers together on this topic to support each other thank you thank you Dr Ty said something would be able to do get the

196flyer out to our parents and staff what what group did you say it was U with the fville library fville library yeah we collaborate with the Library yeah Leah Krauss is my contact at the fa Library thank you next um did they pronounce Shera Shrea I apologize thank you for correcting me hi my name is Shrea bataria I'm a current Junior at the high school um so I just wanted to take a couple minutes to talk about um the importance of mental health especially like in our systems and what we have in place and what more I think would be possible to do um so just looking in general at the importance of mental health and educational settings um the National Alliance on Mental ill illness has said that 60% of high schoolers with mental

197illness don't graduate so just looking at what role does do Educational Systems play in combating this and what more can be done to um make sure that we assist high schoolers with mental illness and uh assist them in with any needs that they may have um also just raising awareness I think in general um over like the past couple of years I think FM has done a great job making Mental Health Resources more available and um prioritizing that but just I think a main aspect of that is having students be more aware of that um going with that is also just the stigma in schools of addressing mental health overall and just considering that school is just such a developmental place for all of us from like when we're kindergarteners all the way up until

198we're seniors in high school just how important addressing mental health could be in those situations um so this year and the past year I've conducted a survey for high school students um this year we had about 120 responses um so the next paper shows just some of the main takeaways from this um so you can see that 88.4% of respondents think that FM can do more to make Mental Health Resources well known which I think just goes with the fact that we have so many of these resources but what more can we do so students are aware that they're there and they feel comfortable going to them and then if we go along with that there's 60% of respondents said that they didn't even know that the high school had a psychologist in the building

199so what more can we do to advertise that and make students more safe and comfortable in these environments um additionally 75 5% of respondents consider High School to be very stressful and want help combating that so just finding ways to go along with that and any methods we can do to help with that so on the last paper we can see just some potential action steps in how to help um some of them just are reiterating what FM has done already um for example increasing the number of workshops we have pertaining to mental health I'm aware that in the month of December in the past year there were mental health Mondays so if we could consider virtual workshops or anything that is for parents or anyone in general I think workshops are a really great

200way to help people overall um going with that is making the variety of resources available more public and connecting that to the fact that a lot of high schoolers aren't aware of them so just doing that um as well as potentially monthly support groups for high school students um I think would be a great way to help students feel more comfortable talking about their mental health and addressing the mental health stigma um there are other potential action steps here but take a look and feel free to reach out to me with any questions thank you thank you very much next on the agenda item 4.01 approval of the minutes from the April 15th meeting is there a motion that the board approve the April 15th meeting minutes thank you Cindy second from Chrissy any discussion

201all those in favor indicate I I anyone opposed or abstaining Jason Dan and was there a third person missing okay all right uh next item 4.02 approval of the minutes from the April 17th meeting is there a motion to approve the minutes of the special meeting held on April 17th thank you darl second from Kelly any discussion all those in favor and I I anyone opposed and then exensions got this is a special meeting that we had on the 17th for the Bose vote I don't believe you were there okay thank you um next item 4.03 approval of a wire transfer is there a motion that the Board of Education of the favorable manl Central School District authorizes a district Treasurer or his or her designity authorize wire transfers in the total of 3, 650,000

2023.13 to Banks is designated by the dormatory authority of the state of New York for repayment of various serial construction bonds is there a motion Dan and second from Jason any discussion all those in favor please indicate I I and no one anyone opposed for abstaining item 4.04 is there a motion that the board authorizes the district Treasurer or his his or her desic need to authoriz one wire transfer in the amount of 15, 764 to the depository trust company for repayment of a construction Bond anticipation notes uh think was uh um Dan and Daryl any discussion all those in favor and Kate I I you and opposed or abstaining moving on to item 4.05 is there a motion to the Board of Education approved of approves of the revised designations as proposed is there

203a motion um Sarah and Jason any discussion all those in favor indicate I I and no one's opposed or abstaining board development excuse me see nothing there doesn't anyone have anything under board development they wish to bring up potential considerations for future meeting there are number of items there school start time future planning for upk the St of Justice the pool Aquatic Center um and well pending development of a Community Committee by the town of manth so we've had update there and American sign language course are there any updates on any of those Dr ties no not at this time okay future meetings calendar we can we potentially add one to that is it's been quite a number of years since we've done a formal population study and forecast in the district and as we're

204putting together this long range plan especially with the updated BCS I think it would be really helpful to have an updated study on that I think some of our numbers that we're seeing in the buildings today are different than had been perhaps projected last time we had a study done so if we could work on that that would be super helpful okay um moving on to our future meetings calendar we have our special meeting on May 21st which will take place in the Wellwood Library um for the superintendent's midyear value ation dates to remember and we'll start before going into exact session right it starts public and then public we may have some Personnel okay um dates to remember so one thing I don't see on the dates to remember is um related to the

205public comment so the there is the mental health um virtual sessions I think there was one left last Thursday and then there's one like this Thursday and maybe the next um I don't know why they're not on the district calendar or but just to get the word out that those are open to parents and caregivers and students and and we can check with Communications because they did the article and we push the flyer out re here in square thank you moving on to the consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda uh Kelly second from Chrissy all those in favor indicate I I no one's opposed or abstaining okay we're moving on to 9.01 proposed executive session so we have uh two items the discussion of the midyear and year in evaluation

206of the superintendent is there a motion to go into executive session for those two matters thank you Daryl from Cindy any discussion all those in favor please indicate I I and no one's opposed or abstaining so go to Executive session and then we will adjourn with no further public business thank you e