001your life call the meeting to order please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all first item of business is approval or revision of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda for tonight thank you jason second from sherry any discussion all those in favor please state i i anyone opposed or abstaining next on the agenda we have some recognitions tonight so if the vice president will join me evening the board of education is pleased to recognize four teachers who were recently named 2022 new york state master teachers by governor hochul the master teacher program recognizes public school teachers throughout the state who
002are recognized for their dedication to providing the most innovative stem education to their students their commitment to professional growth and their enthusiasm for sharing their successful practices with colleagues in their schools districts and regions join the ranks of seven other fm teachers please join me in recognizing karen gugino third grade teacher at enders road elementary is karen here [Applause] right my offer science fm high school oh you have to quit come on up congratulations thank you very much thank you so much appreciate it thank you [Applause] jennifer palmer kindergarten mott road [Applause] congratulations thank you [Applause] and patricia wingee 8th grade math eagle hill middle school unfortunately she couldn't join us this evening but let's give her a round of applause as well congratulations to each of you the board is proud of having such
003excellent teachers in our district thank you very much next on the agenda is a public hearing for the 2022-23 budget is there a motion to open the hearing thank you rebecca in a second from daryl all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining all right we'll have our public hearing for the budget dr tyson uh mr furlong certainly mr furlong we'll turn it over to you um as the board knows we've adopted the budget all the publications are out and about we've had very little activity on let's talk mr furlong did a great job in terms of our video which has become an annual tradition here since the coven pandemic started i don't think it will be renewed on netflix or up for any uh for any academy awards but at
004least it makes the information available 24 7 365 for anybody that needs to take a look at it mr furlong we'll turn it over to you thank you dr tice so this evening the we will be reviewing the proposed budget that was adopted by the board of education back on april 18th so the first thing we're going to be looking at is revenue side of the budget and it's really made up of three components state aid as enacted by the new york state budget the tax levy limit calculation and resulting tax levy for next year and then we'll be looking at miscellaneous revenues as well we also then turn our attention to the expenditure side the budget and we'll review that in detail we will also cover the bus proposition that is put up before
005voters each year and then we'll talk about the rest of the budget calendar yeah it's not the right one um thanks for bearing with us there so once again we'll be looking at the revenue and expenditure side of the budget one other thing we'll be looking at is a universal pre-k which will be new for the fm school district next september and then last but not least we'll look at voter information that people need to know so as for revenue the state aid once again is based upon the new york state budget that was enacted about four weeks ago we also looking at a tax will be increased that is well below the limit as established under new york state law and lastly we'll be looking at other sources of revenue or what we call
006miscellaneous revenue this first slide is the state aid comparison report and basically lists all the different categories of state aid that we receive each year you can see looking at this list that overall our state aid is up 3.5 million dollars or almost 3.5 million dollars with the most significant increase in the area of foundation aid another item for to note is really the transportation aid category transportation aid is what's called an expense based aid meaning that what we spend on that area this year gets aided next year so if you go back to current year that was based upon the previous year's expenditures and if you remember we were in the hybrid learning mode which meant that our transportation costs were way down and therefore our state aid was down in the current year
007but as we resume normal five-day in-person instruction in the current year it will drive a higher level of transportation aid next year so the second area of revenue for the school district and the most significant is the tax levy the tax levy limit is something that's in new york state law and is basically a multi-step calculation as to how much we can raise taxes each year the first part of that equation is an inflation factor also known as cpi or the consumer price index and while that cpi number was 4.7 for all of last year by law we are capped at no more than 2 percent each year the second factor is what's called a taxable growth factor and that's really new construction within the district the 0.27 percent is actually the lowest it's been
008since the inception of the tax review limited calculation uh last but not least is the capital exclusion and really that's the result of voter approved building projects uh and really the difference between the debt that we're incurring and the level of building aid that we're going to be receiving on those projects there are some other exclusions that really didn't apply for this coming year so the resulting tax over is 2.91 however the levy that we need to balance our budget is 1.8 percent or significantly less than the limit so the resulting tax levy based upon a 1.8 percent increase is 67 million twenty one thousand and sixty three dollars which is an increase of almost one point two million dollars it is really important to note that the tax levy doesn't necessarily relate to what
009the tax rate increase the tax lobby is simply the total amount of taxes collected by the district across the entire district and all its taxpayers the tax rate is really the rate per thousand that people pay and as you can see looking at the last four years a tax heavy increase actually resulted in a tax rate decrease and this is really going to be highlighted this next year because we are seeing some significant increases in our tax base really related to higher home sales this past year home sales were quite high compared to assessed values and that's really driving up assessments and driving up the size of our tax base for next year so this is an example of a taxpayer in the town of manolis that receives a notice that their assessment is going
010up by 13 percent so historically we've looked at tax bills uh in terms of hundred thousand dollars of taxable value so you know in this particular taxpayers case uh they get a notice saying their hundred thousand dollar property is no longer that it's really 113 000. so on top of that we have a tax will be increased 1.8 percent but we conservatively estimate that the tax rate in both the town of manliness and the town of dewitt will be 11 decreasing a quarter percent that's a significant decrease so once again it's really driven by the growth in the tax base so if we would actually calculate the tax bill uh looking at the the current year rate multiply that by a hundred thousand dollars in taxable value the tax bill the resulting tax bill would
011have been twenty five hundred and twenty four dollars and eighty two cents looking at next year uh even though the taxable value be 113 thousand with the rate going down eleven and a quarter percent the resulting rate is about twenty two dollars and almost forty one cents per thousand that resulting tax bill would be two thousand five hundred and thirty two dollars and eight cents an increase of seven dollars and twenty six cents annually um which is really based on you know comparing the two tax bills a point two nine percent increase which is fairly nominal now some people ask well what about town of poppy because we do have a significant population in town pompey and town of pompey is a little bit different in that they do not reassess every year so basically
012their taxable value 100 000 remains 100 000. however they have what's called an equalization rate and that equalization rate um falls as in accordance with the fair market value of that property so you know in the current year the equalization rate in total pompey was .89 meaning they were really assessed at 89 percent of what the real full market value is this coming year their equalization rate and this is very preliminary is expected to be 0.78 or 78 percent so if you did the math you know the fair market value that home at a 78 equalization rate would really be 128 205 dollars so given the tax of the increase of 1.8 percent we once again conservatively estimate that the tax rate in the town of pompey will be increasing by 1.27 percent and that's
013really the result of their equalization rate falling if you do the tax bill calculation again between the current year and next year you'll see that the tax bill increase is thirty six dollars and three cents on that hundred thousand dollar uh taxable value or a one point two seven percent increase all other revenues is a significant list of different items everything from student fees to sales of surplus items other reimbursements that we get throughout the school year and those revenues are usually budgeted and based upon what we get in the last few years so we kind of take a look at it over over time and get a trend and that's basically how we budget so this is a list of all of the revenues and you'll see that um it's a fairly significant list
014you know about 3.5 million dollars this next year i'm going to highlight some of the major increases interest income as the federal government raises their interest rates we're going to see interest rates for us increasing as well medicare and medicaid we receive reimbursements and that is trending more like it is in the current year so we're looking at increasing that in the budget for next year we are utilizing a debt service reserve that's been out there for a number of years and we figured this would be a good year to put that in because it really has the effect of lowering not only the tax hubby limit but the resulting tax levy that we'll be looking for and then last but not least appropriate fund balance fund balance is simply the surplus over time that
015the district has gained and we're looking at increasing the amount that we appropriate to balance the budget from 750 000 to a million one i think important thing to note is the the presentation tonight is really on the general fund budget um there are there is what's called the special aid fund and the special aid fund is not subject to voter approval and in the special aid fund we receive probably a little bit more than half a million dollars in grant money but i just wanted to note that because that does cover some significant expenses in special education and other areas and that's even before we get to the federal stimulus money because if you recall that money in the current year is about 3.9 million dollars and that's also accounted for in the special
016aid fund remember special aid fund because that's going to come back in a few slides this slide is a little bit new we haven't shown this quite this way before but i thought it really highlighted something that we want to see continue you know going back a couple years the fm school district was shorted over 7 million dollars in foundation aid and to their credit the state legislature did increase our foundation aid in the current year by 1.6 million with a promise that they would fully fund that seven million dollars over a three year period of time so we did receive 2.8 million increase this coming year and we expect a 2.8 million the year after but this kind of highlights that when state aid which is the darker green that dropped to about 22
017percent of our overall budget and when that goes down you know the tax levy has to pick up the slack so we're up to around 74 of our annual budget was basically paid for by the taxpayers of this district but if you look at the last two years on this slide this year 2021 i'm sorry 2021-22 is the first year we got the bump in foundation aid and you can see that at the top the amount that we need to balance the budget as a percentage of the budget really is decreasing and you know we're coming down from a high of about 74 needed uh to come from the taxpayers this current year it's down to 68 percent and i would imagine that next year if we do get that 2.8 million dollars that'll drop
018another three to four percent so we're definitely in terms of trending um tax levy down as a percentage of total budget um we're definitely trending down and that's really the result of additional foundation aid so now we'll turn our attention to the expenditure budget and there's really several things that we want to review here you know first and foremost this budget is in direct support of our district strategic plan and does include significant additional funding for mental health services payroll is really based upon proposed staffing levels and takes into account existing collective buying agreements and those are currently under negotiation we have seen some cost increases year to year specifically in health insurance which is probably the single highest line item increase outside of salaries and we're looking at inflation you know as inflation is
019as we see it in our normal personal lives we're seeing as a school district as well there's two other items one is new debt that's the direct result of completion of the wellwood building project and then also we're looking at increasing the budgetary appropriation for what we call capital transfer building projects and we've increased that significantly so the instructional program you know once again we have to present the budget in what's called the three-part format the first part being the instructional program this is a line-by-line comparison of half of the instructional program really the k-12 education or instruction piece as you know the largest single increase is in the area of salaries which should not be any surprise because we are a fairly labor intensive organization if we look at the other areas in the
020instructional program you can see that significant increases are in special education because of an increase in the number of students and being serviced and also you can see down about the fifth line we're guidance health services social worker school psychologist we're increasing that by about 223 000 which is directly directly related to the increase in mental health services in the district for next year one area of inflationary impact is really transportation that is up and almost entirely because of additional diesel fuel prices i think when we first started the school year the week before school started we were paying two dollars and ten cents a gallon for diesel we are up to 459 this week so it's really a significant increase and we had to make allowance in the budget for that the second part
021of the three-part budget is administration this is up under 140 000 uh basically a 2.3 percent increase year to year uh the capital portion is up and there's some pretty significant traffic here part of it relates to the financing of the wellwood project we did take out what's called a bond anticipation note to finish the the financing of the project that note will be retired in june but it will be replaced with long-term debt you can see the difference between the note being retired and the new debt coming on board and once again that's directly related to wellwood you can also see transfer to capital down on the bottom line that money the 450 000 current year is being utilized to replace carpeting that's beyond its useful life at ender's road and replacing that with
022tile flooring and also the repaving or complete the repaving of pride lane so what are we going to do with that increase or that amount of 1.5 million next year well once again this is really a budgetary appropriation and it funds limited scope building projects so there's really three things that we want to accomplish this next year one is to create a more secure front entrance at enders road elementary it's not that the front entrance is really not secure but it's more of the courtyard is really people could pass into the courtyard without going through security we are also looking for some security upgrades at both enders road and fayetteville elementary these are security upgrades that we've already put in place at other buildings within the district and then probably the most significant in terms
023of cost is the improvement of ventilation with the addition of air conditioning at fayetteville elementary those projects pending voter approval and state education department approval probably won't begin until june of 2023 with estimated completion at the end of that summer it is important to note that new york state building aid will cover the lion's share of that cost and will cover 81.1 percent another another area that we want to highlight is employee benefits because this is a significant part of our budget you can see as i mentioned before health insurance premiums are up most significantly on this list by about a million dollars directly related to health insurance premiums going up by six percent uh the overall budget uh that will be asking voters to approve is ninety eight million nine hundred thirty thousand nine
024hundred thirty dollars an increase of about five point five million and it's a fairly significant increase compared to what we um what we normally do or normally see here at fm however if you look at certain items are kind of one time you know the one time debt increase the one one-time capital transfer increase and the increase in special education cost costs if you take those out of the equation uh the increase is really 3.4 which is really more in line with what we usually see here so in order to in order to summarize the proposed budget for next year there's really once again four areas of cost increase as i mentioned before we have contractual and inflationary cost increases we have new debt we have the budgetary appropriation being increased and also we're seeing
025increased costs in the area of special education but what's really uh minimizing that impact on taxpayers is really the state aid increase you know once again our state aid is increasing significantly uh driven main in maine are in large part by the foundation aid formula and we believe that the tax will be increase of 1.8 percent will result in a significant tax rate increase of 11 and a quarter percent in two of our towns with the town of pompey increasing by 1.27 and as always this budget is you know based upon the district strategic plan and there are no current plans to reduce any of the educational programs that we currently offer our students so i remember i mentioned about keeping the special aid fund in the back of our mind here the universal pre-k
026program is another item that would be accounted for in the special special aid fund new york state when they pass their budget is giving us an additional seven hundred twelve thousand eight hundred dollars to fund the universal pre-k program that program would service up to 132 children that are four years of age we currently don't have the space to do that in-house so we basically went out for seeking proposals from entities within the district we did receive a couple proposals those were reviewed and a selection was made and the board of education award contracts at the april 18th meeting the program will begin in september of 2022 coinciding with the beginning of our school year but once again this is has no impact on our proposed budget for this coming year the other proposition that's
027related to school district finance is the bus replacement proposition we typically look at replacing five school buses each year we did increase that by one this coming year just anticipation of universal pre-k program and might need that for additional transportation the total cost of the bus purchase will be eight hundred and eighty six thousand dollars uh we do get uh state aid based on that it's a transportation aid not building aid and we get reimbursed at seventy four point nine percent we do borrow that borrow to pay that those buses off over five years simply because the state will give us the aid over five years and new york state will aid us not only on the principal but also the interest payments as well so this last slide is really related to the school
028budget vote and board of education election once again the universal vote date throughout new york state is may 17th or the third tuesday in may this year i'm sorry third tuesday in may may 17th this year we have the longest hours in new york in terms of vote which is 7 a.m to 6 p.m that vote will be held once again at fayetteville elementary school and if people can't show up in person there are reasons why they can request absentee ballots from our district clerk sarah gridley but in order to get an absentee ballot an application must be filed and that application must be in writing must have a valid signature and those applications basically must be received by one of two dates if you want a ballot to be mailed to you it would
029have to be in by 4 p.m on may 10th which is tomorrow other than that applications can be accepted as late as 4 p.m on may 16th which is the date before the vote but in that case those ballots would need to be picked up in person and then those ballots would need to be returned by 5 pm on the date of the vote or may 17th so with that i'll open up the florida questions bill i just i want to say thank you this is always so clear um but i uh the very last slide i know you know this but it was a slip of the tongue you said that our polls are open 7 a.m to 6 00 p.m and they're open until 9 00 pm just for the sake of the
030public that they have those extra hours i'm sorry did i misspeak i know it was a misspeak but for the sake of the public we're here till 9. 7 a.m to 9 00 p.m yes thank you any additional questions from the board and since the public hearing do we have any questions from the audience did anyone sign up for that part um sarah oh okay question what's the operating cost of the business the question was what is the operating cost of the buses uh to tell you the truth i don't have a number right at my hand right off the top of my head i would have to do some research on that and tell you i mean typically it depends in large part on the cost of the driver cost of mechanics the diesel
031fuel that is used to operate and right now diesel fuel as i mentioned earlier is up to 459 a gallon we started here at 210. so you know it really depends on what point in time you're talking about but if you give me your name and number or email address i could probably get back to you pretty quickly thank you would you like to come up to the mic so everyone can hear you and just give us your name before you ask your question please absolutely my name is christopher mckee i'd like to ask a question about the buses bill um i noticed in every presentation that you guys have given you haven't addressed katherine hoekl's bill that she recently passed about electric buses you also haven't addressed the electric school bus rebate program that
032the federal government has released now i noticed the biggest challenge with electric buses is and i'm getting to my question in a second i know the biggest uh challenge is one us having an infrastructure and then other schools having an infrastructure now putting an infrastructure in place takes nine months to almost two years do we have the capability today to buy electric buses and put them on the street tomorrow you know in answer to the question you know we don't currently have the capability to put buses in you know the legislation was passed by the new york state legislature and signed in the law by governor hoco was about four weeks ago we are collecting a bunch of information which you have already supplied some of that by email but we've also received information from
033two other parties uh that you know we've been in correspondence with uh we did study this a couple years ago and you know really at the time it was cost prohibitive we do know that there's grant money out there but it's it's kind of interesting too is right now there's a lot of discussion what the total cost of the infrastructure is i got an estimate today that was 1.6 million for charging stations alone for our buses which quite frankly i think that's a bit high but i think we're going to be looking at anything we can do to fund those charging stations and the purchase of the buses you know not with taxpayer money but with any grant money that might be available did that answer all your questions i'm sorry i didn't quite hear
034that answer the question so the answer is that is correct we cannot go and buy electric buses right now thank you bill any additional questions is there a motion to close the hearing jason oh that's for the regular um public comment oh yeah i haven't forgot about you guys that was there's two that was a budget hearing public comment and they we're going to have the regular public comment so you guys who signed up i'm going to call you in a few minutes well you have to have a public hearing legally with the budget right and that's for questions related to the budget and then we also do offer a public hearing in general so they're two separate public comment sessions yes you'll get to speak in a few minutes one minute okay so a
035motion to close the hearing thank you jason a second from daryl um any discussion all of the favor please raise your hand akai aye anyone opposed no one's seen okay thank you next on the agenda now we're going to go to our regular public comment session um so public comment is one way in which the members of the public may communicate school district excuse me the public is welcome to call the districts offices anytime with questions or concerns people are allotted three minutes per person for public comment um i think what we should put up there we typically do not respond to statements during public comment but we will make sure that if there is a question someone will reply to you so now for a public comment i'll just call each individual up ike
036would i care do you remember how this works uh yeah yep hello my name is ike wood i like to begin my comment by briefly describing my day to day on my way into first period i was greeted by one of my favorite teachers and shortly after that one of my best friends it was at this moment that i heard a concerning comment i think i would literally rather die than be here today that was the second ultimatum that i heard from a student that ended with suicide because of school this morning like today a normal day on my walk to ap comparative government and politics a class that teaches students the importance of understanding geopolitical government relations and by proxy the institutions that lay within systems which are the makeup of our society structural
037cleavages any possible population index you can think of and i i think you get the point on this short walk to ap comparative i overheard a student call another student a i thought to myself wow i have several learning disabilities and for the first 11 to 13 years of my life i spoke like a broken sims character because i have a speech impediment but that comment is a part of fm's culture a normal day the next class i had was just across the hall after sitting down i heard one of my peers speak about ap calculus the ap calculus exam that was taking place today they said that they felt like a because all of the quote unquote smart kids are taking that exam we're sitting inside of super personal finance a syracuse university course
038that is offered to high schoolers let me rephrase that last part a high schooler is taking a college-level personal finance class for fun and they believe themselves to be a quote unquote that is the culture of our school's academics a normal day next i head to the lunchroom where i overhear a student tell a friend that they wish they had the courage to starve themselves a normal day do you feel stressed yet because this is how nearly every student feels at the school i'm not telling you this to tear down the school in fact i believe the school can fix nearly every issue and i know there are people doing their best however given the past few weeks with testing and day-to-day anxiety i as a student do not feel helped i have not heard
039of any aid being given to students to help combat testing anxiety anxiety stress and mental health is an issue this is not last month's issue this is a permanent inside of our school's culture again i am not attempting to bash the school i'm just emphasizing the danger that you're objecting your students to if there is no action i understand that this time this takes time but i think a lot of students would like to have their voices heard to start you could make a survey or a questionnaire at least that's a start you can learn what your students are suffering and struggling with and then offer solutions but there has to be a start this can happen in under five days you know how i know that because mikey did it in four and he
040got hundreds and hundreds of responses i would like to end my comment with something dr kilmer had said to me once he asked me how the school can know what the students need i told him to just listen i'll say the same thing here just listen we are not a business we are students we are not in the business of education we are education we are students we are your students and your students are suicidal [Applause] thank you ike if you want to if you had additional comment that you weren't able to say ike you can pass it along to us or through hannah or just email it directly to us we'll make sure we look at it thank you um christopher mckee my name is chris mckee i uh emailed the powerpoint presentation of
041the board earlier today i'm going to try and get through this all right basically the school is going to be facing funding challenges as the as we continue increase in special needs students identification of one and identification has gone from one in 154 to one in 44 this is expected to triple over the next five years budgetary costs the other is clean uh school buses 2035 which we've already talked about so i'm going to skip that mental health it's estimated one in five kids experience issues only sixty percent receive treatment and then change in learning next slide is about the current procurement life cycle no government agency can do major procurement in less than three months to one year uh the next slide is basically about the ballot school buses we already talked about it
042and the uh current bus yard that needs to be completely revamped the epa clean school bus rebate program which is being tossed around is prioritized for school bus replacements in areas that have historically underserved communities with a poverty rate of 20 percent more in families so chances of getting that this year zero what grants we can apply for one autism and special needs six hundred thousand under the addm early phase grant four million dollars mid-phase grant eight million dollars republic american infrastructure with sustainable and quality raise grant not one person in the state of new york excuse me i'm sorry not one person in central new york has ever applied for this grant not one school district not one town but yet over other three thousand other public uh entities have applied for these everything
043from improving trails walkways sidewalks better roads solar storm water drainage bike improvements charging infrastructure and solar that you will need for buses put a map in there so you guys can see it since 2015 the program has been in place not one from cmy last school violence prevention program most importantly they've opened it up to schools 500 000 specialized training for school officials and responding to mental health crisis and the new york state ready program which will allow us to build out our infrastructure and that's basically it if anybody wants copy of the slides they can contact the school board or myself at elect chris mckee gmail.com donald hugh hughes hang on hang on thank you i need my specs i'm an old guy with bad eyesight since fourth grade so hang on [Music] okay
044so i'm don hughes and i'm the conservation chair of the sierra club local group central northern new york and we serve a 12-county area in central new york northern new york i wish to address one of the proposals which is specifically about these diesel buses which we've heard so much about and i'd like to encourage all of you on the board to think carefully about the implications of this proposal i understand it's already on the ballot you probably can't remove it from the ballot but i you can as board members go out there and tell the voters to vote no you should vote no why are we buying diesel buses well why shouldn't we buy diesel buses there are many reasons first and foremost is protecting the health of our children one key mission of
045the district is to create an environment supports the wellness of each child each student children especially small children are susceptible to air pollutants diesel buses emit a host of air pollutants in the form of tiny particles called pm 2.5 these particles lodge deep within the lung tissue and are leading cause of asthma they're linked to neurological problems and i'll go into that later my student gave me some information diesel exhaust is considered a probable human carcinogen so just think about that secondly you there is money you've heard about governor hochul's commitment we're supposed to convert to electric buses by 2035. there is money available from the us epa starting on may 15th for three months and here's the numbers a typical diesel bus costs 120 thousand dollars a typical this is type c school bus
046for electric is three hundred and fifty thousand dollars lot more incremental cost two hundred and thirty thousand dollars us epa through the infrastructure investment act will cover that all of it you have to buy chargers too they'll cover 80 percent of that this is urgent folks climate change is already affecting our country and others around the world the american west is experiencing its worst drought in at least 1200 years that's as far back as the ice rings the tree rings go we've got billion dollar hurricanes billion dollar wildfires and let me just inform you in case you don't know why it's so important to stop burning fossil fuels because and i teach this subject at lemoine every ounce of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere stays there for hundreds of years hundreds of years
047it does not go away it will continue to warm the planet it will continue to impact our children's lives it's a disaster unfolding in front of us let's stop it as soon as we can thank you very much mr hughes um michael i always miss financial last name i don't want to do that oh yang did i say it right michael oh young see there you go all right hi michael how are you doing how are you doing i'm writing you dear board of education i wanted to follow up with a few things in reflection to everything that has happened in the past three or four weeks first of all it was never my intention to point fingers at anyone on the at the last board meeting i was extremely emotional from jay's recent passing
048and the on look of egregious statistics of fm students mental health and i said things about fm that i don't necessarily necessarily believe namely that fm may facilitate a toxic learning environment that attributes to many students suicidal ideations in retrospect i don't think that that was fair to say at all i didn't want to put the burden of jay on anyone and in the heat of everything i ended up blaming the school and that is kind of why i want to speak here again not just because i want to say sorry not because i want to prove this is a cause i will always believe in but also because three weeks ago i framed this like the school could be blamed when in reality innumerable factors that we may never know added to jay's mental
049illness so that is why i wanted to that is what i wanted to clear up that it came on april 18th to solely speak for the students and provide information that cannot be ignored those are my only intentions and time after giving that speech an extensive conversation with mrs green has brought me to the understanding that the whole student body needs to know that us and the school are on the same team and we need to work together to get anything done i realize that i can't lay down a problem as monumental as this on the ground and not offer to extend my hand so to dr kimwear to any of the high school administration i would love to help conduct or support surveys or even give my input on what i think would be
050most effective for helping the students especially after i've spoken to so many privately through my instagram page for example ike and i would love to see a mental health awareness walk on the turf happen for will got held and j lou with the help of the administration especially because they are the only ones that have the power to fit into the end of the school year with such short notice however along with walks and major events and advocacy of students mental health i am in full support of very small things like small informative ways to spread the mental health resources that are offered to every student it is now the time of solutions and mrsa green alluded to creating small fixes here and small fixes there to ultimately make huge change in the next few
051months or years additionally i would like to add that throughout everything that was happening in the past eight weeks i still didn't know who my family school liaison was it was only until i realized i didn't know who she was when mrs green informed me of mrs biondo and i am positive students still are unaware of who she is in terms of solutions mrs green and i were talking about putting the family school liaison's room number and name on the back of school ids instead of the suicide hotline number because in my opinion that would most likely be more effective to students again i just wanted to i just thought i would share my opinion and reflection on last board meeting i also applaud the immediate efforts that the administration has been doing in response
052to everything such as finding new liaisons family school liaisons and informational suicide awareness presentations but with a problem like mental illness there is always more that can be done from the students parents and the school thank you for your time have a good night thank you michael uh deborah is it the socio thank you that's good hi i'm deb de socio i reside in the fm school district or someone went through the schools here i'm on the conservation committee of the sierra club also okay whether we like it or not the future is here to be electric a recent proposal by governor have kathy hokel states in a five-year period to 2027 already pays diesel buses will be replaced by electric school buses the whole fleet of new york buses will be electric by 2035
053so let's get on this on to this clean air is a wave of the future and will have a positive impact on the natural world the health of our children and adults niosh recommends the whole diesel exhaust be regarded as a potential occupational carcinogen in accordance with osha cancer policy so the expanse of renewable energy will yield cost advantage that cover the incremental costs of conversion to electric buses there are also grants to cover the cost of upgrading electrical facilities and including charging stations the money's out there so you i know you're starting to look at it and i think it's imperative that it happens sooner than later now is the time to be proactive and vote no on the upcoming ballot if it doesn't include some electric school bus initiatives please realize the school
054board can take advantage of all these incentives while the money is there we should be open to new possibilities and this is important issue for the health of everyone the humanity and the natural world thank you um jennifer fiore she couldn't make it she's my student and if you don't mind i'd like to read just from her paper she at the last minute she just she it's the end of the semester and she had a conflict okay thank you so she did up she did a paper for my class it's a review of pm 2.5 that's that's jargon for particulate matter that's less than 2.5 microns in in size so it's really tiny stuff upon inhalation particulate matter can enter the lungs and impair respiratory function this effect is amplified in children who spend more
055time outside and are still developing as a result a child's quality of life can be impaired even throughout adulthood due to early childhood exposure of this environmental pollutant pm 2.5 has been documented as having effects on the brain development of fetuses in a recent study of 539 mother child pairs from mexico city it was found that a mother's exposure to air pollution first trimester resulted in their child developing behavioral problems which was discerned was was determined during assessments of the children at the ages of four to six it was also revealed by the research that mothers were exposed to pm 2.5 can lead to neurological effects in the developing fetus due to oxidative stress following birth pm 2.5 exposure will continue to affect a child's development data from 9 to 10 year olds found the
056chronic exposure ranging from won't give you the numbers it impaired brain development mri technology found that hemispheric brain changes including cortical thickness and surface area hendricks of hindrance of adequate brain volume development was caused by exposure to pm 2.5 additional studies revealed a variety of supporting evidence occurrence of lowered cognition greater chance of neurodegradation neurodegeneration cellular inflammation risk of aptosis and impairment of mitochondrial functioning all these things increases they increase the risk of anxiety depression and other mental health problems which we've heard about today including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder one really odd thing that i learned from her was that research has shown that these particles enter your nose they don't just go into your lungs but they actually travel directly into your brain via the olfactory nerve pretty creepy stuff so again we encourage
057you to get off the diesel habit thank you and that was everyone that we had signed up for public comment okay next on the agenda item 1.07 um the public hearing and adoption of the code of conduct will be at our next regular board meeting the 2022-23 code of conduct is available for a review 2.01 president's report um one of the things that we were looking at was the restorative justice um as part of our goal so i did receive um information from someone who may be able to work with us as part of our retreat that we have that we're planning to give a presentation on restorative justice that's been on our agenda for a couple years a year at least more than a year now so i wanted to make sure we actually
058had some movement on that before the end of the school year um and then just a reminder that your superintendent evaluations are due tomorrow so please get those done i'll do mine tonight all right next um superintendent's report dr tice thank you the update is in your board docs under strategic planning capital project updates our planning in the area facilities continues to move forward with weekly meetings on the design of the high school for the recently approved capital improvement project the weekly meetings as you know have addressed mechanical plumbing electrical infrastructure improvements as well as instructional upgrades the oecm team has secured the services of yet another acoustical engineering firm to provide a second opinion regarding the solutions for the high school auditorium as mentioned before the architects have submitted the schematic design to state
059ed and they along with the construction management team we're reconciling the initial cost estimates for the construction project so they can report back to the facilities committee under upk the communication for the upk registration has been mailed and the team is preparing to host a lottery at the end of may beginning of june in the event that the number of registrations exceed the number of available seats under dei as mentioned before our district administrators are working with faculty and staff to better understand state l state ed's culturally responsive sustaining education framework the framework especially the first tenet of welcoming and affirming environment will be part of the conversation at the upcoming may 17th professional learning day i've put the covet update here rather than as a separate report so with the fourth quarter underway we
060are over 1300 confirmed cases in the school district with 770 coming at the middle and high school level and about 533 excuse me at the elementary level since the mass mandate was lifted on march 2nd we have witnessed 595 positive cases through the district with the majority coming at wellwood 161 in the high school 151. as far as symptomatic update since the start of the year we've sent home about 955 students this includes 306 students at the high school level and about 130 students at each of the middle and elementary buildings prior to march 2nd we had 558 students who were sent home since march 2nd we have witnessed 379 students we will continue to monitor the data under surveillance testing we continue to collaborate with onondaga county since the inception of the program we
061have sampled 2758 individuals which includes 1600 students and about 1100 faculty and staff with a having 13 reported pool positive cases in the portal at the beginning this number of surveillance positives has nearly tripled since the mass mandate was taken off and we've had 22 more positives for a total of 35 since march 2nd that ends my initial report questions for dr tyce yeah i had a few questions i was curious um the reason for the second opinion on the auditorium for the high school project certainly we just want to make sure uh there's a couple solutions whether to do it in terms of technology and speakers and microphones or to be able to look at a full redesign with that center area obviously the architectural solutions will cost more than the speakers so the
062first consultant recommended speakers we just want to make sure we've got a second opinion to make sure we are operating in the most prudent way for the taxpayers my second question was with respect to the dei update and the professional learning day on may 17th is it possible for the board to either um attend any portion of that or otherwise just be privy to the information that was shared just so we can continue to understand yeah i'd be happy to provide an update to that i know that the building principles with the help of dr coughlin and john and johnson have released the information to the different buildings i know they're doing breakout groups as part of that but dr coughlin and i would be happy to report back and john johnson as well question
063to relate to the covet updates uh all three of your statistical updates talk about how since the masks came off our numbers have really increased and you say we will continue to monitor is there a either an end date or a plan about this monitoring knowing that the taking masks off had some sort of effect on the students certainly i think with the masks coming off it coincided with the arrival of the omicron variant and others so certainly that's something i think the new york state department of health and the county have been monitoring ironically we didn't plan this interaction but today new york state department of health adjusted the dashboard portal so it's asking for less information now so i think they're getting ready to start backing out of this information so the numbers
064here and actually i just updated with one of the last elementary schools reporting so if you refresh your browser you can have the updated report because i'm just obsessed with getting the right numbers in there but uh that is you know we're reporting on a daily basis that's reflected not only in the state dashboard but the updates that our communications team puts on the website but i do see that given what happened today winding down over the course of the next few weeks so you're saying we will stop even though cases increased when the masks came off we're just going to stop monitoring it is that where we're going no we're continuing to monitor with what tools we have at our disposal what i was trying to say is they're taking some of the tools
065away from us and the time ahead for example they're no longer doing the contact tracing it was just on the attestation we've got a wonderful community that continues to give us a heads up to the building administrators so we entered into the portal we had quite a few today if you looked at the earlier iteration of this report it said 1269 confirmed cases with today's entry it went up to 300 or 1303 so we're trying to keep a pulse on it and i'm trying to give you the most updated information at the board meeting so if you look at the state ed portal tomorrow morning after it refreshes at midnight it should say 1303 instead of the 1269. so people are tracking it it's just i'm finding that there's they're starting to back out they
066close the virtual call center the vcc so i believe i put in the thursday letter the backup information indicating that between county and state are you know we're getting less information at our level so again it wouldn't surprise me if it winds down by the end of the year dr the um postcards you referred to do we use the census for that and so if children have made it into the census turn it over to our district clerk do you want to say a word yes the postcards for the upk are going to families that have three plus year olds the postcards are going to all district residents so everyone who received a budget newsletter in their mailbox over the last few days or will soon receive one will also receive a upk postcard shortly
067because again we don't have some of those pre-registrations what will be interesting as we go forward this information i think as we move ahead will help inform the incoming kindergarten students as well so it's a little awkward right now we're just trying to cast the net broadly but i do think it'll pay dividends down the road i did have one more question with respect to kovid um there there was some community input that the high school is still social distancing for lunch um six feet apart at desks and i understand that that's not happening at at least the elementary level i'm just curious is there any coordination among which which schools are doing what in terms of the social distancing piece we talked a little about it at cabinet to try to ensure consistency among
068the elementary buildings i can give the high school and dr kilmer a call to see what they're doing there but i think the intent as dr gupta said at the last meeting was to try to stay firm for the rest of the year and then things on a positive note because as ms lindar's indicated there's still an uptick in the virus after that uptick drops off i agree we probably can shuffle the deck a little but i think because things have been rising the intent that dr gupta wanted was us to stay true to what we set up and bothered to do the whole year and to finish strong and i'm not advocating for specifics i just i do know that there's some differences at different levels so i'd love to see some equity or
069consistency for our students most importantly we were seeing a little bit of a difference at the elementary school level so that was part of the cabinet discussion last week okay we'll move on to dr tyson's second report on mental health services thank you president mims as you know the board asked for an update on mental health support as of our last meeting so this is short and sweet but i think indicative of a lot of work under the first tier three support update dr kilmer ms green and yours truly met with the school district's tier three clinical partner dr melissa carman at her office to the discuss the expansion of the tier 3 supports for next year in addition to other services that our office could provide the meeting was very productive and laying the
070foundation for the upcoming school year under family school liaison update mr gordon and ms evans are in the process of interviewing for the two additional family school liaisons that were included in the budget for this current uh the current budget for the upcoming school year and last but not least mental health first aid training the district office administrative team is looking to schedule in-person mental health first aid training for all staff during the staff development days near labor day additional follow-up and more in-depth training is something we're also exploring possibly for later in the autumn on the november 8th professional development day that ends my report questions for dr tyson so craig just to be clear um for the budget for next year if it were not to pass we would not be able to
071fill those two family liaisons positions correct technically there is new money in the budget but if the budget were not to pass we could still as a board go out for a second budget vote or we could operate and adopt a contingency budget which would mean mr furlong a cut of about you couldn't be more exact on that i'm teasing of course but yeah that's the increase in the tax levy so in that we can make decisions on where to cut so as we all know facilities has scheduled some transfer to capital projects so we could end up cutting that to try to save these additional positions so it isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion that the additional positions would be cut there could be other things that could be on the chopping block ahead of
072that thank you so just to clarify the family school liaison positions or are designated for the high school or the district-wide right now we've increased it just like we did with our cyros and spos over time so there wouldn't be sticker shock to any particular budget so we started out with two family school liaisons and moved to four this will give us a total of six with the idea that they could start in each of the buildings rather than have to share between buildings and then based on their caseload migrate to whatever building is in need of the additional support so we still see the staff being shared but at least they can hang their hat and each of the buildings to start the day that may not be where they end the day and
073one other thought or question about the mental health first aid training i think it's it's wonderful that that will be in place for staff i'm wondering if that's something we could expand to students if appropriate and i'm sure it would be tailored to student learning but it seems like it would be great for everybody in the community to to have that training a great question and we didn't plan this ahead of time spoiler alert the idea was to start with the staff at labor day and then we've been talking with dr carmen on what that might look like later on in the autumn both for students and staff so what are the different options there was a program that was mentioned but we want to do a little more exploration into it but a great
074idea where everybody's thinking alike to try to equip everybody with a tool kit to at least be able to help any additional questions for dr dice okay we'll move on to 2.04 committee and representative updates let's see i'm going to move past audit you do as you probably read in your documentation our claims auditor has resigned her position so we will be interviewing in the near future we'll keep keep you posted thank you anything new from community relations there hasn't been a meeting since march has there okay um the dei committee met on the second kelly's not here but um sherry do you have anything or daryl i don't have my i didn't bring right now that's okay all right thank you okay no problem um facilities committee i met on may 5th um dan
075is not here does anyone from facilities want to update the board yeah i'm sure marissa uh just a couple of quick things so as dr thais kind of alluded to in his um president's report earlier we're anxiously waiting to hear back on what the cost estimate is and where the initial roll-up is going to come into um you know and really we're you know hands are tied until we get that information but we should have it i believe dr twice in the next two to three weeks june the second is the new date that we hope to have it and so that'll be our first blush roll up as to where we think that where we're going with the high school and and hopefully we'll come in at the number or below that's always the
076goal um and then secondly in the latest facilities uh meeting on the fifth we did talk a little bit about uh electronic or electric buses and basically the facility upgrades that are required and so we've started you know definitely started that process um again as craig alluded to earlier but we're definitely taking a look at it and trying to push that process forward and again i know jason knows this this is the first estimate of schematic design we will get additional stabs added later on but this is the first ballpark figure that the facilities committee will take a look at before we hit other milestones like design development and construction documents as we get ready to go out for bid thank you any additional questions for facilities all right finance park did you have anything
077nothing new to report okay eleanor policy nothing new to report we are still trying to schedule a meeting before the end of the year and legislative liaison sherry at our last board meeting we discussed that we want to advocate both to well for three things for the veterans and exemption for electric buses some additional funding from the state and for the religious holidays s um 151 um and then in talking with marissa and dr tice we decided that uh the first two the advocacy for the veterans exemption and the electric buses those could actually be resolutions that we propose uh to act to nisba um and so with the board's permission i'll go ahead and go forward with writing those resolutions the advocacy for religious holidays that can be a direct letter to our representative
078manian to ask can we please move this out of committee and get some vote voting going ahead on that so do we want to go ahead and write some resolutions work on those i mean all right i don't mind learn something new okay and hannah is not here this evening so we will move on to item 3.01 approval of the minutes from april 18th is there a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held on monday april 18th as presented thank you mark is there a second thank you daryl any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed stating next item 3.02 policy in second reading is there a motion that would be resolved the board of education the fable and central school district approved the diversity equity and inclusion
079policy in second reading is there a motion thank you mark second from sherry any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or stated yes that's a long time coming there we go uh board development still working on getting those re the retreat date out to everyone um let's see working agenda items sherry just went over a number of these the veterans tax exemption advocating for that to be funded um the electric bus transition we've talked a bit about that as well as senate 151 and then updates from students so we just actually had two students speak tonight which is wonderful and heard some updates from dr tais and we'll continue to have that mental health update on the agenda marissa i just for the electric bus transition i am just interested
080to know what of what our work would be as a working agenda item um how will we keep this on the radar how will you know how will we kind of just keep this moving forward in terms of the investigation a lot of the work's going to be at the administrative level but i would just hope that we can keep digging into it to understand what that transition could look like and what a timeline could look like because there's a lot of community interest in it well i think we have the we have the deadline the time frame to have this completed by and we are starting now with looking into the facilities aspect of it but i think what we need to have as a board is a it's a time frame and a
081plan of course not like right away not immediately because the legislation was approved three months ago two months ago okay three weeks ago so we're not expecting you to whip out a proposal and facilities in three weeks um but i think we need to have something we begin to have a plan so that we are ready and that would include advocacy that would include looking into how we're going to fund this um and then getting updates as we do as part of dr tyson's report would it be possible dr thais to have that on the on the um pres on the superintendent's report when when you have some new information to share just as a bullet yeah as we ramp up definitely one thing to note is the proposition that's up before voters is for
082the total amount to be spent and authorization to borrow that money it doesn't say what buses we have to buy so if we were able to get all of our ducks in a row we could utilize those funds to purchase an electric bus so i just want to make sure that was clear yeah a very good point bill i just want to add i mean we have to maintain a schedule of rep bus replacement in order to serve all of our kids that is so you know regardless of whether it's electric i know we researched propane in the past um gas diesel it's imperative that we have buses available so and as a central school district we are required to provide transfers right so to your point you know regardless of the exact type we
083need buses for our kids so and as you know too we added an additional bus this year because of the upk so we are trying to be good stewards and to ramp up for that you know bill i don't know if you wanted to comment any further but you know we did have a brief discussion in facilities um about this as well and just even thinking about charging stations where they would be when you're traveling to another district are they going to have charging stations what the maximal allowable distance is to travel before you run out of charge you need to make sure you get the kids back to the district so i'm sure for quite some time they'll probably combination of hopefully electric and then we're still going to have to have those gas
084fuel buses as well for the longer distance sporting events field trips and anything else that may come up where the destination that they're going to does not have a charging station that can be used yeah it's all in his point and to address your concerns rebecca this has been extensive discussions and because it will entail capital improvements i'm assuming to our buildings we are going to have to have some type of public vote whether it's through the regular budget for a capital transfer or you know a separate future vote so it's not like we can just go and start this right away as bill alluded to this was just passed four weeks ago so unfortunately we can't turn the titanic on a dime you know this is going to take some thoughtfulness and time yeah
085and i i think that's great there that there's a lot of work being done it's it's always great to just share that information with the public um as as interest is is high and that infrastructure will not just have to be at the bus garage it'll have to be at the individual buildings as ms romano stated because the travel with the athletic teams coming in so we're going to have to be able to charge the visiting team's buses i mean there are school districts even within our area here without calling them out that are looking at and needing two electric buses to replace one diesel bus so it isn't necessarily a one-for-one swap given the rectangular shape of the districts the number of hills the cold weather that we all deal with in central new
086york so you know for some people they're just saying it's a difference of one-to-one but in order to make it operational they will need two buses for every one diesel two electric for every one diesel just to make it a reality they're gonna have to divide the roots in half okay item 4.03 potential considerations for future meetings then moving to dates 2 remember so nice to see all these concerts and awards night is on the 26th great to see all that athletic awards in the 14th and graduation back at src arena on june 17th okay next on the agenda item 6.01 is there a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment history of an individual thank you rebecca and a second for mark any discussion all those in favor
087please indicate i uh anyone opposed or abstaining all right so we're going to go into exec and then we're going to come back out to vote on the consent agenda so hopefully this will be a short exact so that we don't keep the public waiting too long right um we back live okay thank you jason you know i'm just going to go ahead went to get his wife okay seven is there a motion to approve the consent agenda thank you elena a second from rebecca all those in favor please stay die aye anyone opposed or abstaining one abstention thank you daryl and finally there a motion to adjourn thank you mark second from daryl any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i aim when opposed or abstaining meeting's adjourned