001good evening we'll call the meeting to order please join me for the pledge of allegiance next on the agenda is approval or revision of the agenda is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented thank you daryl in a second from kelly any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining next on the agenda item 1.04 public comment is one way in which members of the public may communicate with the school district on any subject the public is welcome to call the district offices at any time with questions or concerns the board is allocated three minutes per person for public comment and maintains a prerogative to limit the number of comments in any particular meeting issues involving particular students or employees are not appropriate topics during the public comment
002session employee or student concerns should be addressed to the superintendent the board or an administration typically does not respond to comments during the public comment section you may be directed to call the appropriate personnel to follow up your concerns there will be a timer that is on the screen to let the speakers know how much time that they do have left our first person for public comment elena or elena baffett she here okay circle back forgive me for mispronouncing this michael weiss cotton no okay dominic barr hi my name is dominique barr and i'm a resident of fayetteville an active member in the community though i didn't attend school in the fm district three of my siblings did and my daughter is a third grader at fayel i am the assistant director of the school-aged
003child care program at the fayetteville ymca and this means i interact with children at every school at the elementary level which brings me to the topic i want to discuss tonight last month was black history month and i'd like to discuss how it was celebrated within the district on february 15th the administration released an article to the community detailing what was being done within the district fortunately this article was full of half-truths stating that the district was acting in a way that it wasn't the intent of the article was positive no doubt but the message was lost in the execution the article stated that class time is being used to further education on black leaders and history makers that were referenced during the morning announcements i personally talked to 20 students as well as my
004daughter all who have attended the three elementary schools and all but one reported little to no engagement in black history subsequent to these said announcements i come to you the board asking for more oversight on the diversity and equity equity initiatives that the district is promoting i was ecstatic to see what the district had planned for this year's black history month and i was disappointed with the end result but i am invested in the social emotional educational well-being of the children in this district and we need to do better i chose to speak today because it is our job as parents and community members to keep the administration accountable thank you charles white mary cunningham okay um i sent a letter to all the board members and an attachment and i'm not sure if you've
005had a chance to look at it i hope so um i guess i was just going to read some of it into the record which is that i know that you are working through diversity equity and inclusion i already call it uh audit um and i hoped that you would look at that when i present i wanted to be very clear that those four pages of documents of laws that both federal state or all federal state and local governments have enacted is not what on the list to teach but it's looking at that list and seeing what does it infer what does it tell us about how racism how prejudice how bias has colored our decisions as a society since its its beginning and continuing through fayetteville and manly as our perfect examples of how
006that history has played itself out um and so oops let me just get back to this um this is a very partial list of which of which federal state and local governments and agencies have worked um and what i'm hoping is that um as you let's close that and then go back here what i wanted to know note is that we need we have that is accurate history and we need as teachers as educators as schools as administrators we need to be committed to teaching accurate history and that means supporting our teachers to teach accurate history and recognize that those all those laws have affected the way we build the society around them whether you teach them those laws or not certainly that's not the point that they learn four pages of laws but that
007they learn that there has been federal state and local government uh support for that behavior for that kind of division and that it's nothing new that's important and it's important that we defend our teachers who do that that we see as administrators in the school that we have to we can't change our trajectory if we don't know what we've done in the past and so we really need people to understand what our history has been some parents seem concerned that teaching an accurate history of this country will make their child feel uncomfortable or guilty for them this provides enough reason to avoid teaching about difficult subjects it is important to remember that there are many children who are uncomfortable thank you um next uh jim mckeever or mckay i'm sorry if i mispronounce your name
008thank you for this opportunity good evening my three sons graduated from fm more than a decade ago and have taken full advantage of that privilege to have successful lives and careers two in education one in art they had great teachers at mott road wellwood and high school my middle son chuck mckeever class of 08 followed in the footsteps of one of his favorites dr james hunt and appeared on jeopardy last november but i'm concerned about a different kind of jeopardy one that is a growing danger that threatens educators and school board members around the country as you well know they are being verbally attacked harassed vilified on social media accused of the crime of exposing young people to historical facts in classic literature among other things books are being banned because they might make students
009or their parents uncomfortable i'll pick on my middle son again he's a teacher and union organizer in seattle who immediately after college went um to live and teach in the marshall islands in the pacific for an entire year he lived on an island with 200 people teaching children ages 6 to 14 1st grade through 8th grade he chose to do this because he had teachers and parents who taught him that the world is bigger than he is that there are people out there who need our help in solidarity and that the world is about more than our personal comfort some facts the marshall islands served as a u.s thermonuclear bomb test site in the 1940s and 50s in 1954 the castle bravo detonation caused widespread cancer and birth defects among the marshallese including jellyfish babies
010born without skeletons babies born with heads the size of grapes the tests continued by 1958 we had detonated 67 thermonuclear bombs in the pacific more than a half century later two of the marshall islands remained uninhabitable because of radiation chronic health problems like kidney disease persist there and among the marshallese in the u.s the u.s government tried to deny the human suffering in the martial islands as it did a decade earlier in japan until john hersey's masterpiece hiroshima was published our children need to learn these facts at the appropriate time in the appropriate manner they need to be aware of our history and the history of other nations not just to learn from mistakes but from cruelty the marshallese by necessity are great navigators their word for the bottom of their boat is the same
011as the word for kindness and they have an expression kindness is life cruelty is death yes learning about cruelty and death can be should be uncomfortable but young people are resilient and inquisitive they deserve to know what happened and why in the marshalls 70 years ago and in places like wilmington north carolina in tulsa 1916 selma 1965 etc will these students learn to hate america no i think they'll learn to love it enough to prevent these things from happening again i ask that you stand by the teachers annalina davis hi i'm here to talk about something different today well i think the eye initiatives are very important and i have emailed and expressed support for your continuing work with that i'm here to talk about buses i'd like to ask the fm school district to
012consider replacing older buses in our fleet with electric buses with recent and upcoming funding initiatives our school district can get nearly 100 percent of the cost of conversion to electric school buses covered and future operation costs could be halved as a parent and taxpayer in this district i'd like to see the school district to take steps to reduce emissions and save money while doing so now is the time to be proactive so we can take advantage of the initiatives while they last um you probably have heard this if you've read my email to you but i'll keep going i understand this would be a big project take on but we have great local resources at our disposal that we should be taking advantage of clean communities of cny works with school districts at no charge
013to help them learn about the many incentives available to replace old diesel buses with electric buses they can help us get 100 of the incremental costs covered get grants to cover the cost of upgrading electrical facilities and installing charging stations and turn this into a net positive cash flow for the district many school districts across the country across the country have already made the switch let's join them and be a leader in central new york we could reduce emissions bus drivers love the quiet buses because they can actually hear the kids on their bus kids could learn from this in many ways and if we take advantage of current funding sources we could save money while doing so before i left my house today my six-year-old said we could also make the air cleaner and
014i said yeah that's right that's exactly why i'm going there to talk to them today so i don't know maybe you're already working on this but if not and i know we just bought more diesel buses last year but if you're not i would love for uh to hear that you guys are coming up with a plan to switch to electric and reach out to barry carr he's a friend of a friend of mine he works for cny let's see if i can get his email here for you he works for the clean communities of cny he can be reached at coordinator cc of cny.com and he'll just come meet with you he's working with a district in frederick fredericksburgberg maryland right now another one in pennsylvania he works all over he knows what he's
015doing so that's that's all i ask thanks thank you i'm going to circle back is ellen a basset here now dealing with the toddler tantrum apologies for being late um thanks for the opportunity to speak with you today my name is elena de la garza bassett i am an fm alumni a parent to two young kids who will be in the fm school district and an aunt two nieces who attend fail in wellwood i'm also a clinical psychologist and i work with adults on healing the long lasting effects of childhood trauma and adversity including bullying exclusion and identity-based discrimination like many of you i've been watching and reading in horror estates across the country have been pushing laws attacking the rights of lgbtq children denying transgender students access to a bathroom consistent with their gender
016identity excluding trans youth from athletic activities even prohibiting schools and teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity can you imagine a child who's questioning their sexual orientation at a young age who's brave enough to talk about it at school being shut down by a teacher every child has the right to be included respected and represented at school excluding lgbtq people sends the message that they're not welcome that they're wrong or that they're inferior these assaults on the freedom and dignity of youth and families target an already marginalized community lgbtq kids risk of suicide is far greater than their peers especially if they've experienced discrimination lgbtq youth of color and transgender and non-binary youth are particularly vulnerable to suicide while i hope that fm would never consider similar policies this tide of anti-lgbtq sentiment is
017undoubtedly affecting our kids and discrimination towards this community is hardly new more than 70 percent of lgbtq students report experiencing harassment based on their sexual orientation nearly 55 percent report harassment based on their gender expression more than half of these students report hearing homophobic remarks from teachers or school staff creating an equitable and inclusive school environment is not a political agenda it's essential to saving lives suicide rates drop dramatically if kids have support we can't just hope that promoting kindness will be enough we need actual school policies and curriculum that affirm each student's individual identities and embrace lgbtq representation we can't rely solely on individual teachers to step up even especially when they might face criticism for doing so standardizing these best practices at age appropriate levels would not only benefit lgbtq students and families
018by validating their existence and their experiences it would benefit all students by promoting acceptance building understanding and empathy and teaching kids how to connect with and respect people with diverse identities all students deserve to feel safe welcomed and represented in their schools we must develop and implement policies to promote inclusion to send clear messages to gay lesbian bisexual transgender queer and gender non-conforming students teachers and families that they are seen and that they belong in our community and our kids lives quite literally depend on it thank you is michael weiss cotton here now and how about charlie white okay dan rail good evening for those who don't know me i'm dan realm i'm a long time physical education teacher at enders road in the spring of 1992 my soon-to-be fiancee and i drove up route
019173 to fm high school for me to interview for football coaching position we were in our red sports car thus began my career at fm this winter my wife and i drove up route in a minivan to hand in my retirement paperwork thus my began the end of my career at fm in those 30 years at fm several times throughout each year we would get a nice note an email a token of appreciation from the superintendent and or the board of education thanking us for all we do come on to the mercy how do i thank you from superintendent phil martin dr corliss kaiser and dr craig tice and board of education members past and present fm has seen changes the board has made different decisions that have impacted fm's motto of going good to
020great to building upon excellence from budgets curriculum personnel and more decisions that you and other board education members in the past have made you have led us through good times and not so good times as a teacher and more importantly as a parent i've always emphasized politeness saying please and thank you and you're welcome como how do i thank you you may not hear it enough but thank you superintendents assistant superintendents staff work staff support athletic directors and director of pe rich roy and scott sugar to make fm a recognized and award-winning school district on the county state and national level it does take a village it is bittersweet ending to my career at fm it was never a job from the 11 000 plus students and their families it's been a blessing to have
021had the opportunity and to teach and get to know all them and to see how they have grown over the years and to see what they have done in their present life the seniors walked through the elementary school i would hear mr elm you're still here to mr rayom you're still here also it was humbling to have children of former students that i taught during gymnastics our parents would come in and volunteer and during gym class they would always say it was never like this mr ram thank you very much for all you've done for our district and our children sarah and evan say hello thank you very much okay next on the agenda item 2.01 the preliminary budget review mr furlong good evening everyone you always seem to give me a tough act to
022follow so this evening we're going to be looking at the first time we look at the 22-23 school year preliminary budget so the agenda for this budget review is to first take a look at the revenues based on current estimates that includes the state aid based on the governor's executive budget proposal for next year we'll be looking at our tax levy limit calculation we'll be looking at miscellaneous revenues what we're projecting for those and then we'll switch to the expenditure side of the budget and we'll be looking at expenditures in detail followed by the bus proposition and lastly the budget calendar for the remainder of this budget season so general overview first and foremost the budget maintains all existing programs and is in alignment with the district's strategic plan as always there's basically four areas
023that are driving budget increases this next year first we have new debt coming on related to recently completed building projects we also have an increase in the budgetary appropriation to do some capital project work next year and then we've had some increases in the area of special education our special education population is up and therefore costs are up uh the remaining budget increase is really driven by contractual salary increases and also inflationary cost increases and we'll talk about that i think everybody's seeing that in their own personal lives right now the tax levy increase is projected to be around 2.7 percent however because of growth in the tax base we we expect that the tax rates will actually be going down so revenue budget as i mentioned you know we have state aid based upon
024the governor's executive budget proposal for next year the state budget if it's on time and we expect it to be on time this year will be april 1st and at that time we'll have final numbers for next year's budget in terms of state aid uh the tax will be increased right now is well below the limit established by new york state law and we'll get into that in detail in a minute and then all other revenues you know we basically have reviewed those and adjusted them based on what we've actually received over the last few years while still maintaining a conservative approach so this next screen is the category by category comparison of state aid between the current year's budget and next year's preliminary budget you can see that the large increase is really foundation
025aid almost 2.9 million dollars we received an additional 1.6 million in the current year and we're projected to receive another 2.9 million dollar increase in the following year we were over 7 million dollars behind in foundation aid compared to the formula because the state had not fully funded it we are very happy that the state continues on their commitment to fully fund foundation aid and really getting us to where we need to be some of the other eight categories um you know most of these are were called expense driven aids based on what we spend this year what aid we get next year and those include boces aid high cost aid for special needs students and transportation aid you can see transportation aid is up substantially over the year mainly because we've moved away from
026the hybrid model and back to school full time in the current year so our transportation costs are up which drives more aid next year overall our state aid increase is almost 3.5 million which is probably close to a record aid increase at least in recent memory as for the tax levy limit there's really three main components that increase our limit for next year first is consumer price index or cpi actually last year was 4.7 percent but by law we are capped at a two percent increase so we get a two percent increase on our tax over limit just based on cpi we also get what's called a growth factor this is real uh new construction growth within the district and the 0.27 percent is actually the lowest it's been since the tax levy limit limit
027tax levy limit legislation went into effect uh seven or eight years ago lastly we have a capital exclusion this is based on new debt and the difference between the debt and the state aid comparison year to year and we're seeing an increase about seven point or point seven eight percent so if you had those three up you get a tax levy uh there's also some pilots in there but really really don't have much of an effect this next year so if you add those three percentages up you'll see that our tax over limit for next year is really 3.05 percent however we only need 2.7 to balance the budget currently so based on a tax levy increase of 2.7 percent we'd be looking a resulting tax levy of a little bit over 68 million dollars
028which is an increase of about 1.8 million it is important to note though that even though there is a tax levy increase tax rates usually are very different the tax rate the increase is usually significantly lower and if you look at the last four years you can see that the tax levy increase on the left resulted in actually tax rate decreases or tax rate decreases on the right this is really because our tax base continues to grow and therefore you're spreading that tax levy increase over a larger tax base and that is no different for this next year and we're going to show a couple examples and i think these slides are very important the first one is based on the preliminary budget and we're going to start with a taxable value of 1 000
029for the sake of example and we we expect that assessments are going to go up significantly this next year really driven by additional home sales so if you increase the the assessment by ten percent now we're talking a hundred and ten thousand dollars while we're looking at a tax levy increase of two point seven percent because of that larger tax base we expect the tax rate to actually decrease by seven and a half percent so if you go to the current year and we take you know the current tax rate and these tax rates are basically uh the town of mandalayas town of manliness has about 82 percent of our total property within that town limit so we use that as an example if you take the tax rate for the current year multiply that
030by 100 000 of taxable value you get a tax bill of 2524.82 so fast forwarding to this year with a tax rate decrease of seven and a half percent the tax rate of 23.35 times a hundred and ten thousand is twenty five hundred and sixty nine dollars so really the difference between the two tax bills is your forty four dollars and eighteen cents which by the way is a one point seven five percent increase over last year's tax bill so i think it was important to use this as an example just to show that you know the tax hobby increase doesn't necessarily relate to the actual tax dollar increase that people will be paying neither does the assessment and the school district really doesn't have any control over assessed values if assessments go up the
031school district really doesn't have any in say any of that so and i know i'm getting a little ahead of myself but one thing i think we'd like to take a look at is how can we further reduce the tax lobby and i know working with the finance committee of the board this is something we discussed last week in our meeting and basically for sake of example we'll be looking at trying to reduce the levy to 1.9 and basically using the same math you'll see that the tax bill increase that we would be seeing 100 000 taxable value or actually 110 of taxable value would be 23.36 which brings the percentage increase in the tax bill year to year to under one percent so i know we haven't gone through the entire budget but this
032is one of the things we'll be looking at trying to achieve before we finalize the budget for next year all other revenues and there's a significant number of items that fall into this category this is basically a short list but if we take a look at the actual slide that has the comparison year to year you can see all the different other revenue categories are listed on the left overall we're increasing other revenues by about a quarter of a million dollars about half of that is related to medicaid billing i know that amy and her staff has been instrumental in finding where we can bill for some more services so we're increasing our revenue on that on that one line item now we're going to switch to expenditures and once again the budget includes funding
033to support the strategic plan we are looking at staffing to be basically even with current year payroll will be based on you know existing collective bargaining agreements and projected changes because we do have a number of contracts that are in negotiation currently we are seeing cost increases as usual in the area of health insurance and certain retirement system costs and we'll get that in that more detail in a minute and we're also seeing some inva inflation-based cost increases you know diesel fuel one back two weeks ago was 2.96 we do not pay any you know state tax on that last week it was three dollars and 31 cents this year or this week is four dollars and 19 cents so it's gone up a dollar 24 in about two weeks uh we also have some
034new debt and once again that's related to the building project it's the energy performance contract that we did it's also related to the wellwood enders road and high school project and then last we'll talk about the budgetary appropriation a little bit more in detail in a couple of slides but basically that budgetary appropriation is for libman scope capital transfer projects or building projects that we plan on doing at enders road and at fayetteville elementary enders we're going to be enhancing some carry front entrance and incorporating some other security measures that we've done in other buildings and we'll be looking at improving ventilation and air conditioning at fail so when we present the budget we are required to present it what's called the three-part format the first part being the instructional program uh this is the
035first of two slides that looks at the instructional program in detail you can see the overall this is really your k-12 instruction slide you know because education is very labor-intensive uh the vast majority of increases is really related to salaries so of the 1.5 million increase on this slide you know 1.4 is really related to salaries the next slide which is also an instructional program is a little bit more detailed in terms of looking at specific areas like boces career and technical education special education costs and other support services that we have for our students and other programs that we have for our students like co-curricular activities and athletics and you can see uh that the major increase here is really in the area of special education as i mentioned before our student population has
036grown in that area and therefore our costs have gone up as well this next slide is the second part of the three-part budget presentation which is called the administrative piece overall administration is going up about a little bit less 140 000 which is about a little bit more than a two percent increase so we felt that this was a a very reasonable increase for this next year uh the third part is the capital part of the budget which is really not only our operations maintenance which is our you know salaries for custodians and maintenance workers but also includes utilities includes a lot of supplies that go into like filters for our ventilation system and a lot of other things that are really related to maintaining and operating the school facilities you can see that the
037second line long-term debt is increasing that's because we're going out to bond this at the end of this year for the wellwood high school and then there's a project if you go down a few lines you'll see that there's a big minus and that's really the bond anticipation note that was used to fund the construction of that building project that goes away and it's being replaced by long-term debt you can also see in the bottom line transfer to capital in the current year we have 450 000 dollars and that's being used to replace carpeting with tile at enders road and it's also being used to finish off the repaving of pride lane this next year due to the increase in state aid we're looking at increasing that to 1.5 million dollars and basically the next
038slide will show that what we're planning on doing with that and i mentioned this before is we're going to be looking at creating a more secure front entrance that enters road and we're also going to be installing other security systems that we've put in other buildings already at enders road and last we will be looking at improving ventilation including the addition of air conditioning at fail pending voter approval uh third tuesday in may and then also pending state education department approval we'll be looking at starting this work actually the following summer or june the 23 with completion date is september 23 and it's important to note that the state will cover 71 percent of the cost of that project the other part of expenditures that we like to highlight during the budget presentations is employee
039benefits because it is a significant number you know it's approximately 25 percent of our overall budget a couple things to highlight here basically the employee retirement system while the teachers retirement system covers all certified administrators teachers and teaching assistants the employee retirement system basically covers everyone else and you can see there's a significant decrease in year to year for years that rate has been around 15 percent of salaries so for every dollar in salary we pay people in the ers system would have to contribute 15 cents towards their retirement that has been reduced to about 12 percent for this next year so we're seeing some significant savings in the ers line a little bit the opposite on trs we saw that the rate went up in that category and therefore we've had to increase the
040budget social security is going up because you know salaries are going up we did see a benefit on workers compensation we continue to see improvements in our experience our worker workers comp injuries and accidents have been decreasing over the last couple years and therefore we're seeing a big benefit here um health and dental and vision uh we're anticipating a six percent increase in uh health insurance premiums for next year uh meanwhile dental and vision i think are gonna be pretty flat as they have been in the past so overall we're looking at about a hundred thousand dollar increase in employee benefits uh basically that's mainly driven by health insurance but offset by other categories so the total budget for this uh next year is a primary budget is 98 million 930 930 dollars uh the
041total increase is about 5.9 percent which is usually a little bit higher than we like to go out with but i think it's important to note that if you take out the increases in special education uh the increase in debt and the increase in the capital transfer that would be about 3.6 which is more in line which where we've been historically so to summarize um you know right now we're expecting the increase in the budget to really be made due to four main factors you know contractual and inflationary cost increases new debt from building projects that were recently completed looking at that budgetary appropriation for capital construction and you know increasing costs and special education area if you remember a couple years ago we actually saw a decrease in special education because population had declined
042and now that population is growing again state aid is largely driven by the increases in foundation aid and once again we're very thankful that the state legislature and the governor has once again supported fully funding in the foundation aid formula after years of being underfunded and once again this preliminary budget right now is a 2.7 levy increase but once again we expect rates to decrease significantly and really i think you know what we've discussed with the finance committee was you know looking at how can we reduce that further uh once again we're in alignment with the strategic plan and last but not least there's no plans to cut any make any reductions in any educational programs that we offer our students now we do have a separate proposition and once again my timing is not
043the best following other people but we do have a bus proposition that's going up for vote and we have expanded usually we look at to buy five buses we're looking to buy six that's basically in anticipation of universal pre-k we would need to provide transportation for that program next year and also looking forward to if we do change start times we will need additional buses in the fleet so the total cost of the six buses is eight hundred and eighty six thousand dollars uh based on the state aid that we receive uh the annual cost is we basically will borrow the money over a five year period we do get seventy four percent state aid on that bus purchase that is paid over that five year period as well that the annual cost for all
044six buses would be forty six thousand six hundred and thirty six dollars each we are we will be taking a look at alternatives to diesel buses just make sure that everybody's aware of that we will be reaching out to people who might be able to find a way to purchase the electric buses with grants and other other money that might be available to our school district so what's next well we do have our third budget workshop which would be really the last look at the budget prior to the board adopting it um for the as the proposed budget for next year and that budget workshop will be on april 4th this year we'll once again take a look at sharpening our pencil on both the expenditure side and the revenue side to see what we
045can do to reduce both sides a proposed budget once again will be adopted by the board and april 18th there is a deadline that's later that week that we must adopt our budget by has to be 25 days before the budget vote we will have a budget hearing on may 9th for the general public and then the budget vote is the universal vote date the third tuesday in may this year it's may 17th does the board have any questions but i just have one working backwards just on the buses the bus acquisitions are usually offset by bus retirements i'm assuming we're not retiring six we'd be retiring five we we have been retiring fewer than we purchased um over the last couple years for different reasons a couple of those buses were converted into delivery
046vehicles for chromebooks lunches instructional supplies instructional materials during the pandemic so we've kept a couple extra but i would anticipate we would once again not retire six buses other questions thank you thank you very much mr furlong all right next on the agenda is the president's report i did want to just recap some of the work that the board has done in regards to diversity equity and inclusion this year there are four board members along with dr tice who are attending a training with dr george theo harris on his five practice for equity book there are also administrators who are attending a similar training with other administrators from across the county the training that the board members are attending also includes board members from other districts the board has also met with um dr daughton
047who is a former administrative and fm who is now with ocm boces for a training on the new york state framework for culturally responsive sustaining education we are working on a dei policy there is now a dei landing site on our website and the dei sub committee is continuing to meet on a regular basis to discuss our work moving forward after our last retreat the board did have an interest themed in having an additional follow-up retreat together with um dr daughton and or dr theo harris um that might be a great way to have follow-up to those initial too you see if we can meet with both of those individuals um so i want to open it up for board discussion and see what other thoughts are about having that retreat and maybe to get
048some feedback about where we are or what we've done so far as a board regarding dei i'm 100 in support of another retreat with as you said dr daughton and theo harris do we have a retreat date on our school on our board calendar or is this something we'd have to find a date that works for the majority of the board we would need to find a date that would work for um both of the doctors and also for the board okay but i would think it would be good to get that in before the end of the school year okay i agree i'd certainly support that i think we're moving along but we could always move faster so if we can get them it'd be terrific i'd be in sport as well unfortunately i
049wasn't able to attend the last meeting but you know schedule permitting i'd love to attend okay all right so i will reach out to doctors daughter and the o'haras see what their availability is and then get some dates out to the board so that's good my only question we can flesh this out later and the details is his topic because it's a little bit different was was the continuing with the crs framework that we started and i think it's important that that we continue on that piece and i think that's a little bit separate from dr theo harris's perspective in part on it so i'm not i'm not sure they necessarily go hand in hand i'm in favor of either but i think we need to continue the crs part i think they can go
050hand in hand um and the conversation that i would have with both of them is here's what we've done with dr daughton here's what we've done with dr theo harris and we want to move forward with our understanding of the framework to see what they come up with a proposed agenda to the board but we definitely need to continue our work on that framework the other piece i think that we should get involved in as soon as possible as our students and hearing what because i just seen on social media i'm seeing a lot of great work being done by our students regarding dei so i'm very eager to hear more about the work that our kids are doing and more importantly more about what they believe we should be doing so i'm really interested
051in that i think that would be great information for the board to get okay and that was all i have for my report next up dr tyson's report certainly the first of two reports the general report strategic planning and capital project updates the strategic planning continues to move forward with weekly meetings on the schematic design for the renovated high school based on the recently approved capital improvement project by the community these weekly meetings have addressed mechanical plumbing and electrical improvements as well as upgrades and some initial renderings for the new additions that will include a technology suite and an expanded cafeteria student commons area as far as upk update as you are aware the request for pro proposals seeking partnerships with outside providers to offer universal pre-kindergarten services has officially closed the district is in
052the process of vetting the finalists and will look to make an award in april in which we will identify the external providers the lottery will be held for the available seats in the late spring for our community members and as mentioned before the inaugural year of upk will feature seats for about 84 students thanks to the governmental startup funding included in the budget last but not least dei update just to piggyback on president mims comments district administrators are working with faculty and staff to better understand the culturally responsive sustaining education framework the crs education framework has been part of the conversation at faculty staff meetings district curriculum council and will be during our may 17th professional learning day which will focus on the framework as well as the dei committee the policy committee and the
053administration wrap up their work on the draft policy in the accompanying administrative regulation the plan is to memorialize our commitment and a slight revision to the district's mission statement and building action plans in time for the new school year that ends my initial report are there any questions for dr tyth on this report on this portion of his report i guess craig any um more clarity about how the lottery system is going to work i mean i guess we'll have more details as we get closer but will parents need to reach out will the district reach out how will that how do you envision that process working a great question and i'll come into the district originally we just published an update on our website for upk we will control the lottery if jason and
054craig happen to be brothers in the same household and jason was selected as part of the lottery it wouldn't mean that craig is also included they would be treated as separate seats so we will work with the providers we will organize the lottery and host the lottery and then we will inform the providers accordingly great thank you all right next is the covet update again i always kid the sounds like the sports scores but i actually tried to give you some additional information since the governor took the mask mandate away on march 2nd so try to bear with me on the statistics so as far as covet update and quarantine as a second semester of the school year goes on here we've had 767 confirmed cases in the entire school district with 477 coming at
055the middle high school level 242 at the high school 171 at wellwood and 64 at eagle hill and 290 at the elementary level with 91 at enders 104 at fayel and 95 at mott road since the mass mandate was lifted on march 2nd we have witnessed 56 positive cases throughout the school district with the majority at fayel and the high school at 15 of the 56 new positive cases seven have been adults whereas 49 have been students as far as symptomatic update at this point in the school year the district has sent home from the nurse's office students because they were symptomatic with covert related symptoms cold related symptoms flu related symptoms all of that this includes 198 students at the high school about 95 students at each of the middle schools 97 at eagle
056hill 93 at wellwood and an average of 88 children at each of the elementary buildings with 69 at enders 110 at fayel and 85 at mott road prior to march 2nd we had 558 students who were sent home since march 2nd we have witnessed a slight uptick of 94 students who were sent home this includes an average of about 15 students believe it or not uniformly spread in each of the six schools we will continue to monitor the data coming forward from each of the schools in addition to those who are completing the attestation forms with respect to their positive test results in conjunction with the county the county gives us updates daily under surveillance testing as mentioned earlier onondaga county continues to collaborate with local area school districts to conduct random covent testing of
057students and employees at periodic interval intervals our day is friday since the inception of the program believe it or not we've sampled just under 2 000 students 1896 with 1 161 students and 735 faculty and staff and believe it or not only 13 reported pooled positive cases in the portal at quadrant which i have access to after witnessing a couple of positive cases in the surveillance testing leading up to the late december holiday recess you may recall we witnessed 10 additional positive cases during the first couple of weeks in january there's only been one more positive case since the masks have come off on march 2nd and last but not least the rapid covert test distribution the governor's office continues to dispatch rapid test kits to each of the districts in central new york since
058we're reaching a point where we have enough for our entire student enrollment we are planning to send home our third installment much like we did before the february recess period and after the january break so we will send out our third installment on thursday april 7th to all community members we're making the kits available for faculty and staff as well that ends my covet update are there any questions for dr thais regarding the covet update is there a motion that be resolved that the board of education of the fayetteville male essential school district approves the changes made to the district's covert 19 protocols is issued by new york state and presented by the superintendent there a motion thank you mark in the segment from sherry any further discussion all of the favor please indicate i
059i anyone opposed or abstaining next on the agenda we have our committee and representative updates let's see so we won't have one for audit um well only excuse me only that we did find a deputy for our claims auditor so we are approving that tonight under personnel thank you very much community relations met on march 1st and rebecca is our chair but she asked me to update and it goes right along with that with the minutes say we did a we spoke about the coveted communications that as new york health department updates changes uh dr tights will continue to update the community about that we talked about the exit survey with the budget and we are at this point thinking that that the exit survey will not go with the budget and we'll do it
060in october as when the annual report goes out but that is to be work done and then we spoke about communications with the public about our dei the uh the work that's been done and how much progress we've made so that was what we discussed at crc thank you um diversity equity inclusion met in february next meeting is on march 21st um see facilities met on february 10th or their okay finance met on march 11. yes and i just want to thank bill for the budget presentation tonight and everybody's hard work on budget thank you policy committee met on march 8th any update uh yes so let's just i wanted to step back and just have a sort of review what we've been doing um for the majority of this year and started part of
061that as well so um when nisba came out with their sample draft policy for dei we as a committee originally looked at it and it was read like a book as dan always said and it was very philosophical in nature with the statements that were being said and we had asked craig dr tyso if he would send that a line to cabinet to have the administrative team take a look at that collectively so they were kind enough to do that and they broke up into three separate groups and they came up with their own version of what made sense to them and what i thought was most interesting is that three different groups not knowing where they were all gonna land all three um possible versions were extremely similar and i sort of had a
062feeling that they might be but knowing our administrators however i think that's very telling to the work that they do and the work here at fm so shortly after that erie one had come out with a draft policy and the dei committee had asked the board if that could also be looked at so that went back to policy committee to take a look at and then upon dr tyson's direction he wanted the committee to go through that policy prior to having our administrative team take a look at that so we've been doing that really for the majority of this year and we did complete our work we did send along that revised draft erie one policy to cabinet and they all felt that we were in a better spot with where we landed with the
063work that they had done with nisba's policy that was more aligned with what we're talking about and doing in the district with crc and also with the work that they've done all summer long and with the training that they've been getting throughout the year so fast forward thursday we have a meeting and our plan is to let me back up one more time the cabinet did take the three versions they came up with one version that summed everything up most appropriately and the policy committee will take that redline version go through it on thursday and then distribute that to the board and cabinet excuse me it'll probably go back to cabinet first then the board if anybody on the committee or dr tyson would like to add any in the erie one policy which we
064worked on that closely follows the culturally responsive sustaining education framework will be reviewed by cabinet in terms of the draft regulation that'll be the starting point so a lot of good work has been done and i think we'll be able to present as soon as we can here possibly the next meeting the draft policy and the accompanying right yeah as long as we're not rushing the team to have that reg so thank you because you did that make that important distinction the erie one did follow that framework however i just don't want to have anybody think that as a board that we're writing regulations for the administration because that's not what we want and if there's something else that would be more appropriate for them because that work is going to take time and i
065know that things can be changed once they've been approved i just you know keep going back to what dr daughton had said to us this is a time to keep working on it but it is not a time to rush through this just so that you could say that you did it so you know as you had stated in your superintendent report we will memorials memorialize the work that's been done with the revision and the mission statement and so that we're all set to begin the school work for next year and with the business building action plans excuse me so i just want to make sure and this is just me individually the board will decide by consensus that that we're not rushing it i think it's one thing to say that okay here's our
066policy but i don't want to be rushing the administrative reg unnecessarily i want to make sure that the buildings are all very comfortable with how that reads based on their work not ours i mean there is a lot of good work there i think it's always easier to respond to something written than a blank easel so i do think we'll move right along and then you're right it may be started by the board but the administrators can tinker with it as they see fit and it doesn't have to come back to the board but i do think we want to stay you're right on schedule if we are going to modify the mission statement at the end that fits in with what dr daughton and tanya rosado behringer have been doing in terms of our
067trainings not only with the staff but with the board and i agree but going back to having us look at the erie draft policy we were looking at it as a policy not as a rug and as we re reworded revised and landed where we finally landed yes we did say that there are many statements within that that read more like a regulation and less like a policy but that was from the guts the skeleton of what erie one had given us to look at you know again from the direction of the board to the committee to the policy committee so again i just i just want to make sure that we're not stepping on anyone's toes that no understood it's well taken but as we know erie one often recites the law as they
068do their policies just like the ones we've dealt with before so i think it is definitely very streamlined with our work and i still i know that we put in a lot of work we've all have put in a lot of thought this year about this policy whether we were on the policy committee or whether we were doing our retreats so i have every hope that we can finish it this year and i don't see that as a rush as as a rush job i think we've put in the work and i hope that we'll be able to have a personally i i'm just speaking for myself i hope we will be able to have the dei policy approved by the end of this school year is there a legislative liaison report this evening sherry
069anything for that thank you hannah do you have a report for us yes i do um first i just wanted to say that um i will most certainly get back to the board with um what the student's perspective is on the dei initiative i just don't have any of that right now but i will talk to students at the high school so that you guys have information on uh what students are saying and how they're going on social media with that platform and then um i also wanted to say that last month at the high school we had the black history month assembly which was a wonderful tribute and performance put on the put on by the black history month club both students and faculty enjoyed the assembly and it is safe to say it
070was one of the best and most informative assemblies i have witnessed at all four years at the high school so i am so glad that it was allowed to be back in person this year and i also wanted to say myself and other students were very appreciative of the teachers at the high school who took the time out of their class to talk about african-american heroes and figures within our society both from the past and the present i can confidently say that all my teachers participated in honoring black history month and depending on what class you were and you had different films to watch or different slide shows for example in a math class we watched the film hidden figures we had a daily book talk in english that were books written by african-american authors
071and in our physical education classes we talked about athletes from both the past and the present and then this month we have the beloved dance marathon returning in person which is occurring this saturday march 19th at the high school the student body is very excited for this event to be back and a lot of students have been working tirelessly the past couple of months and weeks to fundraise for camp good days and special times at the high school this week we are having a spirit week so each day students are dressing up in different attire today was groutfit day which is gray out and then tomorrow is clone day which is everyone's going to be wearing a white t-shirt with jeans so it just kind of brings back a positive atmosphere of all of us
072being together and being in spirit we also have restaurant week going on where proceeds are going to camp and the seniors are working with the underclassmen to get them very excited for dance marathon and student council is hoping to have great attendance this year so the past couple weeks this march we've been really looking forward to dance marathon and i know students are very excited that we have the four hour period this saturday where we can all be together at the high school and have different activities and a dance which will be a lot of fun so that is all i have to report for this meeting thank you very much hannah next on the agenda is a proposed executive session we normally don't have these in the middle of the meeting but we're going
073to try to be brief so that we can come back after that and there will be we will continue with the public session of the agenda so is there a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of entering discussion for the employment history of a particular person thank you jason a second thank you mark any discussion all of the favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining all right so i'm we're gonna try to do this very quick so we come back to public section my apologies good okay thank you we're now resuming the public portion of the meeting next on the agenda item 4.01 approval of the minutes from the february 7th regular meeting is there a motion to approve the minutes as presented thank you kelly their second thank you
074sherry any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i you want to oppose or abstaining all right next on the agenda item 4.02 the 2022-23 uh school calendar is there a motion to approve the 2022-23 school calendars presented thank you darrell second for mark discussion so a couple of of points i guess the first point craig just to clarify on the calendar um the two days that we showed the school is not in session on voting days so the day in november and then the day in may just to clarify are all the schools closed or is it just the schools that the votes are being held at for our district all the schools would be closed but you're right the general election polling places are typically eagle hill in the high school great
075and then secondly craig i had asked and i'm asking of the board right now as it sits and i don't mean to jinx it i really hope the snow this past weekend was the last one we got yeah i know i just jinxed it means spring break it'll snap no problem well you know some people ski it has before i know i know but provided that we do not use any snow days between now and april recess um is it possible that we modify the current year calendar and potentially give back one of those days and if the answer to that and your opinion in the administrative opinion is yes um where do you propose we do that within the current year calendar i know we kid about snow days but they are emergency closing
076days which means they're available if there's power electrical plumbing sewage and so forth so a quick answer at this point in time i'm reluctant to give up the two days period i know we've kind of had thought experiments with the fmta stewardship i know with the return of the regents exams they would prefer not to have something around the memorial day weekend and would prefer the spring break is what i was told that seems a little bit too early coupled with the fact as you saw in the thursday letter there's a muslim holiday sitting out there that we've had students come and present so right now i think i'm inclined to just hold on to those two days and then see what the rest of the year brings and no i don't think you jinxed
077us but i just know there's other issues such as electrical and plumbing they are emergency closing days so gosh forbid we need them so doesn't mean we can't do something later but i just think for now mid-march i would sit on the two okay but we'll ask him again jason in may and june okay because by then we're getting really close and he might need to let go at that point right all i know is hannah i tried to get you all to have an extra day he said no that's all i'm saying she wants to study for the regents exams too so oops um any further comments on school calendar or thoughts on the school calendar all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed or abstaining oops one that i forgot the
078last week of school on this calendar as proposed are these full days i just keep thinking back to that one year like three years four years ago where we had like three or four half days in a row what is what does this look like right now they are all listed as full days i know we often get requests to do half days the last week as things are wrapped up as we're in the middle of regents exams the rating day that's listed there on the 23rd counts as a day for especially the secondary schools that have regents exams technically nobody else so those right now are listed as full days we make the decision as we approach the end of june whether to make them half days now i know that can be daycare
079issues but it could also go to what mr catalino you know is that a way to give back a day and split it into and do two half days instead of an extra full day so it gives us some options going forward but right now these are listed as full days and i can look to mr furlong for state aid purposes we have to get the requisite number of hours in over a two week period and that's inclusive of any holidays correct thank you sir so they are listed as full days right now okay that includes juneteenth on that monday which would be one of those holidays that we would have to finger count in terms of the requisite number of hours okay so asking again is all those in favor please state i aye
080anyone opposed or abstaining all right so we're gonna move over to or move on to 4.03 the secret resolution is there a motion that be resolved that the board of education the fayetteville manly central school district approves the secret resolution type 2 action bus proposition as presented is there a motion thank you sherry in a second from jason any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i ain't when opposed or abstaining all right item 4.04 secret resolution is there a motion that be resolved that the board education of the fateful manalius school district approved the secret resolution type 2 action transfer to capital projects as presented is there a motion thank you daryl second from mark discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining item 4.05 resolution uh annual
081budget notice is there a motion that will be resolved that the board of education of the fayetteville manly central school district approve the 2021-22 annual budget notice as presented thank you kelly second from jason any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i you know opposed or abstaining now item 4.06 uh hopefully i'll do this right um is there a motion to amend the uh recommended action into two separate votes so the first one would be a motion to approve the position of executive director of human resources and instruction evaluation and the second action will be a vote to approve the executive director of special education early childhood initiatives thank you dan is there a second thank you jason any discussion although the favor indicate i i you know opposed or abstaining all right
082so first one is there a motion that will be resolved to the board of education of the favorable manly central school district that the following position is hereby created as recommended by the superintendent of schools executive director of human resources and instructional evaluation is there a motion thank you darrell second from sherry all those in favor indicate i i anyone opposed to anyone abstaining none that was dan and elena uh second is there a motion that will be resolved at the board of education or the fabled manly central school district that the following position is as recommended by the superintendent of schools is hereby created executive director of special education early childhood initiatives their motion thank you sherry second that you dan okay any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed
083or abstaining okay now we're moving on to 4.07 modular genius contract approval is there a motion that will be resolved with the board of education of the faithful manly central school district hereby accepts the recommendations of the district's architect and hereby approves the contract for the disassembly transportation and storage of modular buildings to be used as temporary classrooms through a contract with modular genius incorporated under the keystone purchasing act for the price of one hundred and forty one hundred and forty five thousand six hundred fourteen dollars and authorizes the superintendent of schools to enter into the approved contract set out in this resolution on behalf of the board of education and take all necessary steps or convenient to proceed under the contract in connection with the projects is there a motion thank you dan in
084a second from jason any discussion yeah i just want to just say real quickly that um these are being moved because they're going to be used as part of the high school project and this goes back to decisions that were made before the wellwood project where we were weighing back and forth whether to lease these or to purchase these and it clearly proved out to be the right decision to purchase these because we're going to get the use of them on two totally separate building projects at two different buildings both of which have the need for it so kudos back to everybody that was supportive of the purchasing proposal at that time because we're going to benefit greatly from that so and that's important just to piggyback that we approve this tonight so we can
085lock in modular genius to move them we will choreograph this with the installation of run of crush at the high school on pride lane so that they don't sink into the mud while they're in storage and then this will allow us to finish the fire lane and sidewalks at wellwood this summer to bring that project to closure all in favor please indicate i i am opposed or abstaining next on the agenda item 4.0 resolution real property law section 487 opt-in is it resolved that the favorable email essential school districts opt out of the tax exemption made available by real property tax law section 487 for solar wind or farm waste energy systems is hereby rescinded and such exemptions shall be applicable within the boundaries of the fayetteville manly essential school district there a motion thank
086you jason second from kelly discussion all those in favor indicate i i and when opposed or abstaining item 4.09 residential pilot agreement is there a motion that it be resolved that the board of education of the fayetteville manly central school district authorizes the superintendent of schools to execute a payment in lieu of tax agreement for students at a term set forth above and in the form approved by legal counsel is there a motion thank you darryl a second thank you sherry any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i any opposed or abstaining item 4.10 resolution real property law section 487 opt out is there a motion that would be resolved the board of education of the fabled manly essential school district approves a real property law section 487 opt out as indicated below
087is there a motion thank you jason second from kelly any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i am opposed or abstaining item 4.11 tax cert settlement is there a motion that it be resolved at the board of education the fayetteville manly central school district agrees to settle the tax proceedings commenced by the petitioner in accordance with the term set forth below and in the form approved by ferreira forensa and hereby delegates to foreign friends of the authority to execute such settlement documents is there a motion thank you sherry their second dan okay any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone oppose or abstaining okay moving into 5.1 ongoing uh business so we did talk a little bit earlier about board development and i will get um an email out to
088dr stoughton and theo harris see what we could do about our next board retreat working agenda items i'm seeing none potential considerations for future meetings nope future meetings calendar so we have our budget presentation on april 4th uh dates to remember well it's got its musical coming up and hannah said dance marathon that's great to see that back on the count it's wonderful to see all these concerts and events on the calendar again all right consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented thank you mark sagar from daryl all those in favor please indicate i i and opposed abstaining all right now we are going we have another executive session is there a motion to enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment history of a particular
089individual this is continuing the superintendent's mid-year evaluation thank you sherry a second from jason any discussion all those in favor indicate i i am opposed or abstaining all right so we're going to go into executive session there will be a journey immediately after so there won't be any more public meeting after that so thank you all for hanging in until the end you