001Give me a moment to make sure. Yeah. Should hear a moment. Okay, we're good. Okay, great. I'd like to call the meeting of the uh April 7th, Fort Edward School Board of Education regular meeting to order. Please stand with me. 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. Okay. Next meeting is our roll call. Ky, could you do the roll call, please? Sure. John Bommo is not here. Tim Clark here. Sarah Bashinsky is not here. Audra all here. Chris Boucher is not here. Ken Chester here. And Terra Rider here. Great. Next up, we're moving to acceptance of the agenda. I need a motion to accept the agenda as president. And Audra and Tara. Any discussion?
002All in favor? I carried. Okay. Okay, the next part of our meeting is going to be a recognition of successes uh for a battle of the books and superintendent Holly Holly is going to explain what that was and identify the winners. All right. So this um recognition is for the students and staff under the direction of Kelly Ricardelli uh and uh some other staff that were involved for the first ever sending of our students to Battle of the Books and uh it's a great step forward for us uh in our push push for literacy uh and involving our students um in their academics beyond the regular classroom. room. We wanted to invite them to this evening. I see we have one brave soul who just made it here and um we do want to um
003acknowledge everybody who's involved. So there is uh congratulations uh to Owen Carroll uh Hannah Chaff, Sophiana Basilio, item F Reagan Nichols, Maya Turner, and Naa Denker for competing in Fort Edward's first battle of the books. And congratulations to Everly Donahghue, who read all of the books but could not participate in the battle. And a special thank you to Kelly uh and Jody Brewer for spearheading this initiative. So, congratulations to everyone [Applause] involved. And we do have Do you want to speak about your experience? I'm okay. [Music] What was what was what was the scariest part of the whole film? Probably going up and having to sit there next to Reagan and her all be like, "Oh, we got to do this, right?" What was the best part of the whole experience? being able to work
004together with friends. [Applause] Uh, could you uh tell the board who you are and what grade you're in? I'm full and I'm in fifth grade. Good job, kiddo. Thanks for representing the board. Okay, please come up and accept your certificate. [Applause] Good job. the brave one to come here. I'll make sure everybody else gets these on behalf of the school board. Excellent. Okay, the next part of our meeting is dedicated to community comments. If you want to make a comment, come up to the board secretary and fill out the form. Are there any comment forms in so far? I do not have any. Okay, moving on. Reports. Superintendent report. Thanks, Tim. Uh, just a couple of brief items for you. Um, first I'd like to acknowledge our, uh, wearing a little bit of my athletic
005director hat that I have temporarily on here at Fort Edward. Our winter scholar athlete teams uh, designation has come out and we had three winter sport teams that were acknowledged uh, with this designation. Our varsity bowling, our game day cheer team, and our boys varsity basketball team all achieved New York State Public High School athletic association athletic scholar delineation. Uh very proud of that. Um there is an obligation in our contracts that any unused snow days need to be returned as uh days off. And with three days being built into our calendar and the use of two, uh, we have one day to give back. Um, having wore this hat in as a superintendent way too many years and been burned on it once, I'm not a big fan of giving it back for the
006April break. Uh, because I've, you know, in the Northeast, those things can come up uh, in April. Uh so the having consulted with a number of people probably the best day that makes the most sense for us as a giveback day would be Friday the 23rd which is Memorial Day weekend. Um so it would be the added day uh the Friday before Memorial Day weekend then we would have Monday off as well which is a given holiday. Um, so that would be the day off uh for uh faculty and staff, which then puts Thursday the 22nd as being our high school fund day, which is currently on the calendar as the 23rd. We'll just bump everything back one day and move forward. But I wanted to brief you as a board that this is something
007that we need to do. But out of all the days we have left, I certainly don't want to do it in June because we've got regent exams, we've got a lot of other busy things that happen then. Um, and it's even though the weather probably looks good going into April break, it's kind of soon to go ahead and change the calendar at this late date. So, uh, we'll go ahead and modify the calendar and get public notice out to everybody as soon as possible, but I wanted to brief you as a board first that it'll be the 23rd, which means, uh, everything that was scheduled for that day, we'll just bump it back and go from there. Sounds good. All right. Uh and then just from a from a broader perspective with the state of
008New York, um there still is no update on a past budget from the state of New York. Um there's a number of issues that are still lingering. Most of them are driven, you know, through political party designation and what they want attached to the dollars. uh as public schools, we're at the mercy of just simply waiting that out. [Music] Um what we can do at this point is simply just uh have taken the adopted budget that we that we presented to you folks and that you have adopted with the with the best estimate that we have for it and uh continue to move forward. There's a lot of information that comes through the superintendent network that the educational numbers uh they're not anticipating a great deal of change in what was shared with us. There
009seems to be a lot of deliberation of what they want to try and get for that educational number that uh is allocated towards education and that seems to be where the deliberation is. It's not really arguing over the actual dollar value from my understanding. Couple of the big pieces which we've talked about, the cell phone ban, the electric bus initiatives, um, and a few other things that are not related to education seem to be the biggest tripping points uh, of this. As soon as we hear anything, obviously everybody will because the state of New York is is obviously well attuned to it. Uh and then there's a lot of information uh going back and forth about decisions that are being made or um initiatives being pushed forward that appear to be federally driven versus what
010is to be done here in the state of New York. um had extensive conversations with a group of superintendents with legal counsel and their interpretation is and their recommendation and I agree with it completely is for schools to simply do what you're doing until there's official direction otherwise because right now there's a lot of positioning that's happening between federal government and state governments across the entire country. school districts have an obligation to maintain our daily operations and that's really taking care of students, educating students, working with our communities. That is always our priority and that's what we're going to keep to be our priority until we get official um documentation that indicates we need to be changing anything as it relates to the federal department of education, Title 9. There's all kinds of uh positions
011out there without anything being officially implemented. And so we will continue to do business as we always have been and uh continue to write it up and that's all I have for my report. All right. Thank you. Next up, the business office report. Yes. Uh so update on the head bus driver position. We rewarded and reposted that position uh this last Friday, April the 4th. Um we have reworked our budget notice pathways. I've been collab collaborating with Mr. Hollyy and Mr. Herman and we actually had a a good meeting today specifically on looking at the best way to present a budget material but also exactly what we're doing awesome in this school. So that's very cool thing that we're doing. Uh the Bosey's final service request for 2025 and 2026 has been submitted. And I
012would also like to remind you that the budget hearing will be Monday, May the 12th. So that's the update that's in our office. Great. Uh secondary, no, hold on. We're doing elementary report first. Item C, elementary report. Miss MCO, hello. Um, on behalf of my colleagues on the elementary side of the district, I have a few things. Um, looking back at the month of March, we had 52 students participate in part um, for many of the weeks. Total reading minutes were over 10,000 minutes. We Some of the highlights of the program were high school reading buddies and junior high reading buddies that made their way over and made some connections with students. We have some semi-pro hockey players here on site and a culminating activity uh will be for students who participated to meet with
013Billy Floyd on the 11th. Um I'd like to give a shout out to Tiffany Wendell and to Kelly Ricardelli for all of their hard work making that happen for our students. Also uh during the month of March we had MC teacher night. We had over 14 teachers volunteer and the projected donation will be over $500 which will be earmarked for uh next year's positivity project school t-shirt initiative. Uh the PE show was wonderfully attended. Students and staff did a great job um putting on that tradition uh here at school. Our afterchool enrichment program is wrapping up at the end of this week. This year we had 182 student seats filled for that program and we offered uh 15 enrichment courses ranging from STEM to um SEAL to create creative arts technology and so on. So
014many thanks to students um and staff who participated in that. A look ahead. Our computer base based testing for grades three through eight starts tomorrow. We are going to be ready to tackle that. Plans are already in the works for uh summer academy. We are looking forward to a visitor uh an author, illustrator, and publisher named D. Jude Miller coming um to put on an assembly for the elementary and high school side and then working with some of our um ELA classes um and talking about his profession as an author, illustrator and publisher. Um we have a science the science of reading uh meetings and PD are underway and we have a long range plan to deal with that. and we have the poetry contest going on where we will be um doing a schoolwide
015P2 poetry contest. Um and some of those students will even be entering a national poetry contest. Last year um Miss Lucas was instrumental in making that happen and we're ready to do that again. And last but not least, I am very proud to report that uh last Monday, Fort Edward was notified by the president and CEO and founder of the positivity project that Fort Edward was selected um as a green shield school. And to put that into perspective, there are 850 schools that are participating in positivity project and only 27 were awarded the green shield designation. So that's 3% and that is a huge accomplishment for our district and community and it's definitely um been wellreceived here at our school and um I think that's a testament to everyone working together to make this happen
016for our culture here at school. So good job everyone. [Applause] Let me just pause. Are any of you guys back there Battle of the Books competitors? We recognize who? We have you. You introduce yourself. [Music] Na and Sophiana. [Applause] So, what was the scariest part other than right now? Congratulations. And what was the best part of the whole experience? idea that kind of answering the questions have a lot to you agree. Yeah. [Applause] Wow. Great answer. All of you Battle Club Books competitors welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting or leave uh at discretion, whatever you like. Okay, next up item D. We got secondary people services report. Go ahead, Nick. Um so I'm currently in the district. We're currently in the middle of what's considered annual review season where we meet once
017a year to discuss uh students progress with their IEPs and things like that. So I want to share a stat with everybody and some of the qualitative and quantitative data associated with that. So so far I've done 40 annual reviews. It's a little skewed because I the first couple I didn't ask this question. So maybe it's not out of the full 40, but 36 out of 40 of the families I spoken to had said something like they're so grateful for all the work that the special ed teachers and the school has been doing. They're so grateful for all the progress that their child, the growth that their child has made or children have made this year. And a direct quote from a parent I got was when my child had started here, my child hated
018school. My child, they were in a different district when they came here. My child hated school. My child did not like school whatsoever. Every day was a fight. My child would scream, kick, cry getting out of the car. Now my child, after being a couple years here, loves going to school. Can't wait to come here every single day. And the family is just so just immensely grateful for all the growth that they've seen and they said they kind of they would not send their child anywhere else but here. They were so just she was just really excited to tell us as the uh committee. It was via phone but she was like I'm so excited to let you know like she my daughter loves coming to school and just how excited she was. So I
019I thought I'd share that with everybody just as a positive kind of note. So 36 out of the 40 families shared some like they're so proud. They're so grateful of all the progress their child has made throughout the year. And again the first couple of reviews I had I didn't ask that specific question. So after a couple said I said I'm going to start asking this question. So again 36 out of 40 which equals 90%. Um the master scheduling is underway for pieces of it like starting the early stages of it and Joanna Scott's been doing so much to as part of that to start that process. So she's been doing a lot for that so far. Um I want to give a quick shout out to Jess for the uh getting the green shield
020for the positivity project because it's a large application process and she's been spearheading it. So she's a big part of it. It's a whole schoolwide initiative but she was kind of spearheading it. So I want to give her a shout out for that. And [Applause] just so with the elementary having uh the park and reading month one part through a lot of the P2 or the positivity project classes, they signed up to go be like reading partners to a lot of the elementary classes. And one of the weekly themes or ideas was other people mindset and other kind of other people matter. So after a lot of those classes went and we're partners to the elementary school I kind of asked a couple of the high school students what did you get out of it?
021What' you think? And a quote I got from a student they connected like well with the other person other people mindset I was able to help I feel I was able to help an elementary student practice reading and work with their confidence in reading. So, I thought I'd share that from one of our high school students. Um, I wanted to give a shout out to Nicole Schilling, who um is our art teacher here. On March 26, she was instrumental in kind of organizing a high school, junior high, high school assembly for all our students 6 through 12. And it was through the motivational media assembly uh company. And they had a kind of a motivational assembly and movie for the students and staff at the at the high school side where it discussed topics such
022as bullying, drug use, self-esteem, motivation, perseverance, family dynamics, and just a lot of those positive traits that also connect with the positivity project. And a lot of the students that I spoke to seem to get something positive out of it. They thought it was a good assembly. they got some of the messages and the key kind of parts that came from the speaker, but also the uh video that was shown with it. So, it was a lot of work to organize that and I just wanted to give Nicole shout out for being like the driving force behind it. Um, a quick attendance thing for the month of March, the top two grades were fifth grade with 95% attendance and then 8th grade with 96 uh% attendance for the month of March. And then comparatively for
023September 1 until March 31st for 2024 the buildingwide attendance was 90%. For 2025 for the same time period of September 1 to March 31st the building attendance increased to 92%. So we're up 2% from this point end of March this point compared to last year. And my last thing is there was a fundraiser through Books Barbecue for the International Club and they completely sold out like really quickly. They had a lot of pre-sales but at the night that they had extras so they sold out everything and it was like 300 slightly over 300 tickets and I had some community members and a lot of families and staff and faculty come and buy Brooks Barbecue. I myself bought two and if anyone knows Brooks Barbecue it's amazing. It's really good. So that was just a fundraiser
024for the international club and it was a really good opportunity just to bring in some community members to come here, pick it up and maybe be on campus if they haven't been on campus for a while. So they went through the side, picked it up kind of in like a drive-thru type setup. And finally, spring sports are kind of underway and I know varsity softball and softball have gotten a couple wins so far early on season. So shout out to all our spring sports, but I know softball's got a couple wins so far this year. So that's all I have for you. Wonderful. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, building maintenance report. Hi everybody. Um we we're going to start off in the gym. Um we're getting I've jumped on getting our gym floor done early
025this year. Uh, normally I wait to get that set up, but the gym will be taken care of between July 7th and the 11th this year. So, we'll get that all behind us before the gym wants to be used through the summer months. So, I was happy to get that done. Um, I'm we managed to get our our tractor John Deere and all the implements, pictures taken. It's on the website. And as of right now, the the tractor will go until next month, next Wednesday. Not this Wednesday, but next Wednesday. And the tractor right now is at $3,100. And so I'm pretty excited about that because it hasn't been on very long. and it's already gone gone up there. If anybody would like to monitor what the tractor how we're doing on that, it's on
026uh Auction International and the number is [Music] 41848. That's 41848. You can get on that site, you can watch what happens with it and how all the implements are getting sold and everything. Uh the Bobcat, we've had some issues. It's been a rough winter. We seemed seemed like every weekend through through February, we were clearing snow. So, the equipment took quite a bit of quite a bit of use. And uh needless to say, the Bobcat had to go in for servicing. We couldn't get it running. We it would not even turn on or anything. So, we had to go get that fixed. We just got it back. It wasn't that bad as far as cost getting done. So, I was I was happy for that. Um, I just like to give a shout out to
027um Mike Shy. Um, what he's done with the fields and how we've been able to play through all this snow and cold and rain and everything that they're able to get the games in. And what a lot of that contributes to is a new piece of equipment that we bought last year uh that that allows Mike to to use the different implements behind behind the equipment or the his four-wheeler and things that actually are able to condition the field and keep it playable and keep it dry out and keep things. So, uh I want to give a shout out. He's worked really hard. The fields look really good and we've been able to get the games in which is great especially this time of year that's seldom I noticed the upper field was looking good
028too. You guys were working on that and that hasn't been worked on in a couple of years so and it looks safe basically for practice so it looks good. Yeah. Yeah. So with that with that equipment being now you're starting to get used to the implements that you can put with it and how what it does for everything. So, it's he's it's really really helped helped them the fields a lot. Um, in the kitchen, we're they've been doing a lot of stuff in the kitchen and uh they got that new steamer in there and everything and they're using that like crazy and and they're able to cook a lot of stuff and and that new merchandiser. The kids are just going after that with the freshmade salads that are done in the merchandiser and all
029the all the different things. The kids are like, "Wow." You know, it just it's just phenomenal. And uh Jeff Barone, who is the head head guy at in the kitchen, said that breakfast and lunches and everything are they're putting more food out than they ever have because of things like this that that have got kids eating breakfast and and lunches and things like that. So, I think that's great. They've got a new pasta cooker ordered and it should be in sometime in May. that'll allow them to do up the pasta and and different things for to cook and have that ready. So, I'm excited about getting that installed in and things. Uh should be here sometime in May. But, uh that's the kind of things that I've been working on in the school. I am
030very thankful that all my uni vents have been running good and uh the heat issues are uh no news is good news. I usually know all my teachers, uh, when they get the phone call, I'm cold, I'm hot. I, you know, I turn one down, I pull one up, now I'm hot, turn it down, you know. So I I from one side of the building to the other, too much. So So it's the same person he's talking. I feel I feel attacked. Whatever I say, don't take it personally. So, so that's that's all I have. But, uh, it's it's been it's been good. Good. Thank you. Okay. Great. Moving on to discussion items. First uh discussion item is resignation of board member John Google Elmo. Um he sent us a letter dated March 28th, 2025
031announcing his resignation according to board policy that would take effect 30 days later. Am I right? I believe. Yeah. He wrote in his letter that his resignation will be effective April 27th. Okay. Um, can I say a few words? I've really appreciated working with John. He's been a great asset to this community on the board and he'll still be around um doing stuff just not here with us on the board, but it's huge loss for us. It's huge loss for the board. Yep. Mhm. Thank you. So you as a board have had vacancies created in the middle of a uh term. Obviously you have a short window to turn this around because there is elections that happen in May. uh you do need to be giving some consideration if you are looking to appoint uh
032as we did with Tara after gathering some applications or interest letter emails of interest and then we you know you held the interviews or if you don't and look to fill it through the election process. So those are, you know, things that you would consider as a as a board how you would like to fill the vacancy. Uh because his term would was not up as of as of the May elections. So he does have more time left for this. Can we put it on the ballot? Yeah, because the seat would only be you could appoint somebody, but I do believe and Dr. Parker will send us a letter dictating that. But I do believe that if you do appoint somebody, they're only on until the election anyway. So then their seat would be up
033for election. So we do with his vacancy, we will have four open seats for the election. Should somebody It's my little also just a quick plug. If anybody wants to get a board packet, those are still available. They don't aren't due back until the 21st. Um, so that will show as a vacancy. Okay. Yeah. Just waiting for election. You'd have to have a special meeting. We have one schedule between now and the election until the election and they're on till the election. And I see that we've been promoting it. We've been saying that we're open seat. So, if you want me to pack it, we can wait until the election. See how many people get might as well. Yeah. Because by the time Yeah. they won't be able to get on until after the election.
034So, they won't even be a board member. We need to file that as official board action. There's a vote around I think we just take no action. No action is kind of dictates. Okay. Next discussion item. Board member on boarding. This was one I requested. Um it came up at the Adonic area school boards association meeting a couple few months ago. I just wanted to review what our process is and poll our newest board members to see whether it's working well. And how was your un on boarding? It was wonderful. Was the process that we're doing right now cuz I haven't done it in a lot of years. Mine was a phone call. What was yours? Yeah, Mark Vess did mine. It was just like a chat [Music] like interview. No, once you got No,
035once you got on the board or after like how was it going? How were you? We invite I invited Tara into the office. Okay. I took her through um really a number of not only bringing her up to speed, what where we were on current issues, what was on the topic, what was coming, but also just general advisement of what she can expect as a board member, what's a good rule of thumb to follow when you're when you're out and about and you're confronted or somebody wants to bend your ear, you know, reinforcing all those parameters that are in place. We had a good conversation and then um orientating to her case spent time with her on like I felt prepared if that's what the question was. I felt Yeah. policies and things like that.
036Smooth got a smooth thing for getting your email and so I just like my Yeah. I treat that just like I do our staff onboarding. So, I have an onboarding form that says, "Please, you know, ask it to create your email to do your um FOB and all of those things." So, I typically handle that just like I would a new staff and then I'm the one who sets you up with like your board docs and and stuff like that. Yeah. Um, this did also come up at some of the district court workshops that I've been to. So NISBA gave us a a new a new school board chamber handbook. Yeah. So I printed a bunch of those for future use and it's it's got that question and answer type um format kind of like
037the school law book does. And then one of the other things that came out of the district clerk workshop is some additional trainings. saying that you guys know you have to to do the fiscal and um governance training, but there are a few other ones that they say are mandatory and or recommended. Um and that includes stuff like the data privacy, sexual harassment, and child abuse in the educational setting. Um so I'll look to moving forward. uh we already have modules that need um risk management provides us for our staff for those types of trainings. Um so moving forward with our board members, I'll be able to send that type of link out for for them to create those profiles to do that as well. Okay, that sounds great. Now we don't have to say
038we have no idea. We have no idea now. We have no idea. Yeah. Already. Yeah. So, y and we could always take those same if you've already done something like that. Yep. Ken, do you have any thoughts to add? You're another great Okay. So much better than ours. All right. Well, who did yours? Rich, I got a phone call. Welcome to the board. Yeah, that's all I got. Very prepared. Yep. All right. Meetings, phone calls. I have all that. I didn't. All right. Sounds like you guys are doing great. Carry on. Yeah. Tim, if at any point you'd like me to sit down and show you how to use boards, I can do that. Yeah. Okay. Next part of our meeting is called the consent agenda. These are kind of uh routine elements that we
039approve every meeting. Um there's board minutes, treasury reports, csse, cpsc recommendations. Usually vote on these all together. So I need a motion to approve items A through C under the consent agenda. A motion. Ken. Second. Audra. Any discussion? All in favor? I carried. Okay. Moving on to section seven action items. Okay. Letter A is the regional the ROC the regional operations center Boseies thing. Ben, do you want to explain what that is? This is a uh cooperative for the uh for the uh district to participate in for uh privacy, data security and privacy. Um the Rick one each each part of the state is broken into a a Rick which is your regional information center. Um, this particular one is specializing in your data privacy scrutiny of anything that's going to be posted on your
040website or any contracts that you have with vendors. They're they're going to do all of the leg work for us that we are in this consortium to make sure that anything that we post has already been vetted by them and that their contracts that we sign are all in compliance with the regulations that we have to follow so that we're not trying to do it ourselves. The volume of information that comes through the data privacy uh process uh for contracts and things is is unbelievable. So to have one of the parts of the state become specialists in this is a huge advantage for public schools and because uh you know we're a public school and making sure everything's in compliance with ped law 2d is the overall umbrella. Um it's our recommendation that we participate
041in this collaboration. It gives us some checks and balances, assurances that anything that we post or anything that we use uh is protected for data privacy. Okay. I need a motion to approve the RFP resolution. Second with Tara. Any discussion? All in favor? Carry. Okay. Next up, we have a donation from from Arlene Henley. Uh this is to accept the generous donation of prom dresses from Arley Henley. Need a motion 10 Audra. Any discussion? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Crown justice. All in favor? Carried. Okay. Next part of the agenda is personnel. And I have a disclaimer to read. We always read. All appointments are subject to change in compensation proration pending emergency school closing and required reductions in force. All coaching appointments are made pending completion and verification of all required coaching
042credentials with the siphon per feed contract to measure it with experience and no other salary or benefits. All coaching extracurricular appointments are subject to reduction in compensation proation and final student enrollment numbers and pending the outcome of any potential mergers and emergency school closings. Um, and I just wanted to note I'm going to ask to vote on these all together. A bunch of them are parent volunteers for the positive psychology class trip to New York City. Um, I just wanted to note we don't we haven't been taking board action on field trip volunteers in the past, but it's come to our attention that it's a good best practice to do. So we'll do that from uh point forward. So I need a motion to vote on items A through G under [Music] personnel. Audra and
043Ken. Any discussion? All in favor? Carried. Okay. Now we have a time for a second public comment if it's needed. Are there any other comment forms submitted? No. Nobody in the back. Okay. Next, we need to enter into executive session. Uh, I'd like to remind everyone that executive session is for board members and other individuals invited into executive session. You're reminded that all matters discussed during executive session must be kept in strict confidence. I get a motion to enter an executive session. Andre and Ken. All in favor? Excellent. Here I am. Exactly. Okay, we're good. Okay, I need a motion to adjurnn. 10. Second by Audra. Uh, any discussion? All in favor? I. We are adjourned. Cool. You're serious and I know death. I can.