001Good evening and thank you for joining us this evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Could somebody move action 1.02? We're going to move into a brief executive session. Move it. Second. Okay. Who' you hear? I heard three. Two handle and then I move it. Okay. Have a voice. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes 700. We will return shortly. Can somebody move action 1.03 to approve the agenda? Move it. Second. Mr. Pino, is there anything that we need to change on the agenda? No, we just changed the title of budget presentation, changed to budget update because it's an update, not a presentation. So that's the only adjustment that we made. Okay. And I believe did we we're adding that one resolution I'm doing it right now that we just discussed in executive
002session. Okay. That's correct. Okay. All right. Can I get all those in favor? I oppose. Passes 700. For those of you at home this evening and you would like to reach out to the clerk or to the board of ed members, you can reach us at [email protected]. or in the event of emergency and we need to evacuate the building this evening, we can go out the back door behind Mr. Hendrickson, go to the left, or we could go out Mr. Paulino's doors here, move as far away from the building as possible if we do need to evacuate. Would you please join me for the pledge of allegiance? [Music] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
003and justice for all. There is nobody signed up for public forum this evening. Can I get somebody to move action 1.07 to approve April 22nd's regular minute meeting? Second. I got Tim and is it Fallon? Jen and Lor. Okay, Lori. All right. All those in favor? I opposed abstaining. Passes 700. Action 1.08 to approve the April 29th special board meeting minutes. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed. passes 700 Z. All right. So, by Friday, we should have our self-evaluation in our Google Docs for the board members. Um, if on Friday you do not receive that, just read reach out to Mrs. Trude and she will make sure that you get a copy of that. Please have that filled out by the end of May, May 30th, so that we can make
004sure that we have all of the results and we will be talking about the evaluations at our board meeting on June 10th. It's coming quickly. Our uh budget vote is coming up on May 20th. Our election is from 9 to 9. We have two sites here in the city of Fulton. One on the east side at the uh city hall and one on the west side over at the war memorial. If anyone is in a question of where their voting site is, please just call the superintendent's office and Mrs. Trude will help you find that information. Uh then we will meet back here on the 21st to ratify the election results at 6:00. We have a health and safety meeting coming up on the 27th as well as a regular board meeting. uh our policy
005committee meeting that was scheduled for May 14th needed to be rescheduled until May 28th because we have our kindergarten transition night that is that night and we needed to uh make the arrangement so that we could be there for our children. Um, coherence, the district coherence sitebased meeting is June 2nd. And then that should about do it for our president report. Anybody has anything else they would like to share, concerns? Then I am going to pass it over to you, Mr. Palino, because we have an exciting evening right now. We sure do, and that's why I'm glad they're all here. All of our children and their families, thank you so much for being here. Couple exciting things we're going to be talking about this evening. And you got the battle of the books to start
006the evening. Mrs. Hendrickson. Thank you. I'd like to introduce Liz Sutter, the principal at Bonnie Elementary, who is going to introduce Fulton's teams from the countywide battle. We had teams from Landigan, Bali, the junior high, and high school. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for supporting Battle of the Books. Um, in a time where students often rely so much on electronics and they're putting the books away, this is something that invigorates reading. Uh they work in teams of three to four and they read eight books throughout the year and they often read the books multiple times in order to study them right down to key details. Um an ancillary piece of that is the collaboration component. So they have to work in teams and partner to read books and to
007um work together all throughout the day inside of school outside of school. There's time commitment. So, it's just a really exciting um opportunity for our kids and our research and evidence-based uh component of it that the one single thing that kids can do to impact their learning is to read to read outside of school things that they can do independently. So, uh we are super proud that we have um from Fulton um even though we didn't have we have a smaller population we had three teams that won the countywide battle. So we have building level battles and then district level and then the district teams go to the county. Um and we had some district level winners which is pretty exciting. So we'll start off with our youngest friends from first grade our first and
008second grade battle. So this is also new. We always did a third and fourth grade and then a fifth and sixth grade battle. And last year um a couple schools piloted and this was the first year we had first and second grade battle in the book. So, um, an amazing leadership opportunity with some of those right up there. There you go. Hi, I'm Lillian Hartra. My favorite part about the books was meeting my team and competing in all levels. I had a lot of fun, especially when I won. Henry, case and me were the first one, two team last year to win Battle of the Books. I am happy that Fulton has all grades in Battle of the Books. I learned how much fun it is to read. My favorite book was to read was
009greatest in the world and so is my teammates. Was the third of this group that was able to make it to bring me this picture to represent My favorite thing about battle is having the smartest and greatest team of all time. My favorite books where are my books. My name is Case Clink. Good job. Very nice job. So you can see lots of pride. Hi, I'm Rya Hartraft and my favorite part about Battle of the Books was it helped me prepare for my ELA state test. Hi, I'm Abigail Ola and my favorite part about Battle of the Books was working with my team. Yeah, we had a third member, Zoe French. Zoe French recognize Zoe tonight as well. Thank you very much. We have some friends from Lanigan. Oh, it's all right. Come on up.
010Way to represent, girl. So, my name is Noah Marquez and my favorite part of Battle of the Books, even though winning was really fun, it was probably like just the experiments with my teammates. We practiced a lot. We just had a lot of fun. Even though it was a competition, so I really liked that part. [Applause] Some representation from the high school. Two high school friends. [Laughter] that. Hi, I'm Andrew Becker. I had a lot of paper parts from this year's battle. I would have to say out of everything, I really liked the books this year. I felt like that they were an improvement from the previous year's books. Not to say that those were bad. I just think that these books were better this year. My name is Thomas Wood and like you said,
011my favorite part about battle this year was discovering a bunch of new books and authors that I would definitely read again on my own someday. Let let me ask you, you guys are in high school, so have you participated in Battle of the Books when you were in elementary and junior high as well? Yeah, we we actually won it a lot in junior high. We were we were rivals for the longest time. I know you were teammates. Perfect. Well, congratulations. [Applause] Thank you for supporting all of the books. It's an amazing opportunity for all of our kids. Yes. who selects the books each year? So there is a panel of um librarians with other collabor collaboration with countywide um members but they actually this year for the not for the first time but more recently
012they sent out a survey with um a number of books and asked for teacher input um from the schools. So I thought that was really nice. Any other questions? Who will facilitate the groups and work with the teams at the schools? That's a great question. So, that's always the tricky part. Um, so just at at Bali, let's see, in our fifth and sixth grade battle, we had nine teams. Our third and fourth grade battle, we had 11. In our first and second grade battle, we had 10. Wow. So, we had over 30 teams of kids. Um, and so there's everything from aids to TAs to teachers, um, office staff, student support team members, and they usually give up their lunch period, um, part of their planning. They're coming in early. They, uh, work with parents
013to meet after school or if their buses come late. So, um, we have teams that do meet outside of school sometimes, but it's all of the staff from within our school, um, that coaches all of the teams. Yeah. Is it sounds like there's a lot of teams. Does this sound is it now? Is there more participation each year? That's what I'm noticing. Yes, I it's it's absolutely incredible because if you look at the trends in the data of um children reading, it's on the decline, but our battle teams are increasing and I think they're they're really appreciating that face to face time to talk and have books in hand and to to work together as a team. All the things that we know kids love um that they really appreciate. So there's a competitive part
014to it which is as as you heard is fun. Thank you. Questions. Thank you very much. Thank you. So I just want to extend our my appreciation on behalf of the district. Thank you to our families for allowing us to work with these kids. I'm going to this is the part that I'm going to miss the most is watching our kids perform and and just seeing them light up when they're learning and and achieving and accomplishing their goals. It's just amazing. So, thank you for sharing them with us each and every day. And thank you to the staff. I knew the answer to my question, which was rhetorical. I knew there was a lot of people involved in this. And it's just amazing to see how well we did this year, too. It was pretty
015pretty special. So, thank you so much everybody. And everybody did a great job. So, thank you. We're hoping on Friday to release the new books for the next already. Huh. And Mr. Palino, we live stream our battle of the books. So, just because you're leaving us doesn't mean you can't watch us. That's very true. Very true. All righty. Thank you so much. Our second piece and all I want to give another round of applause for all that. There you go. [Applause] I got it before Brenda did. I don't Thank you, Mr. Um the piece that's exciting and if you stick around for a minute, you'll be able to see you're going to hear around the seal of biiteracy. And this is something that that you're going to hear and I believe that if you're a
016voracious reader and you're excited and you start to learn other languages, this is what every one of you can accomplish. Miss Hendendrickson. I'd like to introduce now Carrie um Holidayiday world facilitator and Audrey White who are going to um give an overview of the bio literacy. Last year we had um one candidate and this year we had five um candidates that went for their CL. So we're really excited that we're growing this opportunity and um exposing all languages. Yes. Thank you so much for having us here tonight. I'm sorry I feel like I have my back to people and I keep speaking to my back to that. Um, this year, like Renee said, we had five candidates earning the seal of literacy, which we were very excited about. Uh, we went from one last year.
017Danielle Mendes Rodriguez was our very first candidate to earn the seal of literacy last year. This year we had students earning the seal in Spanish, French, um, and English. We had one student, um, also earning the seal of triiliteracy in Spanish and French. So um a little bit about the seal of biiteracy. Um students are given an opportunity to demonstrate a high level. They have a proficiency in both English and a second language. They have to measure at an intermediate high level um in both languages. In order to do so they have to do a research project throughout the year. they get to choose a topic of their choice related to uh whichever language that they're interest uh that they're uh earning the skill in. And for that project, they uh plan a research project
018throughout the year. They do their research. Um and then they have to create a presentation and give a presentation to a panel. Um in Swiggo County, we have a consortium and we have a seal of by literacy presentation day where all the kids go. There's a panel of I guess you could call them judges and the students give their presentation in the target language and then they're asked questions in the target language about their projects. So Audrey's here with us today. Um Audrey has earned her seal of biiteracy in Spanish. Um you can go to the next slide. Um we also had they couldn't be with us tonight but we had Solange Katana Lint. She's our very first seal of um triliteracy in Spanish, French, and English. Alam Harvey earned her seal of biiteracy in
019Arabic and English. Wilbur Ramirez Vasquez earned his seal of literacy in Spanish and English. Audrey is here with us to tell you about her seal of literacy in Spanish and English. And Jace Warick also earned his seal by literacy in Spanish and English. So would you like to share Audrey a little bit about your project, your experience? We won't give it to you in Spanish. Although she could and she could do so very well. You can if you'd like to. Uh so my project was on ceramics and different cultures. I chose this topic mostly because this year I finally managed to fit it in my schedule. I got to take a ceramics one class, something I've been wanting to do since freshman year, and I loved it. I wasn't very good, but it was very
020fun. I loved the process. Even if the art came out a little wonky, I still loved it. And I thought it would be so interesting to see the different ways, different cultures, uh, style of their art and the history of it all. Uh, the reason I decided to pursue this seal of biiteracy mostly in the beginning was because Mrs. Tal told me about it probably because I just like to talk. So, and in Spanish class, it doesn't matter what you talk about as long as you say it in Spanish. So, it was kind of the perfect class for me cuz I could say anything I wanted as long as I spoke in the target language. So, uh because of that, she told me, "Hey, you might be eligible for this." I thought it was fantastic.
021I uh had also been looking at like the um course handbook or whatever and I saw like you I was going to need a pathway and this was one of them. So I just figured looking ahead it would be good for me. Uh some of the benefits I found uh obviously I get a sticker on my diploma which is very nice, very fancy, excited about that. Um, it's going to look good on a resume or if I wanted to apply for an internship or a job, I could say that I'm bilingual, which is awesome. And also a little less important, but it also qualified as my final project. So, not complaining about that. Um, some of the challenges of it, it sounds silly, but really it's just you kind of forget about it because it's
022not an official assignment. It's not something that is you have to that you're reminded about in your classes. You have to like take initiative and remember to do it. I'll admit I kind of did some things a little late, but I did them. I got them done. uh got over the senioritis of whatever and I'm glad I did it. I It was a good experience. Uh maybe I I honestly thought it was going to be harder than it actually was and I'm grateful I got the opportunity questions they'd like to ask. No, just wow. Yeah. Incredible that a you can speak two languages pretty fluently is amazing. And that you had your senioritis but picked yourself back up there at the end and still did amazing. Wow. I that's just incredible. You speak very well
023and I think whatever you do later in life you're you're going to excel at. Thank you. So what's next? Next year. Sunni courtland. Spanish languages. What are you doing? Communication. I'm declare mostly because I don't know what I want to do and I don't want to waste money on a major change. So figure it out and then waste the money. Sounds like she still wants to be a dragon. So she's going to go to I know I was actually I was the mascot for Bolton uh at the B festival. So I really was Thank you, Miss Holiday and your team. I mean, it took all of our our world languages teachers, uh, all of the teachers that support these pieces. Um, I've got some connections to that world. Uh, and it's amazing, um, what bilingualism
024can do to opening doors and opportunities for for individuals. Um, and seeing that, that's a 500% increase. I mean, when you think about that, that's a huge gain. And we should be very proud of that. Um and uh because I think we represent I was looking at the numbers I think there was about 30 kids that day roughly. I think there were 20 only 20 that only 20 actually showed. Yeah. For county and so we represented a quarter. Yeah. We had five of them. You should be very proud and I'll be and I mentioned to all our littles our younger kids out there. This is an opportunity when you graduate you'll be under the portrait of a graduate and you'll be looking at multiple pathways. So some of you may consider languages as one of
025your pathways just planting a seed. So it was a great opportunity for you to hear that what a senior is working on. So something to think about. So thank you so much and a round of applause for our [Applause] presenter. You're welcome to sit through our wonderful meeting or you're welcome to do what you need to do as families as well. Thank you so much. Thank you, Miss. [Music] Awesome. Good job, everybody. See you later. just reminds us uh about why we do what we do and uh to see that increase. That was something we planted the seed about a year and a half ago. We really started pushing and Renee really did nice. Miss Hendendrickson did a very nice job working with the the world languages and we really expanded opportunities and they embraced
026it. And to see that that we had so many kids that's pretty we should be pretty good here in full. It was it's amazing to see us uh speak in a different language. Just last week um alum we um I connected her with one of my friends friends in Washington DC and um to present Arabic because I needed someone who could evaluate her Arabic um to score her and we did that in a Google meet and it was and very impressive and humbling and the um the score was so impressed with skill set English and Arabic. So excellent. just another example where where Fulton's really digging in and and this is going to be for the portrait. This will be one of those pathways. I think we're going to see a lot of kids take
027this pathway and I think if they know about it as young as the kids that we're sitting in the audience today, I think you'll see more kids really embrace the language uh component and we have a lot of college courses also in those languages. So there's opportunity for college coursework as well. Now is this pathway like our other pathways where it was built into an existing course? No, this is actually an addendum. This is actually an additional you want to speak to it? Yeah, it is. This is um you have more independence where the seal of um civic readiness, you can incorporate a lot of the projects and the um assignments within the courses. This one is completely a different and you can't start it until your senior year, but still civic readiness. We're starting
028in eighth grade to earn the points. This one is um different. It is a heavy lift. Do you have to have the like taken so many courses? Yes. Like I was thinking I took Spanish for your Spanish form my senior year. I didn't know what you would have to take to be able to Yeah, you have to take it all the way through. And um to earn the sale, you also have to earn you heard Carrie talk about um high what's it high like a certain level on the the rubric to even get the seal. So you could still present but if you don't score a certain level you can do that. So I believe all five of our kids and the student that um whose native language isn't English, they have to take a
029a test. They actually just finished it today, the Apple test in Arabic, Spanish, and French um to show their proficiency in that as well. So something to be very proud of everybody. That's a great example where you're going to hear more about pathways uh in the portrait of the gradu over the next couple of years. It's really going to expand. We're just getting all that information from New York State and Fulton tends to be on the on the lead side with the numbers whether it's the seal of civic readiness, the seal of biiteracy. We've got the arts pathways that we're starting to evolve and work in as well. So, we're really starting to expand those opportunities for kids. Um, so, uh, next item was the timeline for the communication and election day. Can't hear it
030enough. Uh, Miss Abigore went through them, but just a reminder, our community budget forum is this Thursday at, uh, 6 p.m. It's another opportunity. If anybody has questions, please come. It's 6 pm here in the here at the education center. Uh, also we've got that um we've got on the website there's a an email uh specific to the budget. Please write and Miss uh Hooper uh will respond back uh generally within a day if not sooner. Uh and so those are there and we post those on the FAQ as well. So please if you have any questions whatsoever, please come that evening or send us an email and we'll respond. Um the other piece uh that we have is on the 20th is the annual board meeting uh the budget and the election that day.
031So, please get out and vote. Every vote counts if you and we want you to be informed. There's a lot of information. I believe I saw nine reports on the budget website for Fulton as well as every one of our board meetings and and uh we're we're live streamed and they are available on the website to watch and and listen as well. And our budget forum was just this last Thursday. That's on there as well. So, there's a a lot of opportunities. You should have your budget newsletters. Board members, did they come to your homes? I hope they've arrived your newsletters. It's a good check and balance for us to know. So, I'm glad the newsletters are in your homes. If that sparks questions, please let us know. So, um, please get out and vote.
032Um, and if you have questions, uh, please don't hesitate to ask. Mr. I'm sorry. I just wanted to clarify. You said May 20th. We have our board meeting, but I think you meant board election. The board election. Yes. Okay. And we Yes. Yeah. The big election is Thursday is uh Tuesday the 20th, 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. So, thank you, Miss uh, Miss Hector Hutchinson. Thank you. Music educators of the month. It's not a presentation and we should we'll try to maybe we'll get them in here next at one of our future meetings, but Miss Almeer and Mrs. Foster uh were recognized by WCNY as music educators of the month. We did put that in your weekly, but that's really exciting. Uh you know, there's nominations from all over the counties, not just county, but
033Onodaga Madison, uh anywhere goes, and our two were selected. And so, it's really proud and they do amazing things. So, congratulations to Miss Almeer and Mrs. Foster. And then, uh, budget update. Anything you'd like to to add other than what I've added already? We kind of hit that already, but uh, not really. Um, if there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. There any things in the community that you're hearing? We have the the budget videos out. We're going to be doing some uh, blasts out through Parent Square as well as posts on um, our our Facebook, our social media accounts. We met with um our PR department from city Boseies this morning, Mr. Richmond, and he's going to be putting some things together, really trying to highlight quick points um things to
034really reinforce and get people out um next Tuesday for the vote. So, um hopefully all of that results in uh positive outcomes and great things for kids. And with that, I just once again, wasn't it amazing to start our evening with with our students and and their accomplishments? And with that, Miss Alberor. Thank you. Action 4.01, accept financial. Somebody move it. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Staining. Passes 700. Action 4.02 and uh 2425 end of tax collections warrant. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed passes 70 action 4.03 approve disposal of surplus property second all those in favor I opposed staining passes 700 action 4.04 04 approve the DOT foods donation move that second all those in favor I opposed abstaining passes 700 action 4.05 approve phase two
035which is the award bid for the site construction contract move it second all those in favor I opposed obstaining passes 700 action 4.06 06 approve the phase 2 award bid for the plumbing contract. Second. All those in favor? I opposed passes 700. Action 4.07 approve the phase 2 award bid for the mechanical contract. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Staining passes 700. Action 4.08 08 approve phase 2 award bid for the general construction contract move second all those in favor I I opposed passes 700 and action 4.09 is to approve phase 2 award bid for the electrical contract second all those in favor I opposed passes 700 action 5.01 01 is to approve committee on special education move it second all those in favor I opposed singing passes 700 action 6.01 is to approve
036the policies move it second all those in favor I I opposed abstaining passes 700 can I get someone to batch 7.01 01 to 7.12 for our personnel. Second all those in favor I opposed passes 700. Yes. Moving on to board forum this evening. Mr. Connors will let you start off tonight. I was going to say, do I get it tonight? You get it tonight. Uh, I'd like to give a shout out to all the students and the families that were able to make it possible for them to be here tonight. It's always great when we're able to celebrate the success we're having in our district and it's important that we make sure we do celebrate the high points cuz so many times we get focused on so many other things that we forget how many
037great things we are actually doing. Again, I just want to stress the get out to vote on Tuesday because as previously stated, we are doing a lot of great things and providing a lake broad of great opportunities in our district and we want to continue as a board to provide those opportunities. And we really feel like we put together a budget that allows for us to continue offering programs, not taking away from the key areas that not only our kids are able to participate in, but honestly deserve to to go on and be successful in life. We want to make sure we're providing those things. and we really think we're able to do that with this budget. Thank you so much for that. Tim said, Mr. Darm, you must have been looking over my shoulder
038as I was writing down. Congratulations to all the students uh who won the battle of the books. All of them that participated and bravo to the staff, all the staff for all the help that they gave and the extra time they provided. Uh again, good job on the bi literacy. Uh my wife's an English teacher and I still don't have English down. We've got somebody doing three languages. So uh great job. I think it's a great program. Do we have anything in any uh earlier years? Our lit our language program starts in 8th grade, but I think as you see this expand over time, I think you'll start to see maybe more cultural exploration, things like that pushing down. That would be my vision. uh what you'd see is a push just like our seal
039citrus as you start to push down that um that commitment to the community and giving back and all of that down to the younger grades. Same thing I think will happen around languages and things. It may not be specifically teaching languages but studying and exploring cultures and language and creating that understanding and respect for differences. That would be my thought. Yeah, I think the earlier they uh they start to learn. Um, I lived in Virginia Beach and where I took my kids to preschool. They started teaching on a second language at age four. Thank you. Mr. Amanda, um, just to piggy back off of um, my colleagues, it was really great to hear from the kids um, the battle of the books. I love to hear them excited about reading because you don't hear that
040too often. and it seemed like I heard I heard a common commonality of they're excited to continue reading some authors. So that in itself says a lot. Um the uh sale of biiteracy and triiteracy so impressive um knowing that these kids they're definitely going to go out and just make a huge difference because that's our world now. Um congrat congratulations to our um two music educators Mrs. Almeer and Mrs. Foster for receiving that award. Um there's so many celebrations going on with seniors and end of the school year. So I mean and they're a big part of that. And thank you to Mrs. Hooper. She's she's really working tirelessly to make this budget understandable and more comprehensive for everybody. So if you have any questions, definitely reach out because she will definitely get back to
041you in a very timely manner. So thank you for that. Miss Paul. Well, I'm going to piggy back off of everybody and and thank you, Kate, because I I just said that the last um budget forum, I'm not as overwhelmed anymore and I think it's a it's a great budget and everybody vote for it. I'm I'm telling you, all the stuff that our kids have, I cannot I'm just I'm fascinated. I'm impressed by I'm learning all this stuff that goes on with a high school. I I just very It's fascinating. It's I I love it. And the Battle of the Books, you guys are probably figuring out I'm not a techie person. That's that's just, you know, they didn't start computers till I was out of school. And um in the Battle of the Books,
042I love that more and more kids are actually opening books and and I I love that. So, I'm I'm very impressed with that. It teaches literacy, teamwork. It teaches everything kids should be learning, staying away from all this technology and things like that. And um kudos to our music teachers and and I think that's it. I mean, I could sit here and, you know, say a bunch of stuff and it's all positive. Thank you, Mr. Kandle. Oh, I want to thank everyone who participated in battle with the books, all our success in bi literacy. I want to congratulate Mr. Gilma on achieving level four with the New York State School Board Association. Um, and we do we have so many programs that are furthering everyone's education. When I came to school, we just got a
043rock tablet and a piece of stone. We've really advanced since then. Yes, we have. That's it. Mrs. Hutchinson. Um, yeah. I just wanted to piggyback um about our, you know, seal of biiteracy and triliteracy. Um, I just think that is phenomenal. Not only is that amazing for our kids, but the careers field that that can really open up into is significant. Um there's so many jobs especially in healthcare and other fields that that really um is going to be a huge um asset for our students to have. Um just like everybody else said the kids and Books that's something definitely near and dear to my heart. Um I also wanted to just thank also our librarians. It's really an all year round project for them and they do a phenomenal job. So thank you so
044much um for that as well. I did want to pedic to the budget um just because I've seen some stuff out there in social media and our um budget is coming very soon. Um I wanted to say um I know that our district and especially our administrators have really got taken a hit on social media with some of the negativity and things that has been said out there and misinformation that's been out there. Um and our administration team is too polite to correct anybody. However, I am not. Um, I want to make it known that for several years, our superintendent has taken a 0% increase in pay raise um, multiple years in a row. Our administration team, um, while very deserving of their pay, they are also in the middle of the road compared to
045others in the county. Um, this board has been very fiscally responsible, putting only a 1.2% 2% average increase every year for the last 10 years. Um there's some things that we couldn't see such as healthcare costs and heat and electricity going up. Um just like everybody else in their homes, we play an important role on this audit team. Not saying that we are perfect, but we always strive to make improvements um anywhere we can go. As anybody can see, the educational programs we offer just from our students here tonight are far surpassing almost anybody else in this county and is something to really be proud of. Not only this board, but this community as well. Um, we really are leaders in our community. Um, I want to plea for the support of our community to
046pass this budget. We've worked tirelessly, meeting after meeting, month after month, really trying to cut things down and not have it affect our kids or our children. Um, and just, you know, the if it doesn't get voted yes, you know, contingency is a drastic change for our community, could mean drastic cuts in extracurricular and after school programs, and nobody wants that to happen. So, thank you for our admin, our team. Kate, thank you so much. Um, and community, please come out and support our budget on the 20th. And that's it for me. Thank you, Mrs. Hutchinson. I had a few of those points I wanted to make, but I could not have said them any better than you said. Thank you for putting all of that information out in a quick little bullet point for
047our community. Um, budget season is not my favorite season. It's something I mean and I'm not even the one starting at the top where you guys are, but Kate, I do have to say again, thank you. Uh Miss P had said it earlier, you make it uh easier for us to understand. Um and we really appreciate all the hard work that everybody does. And um I I also some of what I'm hearing out in the community is people are thankful. Even though we haven't had a huge turnout in the budget forms, I've heard people very thankful that they were offered. Um, people did watch uh Kate and Brian last Thursday doing the budget forum. Um, also the only thing that I'm hearing that people were not um super aware of is who are candidates running
048for uh seats on the board next for next year. Um, I know that I did see it in the budget letter that came out. It was a very small little area, but um, Mr. Crannle and Mr. Connors are uh, running for the seats again, as well as Mr. Brian who has attended almost all of our meetings since like February or maybe January. So we have three wonderful uh candidates running. So um there should be biographies coming out soon. So they are on the website. So please go to the website and uh you know check to see who these fabulous folks in our in our city are. Um, I can't say anything more than what my colleagues have already said about our wonderful students and staff and all of the good things that are that are
049happening in our district. Um, please come out and vote. Your voices do count. Your voices do matter. Um, and like I said, we hope to see you there. Thank you so much for all of that, Mrs. Hutchinson. That was perfect. So, uh, with that, uh, there's a second public forum if anybody's interested in speaking. Okay. Since there's nobody, I just want to recognize you all. I forgot you have your plaques and your uh recognitions. NISSBA, they came in in a big big box the other day with all of that. Thank you for all that you're doing. I'm looking around. I'm trying to everybody who had them, but I I see certificates and plaques and things like that around from the from the efforts that you put forth doing your trainings and putting the hours in.
050Um it's something that we've always taken great note here in Folsson. So, thank you. Um a certificate doesn't give it enough. I would add that everything the board does is completely voluntary as well. Um I think that's another item of confusion that the board volunteers their time to help us out and lead us. So we appreciate everything you've done as well. So congratulations on your efforts uh as they came and we we don't know all the numbers until these things until they arrive and say somebody achieved level four or 75 credits or hours or this and that. So thank you so much for all you do and and I just wanted to draw everybody doesn't see those plaques. in your room in your houses and everything else like that, but I wanted to draw attention
051to that this evening. So, thank you. Thank you. And I wanted to ask you one more question, Mr. Palino, because we have somebody sitting over in our um is that our student rep over there? Oh my gosh. We have a new person joining the board of education, our junior in waiting who will be helping us out. This is Gwendalyn Holland. Come right up to this to hear something. So, it took us a while and we had to figure things out, but we have now our junior on the on the uh board and waiting, if you will, for the senior. I had my first meeting with Gwendel Went this afternoon uh along with Santina. Santina's in a goal in 10 minutes over at the high school, so she couldn't be with us this evening. Uh she's
052the goalie on our lacrosse team. Uh and Gwen is going to be just from the interaction I had earlier, I think I can see you've got a very special board member. uh student representative and we talked about that this is she is the conduit of student voice to this board and so it's a great opportunity. So thank you for taking on this challenge. Thank you so much for congratulations. [Applause] My sticky got moved. That's okay. There's a few of us. We got your back, Mr. H. We got you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. So, does anybody else want to join us for public forum this evening? All right, we are going to be moving into another executive session and then we will come back out and close on it. So, we are definitely going
053to move it. Would you like to move it? Would somebody like to second? Okay. All those in favor? I opposed. Passes 70. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening. We will be back out shortly. All right, welcome back. Going to ask somebody to move 8.04. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I I opposed passes 700 and action 9.01. Move it. Second. All those in favor? I opposed staining. Passes. Passes 61. Tim, you stay here. Passes 700. Have a great evening everybody.