001Dr Richards Mr long all in favor the vote is unanimous we're now back in public session please stand for the pledge I I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice do we have any agenda changes this evening we had updates to Personnel thank you that moves us on to board president comments um as we're in December already back from our Thanksgiving break having only about two and a half weeks until the longer holiday break this winter which sounds very simple and exciting uh but for those of us who work in schools have kids walk by schools have heard the word schools many of us know that that's a very intense busy time period lots of emotions
002lots of things to get done just lots of excitement and anxiety is you're coming on a big change so just taking a moment to recognize everybody adult and child who's working through those times and making sure they have a positive experience up through their break so then they're able to hopefully find some relaxation some time to reenter um and access any supports that they may need during that time period um knowing that there's a lot of exciting events going on during this time as well there's I think basketball games I've heard mention going on uh we have clubs getting ready for different parts of competitions that they're involved in throughout the year uh we have at brasser uh the craft sale coming up soon different fundraising events all sorts of things to keep people again
003very busy supporting each other supporting the community but knowing that all of that Focus takes some time for people to be able to Center and make their way through this so thank you to everyone for all their work during these times that moves us forward to points of interest do we have any thank you do we have any meetings to report on okay do we have any visitor comments thank you so that moves us on to our report section our report right now is on the 8th grade trip which is scheduled for potentially June 2025 principal of Gage Child Life middle school and I am here to present to you our proposal for the eth grade class trip this spring all right here we go all right so um based on the recommendation of our
004assistant principles and teacher leaders we decided to take a slightly different approach with soliciting interest for the trip this year uh we held a classwide eighth grade vote where our eighth graders were presented with four options of where they would potentially like to go after thorough vetting by our team that put together uh the options in the itineraries more than 90% of our eighth grade class participated in the vote and the top voice uh the top to Choice was Peak and Peak outdoor resort in climber New York which received over 50% of the votes cast uh this is 2 hours and 15 minutes away it is an outdoor resort uh in the summertime it features yard games mini golf athletic courts ropes courses zip lines in pools you'll notice the three objects with asteris next
005to them do require waivers signed by the families uh for their children to participate in uh there is also extra Resort supervision provided at all three of the asteris um events uh we are proposing that the trip occur on June 6 that's a Friday and 2025 students would be dropped off at school and the charter buses would depart at 6:45 we would return at 7 p.m. the projected cost of this trip is $275 which includes includes a charter bus meals and snacks throughout the day admission to everything inside the park and Resort and a class t-shirt for all students there are scholarship opportunities for our students who may need them and require them uh they have been participating in class fundraisers since sixth grade uh their profits from that will be taken off of their
006trip cost automatically our parent teacher organization budgets annually to support students in need and collaboration with our social workers and student support team uh so that they have this opportunity as does our student council and our various District Partners uh specifically through Angelina pound's office um for student support services so that is our proposal uh I am here to answer any questions that anybody may have about the process or the new location because as you know Niagara Falls has been the location for the last several years I love that there was the chance for the students to give feedback and choice over their opportunities for me that always feels like a good thing for our kids to have that voice in their choices Dr Richards yes Dr Richard so um uh as you know communication
007is key so making sure that all stakeholders are aware that um we can uh take questions and address concerns on a case-by Case basis uh additionally we have uh subsets of student support teams that operate in the building consisting of uh teachers social workers counselors Community administrators uh that meet on a once every 4-day cycle to discuss the needs and the supports and the interventions providing their students students uh they have a pretty good pulse um based on the connections that they formed to their students over the years in their community over who may need some proactive and an extension um hey can we help you out uh in addition to the invite reach out we're here to support everybody um who wants to participate in this anything else yep and this we're going to
008be voting a little bit later in action items thank you so much for share oh did you have go ahead what were the other choices that they voted on there was uh one choice in Toronto for a Medieval Festival there was two uh standard Niagara Falls itineraries uh that differed slightly in what they would be doing in the park throughout the day uh they were presented with a one-page itinerary and a YouTube video created by the uh parks and services for each one of the vendors uh before casting their vote thank you anything thank you so much thanks everybody all right we have our school nutrition update next can you hear me now I can hear me now so good evening president coffee vice president Richards Board of Education and superintendent daily I'm Janice philli
009I'm the director of school nutrition and I'm here to provide a brief update so just a little bit about our team we do have six School cafeterias in addition we feed kids at Hope Hall along with four off-site bosis groups we have over 40 School nutrition staff members within that staff there are at least 10 staff that are from different home countries where English is their second language uh so we got lots of good stuff going on on the team within the team we have five cook managers along with one school nutrition manager Who oversee each of our kitchens the school nutrition manager at the middle school is the one that also oversees all the offsite uh feeding that we do each day so a little more about the team um each cook manager is
010responsible for the daily operation of the kitchen along with any recordkeeping there is pretty extensive record keeping required by state Ed we have eight Cooks two located at the high school two at the middle school and then one at each of our elementary schools in the cook roll they are required to fill in as manager should the manager be absent we also have over 25 Food Service helpers those are the people you see cashiering serving kids prepping food washing the dishes and keeping everything running smoothly also not on the slide is uh Carmen Del corvo who is our school nutrition office assistant and she helps me keep that office running smoothly she's also the person that our families are likely to reach when they call um and she is wonderful with our families we appreciate
011her so State Ed requires training of our team and so each member of the team is required to have 6 to 12 hours annually of continuing education these hours are gained through our superintendent conference day along with um other food safety training over half our staff are nationally certified or County certified we also are required annually to do civil rights training uh and diversity equity and inclusion training so my favorite slide meals are free again this year so this is year two of a fiveyear program that we're part of and um hopefully there won't be any changes to that and so we are very excited it was nice to hit the ground running most families were aware that meals were free again so it's really helped with our participation so again that's a big bright
012spot uh as far as the average daily meals served our numbers come out of our um POS system so these do include our kids that we feed at Westside West View Ridge Crest and RTP this does not include the Hope Hall meals they do their own claims we actually act as more of a vendor for them and so if you look back uh 22 23 we were um close to 3,000 meals day daily 23 24 about 3600 and this year consistently looking at it today we're around 4,200 meals a day so the numbers keep climbing uh and then looking at our average participation of those meals breakfast again you can see 23% last year 37% and this year breakfast participations at 41% and growing lunch um we're up to 74% I like to boast that
013that's the highest on the West Side just saying um so we're feeding lots of kids and uh there really is the need and we're excited to be able to do that the other thing we're very proud of is when we switched to free meals we did not reduce the number of choices we offer there has been some conversation about that in other districts that once it became free there went choice we did not do that we feel it's it's important that all our students still get a choice each day we like to have student voice and involvement annually we've had uh for the past three years a Gates Chie Middle School recipe contest it started with some pizza madness we've done pasta we've done desserts where the kids submit recipes then they come with our
014team prepare the food and the kids get to sample and vote on what they like best we also did twice a high school Sur survey last year uh trying to be a little more modern using QR codes trying to get feedback as you can guess with the high school kids you got to filter some of that a little bit but um still helpful and also um at our Fall Fest the last two years we provided samples of new items we wanted to offer this year we did orange chicken over Ramen and we also did overnight oats which was kind of fun uh we had a family from another District say wow I can't believe you make food food for breakfast well you know we do cereal and muffins too but it's nice that we try
015and offer something that's on Trend Andor something that's homemade for the kids so any questions for me yes I know when we first went to free lunches we were pushing for families ENC not pushing encouraging families to fill out the free and reduced lunch forms how do we stand with that people still thrilling them out do we yeah so that's a great question so this year there were some issu isues uh with State Ed with how the uh what's called direct certification was happening and so they pushed out our expiration date which was actually yesterday so going into the expiration we were at 55% um because we've been actively trying to work on these applications the dip was to 47% this morning a year ago that dip was to 37% and then you spend time
016trying to build it back up so I pretty confident that that dip since it wasn't quite as big you we're hitting the ground running trying to close that Gap it's important that families still have that free and reduced benefit because there's other benefits tied to it and so what happens is when all of a sudden they can't get a waiver it's the Frantic phone call along with obviously it's important you know from a taxation standpoint that we keep our percent up any other questions for me I should have brought along some samples I really stink we never object to samples next next year thank you so much we appreciate it thank you all right you've been given a challenge Sir Finance facilities and audit update see if I can talk like a live stock Livestock
017Auctioneer I can't even say that holy cow all right good afternoon superintendent daily president coffee vice president Richards evening and Board of Education um so I'm here to give a finance faili audit committee report uh we went over audit um Fred matsik did a cyber security audit um generally the consensus was that um the technology department is uh was proactive and Cooperative during the process um and that um our technology um process received the highest ranking possible so kudos to the technology team um internal audit and internal claims audits for the first quarter of this year and fourth quarter of last year um all positive um feedback um from a finance perspective we talked about FEMA reimbursement Mrs Sanford District treasur updated the committee on our appeal for additional funds noting that a good portion
018of them um have already been claimed and paid out um in terms of the budget um shared that um we're fully in the budgeting process um buildings and departments are actively developing and establishing budgets that will um be put forth to District administration to review in January and so from an expenditure perspective we're right on track from a revenue perspective a slight bird walk there's been some recent developments um in terms of uh Foundation Aid and funding um irie1 bosies put out an an analysis of potential aid for next year um noting that um overall Aid across the state increased 3.9% last year I'm going into next year the estimate is 5.77% based on the Consumer Price Index change which is a positive for schools um in addition shared some initial numbers initial numbers based
019on the November database the information that we submit to the state and it looks very positive for Gates triy however um at the same time last night the Rockefeller Institute um who did surveys across the entire State and connected with a lot of stakeholder groups um put out a 314 page report last night um that looks at Foundation Aid and state funding top to bottom um there are a whole slew of probably um 50 proposals on all different categories of funding um across the state this is a snapshot this is only 10 pages long that kind of um truncates everything and tries to consolidate it in a way that um people who are big into education funding can understand um however because it is so complex it will take some time for um organizations and
020associations that advocate for schools to come out with an assessment of that um and we do know that um that it will be complex there's a lot of complexity in here um and that based on what we see now if they do enact what the rockfeller Institute is recommending um right now we have no idea what that will mean for us because there's so many moving Parts in so many categories that would have to be then distributed across the state um so again there's going to be a lot of conversation about that at the state level and with the governor governor's office um and the legislative branch um relating to which and which parts of this and how far they'll go in terms of implementing it and what the timeline will be and what that
021could potentially mean for us so point is um state aid is very up in the air for us at this point in the game uh with that being said we also talked about some potential legislative items um that could um be areas to focus in on for this year also um asked that the board and the finance failing audit committee continue to think about areas of legislative priority um talked about a district-wide study uh tomorrow we'll be sending out a um request for proposal for for a comprehensive planning study um that will look at everything from Dem Graphics to enrollment to grade configuration um to zoning to Transportation um will be a thorough comprehensive study and we'll send that out tomorrow um hopefully get some interested parties to come in and interview with us and
022then start a study in the early part of 2025 um talked about District printers um and the ones that need to be approved by the Board of Education um talked about an expiring pilot agreement and some issues with one of the expiring pirate Pilots that we um will likely need to address down the road um we talked about um the building brighter Futures the current capital project that is ongoing right now and where we're at in terms of tracking and plans we talked about the Future Ready um perspective Capital project for vote on February 5th 2025 and just talked a little bit about the communications plan and the vote plan we talked about electronic door clocks at the elementary schools noting that they're planned to be installed at some point during the school year uh
023we talked about clocks and PA systems at the middle and high school um indicating that um we intend to have those upgraded um would like to use the funds out of our $4 million um capital reserve fund for security infrastructure um that will be a second proposition for vote on February 5th we talked about addresses as the district office is moving over into this building noting that um the address will not change and that um we'll still receive mail at at three Spartan way we talked about the solar project um and the conversations we're having with New York State education department from an advocacy perspective um so that um we're able to get that project aided and actually do the work absent a special approval from the state or special legislation from the state um
024we will likely not be able to continue with that project um bus electri ation plan um noted that we're currently doing a study and shared where we're at in the process and then um we talked a little bit about traffic flow at the high school and um some Storage Solutions specific to our music department any questions okay thank you and have a great night thank you all right that moves us on to our consensus items can I have a motion to approve the consensus agenda littlewood Mr Bowski any questions or discussions all in favor the vote is unanimous can I have a motion to approve consensus items C through G Mr long Miss Kai any discussion all in favor the vote is unanimous all right that moves us on now to action item can I
025have a motion to approve the eth grade trip in June 2025 can I have a motion Dr Richards Miss Davis any discussion all in favor the vote is unanimous can I have a motion to approve the installment purchase agreement with Monroe 2 Orleans bosis for copiers and printers Toshiba to be place at the following locations the Gage CH high school and the Gage CH Middle School can I have a motion long Mr rowski any discussion all in favor the vote is unanimous can I have a motion to approve in ah pausing for one moment got this guys motion to approve the installment purchase agreement with Monroe 2 Orleans bosies for copy and printers Canon to be placed at the following locations gay CH high school and gay CH Middle School can I have a motion
026Dr Richards Mr msato any discussion all in favor the vote is unanimous can I have a motion to approve the following rate of pay increase for lifeguards and swim instructors with the district to attract and attract and retain qualified people effective of January 1st 2025 lifeguards from $16 to $18 per hour and swim instruct instructors from 17 to $19 per hour can I have a motion Miss Ka Mr long any discussion all in favor the vot is unanimous where it's your turn Okay so first I want to start out with some important reminders from our school calendar reminder there's no school for students in grades upk 5 next Monday December 9th because we're having our parent teacher conferences and before Thanksgiving break our high school and middle school sent out the first report cards of
027the Year via parents Square these report cards came directly to families via email text message or app notification in the same way that student schedules and teacher assignments were shared this past summer our plan is to continue to use parent Square to increase access to important information about student progress and growth Elementary families you'll be up in the next few weeks and speaking of parent Square which we always do at our board meetings we continue to inch up in participation 71% of our parents and Guardians throughout the district have activated their accounts unlocking engagement features and easy access to information about their students last month we also began using student Square the student component of parent Square in small Pockets students can now use this platform to stay informed about their clubs and athletic teams
028and if families want to access important features like secured document delivery free they can go to gatch child.org parentsquare to get started meanwhile students can access student Square directly in class link we also have multiple opportunities to see our Spartans perform this month this week the Paul Road Band and chorus concert is Thursday night next week you have the chance to enjoy the high school band concert on Tuesday the Disney band and chorus on Wednesday and the Middle School chorus on Thursday then finally the week before break Middle School band and jazz concert will be on Wednesday December 18th all concerts being at 700 p.m. in our Performing Art Center we also have opportunities to engage with the community at two holiday craft shows hosted by Florence brassler and Walt Disney scoop up one-of-a-kind holiday
029gifts at one of these two great events on Friday December 6th and Saturday December 7th the fbfa is hosting their annual holiday craft show at the chaii community center then the following weekend on Saturday December 14th the Disney PTO will hold their craft fair at Disney Elementary School also on the docket for Saturday December 14th is our popup food pantry the event will be split between four locations at two different times from 9:00 to 9:45 a.m. you can head to City of Hope Church at 2070 Long Pond Road or Motel 6 at 1273 Tri AV to get a bag of food or from 10: to 10:45 a.m. you can meet the pop-up Pantry at the gates public library or the Church of the Epiphany at 3285 buffal Buffalo Road this event is being held in
030partnership with the gates chil Community connections or gc3 our high school family should Mark their calendars next Wednesday the high school is hosting our financial aid night the event on December 11th begins at 5:30 p.m. in the high school library mezan come get help in filling out these important forms for our College Bound Spartans we are once again looking for voter input in the budget development process as part of the budget ambassador program one of our original budg budget ambassadors is here in the audience and we hope he comes back again uh ambassadors will review the preliminary 2526 budget is developed by the administration recommended to the Boe any modifications they'd like to see volunteers must commit to meet for two maybe three two and a half hour sessions with myself Dr ball and his
031team on March 6th March 20th and April 3rd if a third meeting is necessary no experience is necessary but must be residents of our district to sign up go to Gates charlie.org budgeted Ambassador finally to close out the night I'd like to remind everyone that the district office is moving to the gates trie High School later this month to accommodate this transition our district office will be closed from Monday December 16th through Friday December 20th please note that during this time email communication with district office staff may be intermittent we encourage staff and families to plan accordingly for any needs that typically required district offices assistance meanwhile the gates trie administration building will soon become the gates trie operations center moving forward this space will house facilities security and other vital internal operations ensuring these
032Services remain centralized efficient and accessible in the coming weeks signage will be updated to reflect these new locations on our campus and I would be remiss to not share that tonight uh uh one of our uh quality staff members MERS sacrifice celebrating her birthday her 29th uh with her children and family to be here to help us communicate with our community so happy birthday Mrs Petrino that is my report ma'am thank you and thank you again for sharing those birthday wishes uh can I now have a motion to adjourn the meeting Dr Richard anybody Mr rowski any discussion all in favor the vote is unanimous the meeting is a jour and thank you