2025-05-07: HPCSD Board Of Education Meeting

001Good evening everyone. Today is May 7, 2026. Welcome to tonight's High Park Central School District Board of Education meeting. I'd like to call tonight's meeting to order. And at this time, can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of discussing tenure, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or persons? >> So second. >> All those in favor. >> Opposed. Motion carried. We're now in executive session. It's going to budget hearing tonight. Thank you for coming. Um, so you'll hear our budget report. So this is going to be done now and not under the presentation correction. Okay, cool. All right, so over to >> Thank you so much to the board uh our community this evening. We'll be presenting uh the budget um summary regarding all the work that

002has happened uh to date. And so uh the first thing I'd like to start with is uh the work that we've done has really been focused and anchored on our mission and vision. Uh one vision, one mission for uh with one team for one dream. And that really is making sure our students leave FDR prepared uh and ready for workforce or uh post-secary education. The budget drivers that we have um the budget drivers uh that we have uh four areas uh number one uh preserving program services uh for our students, ensuring financial sustainability, improving efficiency and effectiveness, and lastly balancing the district's needs with our taxpayer uh impact. All the work that we've done this year really has been focused on the preservation of programs uh and services for our students. Uh we really have

003been working hard to ensure that the programs and services that students are doing well um and we're seeing some positive outcomes uh that we keep those programs. And so that's one of the things that we have been really working uh diligently throughout this this process. And so uh part of that was doing a lot of work with our administrators, listening to our educators, our teachers, our support staff. Um what's working? Let's continue uh to focus in on those programs and services. >> So this year our budget process started in January. Um we start with dissecting a lot of information and sharing that with stakeholders. We've been through multiple meetings. We look at some of our major challenges in the budget process. Um this year has been flat foundation aid or or less increases in foundation

004aid, large health insurance increases. And this year we ended up with a proposed 2627 fiscal year budget of 1.31.1 million. Um that represents a 4.1% increase from the prior year. Um, that's a a modest increase based on three-year history. So, in 2324, the budget went up 8.97%. In 2425, we had a 4.97% increase in the budget. And uh, from 2425 to the 2526 year, it was a 4.13% increase. So, you can see we're trying to trend that downward and keep that flat as a flat increase from year to year. Our tax levy um calculation was 3.34% and this year we decide we went with applying some state aid to the tax levy area of the budget. So we have a 2.92% increase in the tax levy. This is a summary of the different revenue sources

005that support our budget of $131 million. And you can see the different sources of revenue there. We talked about the tax cap um or the or the tax levy to the taxpayers. We have other revenues in there or significant revenues are state aid. That's many different types of aid. So we have foundation aid in there, transportation aid, um capital project aid, boseis aid. We have things like instructional materials aid. And so the school the state allocates those to us in their budget. um they're on I think their ninth or 11th budget extender, 10th budget extender right now. So um they have really been talking about political issues and not financial issues. So uh we feel confident in our our state aid estimates for the budget. As you can see here, we've also used some fund

006balance. So what that really is is what we earn in a current year and that we give back to the taxpayers. So what we do is we we budget less revenue and we say anything that we earn in the current year we're going to give back to the taxpayers. We've collected that from you and it's a return in the next year of budget. We're also going to use some of our savings. So that's reserves and so that comes directly from savings accounts and that helps offset the cost to the taxpayer. Here you can see our year-to-year budget uh summary. And so you can see this is um set and organized um on the largest driver of our budget which is employee benefits. So that includes things like health insurance, vision insurance, pension contributions, social security

007tax, Medicare tax, um unemployment uh insurance, workers compensation insurance. So those are all our employee benefits which are mandated by law and driven by contractual obligations. We al also have our salaries. So those are all um also contra contractual obligations. So with beyond our control um and so we've done some work in the salary area. We've really assessed the number of staff that we have across buildings and looked at metrics and how we serve students. And so that's helped us keep our salary increases down to down from year to year. You also see another large piece of our budget is Bosey's budget. So that u Bosey's services are utilized across all of our school buildings and all of our divisions um everything from health and safety to serving our special education students. And the nice

008thing about the Bosey's expenditures is they do generate Bosey's aid. So whether wherever we spend money with Boseies, we'd also get a piece of that back. So that's that's on the revenue side as well. And then you'll see some other areas of the budget um that we do have some more control over. Anything from contractual uh and equipment. Those are things like machines that we use to to um clean school buildings or the maintenance trucks that you see or tools that this that the um the maintenance gentlemen use, the parts and supplies. Uh anything for for food service is actually out of the food service budget. I shouldn't say that, but I see you're here. So, I mentioned food service. Um so, debt service payments. Um that's for all of our historical capital improvements that

009we made to our buildings. because you know we have lots of school buildings, lots of historical buildings and so that's associated with that and then we also have um that 4.1% increase represented there. The one thing I do want to highlight here for the board and the community, mentioned it before, if we did a rollover budget, meaning moving every expenditure that we had last school year into this school year plus the increases that we had um initially uh with regards to our budget assumptions, especially with our insurance uh increase which was almost 16%. that change in dollar would have been instead of 5.1 million it would have been close to $10 million. So we did a lot of strategic work around reducing uh expenditures. Uh we had a number of positions that we reduced uh

010through attrition. uh we had a few uh positions that we reallocated and so really proud the fact that we were able not to touch the programs and services that our kids are thriving in like the fine and performing arts um our sports programs um our winter circle project uh all the programs that we have sources of strength we have a lot of great programs that our students have communicated to us that sometimes those are the reasons why they come to school and we were able to stay away from reducing those programs. Uh we may have modified them but nevertheless they are still available for our students. And so making that reduction really helped us to keep um that change um that budget the budget change um sort of in alignment less than last year but

011sort of keeping that um pretty stagnant despite all the increases that we are seeing across the board with utilities insurance and the like. >> And so this is a little bit about our star program. Uh so star is a program that every taxpayer in the state of New York has access to. Um these are our maximum savings for both the basic and enhanced category. The enhanced category is for um senior citizens. Um so there's two programs. The exemption is a reduction in your assessible value on your tax bill. And taxpayers who have owned their house from 2015 forward are eligible for the exemption. Um if you bought your house after 2015, you're eligible for the credit. you can switch from the exemption to the credit program, but you can't switch from the credit program to

012the exemption program. So, this this slide here represents um what the 2.92% tax increase would be for the three different categories. So, an enhanced star home, a basic star home, and a no-star home in the town of Hyde Park. And so, what you see in the first column there is the assessed value of a home. And the equalization rate in the town of Hide Park is 0.35. So when you divide by that, you get a full value home at either 350, 450, and 550. And each one of those uh boxes across the top there represent both the annual and the estimated monthly increase in the cost for that taxpayer. So for a no-star tax po payer with a home of $450,000 market value, you're looking at roughly $217 more per year >> Or $18 per

013month. Yes. So this is taking into account the five taxing jurisdictions that we have in this Hide Park Central School District. So we serve towns of Clinton, Hyde Park, Pleasant Valley, Pikipsy, and Reinbeck. And so this shows you what the assessed valuation is in those homes uh and their equalization rate. So for instance in Clinton their equalization rate is is one which means they've recently had a revaluation of their properties and so their assessed value would be their full value of 350,000. So this just shows how the tax rate is calculated. So we take the the assessments across those five taxing jurisdictions and we equalize them to whole value and then we levy the percentage of taxes that are required to each one of those towns and then that helps us set the tax rate

014and so this will show you what the anticipated increase in the tax rate is for each town. Um, this is with everything being equal. Like, so equalization rates from the prior year, those new equalization rates come out in August of this year when we set the tax rate and we we get the tax bill printed with the county and then that goes in the mail for the September 1st delivery. Um, so that shows you how we get to that estimated tax bill increase for a home of $350,000 across those different taxing jurisdictions. And so this slide talks a little bit about the contingency budget. So um as we all know the voter has to authorize the school district budget and if the voter does not authorize the school district budget the board has some options.

015So the board can choose to uh either go right back out with the same budget to try to work on the budget and reduce it and take it back out to the taxpayer. Um and that is a statewide budget vote date. I think that's June 16th this year. Um, but if the the taxpayer does not approve the budget on that second vote, oh, I'm sorry, they can go straight to a contingency budget. That's a choice of the board. Um, but if we do go out back out for a vote and the voter does not authorize the budget, then we are forced to go to what they call a contingency budget. And then there are rules associated with the calculations of a contingency budget and the things that can and cannot be included in that budget.

016So the number one rule is that we're not require we're not allowed to levy over the prior year's tax levy. So we would have to reduce our budget by 2.1 million an additional $2.1 million um or the cutting expenses by 1274 1,274,000. That's our actual calculated contingency floor and we would have we could raise revenues for the difference. Right? So in this case, we've already appropriated a lot of fund balance and reserves. So we wouldn't have a lot of revenues that we could raise. So we would have to work towards cutting the budget by $2.1 million. And so this is just got a little word shuffle here game on our slide. We had looks like we have a little um typo there, but this is some of our contingency budget restrictions. So, school building use

017is some of the um one of the things that we cannot um allow our taxpayers to use our school buildings unless we're fully reimbured for those things under a contingency budget. We're not allowed to buy new equipment under a contingency budget. Certain salaries who are um for for staff that is non-unized is not allowed to be they're not allowed to get salary increases. And then non-essential maintenance and capital expenditures of the district are not supposed to increase. And so then on when you go to vote, you'll have two propositions. The proposition for the regular budget and then we're also asking for a proposition for um replacement, our bus replacement plan. So we have a a cycling plan to replace buses that are um higher in mileage and keep them safe for students. And so we're

018asking for four large buses and three small buses. And the total cost of those buses is $1,90,913. we do get roughly 60% back in state aid. So the net cost to the district would be $442,911 and those are financed over a 5-year period. So we don't spend that money in any one year. >> So we'd like to close out by just sharing that we really focus on those four drivers. Making sure that we preserve programs and services for our students. making sure that the budget that we present uh h is is financially sustainable. Uh increasing efficiencies uh so all new lighting throughout the district. Those are ways that we can uh conserve some of some of our resources uh improving efficiencies and effectiveness. And then lastly, keeping in mind our taxpayers. One of the things

019that I'm I'm really proud of in our district is that our educators, our administrators, our support staff are putting forward great programs that are uh being recognized uh regionally and nationally. Uh we just were voted the 10th for 10th consecutive year uh best community of music. Um those things bring folks to the area. Those are things that help our our property values go up. um our our achievement o over the past three years. We've seen an increase in math and literacy scores. We've seen a decrease in chronic absenteeism. Those are attributed to the amazing community that we have of educators and support staff uh in our district. And so for those reasons, I I feel strongly that we've done an amazing job with this with this um uh budget. Um and we always want to

020make sure that we keep our students uh for uh in the forefront. So uh with that, just want to highlight the uh this evening uh until 8:00 uh we have voter registration. We have folks that are here in district office. Uh we encourage put a call out uh call to action to our students because many of our students are 18 years old. We want to make sure that they they exercise their right to vote. Um, and then, uh, May 19th, uh, the the actual budget vote, uh, it's going to be held at Havlin Middle School from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. I encourage all of our residents that are registered to vote to please come out uh, that day. Any questions from Any questions for us? >> I don't have any. >> Thank you. So

021if anyone has questions, you can >> come to the podium and ask your questions. >> Good evening. My name is Linda Talon and uh I've been involved in the schools. My kids went through the schools. I've been involved in PTA and uh my husband is a retired earth science teacher and I am a retired school employee as well. I just want to say that I always reflect when I get my tax bill, you know, and school taxes that my taxes educate every child from kindergarten through high school for one year. What bargain? >> I just wanted to say agree. >> Thank you. Yeah. >> Second thing, uh just reflecting about the uh buses. >> Was it last year or two years ago that there was a push to do um plug-in >> buses? Was that

022last year? Well, I went to the uh public information on that which was held at the Ibart Library. Very impressed. And although the proposition did not pass, just looking back on how gas prices have gone up this year, wouldn't it have been a good idea to have done that? We would probably see a lot of savings in the price of gas. Just just reflection. >> Yeah, we we had I think two at least two votes, maybe three votes and and one of them was free, right? So like we didn't have to pay anything for the buses. >> So you know >> and we still lost that vote. So we're at the point of >> if we couldn't convince three buses then yeah >> anyway I'm just reflecting upon if we had >> we would have

023been in a better position. Um and just third on a very very personal note, my husband passed away this winter as a retired teacher and the people that came out and contacted me from the school district. It was just wonderful including John Hopter who you know was his principal from a long time ago. Hit park means a lot and the people in the high park staff are to be commended. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else like to have any questions? I think we'll keep it open or be closed. I mean, we have eight minutes before the regular meeting. So, >> whatever you guys want to do, we >> Do you want me to dance? >> No, let's not do that. >> Just go. >> Well, we have eight minutes. So, if you think

024of something you want to ask in eight minutes, >> so I think it's next week. Well, technically I think just because somebody could walk in now. >> I think we we're committed for the the the half hour. So, you know, then at that point we'll switch over to regular meeting 6:30. >> I'll be back. So, you turn to uh open session. And if we could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> No modifications. >> Um, can I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carried. Upcoming events. >> Still

025motion. >> All right. Uh May 11th is the Havlin Middle School spring concert number one. That'll be at Havlin at 6:30 p.m. I think I said on May 11th, right? May 12th is uh concert number two at Havland at 6:30 p.m. May 13th is FDR spring concert number two at FDR at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 19th is our district uh annual meeting and the 2627 budget vote and board member election and that'll be at the Havlin Gym. Polls are open at 6:00 a.m. and they will close at 8:00 PM. And there will there will be a board meeting to follow that. Wednesday, May 20th, community schools event, self-care fair at FDR, 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. I assume that's 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. >> Not all day, right? Um May 20th, uh Netherwood Spring Concert

026at Netherwood, 6:30 p.m. Uh Thursday, May 21st is our North Park Elementary spring concert, and that'll be at FDR at 7 p.m. Uh Monday, May 25th, uh all buildings will be closed for Memorial Day. May 26th is FDR award night. Uh award night. Note the printed calendar date was changed and that'll be at FDR at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, uh, May 27th, Ralph R. Smith spring concert. That'll be at FDR at 7 PM. Uh June 2nd, uh Violet A, uh spring concert will be at Violet A at 6:30 p.m. June 3rd, FDR spring concert number three will be at FDR at 700 p.m. Friday, June 5th is our senior prom. June 6th is our Saturday academy at North Park Elementary from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 pm. And then June 11th is our next regular board of

027education meeting would be at district office. Open session begins at 700 p.m. Any other events? >> Believe on May 17th there's a meet the candidates night >> which will be here. May 12th. 12. Did your >> come the 17th? >> May 12th. Good. Could you fix that? I would have been the wrong night. Um, >> that's a Sunday >> here. 5:30. I'm looking because you were the organizer. 5:30 to 6:30 here. >> No. 7 p.m. >> 7 p.m. >> What information do you have? >> Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. I get that right. >> Um, sponsored by PTA Council, but assisted by the We Voters. Yes. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Okay. Yep. That's good to know. >> Okay. I'll need a I'll need a reminder text. >> You got it. Got it

028right now. >> There it is. >> Any other uh events? All right. Moving on to Pride and Lauren tonight is at her National Honor Society thing induction. So, um she can't make it. So, it's all up to you. >> All right. So, let's let's start off with our artists of the month. >> Yeah. So, I have the pleasure of announcing our artist and musician of the month. We'll start with Aiden Chef Doll. He's an eighth grade student at Havlin Middle School. And Aiden is an artist who is dedicated to any project he is working on. He works well across all mediums from collage to drawing to ceramics. He comes up with creative ideas for all assignments he is given, experimenting with different art styles each time. He is conscientious of the art studio, always making

029sure he leaves the space and materials cleaner than they were found. His collage work showcases his ability to create exciting work from any materials. And I don't believe Aiden is here this evening. We thought he was going to come, but if he shows up, we'll make sure we give him his certificate. >> Next, we have our musician of the month, and he is here this evening. So, Jacob Godet Reenberg is an 11th grader at FDR High School and Jacob has made a name for himself as a staple within the entire music department, primarily a percussionist in the band program. Jacob Jacob also can be found covering percussion parts for the pit orchestra, concert choir, full orchestra, string orchestra, pops orchestra, jazz band, and even helping out at Havlin covering a drum set with their coral

030department. Wow. He is often the glue that holds all of our ensembles together. So congratulations to Jake. >> Way to go. >> Thank you. Okay. So, is it okay to transition to Pride? >> Mhm. >> All right. So, we are in Pride. >> Oh, that's right. That's right. So, um this uh weekend on Sunday, if you didn't get a chance, have a great evening. If you didn't get a chance to see the amazing work, and I know we had a number of board members there this weekend, you would have been blown away. The the sophistication of the artwork starting in kindergarten all the way to 12th grade was amazing. Uh asking the students what inspired their work, they were able to verbalize um every single detail in terms of why they selected certain aspects of

031the work. Um, and I just want to give kudos to the teachers because many of the students gave credit to their teachers for being able to inspire them, to give them a space where they can express themselves artistically. And it was just amazing to see um the work that was there. Uh, even even from kindergarten, they doing paperier-mâché and creating donuts, which look delicious. I almost ate one, but um all the way to 12th grade where they're doing all these masterpieces. So, I just want to give kudos to all the students, our support staff, our teachers who really inspire our students to to um tap into that talent that they have. We also want to uh give kudos to all of the students uh yesterday that signed that were at uh college signing day at

032FDR. Um, I want to give kudos to Beth Fletcher, uh, Bobby Goodman, and their team for organizing such an amazing event. The energy was like off the charts. Uh, the kids were supporting each other. The families were there. Uh, a lot of fanfare, and it was just really great to hear the coaches speak about every single student. And the one trend that I heard was that they're good individuals. They're good human beings. They have character beyond the the the talents that they bring on and off the field. That was the one common theme. So, I just want to give kudos to all of our student athletes for the amazing work that they've done. And that brings us to hot off the press. Uh Troy uh Spear was named uh New York um market uh winner

033and there were 15,000 nominees. He was one of 28 that was selected and his his story uh very inspiring uh student athlete who um was very v resilient throughout his his educational career at FDR. um had some tough challenges and worked through those through perseverance and is is doing amazing uh things now and will continue to do amazing things in the future. So, just want to send um him a shout out and uh just want to thank um Beth and her team, all the coaches who really support our students to be the best student athletes possible. Uh yesterday um we had the opportunity to go to the M Hudson uh school study council. Um and just want to uh just share with our board, with our cabinet, with our administrative team. Um I received the

034uh leadership excellence award and I I have to say that this work is is is a work of of a team. Uh that recognition is shared among members. >> Now I also want to give a shout out to Natalie Ellis who was recognized for teacher excellence uh for the work that she's doing at Violet A uh elementary school. Many of of the things that they do goes far beyond what's happening in the classroom. they're giving a lot of time um beyond the regular school hours, community service programs for students, and so just want to give her a shout out for her accomplishment. >> I'd like to say a few words about that, too. I think the annual meeting and award ceremony that we went to from the Mid Ha Hudson School Study Council gave a

035very honorary or honorable presentation to Dr. Roman for um our hide park superintendent for a presentation of educational leadership award. So it was really exciting to see him get that award and also as you said Natalie Ellis from Violet Elementary. It was really a very impressive assembly of many many people but you guys really stood out. So it was a wonderful experience. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Before we move on to superintendent award or report, I wanted to uh re recognize a number of individuals. So this week we're celebrating teacher appreciation week as well as nurse appreciation week. And we had an opportunity uh both Ryan and I to visit all of our schools. Um we were able to just stop by and uh recognize our teachers with a small token of appreciation as

036well as our nurses. We visited each uh nurses uh station and they just do amazing things for kids. kids really rely on the supports and services that they receive from from them and they were very appreciative uh for us stopping by and just just thanking them for the great work that they do. And I want to give a shout out to to Ryan and and and the HR team for making sure that we are recognizing each group, each individual in our school system. Um because without the folks that we have here, High Park wouldn't be as special as it is. And so we just want to say thank you uh to Ryan and his team for doing that work. >> Any other uh any other pride from anyone looking that way everybody's over there? >>

037Okay, superintendent report. >> Just two things. Um, as mentioned earlier, we have a 10th uh emergency appropriations bill which has been put forth by legislation. That means that uh the budget is going to be delayed um at least through Monday, May 11th. Um, as Tanya mentioned earlier, a number of the individual items that are still up for debate have nothing to do with educational funding, more so on um funding for child care services, um restructuring of auto insurance and all these other items. Um and then lastly, just again want to put another plug in. It's only 7:15, but until 8:00 this evening, we are here at district office. last opportunity to register to vote uh for the uh school budget vote on May 19th uh at Haplin Middle School. Okay. All right. Moving on to

0388.2, to our energy conservation program update with Rich Auster. Be careful too much. Good evening everyone. Um, in case you don't know me, sorry I dropped it already. In case you don't know me, my name is Rich Foster. I'm the energy educator and program manager for High Park School District. Um, I wanted to take you through a few of the things that have been going on this year to give you some updates on where we're at and where we're headed for next year. Um, as you can see there, there's an image of some of the things we're going to talk about as we move along. Um, a picture of some of the students that I've been working with this year and um, it's a great story. So, let's just move forward. Um our vision is

039um everything is grounded in our district's we are one philosophy. We actively support the vision and mission by ensuring every student has a comfortable and safe and learning environment while educating and creating a culture of conservation awareness among the students. There are host of activities that have gone on this year. Much of it is happening behind the scenes to improve the learning environment for each of our students. Working with Gregory, who is our FNO director, we continually monitor and adjust our building management system to counter any climate variations that we experience. In my role, I also try to modify behaviors regarding energy usage by eliminating waste. And wherever possible, we're able to save money that can in in the end be turned around and turned back to the school to be used for students. Tonight's

040discussion has three main drivers. The first is celebrating the real impact of your past investments and that dates back to roughly 12 years ago. Second is outlining our current targets for improvement and finally where we're going next year where I see it. the program being next year at this time. Starting with our department showcase, I'm really excited to highlight uh our recent energy conservation and sustainability efforts. As this slide uh indicates, there were some projects that we're investing in to provide that comfortable safe atmosphere that I talked about. Um, and we're trying to harness the latest new technologies to make our buildings efficient and eco-friendly. If you can I don't know if that's an eye chart for anyone in the audience. I know they have um seen this before if you're on the board. Um

041there are a list of things that are involved in our EPC that we're currently underway. We currently have underway. Um, one of them being the LED replacements for all lighting in the district. As you can see in this room, these this is an example of some of the new lighting that we have. It's all LED. The LED project was slated to be completed by the end of June and it's actually been completed already throughout the school district. And in many cases, it was it it was not noticed by many of the teachers. They anticipated that they were going to come into this great aura of light and that it was going to be um a a really cold type of lighting. Um the temperature would be the the point that they were anticipating it would

042you know the LED bulbs that you see at Christmas time and I think they were anticipating something like that. In reality, many of the teachers that I've spoken with um really like the change and especially it's been noticed in the hallways. I think um many of the the uh hallways in the past have been a little dark and and um dank and hard to see, but um the the LED has definitely had an impact on on visibility in the hallways as well. Um there are a bunch of other projects that are underway as you may know. Um and they're they're all denoted as ECMS and there's 1 through 12. We can talk about those individually, but in the interest of time, I didn't want to go too deeply into it because I know we've we've

043had this as a topic before in our meetings and we'll have some follow-up meetings as well to talk about more of it. um like to talk a little bit about excuse me like talk a little bit about the history of the program and where we've been the cumulative cost avoidance that we've saved throughout the years as I said about going back about 12 years you can see that there are some savings that are depicted here over the course of and and some of that credit goes to my predecessors. Um I know Jill had a lot to do with this, but we continue to save uh large amounts of money. In this case, um, we have a savings, cumulative savings of over $2 million, almost $3 million, which is about a 20% savings over what we

044would normally spend had we not intervened with the building management system that we have in the program that involves myself or whoever is in that position. So had any of had any of those things not happened, we would be actually looking at a cost of $13 million and change. But since we've actually saved based on the use of building management and and using um some of the things that I'll show you in a few slides, um we've been able to curtail some of that spending to the degree that it's roughly about 20% over that period of time. Um, you'll notice there are a couple other things off on the right that I wanted to mention as well. I mean, my focus obviously is on on the financials, but it's also has to do with the

045um impact to our our environment. As you can see there, there is an energy reduct reduction impact of 85,989,178 KBTU over that period of time. So, we'll put that into terms of of something that is more tangible. 6,150 equivalent metric tons of CO2 that didn't enter the atmosphere as a result of the work we do here in this district. And by that, I'm saying it's it's to the credit of everyone in the building that cooperates with the program and and uh implements the the procedures that we use to try to curtail the energy usage throughout the year. Another way to look at it is passenger cars not driven in one year. That would be 1,281 cars that would be sitting in a parking lot for an entire year. And then tree seedlings. It's another measurement,

046but it's it's a way of keeping it in perspective. Um that would be tree seedlings that are 10 years mature wise. Um that would be in the neighborhood of 157,000 trees. So that's a significant impact to our environment. Um, one thing I wanted to do real quickly, if you give me the liberty, this is not an endorsement, by the way. I'm not I'm not I probably should just keep it in the bag, but if you turn the label away from the camera, so you see not out to advertise. I get no royalties for this. If you could just take this and pass it down towards me so you get an idea, feel the weight of that. And then I'm going to forewarn the board. I did not approve this. It's not getting >> just to

047get an idea of the the weight. So, what you're looking at there is the equivalent of if if I many of you know, many of you that work in the district realize that I'm constantly badgering people about turning off the lights when they leave the room. Um, one of the benefits of that is that in in this case, this demonstrates what the the weight of um, if you were to turn off the lights in a classroom, one classroom for 1 hour a day, you would save roughly two pounds of pollutants that would be otherwise released into the air. So if you compound that weight by roughly several hundred classrooms throughout the district that in just one hour that's what we're preventing from entering into the atmosphere from the pollutants. So, it's substantial and I use

048that a lot when I talk to the students because and I don't necessarily use that as an as a weight measure, but in this case, I was shopping tonight before I go home, so I should. So, it's substantial and it has a big impact to our environment and I take a lot of pride in that as well. Um, talk about most recent year. This is The savings per year this year was about roughly about 10%. Um the baseline is roughly around $1,134,000 $371. Um and the actual cost was one 1 million24,53. So we had a savings a net savings about $109,868. Um, and again there's another breakdown there that you can see of what it would look like as a pie slice in the whole scheme of things in terms of energy usage. And then

049it also talks about the greenhouse gas reduction and what that means in terms of just one year. Um, going to talk a little bit about the the past four years or so. Um you'll bear with me. Um this is comparison of four years most monthly cost and heating degree days and that measures how cold a location is over a period um indicating the energy demand that's needed to heat a building above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. So you can see the blue line there that kind of tracks it ends in January. You can see I I've I've tried a pointer before and I know it doesn't work on these screens. So, if you can just stick with me. You see the blue line that spikes and that's probably the highest point um that you see on this

050chart and that represents the time frame from Jan December to January this year. Um this year was particularly harsh. If you remember December and January, the uh heating degree days were um almost unparallel to the previous years that I that I can recall at least. Um and the uh there were times during this period where uh between Gregory and I, we made some decisions about building management. Typically, we we turn everything down at the end of the school day when activities are done, but in this case, we we ran the risk of having some major infrastructure issues had we cut those temperatures down to uh the minimum temperatures that we normally operate in. So he made a conscious decision over those three or four weeks to continue to run to avoid the bring up of

051of uh heat that would be required to start the day and also to avoid all the nooks and crannies in the buildings that tend to freeze when when something this cold with those arctic fronts that we had would have an impact that would have cost us dearly if if any of those things had frozen. So, we made the decision. We we uh thankfully the temperature is has subsided to some degree, but I would anticipate it coming back down into control um for the remainder of this year. We've we've had a very successful um last month or two as far as um being able to cut back on energy consumption. Um, next chart gives you an illustration of what things should look like. This is actually a uh stop moving. There we go. My work intertwines

052a lot with FNO as I said to ensure the students have a safe and comfortable work environment. If you look at the chart that that is shown on this this foil, um you'll see some red through the mid portion of that chart that and that's we we call it a heat chart because it kind of shows where the most intense usage of energy is is being consumed. So as you look across that that's a span of about a year. It's a monthly depiction of each month you'll see um areas of of uh red and then there will be vertical lines that will go up and down that are kind of spaced in between that. What that is is actually the weekends where we cut back completely on our energy usage. And then you'll see some

053wider green strips, the vertical strips, those represent breaks. Typically the one in the middle that's very broad is a summer break where we cut back almost completely on our energy usage. And then leading up to it obviously just before that break we're typically running with a lot of air conditioning and um and there are a lot of activities going on at that point. So as soon as that's done we we cut right down and then we resume back again in September. Um, you can also see the Christmas break and towards the end, the the about 3/4ers of the way across the page, you'll see an indication of what the break looks like when we cut back during a prolonged break. So, these are the patterns that we kind of look for and and this is

054these are kind of succinct and they they're they're well defined and they show that the building management system is working well and it's doing what it's supposed to. And again, we do that in parallel with the the events calendar to make sure that the buildings that require heat or air conditioning during certain times of the year, they get it at the appropriate times and then we cut back where it's not needed. Um, this is about current work and targets for improvement. Um, oh, I'm sorry. Didn't move ahead yet. I'm ahead of mine and not yours. So I we had some wigs that we we uh implemented this year. The first one being one that's solely on me and that is to make myself more available and have more student engagements with with uh students in

055in the different schools um to spend more time with them to kind of get the word out about energy the energy program and sustainability. And I'm going to show you in a minute a couple of examples of some of the things that we've been doing this year that are keeping me on target. Um the second wig, as I mentioned before, was the upgrade, and I share that with Gregory because it's part of the EPC, and that was to effectively implement um LED lighting throughout the district by June 30th. And as I said, that's often done. Um, again you'll see a picture of an image of working with the students and I'll talk about that in just a moment. Um, this slide is uh contains a few images of a couple of classes in Violet Avenue.

056Um, we I like to go around and and uh we meet with students and talk about the energy program and and uh typically I may have shared this with you last year as well. We'll go on field trips which may include the boiler room and things like that to show them how things work in the building and they usually see that as the highlight of the they they want me out there. They just want me to take them down to the the boiler room and show them around. Um you can see some of the images here. There is one in there that contains Ron Robinson. He's one of our he's our assistant director to to facilities. He usually enjoys coming around too and meeting with the students and explaining how things work and shows them

057the programs that he uses to to keep tabs on on things that happen. So, they they really seem to enjoy that a lot and I think Ron enjoys it a lot, too. I speak for him. Um so that was energy. This year uh Dr. Roman had had challenged me with uh expanding my role into a new endeavor. Um but it kind of relates closely with what I do already in terms of resource allocations and sustainability and uh so I was happy to to take part in it. Hydroponics is a word many of you may have heard before. You may not know much about it. Um, but it's been around historically for quite some time. Um, we we I say we, our district, and Melissa can help me with that, but our our district applied for

058a community schools grant that allowed us the opportunity to go out and purchase hydroponic gardens for three schools, uh, Havlin Middle School, uh, Ralph R. Smith, and North Park Elementary. And we were able to get those this year. and we uh we received those. You'll see a picture here in one moment. Um you'll see this is this is the uh it's called the education rack. You see the middle picture behind us is what's called the education rack. And basically there are four towers on each side. Each tower can contain up to 10 plants. So in in full capacity, that unit that you're looking at there in the middle school can can grow roughly 80 plants at a time. Um it unfortunately it was kind of like Toys R Us back in the day and some

059assembly required was was rule of the day. So it took quite a bit of effort to put those together. Um Mrs. Daniels provided me the students and they they were very helpful. Some of them, I'm sure, have an engineering career because some of it I don't know that I could figure out, but we were able to manage and and and uh put it together. So, that's been up and running. That's that's um that's a substantial size unit. Um in case you didn't know, Mrs. Daniels has already been running a gardening group there, and they have an outdoor garden as well. But this allows them to grow year round, and um the yields, as I said, can be significant. Um going to move on to the elementary school. These this particular image that you're going to

060see is the Ralph R. Smith uh model that we're using. You'll see uh Mrs. Wells has her students and we were just starting to put together the hydroponic tower. You see it laid out on the the the uh the cafeteria table. And basically there's there's a a a growing um strip that kind of goes it wedges in there. If you see on the seat where the students normally sit, that's actually the tower. So what they do is they they uh they take the plants and put them in the growing medium and fold it back together like a hogi and then put it through the tower and it it goes into the unit. I encourage you to take a look at it if you get a chance in any one of those schools. They're operating all

061the time. Um and and uh the students absolutely are loving it. One of the things that I noticed with this class um I I seeing a before and after image of what's been going on there. They're learning a lot of different skills. And one of the things that struck me the most and and again tomorrow I I understand they have an assembly tomorrow where they'll be meeting with the students and doing a presentation. Some of these students have not spoken in front of people before and some of them may lack some level of confidence in in talking to their peers. And one of the things I've noticed throughout this process is that as they gain more experience, many of the students randomly come up to them and ask them what's going on and ask them

062to explain the process and and what it is that they're doing. And they really exude a level of confidence that I didn't see early on because they have they have awareness of what's happening and they're able to share that with their peers. And then when I saw them at the assembly, it really it it was the icing on the cake because you're standing in in front of all your peers in the entire school and feeling comfortable enough to stand up in front of everybody and talk about the things that they were doing. So I was really impressed with that. Um there's one image in there I want to give props to Danton. He's at the the image at 1:00 if you were to look at it as a face of a clock. he was he

063was in instrumental in getting everything distributed to where it went because the initial shipments that we got were kind of miscombobulated. So, um he he was very helpful to me in getting things reallocated to where they needed to go and and he was really a a big help to me. So, kudos to him as well. Um, one other student or one other group that I wanted to mention, Jenna Ransza and Danielle De Mateo. um Lindsay Wells are all at North Park and they just had their first harvest this week and I got a note earlier today from from uh Danielle and she said they have several students they did they did a taste testing today and many of the students didn't want to try it because they hate vegetables but somehow or another they got

064they got coaxed into it and they tried the lettuce and they actually loved it. So we may have converted six students that otherwise would not have touched us in their lives again. So >> parents if you're listening you're welcome more converts. >> Okay. So here's this cut and dry. This is basically where we're at in terms of the financial summary of of um where we are this year and what it looks like for next year. Some of the things that in addition to myself, there are things that we rely on. We rely on software from a company called Energy Cap and Synergistic. Synergistic actually is free now because we paid the initial costs upfront like 10 years ago. So, so they they they are there and available to us on a technical basis to help

065us when we need them. But basically, it's a cut and dried outlook for what it would look like going into next year. Um, this so I wanted to talk about this a little bit. again an eye chart, but if you look at the circle chart in the middle, um I kind of wanted to highlight that a little bit. If you see on the gray on the on the border on the outside, there are a bunch of external influences that are all impacting us these days, some of them being environmental issues and aging infrastructure and tight budgets and advancing technologies. All of those things being on the outside, my wheelhouse is kind of lies in the middle there for many of these things because um I think I I play a role in addressing some of

066the things like student safety and security and green commitments, um environmental commitments, the uh enhancing the system efficiencies that we have and the existing ones and the ones that we're bringing in soon. and also in helping minimize taxes and the burden on our taxpayers. So, we look to do that. One of the biggest things I'm I'm really anticipating and looking forward to this year is the introduction of uh solar. And I I'll be able to give you more detail on that as we move along. But, um you'll see it in that image up there on the right. That's an image of what was originally proposed for the rooftop of FTR High School. It won't quite look exactly like that when it's done, but um to the degree of about 750 to 950 kilowatts that it'll

067provide us, which will pretty much offset the electrical costs for the operating cost of that school each day. So that that will negate that. We're also talking about another um uh ground mounted system that uh will actually go go into the grid first, but we'll be able to get recoup some of the money from that through central Hudson once that becomes once we lock in with them. we're currently underway right now with trying to establish what the threshold is for what they can provide us or what we can tap into in terms of the substations. But those are exciting things. I'm really anticipating looking forward to that and um and I love working with the students and I I committed to them that I'll continue to look in on them and help them as they

068move along in their different projects and their research with uh with hydroponics. So, I appreciate very much all your help and your support and if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. >> Yes. >> Rich, what is this image on the left with the pipe that related to >> Oh, up here >> or the hydroponics? Yes. What? >> Yes, that was that was part of the construction phase. That's that's we're just right there. We're just putting the bones together >> of the hydroponic. Yeah, that's the the the uh education rack, the large one that you saw at the the uh the middle school. And that took the better part of a week to put together because we tried to coordinate with the students and we didn't want to pull them from classes

069that, you know, they needed to be at. So, we try to only enlist them when they're available at study halls and that sort of thing. So, I was a little limited to my my help, but um but we wanted to make sure that they all had a role in in piecing it together. solved. >> I just want to say it's a perfect example of project-based learning. I mean, these kids are learning a lot and it's not even in their class. It's what they're doing with you. >> The teachers are wonderful. I I will say I I'm there one teacher, our teacher at Ralph Rar Smith, her her focus is on mathematics and she's integrated mathematics to the degree that I never would things I would not have thought of before. And now they're at the

070point of experimenting with as you put these in, you're supposed to angle them at 45 degrees. So they're learning what, you know, they're applying things that are math-based skills in in real hands-on type stuff. And that's what's impressive to see how they they compute that and they're able to translate it into something that um actually works. So it's all good. >> Any other questions? >> I have a question. Thank you for that. It's more, I think, for this side of the room. Um, great experiences, a lot of STEM experiences for students in two elementary schools. >> And of course, I'm sure our finances had something to do with it. It's a grant. Um, but but I think as a district, we need to look at how do we provide opportunities for those other two elementary

071schools, right? Great opportunities for Havland, um, Ralph Rar and North Park. So, I guess I just want to make that obvious statement that we need to look for ways of including those other two buildings if not in this same program but but similar um opportunities because it just doesn't seem equitable right now. But I but we certainly want to want to continue this. >> No, certainly appreciate that. Um this year was a pilot year >> so we wanted to pilot the program to see how and learn from those experiences to see how we can expand it to all the schools. um already in those those schools they already had gardening programs. So they already have the infrastructure to start some of this work. So what we're trying to do is learn from these experiences and

072then expand to the other schools. >> Get the tractor trailer. >> Yeah, >> we actually looked at that at first. >> Well, that's what I asked him to look at originally the tractor trailer so that we >> we did we we did in Pikipsy. That's the farm to table or whatever. They they started out with the hydroponics, but he moved away from that. And I'll I'll share with you those reasons some other point, but he now grows mushrooms instead. >> Thanks. >> Moving on to 8.33, our food service update with Craig Elliot. that a plastic bag from the grocery store that I see that plastic essentials in the bag. So >> somewhere everyone um I just want to give um an update today. Uh my name is um Craig Elliot. um school lunch um director

073and that's Donna um sitting over there. She's the assistant uh school lunch um director here. Um so I wanted to give an update on our progress and um things that we've accomplished um over the past um few years. Um so I like this um statement. Um it says uh we are one. One vision, one mission, one dream, one team. I like that. Um, school lunch 101. Um, about finance, um, food service, uh, funds are separate from the general funds, uh, meaning we don't, um, do a voting. Um, we're not a part of the general, uh, funds. Uh, food service operates as its own business, uh, within the district. Uh we're funded by the USDA and the NYSED by meal uh reimbursements. Um so we get um reimbursements from all our kids um that participate in

074the uh food program. Uh we're limited um to about three months of um excess funds. Um if we have more funds than that uh we get regulated and you know we get calls or we get audited and saying well we need to find a reason to use this uh funds if we can find a reason to use that funds which we do have a lot of reasons uh we will have to give it back which we don't plan to give back anyone we plan to put everything back into our school in our school program. Um so this um year the district had a widening um for the goal. had like a few goals, but one of the goals um that we uh we chose to kind of um tackle was um to help to decrease

075uh chronic um absenteeism and by increasing uh breakfast uh participation around our schools because um there's a study that shows that when you offer a free meal um especially breakfast in the morning, kids usually show up to um to school uh you know um Even if they don't um they have breakfast at home, it shows that you know it impacts their um daily life. So they tend to come to school um on a better um basis than that. So our action step was to increase all our hot meals across um the school district. We have hot meals that we serve um about three days a week um in our menus, but we decided that we're going to increase the hot options for five days a week across the school. Another thing we've added um was

076uh smoothie days to Pavlin Middle School and um FDR um middle school which if you look at the chart uh for 202526 um school year we've increased our numbers across the board uh by about 9.3%. uh total meals served for 23 24 school year and 25 26 um school year. So as you can um see on the chart um to date our total um breakfast um serve um although the April numbers are not up there. We're um exceed over 600 um,000 um breakfast sold and um for lunch we've um sold over a million um lunches as well. And to me that's um a win for us that that means more kids are eating and you know we have more um vision um for for our kids you know uh we have um a more impact

077on their daily lives by giving them um meals. This um is a year-over-year reimbursement and this is like a chart that has our our fund uh reimbursement from the USDA and the um NYSED um department. And um for breakfast um we are projecting for the next 3 months to increase um that number to about 600 um 650,000 um dollars. And for uh lunches for 2526, we're projecting another 500,000 to be added to that number. So by the end of the year, we should be um somewhere um within about 2.2 2 million um overall in reimbursements for this um school year. Um this I want to give an highlight to um the staff um because we couldn't do it without the staff and Jen um she's here from Avalon u middle school. This is national uh

078school lunch week um features like global cuisines from across the um the world and this year they had the theme was um passport um to the world. So we had a theme uh for each day which one of the themes were um like Mexican cuisine, another was uh Chinese, another one was Asian and another um we had Greece, we have Polish um that we feature and every day the staff at FDR, they actually dressed up um and have like the flags and everything. They were all into it. That uh photograph there is the FD um staff. >> The afterchool snack program um is a component of the national school lunch program meaning um it's a federal assisted program which we get a reimbursement and this program here we use it to extend the um afternoon

079to fill the afternoon hungry gap. So we have breakfast in the morning, we have lunch in the afternoon and then we have the snack program which helps to fill um hungry bellies across the school. You know some kids um or kids they don't have food. So this these programs that we have here help to fill those um gaps. This is a reimburseable uh meal, but we don't get a lot of reimbursement uh for these meals, but it's not about the reimbursement. At the end of the day, we're helping the kids to get a nutritious meal. This is a fresh fruits and vegetable program. Um our fresh fruits and vegetable program is a grant program that we apply for every single year. And one of the first time I came um a part of my interview

080I always remember this this was one of the programs I was really happy about and I was like you know I have to bring this program to the school and when we got the program done I was happy that we have it and the goal of the program is to create a healthier um school environment for kids um to make healthier choices when it comes to snacking. So, this is a program that in uh North Park they do it after um breakfast and in the other um elementaryaries they do it like after lunchtime. So, it's um you know it's it's a program that gives them a healthier option for snacks and we want to create vegetable lovers and and fruit lovers. I hear Rich uh mention that he had like six. Uh we we have

081a we we have you beat U Rich. We have a little bit more than six. We run this program uh five days a week um across the um school. This is a a program that like I say it's a grant program. So we we get about um every year it goes up to about about $10,000. So, the more funds we use, the more funds uh we get. Uh we got a 89,000 um this year and right now I have about 20,000 left. So, we're trying to just push the program and use it. And uh one of the idea is to just expand the variety of um fruits and vegetables that we have. You know, I'm from the tropics. A lot of people are not from the tropics. And if you know we have a lot

082of fruits in the tropics. We have varieties of fruits over hundreds of different varieties of fruits. So some of those fruits I bring them into the school district. I bring jack fruit. I bring mangoes. You know different types of oranges. Um dragon fruit. You name it, I try to bring it here. I bring um the vegetables as well. Um so I I love this um part of this um this statement here. It says you know we want to impact their present and their future health because that that's the whole idea of having you know the fruits and vegetable to make um them healthier to make them happier to make them more smarter um at the end of the day. So, we've been really um busy um this year and for the past few months or

083about a month and a half, we've been like really really busy. Like everything happened like the same exact time. We had all these programs um in the works and nothing couldn't happen until like you know over the the last break we had. So, we've added a a vending um machine. Uh and this vending machine has breakfast and lunch. So, it dispense about 75 um breakfast and about 35 um lunches. So, the idea behind this um machine, we wanted to to help increase um breakfast u participation because it's more breakfast um focused. And since the past month, I noticed that the machine has been doing better and better every week. Um, today we did 50 um breakfast out of the um vending machine, which that brought FDR's breakfast numbers uh from 350 or about 280 average

084to about 350 um now. And that's the highest their numbers has ever been for um breakfast. So since last year until now, we've increased the breakfast at at FDR to 350 from about 2 210. So that's a big improvement. Um there the idea um you know some kids they have, you know, a stigma around eating in the cafeteria. Um I have a daughter. She's a teenager. So she might, you know, come off the bus and she just goes to the classroom because she's like, "Well, I can't bother or I can't get to the um the cafeteria." So the idea is you could go to the vending machine up until 10:00. I've seen I I watch the the numbers and I've seen kids going there from 7 o'clock all the way up until 10, which I

085would do the same thing because if I'm one of the students here and I didn't get to the breakfast, I'll go there at lunchtime and I'll take a a breakfast meal out of it and I have a lunch so I have a snack at the end of the day. So, this um vending machine, I think um it's going to do um great things over um the course of the um the years to come. >> Um so, we've also um added um some new equipments. So, when I started um working here, I noticed that we we were spending a lot of money on fixing equipments like every single day. Even now, we're still, you know, spending money. And sometimes, you know, it's like beating a dead horse. You you have to just move on and say,

086well, you know what? We have to buy something new to to to last a lot longer. Because a lot of these equipments, they last for like 20 years, 30 years. Some people are are here working longer than 25 years. And like I I came when I came here, I saw that piece of equipment. So, we we saw that we needed these equipments. and um you know we started replacing them. So we replaced the double stack uh convection oven that those are the red ones. Um there we got some brand new um ovens. Um we we also replaced the double stack comi oven which is uh further down to the left on that same chart. Uh we replaced two um we added two two um stainless steel prep table. We added a pot washer. You never

087had a pot washer. Um, in school you had dishwashers, but that was like way way way back, maybe longer than I've been born. So, yeah. So, um, you know, we we we added a pot washer. We we added a three-bay sink as well. Um, with that pot washer, we had I have four rolling racks um to go in those uh refrigerated um two door um cooler and uh we've added two mobile uh warmers to keep our food um safe because again like I say, we've been like constantly fixing. There's always something breaking constantly. And I think, you know, you keep spending money, you're just wasting your money. Just buy something new and and move on. We've also added a new serving line and salad bar at FDR High School. So, this this is uh one

088one of the things that I'm really um proud of. You know, I was pushing for this um line for a while and then we finally um got it in place uh for our kids. And you know, based on on the feedback I've been getting, the kids are happy. Um so up on the left hand corner that was the line that we had before Donna um probably remember this because she was working at the um the high school and you have four four hot wells that's it. There's nothing to keep the products cold there. You know sometimes I hear people complain they say they get burned on these um equipments. So we had safety issues. There was like reaching um milk cooler that was there that they didn't make parts for. They couldn't upgrade the freon

089in it because it was so old, things like that. So, we had to replace um two um milk coolers. We we added um two um merchandisers. We added the two um four-well hot food um well, we added the two um frost stops. And those frost tops usually um we use a lot of ice packs to keep our products um cold. Now you don't have to use as much ice packs um as we used to because we have the space to put um those items that we need to keep safe. We added two um ice cream merchandisers. Um in the past they had ice cream at the high school but it was vending uh machine. Um so it wasn't like from from us directly. Now we have that there. That's a, you know, a treat for

090the kids at the end of the day. Uh, we we added two heating uh display merchandisers. Those are the ones that are in the middle, the black ones. And those are there for kids that don't want the hot um meal option. They could get like a grab and go um sandwich or something like that where they don't have to stand in line. So, the idea is to, you know, we're moving the lines um faster as well. So, the more time the kids can have to enjoy the meal um after they they get their meals. Uh two cashier um stand and like I say the salad bar, but it's not just one salad bar that was donated um by chef and uh foundation. It was six salad bars. So, two years ago, I applied for the

091um the grant and maybe about a year and a half later, they they're like, "Well, here you go. Here's a salad bar." And and I got a call saying that the salad bars were showing up and you know, we had to scramble. So, everything kind of happened um at the same time. So, we had so much different things going on. And I'm happy to say that we have um Jen here. She um started the the salad bar at Havlin Middle School and it was a hit instantly at at um at the middle school. We have um one at the FDR, we have one in Roar Smith and next week we're planning to put one in Ver Avenue and then we just move to the other schools. Um you know and the idea behind the salad

092bars in the schools is just to give the kids more food options. um you know, we put chicken, we put eggs, so if they if they're still hungry, they still can go to the salad bar and and get some more food. So that's the idea. Um so what's next? Um this is a straight line um concept similar to the concept that we have at FDR High School and we're planning, you know, it's not set in in stone. There's changes to be made. There's things can can change, but the plan is to replace um some equipments at Havlin Middle School. Again, they have ovens there that been there for like 30 plus years and they're not efficient anymore. Um you know, Rich is here. He can tell you that, you know, we burn a lot of

093energy and you burn a lot of energy when you don't have efficient um equipments. It's like driving a car that's inefficient. It's the same um thing. we have ovens and equipments that are inefficient. Some some schools we have too much of um certain equipments that is redundant. It would be best for us to have like just for example we have like say three four coolers in some schools that it would be best to have like a big uh walk-in cooler instead of having those uh three because they're burning more energy. So the idea is to you know improve the line. We want to add a pot washer there. We want to add merchandisers, ice cream merchandisers. We want to add uh refrigerated merchandisers. Uh we added the two cooler um one of the coolers died

094on on Jen. Um Jen has been really good because you know she she worked um along with that cooler for months um you know and put ice in the cooler and keep it going. the cooler wasn't working, but you know, it we we had to do what we had to do at the time. And I I bought two brand new milk coolers, so we don't have to replace those coolers because they're brand new. Um the same uh four hot units, two frost top and a pizza hot uh top. And those are like similar to the frost tops because there's not enough space um in the um the kitchen. Um like what we did at um the high school, we couldn't do it here because we don't have enough space in the cafeteria. We had a

095lot of space in the um in the cafeteria and FDR and and Michael was um generous to give us some of the space and say yes, we can use uh some of this space to um to put our lines um there. So yeah, let's um what I got and any questions? >> I think this is great. Um good progress so far >> and the next steps are good. Do you have a like a long longer term vision of what you want to see in all the schools? I mean, do you have that like that you should? >> Yeah, we do. We do have um we do have that vision. Um it was done um the first time um we we started. There's like a binder with all the things that we need to um to

096improve. Um I'm not sure if Dr. Roman has still has that. Um >> yeah, we can definitely get it to you. the the overall vision that Craig and um Capital Region Boseies came up with when they did the study, it really is transforming the lunchroom, the cafeteria spaces to look more like college campuses, right? where there's flexible seating, there's high tops, there's low tops, there's these serving lines, and just in the short amount of time that Craig has been here to accomplish this level of of programming and various uh food items for students, both him and Donna, Dynamic Duel, they're doing some amazing work and they have an amazing team behind them uh to to make sure that students are are are not having an issue with food insecurity, >> right? which is which is

097amazing. Yeah, that's why I mean is it a is it a 10-year outlook or >> it's a year to year um we we you know we like this um program um this um survey line here we we have to look back at what we have. That's why we try to increase our um participation. Right now we're in the high um level of needy um unfortunately but fortunately at the same time because the more needy the more fun funding you get back. So, you know, we the more funding we get, the more we can push it back in the program because that's the whole idea. Um, you know, we're technically like none for profit. We're everything we make goes right back into um our program and and that's the um that's the goal. >> And we'll

098bring that plan to the future focus facilities meeting because a lot of what they're proposing requires capital work. So when we're redesigning and rethinking what those spaces are going to look like, it's going to require a level of investment, but but certainly we have the plan in place. >> The the capital work has to come from us, right? >> Correct. Correct. >> What's nice about this is there's significant progress being made without a capital project. >> Right. Right. >> So that that's really impressive. So when do you think all of the um salad bars are going to be operational? >> Um hopefully um before the end of this um semester. Yeah. So, >> really exciting. >> Yeah. Um I I've had um you know I I I met a parent at um Rafar Smith and

099she was like, "Oh, you're Craig." And I'm like, "Yeah." And she's like, "Oh, you know, my daughter goes to Abalin and you know, they're saying they love the salar you know that's amazing. There's a lady here I met as well. She was telling me that her daughter was a vegetarian and that was one of the ideas behind it because I was a vegetarian myself and you know I understand when you go into a space where it's all meat and things like that you don't want to really mess around. So the salar gives you that option where you you have beans and vegetables and things like that where you still can get protein and um get a healthy option. So yeah. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. And I walked out of the middle school with Craig and

100Eric Shaw. We looked at the plan and the salad bar looked so fresh and looked so clean and so fresh and was really well stocked and Jen Jen. >> Yeah, that's all kudos to Jennifer. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. All right. Thank you. All right. We don't We're skipping 84. We already did it right. >> You want us to do it again? >> No. >> All right. Moving on to 9.1. Can I get a motion to open uh public participation? >> Second to this. >> All those in favor? >> I motion carried. Let's see. Please provide your name and address when you reach the podium. You'll have a total of three minutes per speaker and there'll be a total change of uh 21 minutes. Okay. 21 minutes for the uh first session and we

101ask that uh comments be courteous and respectful of all. Would anyone like to address the board? Jennifer Bishop, 305 East Walk Road, and also the cook manager at Havland. Um, I just wanted to um stress how important the salad bar has become to the students. Um, they really get excited. Unfortunately, I have one, so I have to alternate, but they really look forward to it every week that it's in their cafeteria. Um, I try to put some fun things in there for them so that it makes it a little different. Um, today I did some yogurt and some pudding, so they like made strawberry parfets. They really enjoyed that. Um, and I want to thank Craig because he has brought a lot of, you know, he really has tried to make our kitchens more efficient.

102So, I've been here 13 years, 12 years, and this is the first time I've had a director that has really tried to get new working equipment and make our kitchens more efficient. So, I just wanted to say that. accept it. >> You're welcome. >> Thanks. >> Anyone else? >> All right. At this time, we'll close public participation and thank you for the comments and that's supposed to be interactive, but I'm just curious. You you said that you only have once you have to rotate. >> Yeah, they're making adjustments to >> the grant that we got. Oh, there's two lunch rooms. So, you have to Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. >> I try to share the wealth. >> That is another >> Yeah. We're talking about >> one like you say it was kind of like

103a pilot. Now we u we see that it's working then we can add um another one on to it. >> Get up to CIA for donation. >> Yeah. All right. So moving on to 10.1 board subcommittee reports. Anybody meet >> week? Sure. >> That's true. It was last week. >> Yes. >> All right. Board discussion. Um, including consent agenda items. >> Do you want to talk about our interviews with the student board members and what we were thinking? >> Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we bring that under under board discussion now? >> So, um, yeah. So Mike and I met with four FDR students who are interested in running for the student board representative. Um just really impressed with the level of their commitment to the school district and how they want

104to help. Um and in our conversations I asked them I said you know four of you are running only one of you can win. would the rest of you be interested in participating because we're talking about elevating the position a little bit, right? To get more student input. And they all all three of them, well, all four of them jumped and said, "Yeah, yeah, if I don't win, I'd still like to do something." Um, so we were just throwing out some ideas of how we could um have more direct student feedback like um when you talk about the salad bar like it would have been nice to have some student feedback on how that's going because sometimes what the adults see is different from what the students see. So, we're looking at that idea and

105we want to talk about that in future meetings to see how we can create um you know, we were talking about maybe like a little committee and two could be one one the there would only be one student board rep, right? one official, but then the others would support that person by doing the leg work and going to having schools that they're assigned to to go meet with like student government at the elementary schools or the middle school so that we could hear from more students and elevate the student board rep position just from pride. It really should be more than pride and our board reps do a great job with that. But we want as a board we want to try and elevate that a little bit. So um that's where we're at issues

106to think about reord'll do that right >> to establish a committee like that like a student committee do we have to do anything other than say it's created >> no not at all we can can certainly keep creating >> and our conversation was these are the these are the students who have already expressed an interest they came they interviewed with us so really >> yeah the other thing too that >> that might Something that the board may want to consider is having perhaps a student representative in some of the committee meetings. Um so that that's a natural, you know, structure we already have >> and that individual could bring back, you know, perspectives from the students, especially as it relates to policy um or, you know, other areas. >> Code of conduct. Exactly. >> We

107figure whoever sits on the board >> Exactly. would hold a meeting prior to a board meeting and you know get all the input and be the person and maybe the others would show up at the meeting and and maybe speak at public. >> Yeah. No, I think that that'd be great. >> See, they just it was a really nice group really really dedicated articulate and >> and we can look to for ways to support especially maybe the individual that's selected to kind of be the leader of the remaining group. Bring that >> give them some leadership. also takes some of the you know they're expressing an interest in and this is the second year where you know some of our conversation was we had a student say I never get picked for anything I I

108have wanted to be on this I wanted to do that and it's the same kids that are picked >> and and this is a way for us to to reach more students >> absolutely that's a great idea >> so I think after they have their election >> if we could you know tell Mike to reach out to the to the four of them >> we can review the committees we can >> you you know if if the board is okay if it could be based on their interest they may have a particular interest in one of the committees whether it's wellness whether it's you know something else that it's appropriate for them to to join I think that might be that >> but also rep the schools and like so like somebody would be the

109rep of Havlin and meet with the student government of Havland >> and then they would come back and report to the student board member you know whatever they pride and and other stuff here's here's the feedback we're get hearing, you know, we're they got a great salad bar, you know, things like that. We want to hear that, you know, direct student feedback from each of the schools. >> Different part of the meeting, right? We do pride and then during board discussion that that's where we would talk about what's going on in buildings, >> right? >> Maybe >> something. Yeah, we can work it out. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Any other uh discussion? All right. Can I get a motion to adopt tonight's uh consent agenda? >> So move to >> second Katie. >> All those

110in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. New business uh 12.1 capital change orders 3B key construction and SNL. >> So move to its >> second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Motion approved. Um 13.1. Can I get a motion to enter our second public participation? >> So moved, Katie. >> Seconded. It's >> all those in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. We're now on our second um public participation. You still get three minutes, but we're limited to 12 minutes for this one. Um would anyone like to address the board? encore performance. >> Once again, Jennifer Fish, 305 East Fallill Road, Hide Park or Havland, Cook Manager. Um, I just wanted to uh kind of answer your thing about student feedback. Um, so I actually did send out a Google form to all the students at Havlin

111just to kind of get some feedback as to the things that they like in the salar, things that they want to see. Um because at the end of the day, I do want to try and give them what they want. I don't want to put things they're not going to eat on there. So, I got a lot of interesting feedback. I got some silly feedback, but for the most part, they all loved it and they did give me some really great ideas. So, I just wanted to let you know I did get some student feedback. >> That's great. >> Would anyone else like to address the board? Right. At this time, we'll close public participation. Thank you for the comments again. Um, but that would be like the feedback. You know, you would meet with

112this committee person and then they would kind of deliver it here. That's kind of what we're thinking, you know. >> Um, any other matters deemed necessary by the board? No. No need for a second exec. So, can I get a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? So move that >> second. >> All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. returned.