001Good evening everyone. I'd like to call tonight's meeting to order. Welcome to the High Park Central School District Board of Education meeting. Today is February 26, 2026. At this time, can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of discussing promotion, discipline, and employment topics for a particular person, persons or corporations? >> Some move. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carries. for now. Okay. Good evening everyone. At this time, I'd like to return to open session. If we can 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. >> We have agenda modifications. >> Okay.
002Um, can I get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda? >> So, move second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carried. 5.1. Upcoming events. Friday, February 27th, Harlem Wizards versus High Park Central School District's Bad Apples. It's the fundraiser basketball game that'll be at FDR and starts at 7 PM. March 2nd is the Ralph R. Smith Steam Night and that's at Real Bar Smith 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 4th, community conversations with the superintendent about the budget and that's a virtual meeting 6 to 6:30. I assume the details will be posted on our website. >> Yes. Yes. It's actually sent out uh in parent square. >> Okay. Something will also be on the website. >> The website. Okay. Um, Thursday, March 5th, uh, High Park Central School District Steam Fair. That'll
003be in the FDR cafeteria, 4 to 6 PM. Um, Friday, March 6th and Saturday, March 7th, spring uh, musical, FDR spring musical, Into the Woods. That's at FDR at 7 PM. Saturday, uh, March 7th, 20. I'm hesitating because isn't the musical, >> it's the next line after this >> during the day. >> Yeah, just it's the 8th. >> Oh, okay. >> Sorry. Music. >> Okay. So, Saturday, March 7th, Saturday, Academy of Read Across America in Hudson Valley Reptile, North Park Elementary, 9 to 12:00 p.m. Sunday, March 8th, 2026 is the matinea of the FDR spring musical, Into the Woods. That's FDR 2 p.m. And then, uh, Thursday, March 12th, the next board meeting will be at Violet A and that starts at 7 PM. Any other upcoming events? All right, moving on to the slide.
004Warren >> FDR would like to give a shout out to all the PTSA members that assisted in setting up their Razers game that is scheduled for Friday night. They also want to give out to a shout out to Mrs. Borman for helping Mrs. Goodman for organizing the event. They are excited for the FDR spring musical Into the Woods that is playing March 6th, 7th, and 8th. They want to give a big shout out to their multicultural club for putting together a Black History Month celebration after school this past Tuesday which had a great turnout. Havland is in full swing for the third quarter and they want to thank their teachers and staff for their support of their students every day. Their PTA is helping make the experience by hosting the second quarter honoral and academic
005achievement breakfast next week for each grade. Additionally, with the support of their community schools leaison, Miss Smalls, over 450 students are being recognized with a certificate for outstanding attendance, having been present in school 95% or more of the time during the second quarter. Ralph R had their family math night, which about 80 people attended, which was a great turnout. Special thanks to Sunni Falls who had multiple college students that participated and taught math games. They will be having a steam assembly on March 2nd and will hold steam night for families in the evening. At Netherwood, Mrs. Mrs. Gambio's class recognized Lunar New Year with a class celebration for the year of the force. They enjoyed their steam family engagement night this week where students were able to be active participants in a show about dinosaurs
006put on by the nutty scientist. Students also participated in some hands-on activities, sorting fossils, and cleaning amber. This week was also the hundth day of school. Students across the building participated in various activities to celebrate and understand the value of one. >> Thank you. So, good evening everyone. I do want to highlight a few more uh points of pride for our district. Um, so I want to uh thank and congratulate the community schools family resource center who hosted the Black History Month celebration. Uh, students and families had a great time. Uh, Trustee Katani was there and uh there was a lot of uh drumming and dancing and everyone having a good good time. So, I just want to say thank you to the team that put that together. Uh we we also just heard about
007uh Luna New Year in Miss Gambino's classroom. Um the students were having a great time. Um the students in that classroom were actually um sad that they're leaving at some point to transition to the high school and the kids are saying that they don't want to leave that particular classroom. And that just speaks to the amazing teachers that we have in our in our district. Uh before we go to the superintendence report, I do have a few more uh points of pride. Uh first I want to congratulate our student athletes. We have four students um wrestlers uh who are heading to states um one of them is actually uh in Albany already and the other three are traveling uh tomorrow. So, I want to congratulate uh uh Natalie Tahada, Luke and Liam Dacon, Cashmir Curtis.
008Uh congratulations for achieving that that that high um uh accomplishment. Uh we also want to congratulate the following students who also made states. Uh one of our gymnastic um competitions, we have McKenzie Angop. And then uh swimming competition, we have uh Troy Spear also uh who are going to states. Uh and then the last thing um and I'm I'm glad to see that this gentleman is here. Um, we were notified um by the high school that the National Merit Scholarship Program has now determined uh which of the 16,000 semi finalists named the September 2025 met all the requirements to advance to finalist standing in the competition. All finalists are being considered for the National Merit Scholarship Award to be offered in 2026. And this certificate is being um awarded to Roman Peton who has advanced
009to the final finalist as it's excuse me finalist standing in the National Merit Scholarship Program of 2026 by demonstrating his distinguished performance and high potential for future academic accomplishment. So I want to congratulate Ro. points of pride. >> All right. Any other pride from anyone? All right. Moving on to 7.1, our superintendence report. >> We have a couple of uh items that we do want to uh highlight the board and the community. First and foremost, um I do want to bring attention to the incident that we dealt with uh last week at FDR. Um one of the things that I am um proud of is our district's response, our uh leaders response at the school as well as law enforcement's response. everyone was coordinated. Uh we wanted to make sure students and staff were safe.
010That was our primary uh goal. And once we were able to share information, uh we we were able to do that and and do so as as quickly as possible. Um during an active investigation, we are unable to share information unless we get the approval from um the law enforcement involved. Um so just once again I want to thank um the entire uh team that helped us in that situation. Um as soon as more information uh is available um we will certainly close the loop with our school community on on this matter. >> Bless you. Uh the second item is um yesterday uh we used our last snow day and just want to provide some context in terms of what we typically do during snow days. So we we I typically engage in a conversation
011with superintendent and a and a local meteorologist around 4:00 in the morning. Um yesterday's situation, we actually had um conversations with the town uh supervisor of highways uh here in High Park. And one of the challenges uh that was presented here specifically was that uh the the incoming um snow was actually a little delayed than what they had anticipated. They had a group, a crew that came out and started clearing the roads and then it stopped. And so that crew went home and they didn't come back until this this incoming uh snow came fast and furious. And to get those individuals back out, it delayed the clearing of the roads. And that was the reason why we had to make the decision. by the time that the roads were cleared, um the students, you know,
012would would would be sort of in the in the middle of transit. So, uh made the call to to kids to school um yesterday. Uh as as we move forward, the state education department has issued uh guidance around submitting waiverss for the days that were declared state of emergencies. So that's up to two in the event that we do need it. Um so that's something that will will keep the board and the community apprised as we move forward. Um and we do have one other thing that um Miss Lawson will share share off. >> Good evening. Um Roman, congratulations. And um I wanted to answer a question that you had posed a few weeks ago regarding whether or not the district could pay for AP exams. So we explored that option with our attorneys and
013unfortunately um our attorneys found that payment for AP exams would be considered an unauthorized gift of public funds. So we are not able to do that. Um, however, we do continue to offer AP uh exams and the cover the cost for any lowincome families and students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. >> Okay, >> that concludes our items. >> Okay, moving on to 7.2 student supports presentation with Miss Lawson. Somebody sorry about that. Sorry. Okay. Good evening everyone. For those of you who don't know me in the audience or at home, I'm Melissa Lawson. I'm the assistant superintendent for student supports, and I oversee a big portion of the district. Um, I oversee curriculum and instruction, special education, safety, nurses, guidance, um, registration. There's a lot lot of different, uh, departments that that I
014work with throughout my day. So, I put together my presentation to give a broad overview of where we are as a district. Um, the directors and the building principles will continue to break down data for you into grade level bands and things like that. So, all of the data I'm sharing with you is at a high level and really an overview of where we are as a district. So, of course, we are guided by our mission and vision. And what we'll be talking about tonight are successes that we have that impact our investments, current work and targets for improvement, and then budget recommendations. So I would like to start by celebrating some of the work that we have done in the years past recent years. Uh last year we set out to reduce chronic absenteeism
015and we established a attendance campaign which included road signs and lessons in classrooms and recognition of positive attendance. and we were able to decrease chronic absenteeism by 5% last year, which is a significant achievement. So, we're really excited and proud of that and we've continued that work into this year. In addition, I lead the um the code of conduct committee and last year we identified that we would like to work to reduce suspensions for disorderly conduct and insubordination and we have been able to reduce those as well through a combination of PBIS initiatives and restorative practices and I am very proud to say that all of our schools next year are considered in good standing at the state level. So, we will not have any need to continue with improvement plans. We are closing the
016gap in grades 3 through eight, ELA, math, and science. And our graduation rate is steady. We actually increased a percentage point this year. and our family resource centers is up open and operating and supporting families in helping our community stay healthy and have the support that they need. Uh I just want to say that I'm so proud to work with the faculty and staff and administrators that help accomplish all of this work. We don't operate in silos. We do it together. And um you know we have all the people in the right places with the right resources and I'm confident that our trajectory is going to continue in a positive way and um we'll be able to face the challenges that come our way. So I'm going to start with chronic absenteeism and you'll see
017in the next few slides that we have three years of data. The light blue is Hide Park data. The dark blue is New York State data. Unfortunately, New York State has not released their chronic absenteeism data for 2025. Uh I believe that the reason that this is happening and we haven't received it yet is they've changed the metric for how they measure chronic absenteeism and I think that their calculations are taking more time than they have in the past. But you'll see that we had an increase in 2024 and last year we were able to make a 5% decrease in chronic absenteeism. In ELA, we have been working very hard and we all have a district-wide goal around improving literacy skills and I am really pleased with with our results. Uh through the work of
018Jen Kryser Amy and our building principles, we have really been working to improve our literacy skills. We've brought in a program called UFI, which you'll hear Jen talk about a little bit tonight. It really targets FMIC awareness and phonics skills, which are the foundation for reading. So uh along with that we adopted a new ELA curriculum HMH into reading and as a result we've seen some nice progress in a positive direction. So not only are our scores increasing but our gap between us and the state average is is narrowing which is something to celebrate. Um, we also really want to recognize our reading coaches who support our classroom teachers. Uh, they push into classrooms and do things side by side with them, but they also provide a lot of professional development that has helped our
019district grow. As far as proficiency level for 3 through8 math, again our scores have increased by 9% over the past three years. And in addition, we are narrowing that gap. And um that is due to the hard work of Kim Nisel and her team. We have a math program that we started a couple of years ago called Eureka. And um it's really comprehensive and our students are making some nice gains there. Our math coaches have been again working directly in classrooms and providing ongoing professional development. And we also have a nice relationship with uh Greg Tang which is a um well-known math educator who provides professional development to our staff on an ongoing basis and it's making a really nice difference for five and eight science testing. Our science program has gone through some significant
020changes over the past few years. the um in 2023 the science test was only given at grade 8. Then they added in the fifth grade component. In years past the science test was given in fourth grade. That year we saw a dip in science scores and so did the state. Um we tend to see that when the standards change and when the testing structure changes but again last year we did see an increase and we did see that gap narrow between us and the state. So we are looking for u that positive trend to continue and we do use science 21 as our science curriculum. It is a very hands-on curriculum that supports our students understanding of science standards. For regent exams, we have um seen some significant changes in the region's tests as well
021as in science at 3 through 8. So we have had a change in life science and biology in earth science and in algebra 1. So that has caused our scores to dip a little bit. Um but what I will say is our algebra one scores did increase um last year and when Kim Nisel presents at the next board meeting, she'll share more details about that. Our ELA scores for regent exams are a strength for us. We are at 81% proficient. Um, and we anticipate that that will increase by 1% because of our January regions results and could go up even higher at the end of the year. So, um, we have some work to do here, but we're headed in the right direction. So, on this slide, we have our AP exams. And um one
022of the things that I will say is that we offer a robust uh amount of AP classes and exams. One of the trends that we see is that some of our students do take AP classes but opt out of taking the exam. So um in addition, we also have noticed in talking with Mr. Wella that some of our students are not taking on the challenge of our higher level math and science courses. So we're looking into that and studying that a little bit and seeing how we can encourage them to um put themselves out there and take a risk. And um in addition we're also seeing a greater number of students uh sign up for CTI at Boseies. So, we're we're wondering and and studying that a little bit. Are kids more focused on developing
023career readiness skills um rather than co you know future college skills? So, we're looking into that and uh Mr. Rela will be presenting later uh in April and he will share more about that. In addition, we have a English language learner uh population in our district and our numbers are declining. Uh last year we had a little bit of an increase, but this year we're down to 191 students overall and our students are making nice progress. They're moving towards expanding and commanding levels. And when Monica Contrarus comes, she'll speak a little bit more about those trends. But one of the things that we were anticipating is that the children's home of Pikipsy, which accepts um students who u may be seeking asylum and may have an ENL need, we were expecting for them to open
024up new bed, more beds, and to have more students come to our district. That doesn't seem to be the case. So, um right now they have 36 beds. available and that's maintained and um been pretty steady. >> So, our suspension data, you'll see here that this first chart is out of school suspensions uh for one or more days by school year. And it's broken up by subgroup. And you'll see excuse me that the overall rates are decreasing and you'll see that the one place where we are increasing is in our Asian subgroup. Thank you very much. Um what I will note is that our Asian subgroup is small and it represents an increase of three students. So, um, you know, I just wanted to to mention that our highest suspension rate is for black students
025and you'll notice for 2425 that gap is closing. So, we are making some nice gains in that area um due to the work that we've been doing with our suspension reduction plan. This chart uh shows our long-term suspension rates for students who are suspended 10 or more days. So these are for more significant um issues that are occurring. And again, you'll see um we are not um highlighted by the state for disproportionality, but because our overall suspensions are low, but you will see that uh when you compare our long-term suspensions for black and white students, there is a discrepancy between them. And we're continuing to work on that at the building levels. Um, some of the things that we've been doing to address this is, as I mentioned, we've established PBIS initiatives in every building.
026That's positive behavior intervention supports in schools and restorative practices. So, if a student has made a mistake, we're able to support them through their re-entry into the building so that they have a more positive experience. Um, the board had asked for me to give some information regarding fights at the high school and cell phone usage. So, I I do want to share a few facts here. Um, FDR saw 32 physical altercations in the 2223 school year. The following year, 2324, they saw 23. Um and in 2425 they saw 24. So we are seeing a decrease. Uh to date there have been seven physical altercations in the building this year. Mr. Oella has noted that there is a difference this year in the overall cult culture and climate in the building because students don't have their
027cell phones out. Um and he can't make a direct correlation as to why the you know fights are down but he does attribute some of that to uh cell phone usage. Um we have been doing a lot of work around culture and climate and it is showing. It also is important to note that physical altercations is the category where we list any fights, but the degree of a physical altercation can be very different. So it could They are taken from the student. They're the student is told to put them in their locker and we follow our procedures for addressing cell phone usage. Um and if a student is recording a physical altercation, there are consequences for that per the code of conduct. So they are following those rules as well. Okay. So, I've already mentioned
028much of the work that we've been doing on chronic absenteeism, but our district has set a goal to reduce chronic absenteeism this year from 23.6% to 15.6%. And um part of my work is to work with the administrators. We meet once a month as an admin group and we review the data. We go through protocols and set small goals for ourselves so that we are continuing to come back to this work on a regular basis. In addition, I do walkthroughs in every building uh twice a month and we talk about their progress in the building as well. Um, and we continue to work on district-wide messaging about attendance. We also are working districtwide on increasing literacy proficiency from an average of 55% to 62% by the end of the school year. We have been collaborating
029again at our all admin meetings to talk about literacy. We have adopted a new K5 curriculum and we've been providing professional development all year and we also have been using Wity writing writing is thinking through strategic inquiry in grades 6 through 12 and pro providing professional development there. Next year, in order to continue the work that we've been doing at K5, we are looking to adopt a new curriculum for grades six through 8. So, Jen Kryser Amy is working with a team using the same process that we use for adopting curriculum. Teachers are able to review all of the different options and then they vote on which one meets the requirements and which one they really would like to use in the classroom. So we'll have more to share about that later this spring. So
030as we think about budget, there is a budget impact to adding a new curriculum. So, that's something that we'll talk about tonight. And um because of all the positive work that we've been doing and seeing with chronic absenteeism and behaviors, we want to continue the MTSS and PBIS stipens uh at the building level. And the community schools grant is ending at the end of this school year. well in at September 30th. So we are looking to build into the budget some of those initiatives because our families have come to rely on that support. So my budget is listed here. It's broken down into several categories. At the bottom the total investment is for the page. So at the end we'll talk about the total uh budget for my my departments. Um in my department there
031are three administrative staff members uh myself included and we have our community schools facilitator and we also have 4.2 clerical staff. In addition, we have the mentor program that is required through New York State that we provide that to new teachers. We offer curriculum writing every summer so that teachers can update their their lesson planning and curriculum. And we also have SAT Saturday Academy admin stipen that helps support our um enrichment opportunities for families. We also have a budget for summer school and the summer bridge program which also offers uh enrichment and um a reduction in summer slide for our elementary and middle school students as well as our very popular camp invention program which is a steam focused hands-on summer program. Last year we offered Lego camp for the first time. We would like
032to continue that as well. In my department we have mileage and conferences and supplies. Um and then we also have quite a few contractual obligations in the curriculum and instruction area as well as dues and memberships. So, the total investment for my um area is 2,655,000 for the 20 2627 school year. I do want to break out some of the highlights that we did talk about this evening. uh new investment would be in community schools and we feel that we would be able to run community schools uh with our facilitator our Saturday academy stipened supplies mileage and conferences at a total of 182608 and we also um have talked about aim high as um an option for um supporting students at the high school as well as our sixth through 8 curriculum which is a
033cost of about $189,000. In addition, we want to continue to offer witsy support, HM training, camp invention, and AVID programming. So, those costs are there broken down for you. Um, we are going to reduce some of the the way that we provide Saturday next year. So, we're going to go from 10 to 8 because we found that September and June, we didn't have a lot of attendance at those. So, we are going to move in that direction. We're also going to offer four evening events next year rather than one a month. We're going to do one a quarter. So, we're trying to be conscious of our budget, but also provide enrichment for families and an opportunity for kids to experience things that they wouldn't otherwise be able to if we didn't offer them. So the
034benefits of course is to eliminate barriers to students attending school, address social emotional needs of our students, uh communicate on a regular basis about attending school and providing resources for families who are struggling and improving our literacy skills. Again, we're continuing to collect and analyze attendance data on a regular basis as well as literacy and suspension data. We want to celebrate our successes and acknowledge our challenges and find creative solutions to address them. And we are working I'm working with directors to establish an audit cycle for um evaluating our current initiatives and programs because that's something that if we're investing our time and money into we need to make sure that it's having the right impact on all of our students. So we are in the process of creating a cycle where we evaluate that.
035In addition, um, if you were at our district leadership team meeting last month, we started to dive into the New York State portrait of a graduate and the New York SP inspires uh, graduation pathways that are coming our way and that is something that we will be focusing on in the upcoming year. Uh it's really important that we are ahead of the curve and are ready to offer robust programming to students as they are able to have different options to earn a diploma. So you'll be hearing more about that as well. Any questions? >> Yes. >> Um I'm interested in the um suspension rates. So you you talk about a reduction in suspension for disorderly conduct in subordination. >> Is physical altercation left off from that list or is that or does >> so the
036suspension rates are overall for our district? >> When you look down below, right? Okay. But because on the top it says reduction for disorderly conduct and insubordination. >> Correct. >> So but so physical obligations weren't wasn't part of that or it was part of what you >> what I shared with the graph was everything across the district. So that included physical altercations. >> Has there not been a reduction in that in those? >> There has there has been an overall reduction in all all categories. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Um I had a couple questions but you answered most of them. So thank you. Great. >> A couple of brief questions. In the last slide you talk about um audit for current initiatives. Um I just wanted to clarify what initiatives. So, you're talking
037about new programs. I'm thinking that's what you mean, but can you just >> Yeah, sure. >> I I really like that idea. I was checking it. >> So, as we bring on new curriculum, we certainly want to study and make sure that it's the right curriculum. So, um I'll give an example. Uh with HMH into reading, we are in year one of implementation. My vision is that we are on a three to five year cycle of reviewing all of our curriculum across the district so that we can make sure that it continues to meet the needs of our school community. So there's a process that you go through to evaluate curriculum. You look at your data. You look at is it meeting the needs of all subgroups? Is there equity in built into the program?
038Um is there access for all learners? So those are things that we're going to be looking at on a three to five year cycle for all of our curriculum. But um we can't do it all at once. So we're going to prioritize uh the ones that uh we we've just started and then we'll cycle to things like science 21, our social studies curriculum, things like that. >> Sense. Okay. >> Um, and then in the community schools, um, I see that you I understand you talked about how it's it's kind of a paired down community schools, but >> we're looking to keep it, which is yes, I'm really happy to see. >> Um, list, facilitator, Saturday, stipens, supplies, mileage, and conferences, but there's other staff connected to that. They're built into building budgets >> so that
039we're not I'm always looking at jobs, losing jobs. >> Yeah, I can't speak to that right now because we're still building our budget, but as of right now, our community school liaison are built into building budgets. They're not part of my budget. Um, so I wouldn't report out on those right now. >> Okay. Just because it wasn't listed there. Yes. Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Anything else? >> So, uh, you mentioned you you oversee a lot, right? Like special ed and nursing. How come that doesn't show up in your budget here? Is that going to be reflected somewhere else? >> Yes. So, Melissa Reer um reported on the budget for guidance and nurses um and Joanna Murphy will be presenting on the special education. >> Okay. So, yours is a sliver of bill overall.
040Okay. >> Okay. Thanks. You're welcome. >> Wasn't to sneeze. I actually have another question. That's all right. >> Um, in the context of talking about the AP courses, I think you mentioned that I don't know if I want to call it a concern, but there's a there's an observation that not as many students as we'd like are challenging themselves with the APs. And I think you also said in the context that more students are going on to CTI. And what it got me thinking about was whether there's a gender gap there because I you probably know this better than I do. Nationally, significantly fewer young men are going on to college than than young women. Do we see that reflected in these numbers? >> I haven't looked at that data, but you know, I can
041get back to you on that. >> Yeah. Because, you know, if we're concerned about students moving taking these more advanced, we want to make sure that we're thinking about that as well and making sure we're encouraging the young men as well as the young. >> Absolutely. I have one question about the budget since we're in budget season. >> Sure. >> I see all the numbers and then you mentioned the two million dollar total, but I didn't see that anywhere summarized. Is that if I took all those numbers and added >> them up? Yeah, that's what they add up to. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Any other questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Moving on to 7.3, our humanities presentation with my supervisor. I have to get involved. Um,
042hello. My name is Jen Kaiser Amy. I am the director of humanities, humanities in High Park. Um, Tommy, just so you know, is ELA. social studies and world languages. I also supervise reading teachers K8 as part of um my job title. Um so of course we are mission and vision driven. Um one of the things I want to call out is the motto in terms of we are one. The entire district is supporting the literacy initiatives that we embarked upon really two and a half years ago. Um but we have seen some amazing growth and what I'm going to share with you are um some of the successes that we're having with H&MH into reading and with Witsy. I am going to share with you where we're currently looking and what we're going to work
043on and then I've got some priorities outlined in terms of what humanities would prioritize inside of the budget. So, I'm going to start with my personal wildly important goal, my personal wig, which is to increase the percentage of K5 students reading on grade level from 38% to 42% as measured by the 38 ELA assessments by the end of this school year. So, we're looking really to raise about five um three to five percentage points there. Um and the way we're doing that is with um the HMH into reading implementation. We are on year one by using data both student classroom and building data and I'm excited to show you some of the things that our into reading curriculum offers to me as a district leader to our building principles and to our teachers and our
044parents. Um there may be homework so not for you guys but for parents. Um there may be parental homework if you're watching from home. um because at my heart I'm a teacher and I like to give the homework. Um we're going to talk a little bit about um Amamira which is coming into play this second semester. Amira is a personalized learning pathway for all students. Um we do a lot of talking about raising our scores from 38% to 42%. We focus a lot on students who struggle with reading. We have and I will show you with the data a a good percentage of students who are reading at or above grade level and it's time that we start thinking about how we're enriching them. Um the Amira personalized learning pathway allows us that enrichment to
045start as soon as kindergarten and move right now all the way through fifth grade with some um different pathways for learning that are AI generated and teacherdirected. Um, and then I'm also going to talk about our elementary literacy coaching project. Um, which is probably some of the best work uh that's happening in the district around support for not only our students but support for our teachers at K5. um undertaking a new literacy curriculum that is not that is aligned to a structured literacy approach which none of our teachers at K5 have been used to because for the past 17 years we've been in a workshop model of reading and we have not had a structured literacy approach. So it was a 180 and they were given a summer. I can't say enough about the quality,
046work ethic, um, dedication, and learning of our K5 teachers. It is simply impressive. There's there's not a better group of people. And I I've got tears in my eyes when I show you the first grade data. You might have tears in your eyes, too, because it's pretty good. All right. So, um, the science of reading. We have not left the science of reading. We are still using all of the research that we've been talking about for the last three years. Um, we did purchase HMH into reading version three for six years last year with our DHICK reimbursement. A question was asked last June when I was not here about how did how did this work? It's about $49 a student per year at grades K5, which purchases for us the student digital loginins and the
047student my books, which is the workbooks that go along with the student loginins. We've already paid that expense. That is gone. We invested quite a bit last year and that's been taken care of. So, that's not for this year's budget. Yearly expenditures that we are going to um have to look at um which will be funded through state aided textbook money is the purchase of the know it show it workbooks which is the grammar and writing and the read and response journals which is the comprehension scaffold that accompanies the program that provides um text aligned to the content that the students are reading on or about and contains the same vocabu vabulary but about 18 months below grade level so that inside of the classroom teachers can provide scaffolds in small groups to those students
048who need comprehension support. So early and often you get that comprehension support with HMH. I've already spoken a little bit about Amira. It is an AI supported personalized learning pathway that will support both our struggling readers but in it will also support our um students who need enrichment and provide them with the pathway they need to achieve even higher. Um what's happening now is science of reading. We are using K2. We're using UFI University of Florida literacy initiative with daily phonics lessons. Um they're joyful. They're wonderful. It's interled multiensory. Orton Gillingham aligned decoding and it is beautiful. I was in a first grade today watching it happen and they were up reading the site words and then doing the dance and reading the site words and then doing the dance. So, it's a lot of
049fun. Um at 35, our third through fifth grade students who need UFly, which is a primary K2 program, um are receiving it in small group with their classroom teacher or with a TA or a reading teacher through an AIS program, but all of our 35 students are receiving explicit phonics. And by that, what I'm talking about is the morphology of words. Um, so word origins, we're talking Greek and Latin roots when we're talking about producing more national merit scholars. Um, that's how we do it because it we are talking about how words work at grades three through five to build vocabulary and um and give kids opportunities to hear and experience words that might not be something that's in their daily um conversation. Uh we are doing K5 whole group foundational skills time and we
050there's a an alignment between reading, spelling, grammar and writing. So everybody in the district who's ever sent me an email saying why don't we have spelling tests? We still don't have spelling tests but there is spelling being taught with direct explicit align to phonics and decoding um happening at K5 right now. And then there's an increased teacher collaboration via literacy coaching. Um I do want to speak to a project that we're working on with Dr. Weaver at Merist College or Merist University, pardon me, Marrist University. We are looking at the impact of collaboration of literacy coaching on teacher collaboration both across grade levels across buildings and then um across like roles. So whether that is um special ed teachers or third grade teachers um or um people in one hallway, he's kind of looking uh
051proximity as that in impacts as well. We did a quick voluntary survey at the beginning of the year. Um he's going to follow it up with some focus groups and then um through the magic of Dr. Reaver's Intellect. We are going to hopefully have some information about um how collaboration patterns evolve with the implementation of a new literacy curriculum through the support of literacy coaching. Um I'm going to give you an update. This is since fall of 2025. So that's since last September. We've had 30 teachers coached. We've had 15 claim visits. We've had 96 planning sessions. We've had 18 professional development sessions and countless debrief sessions, which I didn't put on there because it was too much for me to tally. I'm an English girl, not not a math girl. Um, I will just
052say as a reminder to the board and to the public, we have two literacy coaches currently, but in quarter two, I had one literacy coach resign her position to take a position outside of our district. So those numbers are with one quarter of two coaches and one quarter of one coach. There are three bullets that I want to speak about that the literacy coaches are supporting fidelity of the curriculum. They are in teachers classrooms supporting them in making monumental instructional changes and they are looking deeply at the curriculum we purchased so that we can differentiate and provide small groupoup instruction like I said not only for our struggling readers but also for our readers who need support who need enrichment support. The final piece is assessment literacy. Um, I believe my next slide it is
053is um some of the work that we're doing. Um, I'm gonna explain this slide to you. This is where I'll talk the most. I know I'm a talker, but this is where I'm going to talk the most because this is amazing. So, I'm going to give you the how to read this slide and then I'm going to give you a few caveats around what the data is telling us. So this particular slide is looking at the three um domains reading, writing and language. If you look at the black dot, you'll see a multi-building conglomerate inside of it. That is where our district is performing As a percentage. All right. So you can see the below level is red, the on level is orange, and the above level is green. Super easy. orange, red, green, and
054where you see those other four other dots, the other dots on the bar graph that are not black, those are indicative of our schools. Now, what I will say is I'm giving you a 30,000 foot view of our first grade midyear. So, this is how our first grade. Now remember our first graders are students who had UFly last year in kindergarten with their foundational skills and then this year they have both UFly and the HMH. Um what is um amazing to me about this is that we're almost all on level and we are moving towards that towards that green. Um, here's where the homework comes in and the caveats. So, I can see this as a district leader. I can also see this exact same report um not only just at the domain level for
055reading, writing, and language. I can go in and see it at the standard level where you're looking at reading literature or reading um fiction reading literature, reading non-fiction. So, I can look at the standard level. I can drill in one more drill and look at it at the um at the actual standard level. So citing evidence for a main idea. Now here are the caveats to this um and there are three I believe. The first is that this data is only as good data in is data out is only as good as data in. So this is the um evidence of the assessments that students are taking as part of the HMH program. We are requiring teachers to give week two and the end of module assessment. So they're required to give two assessments a
056inside of a module. And some teachers are opting to give a lot more. They're giving weekly skills checks. They're giving comprehension. They're giving a lot more of the assessments because frankly they've worked with a literacy coach and they are using some of that to create small groups and to test and show progress of students who who are in their classrooms. Um the other caveat so if we don't have the tests caveat if we don't have the test data we these chart bar charts can be inaccurate. The second caveat is that you really do need to drill down and look at the actual module and the skills tracker inside of HMH because even though we need the assessment data, some of the items on the assessments might have only been taught once and assessed once. So
057we have to go into the module the curriculum modules and say all right we might have something that is right now at a 46 percentage right 46% of our first graders are here with this but it might have only been taught once and tested once. So, we're doing some deep work with skills tracing and looking deeply at how um how many times it's been taught, how and then the third caveat is how it's been taught because sometimes the assessment does not reflect the same way the instruction is. So these assessments have have been developed by and in conjunction with um NWA because HMH was purchased by NWA which has been NWA growth ELA and math has been our universal screener for at least 18 years um maybe more because I was a consultant before I
058started working here and I know I did some training on NWA. So these tests line up in HMH with the NWA growth assessments which for the and then the other piece of this is and NWA also received the RFP for our state tests. So our 3 through8 state tests are going to be and have been for the last two years created by NWA. So there's almost this unnatural but really wonderful planetary alignment of our classroom level work, our building level work, our district level work and how it actually plays out. This report um for principles shows grade level um shows individual teachers as the dots and their building as it relates to the district. For teachers, it shows their class their class members as the dots and the building where they are against their building
059as the black dot. And for parents, it shows your student as they relate to the standards um and where they're proficient and not proficient. So, here's my homework. Parent conferences are coming up in March. I am hopeful that if you are meeting with your child's parent, you you are if you are parents and you're meeting with your child's teacher that you will request to look at um some of this data for your own child because it will help you see um where they are. I do want to give the reminder that no one should panic. If people are at 45% or 25%, you have to ask the next question, which is how many question how many times was this taught to my five-year-old or six-year-old? Because it was only once. You know, that's fine. We're
060not expecting mastery right now. And then was the assessment that they were given assessment item the same way it was taught? because sometimes that's how we differentiate between proficiency and not proficiency. Um that is just our first grade. Um >> absolutely. Go ahead. I knew someone would and I don't have a question so I'm worried if we get wait till all the way at the end. I'll >> go ahead. Um so you these are new assessments. >> Yes. >> And you referenced the NWA assessments and I just know that students are tested beginning year, midyear, end year, NWA. Now we add these assessments. Is there any plan to look at how many times we're assessing kids to get rid of some of those? >> Absolutely. So, that is part of the lit literacy innovation team
061work that's going to happen mid-Marchch. Um, I'm not going to what I'm going to say is to assess a child for no reason and to not use the data is a waste of time. But if we're using these assessments, and that's why I said we're only requiring a a week 2 assessment and an end of module assessment. Some teachers in particular at grades 3, four, five, because they're getting our kids ready for those assessments are doing the um they're doing a lot more than that. They're doing a weekly comprehension check. They're doing a weekly writing and grammar check. They're doing a lot more assessments. So there's a more robust data set. Um I'm saying that because um that is the job kind of the goal of the lit team is to standardize it so that
062if kindergarten says listen the week 2 assessments for kindergarten are are too much. We just want to do the end of module assessments. We have to weigh and think about the benefits and the challenges with doing that and make recommendations basically to Melissa to make decisions around how we're going to assess. >> I guess I just was thinking new program, new assessments, old assessments. So I'm I'm not so worried about within HMH, but >> yeah. So, let me So, the I'm going to flip because I think my next two slides are in WA and I just want to make clear these are classroombased assessments. So, this is the spelling test. This is the the writing portfolio. This is what you remember on Fridays. Your teacher either you got a sticker or a see me on
063the top of your paper. It is delivered in a um computer-based format because that's the way students will be taking third through 8th grade and eventually probably regent exams. However, we have given in in particular at primary some options for teachers not to use it in the computer-based format to have them um give it on paper or even give it orally where students are responding maybe in a small group and then entering the data afterwards. The teachers have to enter the data but they're entering the data afterwards so that we can actually get the data. Um the NWA growth is our universal screener. So we use NWA growth as one of multiple measures to identify students who need support as part of our AIS plan. So I'm going to share with you a chart that
064shows achievement percentiles for one testing term which is winter of 2025. Now, this is a singleterm um achievement that looks at a student's performance in a single moment in time, winter 2025. So, this was just this just happened the last two weeks of January. And we use these achievement percentiles to understand how our students in High Park scores compare to other students across the United States. So these it and not all these are students whose districts use NWA um as their universal screening platform. So excited. Um I want to talk a little bit about the difference here. So when you look at the um when you look at this chart, what you are going to see is grades K through 8 top to bottom. When you look into the yellow bubble, that is the median
065percentile. So it is the middle percentile value when a group of percentiles are ordered from lowest to highest. because we are looking at percentiles and not percentages. It's like if you look at our first grade, we're at 54th percentile. So if I have a 100 first grades, 100 first district-wide first grades across the United States, zero would be here, 100 would be here. We'd be standing at 54. So when you look at where we are, our median percentile is 54. It's not a percentage. It doesn't mean we're going to be at 54 percentage on the ELA 3 through 8. It's a percentile. It means we're about 54 in the list of 100 schools, right? The challenging part about understanding percentiles is understanding that um the range for percentiles is between like average range is between
06630 25 30 and 80. So we're in that very top of that bell curve where most people um fall. Um when you see the colors, those are percentages. So that shows you the distribution of um scores within that particular quintile. So when you look at our grade one and you we are at the 54th percentile about 24 now now I can't is it 24 about 24% of our students are performing at the um 80th or better percentile and about 17 percentile of our first grade uh percent of our first graders are performing at the 61st to 80th Um percent. Uh yeah, somebody give me the word. What word do I >> percentile? Yes. No, no. 17 is a percentage. So when you do 17 and 34 and you add those together, those students are proficient.
067That's the percentage of our students that are proficient. Our percentile is 54. So what we want is more blue, green, and yellow, less red and orange. That's the non-math person way to say that. Um, I'm gonna go back because I didn't point it out. Hold on. What did I do? I went the wrong way. Um, so the next chart is more NWA achievement. It's looking at 35. We are looking at growth and we're looking at achievement. So what you saw on the last slide was a singleterm winter achievement. Now we're going to look at growth, which is an inference about how the student performance changes across two testing moments. And we're going to look at those percentiles and compare them to think about change and achievement, which is how the students performed at two different
068moments in time. So when I go to this chart, you're going to see growth for grade three is at 54th is at the 54th percentile and you're going to see the number of students who in the quintiles the percentage of students it could be percent or number that made growth. And on the very far right column, you'll see that we tested 228 2 uh uh 223 and 241 students. So this is our district-wide performance. Directly underneath the growth measure is the achievement for the fall and the achievement for the winter. I shared with you in the slide prior the achievement for the winter for all K8. This is just a snapshot of grades three, four, five because I am really super um excited about the amount of growth we're making and I'm seeing a lot
069of it in you can see in third grade there's quite a quite a lot um and in fourth grade and fifth grade we're we're growing and our achievement is also increasing in percentiles. Um, so that's kind of my K5t sticktick. I'm going on to my next wildly important goal, which is training the 6th through 12th grade core content teachers in Witzy 101. Writing is thinking with strategic inquiry. Increase that from 40% to 100% by the end of the 2526 school year. Um, we are going to work on continued professional development. Um, wit 103 cross content for grades six through eight in 206 26 27 and wit 102 cross content for grades 9 through 12. WIT 101 is sentence level work. WIT 102 is paragraph level work. WIT 103 is essay level work. What the research
070is showing us about comprehension is that syntax is one of the number one drivers for comprehension and critical thinking comes from that place of syntax and how words are put together um in beginning in a sentence form and then moving to a paragraph and moving to an essay. Um the other piece of work that I'm working on is grade 6 through 11 ELA curriculum adoption. What I want everyone to hear is that we're going to do a phase in and implementation due to budgetary constraints this year. Um, unless somebody wants to donate a pile of money, um, we're going to start with 68 in the fall of 2026, but we'll phase in 911 the following year. Um, that's just because of the budget. Um, but I will say the adoption is going to happen. So
0716th through 11th grade teachers are going to select one program and they're all going to be able to participate in the process through the use of department meeting time. And whatever is picked this year um we're going to it's going to be a 611 adoption that just has a phase in for implementation. I do want to talk a little bit about feedback from Wity. Um you can see the percentage of overall ratings there in terms of where um Havland and FDR are this is basically teacher evaluation feedback that we received from Wity and and the different group sessions but I also want to because I didn't say anything about the regents um I want to just say that in on the last superintendent's conference day at the request of Kim and Mike director of math
072and science. My building principal um the FDR teachers deconstructed regent exams in math and science to identify the syntax inside the assessment items and the types of critical thinking required for regent success. The witsy strategies were then used to develop um and support deeper content understanding. So, how do you use a because but so or a sentence kernel or an expanded sentence strategy or adding the detail of an a positive to more clearly communicate your understanding of math and science. Um so I have not received the feedback forms from the February um the aggregated results of the February um superintendent's conference day at the time of this um presentation being being put together. But I look forward to those and we'll share if anybody wants um timeline for the adoption of the ELA curriculum. We're
073going to identify career uh criteria which we've already done. um bringing in vendor presentations. They're scheduled for March. We are going to vote and the teachers will make a recommendation for the pro of the program they want and then cabinet and the board of ed will review the recommendation and let us know if you are on board or not. Um fall of 2026 will begin 68 implementation. Fall of 2027 will begin grades 9 through 11 implementation. I must say um so that everyone hears it um the biggest criteria that we used to select the vendors we brought in was the review by ED reports and the what works clearing house so that it is um standards aligned and so that it has gone through kind of a more rigorous vetting process. We created our own
074criteria list based on the criteria um and rubrics that Ed reports used, but um there were only four total programs that were 611 that received the green circle from ED reports and I'm going to speak to three of them next. So the first is common lit. Um this is um about $13,000 a year. we would have to make a two to fouryear commitment. Um it's a per school investment and then as part of my ELA supplies budget we would purchase the print tees and um that is not including any professional learning. Savas my perspectives is um about $165,654 a year. Um that includes PD. You can see the cost without PD. This would be a four to sixyear commitment. It would be almost exactly the same as the K5 HMH um which would be $50
075digital license per student per year, $19 student workbook per student per year. The purchase of TEAS, again, that would be part of the um ELA supplies budget line. And then professional development at 6,000 per day. We figured 4 days, 24,000 um total. Um and then HMH into literature, very similar breakdowns to Savas. Um it's not the same as into reading, it's into literature, but that's the six-year total because I wanted you to see the yearly breakdown is SVOS. The six-year breakdown is HMH, but those two are probably exactly the same. So, we're talking about this same amount of investment we made at K5, which was about, you know, 500,000, about half a million. Can't believe I just said that like it was nothing. About a half a million dollars, but I'm seeing really good results
076from HMH. So, super super happy. Um, so my priorities, admin, clerical, the literacy coaches, um, HMH into reading, we've purchased that through 2030. Uh we are using our literacy coaches um some this year and again next year to continue with some professional development. We've had really robust professional development in HMH, but we also realize that we we've got a couple of teachers retiring this year. So we'll have new teachers that we need to um train on the platform and help them get up to speed. Um so that will be some of the literacy coach work that happens next year. um the new ELA curriculum for 611 that will come from Melissa's budget and textbook budget uh K12 ELA K12 social studies and 612 world language supplies and then conference and mileage. I want to speak
077a little bit I'll just I'm just going to go through this um because I know I'm almost at my minute limit. Um, admin, clerical, and literacy coaches has a total investment of $563,66 this year. Um, supplies, K12, ELA, social studies, and world language has a total investment of about $40,97 uh,000 this year. I I've got Dennis here in the audience, so I want to explain why the social studies supply budget is so small. Dennis is like, what? So, for for the world to understand, my district level supply budget is not um paper clips, post-it notes, or sentence strips. Although, if I have an occasional $37 left over, I will buy a whole bunch of sentence strips and maybe a thing of paper. My supply budget is really about um teachers editions, purchase of teachers editions.
078It's about Jack Daw um It's about Jack Daw uh materials for my social studies group. Any kind of we've been on a vocabulary journey at the high school with social studies. So the vocabulary books that about how to teach vocabulary and social studies that we're using with the social studies teachers, that's what we that's what I use supplies with. any kind of really teacher needed material. That's what my supply budget is. Conference and mileage is 9,549. Memberships are 750. Total investment 10,299. I I want to point this out. I put it in red. So, my overall increase year-to-year, even though inflation is at like 2.68%. My overall increase because I moved things around and slashed things I didn't need for my supply budget was only $545. And that includes loading a lot. I took a
079lot away from social studies. I took as much as I could away from world language. Much of the world language money is used to fund um learning opportunities for students. um cafe day um day of the dead day where we um we they use supplies and usually it's food but sometimes it's not just food. Um we do a Freda callow piece where they um do some some things with that. So, I took as much as I could from social studies and world language, put it into ELA supplies to cover the 68 um TE needs, which are going to probably be at the lowest, probably 16, between 11 and 16,000, depends. Um, total investment for humanities is 614,812. And I think that the benefits of my recommendations are really district-wide literacy alignment, improved instructional quality. We
080are already seeing stronger academic outcomes. Our K12 kids I I have I was in a kindergarten today. The kindergarten teacher came up to me and she said, "Jen, I have 12 of my 27 already reading." 12 of my 27. Now, that means I got 15 I got to worry about because I want all 27 reading. But 12 this it's February in kindergarten and we have 12 of 27 reading. So, shout out to that. Shout out to Kayla because I'm super happy and we're we're going to get them all reading. um support equity and targeted interventions using the data. The literacy coaches are doing amazing work with doing skills trackers, providing small group interventions using the HMH materials that are both supportive and enriching. So when I talk about small group, I'm not just talking about
081the kids who struggle. I'm talking about those kids who need enrichment as well. And then really some good data driven decision-making because now we've got NWA growth. We've got HMH, we've got state testing, we've got multiple pieces of data to really see if and when um we if the supports we're giving kids are helping them accelerate their learning and be successful. Um so my next steps, get Amira up and running. That's a goal before the 38 testing. So that's my next that's March because you got March, April. Um and I want to see it says the the claim is 8 to 15 minutes twice a week will raise you um in eight weeks three percentage points. So we'll see if that actually works. I don't know. I'm going to try it and I will track
082the data. um selecting a 611 ELA curriculum, providing professional development in the witsy strategies, updating our coaching model and framework and the instructional playbook, and then just work on pacing guides and alignment between programs. What's important to just mention is that HMH is a knowledge building curriculum. It's structured literacy based in knowledge building. So many of the topics are aligned to our science and social studies topics. Um today I was in a first grade and they were talking about communities which is a social studies topic but they were in HMH. I have been in other rooms where they're talking about the sun and stars, moon, galaxies and planetary pool science curriculum. So we have to do a little bit of curriculum writing to make sure that either we are clearly articulating when I'm introducing and
083when I'm mastering you when I'm developing and when I'm mastering across the science and social studies curriculum. but giving kids every opportunity they can to um build their knowledge about the world around them while they learn to read at the same time. Are there any other questions? >> I don't have anything. >> Good. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Did I do 15 minutes? >> I don't know. I think so. >> 45. >> Did I It feels like four days, right? It felt like you did it in four days. >> All right, moving on to 7.4 transportation uh update or proposition presentation uh with Miss Arta. >> President Skorski, just so you know, I I told you she has one minute. >> I don't like to talk as much as Jen, so it'll be fine. Um,
084so for those of you who don't know, I'm Nicole Artetta, the transportation supervisor. Um, so I just want to start by saying everything we do um is grounded on the district's we are one philosophy. We actively support this vision and mission by ensuring that every student has a safe, reliable, um, transportation so they're arrive ready to learn every day. Um, tonight's discussion has three main drivers. First, um, celebrating the real impact of our past investments. Second, outlining our current targets for improvement. And finally, presenting our prioritized budget recommendations for the upcoming school year. So, starting with our department showcase, we're really excited to highlight our recent facility modernization efforts. As the slide emphasizes, these projects were entirely about investing in the environment that keeps our drivers driving and our students learning. If you look to
085the photo to the left, you'll see our newly paved bus lot. This is much more than just a cosmetic upgrade. A smooth, well-maintained surface ensures safer maneuvering for our drivers, reduces daily wear and tear tear on our buses, and eliminates dangerous safety hazards for our staff that's walking through the bus lot. On the right, you can see our newly updated dispatch office. We modernize the space to make it a more efficient and welcoming environment to our staff and our community. Next, we want to celebrate some major successes stemming from our prior investments. With this slide, you can take a look at the capabilities of our new routing system. Starting on the left, you'll see um the view that our dispatch office can see. This map allows us to see all of our buses that are
086currently logged into an active route, giving us an instant view of our fleet movement across the district. Moving to the middle, this shows what we see when we're looking into a specific route. Um, the office can get detailed real-time information. We can see exactly which stop the bus is in route to, the live ETA for all upcoming stops on that route, and the recorded times for all previous stops. And then finally on the right, um, is a look at our parent app. So, we're currently in a soft launch stage of our parent app roll out, and so far it seems to be going very well. Um, with this app, it allows parents to see exactly when the bus enters a certain proximity to their child's stop with a a live BTA to when that bus
087will arrive there. Um, continuing with our impact on prior investments, let's look at one of our proudest operational achievements is our DOT rating. So, to understand these numbers, it helps to know how the state grades us. So DOT looks at our out of service rates um or OOS rates which is essentially the percentage of failed inspections. So to earn the highest tier um which is good with DOT an operator must have an OOS rate of 10% or less. So that 10% um or less failure rate translates to the 90% New York State DOT goal that you see on the screen. So, while the state average sits at 95.9, I'm thrilled to say that High Park is at 97.93. Um, which means our out of service rate is roughly only 2%. Um, if you look to
088the chart at the right, you can see our continuous improvement with this. So, we didn't just maintain these high standards, but we improved on them, jumping from 96.65% the previous year to the 97.93 this year. So, we had about a 1.28 increase in our pass rate. Um so now um we're going to look at our current work and target for improvements. So this slide shows um our department wigs, our wildly important goals. These goals support the district's broader wigs. So our first wig directly supports the district's literacy goal. Um and as you can see, our target is to increase the number of elementary buses um engaged in literacy activities from zero to 25 out of our 58 elementary buses by June. We achieved this by displaying a word of a week of the week on
089each elementary bus, encouraging both the students and our drivers to use it during their ride. And the photo in the middle is our department scoreboard. It tracks the progress showing the buses successfully using the word as they race down literacy lane towards that checkered finish line. Our second wig is all about reliability, which directly supports the district's attendance school. So, we're aiming to increase our verified on-time uh routes to 95% rate from uh 0 to 75 routes um by June. So, to keep this goal highly visible to our team, we installed a working traffic light. As you can see on the right, it show it stays glowing green when our fleet is operating on time, shifts to yellow when we start to see delays, and then red if we're experiencing any major delays that day.
090So, continuing with our current work, I want to highlight an exciting project focused on our most important priority, which is our student safety. What you see on the screen is a brand new safety video specifically designed to engage our younger riders. I'm incredibly proud of this initiative because it was done all in house. It was a collaborative effort between our head bus drivers, our trainer, one of our drivers, um, and worked directly with Michael from our tech department to bring this concept to light. I think they did an awesome job and making these rules um accessible and fun for kids. So, I'm going to let you guys take a look at their hard work here. Good morning everyone. My name is Mr. Rich. I will be your bus driver to and from school today. Remember,
091we're going to go over a couple safety rules so we make the bus trip safe for everyone. Number one, stay in your seats. We need to be in our seats with our backs against the back of the seat, facing forward, and keep your feet planted on the floor. Number two, keep your hands and your head, your arms, and everything inside the bus. Never stick anything outside of the window for everyone's safety. Number three, respect your bus driver. All of our bus drivers need to listen and be able to hear all the sounds around them. Other vehicles, safety vehicles, fire trucks, whatever it may be. If you're screaming loud, jumping up and down, we need you to be quiet so we can hear. Number four, make sure you keep the aisle clear when you're getting on
092the bus or getting off the bus. People can trip on seat belts, on your backpacks. So, please keep the aisles clear. Eating and drinking on the bus. We do not need any accidents. People have allergies. If you have a peanut butter sandwich and Jane next to you has a peanut butter allergy or a peanut allergy and she has an asthma attack, that will not be good for anyone. Number six, yellow flashing lights. The yellow flashing lights mean heads up. I'm about to stop. They are a warning signal to other cars that the bus is getting ready to let kids on or off very soon. Number seven, red flashing lights. When the red lights are flashing, that means stop. Everybody freeze. The bus has completely stopped and the kids are getting on or off. When the
093red lights are flashing and the big stop sign swings out, it makes a giant safety zone around the bus. It tells all the cars, even the ones driving the other way, that they must stop and wait until the red light turns off. This rule keeps all kids safe when they are crossing and walking around the big yellow bus. All right, guys. We're going to go over how to exit a bus and get home safely. Remember, down the stairs, take 10 big steps forward. Make sure I see you and you see me. When I give you the crossing signal, cross to the edge of the bus. Look both ways. If you hear the horn, you immediately go back to where you started. If not, I will give you the signal to cross safely to your home.
094Keep your hands to yourself. No bullying, no throwing things. Make it safe for everybody. We want to all get home safely. enjoyed that video as much as we did getting it put together for you. Um, as we pivot to the financial side of the presentation, I want to tie everything we just have seen together. The successes we celebrated today, our near perfect DOT inspection rating, the rollout of our live routing app, and our improved facilities didn't just happen by accident. they were all a direct result of strategic um targeted investments. So when we look at our budget recommendations for the upcoming year, our priorities are clearly delineated to sustain and build upon this momentum. We are focusing our efforts on four key areas. Optimizing routing technology, capacity building shop equipment, safety aligned facility upgrades, and
095driver retention support. So, diving into our three-year projections, the first and largest area of investment for the 2026 27th school year is our staffing. This includes our drivers, monitors, mechanics, and office, all essential personnel required to keep our buses running safely and smoothly every day. The next segment um is our necessary operational supplies and medical services. And I just want to point out the routing software uh line item. This is the same software that we celebrated earlier that has the live um tracking and the parent app. Um so it's a critical continuing investment for our department's efficiency. This slide covers the physical maintenance of our fleet including equip equipment, auto parts and repairs. And wrapping up um we have the unavoidable cost of operating a large transportation network which is primarily our fuel and electricity.
096bring our total projection for 20 uh 627 to roughly 8.9 million. Our bus proposition for this year is for seven buses. We're looking at 466 passenger diesel, 330 passenger gas. The cost for these is 1,93,426. After state aid, the annual cost will be just under 111,000. And to bring this all together, um the financial summary, um while the majority of our bud budget is simply the continuing investment required to maintain our current operations, I just want to highlight the uh two areas where we're requesting new investments. So, first you'll see a slight increase of just under 10,000 for our fleet maintenance and repair. Um it's important to note that our equipment budget always starts at a zero baseline every year. So, this increase um will fund two vehicle mounted salters for our existing plow trucks
097to help maximize our winter weather response and it also funds a new bus lift as we have a fully staffed shop and an open bay ready to utilize this lift um to further improve improve our maintenance efficiency. The second new investment is the 114 annual bus replacement cycle. So, last year our bus purchases were slightly different. We had 466 passenger, 230 passenger, and we had one SUV. This year, we're shifting to the 466 and 330 passengers. The increase also accounts for a significant upgrade um to the 66 passenger buses. So, these new models would be fully airond conditioned um and they would have enhanced safety lighting, which bring me to my next slide where you can see that. So, if you look on the photo to the left, um the new 66 passenger buses um
098would have that perimeter safety lining all the way around the bus or all the way down the passenger side of the bus in our danger zone where most of our uh students are walking. So, it'll help to improve the vis uh their visibility during morning and late afternoon runs. Um the middle picture is the bus lift that we were discussing. Um and then on the right you'll see a familiar winter scene um as we focus on our lot safety. So getting those vehicle mounted soldiers to manage ice control um will help to prioritize the safety of our students, drivers and staff not just on the road but also in our own lots and across our uh school facilities. So, I want to thank everybody for their support and if anybody has any questions. >> Um,
099I thought we were shifting everything to gas and and your proposal was for diesel buses. Are we still mixed? >> We're still mixed. Um, gas isn't as readily available as diesel is. Um, most of the manufacturers for large buses don't do gas. >> Okay. So, so they don't make 666 passenger gas. >> Some do. Um, we try to stick with the same manufacturer. This way we're not doing um, you know, a bunch of different types of parts and stuff. So, >> okay. And then on your financial summary for bus purchases, you say continuing investment is 110, which matches the request for the seven buses. Then what's the new new investment of 114 for? So I can help Nicole out there. So when we finance buses, we do it over five five years on a bond
100anticipation note. And so what the 110 represents is the incoming state aid and the outgoing state aid, which is a six-year cycle. So we take the overall cost of principal and interest for the buses and we divide by that time period to come up with the 110. But when we add up all our debt service together for all the buses that we bought over the years, the change in our debt service payment will be 114. So it's slightly more than this particular issuance because of the state aid and how it flows. >> And then lastly on the vehicle mounted salters, wouldn't that come out of uh facilities budgets or >> so? We currently have um plow trucks in the transportation department. We have one that has a salter on it and we have two that
101do not. So we're looking to add the salters to those two trucks. And that is specific for the bus garage or >> we normally do our lot and we do um like the bigger part of the Ralph R. Smith lot and then if facilities needs help like um keeping up with it um they'll go and they'll help at the other school facilities also. >> So I any other questions. >> All right. Thank you. >> At this time, we'd like to adjourn the motion. >> Second. >> All right. Now, we have our budget presentation with Dr. >> Good evening. >> So, today uh we have our fourth uh budget presentation. I'm excited to introduce our new assistant superintendent for uh business and operations uh Tanya Malro from Morat, excuse me. Um so today what we want
102to do is we want to continue to unpack the budget process. Um our vision continues to be um grounded um in these areas. And one of the things that I want to continue to emphasize is that we have four budget drivers. The budget drivers are really what um gives us the sort of GPS for how we're moving forward. So first and foremost, we're preserving programs uh and services for students. We're ensuring financial sustainability uh improving efficiency and effectiveness. And lastly, balancing the needs of the district while remaining mindful of the impact on our taxpayers. And so, um, as we've shared, this budget process has been, um, more complex for us in terms of we've had to look at things that we typically haven't had to look at. with the zerobased budget approach, it's really allowed
103us to take a look at um line by line what we're investing in, what are some things that we can do differently in terms of providing the same level of support but in more efficient ways. So um in terms of this process again it's forced us to look at the delivery of our our services. Our team has been extremely um thoughtful, bless you, and thinking outside of the box and coming up with some creative ways to deliver uh these services for our students. In some cases, what we've identified is that we can actually do things in a more efficient and more effective way and still save um save save some u uh investment um and funds. We're looking uh we're also looking at uh savings in this process um through breakage um which is when
104we have um staff that are retiring and then we are able to hire uh individuals um at a lower rate. Um we've been very strategic in some of the reductions um that we we are exploring and unpacking and um again just being very mindful in the fact that we are going to look to do things differently in terms of paper uh usage in terms of um using some of our our technology in a more efficient way so that we could move away from printing report cards perhaps um lessening the amount of of of items that we're printing. again looking at every avenue to um reduce the costs. So uh in terms of the budget development process um that work is ongoing. Uh we have done sort of uh a twice scrub of of the budget.
105Um we're going to have to go back as you'll see some of the figures that we we will be sharing today. We're gonna have to go back and do some more work uh because there are still some areas that we still need to reduce uh further costs to ensure that we are um being mindful of of the taxpayers and and and so we'll talk a little bit about that later on. We've made some significant progress. I'm really proud of the team, but we we have some more work to do um in terms of the budget development process. Um today we'll talk a little bit about where our gap currently is. Um afterwards we'll continue to re-evaluate positions, programs, other data points to prioritize additional budget changes. Our goal is to provide um a final pre
106final budget um uh pre presentation with my recommendations on April 9th and then adoption on April 28th with the budget vote on the 19th of May. >> So as Dr. Roman said, my name is Tanya Malrad. I am the new assistant superintendent for finance and operations. Today will mark my seventh day in the district. So, I apologize if I haven't been out to your building and I haven't gone out to meet and greet you. I I look forward to doing that. Um Dr. Roman says, uh so I'm I'm in charge of facilities, transportation, food service, and the business office. So, the business office is in encompassing audits, internal controls, and um the budget process. So, while Dr. Roman mentions that it's a challenging budget for Hide Park this year. Um I have to say it's
107a very exciting time to come on as a business official because I've learned more about um instruction and data in Hide Park than I have in my entire career. So out over the 20 years um through the process of watching your videos online and your presentations of your building principles and some of the the work that's done tonight, it's really impressive how much data comes forward to the community and to the board of education and the thoughtful questions um that are happening. So I'm I'm really excited to work here. Um I also am excited that it's a very collaborative process. So, um the cabinet works very um hours and hours over combing over the numbers that have um been prepared thus far. And um I also know through being on email threads before I arrived
108in the district that uh administration throughout the district was included in that process. So that is something um that's a best practice and it's it's definitely happening here. There's a lot of hours and work that's going into it. So our job in the business office is to to start to try to bring all that data together and to try to look at the re revenues and expenses that we anticipate from a big picture perspective and to um talk to the taxpayer about what the impact of the budget is. Um and to obviously keep in mind that the fiscal health of the district while balancing uh the goals and priorities of instruction as well as um being mindful of the taxpayer impact. Um so on this slide you're going to see um some of the outstanding
109budget items that we have to do to date. Right? So we have the tax cap calculation due in March. We're going to go over that uh tonight in the presentation. Um the legislative budget. So um our state aid um projections are based on the governor's budget and the legislative budget. They're up in Albany deliberating currently on the legislative budget and that will be enacted hopefully in April. We know um from past history that sometimes that is a little late. Um so we hope that's timely this year. Uh we'll continue to look at special education enrollment changes because those things impact the budget greatly. Um we'll look at the Bosey's final estimates. Those those come from the Boseies. We we continue to look at our increased expenditures under the Boseies line items and compare those to
110where we're headed. Um and we're going to continue to drill down on staffing. I do want to note as well that I did see I had a a hourlong conversation with Linda Steinberg today and she's left us in great shape for the budget. So she's had um put together very comprehensive information and data and lots of detail, lots of different spreadsheets um and she's she's been very generous in her time and um she wants to make sure that she continues to support the the district through this transition. So I I really appreciate that from her. Here we're going to go over the tax cap calculation. Um so the tax cap calculation is a formula and the first piece of that formula is um to bear with me here because my glasses can't see that but
111they can. Um so the tax base growth factor. So that represents the additional brickandmortar additions to the tax base. Um and so you can see that this gets us a good amount of money this year in the tax um tax cap calculation. an additional $881,000. So after we apply the taxbased growth factor, we we add in the payment in le of taxes because last year we had to deduct that from what we could levy to the taxpayer. So last year that was $711,847. Um, and we do know that the board and community are aware that there are two pilots that are pending and we've reached out to the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corporation and based on those conversations, we are anticipating that those pilots will come on board for the 2728 budget. So that those
112won't impact the 2627 budget. Um so so then we uh on the tax cap calculation we we deduct the capital tax levy. So that is an exclusion that's allowed by the state controllers's office to not right include in the tax levy calculation the cost of our capital project. So that's net of state aid. Um then we then we apply the allowable levy growth factor and that is driven by inflation. This year inflation was um between two and 3%. So the levy growth factor has come in at 1.02%. And then what we do is we deduct the current year pilots and we add back the capital exclusion. And so this year our allowable tax levy is $74,726 $72658 and it represents $2.4 million roughly or a 3.41% increase. So on this slide, we're going to go
113over state aid. And so these state aid um projections are based on the governor's executive budget. So uh that budget we as we all know that um foundation aid the foundation aid formula was fully funded in the COVID period when we had the pandemic relief monies and so the state decided to go to fully funded foundation aid. So what we're seeing in the years that follow that is that foundation aid is pretty flat because foundation aid is driven by local factors, population, enrollment, wealth factors. So those things are staying flat usually in a community. They don't vastly differ from year to year. Some of the other state aid in here is expense driven. So what we do is we we start to now these are projections based on the governor's room. We've adjusted our building
114aid and our transportation aid. We have BPD, our financial adviser, who provides us with some detail on our projections for the state aid for for our capital projects. And we project out things like um the current capital project that we have that's in phase three and when we think we'll complete that and when we think that aid will flow. So that's a comp complex calculation on the back end that our financial adviserss provide us. Um and we include that in these numbers. Most of these numbers though in the CD projections are from the governor's run. And what I will start to do now is I'll start to look at those expenses and we'll start to look at the trends of these expenses. So, we submit projections of our expenditures during the annual audit process and
115when we submit our SD3 to the state um with our actual final expenditures and then our projected expenditures for the next year, which is what the governor's run pulls so that she can project our state aid for her budget. Um and so we'll continue to tweak these. They'll also wait for the legislative budget which will have another pull of the state aid numbers and um so and it may have changes to the governor's budget. So there's two two caveats there. The legislature may change what the governor proposes for state aid and our numbers will change based on based on updated expenditures but we will upload to the state's website. So this is where we stand for our budgettobudget revenues. This is a snapshot of all the major categories of revenues. This ties back to what
116we had last year in our budget. And you can see the tax cap calculation there. Gives you your 3.41% which we previously reviewed. Um this other revenues is miscellaneous sources. This can be charges to other districts. This can be um uh interest uh investments that we make with our our liquid cash where we earn interest. We are declining that um estimate this year because the interest rates there's downward pressure on the fed for interest rates. Um you see the state aid here is presented in two line items, right? So you can see that the net of the 817 and three $318,000 reduction are equal to the the estimated state aid f um slide that you saw or or plus roughly 499,000. Um we have an inter fund transfer to debt service and that is also
117provided by our financial envir advisor. It's part of a longer term plan. Um, so this is a reduction from the previous year and as you can see the budget challenges have caused us to look to using some of our reserves. So uh the district has done a great job historically allocating fund balances to reserves. So what that means is as we have budgetary cycles that allow us to not spend everything that we anticipated we would spend or to collect more revenues than we anticipated, we have fund balance we generate and we can put those into reserves which we save for a rainy day. And so we're hoping to continue to refine these numbers but we are projecting using some of these reserves. Um I think you all have seen thus far in the budget presentations
118from the interim business official that uh ERS rates went up from uh roughly 16 and a half% to 17.6%. So that's a pretty big jump and it's a pretty high number. So um some of this this is for an ERS reserve. So we like to we like to budget the reserves where expenses are increasing. On the next slide we're going to look at the budget tobudget expenditures. Um so you can see that salaries which include contractual step increases retirement breakage which Dr. Roman mentioned staffing reductions total 2.4 million approximately and this increase alone effectively utilizes the fully projected tax cap revenue growth. So you can see how difficult it is to roll over a budget when one line item can eat up your tax cap calculation. Um the Boseies expenditures have increased um basically because
119we had some incoming uh classified students and so that represents tuitions for for students through the Boseies programs. Our contractual expenses increases include boiler maintenance, roof repairs, the trained BMS system, uh specialed contracted nurses. So all of those are contracted expenses that we have across our departments. The next line item is supplies and operating expenses. And there's been a reduction because we've cut many of the supply lines. Um right, but some of the operating expenses in this line item are um so supplies and operating expenses can be anything that would run a building, right? So then we're going to go to the equipment line items. So we have an increase of 260,000. What what we have in here is we have the lift for the bus garage, two salters for the dump trucks, which you
120previously saw through the transportation presentation. There is now a van replacement in there for the maintenance garage. There's also a dump truck, a scrubber, floor machines. We have some grounds equipment, some air conditioners, and the replacement of a box truck with a liftgate. That's roughly 95,000. We have a UTV plow and we have some central data processing network equipment in there. Two PA systems, one for Netherwood and one for Violet Avenue. So those are some of our equipment items right now in this slide item. Um then we have our transfers to other funds. So that equals 20% local share for our summer school program. $250,000 we transfer to the federal fund and a one-time aid project of $100,000 is in there right now. So, there was an increase there for the summer school, the 20%
121local share of the summer school. Our debt payments are our debt service payments are are flat here and uh Linda indicated to me that that's a plan that the district is, you know, tries to keep all their debt service payments flat. And then we have our employee benefits. So, I think that everybody heard previously in our presentations that um DHICK was anticipating a roughly 16% increase in health benefits, health health insurance rates. And um Brian and I attended a DHICK meeting and they're going to change their provider network and we're now going to be at roughly 9.87% increase in health insurance. So that still is um so that that reduction in the projected increase in benefits saved us about $1.3 million, but it's still a large increase from budget to budget for health insurance. And
122so we will continue to to look at that to make sure that we're budgeting health insurance accurately for vacancies. Um for also, you know, sometimes health insurance doesn't come on board, some people take buyouts. Uh we have Medicare primary. So we look at all of that um more detailed information when we put this number together and um right we comb over that data we make sure those things are based on historical actuals. So so the first number that you see here under the budget rollover um is uh 7.68%. So, if we were to do um the same thing that we have been doing previously, just rolling budgets over, we would be looking at $135 million, $135.6 million. Um that's an increase of almost um $10 million just budget to budget. So I think that with
123us deciding that this is the best approach in terms of the zerobased um approach to budgeting this year, it really has served us well in terms of really taking a look at every every investment that we have determining whether or not we continue moving forward with that. um because with with a number like that we would we we would not have enough revenues to cover the expenditures in the process that we've engaged in thus far. Um we have made some strategic reductions. Um we have looked at efficiencies um in all corners. Um and based on all those pieces that we've already analyzed, we've been able to reduce that number by $3.1 million. That still allows us to provide the level of service um and programs for students. um in some cases like I mentioned before
124it's more more efficient in terms of how how we're delivering it but we are looking at um many of those aspects um and we we're doing it collectively uh because we we can't we can't do this work alone. So instead of doing a budget rollover uh and seeing a a $9.6 million increase, we're currently at the 5.21% 21% which is about $6.5 million. So we still have some work to do uh because our current revenues are at five million. So there's a there's a gap there of almost 1.4 1.5 million. So we still have some work to do in terms of what other cost um saving measures we can implement. Um we're still working on that which we still need to go back and re-evaluate um certain programs and positions to see if there's any
125other way that we can actually work towards um reducing that number even further. Um right now we do have some of those items um that we want to share. uh one of the pieces with the strategic reductions in certain positions, we still need to communicate that information to individuals that may be impacted. So, one of those things is from now until the next meeting is being able to um speak with those individuals, make sure that they they're aware of it and that um this is not the first time that they're they're seeing that. Um $3.2 $2 million is it's it's a it's a it's a huge it's a huge number. Um I mean we could look at reducing paper. We can look at you know um renegotiating contracts. We can look at um you know
126cutting professional development um numbers. We can look at and we've looked at all of these things um meal um items that supplies. So, we we've looked at all of these areas so that we could try to reduce um to the extent possible without impacting um what we're providing to to our school community. Um and still yet, we have, you know, $ 1.5 million to go. So, we have a little bit more work to do uh before we show the full picture. Um we are making some progress um but there are still certain things that we need to um unpack further so that we can get to a balanced budget. Okay. Any other questions? >> Sorry about that. These are our next steps. So this is our calendar. >> The 1.5 million deficit. Now you've already
127used 3 something of fund balance prior to that. Correct. >> That's correct. And that's that's also accounting for the 2.5 in reserves in ERS and TRS reserves. Any other questions? >> So I understand this is a longer different process. So, are you thinking that the next meeting we'll get those slides with the savings and the the you know all those draft slides that we usually have seen by now with potential cuts and additions and those types of things? >> Yes. And the and the only reason is we we need to communicate um some of those things for people that may be impacted. we're we're really looking to see how we can make sure that individuals have other opportunities um to sort of you know move into but there when you're looking at you know close
128to $6.5 million it's a pretty significant number and and the large portion of our budget is salaries so we we've we've had to do some strategic reductions um in this process >> so even I don't have the previous slides, but even with some of the improvements, you know, some of the state aid being being um it wasn't it's not as bad as we thought it was going to be. We're still significantly we're we're still significantly looking at having to cut back. >> I think that's what that's what we need to be clear. This isn't just a we're not just blowing hot air here, right? This is down to the numbers that we need we need to do some >> Yep. Yep. and and and the state aid, you know, as as um Tanya mentioned, it
129was pretty flat. You know, we we had a $499,000 increase. Um and just if we were to if we didn't do anything different, we'd be looking at close to $10 million um budget-to-budget increase. And and again, it has a lot to do with certain positions that we have um from the strong connections um grant. Um and and again, just contractually um there are, you know, we have some contractual obligations um from the different bargaining units that we have to fulfill. >> I'm sure you've looked at this, but sometime in some budget cycles, we've said no new programs, right? Let's let's see what we can do with what we have. Um and then you know we do have some new programs that are are are brought here. So it'll just be good to hear next meeting
130you know why what decisions >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> I thought I saw something recently where locals budget has like a three and a half% increase in state aid but even if that's accurate that's not necessarily equally across the board. Correct. >> So, just to clarify, next or soon we'll see where that 3.1 >> Yes. >> came from. We'll see the plan that closed to additional 1.5. And also, can we get a a consolidated list of new additions? >> Yes. because I mean I think we've been seeing these budget meal along the way. It would be good to see what the additional tasks are um consolidated in review. >> Yep. Absolutely. >> Any other uh questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right, moving on to 8.1. Can I get a motion to
131enter public participation? >> All those in favor? >> So move. >> I'll second. >> All right. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. >> Would anyone like to address the board? >> Okay. This time we'll close public participation. Um board subcommittee reports and professional development updates. Any uh committees meet? have the wellness committee met. The wellness committee met on the 19th or yeah February and um basically outlined the strategic plan or through the to support the strategic plan the wellness committee wants to look at it through the lens of wellness and it was a really diverse group of people. We had the director of ath athletics. We had a teacher. We had a board of ed. We had a director of special ed, director of school lunch programs, a parent, and then potentially a
132local business leader. So, it was a really nice community crosssection. And um basically we looked at the portrait of a learner from the hide park and then the portrait of a graduate from New York State. And we're analyzing like where and when and who the wellness committee will address >> policy committee of course. >> Oh you'll see under new business first consideration of policies and as usual Jay's excellent notes telling you that no major changes at the moment. We've tabled a few but mostly minor changes. >> Okay. Anything? All right. Moving on to 9.2 board discussion including consent agenda. Any consent agenda questions items. Um I just want to mention that um board of education packets are available. So if you're interested in uh running for the board of education, you can stop by here
133or they're probably online as well, right? They're online. Um they do require a number of signatures um I don't know how many we need this year. >> 45 signatures um to be on the ballot and I think we have two openings this year. I think Mr. Spence and Mr. Tibbitz are um their their terms are up this year. Um and I don't know any I don't have any information on if they're rerunning or not. So, so there may be two complete vacancies with nobody running from existing positions or maybe they'll run again. >> I can confirm that I will be running again. >> You will be running again. Okay. And I think Mr. Spence is trapped in Florida still, so we don't know what he's uh what his plans are. >> All right. Any other
134discussion? Um I just wanted to in one of the presentations it just clicked that um it's starting to be scholarship season and can we just get a clarification because I know parents were waiting last year for the Bellofield scholarship and I think it's been pushed out again. So just to just to avoid any confusion um can we find out what the status of that those scholarships are at some point? >> Yeah, I can I can speak to that. So, so the scholarship is actually once they have phase two, the um the certificate of occupancy for phase two. Phase two has not has not broken ground yet >> because originally it was phase two which they were expecting to be done for this spring. So that's why I just want to make sure that >> people
135don't think we're we're holding back on that. That's it hasn't happened yet. So that is not um a valid scholarship for this year for parent for families. >> That's correct. That's that's until the the 300 plus units are built. >> While Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Any other discussion? All right. 10.1. Can I get a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? >> So moved. Margaret. >> Second. Carl. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. 11.1 uh policy first consideration of policies. Can I get a motion? >> So moved, Katie. >> Second. Tibbitz. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> Opposed? >> Motion carried. And can I get a motion to enter our second public participation? >> So f in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. We are now in our second public participation.
136Would anyone like to address the board? No acceptance speech for your final. At this time, we will close public participation. Um, any other matters deemed necessary by the board? Okay. At this time, can I get a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? Move to Christine. >> Second, Katie. >> All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. meeting your