001You're good, Mike. >> Oh, Katie. Katie. Right. Sorry. >> I don't know. I don't know. She's I know Carl's not going to be here. >> Katie, too. >> Katie is not going to be here. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Good evening, everyone. Uh, welcome to tonight's Hide Park Central School District's Board of Education meeting. Today is August 14th. I'd like to call the meeting to order. And can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of discussing promotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or persons and to meet with legal counsel regarding priv matters? >> So move to second. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I motion carried. We're now in session. All right. Good evening everyone. At this time, I'd like to return to
002open session. And 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, liberty and uh we need to change the agenda. New business. >> Yeah. So we will have a we do need to modify the agenda by removing 11.3 students are uh engaged in project-based learning and um the teachers uh and support staff have done an amazing job there engaging students getting them to continue learning uh in the summertime. And then lastly, um the summer bridge program at Havlin uh middle school. We have some pictures here just to depict some of the great work. Uh here are some of the pictures from Ralph Rar Smith and the work that
003Debbie St. An has done for our Ralph Bar school uh community. Here are some of the students uh engaged in the program. uh down at the bottom they had a parade uh that went all the way around and they were showing the different um planets in the solar system and uh it was such a joy. We had several board members, Margaret and um I think it was also Katie Katie who attended and then we had the summer bridge program and we have one of our very own uh trustee Tibbitz uh with one of his friends there and um again just a lot of experiential learning taking place um at Havlin. students engaged both in indoor outdoor activities. Um, a lot of project-based learning taking place. And you'll hear a little bit about the LEGO uh
004robotics program. I don't want to steal her thunder uh from from Melissa uh later on during our report. >> And I have to say the kids were really excited in Summerbridge, but I was so impressed with how excited the teachers were. Like literally you'd walk into a classroom and the teachers were so animated and having fun and it was it was just really nice to see. >> I think I I mentioned to Melissa, but a but a great source of pride for me was when I was visiting Pavan Middle School, my younger daughter who was a student there was with me and a couple of teachers came up couldn't care less about me. They said, "We had your daughter." I said, "She's" They go and they went running over. To me, that's that's what makes
005our community is the that that connection those teachers have with with someone who who hadn't been in middle school for more years than I wanted. That's amazing. >> That concludes bride. >> All right. 7.1 superintendence report. >> Yes. So, just a couple of things. You'll notice some donations that are on the agenda this evening. I want to thank the many community partners that we have. Uh without the support, you know, we we we couldn't, you know, do what we do uh for for our scholars. Uh these are specific uh instruments. Um and so just want to say thank you to to the donors um on behalf of the board. And then um want to remind everyone we have some information that started going out last week on the town hall. Uh we have uh a
006town hall that's going to be focused on the new district or distractionfree uh policy that we have imple being implemented in the fall. Uh meaning there's no uh cell phones, uh no smart watch devices, um any internet enabled devices, those items will be uh will not be uh allowed uh to be out. Those would have to be locked in in a locker. uh and we have some important information to share with the community about those uh that particular policy. Uh we have the town hall, we have uh several newsletters that are going out. Um we've had we had screenagers early on in the school year uh on or about June. Um so those are things that we we started the conversation as as soon as possible and we look forward to continuing the dialogue. Um
007and so students are involved in that. We uh just recorded um a podcast today. So again, just looking at different ways to get the information out to our students and families. Uh the other piece that I want to share is I just want to thank our leadership team. We just came back from our leadership uh session uh where we were focusing on um uh the four disciplines of execution which is really about um alignment with goals uh and really focusing on specific areas that we want to target and improved and I'm really excited about what we have in store for great it is to be a bus driver here in the district and that we have vacancies as well as our social media post for join our team Tuesdays. Um, but I would like to
008personally thank the High Park Chamber um because they allowed us to join their farmers market as a unique way to connect with the community to talk about um our um various roles within the district that a lot of people might not even realize exist. Um so this past Saturday the HR department was at the High Park Farmers Market and we turned a lot of heads. Why is this school here? Um and I'm let me tell you why. And we we talked about um all of the great roles that a lot of people don't even realize we have because people think substitutes, they think teachers, but they don't often think that every single role in a school district needs a substitute. If our groundskeepers out, we still need to have our grounds taken care of. If
009our secretaries and clerical staff are out, several cities to do th those roles. So, we had a really uh good conversations with folks. We handed out over a dozen applications, some of which have already come back and we have interviews set up for. Um, but it was also just really great for community connections. We had people come up asking about if lunch was free again this year asking about the town hall for the cell phones. So, I really think the community just liked seeing us out there. Um, and we will be out there again this Saturday. Um, Cassandra and Tatiana from the HR department will be out there continuing to promote. And so, uh, we hope to see the fruits of that labor as well. >> Thank you. >> Um, I have a couple of
010things. I do have a a bigger item that I want to talk about related to the taxes, but I would like to do that um when we get to that item under new business, which is 11.4. Um, because there is some documents there that the board could look at while I'm reviewing it. But I'd also like to mention that this week we had our external audit, the fieldwork portion of it. That's the audit for the financial statements. Um, I was uh commenting earlier that it felt like a really easy week for me, but that's because of all of the hard work for people in our office like Tina. Now, Tina's day job is our accountant. Uh, so our accounting staff, the payroll staff, and the accounts payable staff did a really good job and uh
011getting all the information to the auditors that they requested. um because they were so efficient. The auditors are actually done with their field work even though they have been scheduled to be here all week. And over the next few weeks, uh there'll be a few questions that they ask us um that we'll have to answer as they go through their own review. Um and they'll be meeting with our audit committee at the end of September to go over their findings. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> All right. Anything else? That's concludes our >> All right. Uh, moving on to 8.1. Can I get a motion to enter public participation? >> So moved. Christine, >> second mot. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. This is a reminder, you'll have uh if you'd like
012to address the board, you get a total of three minutes per speaker for a total of 21 minutes for the first uh public participation. And please provide your name and address when you reach the podium. Would anyone like to address the board? >> My name is Mary Alden. I live at Seven High Street in Satsburg. And on your desk, you have a sheet that I have provided for you. And um I am a proud graduate of FDR 1976. I'm here tonight to ask for the school board to educate the community about the cameras that are on the buses that photograph and video cars passing when the yellow lights come on as the buses prepare to stop. We were photographed passing a bus across from the FDR site on Route 9 in January of 2025. We
013were we received a $250 ticket. The ticket states that if you get another fine within 18 months of the first, you will get a higher ticket fee and if a third within the 18 months, another higher fee. I have told this story to many people and know of two other people that have gotten tickets. One was for passing a bus on a four-lane road down by the culinary institute going in the opposite direction. So, they were going south, she was going north, and it was a four-lane road. Um, it was in which she thought it was okay to pass on a on a four-lane road going the opposite direction. The other person was a high school senior on his way to school. My goal of being here tonight is to ask the district to post
014an article in your newsletter, tell the students at the high school, and put it on the district public websites about the state mandated man mandated cameras so that others are aware and hopefully do not get a ticket in the mail. If the article would state what the rules are for the buses and the yellow blinking lights and would anyone else uh like to address the board at this time we'll close public participation. So uh so just uh the bus right so the the whole camera system isn't run by the district. is actually the sheriff's department and some company that does the campus, you know, so we don't get anything out of it other than safety of our students, right? And and um you know, it's unfortunate my my son got one like, you know, and
015it it's pass schools in the four lane rule, right? That that is a law. You can't pass even on a fourlane highway like a divided highway like I drive into every morning divided highway on Route 9. Bus stops here. You have to stop here. I mean that's just a law that you know you have you have to be aware of. But it's not a bad idea to maybe put the rules you know in in a newsletter and you know maybe some resources point them to absolutely you know where they can find school bus um laws you know type of thing >> and maybe have them uh you know accessible on the web too. sort of a clickable item on the web on on our web page. >> Okay. >> So, I called transportation office and
016no one seemed to know anything about it. >> So, that's why I decided to come here tonight. It's a great idea. Really good idea. >> Um I don't know what do we know why uh things get I'm sure over the summer they don't want kids just doing whatever. >> I think it's a safety concern more than anything. um we don't have the staff to monitor as we do during the school year student usage and um so I think that's that's a decision but I'd have to look into it more because >> okay >> I'm not well verssed in in that decision >> but but I think I think options for students who don't necessarily have access as you pointed out something I don't know if it's inhouse or something that's make sure that >> I
017think that's a very valid point. It's it Thank you, Roman, for bringing that up. I recently heard the same thing from another student. Um I know that they were just recently um kind of open so that they can participate in ACT or SAT um um sessions. So, we'll definitely look into that further to understand why they're locked down. And to uh Trusty Tibet's point, we want to make sure that students have access, right? So, thank you for bringing that up. >> Maybe a procedure where if somebody knows they're going to need it over the summer, right? >> Yeah. We're going to we're going to explore a little bit and then we'll come up with a procedure to to provide access. >> And this is why it's important for students. We wouldn't have known if >>
018absolutely >> you hadn't mentioned it. So, thank you. >> And and what I would add to that is, you know, for any summer technology, usually there's a down period to do kind of rollovers with with Google products. Sometimes there's an update. You know, when I was a tech director across the river, we'd advertise that in spring when the Chromebooks were collected, sent home, you know, what you do here is parent square saying during the summer school tools or infinite campus will be down on these days, Chromebooks will not be available. We had a monitoring system where we can monitor what they were talking about in the email. I don't think hype park has that. So, there's a safety factor of if they're communicating and nobody's monitoring it. So, I think maybe that's why they turn
019them off. So, but as long as if we could find out did they send a message home, I'm sure they must have um you know before school ended that during the summer there'll be dates for those blackout dates because you need blackout dates for any application to do some maintenance. And then as far as the cameras, again, I think that's a great idea just to educate people. A lot of people don't know about the fourlane road and they get burned on it. Um, the one thing I would say is I just hope our bus drivers, you know, sometimes when I'm driving to work across the river, not in Duchess, sometimes bus drivers over there, they'll put those yellow lights on half a mile down the road and it will confuse some drivers of are we
020stopping here? Are we waiting for the bus? So, sometimes the bus drivers, they turn those lights on very, very early. Sometimes they'll switch on at the last minute. So, you know, hopefully they're given enough time to let people know to slow down enough without being excessive. But it's my understanding that they only take this the picture when it when it's red. Right. >> It should only be taking the picture. >> When the stop when the stop sign's out and it's red, that's when they >> Okay. I'm just going to tell you we did not pass through a red light. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I hope it's only when it's red because that would be unfair if it was yellow. >> Yeah. Well, I was I was told that it was also for the yellow >>
021um as a warning. >> That's that's a good sign. >> Yeah. Just so just procedural wise like so like there'll be another opportunity to address the board afterwards. It's not like a interactive meeting. It's okay. It be people have to learn that all the time when they first come. So >> So yeah, if we could find out if it's red or yellow or if it's both. >> It should be red. Should I be red, but you know they they have I can't see pictures. So I don't I can't >> It's only once. I I can't tell on the pictures but we we could look at it, right? Um okay. Um with that moving on to 9.1 board um subcommittee reports or professional development updates. I mean we had our board retreat right and uh that
022went well. learned about the uh >> IV >> the IV program a little bit. I think we're going to look at that a little more maybe >> and we're going to do um board goals tonight. We were going to do that at then but now we're doing tonight. >> Yeah, that's the next to don't jump ahead. >> Don't look at your gam please. >> Um any So I guess no other committee reports >> for Duchess County School Boards. had the summer leadership meeting and we mapped out what we're going to talk about each month so I could share that with um with the board just to say what the plan is for the meetings this year. >> All right. Uh moving on to 9.2 board discussion including consent agenda items. So let's do the Anybody
023have any consent agenda questions first? >> I do. I have few. Um okay. So let's see starting with 10.25 um art and science of teaching it's it looks like professional development um it's through the school improvement grant but I just was hoping to get a little more clarification because it is a lot that's a larger sum than we usually spend on PD and we did a lot with science of reading and math. So could we just get some sure >> some more details on that? I'll start and then I'll let Melissa just chime in afterwards. So, part of the district improvement um comp the comprehensive improvement plan process requires that there are um certain researchbased practices that are implemented. Um, this was identified by the district leadership team, the instructional district leadership team because it
024really captured a lot of the instructional practices or moves that were researchbased. Many more people than we know are active. Um, so we sent out 245 um, not notifications to people that we have in the various sub roles um, throughout the district. Um, and they have until the 21st to respond. So all of the the reappoints will happen at the August 28th meeting. Um, and we're doing very very well so far. Um, we have about half um have have responded. Um, out of the 102 responses that we've had so far, we've only had 12 say that they're no longer interested in serving the district in those roles. Um, in terms of the substitute roles specifically for teachers, um, we have about close to 60 yes so far, but yet another >> 80 that haven't responded
025yet. Um, so we are looking pretty good there. Um, and in terms of the reappointment of substitutes, that's something that we'll see a procedural change in in the future. Um, in the past, they have gone up for reappoint every year. Uh, and the only reason that that has happened was because of the language used at the the time of appointment. We're looking to move that procedure forward. um change the way that we appoint substitutes so that they once they're appointed they continue to be in good standing as as an employee until they resign from that role so that they don't have to be reappointed annually and that should help to streamline our procedures as well. >> That sounds good. 60 is a good number 60 teachers. Good. >> And we have another 90 that haven't
026responded yet. So great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. So I have um um questions on two agenda items 10.7 um uh the claims auditor report. There are there always two things that that I'm interested in as we look at these reports. One is do we see a trend in more claims or if you want to know what the trend is over time. is um I'd like to know what fraction of total POS and I and I had asked Linda this and uh she sent me back numbers uh out of the 454 claims in April there were 37 issues are identified so less than 10%. And then in addition to that in the executive comment Lind has provided us with a set of um explanations for about 15 or so as well. Uh so that that
027gives me more confidence that it really is just a very small fraction of the total PO. So that's that was just something I wanted to do. Know if you wanted to add anything to that. >> Oh, sure. We've actually um seen a decrease in the number of uh comments or items that used to be on the claims audit reports. Um the claims auditor does leave everything on the report even when it's resolved. And um for the last uh year, we've been looking into the ones that are marked as late. Um and usually they're not late by the standards that we follow that we have to pay within 30 days. But a very common thing with technology now is that vendors will send the accounts payable office an invoice the same day they receive the purchase
028order from the purchase agent when we don't even have the goods yet, right? So, you know, we have to pay within 30 days of receiving it. So we do we have been tracking that. Um but the claims auditor doesn't realize that when they get the information they just see the date on the invoice and when we paid it. And then um we are going to look into more issues like as they come up on that report. We did talk to the people in accounts payable about some of the other items like missing invoice because we can't pay make a payment without an invoice. Um, and because the reports that you're looking at now are from um, April and May, they didn't really remember those specifically, but they have always like discovered the invoice. Sometimes it's
029actually in the packet, but not recognized by the auditor as an invoice. Sometimes they have it, you know, in another place. So, the items always get resolved, but we'll include that information in the future. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Um, the other one I had is I and I and I, uh, gave Melissa a heads up on this, and this is on item 10.8, uh dispose of obsolete items. Um in particular, I was uh interested in the file from the Ralph R. Smith uh library and my my concern was that the rationale the global rationale or wasn't rationale the the the statement was withdrawn library books and there was no rationale for it. um in the other um files from other libraries it said old war um hasn't been withdrawn taken out there there
030was a code in a list and I and and and I and I really appreciate at the very least it tells me someone has taken the time to to look and assess why why this is being withdrawn and and removal of library books for me is a very touchy issue. So, so I so I brought that to her. And the other one was um in some of the lists they even the ones that tell you why it's been removed sometimes they say um that it's been replaced and I was just curious who how is the decision made that this is going to be replaced and this isn't. >> Sure. >> So I'll turn it over to you. >> So um you know every year librarians weed through their collection. They look at the circulation of
031titles. Some books are really well-loved and as a result get damaged and need to be replaced. Um, and other items have kind of lost favor for students. Either they're no longer of interest or they're older books that don't have the colorful covers that entice kids to pull them off the shelf. Um, so part of what the librarians do is they go through their collection. They assess the condition of the texts. If they're damaged in any way, they they will replace them if they're in circulation and kids are taking them out. um the they look at also um non-fiction texts in particular because we have access to um reference materials online that are more up to-date. So if they have non-fiction texts that are outdated in some way, they will remove those from circulation. So I
032did reach out to Mr. Wart who um works in with the librarians and oversees the librarians and we're going to ask for them to give a little more detail in their descriptions when they're getting rid of books and what the rationale is. Um they do replace a lot of the books that they're getting rid of with either newer versions or just replacing them with the same book because it's well-loved. Um so that's something that they do on an annual basis. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Any other discussion on consent agenda? >> I would just add to that. You know, the libraries again, it's sad to see books being thrown out. I used to work at the Mid Hudson Library System for eight and a half years and, you know, there's only so much room
033on the shelf and as they order more and more books. I know it's sad to see books leaving, but you you know >> Well, I completely understand that. I just want to know I want to understand the rationale and I want to know I want to know that there is a rationale. That's right. >> Of course. >> All right. So, next item we got to talk about is our board goals. Hopefully everybody had a chance to look at them. So, this year we're going to use the super avail tool. Um, but last year we had um I'll just quickly title the goals. We had the superintendent evaluation as a goal. um examine communication structures and protocols and board self- evaluation. Um so those were our three goals that we had um last year. Any thoughts
034on this year? I think we have to change two since we or something different into two because we're not doing the the chats, right? And that's basically what priority 2 was. >> Yeah. >> And then she has another document attached that is from super eval, right? >> Yeah. that that would be equivalent to like going through and identifying each of those things where we decided just focusing on three goals and not necessarily all these criteria. That's what that's what this would be. >> That's all the criteria, right? >> You don't want to do that. >> You want to do the three goals. >> Yeah. I made a mistake of starting to do that. I said, "Wait a minute. We have this is not right." um for for district priority 2. Margaret, you were just pointing
035out that two of the three um involve community chats which we've decided to place on hold. I think is or or to only have if there's a an issue that seems to be generating conversation in the community. >> Somebody would request them >> community came to the chats. So, so we could simply update the wording to when we hear of um issues that are particularly relevant, we're generating a lot of conversation, the community will hold a chat or we can remove them all together. I think those are two options. >> Yeah. >> Or come up with something completely different. >> Yeah. I've been trying to figure out what else. Well, I think um you know since it's on communication and protocols, you know, and community involvement um maybe looking at us having a goal of
036how many things we're going to attend. Um you know, like we had it had to attend three chats. Um there's a lot of community events and we go when we can, but it I don't think it would be a bad thing if we said the expectation is to get to this many and just kind of bump up our presence in the community at different events. Um, I think that's a really good idea because I really do think that, you know, community involvement and being out there and visible to the community is important. So, I I do like Margaret's idea to attend events with them. >> So, there's enough events that you don't have to go, you know, if you're working during the day, do an amazing event, right? There's so many. >> Mike, can I
037share a thought? >> Sure. Um so so in these types of situations less is more and we identified that in our process uh going through the the the action plan for our strategic blueprint. And so one of the things that I would ask the board to consider is um we are focusing on what we call the wildly important goal right so what what's the one area that we could really focus on as a system that will allow us to move the needle right in terms of student achievement. And so for our leaders uh we've identified literacy increasing literacy uh proficiency um as our wildly important goal. So with that process we identifying you want to move from X to Y by >> a certain time period so that everyone in the organization is focused on
038that specific goal. So one example for the board to consider is if you are in agreement with moving in that direction is ensuring that the conditions for increasing uh student proficiency from and we can give you the baseline X to Y by June 2026 by allocating necessary uh resources right because the board is responsible for budget is responsible for making sure all the resources are there so that the leaders are able to do what they do where the teachers are able to do what they do. So that's just one consideration for the board to consider. But that's something that we're focusing on, the buildings are going to be focusing on, the divisions are going to be focusing on. So if there's sort of like this coherence and alignment across the system, it might be it
039might be something that the board may want to consider so that we're we're sort of like all rowing in that same direction. And if you you you can choose a secondary goal uh while the important goal. Um but that's something that I I definitely want to just put out to to the team. >> I would just jump in and I'd say, you know, I absolutely agree. I think I think it's more important the spirit of it. It's it's not like, you know, a checkbox. Okay, I went to two of these and I went to three of these and I stayed for 10 minutes. You know, I think it's more the spirit of doing things. I think we all everybody on this board is committed and they go to a lot of events. You know, I
040went recently to the Olter savings community event. Saw Christine there. So, there's a lot of things going on where we're there and doing that. But I think it's more important like Dr. Roman is saying to focus, you know, on one thing rather than too many things and then it can kind of become overwhelming. Very quickly, I was at a training this week and a former current superintendent um Kevin McGawan gave us a quote and he said, "If everything is important, then nothing is important." And what that means is if you're trying to do everything for everybody everywhere, you kind of get lost in the minutia. So, I kind of agree with what Dr. Roman's saying. >> So, you're saying take out the community involvement piece. >> So, for me, for me, wait. So for me,
041that's a priority of the board. So we have So how can we work that community engagement? Because I would I would have to disagree that we're not all at at meaningful events. If you go for your for whatever reason, I won't get into that. But if we're focused on student achievement and we want to focus on that, then we should look at how are we getting information on student um activities and projects and and how how can we keep in touch with parents and community members because that is what I keep hearing that the community wants but they can't get to a specific event. So if we go to events, I don't think that's that's un I think that's appropriate for us to look at our community engagement. How we do that is how we
042do that. You know, there's lots of things we could do. Um what Dr. Rowan was talking about is is a little bit different goal. So maybe if we kept a community goal and then looked at a goal towards um academics, but certainly we don't want to go back to when I first came on the board there were 11 12 goals and I was like these are not goals. This is like a checklist, right? We want to have two or three tops that are that are high priorities. So I agree with that sentiment. I just don't want to lose the community involvement piece. >> Yeah. And nobody's suggesting to take out community involvement. Community involvement is about everything that we do. I'm just saying that it's the spirit of that that there's ways to achieve that
043which we all do. It's not a matter of just, you know, saying everybody has to do two things or three things because let's face it, that's what we've been doing with the chats for the last two years and people really haven't been coming to those. We've been checking off the box and it hasn't been effective whatsoever. >> That's why we're not doing it. >> Of course. I agree. That's that's certainly certainly the reason. So, I don't think we should go back to that just we need to do this so many times. that's not that's not going to be helpful. >> So I I I think we've come a long way from the days that Margaret's talking about and last year we spent a lot of time aligning our goals with the district priorities which we
044thought was a really great move forward in to minimize things. One of the things we want to make sure though is whatever goals we set that they are clearly actionable and outcomes are measurable. Otherwise, they're otherwise they're kind of just platitudes. Uh Dr. Roman, my one concern about the the proposal you made is it's really simply a commitment to support financially things going forward. Um and every financial every every decision we make for everything has to be a costbenefit analysis. And I worry that as a board goal, it almost appears as though we're giving you a blanket PO. And I and I want to and I I understand and I and I'm very sympathetic to what you're saying, but but I worry about basically saying we're going to support something financially as a goal. I
045think I think having the overwhelming goal um I would support the notion that the overwhelming goal is to um continue to improve our engagement with the community in ways where they understand where we are in what our direction. That that would be my my >> Well, so I think we could have more than Yeah. So like you know a goal of making sure we do his evaluation I think is a is a perfectly fine goal to have and it's not an overwhelming goal right uh community engagement um I think that's an important one you know to to have and what I would recommend you know the board self-evaluation and and swap that out with some variant of aligning with the district's goal, that single goal, like h I don't I don't I agree with you.
046I don't want to say, "Yep, we're going to support you financially on any anything you want to do because that's not true." >> Right. So, we we would not succeed in that goal. >> Yeah. Finding a way to word that, right? Or say, Yeah. I think is I think it's a really laudable goal and I think those two are great >> because I I think it connects the dots between the district's goal of student achievement and how's how's the board going to play into that, right? what how what is our goal? I just don't know how to word that yet. So, >> I I'm sorry. >> We Yeah, we could work on wording. >> Maybe if you could send that out to us like the wording of that and then, you know, via email, we
047can um you know, and then we could think of ideas on our on our own and at the next meeting we can discuss possible word smithing of of a of a goal for that one. >> Both goals. So, so to perhaps move things along, might I suggest that we're talking about sort of two really overarching goals and one sub goal. The sub goal being we're going to evaluate ourselves and we're doing awesome. Um and and the other two are to to >> No, no, no. That wasn't the one. So, the one is >> up the super val. The super val you said. >> No, his his evaluation. Oh, so so >> today we as his his evaluation, community engagement and board self, >> right? So I'm saying the self-evaluation >> and I suggested take out
048the self-evaluation and put in the alignment with the district goal. >> Oh, I I so what I'm suggesting and we can debate this is that we have two major goals. the one where we are trying to words smmith so that that we show some commitment to student achievements and things that way and the second is the community engagement and then sort of the this the smaller goals would be superintendent evaluation and perhaps our own evaluation. So that that's what I'm suggesting. >> Well, there's still I mean still a goal. It doesn't matter if it's a small goal or a big goal. It still be four goals. I mean and I'm okay with four goals. I because again >> 11, >> right? I mean, and and they're not unrealistic because they're things we should be doing,
049right? So, their goals we need to put in place. So, if you could send out, you know, your goal and everybody think about how we want to word our goal to align with their goal. Um, and any word smithing in the, um, I think the superintendent evaluation mini goal is fine the way it is. Maybe just we got to clean up the dates. Um the um the communication goal probably needs some wording. So come come back next meeting with some ideas on how you want to uh change the wording in here. Obviously take out all the stuff about community chats or change the wording in the community chats to be as needed um type of thing. But any again any other ideas for that one? And then the self-evaluation the mini goal is >> small
050G goal. small Golf. >> I think it's fine the way it's written. >> Yeah. >> That those two are, you know, short term. We do them in a week or two and done. These other ones are ones that sort of span the entire >> right. And it's important what you said, you need to have a measurable goal because it's it is a waste of time if we don't have a way to measure our success. >> Yeah. Okay. Anything Christine? Sound good to you? >> Good plan. Sounds good to me. All right, Margaret. Mike, you good with that? I'm all over it. >> All right, moving on to um let's see. There was nothing else in there, right, to discuss? Nope. Okay. So, can I get a motion um to approve tonight's consent agenda? >> So,
051move tickets to >> Christine. >> All those in favor? opposed. Motion carried. >> Can I just congratulate Annie? >> U so I just want to congratulate Annie. She's going to be our new F assistant principal. Welcome to the team. >> All right, we have 11.1. Can I get a motion >> to approve the capital project change order phase 2A v? >> So move to >> second Margaret. >> Any discussion? >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Motion carried. 11.2. Uh could I get a motion to approve the capital project change order phase 2B which is $35.7 million at Havland and Ralph R. Moved. Christine >> seconded this. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Motion carry. We're skipping 11.3 because we took that out of the agenda. Uh 11.4 tax warrants
052and tax rates. Can I get a motion to approve this? >> Second project. >> Any discussion? >> I think Linda wanted to walk us through this. the mode. >> Yes, >> thank you. >> So, I'll just say in the past I used to do a presentation on this um but last year uh it was just part of the discussion so we decided to leave it here again. Um I did prepare the slides. They're the same that we uh show every year. Um these are available uh through board docs. Um they'll also be on our website um after tonight and I can provide people with all any information that would they would like to. So, I think it's just important to point out that the tax uh rate is comprised of three different factors. Um, every
053year during the budget season, um, when we're balancing the budget, we come up with the amount that we would need in the budget. Um, for the tax levy, um, that gets approved by the board when they adopt the budget and it's also part of the budget that's adopted or approved by the voters, excuse me. Um, for this year, uh, we were below the tax cap. We went out for a 2% increase. um even though we could have gone to just about 3%. The other items that affect the tax rates uh just became available to the school district in August. Um that's the taxable assess values for each town. Um we have five towns in our school district. They each have an assessor that provides the assessment roles to us. And then we also have to
054consider uh equalization rates because we do have five towns in our school district. um we have to uh work with the well the state actually compares the information in the assessments to determine if they're uh if it's creating a fair situation for the all of the residents in all five towns. Um a really good example for us is the fact that Hyde Park has not had a townwide assessment since 1994. Um, so the properties are undervalued and if they were taxed at the rate of their current assessment, someone that lives in another town like Clinton that has um a assessment done just in 2025, they would be paying uh more than their fair share. So there's uh some other slides about that later on that I'll show. Um this slide here just shows the actual
055calculation or considering the omitted taxes in our budget. We were approved to have a tax levy of 72,258,441. Um, however, the county informed us that there are some omitted taxes from prior years. Um, those are taxes that were left off the tax roles but should have been build to um individuals. They'll be collecting that money uh throughout this year and they'll pay it to the school district uh during the 2526 school year. So, we actually have to deduct those amounts from our tax levy because otherwise we would actually uh it would be like double dipping. Um I always use my home as an example. When we bought our home, we uh the people that lived there before us had a veterans uh exemption, a credit for that. We don't qualify for that, but it took
056the town two years to take it off our tax bill. So, in the third year, we had to uh pay the difference and it came back to the school district then. So, um those are what omitted taxes are. It's things like that. Um, this slide here shows the actual calculation. Um, I won't go through everything, but I did number at the top if you want to refer to columns. You basically start with the assessed value. Uh, that's the information that comes from the towns. You'll notice in count three, we're actually adding in $4,500 to Hyde Park. Um, there are three properties in in Hide Park that get a clergy exemption, but those uh three properties that get the exemption should only affect H High Park. the law is like that wouldn't uh that shouldn't cause
057taxpayers in other towns to pay more taxes. So we actually add that back to park. Um and then in so in line four it's just the uh recalculated assessed value. Line five shows the actual equalization rates. So what that means is anything that's a 1.0 0 that's 100% meaning New York State agrees with the assessments um that the town assessors provided. Uh both of those towns that have a 100% assess or equalization rate, Clinton and Reinbeck just had a reassessment in 2025. The other towns have not had um a current uh assessment and New York State believes that the properties in those towns are undervalued. Um, High Park has a really low assess or equalization rate of 35 and a half%. Uh, that's because, um, as I said earlier, we haven't had a townwide reassessment
058since 1994. Uh, Pleasant Valley hasn't had a reassessment since 2019. Um, I don't remember exactly when Pikipsy had theirs, maybe um, 2022 or 23. So those three towns um are um undervalued according to the state and in order to u create a more fair situation uh for all the towns we have to apply the equalization rate to bring their uh true value up to calculate the tax rate. Um at the end um of the calculation the last column that's shaded that's the actual tax rate for each town. Um you'll notice that for the uh towns that are uh have an equalization rate of 100% their tax rate per thousand is about 16 uh.5 uh dollars. That's also uh the what we call the true the tax rate on the true value. Um all of the
059true value or in hide park everyone's uh rate is 16.5. we have to assign different tax rates when the assessed value is undervalued because we can't change the assessments. So, for example, in High Park, I live in the town of High Park. My home is on the tax rules is $135,000 worth um the the value, but when we apply the equalization rate, it's 377,000. When we do the tax bills, we can't change the assessment to 377. But by changing the tax rate to 46, uh I can't read it from here, but 46.4, I think it is, it has the same effect as if my house was valued at 377,000. >> So, another question on that. So, if I were to build a new house in High Park, that's going to have a current assess of
060a actual assessed value, right? They're not so 1994 rates. They're going to say your house is worth 300,000. So that person's going to have to pay the regular with you know basically 100%. As if there was a thing and they get have to pay the equalization rate. >> I'm not really sure how the town assesses but if someone feels that their town their property is um assessed incorrectly um they can go to grievance day which is usually in March. If they're denied by the town at that time, they have the opportunity to uh file a claim with this with the Supreme Court of it's in Duchess County, but Supreme Court of New York State. It's a small claims uh small claims court, and it goes to what is called a SC small claims assessment review.
061Um >> but it wouldn't be the assessment, right? Because if if I build a new house and they say the town comes out and says that's worth $200,000, >> right? So that's the actual thing of it. But then you're going to apply the equalization rate. So I'm going to pay the the you know what it should be and also pay the penalty of >> apply the equalization rate to every right. We can't uh >> those those people that are doing that really have to pay attention and grieve that some. Right. >> Yes. And I I do know I've talked to other people that have gone through that process and even though their house may truly be valued at that higher amount, um the courts look at the um and even the town will look at
062comparables. They look at what are what are the neighbors houses valued at um you know other other properties within the town. Um then I have uh several slides where I just break out the information to compare it to the prior year. So this slide shows uh the current year taxable value compared to uh the 2425 taxable value. Uh you'll notice overall the taxable values in our district went up 3.6%. Um I'll just say this too. If the taxable uh values did not change and the equalization rates did not change for any town, the change in the tax rate would be what we see in the budget. So it would have been a 2% increase for everybody. When tax taxable assessed values increase, uh property taxes that uh tax rate change seems to or tends to
063go down because there's more property or more value. We're not changing our levy. um we just have u you know a higher uh value of from property for properties to tax. And then uh conversely when the equalization rates on the next page oh this this slide compares the equalization rates to the tax rates but when equalization rates decrease uh the tax rates for that town tend to increase. Um so you can see on here um every town um except for Pleasant Valley and Pikipsy. The other three are experiencing a tax rate decrease. Uh Pleasant Valley is experiencing a really uh large increase. Uh that's because their equalization rate um fell 11 and a half percentage points from last year. It was really significant. So New York State is uh claiming that their assessment is really
064out of line uh compared to the other uh towns in our district. Um, so overall, um, if all of the the properties were valued at their true value, all of our, uh, taxpayers would be experiencing a 4.7% decrease for their tax rate over last year. But because of the equalization rate, that only holds true for the two towns that are uh, valued at 100%. For High Park, uh there's a decrease of 73% and for Pikipsy the increase is 0.59. They also had a a small change in their uh equalization rate by about five percentage points whereas High Park's uh equalization rate changed only by 1.5. So uh this is the tax levy compared year to year. Um, we did have a 2% increase in our budget. When you look here, it shows the 2.03%. That's
065related to the omitted taxes because the amount of omitted taxes varies from year to year. And then at the bottom, you can see the t the actual tax levy changed. So that's the part that was in the budget. For the 202526 school year, we increased the tax levy by 2%. The year before it was 3.66%. And here's another comparison. This uh chart here compares the tax rates over the it shows the tax rates over the last four years. Um and at the bottom of the page, it shows the tax rate changes over those same years. Again, the the amount in the middle, the one that's like highlighted yellow, that's the actual tax rates on the true value, and those have decreased every year since 2022. Uh here we have the equalization rates compared to prior
066years. So you can see that Pleasant Valley, the town that's experiencing the highest tax rate increase, um had a big decrease in their equalization rate from last year to this year. And that's their the reason that their tax rate is increasing. And the bottom of this slide just shows the tax rate change over those years for each town. So unless the board uh has any questions or would like to talk about it, I don't have anything else other than to say that we do have information that will be on our website tomorrow. Um if anyone has a copy of this electronically, you can click on the link to get to our tax collection page and tax collection will start on September 15th. Uh the penalty free period is through October 14th and then uh we
067also collect taxes from October 15th through October 31st with a 2% penalty. And uh all of these uh our tax collector works with the other tax collectors in the county to set the dates so that we're aligned with other school districts. Uh because the larger towns actually collect for uh the school districts like we don't collect our taxes for Hide Park or for Picip. Um, and then the 2% penalty is actually a New York state law. You don't have a a choice to uh, you know, have have a different rate during that time period. >> All right. Thanks. Any other discussion on uh 11.4? All those in favor? I >> opposed. Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you. >> Um, 12.1. Could I get a motion to enter our second public participation? >> So moved to
068Christine. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. So reminder, you have three minutes. Uh this uh session will be limited to 12 minutes. Please provide your name and address when you reach the podium. Would anyone like to address the board? Okay. At this time, we'll close off. >> Too late. I'm loud anyway. Um, so my name's Angelica Cologne Russell. Um, I know a lot of people on the board and they know me personally. I'm very involved in my Oh, and my address for team Mckenley Laney, New York 12601. Um, my kids, there's two of my kids who have IEP. One of them I probably spend more time at the district and spent more time at Havlin during his time at Havlin. And now we're entering FDR and I'm having a little
069bit of an issue having the same counselor for this same child that I had for my older child. Um, one thing I I was not thrilled to hear out of her mouth was that she doesn't know too much about special ed. I think we have to educate our guidance counselors on special ed children because it shouldn't be just for regular ed children. I want my son to feel as equal as a regular ed child feels. And the fact that he hasn't even started at FDR and it's already given me chills to send him there is definitely a big issue for me. And I'm sure Dr. Roman and Miss Lawson have seen me several times show face and tell them like I'm a loud parent. I will stand up for my child. I'm a big advocate
070on children with special needs. Um I don't feel like they're supported enough in schools, especially by guidance counselors. Um not just special ed, but also general ed. I had a counselor tell me that my son shouldn't look at D1 colleges that he needs to re-evaluate and talk to his coaches and see um where what colleges he should apply to. That's crushing a child's dream. And that's one thing that as educators, as district members, as people, as a parent, people should feel that. They should feel bad even letting those words come out of your mouth when you're crushing a child's dream like that to go to these schools. Um, I know kids that exited FDR and maybe they did not go straight into a D1 college, but they are attending D1 colleges now. These these guidance
071counselors have to be educated on special ed children and on regular ed children and how to communicate with them. And I think a lot of it has to do with the children aren't feeling comfortable enough to go to these guidance counselors or anybody in the school to talk about what colleges they should be looking into or can you help me apply. Um my nephew did not get a lot of help and his documents weren't sent over to colleges that needed to be sent over. Um, I have a friend that has chosen to remove her child from High Park School District and move him to private school because she's had so many issues regarding documentations and IEPs. And I I just I feel like if if there's parents out there that aren't being heard and aren't
072standing up for their child, they're just being pushed to the side and told, "Let's amend this and just get rid of it." My son got OT taken away and he was told. I wasn't told. And to remove something from an IEP without telling a parent is huge. That's violating all rights. Telling a child, "Oh, don't worry about it. You don't get OT anymore." That is violating my child's rights. And throughout my child, my C my child's name is Cameron Russ. So, I really am not opposed to holding my child's name. the three minutes is up to >> no problem. Um, he has had the worst experience, but ending Havlin, Melissa Lawson has helped him feel way more comfortable with entering FDR. And I have I'm I'm really trying to hold back the issues that's going
073on before he even enters FDR. So, if we can just educate these educators um a little better on special ed children and um especially the AIDS and making sure that they know how to handle special ed children as well with ADHD and all other needs. So, that's all I have. >> Thank you. >> Would anyone else like to address the board? Hi, Mary Jane MJ McFarland, 225 Marshall Road, High Park, New York. Um, I am on the booster club for the FDR varsity football program. I'm here with two colleagues, uh, Kristen Lake and Angelica uh, Cohen. And we are here because our item 10.10 was on the agenda and it was approved. Um, that's the golf cart donation. And we thank you so so much for approving that um for coach Barger, it'll be greatly
074utilized. And in um return is it possible if the board can write a thank you card to the golf associates especially to golf cart Annie. She was great in this whole process and we just really really need to thank her. Um I guess in the past she had donated a golf cart to FDR um years and years and years ago and there was some bad communication between FDR and the golf cart associates and she's just has a little bad taste in her mouth from back then and we just kind of want to soothe over any ill feelings that happened before and we are so appreciative of this for um Coach Barger. So, if you guys don't mind, please write in a little note to her. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? >> All right.
075At this time, we'll close public participation. Um, so for your stuff, I think that's something you got to >> Yeah, we'll we'll certainly follow up. We'll follow up with you on those um items. I I what I what I will share is I'm sorry that that's been your experience, right? Um but I I I know I know that our educators um want to do the best work for kids. Like they don't go into this profession um looking to you know do any ill will on on any particular student. Um what we also know is that last a couple of months ago we have videos um from student experiences about their interactions with their counselors and they were they were heart they were heartfelt. Um, so we know that they want to do the best work
076possible for kids. So again, I apologize that that's been your experience, but I know that, you know, overall like our our our educators are here putting students first. Uh, but definitely hear your concerns and we'll definitely follow up on those. to write up a >> and I think we we'd all echo Dr. enrollment group of students, the special needs students is the most important thing we do. And we did hire a guidance director, you know, to to try to help with the guidance department. So hopefully, you know, that's very rare that something like that is perceived that way. And maybe there could be some updated trainings, but you know, we we all fully support what Dr. Roman said. Back to you. >> I'm sorry. Can I just ask one question? Is that hiring for FDR
077or just the district in general? >> There's a district a districtwide person. >> Well, for guidance. >> For guidance. Yeah, that's correct. >> Um other matters deemed necessary by the board. So board members don't leave. You got to sign something here. Um so um we need your signature so don't run out of here. Um any other matters? Yeah. The thing I would say is it's wonderful to see such turnout. It's great to have people come out and um I'm always touched especially when we see former board members. Dan Duffy is in the house with Mrs. Duffy and uh you know before I became a board member I used to sit at home and watch watch the board meetings. This this was my life and I always liked how Dan would always ask the interesting question.
078The group would be discussing something and Dan would say yes. What about this? And I I was always impressed with that and I hopefully I learned from Dan coming in to be a board member. So, it's great to see Dan here and his wife. >> All right. Any other matters? No need for a second executive session. So, can I get a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? >> So, moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. Motion carried. Meeting a journ.