001just here. All right. Good evening everyone. Today is March 27th, 2025. I'd like to call tonight's meeting to order. The Hide Park Central School District Board of Education. Um, at this time, can I get a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of discussing tenure, discipline, suspension, dismissal, or removal of a particular person or persons and a collective bargaining negotiations pursuant to article 14 of the civil service law and to discuss privileged information with legal counsel. Some moved. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. We're now in executive 7. Snap. All right. I'd like to uh like to return to open session. Uh can we please rise to say the pledge of allegiance? I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for
002which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Music] So, we do have some uh agenda modifications. So, um, we're going to have the boarding, uh, we need to modify, do I read these out now? What we're modifying and then 4.2 is to take the motion. Okay. So, we do need to modify the agenda by removing items 11.3 and 11.4 from the agenda. So, that's the announcement. Then, we move on to 4.2. Can I have a motion to amend tonight's agenda? So move that. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. And then I would like to get a motion to adopt adopt tonight's agenda as amended. So moved. Marvin. Second. Christine. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. So now we have the they're removed
003below, right? They're they're below because I can't take them out till after. You'll tell me what to skip, right? Sure. 113. Okay. upcoming events. On Friday, April 4th, we have our K through 12 2-hour delay. Uh, SPL, what does that mean? I don't know. Stuff professional learning day. Professional learning day. Um, that's all schools and see the schedule for the school. Um, we also have uh HMS musical and that's at the auditorium at Havlin at 7 PM. And we also have the Junior Prom at FDR, but no time is listed, but I'm sure you know what time it is. Uh, Saturday, April 5th, we have the Havlin musical again at the auditorium and that one's at 2 PM. The play is Shrek that they're doing and the play is Shrek. I forgot to put it
004in there. Are you are you playing? Sure. Wednesday, April 9th, um there's a Hide Park Education Foundation meeting at HPE. That's at 6 p.m. And on Thursday, April 10th is our our next board meeting. That's at FDR. Uh that'll begin at 7 p.m. Any other upcoming events that anyone would like to mention? All right, moving on to Pride. This is you're up, please. You don't have charts, right? Or do you? So, at North Park, they held an underground spirit week in which like the staff members in the community dressed up and kind of didn't let anyone know besides, you know, themselves. And then the students kind of started to figure out by like noticing how everyone was wearing similar things like tie-dye. Um, so there was a lot of fun. And then once they caught
005on, they tried guessing. So, I think it was really a good way for them to interact with the staff. Um, at Ralph Bar, fourth graders organized a wax museum yesterday. Um, there was family, staff members, and students that spent time moving around the room to learn about the importance throughout history. Um, at Havlin, uh, Mr. Shaw would like to thank everybody who made the 9th annual Havlin Middle School Community Night an incredible success. It was a fantastic evening filled with connection, fun, and support from HMS families. They were honored to host over 30 community partners who provided valuable service information. Um, families were able to enjoy free pasta and meatball dinner. Um, students also participated in activities like face painting and fresh fruit quilt making with the help of the art teachers and studio art
006students. There was also a game game room hosted by uh Miss Strong, an engaging demonstration from the lab dance complex and the High Park lacrosse crew. Um a heartfelt thank you to more than 50 faculty volunteers who generously gave their time and energy to make this event so special. Their dedication does not go unnoticed and they truly appreciate all the support for the students and families. So, thank you for making this year's community I want to remember. At Violet Avenue, the first graders in Miss Dyus and Miss Doyles and Miss Done's class visited the Barton um to see a theatrical performance of Runway Bunny and Good Night Moons. Uh this was to support their ELA and SEAL curriculum. Also, Miss uh Conklin and Miss Silva's second grade class had their non-fiction celebration where they showed
007off their animal reports to staff and parents. And then also the fourth graders in Miss Gil and Miss Delhone and Miss Ponos's class learn about the American history and the impact that FDR had on shaping our country, our rights and government as part of their social studies curriculum uh in which they also visited the FDR estate. Students were very eager to learn about FDR's presidency and how the Roosevelts helped establish rights and liberties. Um at Netherwood they had their BARP week. um in which they had various activities over the last three days. As you know, there was an author visit from a previous um student, a book fair, spirit week, and other activities that connected to reading. They also were lucky to have a visit from Joey, a therapy dog. And then lastly, at FDR,
008the class of 25 held Mr. President on Friday the 21st. It was a great success, and congratulations to Mr. President, Julian Fridger. And then today uh musicians from the Hudson Valley Symphony Orchestra came to work with a band and orchestra students. I myself was able to attend that. It was a period while divorce. It was an inschool field trip in which they helped to um help us become better in our pieces that we will be performing in our May concerts. And that's all. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Uh we are highlighting Angelo Cabrias as our artist of the month this year. I mean this tonight. Angelo is a third grader at Ralph Rar Smith. He's a sculpturist as you can see. He's to holding two of his sculptures and he says what he loves about
009art is that you can let your imagination run wild. Um congratulations Angelo. And next we have our musician of the month, Olivia Gomez. She is a Netherwood fifth grader. We are highlighting her and celebrating her tonight because she is not only is she a musicianist uh she is also uh representing Hide Park School District in Netherwood at the the upcoming elementary all county festival and she will be playing the violin as a soloist at NISMA. She really likes singing in the chorus and learning new songs and loves orchestra and meeting new people. Congratulations, Olivia. Any other pride by anyone? Okay. Moving on to 7.1, our superintendence report. Good evening everyone. Uh I will keep it brief today because we have a number of presentations. Um first uh want to just share with the board uh
010that the cell phone policy we are um going to be moving uh forward to meeting that that deadline of August 31st of having a new policy. We are going to be engaging our students. We've already started engaging our students from the student advisory council. Um, but we're also going to be engaging the the community uh through town halls uh to be able to um kind of share some some of the um work that's already been done in the district. We have a number of schools that are doing book studies around uh screen time. We also are working with our elementary schools um to bring screenagers um to our community so that we we can have a panel discussion afterwards and talk about um some of the things that we're thinking. We're also going to elicit
011some feedback from the community through um surveys and then elicit questions uh and come up with frequently asked questions um documents so that we're able to um put that out and and ensure that everyone is is a part of this this um process. Now, you know, whenever we we built new policies, it it doesn't suit everyone. Uh so everyone may not be happy, but what we're going to try to do is make sure that we're listening, we're hearing, and incorporating as many voices as possible. Um and then uh the last thing uh is uh the Bellofield scholarship. We've had a number of students and family members reach out to us uh regarding the Bellofield scholarship. And just want to reiterate um statement that we had shared uh maybe one or two meetings ago about the
012scholarship commences once the certificate of occupancy is issued for one of the um residential units in uh phase two of the project. And phase two um that is where there's about 344 uh units that are being constructed. So um that is the way the agreement uh was written. Um once that CO is issued then the scholarship uh commences. That concludes my items. And to put that in perspective the they haven't started phase two. So the pilot has not started yet. So that we don't start collecting pilot money until they start the work um in there. So that's totally beholden up to when they start phase two and get us their first seal. Thank you. Thanks. All right, moving on to 7.2, our special education update with Miss Murphy. Should we grab the Thank you very
013much. Yes, sir. Um, thank you. Uh, I'm Joanna Murphy. I'm the director of special education and I have my team with me, Andrew De who is our coordinator for the preschool and elementary programs. Jennifer Melissa is our coordinator for the secondary rates. Um, and we just want to start by thanking the board for giving us this opportunity uh to present our work to you tonight. And we want to thank the cabinet uh and uh a special thanks to Melissa Lawson who is our assistant superintendent for people's services um and for her support and guidance always. And we want to thank our entire special education team and department for their work with children every day and our special ed office team who we would be nothing without. So um we just wanted to start with those
014thanks. Um and then this is our mission. Um, we empower all learners to be successful members of our dynamic society. And we love the term all. Um, because students with disabilities are included. So, we wanted to start out with some numbers for you at a glance here. Um, we serve 635 students in grades K through 12, 263 at the elementary level, 142 middle school. These are in district numbers as well as 168 students at the high school level. We do have 62 students that we serve in specialized schools outside of the district including Boseies and private schools. So our classification rate is a bit higher than uh the national classification rate um is about 15% while New York State is at 17.8 currently and we are around 19.2. 2 in terms of the percentage of
015students classified uh with disabilities in our district. Um we are proud that we serve the majority of students in our own district programs. So we have 90 over 90% of students with disabilities are served in our special education programs in district. We do refer uh just under 10% of students out to outside placements. We wanted to give you some information about um transfer students into the district who transferred to us and they already have IEPs at the time of their transfer. So we did give you some historical data here but just this year we started tracking this information and at the time we took this data um in February we had um had 28 transfers into the district at that point. Six of them were in need of special class programs. One was in need
016of an outof district program. I can tell you that since that time we created this slide, we have um two uh we have more students including two who um are we inherited their out of district placements that they transferred in with. So while we have that breakdown for this year, we um were able to pull data from the last um few years and it look you know it's growing. uh we hover around 55 to 60 students a year it's looking like um that are transferring in with disabilities that we need to serve um as soon as they transfer in. Uh this does not include incoming kindergarteners just so you know it's just transfers. Um, we wanted to give you a look at classifications of disability and who, you know, what types of disabilities we serve
017mostly here in the district. So, New York State has um 13 classifications of disability. Um, th those that are represented here. Um you'll see that the majority of our students are classified with a speech or language impairment, an other health impairment, autism, or a learning disability. Um you know, I think that what's important to note here is that um some students that the number of um intellectually disabled students looks really really small. There are some students that are also intellectually disabled, but their primary classification of disability is autism. So, there are students that have multiple um perhaps diagnoses or mo or could qualify for more than one disabling condition, but the state of New York, as I said, has 13 classifications of disability, and there's um criteria for each one. So, it's up to the
018committee on special education to determine the primary um area that best describes what the student is struggling with. Um so, I just wanted to give you that information about who we mostly serve. Thank So, what is the multiple disability staff like? Sure, that's a good question. So, um, that's actually a really good question because, um, if you would think that if a student has more than one, so say they have autism as well as an intellectual disability or they also have a speech and language impairment, why wouldn't they all be multiply disabled? So, the criteria for multiple disabilities is that one of those disabilities is also an intellectual disability. So they would have to have an intellectual disability as well as some of these other conditions. And an intellectual disability the criteria for that is
019a student has severe um cognitive impairment and and adaptive skills impairment. Okay. Thanks. Okay. I could share a little bit about the next piece. Um, you know, these are specific numbers to illustrate where our staff are, um, distributed, right, throughout the four elementary programs that we have. Um, you know, year-to-year this can change slightly based on the students that we're serving, right? We get our projections. Um, and then each year we use those numbers to inform any, you know, changes that may be required. Um, and just some highlights here. You know, looking through, as an example, if we look at Netherwood, that houses one of our very specialized programs. um part of the continuum that we have and you'll note that some of the related service providers for like the size of that school has
020increased right there might be it says 2.5 speech right and you know the nature of the program that's there requires um higher levels of support so that's uh an example as to some of the decisions that are used to make these determinations for for staffing across um our programs that I don't know if you're going to talk about it but mapping to this do you have the number of students that map to each one of these to the specific programs themselves like in in you know netherwood we have this number of teachers and TAs etc. How many kids are in kids with disabilities? Yeah that are in each of the schools. I I don't know if I you know if you're going to get to that but we we don't have that but we can
021give you that that's easily we can yeah provide that. Interesting to see. So, similar to the elementary level, secondary staffing is based on, you know, student needs. So, it it could change, but has been pretty consistent. I think something like to that you might notice like thinking about middle school versus the high school like high school there's a lot more students. So it might seem like we might need a lot more people, but and I'll talk more kind of about the progression and things like that, but you know, typically students are getting a lot of services in the beginning and throughout middle school and because of their progress and getting those services typically as they get older towards graduation, you know, those services can be reduced because of that. So um you know looking at
022the numbers they seem very similar but I think that's because we have that focus of you know pulling back and that progress we see leads to you know less support needed at the secondary level or the high school level. Okay. Um so talk a little bit about the specific program not the specific numbers of students in but kind of what's supported throughout the elementary programs here. Um, you know, just to kind of highlight what's in our photo here talking about elementary programs. Uh, we hosted just last week a really nice presentation for families. Uh, we, you know, formerly called Blooming into Kindergarten. It's an information sharing session where we get to highlight all the program and, um, supports we provide, you know, special education wise and just through our general practices here in the district
023for kiddos that are coming into kindergarten. Now, um I you might have used the term CPSSE, that's the committee on preschool special education, right? So, those are the kiddos that are in our district that are being served through that committee and as they transition to kindergarten, there's different criteria and the anxiety right outside of just classification that big change like going to kindergarten and everything there. So, it was a nice opportunity to highlight the the program. We had some wonderful staff uh volunteer their time to participate as part of a panel. Um, so we want to give them a shout out as well. Uh, but generally speaking, when we're looking at um the continuum of services, right, that's a terminology that we'll use. And what that describes is the programmatic support from least restrictive to
024most restrictive um as to what is available to students. So each building uh across the four different elementary programs have different supports, which we'll highlight in just a moment. But altogether we offer a really full and robust continuum throughout those four buildings for all of our students at the elementary level. Um so in the least restrictive to more restrictive conversation, right, you'll see some of the offerings where we have resource room, right? That's a programmatic piece where you might be pulled out for part of the day to work on whatever given needs you have, right? Um and as we kind of go up in through that continuum there's an integrated code taught model where it is at the grade level standard as it you know is for any other classroom. However, as the name indicates
025the special education teacher support is integrated into that environment and then we'll continue through uh into the special class domain. So you'll see different ratios attached to those programs. Um really a special class is a non-integrated program meaning that the students within it are only those with disabilities. So there's no general education students within those programs. Um and then different numbers you'll see are the ratio as to the specific um mandates to that room. Right? So in this case here with Netherwood again this is the current um you know resources at these schools. So, at Netherwood, we have the 812, uh, meaning eight special education students, one special education teacher, and the two assistants assigned to that room to deliver the instruction. Um, this program specifically, right, aside from the number, you want to look
026at kind of the profile of student who's within it, right? And the profile uh, for this classroom is some of the students that have some more of our significant needs, right? That really small ratio would dictate that. Um and you know the students within there are those maybe on the autism spectrum um or those with communication disorders. We also have a special class reading which is um kind of u more less restrictive in that sense. It is a special class so it is non-integrated um but it is for you know 30 minutes really work on some of those foundational pieces. Um, circling to North Park, we don't have a special class program there, but as you can see, we have a nice offering of different supports uh throughout the continuum um that offer, you know,
027just a little bit of pull out um or that whole program. One thing to note as well, some students don't need a program, right? They might just need related services. That is offered at all four of our buildings as well. That's our lovely team from Violet Avenue on the screen there. So, shout out to all them for offering themselves up for uh for this. Uh Ralph R. Smith again has a nice robust uh continuum there. They do have a special class program. Their ratio there is a 1211. Um that is again for students that require that level of support. Um and then at Violet Avenue School again they have um a variety of different offerings and their special class program is another 812 serving a different population of student right focusing on social emotional learning
028needs. Can I ask a question? Sure. Yeah. Before we get too far ahead. Sure. So, um I was looking at just comparing the elementary schools and I understand that continuum of services. Um what stood out to me was that all three of the elementary schools have ICT or integrated co-eing K5. And then it kind of stood out the Violet Avenue has it only in kindergarten, but then they have DCT or direct consultant teaching for 1, three, four, and five. So there's that's a real difference for that building. But there, you know, when you look at the whole picture, I just was curious if you could speak to why that one building doesn't have the ICT. Yeah. Um like the rest of the buildings. I I saw later that there's but I just I just I'm
029curious what the dis how that got to hit. Right. Yeah. So So I can answer that. Um I think that's a really great question. um D DCT or direct consultant teaching is another integrated model. So it's another way you may have heard the term inclusion. It's another way of serving students with disabilities having the specialed teacher support but within the general education setting. So direct consultant teaching and integrated co-eing are similar in that way. But with direct consultant teaching, there's not a specific um number of students that can be served in a classroom or designed to be served in a classroom if you will. So you could have one student in grade two classroom. You could have maybe three students over here and the direct consultant teacher, the special ed teacher would come into that
030room, push into that room and support those students in the classroom. Where we design integrated co-eing is when we're structuring it so that there could be up to 12 students. Not that we always go there, but there could be up to 12 students in that classroom with special needs. And in that case, we want to go a step further than consultant teaching where you're coming in and supporting these kids where you're really you're planning with the general education teacher. You're delivering the instruction to all of the kids. You're grading. So it it's ICT is um it just implies more um more planning and and that the teachers are both collaboratively teaching all the whole group because there's a a pretty significant number of students in that class that have disabilities. So at Violet Avenue this
031year the numbers of students are smaller and they're sort of scattered like I said. So you might have one kid over here, two kids over here. So, we wouldn't design an entire we didn't anyway for this year, but we are going to get to that. Um, we we didn't design uh a program where we would have a full-times co-teer in the room at all times because nearly half the class has needs. Does that make sense? Yeah. Thank you. I had a question before you go off to the next stop. So another anomaly that I see is that at North Park we don't have any of those special classrooms like an 812 812 or what like why like is there any data to say why that happens like that? Yeah. So I think um what's happened
032is that we have determined you know every year uh we we look at what are the projections from the the staff what are they what are they thinking students are going to need the next year. So we take all of that data and kind of figure out where we might have where we have groups of students who need certain services and what buildings do we have space to develop those programs. So we we as much you know we can't really have um a full continuum in every building from resource room all the way to special class 812 but we really believe that our building should have integrated programs and resource room options and then we've chosen buildings that have space in them to design our specially our more highly specialized programs where we would have
033the all of the students who need an 812 in one building and the students We're going to talk more about the program design, but yeah. So, somebody could be in that in that area to go to North Park, but there's not enough kids, so they might have to go to Exactly. So, students at North Park, it doesn't that's a good question. I mean, it doesn't mean that a student at North Park who needs that program, they would they would if they needed that program, they would we would serve them in a building that has that program. The needs of the students are paramount, right? And then that's just up to us to kind of find out where the recommended school would be to to meet that. I got it. Thanks. Yep. Yeah. And um so
034so that gets us into the what you were leading into was our design um decisions for next year. Um so as I mentioned uh each year we look at the projections, we review data to see if we should make any adjustments to our program design. Um some of the things that we considered uh while making those decisions were the number of stu numbers of students that we had projected for our special class. As Andrew mentioned, we have a special class 812 program for social emotional learning at Violet Avenue. We have very few students in it and no new students projected for it. So, we took that into consideration. We have um the need mostly based on incoming kindergarteners with significant needs coming from the preschool se um preschool programs. We need an additional class for
03512 students, an additional special class. Uh we have space restrictions at Ralph R. Smith. As we mentioned, Ralph R. Smith currently has five 1211 classes. Um adding a six would be really taxing on Ralph R. Smith and we really don't have the space for it, but we do have space at Violet Avenue School. Um, and we also thought about behavioral support for incoming K because sometimes the kids come into kindergarten and they just they haven't been in school yet. They don't know how to follow routines yet or directions or even um they might just be their needs might be unpredictable. So, we thought maybe there's a way we could provide a little bit more support to our incoming K kids. And then we also wanted to have mainstreaming opportunities in all of our buildings, including
036those that have these highly specialized programs. So we wanted to make sure that if we're going to have a special class in a building, we also have an ICT program so that as the students make progress and they no longer need that highly specialized special class, they can transition into an integrated setting. So we wanted to make sure that that all of that. So, those are the things we were considering when we um planned our design for next year. This one. Yeah. So, this is what it's looking like for next year. We're going to be discontinuing the special class 812 for the social emotional learning at Violet Avenue School. Currently, there's two classes in that building. So, that creates some space for us. We're going to add that other special class 12101 that we need.
037And this is the redesign. So what we'll end up having at both buildings is resource room. We'll have integrated co-eing now in both buildings including Violet Avenue in all grades. We will have instead of six 12 class sizes in one building, we will have three in each building. So, we will have a K1, a 23, and a 45 in each building. Um, as well as our special class reading program. Um, we we wanted, as I mentioned, those kindergarten students, they're sometimes unpredictable and they sometimes have some needs. Um, this doesn't mean that they that we're creating a behavioral support program for kindergarten, but we wanted to add an additional TA. So, we designed the K1 in both buildings as a 1212 instead of a 1211 to offer that additional adult support for kids that are
038still learning how to be in school and are learning routines and how to socialize and play and, you know, follow directions, things that little kindergarters sometimes don't know how to do. So, we wanted to give some more support there. So, that's what we've redesigned for next year. Any questions about that before we move on? So then for the really highly special needs who are kids who are in the traditional, you know, 181 class, they'd be in the the new class, 812 class, you mean 812 class at Violet that were that were discontinuing? Yeah, that's a good question. Um we um as we mentioned, we we really didn't have any new students projected for that class. We believe it's because of the robust social emotional support we have districtwide in all buildings. So we now have
039a school counselor in every building. Every building has had but continues to have a school psychologist, a social worker. We have a bright program in every building. So now there's more social emotional support. You know, with the SEAL um curriculum, too, we have such social emotional supports for all students that we're seeing less referrals to this highly specialized 812 program. So, if we do have students that are not able, you know, that are currently needing that level of support, we would need to consider um how to serve them and if we don't have the program, we would defer them to a different placement. Yeah. All you really need is in the middle of the year a family to move in from somewhere else with a couple of the special needs children. Right. So, all right.
040Thank you. And are you discontinuing both of the 812 classes at Violet A or just one? Both of them. [Music] Right. That comes back and then staff is just going to be re reshuffled so nobody's losing jobs. Okay. No. Um no we are not anticipating staff changes just just uh redistributing. Thank you. At the secondary level a lot of our focus like when we're making recommendations and you know looking forward it's on postsecary goals. So starting at sixth grade level, we typically include students in our meetings and we ask them what they want to do when they grow up or when they graduate. And our programs really want to support that and get them there. Um so within the middle school, you know, we we have again a full continuum. Our resource rooms, we have
041a couple different types. So we have like a traditional academic resource room as well as a social emotional uh supported resource room which is you know students who might need a little more help in terms of coping skills and it gives them that place to kind of regroup if they need to. Um integrated co-eing for all core subjects and all grades. Um our special classes are a little bit you know of a larger ratio as we move up to middle school with 151 for the core subjects. Um, students who are eligible for the New York State Alternative Assessment are in an 812 program. So, those are students with, you know, higher needs. Um, typically working towards the skills and achievement credential rather than a regular diploma. And then we have the 5:1 reading classes at
042the middle school and then at the high school. So, again, a couple of different types of resource rooms, an academic resource room to support students, you know, with that reteing things like that. And then we also have what's called resource room T, which is for like communication support. So students who might have a classification of autism or just need more support in terms of socializing with their peers. Um it's a resource room that works on both academics and has pushing counseling into it as a group and they do field trip field trips and things like that. Um and really building that community. um you know integrated co-eing really focused on the regions courses to get them where they need for graduation similar with special classes. So again, that 15-1 setting um and moving towards integration
043as they graduate because again we're trying to prepare them for what their goals might be whether it's you know going to work, going to trade school, going to college. Um and then again a program for students who are participating in alternative assessment and we also have um the practical assessment exploration system lab pays lab and that's u Miss Hastings within that. We had that start last year and it's students really being able to do like vocational skills within the classroom and there's things that are as simple as you know turning a bolt on a screw up until using you know tools power tools. So it's a it's a pretty uh cool program that we have there for you know students working on those life skills. Okay. So we established some goals for this year and
044um you know co integrated co-eing as you could see in our in our programs it we we have it in every building and we we want it in every building and you know we believe that the majority of students with disabilities can be served with special ed teacher support in an inclusive or integrated setting. So we had to have a goal around improving or enhancing co-eing. So we um we want to um increase the use of some teaching models that are co-eing models that are um really um the models that show the best results. So parallel teaching and station teaching are the two that we'd like to see in more of our classes. And so parallel teaching is really where the two teachers split the class in two and um create a smaller ratio basically
045within and in um in their um larger classroom so that it's they're able to um provide more individualized attention that way. And station teaching is what it sounds like. It's you know rotating through stations in smaller groups and having each teacher um teach a station. uh we want we'd like to see more use of those models and um so we set that as a goal for ourselves and we are partnering with GNR inclusive group for coaching um and we have uh 45 teachers participating in coaching this year um and the emphasis we've been communicating with our staff the emphasis on these two models we're giving feedback through the evaluation process and we hope to review our next steps are to review those evaluation reports at the end of the year and see if we are
046seeing you. So, we're having um we we are as we observe teachers, we are noting the use of these models and our reports and we've also communicated with principles and other evaluators that we'd like them to to emphasize it as well. [Music] And another goal has to do with reducing the time out of class for students who receive multiple related services. So, some of our students, especially those in our more specialized programs like our 812 or 1211s, some of them are pulled out of class for speech, OT, PT, counseling, and we really um are concerned that, you know, the last thing we we want to do is widen the gap for students by pulling them out of core instruction for more special ed service. So we really focused on looking at the data um of
047how much miss class time is happening due to related service pullouts. Um we set goals with our related service providers. We've explored we're exploring right now um some other options like pushin services where speech therapists can push into classrooms and work on speech goals. um as well as co-reating options where say um for example a um speech therapist and an OT maybe work together at the same time um and a speech therapist is working on um those goals while the OT is working on um handwriting at the same time that the speech therapist is working on language things like that so that um it's less pulled time out of the classroom. Um, so we're looking at some options like that to decrease this. Um, and we're hoping that um we go move into um the
048next school year with um less pullouts of class. And this goal is um around least restrictive environment with Andrew is going to talk more about what least restrictive environment is in in a few moments. Um so this goal focuses on Ralph R. Smith, but um we're really looking at least restrictive environment districtwide. Um we noted that you know some of this is because of our 1211 program being at Ralph R. Smith, but we're looking at a situation where 59% of our students at Ralph R. Smith are being educated in a special class instead of being integrated. So, we really would like to reduce that um and have students be able to receive their special education support without being removed from their um typical typically developing peers. We are engaged in a SQA review. SQA review
049is specialed quality assurance. It's where um the state education department helps support us with our goal of le least restrictive environment. We um we requested their support with this uh this year. Um our steps are to continue to strengthen the integrated co-eing program through the coaching so that students can be better served in integrated co-eing even students with more significant needs. uh encourage mainstreaming and databased decision-making at CSSE meetings and the program design changes that we just went through. And um so we did partner with not only the state education department um the SQL but also the regional partnership center for Ralph R. Smith um uh to work on um strengthening the specialized instruction delivered for students with disabilities there and also um developing and implementing some um social emotional interventions also. So one of
050the things that uh we worked on this year with Ralph R. Smith, for example, was their um PBIS, but also their meaningful work program, which um allows stu it's it's a fancy word phrase for um like really meaningful school-based jobs for students. Um and I I mentioned before we requested this support from the special ed quality assurance team to look at uh least restrictive environment and um our regional associate for state ed has been observing us in cse meetings um and seeing how we are considering the least restrictive environment and giving us feedback and recommendations. So yeah talk about that term. So least restrictive environment is one of if not the you know key factors in special education. Um really what it comes down to is serving the student um in the right way, right?
051Meeting their needs and having them included as much as possible with their peers, right? Um what really drives a least restrictive environment is the individual and specifically the nature and severity of their disability. so that we can really drive home that what we recommend on the IEP is just to that right I often like to use analogies so in meetings with families when we talk about this I'll often reference like the Goldilocks thought right where least restrictive environment is serving the student right where they are right you don't want to over serve you don't want to go too much because that has a lot of detrimental effects to students and obviously you don't want to underserve because then you're not meeting where those gaps are you want to hit it just right right you want
052to make sure that whatever those needs are based on all the data, right, that we collect and review at the meetings, our decisions are really found in that, right? Um so, you know, there's a lot of good to it, but it helps us keep students with their peers and connected to their community as much as possible as they get what they want, right? Because we offer this robust continuum because what is least restrictive is different for every kid. So that's why we need to have all these supports in district to have available to our kids because least restrictive is individualized and it's different for everyone. Okay. Um, so we wanted to talk about outcomes. Um, because we, um, students with disabilities, you know, they have until they're 21 to meet graduation requirements. And many of
053our students do need additional time to do that. Um, some students stay all the way till they're 21. Others need another year um to to meet their credit and exam requirements. Um, yet we're the state only acknowledges a four-year graduation rate. So, one of the things we did last year was we engaged in some graduation pathways work with um the regional partnership center where we learned more about the SEOs. And the CEO DOS stands for the um career development and occupational studies commencement credential. Um and what that is is um a credential that is designed not to be a standalone credential. So the goal for students is that they are earning a regent or regular high school diploma, but they may also engage in career development um vocational training. Think um ex you know Jen
054shared information about um the pay lab um and we also have a school to work program but also Bosey's tech center where students are studying anything from culinary arts to construction trades. um if they get that SEO certificate because they've earned those hours, then that SEO certificate can also support the student um to to graduate from high school with a diploma. So um there's a safety net for students with disabilities and the CEOs is important as a as a as as a way that students if if any of the regent exams are a barrier for the student in earning that diploma, the CADS credential can really help um replace one or more regent exams to get that student to the diploma. So we we learned more about that and um we worked with Boseies um
055CTI. I just want to thank Melissa. and Melissa worked really hard with um the BoseCI folks to help that have them track um student hours much better than they had been so that we had that communication and we could intervene and help students earn those hours. Um and I want to say that our focus really um in special education is on high expectations and um for students and and their transition plans. So, like Jen mentioned, at the at the high school level and even at the middle school level, we're always um having they their post-secary goals, what they want to do or even if they can't articulate it yet, what they can do after high school, that that is what we use to guide our recommendations. Um we emphasize connection to school through extracurricular activities.
056Um, we encourage every single special ed case manager to work with students to identify if they don't have a connection to school, if they don't play a sport or an instrument or anything like that. We, every case manager is expected to try to find some sort of afterchool activity or some way for that student to connect. Um, and we really believe in declassification. So when students are ready and they no longer require special education services, we um we propose declassification. One of the things I want to note is that declassified students who do graduate in four years don't count for us as a student with a disability who graduated. So just to reiterate, if a student doesn't currently have an IEP when they walk across that stage, they're not counted for us as a graduate
057with a disability. And we do declassifi we believe that we have many many students who have benefited from special education services for many years over the years but maybe by 9th or 10th grade 11th grade they no longer need and um they're declassified but we believe that that's a success for us. So um we wanted to end with those success stories and Jen's going to share just some examples of that. So I one of the things I love about the secondary level is you know Andrew gets to see a lot of times like how this journey starts and I get to see how it ends and like there's meetings where it's like emotional because the psychologist is going over the report and they're saying okay they started services in preschool and these are you know
058and then we're getting to this point. So these are just some examples like you know student getting support in preschool, special class 1211 in elementary school, then a combination of special classes in ICT, ICT in high school, declassified in 11th grade. Um another student who was again classified in preschool in the SEAL program um at Violet Avenue. um they were actually sent out of district during their middle school years, came back in 9th grade, um you know, had a very good transition and declassified then and right now they're on track for graduation. And then just you know a few more um and some students you know less restrictive classified in preschool consultant teaching ICT um again ICT throughout declassified in 11th grade um and these are students who have already graduated so graduated on time
059with a region's diploma um another student just for a short term you know was with us 504 uh classified in sixth grade just had a little bit of support you know through resource room ICT for a couple classes is um declassified in 10th grade, regionous diploma with CTE. And then you know the fifth student I looked at classified in second grade again in a special class 1211 moved to combination of ICT and 151 at sixth grade then progressed to ICT then only ICT for math. um started working towards um you know attending Boseis and doing a program there and declassified in 11th grade and graduated the region diploma and the seeds. So you know this is like really what it's about. And you know like we want to give students the support so that way
060they don't need us anymore you know and it's just you know it is amazing to see and I just want to iterate this this slide like all of these students graduated on time within four years so but you know we don't get any credit for that like credit from the state as a graduate with an IEP but we we think we deserve credit and our programs and our staff deserve credit because they did this you know. Yes. So, we just wanted to end on that note. Um, just so you kind of understand our um, you know, we we have high expectations for our students. Any any questions? So, thank you for the presentation. I think it was very comprehensive. It's very um edifying and so forth. So when you declassify a student, you know, it's
061done in the with the cse and the parent basically has to agree to that. You have to come together as a cse. You have to have a consensus on that. Correct. We have to um make that recommendation and and we have to attempt to achieve consensus. We don't always achieve consensus at every cse meeting. Sure. Although that is the goal. Sure. I think we all agree that the goal is to try to declassify students and lead to that as an end goal of special education in general. I don't think anybody would argue that. It's just that I've heard a couple concerns from some some 12th grade parents saying that suddenly in 12th grade, you know, they've been, you know, told that they should be declassified and they don't agree with that. And the concern is
062that if they're declassified in 12th grade, then they're not going to get the services when the students go to college. So, I know we want to try to improve our numbers. I know we want to look towards our end goal, but I've heard some concerns about that on the alternate of the students when they go to college, maybe much bigger college, that that they would then not have those services. So, we we can address that. First of all, um an IEP is a K to2 document, so it expires at the end of 12th grade anyway, regardless of whether or not the student is classified all the way through graduation day. So, there is no IEP in college. what parents can do. Any any college that accepts public funding needs to have some sort of office
063of of um supports. So, for example, Duchess Community College, their office is called the office of accommodative services. And so, what they do is they take any evidence that the parent provides. So they can provide their last IEP, they can provide their um declassified document, but mostly what those colleges want to see is the actual data. They don't necessarily care about IEPs because they're not a K to2 system. They can't implement those services anyway. But what they do look at is the last psychological report for example, the last educational like they want to see those reports and then they have a completely different criteria than K to2. So they would look at those reports. One of the things we always coach um kids when they're in high school getting ready to transition whether they still
064are classified or whether they're being declassified. We always coach kids if you're going to apply for services in college, you need to be able to talk with the person at that office about what accommodations help you, like what you rely on. Um because they won't talk to parents usually. They'll only talk to the students. And we try to say, you know, you to be able to say, you know, I really need extra time on my on my assignments or if I have a big test, it really helps me if I have a little bit of extra time. If when they can articulate that and as long as there's evidence that the student has had some needs and there's reports then the colleges most of the time will implement things. They don't implement special ed services,
065but they implement accommodations like I mentioned or they'll give them access to the writing center or things like that, which you know every every student has access to, but they will deliver accommodations and they don't really need IEPs or um or de-class documents really to do that. And then the other thing I just wanted to mention is that because we didn't really talk about declassified support services. So, um the state is really nice actually. Um we are allowed to at those meetings where we recommend declassification, we are allowed if needed to um to recommend declassified support services for up to a full year as a transition away from special education services. So, say a student was getting full-time ICT in every core subject area in 10th grade and the decision is made to declassify, but
066math is there's a couple of math, you know, concerns, we may we may use integrated co-eing for math as a declassified support service. And we can do anything. We can do counseling. We can do, you know, any type of service as a transition away so that the student is not like cut off all of a sudden. there's like a little bit of a fade out and it gives the the the the student a chance to have some support still as they move away from special ed and they get their testing accommodations through graduation even if they're declassified as early as second grade. Those declassified um testing accommodations remain all the way through graduation from high school. And really the idea there is that, you know, the disability may have not gone away. So they may
067still have an underlying ADHD. they just no longer need a special ed teacher. So, but they might need testing accommodations. They might need extra time. They might need to sit in a location where they're not distracted. So, those types of things can can stay for students all the way through, right? Well, there's the IEP and then there's the 504 accommodations. And so, you know, I'm telling you, I lived the life of a special ed parent for 25 years. Colleges say if those things are removed when you leave high school, most colleges we've gone to and parents I've talked to, it can cause a problem in college. All I'm saying is as we keep the goal of declassifying, we have to be very very careful because parents are living that experience of what the colleges are
068telling them. I know what I'm talking about here. So, we just have to be very careful. Any other uh questions? No, no question. I'll just make public comment. You can ask questions now. I'll just comment. This was really helpful because um I haven't seen such a comprehensive breakdown of everything so that we can get the full picture, which is really appreciated. And I guess I just want to say that I know a lot of people get stuck on that percentage, you know, like test scores, we got to get those up. classification rates, you got to get them down. But we have to remember we're a public school system and we take whoever comes to us and our job is to give them what they need. So when you get 30 or 40 students coming in,
069that's our job. That's what we need to do. So I guess I'm saying that seven that 19% or whatever it was is not really the concern. And that we want to make sure that we're never we're never saying, and this is me speaking, we're never saying our classification rate is too high. So, we cannot give a child these services. And I'm not saying that you're doing that. Right. I just I just feel better putting that out there that So, you know, when you say we've already got two new students who are coming in who need services, well, they need services and that's what they should get. Y So, um and I have to say I got to read to the 18 the 812 today at Netherwood. It was the joy of my cutest. I am
070I am not kidding you. If you want a little perk, go read to the 812. They they were just lovely. I mean, what a great program. It was it was incredible. Really really nice. Very proud of it. Thank you. Yeah, it was great. I actually had one little comment. Um she mentioned the 812 at Netherwood, but your projection is to make it a 1212. Um correct? Uh there's two there's two 812s currently. So, we have the 812 ratio, but it's a special class for social emotional learning at Violet. That's the one we're discontinuing and we're having more 12. But we have the 812 for autism and communication disorders. At Netherwood, we have four classes and those are staying. Good. Because there's two also, one in the middle school, one in the high school, and you
071can't just make them go away. Okay. Yep. Exactly. Was there any consideration Mr. Scarski asked how there's two now of the new classes? Was there consideration of maybe keeping one 81 class and one adding 1121? In other words, just again for those children who come in maybe in the middle of the year that's it's bound to happen. We did we really just didn't have the projected students for the class to continue to offer it. Okay. Yeah. I just know one of our children went to Violet and they probably could have been in a a 3-1 class probably from, you know, God bless those teachers for what they did. So, um, but okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. All right. Moving on. Let me just fix. Let me Yeah, I
072got to click all the way back. Moving on to 7.3, our facilities and operations update with uh Greg Cesero. Company said three of them. It's all three of them. Evening everyone. Um, my name is Rich Poster and I'm here tonight. I'm joined with the facilities and operations folks. We have Gregory Cicero. He's our new director of operations and facilities and Ron Robinson who is our assistant director to the facilities. Um the reason this is like a a double feature tonight for you. We work so tightly together that it made sense for us to to do the presentation as a group. So, um, we drew straws before we came here and so it's been determined that I will start first and I'll say whether I won or lost. I'm just saying. Um, so let's hope I
073get this down right. Okay. So, a little background about me. I've been with the district since about 2011. I started out here as a substitute teacher, mostly primarily at the FDR High School. Um, I transitioned at some point to facilities. I actually worked in the facilities department for a year and then the opportunity came up to work under the energy conservation program when my predecessor left the district. So, I've been doing this um just about coincides with the the uh the pandemic actually. So, and by the way, we're celebrating five years just a week or so ago. So, it seems hard to believe that it it's been that long, but um but it was um I'm sure traumatic for everyone. So, so I want to give you an idea on some of the things that
074go on in my department. by saying my department is me and uh and obviously with the support of the two gentlemen behind me um we have several goals and I'm not going to read through each one. And I'm just going to say that the overarching goal that I have is to make sure that students are comfortable, students and faculty comfortable, safe, and have a good learning environment so that they can maximize their opportunities to learn. Um, a lot of that hinges on us keeping a pulse on what's happening in each of the buildings. And to do that, we'd have a way to monitor and and manage through BMS, which is an acronym for building management system. Um, where we actually can monitor and and uh see what's going on in the building each day. And
075in conjunction with that, I also do work with the calendar of events which we gets published every week and we go through and make adjustments according to the activities that are happening in in each of the buildings so that we're not running the buildings 247. And you'll see the the benefits of that as I move on and I'll show you some of the graphics and in terms of what's happening in the buildings and the opportunities where we save. Um when I talk about education, part of my role, my official title is energy program manager and energy educator. It's kind of a hybrid position as recognized in Duchess County. And um when I talk about education, I'm I'm I'm thinking right away of of the interactions that I have with classrooms and and students. Um but
076I also when I thought about it, it really involves educating everyone including administration and um the faculty. And by that I mean um giving them um nudges throughout the year to make sure that they understand what their responsibilities are, what we're looking for them to do, especially prior to breaks. Those are our biggest opportunities to save money for the district. So, excuse me. Um, so in addition to the classroom interaction, I'm also communicating with them, giving them guidance on what to do in order to prepare for shutdowns on holidays and things of that nature because those happen to be the biggest opportunity to create savings for our district. Um, we regularly meet also with with our vendor which happens to be train and we address performance issues in each of the buildings. As a matter
077of fact, we just had one yesterday and we'll talk about um issues that are happening within the buildings and and anomalies and one-offs where we can go in and tackle ongoing issues because our our as I said our primary obligation is for the students and faculty to be comfortable in and what it is that they're doing in the rooms. Um there is some there are some EPC uh EPA rather um factors that um kind of come to mind. One of them being that when their when an environment is well controlled and well ventilated that the outcomes for students and teachers happens to be exponentially better than it is in a room that's poorly ventilated with outside air. Typically, I think we run most classrooms at a minimum of about 10% out outdoor ventilation and it
078varies depending obviously on weather conditions and so forth, but it's critical to get that turnover in each of the classrooms and and that the industry standard typically is about four turnovers of air air within the room every hour. So what we're trying to do is promote a healthy environment because that helps also reduce the level of or the opportunity for infection. Um a lot of that happened as as a result of COVID, but um there there is guidance that says that we should continue that and that's something that we have done. We've honed it a little bit so that we're not running 247 anymore because it's not necessary, but we certainly do our due diligence in terms of turning over the air both at the end of the day and before students come into the
079building. Um, so to the next thing I'm going to talk a little bit about, well, you're getting two flavors here. If you look at the last school year, I'm just giving you the the facts as they exist. The the cost delta from the previous year runs about an 18% reduction and the energy that was used during that period of time is reduced by about 7%. The only problem with that is that it's not normalized. It doesn't take into account a lot of factors. Um some of those might be weather conditions. it would have to do with um schedules in the buildings, the uh the utilities cost and things of that nature. So those all have a bearing on on how we measure that. So in order to to make it a fair comparison, if you
080look at the the the grouping below it where it talks about the life of the program, this takes you back to the advent of the program itself, which was in August of 2013. Um and during that period of time we were going through a lot of growth and and um startup costs. So you'll see that the cost overall for the program um was fairly significant. It's $957,000, which seems like a lot, but again, the upfront cost that we were hit with in the beginning because we were working with two companies at at that time um constitutes a lot of that um dollar amount. Um the the savings however throughout that period of time from that period from August 2013 until now is as you can see it's 2000 sorry 2,698,54 which is a 21% decrease
081and that's expected over the actual. So whatever would normally have happened had we not intervened and had a a committee or a person rather to do this, if we just continued on our old ways, we would not have saved that amount of money. So it's a substantial savings in terms of um what the program has offered the district. the the the the industry term for that is BATCC and that's the baseline adjustment for current conditions. So we establish the baseline early on and then based on any changes to the conditions you make modifications to that and then um measure against that. If we had done that in the last school year, the actual DATCC for that differential between those two years, July 2023, June 2024 was about 14.8%. There's a graphic on the right that
082shows what a pie chart sort of thing that shows you what that would look like in terms of the program savings. These standards are all industry standards and the way we get those I the software that I'm currently using it's called energy cap and and the measurements that I've derived from that come from some standards um that are one is ISO 515 and if you've been IBM or anyone like that you're very familiar with ISO and you know that those are the industry standards that are very strict and regimented and accepted across the board by industry. Um it also is as measured by the um in accordance with the international performance measures and verification protocols. So two different entities that are validating the information I'm giving you tonight. Is the 2.7 is that net savings
083or is that gross? That's cumulative savings across the board. And that's that's the delta between No, but does that take into account the the 957? Yes. So So the savings was actually $957,000 more. Um I'm sorry, I misunderstood your question where you were going. No, the I take out the 957,000. So it's it's about a 1.7. Yeah, they don't compute that in this software. That would be something that would be manually put in. [Music] Um, moving on. I'm going to show you this is now we have a number of of um dashboards. I'm going to offer you an opportunity to peek under the hood to see what it is that we look at each day. We have several dashboards that we rely on for information. um one of them being train connect and that's that
084provides us real-time data again gives us a pulse on what's happening in the buildings and it's this sort of images the images that you see here you can slice and dice and and dissect information for each of the buildings throughout the day and see what's happening real time um there's also another system connected with train in this case it's called tracer and that's the system I use on a on a daily basis to adjust the schedules throughout the day in accordance with whatever activities are happening in the school. More especially at night when the the school buses leave and we have other activities like cheerleading practice, basketball practices, auditoriums are being used, those sorts of things. So rather than shut everything down at that point, we we want to make sure that the people that
085are occupying those spaces during those periods of time are in a good environment. So make those adjustments and then I tailor it at the end of the night to shut everything down again until the next day. And that happens as well on weekends because as you know we have a lot of activities that happen on the weekends. Um energy cap is what you're looking at here. This is one of the dashboards that's offered to us. This was kind of a sandbox exercise I was working on with them recently just to kind of show different parameters and to get an idea on how we can look at things differently. Some of them factor in the weather conditions. So you can actually see how it parallels in in coordination with whatever is happening in terms of temperature
086and those sorts of things and helps us normalize the data so that we can compare apples to apples. Um, it also will flag any anomalies and and wave a red flag and say something's not right here. And it does that automatically. It's almost like AI. And if if I wasn't if I didn't have my eyes on it myself, it'll make sure to let me know that there's something that's a miss and to look into it. [Music] Um, this is to give an idea on what the the ratios of our commodities usage is within the district. As you can see, there's there's two charts here that you're looking at. And one is the one on your left. It's a little it's a little deceiving because the the the ratios are off somewhat, but um you can
087kind of see where the commodity uses and the energy use um across all the buildings and that includes oil, electric, natural gas and other would be something like propane because the cafeterias use that. Couple more slides. I won't I won't read them for you. I you have them in front of you, but I wanted to point out a couple of things that are interesting about this. This is something called a heat map. And this essentially is what's showing um activity. In this case, it's Netherwood school. And again, we have them for each of the schools. And you can see where the orange areas or the reddish areas are the areas that indicate a high level of activity in the school. high level of occupancy and and um things are humming in in each of the
088buildings. Um prior to that, we're pretty much at baseline. We're just running just enough to sustain the building through the day and then it you'll note that it starts to ramp up um just prior to the students arriving and the faculty arriving. Um you'll see a couple of gaps there. And I I had a pointer before, but I I came in and checked it before and I realized you can't it doesn't show if I So, um, bear with me on that. But if you look pretty much in the middle of that chart, you'll see a a large green section, and that's representative of one of our breaks. In this case, I believe it was the Christmas break. And then just to the left of that, three bars over, you'll see another one, and that happens
089to be the Thanksgiving break. and you'll see where there's virtually no activity happening in the schools during those periods of time. So again, I talked about it before, but these are significant opportunities to to cut back on our energy and it relies heavily on um the cooperation of the the staff custodial group FNO to help make sure that we do everything we can to set back when we have those opportunities. Any questions so far? All right. Um, another slant at this, but I just reason I'm showing this is because this kind of integrates the outdoor temperature in with what the peak demand is. And again, this is an example of netherwood school. Um, this kind of looks like my EKG, but um, it it again you see correlations with where the temperatures are. And again,
090you'll see those gaps. you see the the uh the sections where we were on break during those periods of time. So very low level of energy usage during those periods. The uh the there is a peak demand in this case it was about 71 kilowatts and I'm going to talk about that in just a little bit. Is there something that I'm looking ahead to to see how we can um maximize our cost savings, optimize the systems, and maximize our cost savings? And it's discussions again that we've had as recently as yesterday about how we do that. Um couple of other outlooks. This is the monthly energy trend for what's happening. You'll notice that um there are some severe peaks. Those tend to correlate. The the ones with the higher peaks tend to be the years
091where uh we were just coming back from the pandemic and we were running vigorously. The HVAC systems to to ensure that the the areas were safe. So paramount to anything else, it's the safety of the students. As much as I'd like to save money, um our our primary concern at that point was to ensure that um the buildings and the rooms were safe for students. These are all measured, by the way, in KBTU because uh you're you're measuring both um cubic feet in terms of um natural gas as well as um KW and electric and so forth. So in order to make it a a consistent comparison across the board, they convert everything to KBTE. We're looking at the monthly cost analysis year-toear. Again, this is from ECAP. If you look at the red line
092um that kind of tops out and and is somewhat higher than the others that correlates in a large way to the work that was being done at FDR at the time. remember we were doing pod work and those buildings you can the building envelopes weren't very sealed at that period of time and there was a lot of um energy usage by the contractors during that period. So that is what drove in a large percentage most of that increase. Now these are eye charts for anybody that's sitting over here. So you know you can cover your left eye and can read to me what it says. Um these are breakdowns. I not only can look at it holistically as as all the utilities and all the commodities. I can also break it down in terms of
093uh individual comparisons in terms of electric fuel and so forth. So this is just to give an idea on what these would look like in terms of the last four years and comparing year to year. The bar chart that I'm showing you right now is a product of a project that we've been working on with train. We went about installing meters in each of the buildings throughout the district. um to give us more accurate overview on what's happening in each of the buildings and again again give real-time information back to our our database so we can actually see it real time. Um in this case the the bar on the left although it's higher than the others did not include at the time Ralph R Smith and Violet Avenue because those two meters had not
094been commissioned yet. So, um, if you can imagine, that bar would have even been higher had those been installed at that point. So, we're on a good trend. Um, even though 2025 is low, um, we're only partway through the year, so we'll probably have a better idea on how we're doing this year as we close in on uh, Maying. I talked a little bit before about um opportunities. I'm just going to give you this example. This is this is what you're looking at here is the peak load analysis for FDR high school. And the way to read this actually is from right to left. So if you look at the right that the line across the bottom the the uh axis on the bottom is actually representative of the percentage of time that each of
095these uh variances occur. So you have zero to 100%. So if you look at the bar as it it rises slightly, we are probably um um in looking at the chart, we probably are at about 60 kilowatts to run that building as a baseline. And what I mean by that is bare bones. We don't have the gym running. We don't have a lot of activities going on in the buildings. The classrooms are shut down. And this is just bare bones to keep the min the minimum that we need to have the the building stay afloat. As it moves further to the left, you'll see um a higher uh demand. And as you get to the very left column, you'll see an opportunity where if we were to take that one little sliver that you see
096right along that vertical axis and and deduct that 1% of the time where we're peeking out at that peak demand, we have an ability to cut back substantially on each of the buildings. In this case at Nether or at FDR the uh the load reduction just by doing that one% would represent 93 kilowatts. So if we could do that across the board in all circumstances it would be an opportunity for us to save both energy and and cost. So that's one of the projects an ongoing thing that we've been working on at train to develop strategies to do that. It's kind of a it's our own internal load shedding process that we're looking at and um it's something that we can control and there are methods that we can employ to do that to monitor
097and and probably the times that this happens would be in in as an example it might be in June when we're running air conditioners all the classrooms are full and there are act activities in the gymnasium and those sorts of things And what we would do is monitor and and have a signal to tell us that we're getting to a point we're approaching that that high level peak load. And if if we're aware of it and we're able to take some actions to cut back in areas that are non-critical areas, we would have that opportunity to to take that 1% away. So it really isn't a very painful thing to do. It just it it's it's more a planning and and uh execution question for us and then in coordination with our our vendor to
098um come up with solutions where we can do that. So that's something that we're looking at right now. I just wanted to share that with you so that you understand that um we we do have a goal. I thought 1% is fair for now, but each year if we keep attacking that and keep going after the 1% year after year after year, before you know it, we kind of smooth out that that curve that you see there and um it becomes u more manageable and less costly for the district. So, I'm going to share with you one more element of what I do. This is my favorite thing that I enjoy doing and that is interacting with students. We have a lot of opportunities to do that. We've been working recently with um the ecology
099club at Havlin Middle School. Um Brie Penny is the um faculty adviser for the ecology club. Um working also with um elementary students. And some of these cases, I think the top couple of photos, you'll see a good-looking gentleman in that picture in the middle. Um, we invited Ron there that day and and that went over very well and students really enjoyed it. This was Violet Avenue. This was both fourth grade students, both fourth grades rather from Cosy and Suzanne Gil. So, um, we worked with their students and they're always fascinated when they find out we're going on a field trip to the boiler room. I think somebody tipped them off before I got there because when I broached the topic, everybody already had their their shoes on and were ready to bolt out the
100door because they knew where we're going. Uh we did take the opportunity to we we took the students in the ecology club on a field trip again, short round trip within the district to let them experience the benefits of the electric bus when it came on board. Um, special thanks to Nicole from Transportation and um, Tom Germano was our bus driver. He's great with the kids. Um, explained a lot of things, showed them under the hood and all all the inner workings of what an electric bus looks like. Some of the students had never ridden on a bus at all, so they really didn't have anything to compare it to. But in some cases, the students that did notice the difference in the in the uh noise that was happening and the fumes that don't
101exist with an electric bus that normally they're used to. Um so it was a good day there. And then uh we've also got some work going on recently with the gardening club. And although it doesn't seem like it's connected, u part of it is it seems as though sustainability kind of correlates to what it is I do in terms of energy usage and and energy conservation. So, um I think it's important that we give them opportunities as well to learn in different ways. So, we'll share more about that with you as we go down the road, but right now we're we're just um enjoying the interactions with those students. Great groups of students. I'm I'm really blown away by the questions that they ask and um and I thank Ron again for his help and
102coming with me on on that one particular day. Um, last thing I wanted to share with you is obviously this there is no success in this program without the the support of everyone that works for the district. And by that I mean everyone from custodial teams and facilities folks to students and staff and administration and so forth in getting this to happen. Um, as I walk off through the buildings and off hours, that usually gives me a sense as to how committed the teachers and staff are to energy conservation. Um, when they cooperate and they they follow the guidelines, it really sends a good positive message to the students as well. So, I depend on them to help champion the cause and to convey the message because students pick up on things like that. And
103if they notice that the teachers are shutting off the lights as they leave the room every time, that becomes habit for them as well. So those are the type things that I think are going to live with them um even beyond their school years. But those are the type things we try to encourage and and incorporate in the daily behaviors. Um prior to every break, every every person in the district is probably familiar with my my my greeting cards. I will say just to brief everybody again on what the procedures are for shutdown and setback before they leave for holidays again and and with the intent of trying to conserve energy as much as we can. Um and finally if you look at the right um just including with this uh slide this is a
104way of recognizing people who do the right things and as I go through and visit the classrooms and the teachers have actually followed all the guidelines I'd like to acknowledge that because I think all of us we know students like to be recognized. I think adults are just big students and they like to be recognized too. So, um, we usually distribute those cards out to folks that do a good job and in meeting all the criteria. And the reason I know that works is because I get comments sometimes from people asking, "What do I need to do to get one of those cards?" So, I know it's happening. I know it it has some meaning for people. So, I I plan on continuing to do that. And with that, are there any questions? Turn over
105to the governor. I was just going to say obviously I'm a big fan of those emails like everybody else. It's it's great to see. I've worked in schools for 30 years and not many districts do that. So, it's really nice. It's a nice reminder about how important it is to to save energy and so forth. You know, you mentioned about how the lights get shut off and people go home, sports is done and the building's done, but um you know, I can tell you how many years I've climbed up on ladders and turned off, you know, computer things and so forth. So, it's it's important just don't turn off those servers like Bobby can say over there and switches because they you know after we're home and eating dinner and in bed they the video
106systems the computer systems they still have to keep running you know it's a 247 thing. You're absolutely right and I and and those guidelines aren't done in a closet. I actually um tie out with Rick Wart to make sure that we're not doing anything that's gonna do damage to or be detrimental to our our IT group um because we know how difficult that can be and painful to to recover from that. So, we do work with other groups to make sure that um there's mutual understanding. As as a matter of fact, last example of that is in the in the gymnasium in the in the weight room, they have a few exercise bikes that notoriously have they have the screen. It's like a treadmill type thing and the screens are always on. And for a
107while, I kept turning it off. And then I was told that um one of the the problems there's evidently a problem when it gets turned off that it needs to run continuously. And every time I do that, they have to call in a technician to come in and fix whatever. So, um, we have to make some adjustments, but, um, we we just try to apply common sense where where we can. Thank you. It could be part of this or the next part of the presentation. Just the the governor's, um, bill that she signed about the classroom climate for the fall and, you know, once it hits 82, schools have to quote unquote take action and then if it's 88, evacuate. So, it could be part of the next part of the presentation. How how are
108we going to do that? Where are we with that? That's that's actually and I'll I'll let them share their thoughts too. We we are members of SFA, New York State SFA and that's a conglomerate of all the the uh schools, all the directors of facilities and so forth. And that's a problem that's prevalent. Everyone's struggling with that and it's it's not going to be an easy thing. I will say that a lot of the changes that have happened, I'm thinking of North Park as one example, but Violet Avenue as well. That's some of the the actions that we've taken recently with with HVAC is going to make those buildings feel much more comfortable than they have in the past. So, I'll let I don't want to steal their thunder, though. So, I'll let them talk
109to that. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. I must so thank you. My back's hurt. I think sorry. So, uh it's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor. I appreciate the opportunity to present a portion of this presentation uh for the behalf of the facilities and operations department. It really is an honor and thank you for that. Were you just um so just uh an overview um our facilities are nine. We have nine buildings. There's 626,000 square feet uh sitting on a beautiful 160 acres of Hudson Valley property. Um staffing has uh currently 45 facilities and operation personnel uh with six vacancies um one of which is um the groundskeeper position, four custodial positions and one head custodian position. So looking at that bottom line, I feel if I do a really good
110job on this presentation, it won't read 44 current facility and operations personnel and seven vacancies. That's a good start. Okay. Um this is a shot of our work order system and where we stand. Um, currently, uh, there was since July 1st, 2024, 857 work orders, 767, uh, 6 766 of them, excuse me. Uh, those work orders are completed and closed. We have 91 uh, new requests currently open. Um, which is actually a very good number for us. So I got to thank our staff, the custodial staff, the maintenance staff, the groundskeeping staff because a high percentage of those new requests are monthly generated requests from our uh work order system which are preventative maintenance work orders. And there's also um a portion of those that we have a priority list. So we have emergency, we
111have safety, we have high priority, medium as well. So what happens is we deal with the high priority um request first. Anything that's safety related, emergency related, they come in almost daily. So, anything on a low request like maybe I mean all requests are important to us but if it's hanging a picture or maybe painting a wall some of those things you know they have to if we have um walls that come in during the day that oh our exterior door don't latch well we got to take care of that first we have backed up plumbing we got to take care of that right we have lights out in the classroom anything that's instructional related or infrastructure related we like to take care of those first. So that's where it's actually a really good number.
112This is a a picture of an ADA lift. This is at North Park Elementary. And these are the projects I like best. These are like heartwarming because these are projects of pride, right? So it really encompasses the High Park Central School District when it comes to respect, kindness, compassion, and inclusion because we know that when we look at these these uh vehicles of inclusion that when these students with disabilities um go with their classmates and they're going to do a play, maybe play with the band, you know, any activity on the stage, that they're always going to be able to join in. So, that is really, you know, a comfortable feeling. And, uh, we have we just had one installed that have one over the summer. Um, this coming summer, one will be going in
113at FDR for the stage. And we'll have two buildings. maybe see in the 2026 school year, Nwood Elementary is going to receive a lift as well. And then we'll have two left. We'll have Violet Avenue and High Park Elementary. So, I think we should keep our our foot on the gas and uh keep moving forward because they're very important. Um, this was also nice. There's installation of the playground at Rap R Smith. This just took place um this past November. Thank you very much. And um the great thing about this is I know when I got an opportunity to meet uh most of you guys when we were doing the walkthrough with Dr. Roman uh safety walkth through. And you notice that a lot of our playgrounds um contain mulch. And with this playground here
114and the safety surface, it is so much more easier to maintain, to keep clean for a access with children with disabilities. They can uh you know, I don't I don't know how hard it is, but the the mulch is really deep. sometimes and there is ADA access but I'm sure it's pretty difficult to move around if you're in a wheelchair or sometime you have mobility issues it's not going to be easy to walk on bulge or be pushed in. So this is really a nice project of inclusion as well. Um, I'd like to say that the the man hours involved in maintaining the playgrounds with the mulch and the cost is just it's overwhelming. So, it would be uh beneficial for us to since we have a lot of new playgrounds already to move forward
115with trying to get rid of the mulch and get these soft surface um playgrounds put in so we can you know have not only that they're more hygienic. God knows what's in those mulches poor kids, you know, and they'll go in there run around. They'll dig around. So you got some areas are are soft and thick, some areas are thin. I mean, they're like a Jack Russell. These kids, they just But u I think I think that it's just something that's, you know, that I really enjoyed seeing come to completion. And the kids love it. It's a beautiful playground. And uh I think it's just a a great thing to keep going moving forward with. Um these are the um the sun shades for the outdoor instructional space. We have two at Netherwood, one at
116North Park, one at Violet. And today I met with um Angel Rivera from American Recreation to um get locations, sizes, and quotes for Ralph R. Smith and have one to have one for the sixth grade class. Um so we'll be getting some feedback from him shortly. Um because they're they're another wonderful project to uh I mean they come in so so handy, right? You can have You can have uh what do they what do they do? The moving updates, right? They have PTA. Um a lot of activities that go on. Um it's also a nice emergency shelter in case you're outside and next thing you know it's downpouring. So, you know, so there's a lot of good uses for these sun shades and outdoor instructional spaces. So once we have those two finalized, um the
117whole district will have them. This was an internal project. I'm proud of the staff for this because it was used for storage. It was, you know, filled with stuff and just wasn't used for years. So I have to credit um the custodians for cleaning up that floor. So well this is HPE gymnasium fun and um now it's used for healthy kids before and after school daycare and picture on the left is when it was finished after being painted clean um the floor waxed windows done. Um our our maintenance staff did the uh electrical for adding the uh exit signs and putting better exit lighting. So, it really came out wonderful and the space is being utilized um every day now. It's great. Uh now turn it over to where I jump in. Yeah. Um thank
118you for having me tonight. My name is Gregory Cro. I'm the new director of facilities for Hyde Park. Um and I thank you for again for having me. Uh I'm going to update you on our capital projects. Um this is phase 2A which was primarily the Violet Avenue Elementary School. Uh this slide depicts where we converted our steam boiler system and heating system in the building to a hot water system which helps to uh get more even heat throughout the building and keep the heat consistent in the classroom. So you don't have where a radiator opens up and all of a sudden the room gets very hot and then as it cuts down it starts getting much colder. So, it helps balance the heat and the heat mode in the room much more efficiently um
119throughout the space. And the picture on the right is depicting the circulator pumps that were installed to circulate that water through the building. There's actually another set of those uh pumps on the back side of the boiler that's pictured in the front there. Um, also part of Violet Avenue was the installation of new unit ventilators in all of the classrooms. Those unit ventilators not only heat the space, they exchange the air um in the classroom as Rick was was mentioning uh Rich was mentioning earlier. Um, and they also have the cooling coils in them to provide air conditioning. Um, and the two pictures on the left are the variable refrigerant flow condensers, which are uh the most efficient type of air conditioning condensers on the market, which allow the compressors to regulate the flow of
120refrigerant needed based on the demand. and and um as the demand comes down, it allows them to to back down um without just shutting them off completely and and having them come on and off on a consistent basis. Um that uh piping from those units out to the classrooms was tested that was completed last week. Um, we expect them to be starting the comfort testing of the air conditioning uh within the coming days and as uh it starts warming up outside. That process is going to take several weeks until we were able to really get a good balance of the uh air conditioning in those classrooms. Um, so we do expect that on the second shift, uh, evening hours, the contractors will continue to be working in the in the spaces to wrap up all
121of the punch list items, which are things that the architects and engineers um have pointed out that need to be addressed in those those spaces. Uh phase 2B was uh the beautiful, beautiful renovation of Havlin Middle School's auditorium. Every time I walk into that building, I'm just so impressed by the work that was done in that space. Um I I I really applaud the district for for doing this renovation project. Very beautiful space. Along with Havlin Middle School was the installation of the security vestibule. Um that work is completed and functioning. What let me in the first couple of times I went through my swipe card wasn't working at the time. So it was doing its job. It it sensed the card. It wasn't allowing it to go into the space. Uh phase 2B Ralph
122R. Smith received a new uh entrance bus loop as well as a teacher and staff parking lot. Beautiful new flag pole with a beautiful American flag there and that wonderful blue sky that I was really impressed with that that picture there. Um and we're working through punch list items over there as well. We're expecting most of the work to be completed last week, but there are still some some additional punch list items. Question. Sure. Start phase 3A. I thought in 2A or 2B there was the security vestibular at Violet Avenue, but I don't see listed here. Is there an update on that? Violet of the next, right? Violet. I thought there was time. I didn't think there was any blackure part. It was longer. Uh um we can do is we can get back to
123the board on that. Sure. Because I just every school's listed and I just know security festival vestibials was a really important piece of these of these projects. So that would be great to get an update at some point. Thank you. Absolutely. Uh so phase 3A at your high school, we had our kickoff meeting on March 11th. Um, and although you won't see a lot of the work starting right this moment, it's it allows us to uh be able to start the uh process of contractors getting all of their submittals of materials and approvals from the architects and engineers in um our general contractor is Ferrari and Suns out of Pipsy, New York. Mechanical contractor is SN O Construction Services out of Pleasant Valley, New York. Uh electrical contractor is I hope I'm saying it right,
124Salto Electric. Okay, thank you. Uh out of Ryan Beck, New York. Um all of these contractors I understand from the Palumbo Group um who is our management company have done work for the district before and have done quality work and we have no concerns with any of the the contractors um being able to fulfill their their part of the deal here. Um also, um we have some ACM abatement scheduled for spring break. That's asbestous containing materials. Um the middle picture there is the domestic water tank that is insulated with asbestous containing materials. That is a bulk of that um abatement project that will take place. We will begin to see postings uh posted on the doors 10 days prior to that work starting. Um we've reached out to administration at FDR to let them know
125so they can uh let staff know that those postings will be going up, but all of that work will take place during spring break when the buildings are are not occupied. Are are they going to do the u the floor that was flooded that has asbestous? Yes, that that work is scheduled. Um we're spring break as well. Um the way we have that structured right now is that there will be the patchwork done so we can get reoccupied in there and then we're going to go back into there over the summer and abate the entire floor and replace the entire floor in there because there are other concerns that it might have some issues if we just leave patchwork. opens. Yeah. Uh phase 3B are new security vestibules at Netherwood North Park. Um Hide Park
126Elementary and District Office. Um we will also have a new well and water treatment facility at Netherwood Elementary School. I've I've been um informed that we've had some well uh issues with the well pump over there um within the last year or so. Um, so part of this project is to to replace that well, that well pump and the uh water treatment facility so that we're in uh 100% compliance with the Department of Health uh for our domestic water district office here will be receiving a new septic system. Uh with that, uh that work is scheduled to start, um we're hoping, um during spring break as well. Um so there will be work going on here um for that system so that um we can get that taken care of. Pre-bid walkthroughs were held on
127March the 6th. We had uh expedited our bid opening. Originally, it was going to be on March 25th, but we expedited that to March 18th because uh um construction management firm had gotten some information back to us that uh lead times on some of the items that were needed to get the security vestibules done were long long showing to be longer lead items um than we would have liked. So, we're trying to buy a little bit more time uh by having our bid opening sooner. Um we did complete contractor qualifications on the 19th and we I believe we have um the proposals to the board tonight for um awarding those bids at tonight's meeting. Uh, with that, I would like to thank the board for all of your work and the administration for all of
128your hard work as well in support of the facilities department because without your help and support, we can't do our jobs effectively and as efficiently um, as the community of Pike Park would like. And we thank you for all of that. Any other questions? Any questions? Just a quick one for me. So, all the bid awards that we get with the new contractors, um I don't know if you're you know, but we had a lot of issues at Violet A with a prior contractor. Is that one getting any of these bids? Okay. We we are very happy to deal with that. Yeah. Um I Yes. All except the electrical contractor have done work for the district before and they were very comfortable with that. Um, and the electrical contractor has done work with Palumbo before,
129so they're familiar with their work and and abilities to do the job as well. So, yeah. Any other questions? Okay, with that, we will get back to you on the um B Avenue. Let's get all those somebody else. All right, moving on to 7.4, the budget update with Dr. Roman and his Steinberg. Good evening, everyone. So, this evening we're going to be presenting um another uh segment of the budget. But before we do that, I I'm really excited. Uh this afternoon, both Linda and I uh did our first recording of a three-part uh video series that we're going to be launching in about another week or so for the budget. So, it will be sort of like a budget 101. And then it's going to carry us through to where we're investing our resources to
130support our students. And then lastly, it will be how do we engage the community in the budgetary process? And so, we're really excited about launching those. Um again, uh as we had alluded to in previous presentations, uh everything is aligned to our strategic plan, which again was a community, um uh effort. And so we're continuing to keep focus on the five different areas uh aligned in our strategic plan uh for excellence. uh at the current moment uh this is the budget development timeline and so we're currently approaching the final preliminary uh budget uh which will be my recommendation to the board uh soon after that we'll have the adoption of the budget and then uh lastly we have the budget vote on May 20th. All right, thank you. So, I'd just like to say about
131the budget video that I have a new nickname now. I am one take Linda and John. Yeah. So, uh we do have a few things in the budget that are still outstanding. Uh we don't have a a budget yet from the state. Um it is due on April 1st, but uh it's um may or may not happen by then. Um depending on how significant any changes to state aid are and where we are in the process when the budget is passed, there might be changes to our budget to accommodate that. Uh we wouldn't uh change the overall total budget though. We would just change the amount that we show in state aid and offset that with uh the amount that we have for fund balance appropriation. And we are currently still working on our Bosei
132service request. We know all of the services that we want to purchase next year, but we just don't have the rates for everything yet. So um if there are changes in that um that would be reflected in a a future budget presentation too. Thank you. And our key drivers uh continue to focus on preservation of programs. So we're preserving many of the programs that we have seen yield some positive results. We're also enhancing programs. So we're really excited for next year. We're going to continue with our number of students that go to CTE uh programs. We're continuing to support the winter circle project. So when we think about our mission and vision about innovation, we're continuing to do that. We're really excited to announce that we have our first cohort of PEK students that will
133be participating in that program uh through BOSIE. So that is incoming 9th graders that will have an opportunity to earn an associates degree in a specialized area. um again in those um job areas that are seeking uh employees. Uh and so we're really excited about that. In terms of efficiency and effectiveness, you saw it this evening from several presentations that we are working toward sustainability. We are working toward being more efficient so that we can continue to ensure that the the the resources that we have are diverted to our students. uh sustainability and then uh of course the impact on our taxpayers. Um so as we're going to uh again highlight and reiterate we are able to um go up to uh a tax levy increase of 2.4%. However, we are going to be staying
134below that and we feel very confident that we can achieve these four drivers uh with with um that 2%. Thank you. So um the last two meetings we did talk about the tax cap uh calculation. We did leave this in the presentation so it's there for anyone to uh look at. Um I'll just mention that the current uh tax year so the budget that we're in now our cap was at 3.61% and we did go up to the limit. Our limit for next year for 202526 is 2.43%. And um as we discussed previously, we are going to recommend a budget that's underneath the tax cap. Uh we are looking to have a tax levy increase of 2%. So the difference between the maximum allowable tax levy and what we're proposing is $37,697. Um in order
135to uh make up that difference, we would be appropriating that much more in fund balance to the budget next year. And we showed this slide last time too. It's just a a a representation a visual representation of the tax levy increases over the years. Um the tax levy increase does change for us year to year year. It's uh based on many factors but mostly economic. So there are years where we have the ability to raise more taxes than other years. Uh this slide here shows our preliminary uh revenues uh comparing the 202526 revenues to the 202425 adopted revenues. Um our total budget uh as it is right now for next year would be 25.9 million. That's a $4.9 million increase or 4.13%. Uh something that we did a little differently with this slide than we
136had in previous years is we broke out the state aid uh to show uh the state aid that's attributable to building aid and transportation aid for bus purchases. The reason we thought it was important to break that out is uh that amount along with the inner fund revenue from debt service fund is what we use to fund the actual debt service payments. But I wanted to show that those are two items and our revenues that don't really go towards the operations of the school district but to the capital portion for the debt service. And here we have the actual expenditures. Uh you can see near the bottom the second to last line the debt service payments uh increased about 941,000. I should have mentioned on the revenue slide we were just over a million dollar
137increase between the two items that fund that amount. Um, also everything else is listed here in the categories that we normally show it. Um, as I always say, the salaries and the employee benefits make up about 75% of our total budget. Um, I think that's right where we should be. We're pretty much in line with New York State. Uh, the reason why salaries and benefits make up so much of our budget is that we actually employ people. We employ teachers to educate our students. That's our purpose. Um, I think it wouldn't be uh very good to see a number lower than that because that would mean we're spending uh things for supplies or contractual expenses that may not be necessary. Again, this is really the same slide that we looked at at the last board
138meeting. Um, this slide has a slight change from the last board meeting. We did tell you that we want to have another capital outlay uh project. Uh the capital outlay projects are um really good for the district because we can have one $100,000 cash capital project every year. Uh when we do have those projects and we stay within those parameters, we can receive all of the state aid, which for us is 66.4% of the total cost, we can receive all of that in one year. uh we are on a four-year plan where we have the uh capital outlay project voted in the first year. The second year we used to uh plan it. The third year is when we would actually have the work done. So this project here uh would uh actually not be
139completed until 2026 27 but the next year 202728 we we would receive all of that. And we're planning to have a district-wide security camera project. Uh we want to enha enhance safety and security. Uh we already do have a budget for cameras. This will just add to it. And after we have this project, if we feel that there's more areas or more cameras that we need, we'd be recommending another capital outlay project for the same thing. Not tonight, but at some time, can we see what that a little more detail on what that is? Sure. Um we are required to show the uh budget in its three components which is uh program admin and capital. As you can see here the total program budget is 76.27% of the total budget. Uh the program portion of
140the budget is uh basically our instruction and uh transportation. Uh and then anything that is uh used in those areas like supplies and other contractual expenses. Administrative expenses are not just for administrators. It's uh really anything for the administrative part of the uh running the the district. So most of the costs that we have associated here at district office are are considered administrative. Our legal fees are administrative. Uh fees that we have for like our financial advisor and other professionals uh sometimes fall into the administrative portion of the budget. And then capital is really our facilities and operations and anything we have to fund uh capital projects like our debt service and that capital outlay project. Where where does Boseis fall into that? Is that it depends. So part of Boseis is capital but most
141of it is program and there's a small portion that is also administrative. So it's split. So, uh, this slide we showed last time, um, it's our two, uh, propositions that we will, uh, have on the ballot for buses. This is unique for us because normally we have just one ballot for, uh, buses, but or one proposition, excuse me, for buses, but we are, um, going to have two propositions, proposition two and three on the ballot for buses. Uh, proposition two would be for seven uh, gasoline and diesel powered buses. These are buses that are as part of our bus replacement plan have been identified that need to be replaced. Um those buses are getting more costly to maintain and um and repair. So uh they've been recommended by both our head bus or our head
142mechanic and also the uh the supervisor of transportation for replacement. Um the total cost the gross cost of these seven buses is $975,000. Uh but after state aid uh the cost to the district would be 405,000. We're also asking uh for or we'll have a proposition for nine EV or electric buses. Um the total gross cost of the electric buses is $4.5 million. Um that's how the resolution reads. We have to get permission to um have that gross amount on the proposition. But it also shows that we are planning to use NISBIP grants which is a NAERTA grant. uh we qualify for $257,250 a bus or $2.3 million total. That would bring our upfront cost to 2.2 million. So the bus company that we use would actually give us a credit for the grant knowing
143that it's coming and we would have to pay them the 2.2 million. Um we don't want to borrow for that. We do plan to use capital reserve. Uh that's part of the resolution too because the voters have to approve whenever we use capital reserve. But then after that, we will also uh submit our uh purchases to the state education department and we'll receive aid back on it. Uh because the grant that we're utilizing is a state grant, we're eligible to receive the state aid on the gross amount. So our state aid for bus purchases is currently 58.4% and that can be applied to the total amount before the grant of 4.5 million. So, you can see in the calculation, the calculation actually shows we would uh have been eligible for more than what we're actually
144going to get, but we can't get a a credit or get paid for buying the buses. But we're going to be able to after state aid uh have uh nine buses for no cost to the district. And again, these are two separate propositions. It's not either or. Uh we would like the uh community to vote on both of these propositions. If they both pass, we'll buy all of the buses. If one passes and the other doesn't, we are only eligible to buy the buses for the proposition that passes. Yeah. So, we have the slides that we've gone over a few times before of all of the changes to the budget and nothing's changed on this. Nothing's changed. No. Uh we uh the last time we had the text, we had a slide for each area.
145Um those uh slides are still available on board docs and our website but we removed them from this presentation. Um so uh this slide here just shows where we are in the uh in yeah in the process. We had originally planned to read our bus propositions tonight but we did change that. Um that's this this is related to the reasons that the uh board had to modify the agenda for tonight. Um so there is no need to read the bus propositions. Um, I'll just say quickly that the reason we had uh requested a change for the bus propositions is we were told by our bus sales company that their uh company was planning to um to uh add the tariffs that they would be subject to to the cost of the buses for their districts.
146um they are under New York State contract and when they uh reached out to the New York State Office of General Services about that, they learned that this is not a qualifying item to adjust their contract and New York State is not allowing the bus companies to currently add the tariffs um even if they have to pay them to their contract amounts. Uh they were told that that's something that would have to be negotiated in the next contract renewal. So because of that, we won't be subject to paying any tariffs even if our bus sales company is at this time. So we um removed that we changed the budget uh propositions back to the way it was and we'll be asking the board to remove those uh resolutions from agenda. So we have one more
147presentation before the night that the board would adopt the property tax report card. So that would be on April 10th. on April 22nd when you adopt the property tax report card. That's when the board is actually accepting the uh superintendent's uh uh proposal for the budget. Uh you already have a resolution that was passed at the last meeting to have a general fund budget. Um but there is no dollar amount in it. The property tax report card um has the actual uh details of the budget and we're required to file that with uh the state education department after the board adopts that. Um after the board adopts the property tax report card, we can schedule the budget hearing. Uh that'll be here on May 8th at 6 PM uh before the regular board meeting that
148day. And then our school budget vote and board member election is at Havlin Middle School on May 20th from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. So we'd be happy to answer any questions. Oh, looks good. No changes from last time. So it's good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right, moving on to 8.1. Can I get a motion to open public participation? So moved. Katie, second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. The board reminds speakers that the public comment portion of our meeting is only one item on a lengthy agenda. This segment of public participation will be limited to an overall time of 21 minutes. We ask that each speaker be concise and that the remarks be limited to three minutes each. We expect individuals participating in public comment to speak respectfully and courteously
149modeling proper civility and decorum for our students. Would anyone like to address the board? Oh, I forgot to say when please provide your name and address when you you tell you you live in where where you where you live when you reach the program. Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Octavia Wise. Um address is more res. Um today was perfect timing coming here. I just wanted to shed light on what's going on in the special education department. Um, I have to first apologize um to the teachers within the district because now I'm realizing that a lot of the issues are administration and the special education department. It's not the teachers. The teachers are implementing what is what they've been told to do. Um, so I'm apologize to a lot of teachers for um
150putting them in the middle of a lot of situations that's going on special education department. So I've been in disagreement with the district for a while now um for both kids of mine. How much money does a district get for a classified child? That's one of the questions I'm going to ask. Why is it that my three-year-old non-verbal son gets accepted to a school that does not have special related services according to his IEP? Whose responsibility whose responsibility was it to ensure that the school had the appropriate service to provide faith? It's completely illegal for a district to accept a school without services for a child and vice versa. Even more sadly, I had to reach out to district to say that there's no services being provided. I guess they were waiting for my non-verbal
151autistic three-year-old son to let me know. Just recently, the board is trying to fight my request for a nurse being provided for transportation due to his rescue medication, which is diapam. What aid on the bus can give diapam the seizures more than 5 minutes. Just this past week, the special education department felt the need to delay my 15 days resolution meeting. I dropped a due process and they felt the need not to respect the state law, the state regulations of in New York State Education Department. They lad again with my 15 days which cost me a spot that had that could possibly provide my son faith. What showed me was that my child needs are not a concern to the district even though we pay our taxes. Most might think that this is not a
152community problem, but it is. Many might like many might think that this problem doesn't hit home, but it does. I had to request an independent educational evaluation for my 10-year-old daughter because the special education department decided to declassify her against me and my husband wishes and my advocate that was there. Your tax dollars paid for this evaluation which concluded the sexy as a new diagnosis. Prior to this um prior to the classification, my daughter has always been in a special education classroom with speech related services since kindergarten. Why did it take tax dollars to find out this is that this new disability and not the education not the educators that's been with him for all these years? That's a huge problem. We spend his tax dollars on things that our own people in our district
153and providers should be able to identify in our kids. Today I saw perfect timing 19.2%. New York State 17.8 the national is 15%. Being hours are high in the country. That's alarming percentage. That's an alarming problem we have here without kids in special special education. Funny you say these restricted environment. That was one of the things that I'm fighting for in due process for my three-year-old son. I was in a leash with the environment like as I said that composed me providing a speech OT um and um speech OT and um PT what was the issue with given a restrict environment to provide faith that what is needed the ITT okay the classroom oh north park I'm just going to three minutes will just you know okay take you know a little bit more but
154you gota okay North Park ICC classrooms are about to hit max general education classroom. They declassified her. They want to put in general education classrooms when almost with pretty much the same amount of kids in ICT with no teachers aid. How is that going to work? How's that going to work for our children? But we closing more classrooms over here instead of bringing some kids over there or give them the option come over here. They can have more support and less classroom space as well. I mean more student less students in the classroom space so the teacher can buy provide more onetoone attention. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Just so you know the process. No, no, it's okay. Um, so I want we listen to everybody and then at the end we'll
155address. Okay. U would anyone else like to address the board? Okay. At this time, um, we will close public participation. So, thank you for your comments. So we typically because it's related to a particular student, we're not going to, you know, kind of discuss the details here. But what I'm going to ask you to um, you know, follow up and and address her concerns, you know, privately because I I don't think it's appropriate to talk about, you know, your your children, you know, specifically in in a public forum like this. No, he sees these on every email. Okay. There's a huge problem and I will be at every meetings. I think that we're missing the trust. There's a huge trust between special education department and community. There need to be a le liaison there. It's
156to the point that every meeting I have to go to, I have to record. That's how bad it is. That's how bad it is. We need a liaison. And he hit it right on the nail. Mr. Spencer, they're declassifying. I should not be able to have an independent evaluation. Come back to sex again. So, I'm sorry. Yeah, I know. I know it's your first time, but you know, like there is a second chance for you to talk later. Um, but you know, we just don't have a dialogue here like that and and I you know, it's your first time, so I you know, opportunity. Yeah. No, you you'll have another opportunity when we have the second public participation if you want to do a followup or if you have more to read. So, okay. Um
157Okay. Um, moving on to 9.1 uh board subcommittee reports and professional development updates. any subcommittees meet the same committee at this morning. Um uh there was a lot of this they're they cover a lot of things in the morning. So I had written down a lot of you know highlights. Uh a lot of it was you know already spoken about by uh about the security of stibules. Um there's a lot of discussion about um procedures regarding what h what to do when there's a bus accident because to try to get more in line more cohesive between the first responders and what they do and what the school district does. Um there's discussions about increasing safety training for uh new new staff members so that you know they know what we expect here and they know
158what to do in an emergency. Um I think there's anything else big. One of the big things that we're talking about as a district is um training in regards to reunification drills in case there is an emergency where we have to evacuate an entire building and unify students with families in a different location. So, we're um going to a training about that and then we'll start to plan on a small scale first and then grow from there. I think the other thing that I I do want to add is um we are continuing to build relationships with our neighboring uh municipalities in terms of um law enforcement. And so whenever there's an emergency situation in a particular uh location, whether it's the town of of Hide Park or the town of Pikipsy, we're just making
159sure that the communication lines are open so that in the event of an emergency, our building principles, our central office is made aware so that we can take the appropriate action. Um so that's something that u both Melissa and I are working on. Any other committees? Next week, next week the Dutch County School Board is going to meet and special ed is going to meet on Monday. So maybe on Monday we'll talk in general about a couple things related to this. 9.2 board discussion including consent agenda items. Any discussion? So, one of the things in the in the agenda is we're we're now going to use the super eval tool for our board self- evaluations. Um, so we probably have to have some education on that, right? I thought you had it already. Did we
160have it for for the board? No, we're going to we're going to coordinate that. Yeah, we had we had Well, we had the education and just a refresher on the tool for the tool for superintendent. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't get anything from the board self evaluation. All right. Sorry. So, I think a meeting on that would be good. And then also mentioning that um there will be three seats available um this this year for board of education. So the current board members whose terms will expire are Ed's mine and Katies. So petitions are available online or from the district clerk. Um you need 31 qualified voter signatures. uh required and the due date uh must be in by April 21st by 5:00 pm. So if you're interested in running anymore, there's applications uh at our
161office or online. Any other board discussions, consent agenda items? All right, moving on to 10.1. Can I get a motion? Well, so this is No, now we're not excluding it. Can I get a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? So good. Can I just second Christine? Yeah. Not a question, right? No. So, I just want to uh recognize before the consent agenda two individuals here this evening. I first want to recognize and welcome um Ryan Judge who will be our new chief of HR and professional development. And I also want to congratulate uh Principal Delisandro for this evening. She will be recommended for tenure uh as an administrator in the district. Uh tremendous kudos to your accomplishments and all that you've done uh so far and we're looking forward to seeing you grow as a
162leader in the district. So congratulations. Thank you. I think we have a motion in a second, right? Yes, I just need to vote. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion carried. 11.1 Terms and conditions for employment chief of human resources and professional development. And I get a motion to approve 11.1. So moved, Margaret. Second. Katie. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Welcome. Now it's official. That was close. 11.2 our calendar adoption at a glance. Student attendance. I just have one. We I need a motion in a second and then so moved. Seconded. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. My discussion because I was so excited. Are we done with the two-hour delays? Yes. Okay. What did you think? That's the most exciting thing I've ever heard. I'm so happy. I'm sorry. She She asked
163if we're getting the twohour delays. The scheduled two-hour delays. Oh my goodness. Any more discussion? It is. All right. All those in favor? All right. Opposed? Motion carried. I think we're not doing 11.3 and 11.4. Correct. Yes. Okay. So 11.5 revision of legal notice for the 2025 2526 budget vote in board member election followed by the annual meeting of the district. Can I get a motion for 11.5? Motion. Second ite. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Moving on to our second uh public participation. Could I get a motion to enter public participation? So moved, Katie. Second, Margaret. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Same rules apply. Three minutes. Um, but we only have a total of 12 minutes. Would anyone like to address the board? All right. If not,
164we'll close public participation. Any other matters deemed necessary by the board? Nope. No need for a second executive session, right? No. All right. And uh can I get a motion to uh adjourn tonight's meeting? So move that. Second. All those in favor? Uh opposed? Motion carried. Thank you.