001e e e every have all p or all heads D will follow great uh is there run now see soal sh saying that was was our blood drive so he wants to thank the Varsity Club and the national owner Society with that and then finally uh Varsity Club will be um helping to host the boys volleyball first home game tomorrow at we have some additional uh Pride that I want to share with folks uh first we would like to we highlight some of the students that participated in the kids challenge over at North Park Elementary [Music] School doors then we wanted to recognize uh recognition for one of our winners um a number of winners uh across the district and if you didn't have an opportunity um I actually part Roman who put me on
002a spinning some sort of spinning device and explained to me the physics behind it which was uh a little daring on my part but nevertheless a lot of fun um so I do want to recognize a number of students uh from FDR first place was Nathaniel Conroy we had second place Hunter zasowski uh third place we had fataa uh at havin Middle School we have first place Ben Hicks uh Second Place Annabelle badson third place we have Paul rash uh honorable mention or Alexander glass uh in our elementary schools uh fifth grade first place we had Sophia Nash uh second place we had Chloe uh soia uh excuse me uh third place we had Gavin and mentioned or Madison uh brette and Mark Anthony glads and I just want to give a special shout out
003to um Kim nisel our director for for steam um and her entire team that participated in putting that event together it was well attended uh everyone had a great time the families every time I stopped by one of the stations the fames just acknowledged how exciting the the children were and even the in some of the uh sessions so kudos to uh Kim and her team uh we also want to recognize Mariana Scott uh FDR track I saw her yesterday uh just practicing around at VR and I just couldn't believe how fast she was she said she's just just warming up uh amazing accomplishment takes two section uh non Champions uh championships 300 met and the 600 [Music] M that was a little too soon um but the next uh point of Pride uh kind
004of dub tailing off what president zorski shared with the baked fish uh production that's coming uh very soon uh to uh theater at FDR uh soon um I wasn't perfect I know my life was small I know that I pretended that I knew it all but when you tell [Music] Myer I it it way the P we find our Liv it show me and let [Music] all this I [Music] tickets Please make sure you do so because it's going to be great great event our [Music] kids just want to thank um Melinda Deo uh as well as all of our uh parents um that are involved helping this production uh come come to life so thank you thank you all that are involved in that and at this point I'm going to pass it over
005to our Deputy hi good evening everyone we'd like to celebrate continuing the celebrations we have our artist of the month Julia Thompson who is a fifth grader at North Park Elementary you can see her beautiful artwork displayed there and Julia says what she enjoys most about Crea is that you [Music] can next we have our musician of the month Adriana Atkins also fifth grade from Violet Avenue school and you can see her there with her uh violin she says I really like Orchestra because my sister played the violin and she inspired me yeah rest she would play in the house and it sounded really beautiful and it made me realize I wanted to be a violinist when I grew up so congratulations to both of them any other Pride um I have a couple today
006I was able to go to Netherwood we didn't mention that right um so the ne wood fifth graders did persuasive speeches um which is part of the curriculum but they did kind of everybody did their speeches and then they voted and narrowed it down to the top eight I think and so the top eight speeches presented today and we got to go and listen to their persuasive speeches it was really impressive that fifth graders not only stood up there and could you know speak to an audience on a stage but they were able to um have an opinion support the opinion with facts um represent the opposing view right which is what we want kids to do that's part of that critical thinking so I just think it's important for people to know that this
007is what kids are doing they're picking an opinion and really looking at both sides and one of the pros and cons and some of the topics were uh should there be uniforms in schools there's a lot about social media one was about finances for kids kids getting an allowance so some great topics and the students did a really nice job um so that was that was really nice to see and then the other thing was there was a successful blood drive today at FDR um my understanding is they surpassed their goal uh there's 50 pints of blood collected for uh New York blood center so um really important stuff any other bride volunteers just want to check are we good with the sound everything's good okay all right moving on to 7.1 superintendent report thank
008you uh just a couple of updates um want to dub tail off of the things that Margaret shared uh I I no I I I I just want to recognize first and foremost there there's a lot of things happening in the district behind the scenes that sometimes folks don't get credit for and I just want to take a moment just to say you know we we truly see it we truly appreciate everybody uh everybody's effort um there's a there's many students who have been supported over the past you know um several several weeks uh months families that have been supported and dealing with losses um and just our community our school Community is coming together to pull resources together for families to support students and it's just a testament to the commitment that this District
009um is a family and and everyone is is supporting uh and keeping keeping kids um in the Forefront and so I just truly appreciate um everything that's happening districtwide and um and also want to recognize um one of our guests here today she's not actually a guest she should be you know part of the board um but Bobby Goodman uh Bobby Goodman put together two events that were highlighted with the gowns and the suit and then the which was my first time ever donating blood and I have to say that the kids made so I I just appreciate all the things that are happening in our district this work be done alone is truly Collective effort and just truly appreciate all the work that's going make sure student experience is a positive lastly I do
010want to share that Mr well and I did meet our leaders from the high schooling some of the plans for of the year will be communicating with families of our students um they were very vocal our meeting this is our second meeting they have shared their thoughts um and I truly appreciate um the work that they they're they're engaged in to make sure that we still we're hearing them uh we want to keep the keep an honor tradition to the extent possible while at the same time balancing the construction project timeline and it's a very difficult one and so um I just truly appreciate their input uh we came to consensus on all the items that we presented and so that will be uh shared with families so that families are aware of the plans
011uh for June uh and then um our connections newsletter was uh sent out this evening please take a look a lot of great things happening and um that concludes my items president zorki thank you anything from the cabinet or I think I think we good okay I'd like to say uh just one thing uh so uh tonight Nicole artetta our supervisor of transportation is here to uh provide an update and a presentation to the board her presentation does include a proposition for uh buses a bus replacement plan it doesn't include EV buses uh because the committee is meeting next week and uh any proposal for Ev buses will be brought forward to the board on March 13th as part of the budget presentation thank you and when I just of that was I was very
012impressed with the recent science fair it's fantastic to see that and so forth and hear about that and see it on the website you know my wife is a retired science teacher and at St Peters and a lot of those students would go on to the HDE Park science fair so it's great to see that that that's still alive and well and so forth and and hearing Margaret talk about some of the things going on at the other schools and and emphasizing the importance of accepting differences of opinion that is so important as a former social studies teacher so a lot of great things going on around the district moving on to 7.2 multilingual Learners highlights and program in review with Monica contras um good evening is the presentation yeah all right good my name
013is Monica contas and I am the multilingual learner coordinator for the high part Central School District so before we get started um let me just okay there we go so before we get started I organized some material for you to kind of reference as I am doing my presentation it might help you just clarify some of the terms that I'm using um some about legality so if you don't mind passing one I should have 15 here and I'll explain to you what's in that little package so the first document is what um so when you're thinking of where do we place multilingual Learners how many minutes do we do how do we service them this is the part 154 document from New York State it's not an encouragement it's not something that should we do
014it's what we are legally responsible to follow in order for us to Ser our service our multilingual Learners so I made a copy for you you have the K8 and then you have the 912 um you guys can keep that I also organized for you just a little one pager a Snapchat of um our program and our enrollment in the first part in the first page you'll see our secondary schools name of the school how many teachers we have there how many students we have our profession level so I am honored to work the high District so as always we start with our vision in we when we ad so I always all right so I want terms student I am a former English language learner myself um the program used to be called efl
015English as a second language through data research um talken to student State real New Year St realized that a lot of our students coming in English was not their first language so English as a second language didn't really go with them they switched the term to Eng English as a new language that's enl in this presentation you're going to hear me use enl e l and I just want to PR Clarity to that so English is a new language just incompasses all of our students who are multilanguage English English might not be their second language um e you'll hear me say the word else is English language Learners so I just want to print some clarity to that because you'll hear me say our enl program and our L's um and that's what that means
016so who are our multilingual Learners I'm actually coming from Saratoga I was in a conference there today and um one of the presenters said define multilingual Learners this way and it resonated with me so I want to share it with you she said multilingual Learners refers to All Children and Youth who are or have been consistently exposed to multiple language I never heard that term like that that definition and it resonated with me because it's important to realize that else multilingual Learners are not all immigrants a lot of them were born here so what they are it truly are students whose first language is not English doesn't mean that they were not born here doesn't mean that they might know some English it's just that at home their first language when they were were born
017little their parents it was not English it could have been Italian Russian German Spanish so I really resonated with that because sometimes we forget that we think of else and we automatically think of immigration came from another country well no a lot of them especially here in High Park were born right in county and are part of our country so I just wanted to highlight New York State though they still Define multilingual Learners as student who primary man language is not English so what does that mean for our school that means that a student comes in they register when they register um they know in the home language questionnaire which every single parent fills out that English was not their first language that triggers a new YK state identification process it's a lot of information
018to get to where we're going but um in that process we interview the parents we interview the student we make make a conscious decision and we culminate with a New York state identification test why is that test important leads me to my next point this is why they take the test and the test dictates what proficiency language is the child in so if you want to reference your laminated sheet we have six levs entering emerging transitioning expanding and commanding commanding is divided in two years commanding year one and commanding year two I love the visual of the bicycle so think of your toddler learning to ride a bike they need a lot of support maybe you don't even let them go when they're entering and emerging you know they're going to fall so you're supporting
019them you make sure the training wheels are really tight you make sure everything is in place their helmets in place because they your support as they move on through the levels transitioning well they don't you know it's okay you can let go a little bit they still have some training wheels they still have some support but they can hold their own their own and then as they move on to expanding and commanding they're on that rail trail doing their own thing independently riding their bike um the levels is is what we is how we play students is how we offer our services so so when you are entering an emergency an emergency excuse me an emerging you do get more minutes that if you're transitioning expanding or commanding the program that we have here in
020High Park is called the enl program we follow a push in push out model if you're entering and emerging that means that you have an enl teacher pushing in into the detail classes the C Level classes but you're also getting a period of pull out in which you are out of the classroom with other enl students and the enl teacher is supporting giving instruction and helping you learn English um the first two years I love the big and C uh research the first two years and L is learning that social language you might hear and communicate very well with you how are you uh having conversations in the playground but that that academic language is still not the so it takes 5 to 7 years for a person to learn that if you guys have
021any questions I love this slide we have 13 languages repr presented in our district um it's beautiful you can see there I myself learning so much just um let getting to know the parents and the students learning different languages don't test me um specifically in Arabic but I think it's beautiful so I wanted to highlight all the languages that we have here in our district and how we support our parents it is also a legal responsibility that all that communication that we give out is provided in your target language so we have doctrines we use Google Translate and sky elev sky is brand new to our district um it's pretty cool so it's an app on our copier you have a document um you run it through the copier and it translate and you have
022the 16 languages that are in our district there so it's a support for the teacher mostly for car communication those weekly newsletters or um PTA Flyers so that there for us we have the language line we also have live interpreters um and with is uh Miss Turner she introduced a language plan the pocket so those are new uh devices that we have to support our our teachers how do those work are they prettyy so the honest honest honest Hit or Miss um the language pen is really good for the student um they highlight the word and tells them so it helps just for awar of the the the pocket top they seem to high it's not as it doesn't translate as well yes so we're we're still navigating there still to do some updates but
023it gets the point across at least the gist of what's being said it does help so some teachers used it in the fall for parenes we have two in the district so we're still um so when it comes to the data New York state so when we think of data and multilingual Learners and our nice and SL data um it's not as clean and organized as what we get from our new year state test for ELA Ma so for L's our new year state test is a new year State English as a second language achievement test this is a test that they take once a year in May it is treated as as a state test it is a state test um and it measures how much English they learned in in the school year
024that's how they move from level to level so whatever level they're in right now in may they'll take the test we'll get their results in August and that's how they move along in the program um I do have to shout out in December and Pascal because when we get back our next LA results in August is very individualized you only get the school the list of kids and your level so to get that graph I just wanted you guys to see where our elves kind of live here in High Park and they live in the expanding level um which is amazing took some time so I do want to shout out and pasal for digging through the data putting it together um for us to see as the colors represent the levels they're on the
025top most of our multilingual Learners here at High Park are performing at an expanding level so if you go back to your chart that means that they're pretty proficient in English means that what we're doing is working what we're doing in the classroom the exposure that we're given them to how to speak the language read the language listen the language is working so um I would love to see how we perform like comparison to the state or comparison to Local Schools cuz our that is pretty um but we don't that they do not what's the actual like the total going from 20 21 number represent so so I don't have it in the top of my but 2021 so I believe it was like 173 um I believe I should so that's the enrollment of
026that year how many else we had in the whole distri and how they perform but it seems like the group the total number seems like it's going up it's going up yeah it's yeah so that means that if we had lse right the majority of them test we know how many to this year 26 this data was also um we here at the district with the help of Amy and put this data together so I wanted to show you guys um so our El's are taking a ni FL once a year and truly how are they performing so we selected six students across our district who demonstrate an average of what we're seeing in the data and that's just it so 6th grade 7th grade 8th grade you can see year they take the ni
027La um they perform high it's pretty difficult to go from entering to merging from emerging to transitioning so in many cases we go by the numeric number the max is 319 so even if our kid when is still let's say emerging but made a 15 Point growth that's still positive to us so to go from band to band is pretty difficult so we also the numer number um commanding once you reach 319 in means that you are no longer a multi learner meaning you don't take the state test but you still get two years of services and that's where our data gets a little messy where our level one only counts enter into expanding but in reality we still servicing those kids so you go back to this chart the commanding year one and year
028two we're still given the 90 minutes of service um for 2 years and those numbers are not represented in our level [Music] one so last year um this is my first year here in High Park so last Year my position was a cycling position um so I do want to take the time to just say Kudos and P my respect to the person that did this work before me um the position that you guys were in was pretty solid so what were you guys doing you guys were following the part 154 guidance you were meeting all your checkpoints um and it was great and I want to highlight that the middle school was on a list because of the performance of the El and no longer on a list so I do want to pay
029respect to the work that was done before me um you guys introduce the F by literacy you have the one par engagement event um and then the numers and decided to thankfully open my position so where we are right now year one for me and for Department truly is set truly is setting up Foundation um it's super important that we understand here as a district what is who who is a multilingual learner how do we teach them and how do we track the data that's the work that I'm doing this I'm studing so starting from registration I'm Own St providing professional development to every single building constantly helping teacher understand how to teach multi um um um sorry um so as far as as far as meeting our minutes and making sure this year I'm
030working on not only meeting our minutes cuz we are doing that great check but are we intentional is it okay to have 20 LS in one class is it okay to Cluster so many LS in a certain proficiency that might not be conducive to their learning so we can continue to see the Great data and the great progress in the so I'm working working with building administrator to make sure our scheduling and the way we're structuring our classes um it's intentional that's the best word to use it's intentional um the SE by literacy uh I point to L Becca she's one of our candidates um it was introduced last year this year we're making it part of um like a curriculum a true pathway developing a structure of what truly is the sealed by literacy
031um this year is all about creating that system that structure that clean strong foundation so that next year we know exactly what to do how to do it and get better from there um I'm so happy to announce that we're going to have three parent engagement uh we had one last year this year we're going into three um and just developing relationship with the Children's Home of ayy with our families getting to know the student students getting to know the staff you guys and and and the school as a whole where are we going um for me is continuing that cultural responsive work so this year is all ntss right like tier one we're introducing the terms we're giving teachers um the toolbox the toolkit well next year we're hitting the hard the round strong
032um data for enl and multilingual Learners that I mentioned gets a little messy so developing a system where we can track how many else are coming in and truly graduating um how many how how long does it take for them to pass certain regions state test so kind of really looking at the data and organizing because the state does not send that organized to us as clean as the lawyer State um math and Y exam so that's work that's important and that's work that um we're doing Co by literacy making it a pathway um which means that looking at the ELA curriculum and eding the requirements already um the requirements needed to get the C literacy so that our students that are going for it are not doing extra work so making it part of
033their curriculum starting as early as seventh grade um monthly professional development I love doing professional development I've been going to all of our school for what we're looking for 25 26 is um creating two things looking to every teacher content teacher that's working with enl teacher having that monthly kind of like a boot camp really building them to to use the strategies to help multilingual Learners and then as a whole continue to bring awareness to the district um I'm super excited that for our March 14th superintendent conference um we're going to have some options some multilingual learning options we have a keynote speaker um that's going to come talk to us about engaging all student because let's face it what works for a multilingual learner works for all student best strategies best teaching works for
034everyone so super excited for March 14th um just to continue to build our teachers tool box family engagement we had our mandatory multi multilingual learner um family meeting in September I invite you all to our March 6 we're collaborating with Community Schools it is an event where simply come have fun mingle communicate with others it's going to be love positivity and unity combined together we have some uh students performing um we're going to have great food and just a space to just take a breather um um with everything that's going on around we just want to create a save environment where we can come together and be proud be proud of of who we are so I invite you all it's March 6 it will take place in h Park Elementary School at 6: PM
035um and then I also invite you to our annual M MLL family engagement night at at the um sping balls in pipy that is my May 16 at 16 so you probably heard about the C by literacy this is not new to you but I just wanted to um kind of say a couple of more things so a SE by literacy certifies a student kind of gives the Cal and says that student is by literate that student can read write listen um all the modalities in multiple languages uh we had a last year which is great I believe two students received the last year we have 10 students this this year I'm so pumped uh what the students are doing is we have a panel of teachers um they go through an application proces we
036accept them they tell us why they want to pursue the SE by literacy um for the next six weeks they get assigned a mentor this year I'll be mentoring them and we work in a project whatever they want open to their C creativity in which they are showcasing what the being by liter it means to you they are going to present the project um in their target language right now we have Spanish and French um and then uh and then a graduation you'll see them with their with their what is it with their courts with their courts and they get a SE extra diploma and this vet is one of our our candidates so you want to tell them why you want to pursue the SE yes so I um I remember hearing of the
037C by literacy and think actually the beginning of this year and I thought you know it was it's kind of like a nice way of representing how much we've really learned through the years with language now I myself I my first language was Spanish but you know you can always learn more so I continued my Spanish um learning all the way up to my senior year um so I decided to you know it kind of inspired me to do the Seal of bi literacy because it is kind of a representation of all the years and hard work we've gone through learning the Spanish language and expanding our vocabulary and not not just that but the people I you know did that Journey with uh it's really kind of like a family like in my Spanish
038class we call each other like family breast yeah because you know um you really achieve something learning a new language because I see it not only as a way to EXP yourself but also to help other people because you know the in where we live you know there's not just one language so I think it's a really good way to kind of expand ourselves and be helpful to our community thank you I want to highlight in your essay she also um mentioned her family how the the by literacy would just bring such honor to her parents to hear her she have never had the opportunity to present in Spanish um to speak about what that culture and what her parents kind of embedded in her so it's it's pretty beautiful I'll send out the invitation
039you guys are welcome to come um I know our French student he he's amazing too he was the president of the French program here he is ready to tell you why he wants to earn this seal um so that's pretty awesome work that we're doing there uh all right so this is the end of the presentation and then I'm here for questions if you guys have questions wait pause this thank you um these are two students that I'm new to the district so I'm getting to know the students and getting to know their what they like but I wanted to Showcase these two particular student one the male if you go back to the Chart he is in the commanding piece so you'll you'll hear how well his English is he learned English in our
040school district so he came in when not speaking English and then our young lady here she is emerging so she'll be a little bit more quiet you'll see some some you know her accent is a little stronger um you'll see it so I hope you enjoy the video well for me another this wasn't a experience for me so [Music] my biggest challenge was learning English when I was trying to understand people are well when you come to do you need to language because and then you can get a job and buy stuff from store from everything because you know not everybody speaks their own language life experience you know helping me complete my job my school work make new friends I think greatest for me was people from countries like me but like not only
041Mexican people just like on different um countries and make friends and know how was life in other countries and new cultures one experience I still remember till this day is when I was in Middle School and I didn't understand when the teach told me was 2 plus two when I got home started find after question for me I think there someone who makes eff for twice because it's a lot of work it's a lot of work to learn a whole language well for me it was as so a home PR me being a multilangual makes me different from everybody else I like that you got any [Music] questions thank you very good that was just really a great way to explain very complicated program I mean it was it was easy to understand and I
042really appreciate you connecting actual students with terms on a page right it just it just made it so clear to understand where an emerging student is where a commanding student is and that we have students who in our district who are commanding because of the instruction that they're getting here which is really exciting so thank you well done and I I would say again it's it's so good to see that you know these students are you know commencing and so forth and learning English and so forth to help them in the future um you know it's it's it's such a challenge these days not only with the um the nicest but also the state assessments and so forth the biggest challenge it would seem is you know you make a budget you make you put
043your resources in place and then you get new entrances during the year so the only thing I would ask is how many new students during the year because then you know you have to test you have to provide the services just in general how many new Ser students during the middle of the year um this year and I don't have I I can get you the information but miss but this year we have about from September to now I believe 11 students so here in High Park were unique in the sense that what FS are enrollment throughout the year is the children's home oyy right so they have um their longterm Foster Care Program for unaccompanied youth it's a long title um and they just receive students all the time um they raise their bets
044they call it the enrollment to 36 so right now um they are at 14 but they're looking to fill all 36 beds and that's that's our challenge here so we do budget we do strategize we do open certain classes and example what's happening right now is that we we budgeted or we planned for three sessions of ela that are now filled because the kids Contin to them so it is a challenge um that is fed by the children's home so we P it so I I do want to say thank you to the work you know Dr Roman and Miss Turner are doing to just help alleviate that challenge and kind of thinking on on our feet because that's kind of where we are so for next year we need to open a couple of
045more sessions because we already know what's coming they're still funded we know 36 more kids are coming so that's as we thinking it's not just the new kits coming in but if you look at some of if I'm I'm looking at some of these case loads um and there are some there are some heavy case loads like at Viet Avenue 35 more than half of the students at valet Avenue are in that entering emerging or transition right so they're going to need more hours um that's a really heavy case load yeah and those are are incoming case like the incoming kids that came in also um if you are a multilingual Learner in High Park and let's say you live in Netherwood area um you go to Violet so that's why those numbers are high
046too so our programs are in Violet and in North Park Elementary School so you'll see that increase there I mean it's it's so complex obviously to that point I mean I know one District that had 25 new enl students show up on the first day school so you know the budgeting part is so essential toland so forth but um you know the other part of it that's very interesting I found because I work in school is just because you're Hispanic doesn't mean you speak Spanish correct yes and uh then the other end of it is I I get a lot of Hispanic kids who speak fluent Spanish and then they still have to take the Spanish class and in some cases and they say this is silly why are we doing this yeah so you
047know there's the New York State rules that have to be navigated so thank you for helping with that problem [Music] easy thank you moving on to 7.3 our transportation proposition and updates with uh Nicole or so good evening everyone my name is Nar tetta I'm the supervisor for transportation um tonight I would like to start our presentation by just um providing a slide of a just a snapshot of what our department looks like so as you can see we cover a lot of ground we travel about 7,903 miles every day which is 1,422 461 miles per year we're also putting in some serious time behind the wheel driving about 346 hours every day day which is um 62260 hours every school year behind the wheel we're transporting 3,481 students every day um and right now
048our um transportation team is made up of 125 employees we have about six vacancies right now and approximately six or seven people right now that are out on leave of absence so as you can see these numbers just get good idea of how big our transportation department is and how much how important the work is we do for our students in this District um so as Linda said this bus replacement plan um does not include any EV um right now we are just looking at One S passenger minivan 130 uh passenger van one wheelchair accessible van and four 66 passenger uh big buses so the total for those bus purchases would be um $975,000 75 and then we get a 58.4% um state aid bring our net cost to 4,5 or 45,000 uh $631 anybody
049have any questions about that before I continue on um next I would like to introduce everybody to our um two new head bus drivers these are uh newly created positions for this school year they were designed to strengthen our transportation team and to enhance the safety and efficiency of our operations so I would like to introduce Linda Lawler um Linda will be leading our efforts in ensuring compliance with all of our state regulations related to school transportation this is a vital role that keeps our buses safe our drivers informed and our district aligned with all necessary guidelines Linda's expertise will be instrumental in maintaining the highest standards of safety and compliance then I would like to introduce Colleen morren col will be leading the development and imp implementation of our new comprehensive training program for
050uh bus drivers and monitors this program focuses on best practices safety procedures and ongoing professional development equipping our drivers and monitors with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in their roles hi so as a district we are focusing on improving student attendance and a key factor in the reliability and positivity of our transportation system we believe that by continuing to invest in our transportation team we can maintain and even improve our already strong performance we want to ensure kids get to school and and that starts with a strong and motivated Transportation team this slide outlines how we're doing that we're tackling this from a couple of angles recognition and communication first we're ramping up our employee recognition programs we want to celebrate the great work our transportation team does every day work that's
051clearly reflected in our low low absenteeism rate one example is our good news gram initiative which will be a fun way to acknowledge outstanding attendance safety records and other positive contributions we want to show our team that their hard work is valued and appreciated we believe that recognized employees are motivated employees and motivated employees contribute to smoothly running departments second we're prioritizing two-way communication we need to hear from our transportation employees we're creating systems to make it easy for them to share feedback this includes regular staff meetings to discuss challenges and successes suggestion boxes for on the spot ideas and Anonymous surveys to ensure everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts importantly we're not just collecting feedback we're going to measure the response rate to that feedback to make sure we're actually listening and responding to
052their needs and ideas we want to create a culture where our transportation team feels heard and supported the bottom line is this by valuing our transportation team and providing them with the support they need through recognition and open communication we can maintain and maybe even improve our attendance record and continue to provide a positive and reliable transportation experience for our students this is the the slide showing all of that February is national love the bus month and we've had a fantastic time celebrating our team with the calendar full of events and special recognitions for everyone for the second year in a row this is always a great opportunity to shine a spotlight on the incredible contributions of our transportation team think about it our bus drivers and transportation staff are often the first and last
053faces our students see each day they play a vital role in ensuring our kids get to school safely and ready to learn they set the tone for the entire school day it's not just about the roote it's about the impact they have on students days this celebration aligns perfectly with our districtwide goal of improving attendance and reducing absenteeism we know that reliable transportation is absolutely essential for students to be present in the classroom if kids can't get to school they can't learn our transportation team is a critical Link in that chain they're not just driving buses they're driving Student Success and I just want to add tomorrow is flannel day to end love the bus month so everybody wear your flannel it's nice and cozy comfy good evening everyone um we're gonna go into doing
054in introducing the new driver training program and we're excited to introduce the launch of a new training program for bus drivers and monitors these programs is a major investment in our transportation team and it shows just how committed we are in safety and well-being of our students we're not just talking about a quick orientation here this is truly comprehensive program designed to equip our drivers monitors with skills knowledge they need to excel in their roles it all covers everything from Defensive Driving techniques student management emergency Pro oh excuse me procedures and best practices for communication we want to make sure they're prepared in anything and everything and this isn't just for new hires this program is V valuable resource for all of our transportation members from our newest recruits to our most experienced veterans we
055believe in supporting your growth and development throughout their careers with us ongoing training crucial for staying upto-date in best practices refreshing skills fostering culture continuously Improvement we want our team to feel supportive and empowered to provide the best possible service to our students on the next slide we're going into into a program for every driver and monitor and this slide goes a little more into details on our new driver and monitor training program and how it benefits our transportation team and it is not one siiz fits all approach it is designed to meet the specific needs of different team members first we have our new hires training this is a foundation for our newest drivers brand new drivers just got their license and monitors it provides them everything they need to get started become the
056best for the business we're talking comprehensive training vehicle operation safety procedures student Management District policies and the whole nine yards we we want to set them up for Success from day one giving them the tools and support they need to excel in their roles but the training doesn't stop there we're implementing train retraining skills um skill enhancement you might see us we're out in an area that we're doing skills with um drivers and the part the program offers Focus support existing employees to refine specific skill addresses and areas in need an improvement reinforce best practices the insurance our entire team maintains the highest standard of safety and professionalism finally we have begun holding an ongoing professional development workshops these workshops open all staff provide regular opportunities to refresh existing skills team or excuse me learn
057new techniques and expand their knowledge on range of irrelevant topics think of at continuous training and a way in everyone to stay informed and prepared for this situation much encountered the commitment ongoing professional development demonstrates and dedicates to providing the highest quality transportation service for our students and investing in our team so they can continue to provide the best possible service for our children and our students in the district so just in closing I just wanted to share some of the emails that we've been receiving these are just little pieces of some of the emails that we've gotten so far um and I think that they just say say it all it's just a powerful um reminder of the impact that our team has um within our community if you read some of them they
058say things like she comforted the students and ensured their safety or one driver made um my son's entire day and I just want to say that I'm honored to now be their supervisor and that my team sit is truly inspiring and I'm excited to see what we're going to accomplish together in the future anybody have any questions two questions um for the training programs do you guys is that something you guys developed your Sals or do we buy like we buy programs that are you know established elsewhere we bought one big program that covers from beginning to end okay good yeah so a new driver would get it from start to finish and then we break pieces depending but we we you teach stuff okay and then is is it option I mean obviously for
059new hires they have to do that but for for experienced people is it optional or so right now we're holding workshops that are optional okay we we've been doing different ones um like two different ones I think every month um people can sign up and take them as and how is that going are people signing up cool good gotten a lot of good feedback from them so far yeah no looks good thank you thank you I would I would just say for for Nicole Callie and Linda I think it's a it's a wonderful presentation we welcome you all and so forth so thank you I'm sure we're all sure you're going to continue to do an excellent job and we appreciate it these are our most valuable assets you know being a teacher in a
060classroom for 20 years just being in a classroom with them was one thing but put them all in a bus and making them on a road with some of the crazy drivers out there just want to say we appreciate everything you're doing thank you all right next 7.4 our 25.1 budget update rman and just thank you you have good evening second good evening board members Community uh and guests so this evening we're going to continue our budget presentations this is budget presentation number three and so we want to just quickly go over some of the uh points that are sort of uh the pillars of what we're presenting uh first and foremost the key drivers as was mentioned previously is uh preservation of programs uh making sure that we improve efficiency and effectiveness of the
061services and programs we are offering ensuring Financial stability and sustainability and being mindful on the impact of our uh taxpayers and so uh with all of our endeavors um we are starting to condition ourselves to be asking does this support our mission does it support our vision does it support our blueprint for excellence and so we are working through that as we uh engage in this process and next year um as we start to look at the return on investment on many of the initiatives that we have throughout the district Services supports um and the budget is is no different and so each element of our budget um is Thoroughly examined um we're intentional about the initiatives that we're putting forward and we want to ensure that it best supports um our students uh for
062nextg uh learning and so uh in terms of the 2526 School uh year budget um what we're trying to do is maximize uh the resources that we have and so today you'll see uh a a number of funding streams that we're tapping into uh to be able to best leverage those resources and our intent is to really uh ensure that we're not um we're not placing an emphasis on any taxing uh to our residents that we don't need so we're really looking at our our expenditures to make sure that what we put forward um is what we need um and so the focus of those initiatives are going to be again to enhance um our instructional practices providing professional development uh making sure that we're meeting our uh mission and vision which speaks to Innovation
063and so at uh previous slide shows you just the blueprint for excellence uh that we engaged in and the pillars around that student experience well-being Safety and Security Finance facility food service and future planning as well as family community engagement and highly qualified staff and this leads us into the budget development uh which as we uh as I previously mentioned we're already in in the fa in the different phases of it uh and I'll let Linda speak to some of the upcoming uh presentations so uh for the of development um we're still moving along we're not quite to the end yet I would say we're uh between the third and and fourth or maybe between the second and third bullet um I am going to talk tonight about the tax cap um but we don't
064have a recommendation at this time for the actual tax levy uh Dr Roman and I are going to bring some more information to the next budget presentation to talk about that um so I would say we were between calculating the estimated Aid um and the tax levy limit and determining the budget Gap so until we know what our actual state aid is uh the legislative budget is not due until April 1 and until we decide where we will set the tax levy uh we really can't determine the full amount of the budget Gap but being uh as far as along in the process as we are now we have a pretty good idea it won't us change much from what I'm going to show you tonight um listed here are just some things that we
065still uh have to wait for um I did calculate the tax cap uh and we'll show that to you but because we don't have a decision on where the tax levy will be set it's still listed here as I just said we're waiting for the State Legislative budget to be approved hopefully it'll be on time by April 1 um we are working on our uh service request for Bose's you'll notice that there are some uh Bose uh changes in the presentation but we are not finished uh filling out those service requests so there'll be changes before uh the next presentation too um we are waiting for information about the health insurance rates uh next week the deic which is The Dutch's educational health insurance cons consortion will meet to vote on the rates and those
066will be finalized uh at that time so at our us next meeting our next budget presentation will know the final cost or the uh actual budget for health insurance uh that's really important for us because it makes up other than payroll the health insurance makes up the majority of our budget we spend over 20 million ion dollar a year on health insurance for our employees and retirees um so just a 1% change in in the rate could be about $200,000 for us um and then also uh we um have information tonight about the administrator administrative uh budget requests so here's our tax cap calculation it's still marked draft only because it's not the final uh tax levy that we are recommending like I said earlier we want to talk about this at the next budget
067presentation but listed here is a comparison of the 20242 tax cap calculation that's the current school year and what we're uh estimating for next year so we do have to file this information with New York state by March 1 um we tell them what our maximum amount of the tax levy is and then after the board sets the levy which it would have to be at that amount or lower we would go back to uh the New York State website indicate what we're actually setting the levy for so uh just a few things I want to point out here I'm not going to go through it line by line I know sometimes uh some people might want to do that Carl like good for you so I'll just point out some of the key factors
068we always start with the prior year tax levy um and then we um can take a an exclusion basically or add to our tax levy the amount um of new properties a factor based on the amount of new properties in our District so that's that second line it's the tax-based growth factor so this doesn't um indicate um any changes to existing structures but if there were new homes that were built um or other new buildings um anything that comes onto the tax role gets figured in here so that's would bring our subtotal for our tax levy from the 70.8 million up to 71.4 uh we do have uh the ability to uh add in uh payments or Pilot payments from the current year it says here prior year but it's the 2425 year and also
069down at the bottom you'll see we have to subtract off from the tax levy the expected Pilots for next year uh you'll notice there was a big change between 2425 and 2526 um that's because phase one of Bella field um that tax uh pilot started this school year um as did the saki Brewery here in High Park um next year the tax uh the Pilots of for next year is a little bit lower at 71,000 than it is this year and that's because one of our uh Pilots is actually U paid in full and is being put onto the tax rules completely it's the tailor manufacturing pilot for a facility in pupy that's in in our school district um and then also we uh add in here our exclusion for the capital tax levy um
070a few years ago when we um had the uh vote for the science lab project at FDR um our Capital exclusion was about $1.5 million per year and the board uh voted at that time to increase that to about 1.8 million um it was in order to accommodate that project so we've been at that level since then the 1.8 million is actually the difference between what we pay in debt and what we receive back in state aid for that year uh there are other factors other than our own Debt Service that go into the cap capital of the capital exclusion most most importantly is like a capital exclusion that we get for payments that we make to Bose's so you'll notice in 2425 our exclusion was actually over $2 million per capital uh but 1.8
071of that was from our own Deb service payments and made so with everything uh calculated here it shows that our tax uh Levy increase for next year the maximum amount that we could Levy uh without going um over without needing a super majority would be 2.43% increase or a $1.7 million you might remember that at the last meeting I had projected our uh tax levy increase would be about 2.7 uh percent um it's slightly different because I hadn't considered the fact that we had planned with our financial adviser to use some Debt Service uh Monies to pay off some of our debt this coming year um you'll see that on the next slide but that actually brings down what we could Levy a little bit because we can't we can't tax the taxpayers for that
072portion of the tax um The Debt Service if we're using other funds so uh this slide here shows the uh revenues uh for the draft preliminary budget we did add some more categories just so we could show the uh breakout um in the past we've shown taxes other Revenue state aid and fund balance appropriation so we just broke out some of the categories so we could explain that a little bit more um on here I'm showing the taxes assuming that we would set the levy at the maximum amount like I said we don't have to set the levy there and we'll talk to the board about that at the next meeting um but assuming that the tax levy was set at the maximum um we would uh then also have these other revenues to support
073the full amount of the budget so this budget here our Revenue budget has to match the expenditure budget of 126. 6 million um we're showing uh other revenues 3.6 million that includes a interest income we earn over a million dollars a year in interest uh the main reason is that we collect our taxes in the fall and we use that money to pay off bills throughout the school year but we have all that time to invest the funds and earn interest on it and we also have some Billings to other school districts um mainly for students that are from other school districts that attend schools here uh the school districts where they originate from are responsible for their uh education so we can build those school districts and then for state aid I actually broke
074it out into um Regular state aid and then the state aid that we get for building and transportation Aid because that's the aid that's used in The Debt Service calculation so uh Foundation Aid and some of the other smaller aids would amount to $ 41.6 million in the governor's proposal like I said that's going to change when we get our uh legislative budget and hopefully um April 1st uh the state aid uh for building Aid and transportation aid for bus purchases is about $4 and A5 million doar so that money is used in that calculation for the total debt service and then also this year we have the planned use of Debt Service of 640,000 uh this is something that we planned when we were planning the $3 35.7 million Capital project that we're working
075on now it was to help us stay at that $1.8 million local share for Debt Service and then uh in order to make the uh overall budget balance we do have to appropriate some fund balance like we do every year um it would be about three and a half million dollars under this scenario um if we change the tax levy and everything else stays the same the rest of the um or the other categories for revenue and our expenditures stay the same we would have to increase our fund balance appropriation um appropriately so that we still have a balance budget so overall in this scenario the budget to budget increase would be $5.6 million or 4.68% uh this slide here shows the uh draft expenditures uh these categories are are pretty much the same that
076we normally uh show in all of our budget presentations again you'll notice obviously the salaries are the highest amount on that's way it should be in every school district of because we do have to pay for our staff to educate students um so we're looking at a 4.2% increase for salaries um bosies right now we're looking about a 5% increase like I said earlier we're not complete uh complete we haven't completely uh finished the service request for bosei so that number will change uh we are looking at decreases for contractual expenditures uh some equipment and transfers to other funds um are supplies are increasing slightly that's mainly due to uh cost increases not because we're adding a lot of uh different supplies it's just inflation is uh causing the prices to increase uh The Debt
077Service payments you'll notice they're quite higher than they are last year but like I said earlier when we apply the aid and the debt and the transfer from Debt Service against that it still brings us to the same local share of 1.8 million and right now our estimate for employee benefits is 37.2 million million that includes health insurance but all other benefits uh payroll taxes are considered a benefit uh the district does have to also pay the New York State teachers retirement system and the uh local uh Employee Retirement System uh for all of our employees that are participating in those pension systems and we also have other uh benefits like uh payments to the different unions welfare benefit trust and also a Medicare reimbursement for CCA and there's some smaller cost just for third
078party administrators for those benefits too uh that number definitely will change in the next presentation because de will be setting the rates next weeks okay sorry all right so I should be the one driving so uh so we're going to talk a little bit about the uh budget request that came in the board had requested um some information in terms of the rationals that were provided for each and so again we used our our rubric um our rating scale as well as indicated in terms of each item the prioritization um of each of those items critical important desirable critical meaning it's a requirement we have to provide it to students important meaning it's not a requirement but it's important to continue to provide um the program level of program and services that we've provided thus
079far maintaining uh that for our students and then desirable with sort of things that we we want um that there is some some validity to the request however it's not one of the top two um uh in terms of the prioritization um indicators that we provided and then of course leveraging our grand funds so um what what we'd like to do is kind of go through each of these um so that uh the board has a background of the rationale and again we provided a summary of the rationale where we ask each of the administrators to do was to provide the uh rationals that are aligned to our uh strategic plan uh Excellence uh blueprint for excellence uh which are the pillars they were aligned to and then the return on investment and so what
080how are they going to monitor the impact of these uh initiatives and so uh each of these are we're going to go through them um but I'll let Linda just talk a little bit about the funding streams that we're using for each of these at this particular moment that will will be Rec thank you so in the First Column we show the actual request for the items from the administrators as always the first item that's up there is not a request it's just a function of the budget every year we have uh teachers that retire and we replace them with people that are usually less experienced so they earn less money so there's always an opportunity to find Budget savings there um however for next year we're uh for the 11 retirees teacher retires were
081planning to replace 10 teachers not all 11 that would result in a a savings a budget Savings of $ 53,1 and that's why it's in the uh second the second well the thir column the 2024 26 budget the other columns are for the grant the stronger connections Grant or there are some things we'll see on the next page that we're actually recommending that we buy in the current year uh rather than add them to next year's budget the one thing I do want to recognize here is that some of the items that we are um adding to the budget will be evaluate on an annual basis meaning that if we have something that we put on the budget for this upcoming year doesn't automatically mean that we're going to continue that for the subsequent years
082we really want to get into the business of evaluating the return on investment of these initiatives collecting data to determine whether or not these items continue moving forward if the need arises and it's also important to point out that anything for salaries includes benefits so when there's a full-time uh position being recommended the cost that you see up here is the salary plus the the benefits both health insurance payroll taxes pension costs and workers comp cost so uh the request of Mike from last or last time we did organize it so the first slide and and part of the second slide is with all of the St the stens and the salary amounts and then we have uh the non-salary request after that so we uh did receive a request for a full-time enl teacher
083um we are uh including that in the recommendation for the 25 26 budget so the total cost with the benefits is [Music] uh so you'll notice I I want to point that out because those are not distributed to one of the other three columns so if you look at the bottom it's not going to add up to the uh total request so we left the amount there with the salaries and the benefits to show what the request is but didn't distribut it to any of the other areas um we also have a request for uh two full-time uh LPNs uh we are going to approve this request but those funds will be added to the stronger connections Grant it will not be part of the general fund budget next year we had a a request
084for a halftime groundskeeper uh to become a full-time groundskeeper so the cost with the additional salary plus um adding benefits for that position is $443 46 uh we are recommending that be in the 2526 budget uh also we are adding a part-time hourly uh senior custodial worker at hav or I'm sorry High Park Elementary School uh this cost listed here would be the district share uh we already have an agreement with our tenant at H Park Elementary School to pay for uh some of that cost uh because the uh custodian will be servicing the students in upk uh we do have a requests from the Transportation Department to uh change a a position from a bus driver office assistant to a school bus dispatcher uh this was an equity issue uh we have two people
085in the office that are fill in for each other um and they're not there at the same times of the day so when the school bus dispatcher is not there the bus driver office assistant actually does that work so to be fair we're recommending that we change that position to the same title of school bus dispatcher the cost for the district would be 10,077 um we do have a a vacant position that's budgeted is a micro computer technician at the high school uh we're recommending that we eliminate that position but then add uh two stiens one for the high school and one for the middle school to do some of the work um we did get a request for uh math a math AIS teacher the request came through by reducing three uh teaching assistance
086uh but when we looked at some of the data the decision was to uh approve the request but by through a reduction of two Tas so there's still a a savings to the district for that of $5,595 um and then also in the stronger connections Grant we're approving the 12 mtss stiens uh we did change the PBIS stien request from 8 to 12 that will also be in the Grant and also to name High advisor stiens at the high school um the high school also requested an auto mechanic advisor stien and a quiz b advisor stien those are approved and would be in the 2526 budget on this page uh we have a couple of more salary items um it's for an assistant wrestling coach uh this is really based on participation and need for
087that a program we approve that to be added to the budget for a cost of 3,955 and then two unified uh bowling coaches were approved to again even though um the stiens are low amounts there's still some benefits associated with them so these amounts are the so in total the salary and benefit changes there's actually um the request would have been a savings for the budget of 4,140 but uh for the items that were accepted into the general fund uh we're realizing a savings of $ 45,9 46 um and then we're adding to the stronger connections Grant $ 22,37 the items listed at the bottom of this slide or non salary items uh most of them uh we are uh adding well the first three were adding to the current year budget uh we noticed
088that we had some equipment funds left over and we can use those funds to buy the wrestling match maths the uh scoreboard for FDR gym and the 17 digital pianos that the music department requested so those uh requests have been approved for purchase but not to be added to next year's budget we're going to use money this year to pay for those uh the transportation department had recommended new routing software when we actually looked at what we could remove from the budget to accommodate that request we realized that we would have a savings of 31,000 the reason is that we also had a budget for uh uh for some it wasn't softare but I think it was for the actual tablets it was equipment money that we had in Transportation uh the new routing software
089that we're looking at would also provide tablets so we don't need a separate budget for that and also the routing software would be uh paid for through bosies and we receive aidb on that so the savings overall to the budget for the new routing software would be 31,000 and then finally we have the student supplies uh this is something that had been in the arpa grants and the fiscal stimulus grants and we had uh determined at one point I think two years ago that we would keep this in the budget but because it's not in the general fund budget yet it's shown here as an addition so uh overall we had a requests for uh budget changes of increasing the budget by 100 3 1,833 for all the changes that we're accepting into the budget
090we're realizing a savings of 271,000 uh 202,000 of that is through the Grant and 43,000 is being paid from the current year funds what's yeah so we'd be happy to answer some questions before we show the other slides just out of curiosity what determines like a stien amount like so like auto mechanic is 1847 but a quiz 17 they seem like very odd numbers and they're different for like yeah some of those're they're in the in the contract with the teachers union um a lot of we haven't had some of those dipin but we keep them in the contract and roll them over year to year I'm not really sure um perhaps at the time that they were added it was based on uh the agreement at that the contractor something that says qu quiz
091b advisor it has all the lists of the um scheduled J appointment I I assume that's the same for coaches as well is there we would have to work with the on the unified bowling coaches so the amount that's in there is is based on an assumption for the amount of time that would be spent on on on that program by the two coaches and typically it's it's evaluated based on the roles and responsibilities of that particular sport or or activity and then looking at comparable um advisors or or other appointments that may mirror those S those responsibilities if we had to determine a new like a new okay well I have a question I should probably know this what is an mtss stifen question it's the it's the multi-tiered system of support uh stien
092what we're doing is right now under Melissa Lawson's uh leadership and her team they're building the foundation so that we have a a pure mtss model providing tier one interventions what everyone does in the classroom across the district and then as you move up the the pyramid the interventions become more intense but the hope is that by the time you get to the very top where is the most intensive you have the least number of students right now we're looking at an inverted pyramid where we're providing a lot of supports to many students where we need to really build that strong foundation and part of the role of the mtss um individuals coordinators will be to help analyze data help develop um uh plans to be reviewed and monitored on a on a regular basis
093every two weeks uh coming up with um uh interventions uh typically pre pre-referral strategies that we can do before student may be referred to uh special education so that system is being built out as we speak and a lot of that work is taking place and the role of those coordinators will be at each of the schools to be able to do that work what we don't want to do is put something else on a teacher uh when sometimes their plate is well most of the time their plate is already full and so we want to make sure that when we put these structures in place we're compensating um teachers to be able to do some of those extra duties so it's for teachers to do those extra duties yeah it could be yeah sorry
094to follow up on that that's very good point so the mtss I'm just wondering is it open also to the assistant principles because a lot of assistant principles do this because the assistant principles they're the ones who know the kids they deal with the referrals they deal with the family I know a couple assistant principles or MTS coordinators yours truly and so is that also open to assistant principles first that's something we'll we'll take a look at but at this time you know we really haven't made that determination yeah it's it's a what a lot of districts do because again those assistant principles they're working every day with those students so when you know when I have my weekly mtss meetings we go over not only the discipline but the academics it's just a thought
095yes and we don't have assistant principles in every school that's true that's true so I just wanted for a clarification everything you've presented to us except for some shuffling of duties for the secretaries are your recommending be funded is that all of the requests or we're not seeing requests that you're not rec no this so this year looks like we're able to manage I think I think congratulations I think that that was uh initiation for my first year so that's makes our life a little easier usually it doesn't have much of an impact because of the retirees last time you showed the the stiens for mtss and PBIS were 12 and I had asked what what's on board today are we are we moving from zero to 12 or 100 to 112 what what what
096is the number we're moving 12 how many that we currently have right now zero oh so we're going from zero to 12 all new sing positions yeah it'll be two for two allocated for each school and I assume that the roles and responsibilities of of the expectations of these stiens are clearly defined yes we we would definitely have to do that so that we can um present it to to to the um unions okay and then next question is I know last budget season there were there was a lot of debate about the LPNs and we decided last year not to do the lpn's but they're here like so what changed like from from the last you know less than a year ago you know we said no but now they're back here so yeah
097I'll start to I'll start to answer that question and then I'll turn it over to Melissa Lawson so uh last year we looked at the data that was presented and I believe there were four that were being requested to be kept on I believe we kept a few of them but we didn't fund all of them last year and so what we decided to do was let's keep track of what what's the need um across the district and so data was being collected throughout the year to determine that there was an increase in the number of visits an increase in the number of of medical conditions that require U more intensive supports and so uh based on that information what we were able to do is ascertain that there was an additional need for those
098LPNs this year based on the data as opposed to last year after reviewing the data that was collected we determined that um we were able to provide the supports necessary based on what we um the supports that we had in place so I don't know Melissa you want to add anything to that say that you know last year when the decision was made to move forward with two LPNs we made a commitment that we would continue to monitor whether that was sufficient and what we found is that those two LPN were split between two Elementary buildings throughout this year and it was challenging to make sure that the um students were getting what they needed throughout the day um because uh student needs vary throughout the day depending on the health issues that are present
099themselves in health offices so when we looked at the types of visits we were seeing in the elementary buildings and the kind of care that was required we determined that we really needed to bump up our LPN support to make sure that our students had the safest and most um healthy options available to them and so now each Elementary is going to have an RN and an LP yes that's the that's what the proposal would be yes so that would mean that if because as it is now if you have a nurse who's out for something and you can't get a sub right we're looking at a building that's not covered so now that should take care of leaving a a a nurse's office un Su you know without without a qualified person technically we
100cannot expect an LPN to be a substitute for a nurse a nurse has to be on call and be able to supervise so um you know that's we would still identify an RN to oversee and check in with an LPN who was in a nurse's office Alone um so you know I just I want to make sure that you know there's certain regulations around that so we have to follow those but at least somebody would be in the building correct I think that was the argument last year in favor of it um I just uh last couple years when you hear you add a Mathis teacher reduced to teaching assistance in the past what has happened those teaching assistant positions weren't filled so it's not like we were losing somebody we were just losing the
101position is that's the case here too that's correct yeah through attrition we're able to uh continue that plan that started a number of years ago um through previous uh superintendent to um address the again talking about the mtss and that pyramid addressing the top tier uh needs of students because typically our AIS students are are needing the most intensive supports so having a certified teacher has really shown some some improvement in terms of our math uh gains with that model I wanted to say a word of support for our wrestlers for the new wrestling Mass I was a wrestler in high school so forth not Dan gabble but uh there's nothing worse than an old wrestling mat and so forth and uh after you know runting and sweating out of mat for 10 20 years
102you know when it's time to get rid of the new match but I just want to switch gears a little bit for the for the records management so it's not being recommend it to move forward with the records man because I was reviewing you know went down on slide 32 which you're to you know we had just hired a new full-time you know school information systems data person and now with with so much Automation and Ai and things like that at the school level usually you know that person can kind of create reports for each building which are just run by people in the office you don't really necessarily need somebody to know how to do that just how to run the report so I'm glad to hear that that's not moving forward because we
103do have that full-time person who I'm told is doing very well so that's that's something that I would certainly support and then just in general um the micro computer it I think it's smart to go with stiens for the microcomputers the only question I have is as Carl was saying is the availability not just the availability of employees for a full-time position but when you offer a stien um you know are there people who are interested in the stiens and then when they take the stien for a computer position um are they going to be available when teachers need them you know I used to be a teacher and I do stien as a tech person but I was only available certain periods of the day so you know is there availability will this still
104cover the still you know the needs throughout the day yeah no that's that's a really good question uh in terms of what we the current structure and the reason why we're moving away from that is we have a microcomputer technician really doing computer exchanges right so you have this High skilled person doing a low technical skill you know role um in the sense that they're not you know they're not fixing they're not you know so that's not the need is more of the exchange making sure students have access to the the techn technology when it's not working and so we strongly feel that going this route cost effective more efficient and um you know we'll be going through the process to interview uh individuals to make sure that they you know there's someone that's going
105to be available to provide that resource to students uh during the times that they need it good thank you still have more um so explain to me the stuff that you said we're we're coming out a current year budget so that would we just we have extra over you know from expense savings and instead of putting it to fund balance we're going to buy this stuff out of this year's budget Yeah we actually have in facilities and operations we have additional equipment money that's not um going to be spent this year it's money that was add to the budget by our former uh director of facilities and um we haven't had a need to spend it so we're going to we've readjusted the budget for next year that equipment budget but because we have those
106funds available we're going to use it to uh purchase those our code yeah it has to be through equipment but we can transfer them to other equipment codes is that is that the total amount of the extra money from that line or there's um there's I think there is a 120,000 that um in that equipment line the previous director had recommended uh replacing some of the Vans uh we didn't do that is without a director that wasn't looked into and the request for next year was only to replace one of the Vans but but the extra 100 Grand that that will roll into the fund balance unless you find yes unless there's something else that comes up like that we're unaware of there something before the end of the year yeah that's typically when when
107there's unspent you know funds it just goes into I've never seen it where we actually used it to buy something like this in the current you know a request for next year we're buying this year right so because we don't have a director I made the decision we weren't going to spend it on something else so when we were looking at ways to find some Savings in the budget that's why we did that things I can okay that's it maybe for me for this this this go around so I just want to quickly go over uh the requests so the enl teacher as you saw in this evening's presentation numbers are increasing um thankfully last year the board approved midyear uh 1.0 FTE for for uh an enl teacher that was um consumed by the
108the needs that have Arisen uh because of new students coming into the district looking into this upcoming school year what we're realizing is that there's a need to open additional sections at the high school um because some of those class sizes are already maxed and as a result what we need is uh the enl teachers to be able to open those um additional sections into the next next school year um we are looking at clusters um as as Margaret had alluded to in in Violet uh and some other spaces those are things that we are examining we want to examine not just the number of of elves uh but what are the specific supports that they need right because as you learned this evening they're not they're not all at the same level you know
109some are more proficient in English than than others so those are things that um the team is working on so that we can really analyze um that as we move forward in terms of the uh I was just want so so some of these I think you already talked about so like the lp I think you know you talked about just you go bypass the ones I think you talked about a bunch of these already I think so are we good with the grounds keeper um I I don't know if you talked about this one yet but I think Linda has spoken to it but she yeah I didn't say more so uh we currently have a a halftime a ground keeper position that's vacant um it's been hard to uh fill that position the
110request is to uh make that position a full-time uh grounds keeper and it would allow us to provide uh more coverage at the high school the plan would be for the uh person to work later like an evening shift from Tuesday to Saturday um so there would be someone at the High school when our students are there using the fields or when we have outside groups there too and because it would be um you know in that time there might be the ability to get some more of the basic work done like of the the Mowing and weed whacking and things like that are harder they get to during the day so when you say evening what kind of hours have we talking uh I don't remember exactly it um I I believe it's until
111I think it's like a later start from like two maybe two until uh nine or 10 it must be two until 10 right now uh when we do have outside groups using our facilities too we're paying overtime for our custodian or another member of facilities to work also any questions on the previous one okay so this one this was the part-time uh hourly senior custodian uh we've been able to meet with abilities first to calculate a certain percentage um of the costs associated with this position um because they are cleaning some of those spaces that they occupy and so we've been able to utilize some of those funds in addition to um what we currently have to be able to put this position forward uh again I think it's what in terms of the amount
112the cost is the cost of the district is about 11,000 11,600 uh the that's the additional cost because we're also going to experience some savings for subs and overtime and then the cost uh that the tenant is picking up is about 15,000 per year this position was spoken uh about um this evening uh can you see that great that's angry I think you already you already talked about talked about that one that's uh we just talked about that one with with Carl's question uh mtss we talked about the PBIS is the same thing it's just focusing on schoolwide Behavior expectations and supports aim high uh stiens um this is uh I I I believe we spoke about this early on in the school year in terms of bringing aim high on it really is um
113expanding what was in existence for just boys um last year uh with the brothers app program the aim high now encompasses both males and females and so they have a much larger um group and this will help um support some of the the the high the higher number of students out there servicing uh this is uh a club um request from the high school uh again when we talk about student experience being able to engage students in more programs um such as the Winter Circle project um those this is going to be able to create those opportunities for students this is independent of the Winter Circle yes that's correct is there a was there a need like a a lot of times when a new club comes up it's because students have looked for it
114and I know we have students who go to bosis for auto mechanics is this is this is separate obviously from bosis but Mr Rella put in the request he said that there are some students that were interested in the winter Circle project that um either weren't in the program or it didn't fit into their schedule but they were still interested in learning about it so that was the reason that he requested the the auto not so this is not as in depth as a Bose's no it's not like a course it would be an after school but but still giving students the experience of the technical aspects of working with with the cars and the marketing and all of that all that stuff uh quit bro again uh another styb been forign advisor uh for
115this program after school uh for students what year was uh FDR born up you're you're going to be the advisor thr question I don't think so I won't be participating we're advising uh assistant wrestling coach we spoke about earlier uh in the year again we're only bringing this up because it wasn't budgeted in during this during this past school year something that we added so we want to make sure it's added uh we talked about the UniFi bowling coaches the wrestling mats scoreboards for the high school digital pianos you heard about the um bus routing software it's going to save us uh approximately $31,000 student supplies that's a continuation it's just moving into the general funds and then these are the two positions that we're not moving forward uh we're not recommending say something y
116so you you'll notice even in the two requests that aren't approved the rationale is there all of the rationale for each item is a summary of what the administrator submitted on their [Music] request on like the new coaches right we put that in there but oftentimes we see where we're not continuing with a a particular program but we never see that number come out do how is that in the budget like if we stop a particular sport for next year do we see like a credit in in the budget or do we just car carry that just in case the program stops well if sometimes if if we know for sure like during budget season we will remove um items from the budget and show that as a budget savings uh but we don't always
117know like there might be a sport this year that we wish to have but there's not enough participation so we don't have the sport this year but the uh athletic director will request to have that budget remain um in hopes that there might be uh the chance to use it the next year or really based on information that they have that department has on the student interest for the F lacrosse might be an example yes that's in the that's not yeah that's still in the bud that's in the budget and then we're looking to modify to change that to a modified position okay that was my yeah so we would look at taking that money and at the modified level exactly which would be a a slight cost a so just to Circle back just
118for a minute to the groundskeepers so what are the duties of a groundkeeper I think a groundkeeper is lawn Shrubbery bushes is it is it plowing like what's involved snow removal yes plowing they helped they worked really clo at the high school they were very closely with the athletic director they lined the fields they prepare for uh gains uh like for the use of the fields for uh outside groups that come in for all the sporting events right for the people watching home who might think the sun goes down at five o'clock for most of the year but it's the athletic events it's helping with filing its other things okay thank you so before we uh discuss next steps I do want to mention um something about uh the science of reading because that that
119was something that uh came up during our last meeting um so we had uh the opportunity to to meet as a team to discuss this uh further and I do have to than we have a new literacy Innovation team um that's that's being um led by both Jessica and uh Jennifer uh kryer Amy um this work has been taking place for the past two years so it's not something that we're just starting which is which is great for us because we've had a lot of teachers involved K5 um in this process and we're getting a lot of good feedback from them in terms of best ways to move forward uh just recently they reviewed five different uh programs um and are provide they actually not only reviewed them they actually created teacher Le and teacher
120created rubric to assess the um the five different programs and so they're going to be very instrumental in providing us the feedback that we need to select the programs um so we're going to be re repurposing and reallocating some of the textbook funds because we're not going to need to purchase certain uh books and materials so we're going to be repurposing some of those funds we're going to be taking a look at some of our title funds which require us to provide intensive reading supports for students through Title One and the like um and then lastly um the deic funds if we have any deic funds remaining we're going to be able to utilize some of those funds to purchase the material so we we do have a really tight time frame in terms of
121when the state has issued us um the timeline to make sure that these resources are in place uh so from now until the end of the school year we're working very aggressively with this uh literacy Innovation team to make that happen so at this particular moment for this year there's no need for us to put anything forward in the budget uh for next school year now school year may be a different different story you mind if I say something about de so the reason why there is money left over in DEC That's The Duchess educational health insurance Consortium is because this school year the Consortium declared a health insurance holiday meaning none of the employees or retirees or any of the employers had to pay for the month of uh December so for our school
122district the savings was about $2 million so if we don't allocate that money to anything that goes to fund balance or into a Reserve at the end of the year I don't think Board of Education page me what's that Bo of Education paychecks disgus you get free parking yeah I think to your point it's very good to um have resources allocated for the science of reading what I'm hearing you're probably hearing too is they're coming next with the science and math very soon so hopefully I'm sure we're keeping an eye on that too and as you can see um with with under the leadership of Kim niso we are seeing some some improvements in that particular area and that's because they they really have a good ear to the ground in terms of evidence-based practices
123so we we're excited to see where that's going to continue to go good all right right thanks all right thank you thank you all right moving on to 8.1 uh can I get a motion to enter public part anticipation please mve second all those in favor motion Carri the board reminds speakers that the public comment portion of our meeting is only one item on a lenting agenda the segment of public participation will be limited to an overall time of 21 minutes we ask that each speaker be concise and that remarks be limited to three minutes we expect individuals participating in public comment to speak respectfully and courteously modeling proper Civility and deorum for our students please provide your name and address when you reach the podium would anyone like to address the board hi Robin
124Peak I live on hi Park um I have a couple of questions concerns I don't see anything about the bellfield gr um scholarships the five $5,000 scholarships I was wondering if that was happening this year and where we find information on how to apply for that well not for me for my daughter um and I also was wondering the unified bowling stien I couldn't read it it went by really fast is that just a club um because we do have bowling coaches so I'm I was just wondering about that and how that would work but that's it thanks scholarship is for you anyone else at this time we will what public participation so the Bella field yes so with regards to the bellfield this is probably like the second or third question that we received
125in the past couple of weeks about this particular uh scholarship um in the agreement um the scholarship commences when the first tenant in phase two begins which is the 344 units of the uh project and so um until then um the the the scholarship is not available that that's when that's when it commences um in terms of the UniFi uh bowling stip in um my understanding is that it it is a club but I I I'll have to get back just to confirm it focuses on students with special needs oh okay I couldn't read it fast okay okay awesome I'll say with bfield they kept floating 2025 so that that's why people are asking questions that was that was the year we were told it was going to start so hear I just want to
126clarify it I understand why people are asking as I was waiting for it too all right moving on to 9.1 Bo board subcommittee reports and professional development updates any uh let's see at least uh policy Mets any policy updates so we for the policy committee um the we actually spent most of our time talking about uh the student board representative we met with Liz um and talked about how uh process could change so that it could include more people who want to be in that position to give them the opportunity to do that um so I guess what was agreed upon was that uh students would submit any any Junior going into their senior year would submit an application kind of an application like saying Hey I want to be considered for the um student
127board representative uh position and that would go to a panel um with representatives from each grade level and teacher a history teacher and the principal um would at at least to make up that board and they would go through the applications and then select I think it was three to five students to run on the ballot and then the election would be held and they would be elected by their uh by their peers by by the kids in the school and that would open it up to anybody that was interested in the position as opposed to just kind of being nominated by by teachers and staff and really what we spent most yeah that's I for for policy I had asked about the just a little tweak in some of the wording with the public
128participation policy is that still on the agenda at some point okay this there was in there it's on first consideration oh I missed you have to redo it no no no I know oh okay any other uh no there are committees right so the next one Dess County uh school boards Association well we didn't meet but just a reminder our next meeting is next week um bosis is holding the countywide training for prospective board members I think we have three members on our board who uh our seats are up so if anybody in the community is interested in that I believe the dates two members two members I stand corrected stand corrected so the dates are on the district website so if you're interested they're they do a great job you know letting you know
129about the process letting you ask questions so look on our website for those dates at bosis you have to contact Joanne because it has to go through the district part that's not sure okay that's what I well the the documents they sent out tell them to to respond to Kelly Lain directly okay because I was told to respond to yourct yeah they don't need to okay I'll talk it's in the packet too I'll tell Kelly and then chats if we're not talking about anything else maybe we'll talk about text yeah so I mean Community chat again nobody showed up so well we shot up and and Rick showed up and others showed up so thank you for those who did show up and so forth um you know again that's the open discussion of where
130we go from here yeah we'll we'll we'll talk about it during for discussion St any other committees that aren't listed here the uh the EV bus committee met um I think to talk about next steps and what the pro what the proposition might be this spring we're going to have another meeting coming up next Friday to sort of come up with a proposal that we'll bring to the to the board for the proposition the one thing and and Carl and Linda will correctly where gooll both here that uh I think is worth mentioning to the board is that we we we will not be recommending going with the leasing company with Highland fleets um and I think that's this is where you you may have to correct me and I think that's primarily because they
131would require an eight-year commitment from us and you would have to include that full price the eight-year price on the proposition which would be enormous and make it really unlikely succeed is that there yeah I believe that um in order to be approved through New York State they have to have the lease set to the uh life that um the state would Aid the buses on originally it was 12 years um that was the prop they gave to us recently and over a 12year term the cost releasing the 17 buses would be $6 million in order to go with that we would have to seek voter approval for that all at one time um for the eight-year lease it would I think it was between four and five million before that they had wred so
132although I I still like the leasing option that's just I think that's just a noo uh so we will be coming with with some recommendations so so some number of EV buses and some number of gas buses I'm sorry and was the the batter what the EV committee did was the battery issue resolved uh we talked about it U um the 12vt battery was uh being drained by the camera the camera that was installed by uh bu bus Patrol the camera company that we have through the county um there is a meeting um I believe next week with transportation bus Patrol and monor Bus Sales to talk about what can be done to prevent that in the future um and right now they're they are using the bus but Brian had identified some issues that
133he's not sure if it's still related to the 12volt battery or the um the bus itself so he moved it from a three tier run to another two-tier run just watch how that drop and and are we the only bus electric bus in the county with a camera from bus Patrol no um many of most of the school districts in the county have the cameras from bus Patrol um I believe Arlington has some uh EV buses they were having issues but their issues were with their Chargers um it's that's my understanding they have experienced an issue with the camera system that I that's interesting I wonder why we don't have that problem with the gasoline you think they would have wired them in the same they had to wired in differently to the 12 LS
134sure the alternator probably I don't know I'm sure something with the alternator maybe is different I don't know I had the same thought as why off The Bu bring it up to the car class just me so just to clarify moving forward with the EV buses so if they're if we're coming back to EV buses we had to vote is that going to be part of the regular budget or is that going to be a separate vote again for the community I as I think I think all bus purchases are a separate proper shouldn't be part of our regular vote sorry but it's still a separate proposition by the regular vote but right but the other thing is we we got another extension but we need one more extension to get us to to that
135vote and so we're waiting on that as well right right yeah as long is a separate proposition I think that's great well I don't know if it'll be a separate from the gas Pro like if we'll have two bus propositions or one bus that I don't think has been that's one of the things that we're going to talk about with the bus committee to because we did get some options from our bond Council and from our attorney I can see all right moving on to 9.2 board discussion including consent agenda items well so Community chat right I mean the last at least two have had no participation um even the October yeah back in back in October I brought it up after there was nobody at that one and then November was strong because it
136was the EV bus yeah but yeah so it was at least at least three that we've had so far with so I I would my recommendation and we could kind of go around and poll would be to wrap them and if people ask for them we'll we'll maybe you know bring it back but it's it's not worth it for us to you know come out and you know take it take our time out and just sit there nobody shows up and should have to them as issues arise like when something big comes up we kind of open it up yeah we'll see you know we'll we'll get take requests from the community and you know maybe we do it as needed right on on on particular topics right because we did have a lot of
137participation when the EV bus um topic was was out there so maybe tried so many different things you know we how we advertise moving into different buildings putting it a Time connected to people we I mean I think we've given it a really good effort even virtu so so I you know what do you think keeper keep or scrap I think we've given our best shot I would say I would say pause it pause it I want to D but pause it first yeah as needed yeah I like the idea of pause rather than Katie well I just think that we've said we're gonna have them for this year and I think what's the next one March I know I'm in it should finish March at North Park on the 20th 20 so where is
138it publish that we're having it because I feel funny just saying it's not there well we're going to put on the website that you know we're we're no longer going to do community chats if if you if you want a community chat send an email to the bo at High Park Central School district.com only finished this year no I well it's like clear that it's because of a lack of attendance I agree I agree this is where you know board members are sitting at a school for an hour by ourselves you know I mean we tried right like the idea of we're we're still here to listen to your concerns email us at Boe hpcsd and for anybody who's listening if you list all of our names you got to spell them right because then
139we don't all get the emails that's why we go with Boe at hbcsd you don't have to worry about spelling all of our names um and then you know because I I just want to make it transparent that we're we're not saying we don't want to talk to people it's justtin but we've we've heard the message it's a lot of hours wasted sitting there it is and I have to talk to Carl for an hour no I listen a lot so I I vote for you know scrap them for the rest of the year as as needed send an email and we will get one on the schedule yeah I wouldn't say scrap I say pause or suspend you know we could always go back to it again which is great we can always pivot
140that way you know we really were having this discussion last year at one point that there was attendance issues and some meetings last year so I say suspend for now and and you know I just want to look at this in a positive fashion sometimes when people don't show up for these types of things in the districts that's actually um can be interpreted as a good thing because we saw it was during the time when the mask issue was going on somebody mentioned the issue with the question about the buses so you know with all the communications we're doing which are so eclectic and great you know I think it might be overload for some people but we all can come back to it I'm I'm fine with just scrapping it all together because because
141as Z just points out we have a pretty good sense for when there's Community interest in talk new us and we'll hold a town hall we don't have to call it a community chat we'll just that's true all right so can you make a note to let Rick know to update the website and say due to due to you know lack ofbody can approve we're not doing any because we don't want to all right any other uh board discussion moving on to uh 10.1 can I get a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda so move TI second all those in favor opposed motion carried where are we uh moving on to 11.1 Capital project change orders phase 2B $ 35.7 million at havin can I get a motion for 11.1 so move second any discussion
142all those in favor opposed motion carried 11.2 our first uh consideration of policies can I get a motion any discussion moving excuse me Christine you're second okay thank you I'm sorry it's okay all any discussion all those in favor I opposed motion carried uh 12.1 could I get a motion to uh enter public participation second all those in favor opposed motion carries would anyone like to address the board same rules as number one sure all right seeing no one we'll close public participation uh 13.1 other matters deemed necessary by the board anybody have anything all right um no need for a second executive session 15.1 can I get a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting so move all those in favor forgot motion carried thank you everyone