Board of Education Meeting (09/17/2025)

001[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey, heat. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I'm [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat.

002Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Come on. Good evening everyone. Do I have a motion to convene the se uh the September 17th regular board meeting of the Levittown Board of Education? Maryann, do I have a second? Mike, all in favor? 45

003five here. Um, please note that uh Peggy and Jen are excused from this meeting. May I have a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of discussing negotiation with CSEA? >> Oh, Peggy's here. >> Hello. >> We unexcuse >> I unexcuse her. >> In negotiation with CSEA and obtaining guidance from district council. Um, Phyllis, do I have a second? Jimmy, all in favor? Six. Again, zero. We will return at 7:30. Please note that we will recite the pledge of allegiance when we return to open the regular meeting. Thank you so much. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat.

004[Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat.

005[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music]

006Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat [Music] [Applause] up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat.

007[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] to do it. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat.

008[Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Good evening everyone. I would like to welcome you to the September 17th regular meeting of the Levittown Board of Education. May I have a motion to reconvene the meeting? Peggy, do I have a second? Jimmy. All in favor? 6. Um, as stated before, Jen Msina is excused from this meeting. Um, pledge of allegiance. Uh, tonight we will have our newest student liaison lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Um, we're having them come up. Okay, please rise everybody. I pledge algiance to the flag to the republic for it stand for all. May we please have a moment of silence to remember all those serving our country uh overseas. Thank you. I'd like to take a moment and look at the beautiful artwork uh by

009North Side. Um we're thankful to our students and our teachers for providing such beautiful backdrop for our meeting. So, thank you. I'm going to now turn the meeting over to Mr. Winch. >> Thank you so much, President Lang. Uh so, tonight we have some presentations uh some very exciting ones. we um during the summer uh many people think that we're off and we're not we're not uh we're resting, we're we're we're going on vacation. Uh but actually there's a tremendous amount of work that goes on in the school districts while most of the students are not here and most of that work is done by our fantastic facilities team. And so actually I'm going to turn this over first to Mr. Fabiano who will introduce those that will be giving our presentation on our summer

010projects. >> Thank you, Superintendent W. Yes, with us tonight we have members of our uh facilities team uh led by Craig Camarada who is uh going to uh update us on the uh actual work uh that that took place over the summer and then we're going to transition into a separate report uh where I will give uh a summary of uh of the fin the finances of the capital fund. >> Good evening. Good evening everyone. Thanks for having me here tonight. Uh I'd like to thank the board of education for having me, the central administration um here tonight to present our summer projects presentation. Um as Mr. Winch said, the summer is really the busiest time for the facilities department. Uh aside from capital projects, it's the time of year where we fully clean our

011buildings. We have all of our classrooms uh stripped down, all the furniture is taken out, everything is clean from top to bottom. Uh so that in alone is uh you know a tremendous task. Um it's made more difficult when we do have uh work going on in the building. So that was especially challenging this year. Uh I'd really like to thank the buildings and grounds department, our clerical staff, you know, my my wonderful maintenance supervisor and supervisor operation. They're here with us tonight. Uh I really can't thank them all enough. And I'd like to also thank our summer workers. Uh as you may know, we have a a program where many of our students work for us during the summer. the program's been uh very very popular u and we look forward to continuing that

012in the years ahead. So I'll get started. So many of our projects that we took uh took on this summer are capital projects. Uh we have some internal projects that we did with our own department. Uh many of these capital projects were completed by contractors and then we also have some uh projects that were part of the energy performance project. So, the first slide that I I have up here is uh a district-wide capital improvement uh fire alarm and public address system replacement uh that's taking place districtwide. So far, we've completed five elementary schools, Abbey, Lee Road, East Broadway, Gardner, and Summit. All of those buildings have been inspected by the fire marshall for uh proper operation, and now they're online and working for us. The public address systems are following behind. uh they're not

013quite there yet, but uh many of them are very close and we expect them to come online, you know, probably before the first of the year. Uh additionally, we also have uh security system upgrades, additional cameras, lock down strobes, the door jaw system that all that work is underway. Uh many of these occurred at the same time these projects because it was easy easy enough to pull all the cable at the same time. You know, we have the ceilings open. It makes sense. So coordinating all those contractors together usually a difficult task. We were able to get it done and they all worked together very well. Uh just these two pictures that you see here these is this is just some of the infrastructure that you'll see as part of the uh new fire alarm

014and PA system on the lefth hand side there. That's one of the media speakers that you would see uh if the fire alarm does go off. Uh we don't have mechanical bells anymore with the new systems. There's no uh it's it's all like a tone through through the speakers. And on the right hand side, that's a a picture of the new PA system speakers that you would see in a classroom. Again, there's two more types of strobes that we see for the fire alarms. Uh the one on the left is standard strobe uh that would flash and go off in the event of a fire alarm. The one on the right has an amber lens. That's the that differentiates it as being a carbon monoxide detector. >> Thank you. Uh the these particular projects right

015here are part of the energy performance project. Uh we did ceiling and lighting replacement, asbestous abatement and floor tile replacement at Abbey and Northside classrooms. Uh 38 classrooms completed in total for that project. Uh you can see on the lefth hand side, that's an example of the new ceiling and the new lighting. Those are LED lights and they also have a feature where they dim down when uh they don't sense anybody in the room and we save energy that way. and then they ramp back up if somebody walks into them or walks onto them. Uh on the right hand side you'll see one of our solar canopies. Uh the solar canopies are complete at five locations and are now generating power. Uh I the next slide is actually the online uh you know interface that

016we have on our computers that we can log in to any of these uh solar arrays and see what they're doing, see what they're producing. This is uh Division Avenue High School. Uh you can see in the middle of the slide there that's the energy that's currently being produced at that particular time and day time of day uh 149 kilowatts. Uh some other information on there you have the the actual array uh the output uh you know its capabilities. You have the date of commissioning um you have the ambient temperature, wind, weather. All these things are very dependent on on to get when you're using solar wind everything changes it. Um, you have CO2 avoidance. So, it they have a little thing on there. It tells you how much uh carbon dioxide that you're you're

017not pumping into the air by using the uh solar. >> Yes. >> How much does Division Avenue produce in a day? How many kilowatts? >> Well, it's capable of producing 414. Uh, but it depends on the weather and and things like that. On this particular time when I when I took this screenshot, it was producing 149. So, you know, it was probably a cloudy day, you know, somewhat overcast, then that'll that'll definitely affect solar output. >> How about like for the month? What would that be? >> For the month. >> Yeah. >> Uh there is a way I could look on there. Uh you if you see right next to that, it says current year and current month. So, if you see those the the lines uh I think it's the middle graph there that

018shows the solar output on those particular days. The days where it's very low that you could see there, it might have been raining that those days or or severely cloudy. >> That's a tremendous amount of electricity we're producing. How much do we normally use in a day or in a month? How about that? >> Um, we we're we most of these systems came online earlier this year in 2025. So, we're we're trying to look at the historical uh analysis of our bills before solar and our bills after. Um, we did look at it briefly and there was a savings, but a lot of these buildings where we had these on, we had uh because all the capital work, we had some of the buildings completely closed down where we didn't have any camps or programs

019or summer school. So, it really wasn't an accurate uh way of def of showing the savings that we're going to see. We really and I spoke to the solo company about it and they said you you really want to have about a year of these systems being in place and operating before we could really look at the the the analysis of what it was like before and after. >> So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Over at Division Avenue High School, we did uh several things here. Um this is the lobby right outside the main office. Uh originally this this uh hallway had asbestous floor tile and it had a a plaster ceiling. That's the original plaster ceiling when the building was built. Um unfortunately that plaster ceiling contained a speestous which uh made

020you know working on it very difficult. Uh we always had to bring in specialized contractors. We had to do so much as drill a hole in it. Um so many of the other uh ceilings in that building have already been removed and abaded. So, this was part of a capital uh project that we would take that asbestous um plaster ceiling down and we had a new drop ceiling installed that matches pretty much the rest of the building. Uh new lighting. Uh it made a tremendous difference in that hallway. It's it the the uh the difference between the light before and now is just it's if you really have to see it to believe it. Uh additionally, we replaced all the floor tile in that hallway. Uh and one other adjacent hallway. We all that floor

021tile was removed and we put down this nice LVT floor which stands for luxury vinyl tile or luxury vinyl plank is another one. Um those particular types of flooring do not need to be stripped and waxed anymore. So we're going to see a labor uh cost savings there. Yep. And also material savings because we don't have to buy as much of that product. We also did our main lobby over in division. The that was the original uh plaster ceiling in that area too. original light fixtures uh that still had incandescent bulbs in them. And this is what it looks like now. This is a nice red oak wood slat ceiling uh with LED lighting. Really looks nice. Uh we got a tremendous amount of compliments on it. Everyone that sees it really seems to like

022it. Uh while we were at it, we also had our custodial staff. They um they polished the Tozo floor that's there. Although you really can't see it too much in the pictures, if you go to the building and see it, you can see a a tremendous difference in the the luster of the floor. it it really shines now and that particular process is labor intensive but we only have to do it once and then after that once it's done we just have to kind of maintain it every year over at Abby Lane Elementary School we did uh more flooring in the hallways there uh again asus floor tile was removed and this new floor was put down again all LVT and you can see on the left hand side there's a a mural on the

023wall there that was painted um uh the school had brought someone in to paint that over the summer really looks Nice. Uh Abbyian Elementary School Library. We also did uh we removed we removed all the carpeting out of the library. Uh we put down this nice LVT floor. This matches all the other libraries that we've done so far. Same flooring. Uh so you can see the picture on the left there is when we first put the flooring down without any furniture back in. And then on the right, you could see it uh furnished with nice new furniture. Uh the the library staff there did a great job putting that back together. Uh we thank them for that. Uh bring us back over to North Side Elementary. Again, new ceilings, lighting, and flooring. Uh 18 classrooms

024over at North Side. Uh you can see the ceiling there on the left with the new lighting in it. Um the original ceilings that were in that building were the original ones from when the building was built. So that's the spline ceiling uh that you you typically see around the district. They're very difficult to work on. Uh once you take the tiles out, they never really go back in the same. Uh so we were glad to get those out. And while we were at it, also new vinyl flooring in in those same classrooms. You can see it there on the right. And uh I believe that classroom has some new furniture as well. Another library that we did this summer was Gardener's Avenue Elementary. We you can see there on the left there, that's uh

025that's a picture of we took the carpet out there as well. Uh put down that that same LVT flooring. Looks very nice. Uh we've also painted the entire space and you can see it fully furnished there on the right. Looks looks really really nice. Beautiful. Look at them all over at MacArthur High School. Uh we did the >> I'm sorry. >> What's the life expectancy on the uh LBT or LBP? >> LBT. >> Yeah. >> Uh 20 years. >> Okay. >> Awesome. Looks beautiful. >> Thank you. MacArthur High School. We also did the guidance suite, the main office, and the athletic director's office uh with all new flooring. Removed all the flooring, new paint job in all the all the spaces and all new furniture. Uh this is our uh wall of honor over at

026MacArthur. This one of our maintainers uh actually is is a an illustrator or was an illustrator and he does these beautiful murals for us and he he actually painted this by hand. Uh he developed it and painted it. It's really unbelievable. I I was shocked actually when I saw it myself. I I thought it was, you know, a picture that somebody like made a decal, but no, he drew it by hand. It's beautiful. All right, so we're going to go over to Wisdom now. Um I have a separate slide here just kind of listing what was done because this building really probably saw the most out of all of them. Uh so we as part of the capital we did uh new roofing uh masonry repairs um artificial turf you know that we all know

027about that one that's being completed in the back uh new tennis courts uh full renovation of the boys and girls locker rooms and the adjacent offices. Uh new sport court flooring in the cafeteria. New epoxy floors in the shop classrooms. Uh as statement of hallway floor tile obviously new floor tile as well. And then we did uh two new unit ventilators in the library. So I have a little some pictures here. This is the sport court in the cafeteria. Uh if you have an opportunity to go see this, I suggest you it's it's a really a great uh product that we put down. Um when you walk on it, it it feels like a hard surface, but if you actually kneel down and press on it, it does have like a surfacing that's has a

028cushion to it. And that was, you know, that's by design. They could actually uh play volleyball in there. Uh it's all set up with the lines for different types of games and stuff, but when they're not doing that, they have the cafeteria tables in there and they they use it as their cafeteria. Pickle ball. Yeah, sure. Again, Wisdom Lane, these are the uh hallway floors that you see now. That's the uh the main the one on with the blue there. That's the main hallway there where the main office is. Uh again, that floor tile was removed. This new flooring was put down. Uh we did four hallways in Wisdom. So that's that's pretty much almost the whole building. I think there's only one hallway left that we we have left to do. Um that's and

029then the right on the right there, that's the hallways in the back of the building. Uh this is one of the shop rooms at Wisdom. This is the epoxy flooring that we that I was just uh mentioning. Uh we this was actually pretty challenging because we had to remove all the shop equipment from the room first. Um our maintenance staff did all that. They disconnected all the machines and all the different ducks for dust collection and things like that and brought it all out. Uh we had contractors come in, do the work, and then our teams went back in and and reassembled the room. Uh the wisdom lane locker rooms, as I mentioned, was a full renovation. Uh this was completely these rooms were completely gutted down to the cement walls. Uh this is the

030before picture. This is what they looked at like before. Kind of dark, kind of dingy. Um you know, things were broken, things were old, and this is what like they look like now. Brand new. Beautiful. Again, these these locker rooms also have the epoxy floor system that I was mentioning before with the uh shop room. These are the bathrooms in those locker rooms. Again, all brand new uh beautiful subway tile uh design that they did there. All new toilet partitions and fixtures. Really, really nice space. Uh this is the wisdom lane. This is the turf field in the back. These are the construction pictures. Uh this is a picture of the the turf field, you know, when it was fairly fur uh far along. This is after all the asbesus abatement that was necessary there

031has been completed. Uh so this was uh pretty much after that they brought in all the fill that was required and had to bring the all the grading back up to the appropriate you know levels to put down the turf. And there it is. There's some of the turf going down right now. This was taken two days ago. Um I actually was there today and all the turf is installed. It's the the full thing. It's it's fully it's not completed. They're still sewing it together and adding the things they need to, but it's all laid out now. So, it's it's actually this is about halfway when I was there. This was two days ago. I was there today. It's fully It's complete again. Just laid out, not complete complete. Yeah, this was like this was

032a panoramic picture that I took with my phone. Gives you kind of like a strange effect. These are This is without the panoramas. A little more traditional and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And that machine you see in the little blue machine out there, that's actually an air compressor. They actually uh staple this all together. They stitch it together almost like with a giant industrial sewing machine. These are the tennis courts that we have over at Wisdom. The They're beautiful. Ready to go. We just have to install the nets. Really nice. Really nice. Uh this is this is a new addition obviously. Uh we never had this at at Wisdom before. It's going to be a huge uh improvement for the building and and Yes, they are. Yes, they are. Yes. Yep. Line for Yeah. Yeah. The

033the artificial turf field is also uh will be lit. You you'll have the ability to have lights at night. Okay. Also over at another big project we did was the BNG comp complex over uh where our office is, uh we redid the whole facility site. Uh all new asphalt parking lot, uh all new concrete everywhere, additional drainage. We had a lot of problems with drainage over there when we had real heavy storms. Uh so that alleviates that problem. A lot of new fencing, uh parking lot lighting, which was insufficient before. We we added several uh tower type parking lot lighting. Uh it's made a tremendous change. You know, you go over there now. It's you basically could, you know, you could play hockey out there if you really wanted to. Uh electronic gate systems are

034being installed. They're not online yet, but they're the infrastructure is there. Um they're still there, you know, finishing up those systems. Just as a comment on this, um you uh may remember when we talked about this in the spring about doing this, aside from the fact that some of you who have been on the board for a long time know that this has been an an area in need of of attention, but we also did have um the Nassa County Police Department come and do an assessment, security assessment of the facility, right? Because while it's not a typical building, obviously we do store our buses here and and there's a lot of important equipment here. We had issues in the past catalytic converter steps and things like that. And so we asked them to do

035an assessment and then a lot of the feedback that they gave us in regards to securing the facility was used in regards to the design. So a lot of times you know people may see this and say oh you know you're just paving it's it is actually much more complex than that because it's really about you know doing this in a way that also uh keeps all of our facilities as safe as possible. >> Thank you. Yeah, actually the the grading that that was required at the site when they when before they put down the asphalt was was probably the biggest part of it. Uh, you know, they there were definitely low areas that had to be brought up and there were high areas that had to be brought down. That all had to be

036done before they could lay down the asphalt. >> We have some of >> we had low areas there. I mean, there was a swimming pool when it rained heavy over there. Yep. >> He had a swimming pool over there. But I I drove by there one night in the summer and uh Logan was out there with another gentleman at 8:00 at night doing touch-ups on the black top. I was very impressed. And then he said, "Take a ride around. Check out the" And I did and it's beautiful. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, Logan uh he's instrumental in this project. Uh he definitely stayed very late hours. Tommy did too. Thank you again, guys. U you know, we had some severe raintorms. You know, obviously that was definitely on my mind. How how does the new parking

037lot drain? Uh so yeah, he there were nights that he he would text me at 10 o'clock at night and he's like, "Hey, the rain just stopped. I'm gonna watch watch it all drain out." >> Yes. >> Craig, you have some amazing people working with you and for you. Two of them are right in here. Tommy and Logan. >> And you me >> you mentioned about the summer youth uh program. >> Yes. >> And Logan, if I recall, you were a summer youth program person. Now you're a maintenance supervisor. So uh congratulations. >> Yeah. >> Tommy, were you all right? You look young anyway, so I figured maybe uh moving forward, we you know, we're going to finish up those electronic gate systems. We'll get those online. And we have some additional electrical and bathroom

038upgrades that we're going to do over there over there at the automotive garage and um some of the other out buildings that we have there. Uh district-wide improvements. Uh not part of capital. Uh but we did do we did renovate seven bathrooms between Sulk Middle School and East Broadway. You can see it on the lefth hand side there. That's it was a little bit uh before we finished it, but that's an epoxy system that we use on there similar to what we did on those shop floors. We're able to do it on the walls and the floors. um without removing the the ceramic tile that's there, which >> Wow. >> Yes. I'm sorry. >> That's right. Is that the stuff where you just kind of spray over it? >> Uh they they don't spray it.

039They actually >> they roll it. >> But it goes right over and you can actually see the tiles behind that were there like the impression still there or is it >> not? You could you could faintly see the grout lines, but you really can't make out the tiles anymore. >> That's amazing product. It lasts a long >> forever. Yeah, it lasts forever. >> Yeah. The the huge advantage here is that you don't have to remove the ceramic tiles, which in many cases, these buildings are old, the old ceramic tiles had lead in them. So, you know, when you go to do a bathroom over, uh you it's an abatement. You know, you have to bring in special people to remove everything. So, we're we're able to get past get around that cuz the tiles were

040in good shape. Just maybe they weren't really didn't really look as good anymore. So, this is a a tremendous way of uh getting around having to do a full gut, but we but it completely transforms the bathroom. And then uh all new fixtures uh the toilet partitions, although you don't see them in this picture, they were installed uh last night. As a matter of fact, >> we've seen some uh all seen horrible bathrooms and schools all over the place growing up. This looks fantastic. The stuff I saw, and I'm sure when you went around the on the tours, they were just beautiful. You can't look like a a bathroom in a like a MX lounge. >> Yeah. >> And I think what when you talk about the ease of of doing this, it it saves

041money and so then we're able to actually help to kind of refurbish more bathrooms as opposed to a full gut which is hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> Absolutely. Yeah. We were able to get in out of these, you know, for, you know, in the tens of thousands rather than, you know, hundreds of thousands. Uh in the middle there, you see some basketball hoops that we installed over at East Broadway. Uh four new uh basketball hoops went in over there. We also have some, you don't see it here, and this will happen during the course of the year. We have some new ones going in over at Gardener. Um we installed more bottle filling stations on the right there. Uh 18 of them actually over the summer. And uh that's right in time because we

042have our lead water uh testing that we have to do this year that's coming up in late October and November. And just to comment on that, I know you've mentioned it before, but those installations are not easy because you have to run electric to those locations and typically you wouldn't have electric by the old water fountains. >> No, they're they're very challenging to install. Um you have a water component where you have to bring water into the unit. Uh that water inlet is not at the same height that it needs to be for these new units. So that has to be altered. Uh the drain is not at the same height. That has to be altered. The wall itself has to be altered to accept the machine. And then electric has to be brought to

043this to it. All the the original water fountain. Our guys are getting very good at it. They're they're excellent. Uh yeah, all completed by our maintenance staff in house. >> I also noticed you have nets on the baskets. >> Nets on the baskets. >> Yes. That's been a long time coming. >> Well, I think we ran I think we ran around. We went around to all the basketball hoops and made sure that every single one in the district had it. You know, >> not that I hear the Swiss slime when I shoot, you know, but it's nice to have it there. >> Absolutely. And I'm just going to mention that that's what you know like I don't think people recognize um and I think we've had conversations about you know kind of broken windows idea

044of like these little things of like hoops without nets. >> It's not a big deal. It just looks bad though. And so the idea is to like take care of the kind of the finer details and that way people understand and stuff that we have pride in our facilities down to the basketball nets. You know what I mean? So it it means a lot and when you see them you're like wow like they look so much better um than than without the and it's it's just a net but like there's obviously a lot going on all the time. You can't always get to them but we as Mr. Camrada mentioned like we have the big capital projects we have our internal projects and then we have a shared Google doc that we have where we're

045always throwing stuff on for him and his team to do. Uh especially not to mention names but Dr. Zeke uh has a lot of little projects that go their way. >> No. >> Yeah. >> No way. >> Yes. Yes. So um feeling >> yeah but it um it is wonderful to be able to do the big jobs, the little jobs and the tiny little details. So just thank you for doing that. Thank >> uh all right so what's what's coming up next? Um so we we we we're going to complete the last of the solar arrays that's uh at MacArthur and this building here LMAC EC. Uh both of those are waiting no no no nothing held up on our end. This is all waiting on PSNG commissioning. Uh MacArthur is going to be a

046little bit challenging because the meter for the building is actually inside the building and has to be moved outside the building. So that's going to require a shutdown. We're going to have to coordinate that u you know carefully. Obviously uh I wouldn't want to do something like that in the middle of the winter when we're in the middle of heating season shutting down the building. Uh there's a chance that you know when you bring the electric back on if something doesn't come back on. um uh memorial we're going to be doing actually later this month during the u the two holidays. Uh two new playgrounds we did two already. We did one at Lee Road and one at East Broadway. We have two more ordered already for Gardeners and Abbey. Uh gardeners will likely be

047first and then Abbey. Uh probably late fall, early spring to get those done. Uh we're going to complete the required 2025 lead water testing. I just just spoke about that a moment ago. Uh we'll complete the work at the B&G complex that I mentioned. uh continue the installation of the fire alarm and PA and security across the district. They're already working at SulkQ and over at uh MacArthur. Uh they did a little bit over there already, but uh Sulkq is actually pretty far along. Uh we're going to be replacing the track here at LMAC between uh this building and Abbey. >> Yeah, just to comment on that, like if you've walked on the track and and a lot of our families walk on the track, our our students at Abbey use the track. Um it's

048um in very very bad shape. It's an asphalt track. There are giant chunks missing. Um, it definitely and and plus when you think about it, it's it's the track for the what we've named the Kevin Regan Field. So, like definitely needs to be done. It won't be an official like regular like track like at the high schools, but it will be a brand new track that is safe. And um, you know, we'll put some uh walking lights around it and that way it once again is another minor upgrade to the community. Um, and now we'll have a a great track here for walking. the track at wisdom can be used for walking. We obviously have our tracks at division of MacArthur for so like it really I think adds to the to the value to

049the community. >> What's uh what material is going to be on the track >> as there any way to put something on top of it uh to make it a little cushionier? That's the word. >> Uh we could we can go with a a full you know more of a regulation type track with the rubber surfacing but it it does increase the cost a lot. I mean on top of the asphalt, can you is there any kind of uh special pray whatever? >> I I think at that point you would have to make the decision to actually go to that other surfacing entirely, you know, and that would that would increase the cost of the project quite a bit. >> Yeah, it was over a million. Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> What would

050the ballpark figure be for turfing that >> I'm sorry, for what? >> To turfing that field. >> To turf the field. >> Well, ballpark. ballpark >> probably two probably two 2.5 I would say >> we do have students that play on it yeah so S football plays over there plus we have community groups that play there pride right pride plays there >> it is >> yeah there's very few fields around here that aren't used even like the lower baseball field here gets used I think I watched a game between Wisdom and Sulk u last spring um but uh it it we are definitely trying to improve our our our facilities um even on the outside that may not like last year we've improved the softball field over at East Broadway >> which our kids use

051but so do outside teams and our our own internal crew went there and turned it over as if like it was like city field like it it looked it was amazing right so >> it's really about making sure that we are again attending to the finer details of like okay like we have a field here it's not it's no one's using it but like maybe somebody can can we restore it to a usable able state. Um, and that way once again that's a give back to the community, to our students, families. It's great. >> Uh, lastly, we're going to plan and prepare for next summer's work. We're already thinking about next summer. Um, I I predict probably a summer similar to this one. We'll we'll likely have some some buildings that we'll have to completely

052shut down. Uh, no camps or summer school or anything like that just just because of the nature of the work. Uh, the Division Avenue Library is one of the projects that we're looking to complete next summer. Uh the MacArthur locker rooms will be renovated in in a manner similar to Wisdom. Uh Sulk Summit and North Side will see renovations to roofing, masonry, uh playground improvements and site work. Uh and then lastly, uh the athletic field turf upgrades that we're considering at um division in uh MacArthur. Does anyone have any questions? Um, I don't really have a question, but and I think for the past 10 years, I've probably said the same thing at every meetings, but it's so true, is that I'm always amazed at the the work that quietly goes on during the summer

053that even like prior to being on the board, like I may not have paid attention to that, but it's so important for the community to understand. >> Thank you. how hard you you all work uh to make the buildings the way they are on day one for our students to rush through those doors. So, and staff, >> thank you. >> So, thank you is all I really wanted to say. >> Thank you. >> I'm going to ditto that thank you. >> Thank you. >> Really, it's it's amazing. I'm not on the board that long and I'm just kind of like I'm like, "Wow, wow." So, thank you. >> It was a tremendous amount of work. Uh I'm really proud of that what was accomplished this summer. Um I can't thank the team enough. I couldn't

054do it myself. It's it's a it's a group effort. We all work collaboratively. Um and we have a really great team and it's it's really a pleasure to work with everybody and uh we thank all of you for your support because we can't get this work done without the support of everybody in this room. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Anybody else? >> Thank you so much for everything. >> Thank you. >> Great job. >> Thanks. And so we're just going to transition quickly to a shorter presentation that is just a little bit of a related topic which is our um conversation about a cap the capital plan. So there's we're not voting on anything tonight but Mr. Fabian was kind of talk about like okay we've done all these projects like the money was

055a lot of it was out of our capital fund how much money is left what is going to be spent and that way then for the next meeting in October and you'll have enough time between now and then to look at that um we'll then vote on whether or not we're going to approve the plan as Mike's going to present. So Mr. Fabiano, >> thank you again, Superintendent Winch. Yes. uh each month you receive uh financial reports on all funds including the uh capital fund or the hex fund. Uh but it is difficult to really uh understand the big picture. So we've summarized that for you tonight to see where we stand because a lot of work has taken place uh and um and uh we really want to get down to uh how much

056is remaining from the authorization. So, we're going to look at a um we're going to look at a sources and uses of funds statement, which is really nothing more than where did the money come from and where did it go. Uh uh again, we're going to recap uh briefly what um Craig just mentioned, our next summer work and and and the cost associated with that. uh projects that are in the design stage uh but have not yet been submitted to SED and some set aides that we have in the capital fund and then ultimately how much money uh do we have to work with moving forward. So this is um this is our um sources of funds for the capital fund. Um this uh this is as of July 1, uh the day both the

057superintendent and I started as well as Beth. So was it's a look back of three years. When we came in there was 27 almost $28 million in the capital fund uh to begin with. Uh we immediately in that first year put up a a referendum to allocate $56 million. That's the uh that's the red part of the circle. Uh we just recently did uh another voter referendum uh this past May for 22 million. Uh and the other components, the $15.1 million uh was the lease financing for the energy performance contract. And then for the past four years, we've been able to have uh $11 million transferred to to the capital fund from the general fund. And that's the line in the budget, our transfer to capital fund. That's kind of our annual appropriation to fund

058capital projects. So, um, any any questions? So, in total, we had at our disposal, uh, beginning at that point in time 131.8 million. Um, any questions on on where the money came from? >> Yeah, the voter referendum from last year, how many year how many years is that to be paid off? >> I'm sorry. How many years? Yeah. To pay it off. >> Oh, all right. What is that? >> So, as every single year the district, right, we have a we have a capital reserve that at when we close the books, if there is money available at the end of the year, it goes into the capital reserve. >> You switch it over to >> Yeah. But legally, um, in order for us to use that money, we then have to put it up for

059a referendum again. So, these are not loans. This is available money basically. Some of it really dating back to, I think, 2013, >> right? Like, correct. So it it's really kind of a lot of money because it's been accumulating really for I would say about 12 years. Um and that's why you see different referendums and things like that. So when we talk about all the projects we're working on, they the money comes from a variety of of about 10 years, but um none of its loans. >> Okay. >> Uh the energy performance contract is is a loan that's paid for by the energy savings created by the installation. So like those solar arrays, the canopies, the lights that have been changed, that is legally required to pay for the loan costs over 15 years. That's

060the only one that >> And this money can only be used for capital projects. Correct. We cannot use this money for anything else. >> That That's correct. >> So that's important for >> Yeah. And and not only is it capital projects, it's the list of projects that the voters authorized us to spend the money on. So you can't, you know, do what you want with it. It has to be within the um uh the the constraints of the referendum and what you told the uh the the community you were going to spend it on. With regard to uh any time limitations, they're actually these capital reserves do have a 10-year maximum. The money has to be spent in that time. And as the superintendent just mentioned, one of the reserves was funded for a 2013

061capital reserve. So we were about to have that money time out. Uh so that was the first money we went to uh in terms of allocation. So uh we know what we raised uh almost 132 million and uh this is where the money went. So um uh again this is a kind of a recap of some of the things that uh Craig spoke about. Uh we have our security upgrades. This is primarily our public address and fire alarm systems, but it also includes all our cameras, uh, door jar systems. That was at about $20 million. Building infrastructure, uh, this is what we sometimes refer to as sealing the building envelope. Again, primarily that's roofs, masonary. It keeps the buildings waterproof. Uh and uh really we can't be doing much inside if if we have leaky

062roofs uh and and walls that are uh you know less than perfect. Um uh in terms of some of the other projects, our athletic fields uh that would that also includes recreation, some of our playgrounds, approximately 24 million went to that. Uh, a lot of that was the work that we did at Wisdom, but it also includes a set aside for the work that we've committed to on the turf fields at both MacArthur and Division. And we'll get we'll get we'll drill down on that uh in the next slide or two. Site work. This would be uh curbing uh parking lots uh sidewalks uh wherever uh uh areas are are of a concern uh we can replace that. Again, the energy performance contract that stands on its own. Instructional space renovations, these are things like

063the libraries, uh the MacArthur FACS room are two good examples of what we did there. And code compliance. Uh this is really for unplanned um primarily asbestous abatement. Yes, Mike, you have questions. I'll finish. Uh so that uh so part of that money has already been spent, but we also have a set aside of $4 million for future projects, meaning we want to keep that we want to keep that aside in case there are unforeseen circumstances uh and we really have no uh other available money uh to use. And again, we'll we'll we'll drill down on that a little bit further. Yes, Mr. 2013 capital reserve. Uh was that job specific things that we had to do and was whatever we did last year? >> Yes. And we we made sure that whatever the voters

064approved uh we pointed it at a project uh that allowed us to use the money for that. >> Some of that was more like a masonary work if I remember correctly. Like that was it just wasn't ever done. So that part was done. In fact, if you it was funny. I was over at Wisdom Lane um at some point >> and uh for the Yes. community counseling drug takeback on a Saturday and uh there were guys that were doing masonary work and I I went over like what what are you guys doing and uh they were like re-bricking I guess the areas by the the vents where the vents go into the building right they were doing >> um and so that's some of that work that really like listen co kind of messed everybody

065up like a lot of these projects were kind of put on hold during COVID and it was just a long period of trying to get back on track with those things and then plus we had to you know change over in administration and when you think about it even like in buildings and grounds like really kind of a full new team. So, um but yes, those projects from that money was used. Generally, they are a little uh usually when you're writing the referendum, it's a little bit, you know, general. You don't want to be too specific because if you need to do masonary work and all of a sudden between, you know, these things take years, right? You you put the money in the in the capital reserve at the end of one year and

066then you can't use it until you put it up for a referendum vote the following year at at the earliest. And then if you're going to do work and it has to go up to the state for approval as you know that's about another year. So like it's a course of over almost three years. You might have other projects that come up in between where it's like oh you know what that's masonary work. So we don't get specific. It's just masonary work and that way the money can be used as long as for that. No you can't just take and say we'd like to you know put on a wing over at one of the schools um for for some you know new purpose that's not mentioned. Okay. So, these are u this is a

067list of uh of projects that um uh uh Mr. Camra had had had mentioned earlier. This is what we plan on doing in the summer of 2026. Uh it's important that these projects are sed approved, but they have not yet been bid. So, we are mixing some budgetary numbers with monies that are already been expended. So the point here is that these are these are projected amounts and they could vary based upon the the the bid results and that again that could affect the bottom line. Uh but um our our our bids have come in very close to what we have budgeted so I'm not overly concerned. uh we do we do factor in inflationary cost increases and so far uh I think we're a little bit ahead of the game in terms of uh

068actual bids versus what was budgeted overall. Uh and you could again see this is really just completing that building infrastructure. So um it's it's a lot of roof and masonry work there and some playground stuff on the bottom. And obviously the big the big amount is the uh the MacArthur High School roof uh and and lockers. That is a that is a rather large roof and I believe that's a full replacement, right? That's a full replacement. Uh and so the next group of projects are uh what we're planning on doing. They've been we we're accounting for them. We're putting money aside. it has not yet been spent, but it does reduce the available money for projects that go beyond uh that go beyond these. So, you can see uh we've got uh proposals for uh

069we've got some preliminary design work for site work being done at Gardeners and Wisdom. Uh I asked Craig to continue to sit up here, so if you have any further questions about uh that site work, uh but the bulk of this money is the uh is the set aside for the turf field. So, when we accepted the county's $550,000 uh grant for replacement of turf fields, I had mentioned that we are then committing to doing these turf fields and we have to make sure that we've got money in the capital reserve that we're not allocating to something else before we get to them. So, that's that's why I'm calling it a kind of a set aside. These things have not yet been designed. Uh but um we will uh we will be we will be

070looking to get that process started rather quickly. Um so um any questions uh with regard to some of these plans? >> Share some of a little bit about the site work because that's just very general like what's the site work at at Gardeners and Wisdom? >> Yeah, you uh you want to uh the the site work at Gardeners I believe that's that's primarily in the front of the building. uh the traffic circles. Uh there's some really bad sidewalk. Uh some of the slabs that have are totally broken up, but uh you you could probably explain it better. >> Yeah, that that's right. It's it's pretty much the the front of the building where you have the the bus circles that come in and out on both location, both entrances there. Um definitely the sidewalks. You

071have a tremendously long sidewalk along Gardeners Avenue. The main entrance walk from the street to the building needs work. Um and there's some areas in the back of the building that obviously need work. Same thing at Wisdom. Wisdom, the parking lots are not in the greatest of shape. So, we want to see those replaced. Uh, additional site work fencing replacement there. Um, and then the rest of there is is for the turf field. >> And I think that some of it uh also replaces this the seating and the the garbage cans in the front. >> Correct. >> Right. Which are the old red uh which was Wisdom's original color uh but it was been changed to blue. But those those are very old and kind of starting to deteriorate. They really need to be removed

072and replaced. >> Correct. >> Okay. So, uh this is really >> I just want to say that it's kind what I'm hearing is kind of like what you do when you have a house. If you do not maintain all the little things, it just kind of catches up to you in the end. So, I'm kind of proud of the fact that like, you know, it's the wrong color. Well, okay. and we're taking care of it, you know, like it's all the little things, the curb, the sidewalk, because all of that I agree with uh superintendent who said, you know, it we take a pride in what we have here and I think that that kind of shows. So, >> yeah, >> hooray. Hooray. >> And and and and just to reiterate what what the superintendent

073said, you know, we got back we got backed up by a few years uh with COVID as we were just trying to keep our head above water. We were not designing and sending up projects to SED. So there was a lot of pent up uh uh projects here and and that's why so much work is going on uh uh currently. So uh with the planned expenditures uh uh of $21.6 million uh it leaves us it leaves us approximately uh $9 million or $8.8 million to be specific remaining in the capital fund. This is monies that are available to do projects other than the ones that we that have um we talked about here tonight. Um 4.8 is an unplanned balance so we can start to have conversations about what we're going to uh move to

074next with that. $4 million is what we're calling a code compliance contingency. We initially started out with about $10 million when we had the $132 million at our disposal. uh and as we've gone through projects um that has been consumed because there have been you know some unforeseen circumstances and we're very glad that we had that little cushion there. So uh the cushion is down but so is the amount of remaining funds. So, um, we have the $4 million in in code compliance, which is essentially really another way of saying asbestous abatement, although it doesn't have to be exclusively asbestous abatement, but primarily that's what it would be. And then an unplanned balance of about 4.8. So, those two combined give you the uh 8.8 million. Um, you know, and at this point uh there

075really is nothing no action for you to take tonight. But I I I think what we are going to do is at the next meeting uh we're going to we're going to memorialize this so that we have uh you know we can pull the board put together a list of projects. Um the you know these are all projects that are in our five-year plan. These have all been kind of methodically prioritized uh over the years. Uh but it would it would be nice to have you know uh a formal blessing by the board uh as we move forward with them um you know uh for those projects that haven't even been submitted to SED. So uh um at this point you know we'll open it up for any discussion uh but the conversation will continue

076at the next meeting where we'll hopefully have a motion in place uh accepting these proposed projects. >> Thank you so much. Does anybody have any thoughts, questions? students, do you have any questions? >> Okay. Do >> you have anything that you you know you you're seniors now, right? So, you've gone through quite a bit. Uh anything in particular strike you as like, oh yeah, like that definitely needs to be done or is there something that was left off the list where you're like, you know, like this definitely like would be good if you guys think about anything in your, you know, you live in the houses here. So, you know, >> um I'd say, uh I saw like the plans for the summer 2026. I'd say like definitely the locker rooms over at MacArthur definitely

077need work. So I'd say that's uh that's great that you guys are putting it as a priority. Um other than that um I'd say all of it good stuff. Looks great. >> Thank you. >> Unfortunately, you will not be able to enjoy the Mark Arthur locker rooms. I apologize on behalf. >> Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Wait. Sorry. I would have to say everything looks pretty good. I mean I think division has definitely be been saying some maybe upgrades to the library. I know our librarian has said that the past year or so when we've gone down to visit. So, I think it's a great idea to do that. >> How is the new lobby? >> It's very good. I've heard everybody loves that lobby. Okay. >> Um, yeah, everybody says it's a

078very contemporary style, so they really like it. >> I think Mr. Camarada picked that out himself. Correct. >> You're so contemporary, Mr. Camarada. >> Can I ask one question? Sarah, would you like a little coffee bar put in the lobby? Should we put that on the capital? >> I love it. >> Great. >> Okay. So, Mr. Fabiano, we'll have that for you at the next meeting. So, if you think about anything, you just kind of go over these things. I did provide a printed copy of this uh report just if you want to take it home and, you know, kind of when you we talk about in October, you you uh have any suggestions, by all means. Uh thank you both. Thank you, Mr. camda and your team obviously for being here for that presentation

079um and all that you do. [Applause] I have to typically slow Mr. Fabiano down because he has like 75 projects he would love them to add to the list and I got to make sure that like you know everybody doesn't like quit. So um but thank you to both of you because obviously without the board and its vision, Mr. Fabiano and managing the funds and Mr. Camarada making it all happen um none of this would be happening. I'm very proud to be superintendent here because we really are doing wonderful things inside our classrooms, outside of our classrooms. Like it really is um really putting a new literally a new face um on the on the district facilities. So, thank you. We're going to move on uh to my reports and so I'm just going to

080give a very brief update um because since we last met uh school has started. So, uh just I'm very pleased to share the start of the school year uh has been wonderful. Um, central office uh has visited uh all of our buildings. I know with some of our board members as well multiple times since the start of the school year. Uh there's a lot of positive energy amongst our students, our staff, and our families. And that's been wonderful to see. Uh and I'm hoping that that excitement really sets the stage for a fantastic school year ahead. Uh but just of course with every September, you know, you go from um not having school to having school for 7,100 students in the one day. Uh there's always some kinks to work out. So, uh, every year

081there's always some transportation issues that require some adjustments as routes settle in, uh, especially with our contracted runs that we do have to have. Uh, so I just want to thank our our team, uh, our our building administrators, uh, Miss Reeves, Mr. Fabiano, uh, in regards to working through those transportation issues. We had we had some over Labor Day weekend that, uh, that that Dr. Zerian, Mr. Gadis, and our special ed department was also involved in. So, many thanks to all of them for uh, working on on holidays. Um I want to import just mention one uh major milestone for this year. Um this is is the first time that we have that every single student in the district is eligible for uh free breakfast and free lunch. And so uh that everybody seems to

082know because our lunch lines have been very long, right? They're saying yes over there. Um and uh we have been working Mr. Fabiano, Miss Dolce, who I see just wave over there, Miss M. double check have been working with Chartwells to try to bring in some additional staff to uh ease some of the pressure on those lines um because obviously when you have free free lunch it's going to uh be very popular. Just as a reminder it's um it's the meals. It's not the aloc cart item. So if you want um a bag of potato chips uh that's still going to cost money. It's not all free food but the meals are free. So, um, beyond that, we are just thrilled to, uh, mention that once again, our two high schools were awarded best high

083schools by US News and World Report. Uh, that's out of 24,000 public high schools across the nation. They were within the top 10%. Uh, that is phenomenal. Uh, our middle schools continue to do very well. Sulk was last year redesated as a school to watch by essential elements. Uh, and this year this this late late in the spring, Wisdom Lane was designated as an Amly School of Distinction. I think Amley stands for American Middle Education. Ah, so close. So close. And I was a middle level educator. So, um, and that's like one of only three or four schools on Long Island. Uh, so that's pretty incredible. Uh, and these distinctions don't happen without all the work by our elementary schools. Elementary schools do not have the same number of opportunities for designations like the secondary

084schools. Uh but obviously if our elementary schools are not providing that critical foundation then um our other schools do not win their awards. So many thanks to our educators, all of our staff members, our students, administrators, our families uh because it is a team effort for everybody to to get these designations. So overall an excellent start to the year uh and I look forward to building on this momentum as we continue. Uh so that is my report on the uh beginning of the school year. I do just want to mention that I once again handed out the facility use fee schedule um which is at your desk. Um it is the same as it was last time. Uh but if there you know are no further suggestions or comments uh the only way we can

085implement it is by approving it. It's not on the schedule. It's not on the agenda tonight. Uh, but I will once again send it out prior to the next meeting and if there is no there are no questions or concerns, I will put it up on the next meeting for approval only because we do have groups that will be using our facilities later in the year. And I I did reach out to them and let them know that we probably will be, you know, increasing our fees and so just be prepared. But um there's been no change since the last time when the board gave it feedback. >> Mr. Papus, >> I just like to say something about the free the free meals for our children. Every study shows that a child's not fed properly,

086they just don't learn. As well as someone who's has three squares a day and snacks when they get home. Um, unfortunately, the rule used to be a two parent household with four children, I believe it was $57,000 or less is how you qualify for free and reduced meal, which is utterly ridiculous, especially in New York. You just I can't imagine anybody that can that can afford that thinks they're they're rich by making $57,000 a year with four children. I had four children and I I know how hard it is. I'm just so glad that this actually went through and and it's uh it's good for all our students. It's good for every family in here and maybe take a little uh load off the uh financial burden of some of the families as well. >>

087Thank you. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Uh, I have no followup to prior publicly heard questions or to board questions. So, I turn the meeting back over to you, President Lang. >> All right. Well, thank you. We're up to our comments and reports. Uh, the board of education website. >> Yes. That kind of comes back to I'm sorry. Did you >> It is just It was our first bullet. >> Do you want to let them go ahead? >> Go ahead. >> You sure? >> I'm here for you. Okay. All right. >> Um, so at the summer, I think Mrs. Adrianne had recommended to the board about looking at our board of education website to see if we wanted to make some changes to it. Um then at a later meeting in August, it was asked

088if uh the the team could come up with at least an example for the board to consider. Uh Dr. Z did want me to send it home to you before the weekend. She did uh but I refused and um because I just felt like it like if it's going to be a website, let's just take a look at it like on the web, right? So I think Mr. Titel, you do have the example of what right now um our our technology department has come up with. Now, realize that these are sample photos in here right now. I mean, they're samples of you, but um they we did take more photos today because obviously they they're not they're not all the same. This is not live. I don't want you to I mean, it's live right

089now, but it's not live on the website. >> It's not published. >> So, why don't you walk them through, Dr. >> Z? Um I want to thank um Anthonyone, our web master. We sat down. We um had several meetings following our board of education meeting where we had an opportunity to sort of look at all of the websites that were recommended by this group to pick out um what was highlighted in those websites and what we could apply to our own. I think one of the things that we really um noticed from the examples that you all shared was that you were looking for something that was cleaner. Uh something that um was more organized uh maybe a better sense of transparency about the role of the board of education etc. that might have been

090missing from our previous site. Um you can see there's a placeholder there. We're going to take our group photo that was missing. We had a a photo but it was you were not able to identify individual members of the board um in that photo. And one of the things that uh was mentioned would be the idea that uh bios would exist on this um website. So what you can't see now um Derek, unless you can click under everyone's picture and their name will be a clickth through um where that will eventually these are just obviously things written in Latin. Um only I can read them. Um but um there will be your photos, your new updated photos that you just took tonight um with your bios and and we can Vanessa and I can can

091work on on with you on crafting those. Um but we made sure that that was the most prominent thing on the page, your bios, your names, uh obviously eventually the photo as well as in the upper right hand corner. This used to live toward the bottom of the website, but just indicating when that next board meeting is a link to the agenda and of course the live stream link as well. And then Derek, thank you. If you could scroll down a little bit, again, free to when you look at this and have access to it. I mean, you might have done that this weekend, but you were not able to do that. Um, but uh we did uh just uh work with Vanessa and craft a board of education um overview taking a look at

092what some other districts had provided there. I know it was important to the board to to indicate about obviously the great financial compensation that comes along um with this position. Derk, if you could scroll back up. I was >> Yes, I I have it right there. It says they do not uh receive any compensation um you know for the position. We also shared some information. Um again, none of this was on our previous page. again copied from, you know, not copied but inspired by some of the other districts that was shared with us by this board. Um, and then we cleaned up, if you scroll down a little bit, Derek, I think you might remember that on our current page there was a lot of dates kind of scrolling across and it was hard um

093Anthony cleaned that up and now it's a drop-own menu and the only agendas etc. that will appear um is the current year but obviously the previous years in the drop- down menu will be accessible. So, I think obviously overall a lot cleaner, a lot crisper uh access um you know more about what the board actually does and who the board members actually are. >> Mr. Papis. >> Yes. I can you go back to those pictures? I just like to state for the record that when Peggy and I had these pictures taken, telephotography was around. >> We're not a very >> We're not that old. I was just gonna say that Jimmy's been on the longest and his is in color. So >> Jimmy used >> I don't know how that's working. >> Jimmy used a

094crayon. >> Jimmy's was a portrait. Um but um the first thing when I shared this with uh Mr. Winch, he was like uh you do recognize that all of their pictures are going to have to be in color. Yes. Yes, of course. Um Syntax actually did not have um colored versions. So, we wanted to present obviously a mockup, which is why we asked everyone to take updated photos tonight. This was just really a mockup of what potentially uh the website could look like moving forward once it's published. >> Um, does anybody have questions, thoughts, comments? >> Um, what how do you all feel if we had the student leaison on this website? >> Bingo. >> You guys okay with that? >> Oh, it's fantastic. I saw your >> Mr. Winch also helped suggest that idea.

095I think >> all yours. >> It was a collaboration. >> So, we'll add the the student liaison. Okay. Andrew is not still here, is he? >> Andrew to get your photos. Okay. We'll give you fair warning. So, >> maybe we use the bio. >> Wow. That's really >> wonderful. So if the principal share that with me after >> um do you um Miss Minga, would you like to >> have a comment? >> Yeah. I just as a part of the board report, I just wanted to comment that today I visited the Vision Avenue High School for their college and job fair. It was they had one last week and then they had one again today because they couldn't fit them all in the gym at one time. That's how many people responded to it. It

096was a great turnout. There was quite a variety of different colleges, a variety of uh different schools, technology schools, vocational schools. Um the kids seemed really into it and as Mr. Winch and I walked around, I just listened in to the questions that were being asked by our students and they really were asking for rather uh good information and they seemed hyped about it. So whoever was responsible for setting that up, I really just want to say thank you because I think really adding the career part, not just the college but the career part and that goes along with our career explor exploration uh program that we have instituted last year. So it's all coming together. So thank you. >> I just I I want to thank obviously the the guidance chairs and the guidance

097departments um at both schools. Uh we started this on a smaller scale last year. We really committed to the idea that um you know having college fairs was really not something that was going to support every student's uh post-secary plans and to just walk through these post-secary fairs. I don't know of too many schools that do post-secary fairs as opposed to college fairs. It really is a special feeling to see how engaged the kids are. talking to the police department, talking to the technical schools, there's something for everyone and it really is building off of it's authentic to the purpose of what we're trying to accomplish with our career exploration and our motto of success for every student. So, I think there's a lot of pride and I really do thank uh the guidance chair

098started with Mark and Liz last year and continuing it's it's been wonderful. So, thank you. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay, >> I'm just going to move on. I know it's under board. It's under board because and I keep talking but um it's under board because it came up from the board uh I think at the last meeting Mr. Adrian had mentioned about uh we had gone over the results of our district security surveys that we had done and there were some questions that were related to the students and about like uh one I think one of the questions was about students needing more training and I think you had asked like you know can we at least ask the student liaison when they come next time about kind of their opinion about the survey.

099Um, I did bring copies of the security update only because I'm sure that none of us probably remember what those questions were that we had at those times. So, I'm just going to pass these three down. Um, and I I can start in regards to the conversation that that I remember that we left off at. Um, and actually I'm going to give this to the students. So, um, run this over quick. So, I remember that um the board was discussing uh and and looking over the results. And by the way, this is on our website under it's uh on the current board of ed web website on there where all of our presentations are. So, if anybody at home or in the audience is curious about the results, um we went over them at the

100public meeting last in the end of August, but if anybody's curious about the results, they are all uh online. Um but the um in our presentation from August, but I think some of the questions were when we were going through um you know it was uh when they talked about Oh, so like I know one of the questions was about safety training for staff and students um you know and about like whether or not that's a recommended you know uh enhancement that you know it 40% of uh of students indicated that they could use more training. So, I guess one of the questions just I have for the for either of you or both of you is just that um I don't know necessarily if it's really about the question if maybe folks weren't quite

101sure about the question was um but you know safety training in my mind would be you know training on what to do during a lockdown drill um you know what what to do if um if you hear about a threat you know um so I guess if if you you know have any ideas about you know like what do you possibly think um might be some of that training that your fellow students are looking for. Any ideas about what that might be? Like we do obviously a lot of practice lockdowns, right? That's all the time. Uh all sorts of locations, but is there anything else you can think of? Now, Dr. Zerianis and I are going to be visiting the student councils at the two high schools in October to to talk about this further,

102but just was curious first if you had any uh any insights in regards to what you think your uh your fellow students might have thought in regards to additional training. Honestly, I think they might have just not been sure what exactly additional training meant because from what I've heard from a lot of our students, they always say our teachers do a great job during lockdown drills explaining the procedures. I think for the most part, they do a great job at that. I feel like maybe the only thing that hasn't been touched upon as much is if you're outside for gym class and something like that happens. I think that's something we don't really talk about, but in terms of everything else, I feel like our teachers do a great job at explaining it during the

103drills themselves. And I feel like we have also heard about where to go with threats if we've heard of them and different things like that. So, I think overall we do have a pretty good handle on it. >> Thanks, Ethan. Uh yeah, just kind of pigging uh piggybacking off of what Sarah said. I think it was just like a kind of like a non-response bias, like not really uh like kids weren't sure what uh what the question really meant. Um but I'd say, yeah, no, definitely procedures like lockdowns, fire drills, they go very well. Um I'd say the school has been doing uh a great job at the the lanyards thing. Um making sure everybody has their lanyard on, especially this year and last year. Definitely cracking down on um making sure um everybody is

104where they're supposed to be and uh and definitely there's been stricter rules on uh hall passes too. So making sure everybody is, you know, supposed to be there. Um but yeah, I'd say I'd say safety in the school. I definitely feel very safe and from my peers, they all feel very safe at the school. So >> great. Thanks. That's great to hear. >> Does anybody else have any questions? you want to ask? So, hi. So, one of the other questions that there was a little bit of a um disparity between the percentage in the answers was in regard to um being familiar with mental health resources. And so it's it seems like a little it there's a a lot of um disparity between the the answers. So I don't know if there's any insight on

105that. Yeah. So for us at division, we know a lot of the counselors that are there, but I think one of our big issues is advertising what they're there for. We all know, okay, they're upstairs next to the library if we need them. But I've heard a lot of students in my grade say, well, other kids don't know what they should go there for. Can I talk about simple things? Does it have to be more urgent? When can I go? I don't want to miss class, but maybe I don't have lunch. I think it's more of just explaining what they're there for because we know they're there. We know they're an amazing resources. I've had friends go there all the time to the support staff, but I think it's just telling them more of what

106you can do with them, what you can go there for. I think that's really one of the big things that needs to be put out there. Um cuz the teachers even say like if you need something, they're always there to talk to. They'll come in and say that, but it's just what are they there for? I think is the big thing that's kind of missing. >> Yeah. And uh I'd say um definitely comparing my first two years of high school to now, I'd say uh the school has been uh doing a better job at uh dealing with uh mental health and there are a lot of like mental health outlets. Um and I'd say it's not just it's not just like the the teachers or the guidance department per se, but also more students are

107being aware of um of mental health like awareness. So, I'd say um like there there's also like studentled uh kind of uh organizations and like clubs in the school that uh that provide outlets. Um but I'd say I'd say no, the the guidance department at Lisa MacArthur, I know they they do a great job at um um kind of providing that outlet for students uh definitely to talk about mental health. >> Great. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Go ahead. Yeah, I I um just looking at the survey and looking at the percentages of people that responded, I just the rest of this will be directed toward the board, my comments, but this is just directed to you two. Do you have any idea why what makes you uh any reasons why the the

108number of students that responded to this survey is extremely low? We have 132 kids responded out of approximately 2,300 students. Um uh well I mean me personally I only took I only remember taking the mental health quiz. I don't remember taking the security um the security like questionnaire or anything. I'd just say um maybe we should work towards advertising that more. I remember taking it in my in my gym class I believe. So um I mean not I I just think um it wasn't put out there. it was uh more so just sent through one like streamline and like and >> so you're saying like in like when with the other one that which is like the YDS survey which is you we have everybody kind of sit down to take it right you can

109opt out of it but other than that it's being administered to everybody whereas this survey was just sent out as a link whoever wanted to do it right >> did it and those who didn't didn't so you're suggesting that instead of that >> designating a particular class or something where all the students do it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh I'm not I'm not really like too sure like I'm not like well versed on like how the conducting of the questionnaires were but >> the link that was sent out to >> Okay. Okay. Then um then yeah no definitely we should allocate time especially it only took really for me 15 minutes to take the take the questionnaire anyways. So I'd say um definitely allocate time for for those. >> That's great. >> All right.

110>> Okay. Is anybody else before we just move on to from this anybody have any other questions for the liaison on this topic? >> No. >> And so I I like I said I know some people weren't here at that last meeting. Before we move on to the rest of the agenda, does anybody have any other questions on what I handed out? >> Yes, I do. And I have a few comments. Um, yeah, if I if I look at the survey and I look at the numbers in general, it makes me think that this survey honestly is very invalid because we have 484 staff members responding and we have at least 1,600 uh staff members in our district. And then if you look at the parent component part, we have 823 parents responded to this

111survey. So, if you look that we have 7,100 kids in the in the district, um you can easily say we have what at least 5,000 because uh you know you have two of them. Some of them have two. So, and we have 823 respond. So, as far as like I'm just saying me as far as me really giving credence to the survey, it's very skewed because of the uh lack of participation in the survey. And with that being said, I wasn't here on the 27th to voice how I feel. But one of the things that I'm going to be requesting is that we do a uh a study. The board does a study along with the central office on armed security districts in Nassau and Suffach County. I would really like to know how many

112we have, how that how they've been uh brought into the district. I have asked certain schools that are armed. I have interview talked to students that are in certain districts that where they have armed security and I think at this time my own personal opinion it's time we take a deeper look into this and I personally and I state this just for myself as a member of the board of ed and a lifetime Levittown community member I am in favor of armed guards in the Levittown school district. Thank you. Go ahead. Mike >> Peg, I want to thank you for saying that because it uh sometimes people are afraid to speak their minds these days. Um I'm former law enforcement and I can tell you that uh law enforcement people with very few exceptions would

113rush towards the scene to help a child. Um, and myself included, I've done I've done many times, rushed into situations, put myself and my offic's lives at risk to save a child. And you, Listen, there are people in this world that should not have guns. We all know that. But if you go to a baseball game, there's no shootings at baseball games because you're wanded and there's armed security in there. Almost every airports, you name it, they're all armed security. But our most valuable percent, even banks, but your most valuable thing that you have is not your bank account, your money. It's the children. It's our children that we have. There's nothing any one of us wouldn't do. You'd run in front of a train, a bullet, a truck to save your child. And I

114I don't think schools are willing to do that yet, you know, but I think you're going to it's going to have to happen. You're going to see it eventually because it's happening all over the place. They have these things called zero eyes, which is an electronic device that can spot a gun. It cannot spot a gun under clothing. The only thing that can do that is a police officer trained. I could watch you and I can see what you're padding. I can see your hands moving. I can see you readjusting your belt line. I can see you moving your uh your ankle around. That's the guy I'm going to stop, question, and frisk. That's proper procedure. Um I I just I hate this. Every single school district, every single superintendent, school board, when they have

115these incidents, the night the night before the incident happens, they all go to bed. And we all do this. We're doing the best we can. That bad guy has to be right only once. We have to be right 100% of the time. And I'm not ashamed to say it. I I I really think that we need to look into armed security for our children. Yeah. Uh, and just to follow up with Mike what Mike was saying, I I just know me personally, when I go somewhere and I see somebody that's armed, I feel much more comfortable and relaxed. The one thing I can say, and I'll say it on the record, the school district, one of the school districts that I looked into was West Icelip where they have armed security in all the buildings

116in West Icelip. The students don't even know which guards are armed. They don't see it. They don't hear. Nobody flashes. The gun is not is concealed. the students. No, the students and I've interviewed a couple of students and they're like, "We just feel safer. >> We're happy. We're So, I I just think it's time that we really start to look into this." And we just don't ever want to take the chance. And Mike, you said the most important thing we say all the time that our children are our most important commodity that we have. And to think that there are armed guards everywhere in this world unfortunately due to the the circumstances that are dictating it and we see what's happening in schools and we're not doing it and it really makes me as a

117board member feel that I am not doing the best job I can. Thank you. You know, I don't know which incident it was, but there was a kindergarten teacher who pushed all her children into a bathroom in the room and she knelt down in front of the door. I I get choked up saying this here to protect her students, protect her children. Nobody, not one teacher in this entire planet on this entire planet should ever have to do that. And I applaud that woman. She's a gift from heaven. Fortunately, she didn't have to stop a bullet, but uh we can't keep on saying fortunately. >> So, this is a really big discussion that I would like to continue, but I would like to have a little more time preparation and and table it for now.

118Um because we did talk about it last time and it's it's fine if we open it up, but can we put it on for the next agenda and then perhaps look at doing the survey again, trying to get it to the students, trying to let the parents know or in another way so that way we have a little bit more feedback to get a take because the I I hear the two people, but there's it's a board of seven and everybody has their opinions and I was not prepared to talk about this tonight and so I I would really like to think about it myself because I don't really know how I feel and I don't fully agree but I don't fully not agree. So I think it's fair if we have a little bit

119of time for us all to um to discuss and I would I actually want to get to um the student liaison and the um recognizing them. So is everybody okay with that? >> Yeah. Can I just say one more thing? What if we do redo this survey? I do think it's important that we put a we put a phone call out for a lot of things in the district. I think this thing is probably the one of the most important pieces of information we can put out. So, I would really think that there should be a call that goes out to every household that this survey is coming home and could you please fill it out for the parent population. >> We can look into the best ways to advertise. >> So, if I heard

120you correct, um we'll uh bring a presentation to the next meeting on this topic, >> please. >> Okay. >> You want me? >> Okay. All right, I got it. Uh, so tonight we are honored to be joined by our 25 2025 2026 student liaison, Ethan Belo Below. Am I saying that right? Help me out there. >> Yeah, Baloya. >> Okay. And Sarah Leakano because I I've known Sarah since kindergarten. So, he was a little worried I was going to mispronounce it. I got you. Okay. Um, at this time, I'd like to ask Mr. Sheen and Mr. Myers to come up front to provide a brief introduction of of their liaison so we can get to know them a little bit better. If uh you brought us additional building administrators with you and you want to

121introduce them, please do so. [Music] Well, good evening everybody. Uh before I begin, I would like to thank my two spectacular assistant principles, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Maroy, for joining me here tonight. And now on to our student liaison. Ethan Ballayo exemplifies the traits and characteristics that embody the ideal general. Throughout his tenure at MacArthur High School, he has been held in high regards with both his faculty and peers and always strives to be the best student, athlete, and person he can be. Academically, Ethan is an exemplary student as evidenced by his impressive overall grade point average along with his membership in our math, business, world language, and national honor societies. An accomplished athlete and top tier performer, he captained our varsity cross country and track and field teams, earning all county honors. Beyond his

122demanding schedule, he even finds time to volunteer his services for the benefit of his school and community. As president of the Kowanas Key Club, he has helped raised over $10,000 and played an integral role in organizing numerous service projects to help support this great community. His passion for helping others doesn't end there. He has volunteered over 100 hours coaching youth track and field and basketball teams and served as a camp counselor for young students with disabilities the past few summers. And a fun fact about Ethan is a few years ago he auditioned and was selected from an extremely competitive pool to be a ballp person at the US Tennis Open. What distinguishes Ethan is his passion for leadership. He prides himself on embracing each and every opportunity presented to him by living up to his

123favorite quote, "Consistency compounds," and striving to work hard towards obtaining that goal by being better by 1% each day until he achieves it. His sights are set on studying computer science when he attends college next year, and there is no doubt this young man will be a success in any path he chooses. Please join me in welcoming Ethan Ballayio as this year's student representative to the superintendent for MacArthur High School. That's a on. That's a uh very hard act to follow. Very great. Uh oh my god. I want to go first from now on. I'd like to introduce um Mr. Curtis and Mr. Fazio, my assistant principles. So, uh, good evening members of the board of education, central administration. Uh, it's an honor for me to introduce division avenues high school student representative of the

124board of education, Miss Sarah Loano. Did I say it right? All right. So, fun fact, I have a fun fact. Sarah was actually the first student that I met as a interim principal at Division High School. And I remember walking away from the conversation thinking, "Wow, this is an impressive young person." And since then, every time I see her in action or learn about what she's accomplished or what she's accomplishing, uh, that first impression keeps growing, uh, stronger and stronger. Congratulations. [Applause] Sarah has taken on leadership roles all across our schools. She serves as the president of both the Key Club, the SAD club. She's the secretary of the National Honors Society, the treasurer of Tri Music Honor Society, and is an active uh she's an active in the National Art Honors Society, World Language

125Honors Society, and our Chamber Choir. It's a lot. She's she's also a peer leader and plays a big role in the big dragon little dragon helping younger students transition into high school. Her impact doesn't stop at division. Sarah has been a dedicated advocate through the blood cancer united where she's raised awareness and support as part of their junior leadership committee and previously as a student visionary of the year candidate. Congratulations academically. Sarah is just as impressive. She's earned a high honor roal every year. She's AP scholar with distinction and AP capstone diploma. Uh college board national recognition award. And she's also received local honors as dragon of distinction award, the shield award from Nassau DA's office, and the history and civics award from Congressman Suazi. But beyond all of the titles and honors, what makes

126Sarah stand out most is who she is, her heart, her energy, in a genuine way. She leads by example. She's truly represents the best of Division Avenue High School. And when I met you, the first student that I met, so I was like, this is going to be a great gig if everyone's like this. So, it's my privilege to introduce uh to you our student representative to the board of education, Miss Sarah Loa. [Applause] >> So, that was super impressive. Um, and we are so excited to have you. And now you get to have your reports. Who's going first? There we go. Uh yeah, I'll go first. Uh thank you Mr. Sheen, uh Mr. Mroy and Mr. Ryan, and uh the entire board for having me. Um good evening. I'm Ethan Baloyo, and I'm a

127senior at MacArthur High School, and I'm extremely excited to be uh the general's liaison to the superintendent and join the board of education and central admission uh at all upcoming regular board meetings. Uh now for my report. Uh on August 26th, Mr. Sheen and his administrative team conducted the freshman parent orientation which was well attended and they discussed all pertinent information and strategies for successful trans transition into high school for their children. The following morning, all incoming freshman students attended their orientation meeting which included taking a tour of the building as well as meeting their assigned peer leaders. While all freshman students appeared a little nervous, they were also excited to be the newest members of general nation. On September 9th, as well as yesterday, our guidance department orchestrated two extremely successful post-secary affairs for

12811th and 12th grade students. Representatives from over 50 different colleges, as well as representatives from the Nassau County and New York State Police Departments, various branches of the military, and a rep from the Carpenters unions, all attended both fairs. Students stated they found the fairs to be extremely informative and helpful. one particular senior stating, quote, "I didn't realize this college offered the major I was planning on studying. The representative was super nice and took her time explaining her answers to all my questions. I'm definitely going to talk it over with my parents tonight." Um, some other upcoming events include our big homecoming day on Saturday, September 27th, where the parade starts at 12:00 at Gardener Avenue Elementary School and the varsity football team kicks off against Jericho High School at 2:00. Uh all pregame homecoming

129festivities will begin at the turf field at the conclusion of the parade. So come out and support the generals. And finally, our senior picture for the yearbook and senior video will take place on Tuesday, September 30th at our home bleachers and on the turf field. Let's go Generals. This concludes my report. [Applause] All right. Hi everyone. and thank you so much for having me here tonight. So, I want to talk about one of our events that happened. So, on September 11th, clubs took part in our activity fair during lunch periods. There were members, officers, as well as advisers from different clubs and honor societies there to tell students more about their organizations and get them interested in joining. Students could sign up if there was a club that they wanted to take part in. Those

130posters that were set up during the activity fair during the day were also there at back to school night. so parents could view some of the clubs and other organizations that their child could join. Um there were also key club officers there to present and inform parents what Key Club and SAD are all about in addition to selling snacks and raising funds for our clubs and other charities they support throughout the year. Um then on September 10th we had the postsecary fair which took place in the large gym. Students were able to explore over the 60 colleges and trade schools that were there. I had one a couple of juniors tell me that it was great to see some of the colleges that were there and hear about what they had to offer. While some

131seniors said that while it was a great opportunity to see what programs were available at each school, it got crowded and oftentimes they didn't get to talk to all the school representatives they wanted to. So today the second fair took place. So, the administrators really listened to the feedback our students had in getting this to work, dedicating one period for the juniors and one period for the seniors. Um, I was not able to go down myself just because I did have an AP class that period, but I did hear from everybody else that it was a big success and I'm definitely glad that happened because that's been a big comment from our students of how crowded it gets. So, today's fair was really great. Um, in sports, our girls varsity soccer senior Abigail Gregory so

132far this season has had over 12 goals, three assists, and was named to the News Day's top 100 players list. So, I just want to take a minute to congratulate Abby on her big accomplishment. And then what's coming up tomorrow? We have our first spirit night event right after school. It's the photo scavenger hunt. This year it's the first time that grades can recruit teachers as well as advisors to participate and help with the event. I can tell you it's already going to be competitive and I think the freshmen still don't know what they are in for. Seniors are very ready to go into this first event. Um and they're definitely excited that now we can have the teachers involved. And finally, many of the clubs and honor societies at Division are already in process

133of coming up with the ideas for their homecoming banner, with this year's theme being Friday Night Lights on Broadway. So, they're already getting students to submit their design ideas so we can get started working on the banners as soon as possible. And that's all. Thank you guys. >> I just have one question for you. Um and then those for those that may not know so um New York State made it a law uh that all school districts and boseies have to have student uh representation on their boards. Uh but in Levittown uh we've been doing it since I believe 2007. Um and so uh it's it's wonderful for us to continue the tradition and to set the way for other districts. uh with but now with with everybody else doing it uh they've provided some

134additional support and training for students and I believe this morning uh there was a zoom that was optional for you for you to uh participate did either of you participate in the zoom this morning you both did was there anything of this was a zoom with other student leaison across NSA county >> um I believe they said it was the whole state correct so there were I believe they said 650 students supposedly supposed to be on the call um it was very good. I know we did have some technical issues logging in as it was blocked on our Chromebooks and then getting into the admin login was a little issue but it was very good. I said they had great things to say. >> Okay. >> I'd blame you superintendent for the technical issues because

135he did not share it with the tech department. He simply sent it to you uh and should have realized that it might have had a problem getting through the the all of our all of our blocking devices. So, I'll uh I'll let him know at some point that he should have done that. But was it uh you found it to be valuable at all or >> uh Yeah. No, for sure. I mean, um Levittown's been doing it for so long and both Sarah and I have known like past leaison uh for this board. So, we definitely like uh a lot of things discussed in that meeting. We definitely knew a lot of it. Um but yeah, no, it was definitely great to see some other insights uh from other people >> and you are our

136first leazison to be able to participate in that. So, congratulations to you. >> Thank you. [Applause] I am I'm glad to know our tech firewalls are working. So that's actually a >> I'm I'm I'm okay with it. Um okay. So thank you for sharing out. We will now move to our public beheard uh period of the regular meeting. This is the opportunity for members of the community to speak. All questions are directed towards the board of education president. Each uh speaker is limited to three minutes in total and each speaker is expected to use the microphone clearly state your name and address. Okay. So uh first up we have uh Christine Morrow. >> Good evening. My name is Christine Marorrow and I reside at 17 Heather Lane and I'm here this evening kind of wearing

137three hats. One, I am a sixth grade teacher over at Sulk Middle School. I am a Levittown resident and I'm also the secretary for the Levittown property owners association which is our civic association here in town and we represent the entire Levittown school district which also includes Seafford and WA addresses. I'm here this evening um with my little plunger device in case anybody is unfamiliar. I just want to point out that this particular device is an anti- choking device and it's made by the company called Lifeback and you just this is a practice um mask but they have them for adults and for children as well. So two different sizes that come with the kit. The kit also has a wall mount just like our AED systems in the schools. So, I just wanted to

138show this. And like a plunger, all you do is put over your uh mouth and nose, push down, and when you release that lodged object will come out. Not to gross anybody out, but also vomit comes out as well. And I just want to mention that because we learned about this a week ago. That is why it's not reusable. And you're like, we just spent 70 bucks. Yes, but the company of LifeVac, if you document that it was used, you don't have to send it back to them. You just have to fill out the card like an accident report that we have here in our district, they will replace it for free. So, with all the schools that we have and all the events that we have, it's a great investment. If it saves the

139life of one child or one adult, $70. I mean, that's what we're looking at. Um, what I want to just share quickly is that this came to our attention during the LPOA meeting with the presentation and I want to ask each and every one of you to please help me get these into our schools. We have a Division Avenue parent um who already purchased one for every school. I don't know if he's contacted anybody, but I know that there's been some discussion which I just found out recently. Um, so I'm very happy to hear that. Island Trees is also feeling the same way that was expressed to us in the meeting that our board feels of why they are resistant to buying this immediately and getting it installed. And another parent from Island Trees also

140went and bought one to donate to every single school there. Author Lee, the inventor, why did he invent this? He was in the emergency room a couple years back here on Long Island and he witnessed a seven-year-old child die right in front of him. The EMTs that brought that child in could not dislodge what the child was choking on. The ER doctors could not dislodge what the child was choking on. Um the child and the child passed away 7 years old. Mr. Lee has had at the time a seven-year-old daughter at home and he said, "I'm going to invent something. This will never happen to my child or any other child. He in his invention, it is for both children, adults, everybody, any age. Abdominal thrust as we are all trained in with the CPAR

141and first aid. I mean for 30 years. Okay. Sometimes abdominal thrusts don't always work. >> So the three minutes are up. So >> Oh, I apologize. I'll wrap it up. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> So we have I'm I'm going to wrap it up. I said I just want to ask you for support for the life act to take the presentation from the company. Just let them present it. They'll be able to present it in full detail and um they they can speak better on behalf of um I had it right. Well, I just want to let you know this. Every police officer's car in Nassau County has a life back on it. The Levton Fire Department, the WO Fire Department. >> So, this is fully supported and New York

142State senators have submitted it as a bill. >> I I hear you and I I don't we really do strict to we're very strict with the three minutes. So, I don't I hate to cut you off, but I I need to be consistent. >> We um you will get hear back with us um in >> I could send you a letter with more details because I have >> You are always welcome. Okay. >> Yes. If you have something you would like to leave, you can leave with the district clerk. You can email us at any time. Um and then within about a week or so, you'll hear back from us. >> Oh, fantastic. Thank you so much. >> Okay. Do you have anything you'd like to leave? >> Not not right now because I'll type

143off all my notes for you. Thank you, Maddie. >> Thank you, Madam Chair, and good evening, everybody. My name is Mattie Buckies and I live at 1297 Shore Place in Seafford and I'm um a town employee of the town of Hempstead, also an advocate for people with developmental disabilities. Well, first of all, I do agree with the facility schedule. You know, recently I watched a show that took place at a dance facility in Ashurn, Virginia. One of the dancers was on Broadway, believe it or not. You know, one of the things we could do because obviously this could be used the auditorium could be used as an ex as as as as a place and you would have all these dance studios from New Jersey or Virginia to come here and this would be on

144TV on Hulu for some reason. But anyway, my thoughts are we have an ID badge mandate here that was implemented um back in 2023 as a mandate. But one thing I do want to add is maybe add like a little special for all those who graduated from division MacArthur Memorial to have their name and also the class that they graduated in. This would know who cuz they would know which parent student it is that it is with them. But at this time, I would like to repose for a brief moment of silence to honor those who survived in the 911 attacks and for the honor and the memory of Charlie Kirk. Thank you and God bless you all. Thank you very much. [Music] Thank you. Okay, we're moving on. Everybody ready? Okay. So, we're going

145to go to um our budget transfers. Do I have a motion to accept item 5.1 on the agenda? Phillips. Uh what am I going too fast? >> Okay. Do I have >> Yes, that was the last one. It was out. You need to have signed up in the beginning of the meeting. Yes, you can come up here. Mike, can you >> quick? My name's Carmine Fury. I reside at 11 Old Farm Road in Levittown. Um, I am here again. I came back. I was came back. I was here last year advocating for armed guards here in Levittown School District. Okay. Um, I did a little bit of research myself about the uh history of school shootings in New York, history of school shootings on Long Island, and I think this conversation needs to be started

146here at the Levittown School District. I understand we wanted to speak about this at a different time, but maybe we could also bring up the idea of forming a subcommittee with parent le uh leaison, student leaison, and uh the board members that want to participate in this subcommittee so we could all get some facts out on the board. We could get ideas. We could get inputs. We could get different people's ideas because like the board member said, the children are the are are the things that we should protect the most, right? So this is just again I don't want to get political. We had school shootings you know recently and with the most recent school shoot uh school shooting in Minneapolis with the at the Catholic school uh the school shoot the shooter stood on

147the sidewalk shooting into the school. First thing I thought my son just entered into Wisdom Middle School. How they have a sidewalk right there and the school is facing the street right there. And I thought I was like god damn you know how close could that have been? Like I I felt really impacted by that school shooting because it was the sixth grader hallways right there in the front of the Wisdom Middle School. And again, maybe this a little personal because my son's in that facing the street, but I really think this conversation should be brought up and we should start this conversation as a district uh with open minds and with facts on the table. Thank you for your time. I'll leave my card here so if you guys want to contact me uh

148you know, please by all means. Thank you guys so much for your time. Good. Can you just um sign your name and address? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um on to budget transfers. So, Phyllis, do I have a second? >> Peggy, thank you. Um any discussion? >> I wanted to mention in regards to the budget transfers, we are now providing the board with a full um list of all the reasons for transfers. In many instances, some of the information is confidential because it's about students. And so I I think Mr. Papis had asked that at a previous meeting to just get more information on the transfer. So just wanted to let everybody know that that was sent. So >> Okay, >> Mr. Papis, do you have some? >> Yes, Mr. Fabiano to send the questions out

149to you ahead of time. My apologies. Um, but there's $900,000 coming out of employee benefits um to contracted buses. Can you just go a little scratch more than the surface on that? >> Yeah. So, uh, again, a a detailed list was provided for each of the individual schools that these add up to. Uh, I I um I I I I think there is a recap at the bottom. Uh, they are several uh special education uh need routes that that had to be added. Uh we do have some additional costs associated with McKenna Mento uh cases there. Uh and uh I think the important thing though to note on here from a from a from a more global perspective, we're really unable to take the money from within the transportation department. Uh so you may question

150why it's coming from the uh employee health insurance line. That is really where we put the appropriated fund balance. So we're starting to use that to to uh uh pay for these unbudgeted costs. These are cost over and above uh the increases that we budgeted for. >> Normally um healthc care is one of the biggest drivers that we have in the budget increasing on ridiculous amounts almost every single year. So I don't see why we'd be taking out of employee benefits. >> Yeah. Uh like I said uh because we also put the appropriated fund balance in that line uh in the in the uh employee benefits line. So that's where we put that money that that we appropriate as fund balance each year. Uh a large chunk of that is in there. So it is

151it is not taking money away from health insurance per se. It's just where that where the appropriated fund balance is being budgeted. >> What other uh what other budget lines besides uh I think they're all going to 50 5400 5550 5500, but what other ones are they coming out of? What what other Well, All they're all being funded from the appropriated fund balance. They're going to uh the first one is our just kind of our normal transportation contract line. Uh that's where we uh where we contract with companies like we uh and for student uh the others are um uh the others are being uh really through Boseies uh Bosey's program. So, uh, that's the 5581, that's the 4,900. Um, and, uh, the, uh, the other the other contract line is through a course cross

152contract with, uh, Eastern SuffK Boseies. Uh, that's where the 300,000 uh, is going. So, again, it's it's not a reshuffleling of monies within the transportation department per se, uh, but it is an acknowledgment that we are short in that line. uh despite having a a 30% increase uh in the Boseies line this year for their cost increases. So um to me uh that's a that's that's the most pertinent part of this and this is something that going into 25 uh going into the 26 27 budget development um it's likely that the the base is going to have to start off that much higher. Not tonight, but at some point, can you give me um what the exact numbers that drove that to 900,000? The exact issues that drove it to 900,000, almost a million dollars

153up. >> We will get it to you tomorrow. >> Thank you. >> Any other discussions? >> Only on that one, right? >> Uh yeah, we're on the budget transfers. Uh all in favor? >> Okay. Okay. All right. Uh, we're up to schedules. Do I have a motion to accept item 5.2 on the agenda? >> Uh, Jimmy, do I have a second? Mike, >> yes. >> Any discussion? No. All in favor? We're six. Mike 6. Okay. All right. Um, we're up to facilities use. So, just as a reminder to everybody, this is for the uh request to use it by the NASA County Republican Committee. >> Okay. Um, do I have a motion to accept item 5.3 on the agenda? Peggy, do I have a second? Jimmy, any discussion? Maryann, I because I saw your hand.

154Um, I would just like to state that, um, I don't think any political party should be using public school property for any meetings. Um, and just to be clear, so we're not misconstring anything that I'm saying, uh, this isn't about supporting any one party over another, I don't think any party at all should use um, school property for uh, meetings. Just as we don't allow campaign signs on school property during elections, um I just feel that there needs to be a neutrality maintained by the school district. Um and thank you any other discussions? Um so all in favor we have five five against one. >> Okay. So at this time we do have to add uh two items to the agenda. So I guess President Lang, if you can just uh ask for a motion

155to suspend the 24-hour rule. >> Sure. May I have a motion to suspend the 24-hour rule? Uh, Jimmy. Um, do I have a second? Mike. >> Yes. >> All those in favor? >> Okay. So, all those in favor? Okay. 60. No. I don't know if I need Okay, that's okay. So, now we're up to 5.5, which is the addendum that we that uh we have handed out. We good? Okay. Uh, do I have an emotion? A motion to accept item 5.5. Peggy, do I have a second? Maryannne. Okay. Any discussion? Five. >> Right. This is the one that was received in writing on September 2nd that we discussed. >> Okay. All in favor? Oh. Any discussion? I >> Okay. >> Um I I think the rule is is a little silly coming down from the

156state saying that you have to apply by April 1st when if you apply to to each individual school. But if if the decision comes in after April 1st, which often happens, and you you went to school A, but school, your real choice was school B, but that came in on April 2nd because it's after April 1st, even though we were providing a bus for you to school A, the state says we do not have to apply for we don't you don't have you don't get you're not getting the money to go to uh school B. And I think that is not a really good thing because I said we just transferred $900,000 into uh uh transportation, contracted transportation, and to saddle somebody with a $1,500 a month transportation bill on top of your your taxes

157that you're paying on your house can bankrupt somebody. And I I just think that the rule is very arbitrary. I think we should be able And we need to make we have to codify things like this because if you make one decision today, you're going to have to make that decision forever. So we have to get some criteria. What what constitutes an exemption? Does the person have to put in for five different schools even though they're only going to one? And just in case four schools don't get in uh and the last the last school to the fifth school, you actually do get accepted. if you didn't put in for that school or if that came in after April 1st, you're paying for transportation, which like I said, that's a for most people that's a

158budget buster. Um, I know the state says you April 1st is the cut off, but I will say one thing that if your student was in Levittown, if a student moves into Levittown after April 1st and decide they want to go to private school, we have to pay for that. So, if I decide to, and this is not my son obviously, but if I decided that my son is going to go to a school and we got notified late, if I transfer him out of Levittown School District into my grandmother's house in East Meadow for one day and then say, "Okay, now we're coming back to Levertown school for the rest of the term." That person, my child, would get the bus. It's It's ridiculous. Um, that's my own opinion, a party of one. And

159that's it. I'm sorry. Um, thank you. Anybody else have discussion? >> Yeah, I got just a one statement, one short statement. Uh, to piggyback on what Mr. Papis stated, um, I also agree that, you know, we already have a bus going to one of these locations, um, with, I believe, four students. So, I mean, dealing with the budget that we deal with and and the cost that it would cost, I think it was like $10,000 to transport this one student, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I I don't like the fact that the state, you know, they give you this uh date of April 1st. Um, and it has to do with their budget, and their budget's never done on April 1st. So, I I just think it's not right and it's

160not fair for the kids. Thank you. Go ahead, Peggy. >> Sharon, could you please comment on the law and why um it is the way it is, please? And what under what circumstances do the state feel that it would be okay? >> Okay, first off, the Yeah, the April 1 deadline is set in New York State law. that that's in the statute. It's and it's designed because of your school district budget process. Um and in addition, you need time as a district to be able to contract out your routes. What the state commissioner um of education decisions say are that if somebody makes a late request for transportation, so a request after April 1st, that if there is a reasonable explanation for the delay, then the board has the discretion to provide that transportation even

161if there's an additional cost. But the case law from the commissioner of education in terms of what a reasonable explanation for the delay is. Um things that have been deemed not to be a reasonable ex explanation for the delay include late admission or a late application to a non-public school or getting the your um financing for the school late. Those are things that the state has said are not reasonable explanations for the delay or even that you've decided that you want a different type of educational program for your child and that's why you've decided to send them to a private school. If you make that decision after April 1, the commissioner of education's decisions have said that's not a reasonable explanation for the delay. Now even if there is no reasonable explanation for the delay,

162if there is no additional cost to the school district for providing that transportation, then the district has to provide the transportation. >> Thank you. >> I don't think anyone's going to dispute what you said. Obviously, you're an attorney and I'm definitely not disputing it. But what I'm saying is that if I was going to school A and you had a bus for me and you were going to spend money for that bus and I decided to go to school B or C, you're still paying a bus fee. >> Yeah. Not necessarily. Because each case, if we already have a bus going to one particular school with like 20 people on it and it's our bus and there's room for that other person on that bus, we're not paying extra cost. if it's only two or

163three people going to a different school and we have to we um we we refer that out and then we're paying per pupil. So that does cause an added uh uh expense. >> Yes. And and actually let me add that in the commissioner of education decisions, they don't look at what the cost was for the original school if the parent applied for transportation to one school and then decided to send the child to another school and submitted a late transportation request for that other school. That late transportation request is treated as a brand new request under the commissioner of education's decision. So they just look at what that cost is. >> Did you want to speak? >> Just that I I I I think that also some things have to be look at school hovers.

164I want this school. I want that school. I want this school. You know, that could be a little bit it's not sometime it goes a little bit deep for me. It goes a little bit deeper than that. I I I'm I'm kind of like, you know, I don't like the idea of school hoppers. We're here, we're there, we're there. You know, what's really the best thing, that's all. So, I just have like some reservations. I think to in the past, we've been very consistent with how we've made these decisions. And if we um change midway right now, then we really need to look at everybody else in the last few months even that we've denied transportation to. So I would like to take a vote. Um but my concern is to be consistent and and

165to be um fair and just to all the people who have applied for transportation that we should be consistent with our decisions. That's my my one personal opinion. So >> I agree with you. >> All right. So let's do four. This is for motion. What are we on? 5.5. >> Um, all in favor? >> Oh, >> yes. So, the You're talking about the resolution, right? >> Yes. >> So, the resolution that's on the addendum is that the board denies the the appeal. So, if you vote yes, you're voting yes on the motion to deny the appeal. So, if you want to deny the appeal, you vote yes. If you want to grant the appeal, you vote no. on both of these. >> Okay. So, um all in favor. >> Okay. Uh we have four against

166>> and then what? >> So, >> and then I'm going to do abstain. And >> so, how many? >> Two. Two against and then no abstensions. >> Okay. >> So, there's four yeses, two no >> two no denials for two. So, >> Okay. So, now we're going to go to um 5.6. >> Same just same condition, right? It's written as denial. So, if the board votes yes, the appeal is denied. You vote no. You're granting the appeal. >> Okay. So, do I have a motion to accept item 5.6? Maryanne, do I have a second? Peggy. Okay. Any discussion? >> Wait. Oh, I'm sorry. Never mind. Good. >> Good. >> Yeah. No discussion. >> No discussion. Okay. All in favor? We have >> Oh, I'm sorry. No, this is this is this is >> We have

167the one from August. >> Okay. Against two and abstensions. None. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Look confusing there. Sorry. >> I know. It's it's like it's like a approving a negative. >> Yes. Is no. No is yes. I know. >> Okay. Um, do I have a motion to accept items 6.2 through 6.14 on the consent agenda? Phyllis, do I have a second? Uh, Maryanne, any discussion? Beautiful. All in favor? 6. I didn't say 6. Okay. Upcoming dates. October 5th, we have a regular meeting. >> 15th. I know. I was just getting so excited. I wanted to come back. October 5th. October 29th regular meeting. May I have motion to adjourn the regular meeting? Maryannne. A second. Peggy. All in favor? 6. Meeting adjourned.