001Good evening everybody. I just wanted to extend the regrets from Mr. Pace and Mr. Wipf for being here this evening. I've also just wanted to just say a few words about all of the great things that have been happening in this community and our schools. We have had some right quite a bit of success with OM. The last show that I saw at the high school, Shrek, I don't know how many of you had seen it, but it was it was fabulous and and I was impressed with the casting crew on that. What else am I going to say? Science research research has been phenomenal. We are all we are so proud of you. Also, I had the pleasure of attending the art honor society last week and we we got a lot of new
002inductees in that. We just have a lot to be proud of, so I think we also had some winners in national history day this year. That's kind of what we discussed. Great. Yeah. So, I'm going to turn the meeting over to Dr. Gallagher. Thank you so much. And tonight we have the great chief, we have some students from our marine science program and staff members here. You know, we like to highlight some of our programs in the student showcase and we thought I've been hearing great things about marine science for years. So, I wanted to give you guys an opportunity to tell us a little bit about them. Thank you so much Dr. Gallagher. I'm glad that you invited us here tonight. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Brauch who's the teacher of
003the marine science course who will begin with an introduction on the curriculum of this program and then we're excited to have the students come up and share about their experiences. Thank you. Good evening. I'd like to thank Dr. Gallagher for inviting us as well as the administration uh the board members. My name is Mary Brouse. I started the program 16 years ago. Actually, no, I'm sorry, 2016. And in a decade, we started with 20 students, and now we have 95 to 100 I think it's 120 students a year taking the course. Um I have to thank Ms. Bloom, and Karen Bloom, and Corey Army Frog as well, cuz they taught some sections over the years, and they helped develop this program. Uh students in marine science, uh basically, they have biology, chemistry, physics, and environmental
004science. So, there's some pictures there of uh some of the work. We did have a whale watch trip. Uh we do work in the ponds. Uh there's Mr. Myers on our annual fishing trip, and we uh do water quality uh testing there. Uh we also have a We're also lucky enough to have a globally and locally uh science scientists teach our our class. The EV Nautilus is actually a ship that travels all over the world. It's headed by Robert Ballard. I don't know if you know who he is. He's one of the top marine researchers in the University of Rhode Island. Um so, what they actually zoomed from that ship, that's in that picture, which is really incredible. Um they gave us some up-to-date research uh marine science research. We also talked to OCEARCH, and
005they did a shark tagging. So, they actually uh tagged great white sharks with the sharks that are radio which is really unique. Um and then we had a We did a Bali project. This particular year, we sent all of the projects over to Bali. That's the fisherman holding um some of the the letters we sent, and they have projects on their boats. So, that will help their eco-tourism in Bali. Um and we continue that program so that students can learn about coral, and then um as well as understand each species that lives in that particular reef, locally and globally. Uh we also have some field experience locally, casual boat and fishing vessel. I truly believe that fishermen know most about what's the the pulse of the marine environment, and so that's a great opportunity for
006students to not only go and fish and learn how to fish, but also to see what's in the water with even right here in Long Island City High School. We have New York Marine Rescue Center, where they rescue sea turtles and also seals. And then in our fishing trips, and then where we're fortunate to see whales and also take data on the marine animals in that environment. Uh and and fortunately, like the Long Island style, a lot of people say come back and support the community, and we have a lot of alumni that came back and support our community. So, Paige Carpenter, and so excuse me, these are all my actually my former track athletes, which is so exciting to see them come back. So, I love reconnecting with them, but Paige Carpenter, she actually
007does research in the coral reefs of Belize, and as well as Costa Rica. So, she spoke to our class. Lena Weiss comes every year, and she's a researcher in New England Aquarium. She talks about about the kelp research that she does, and all the new research she actually just tagged a shark recently, so she showed the students her tagging the shark, which is pretty incredible. Um and then we have the Erin Brown, uh she works at the Cornell uh GenX Lab, so she came in and showed some fruit flies to students, and then showed how that works with the body plans and a lot of the organisms that we were discussing in class. And then just recently, uh Isabella Marchese connected with me. She's the Northeast Regional Manager for Surfrider. So, we're trying to think
008of ways the students can start forming um like a citizen science project. Um And so these are all just the various things that we're doing in class, but I do have students here that would like to speak to you about uh some of the opportunities that they have for this course. Okay. And Riley. This is Riley Hammer. Hi. My name is Riley Hammer. And last year in this class we did a marine biology extra credit assignment for this class. It was a poster contest and STANYS, which is Science Teachers Association of New York, and NYSMATE, New York State Marine Educators Association. And because of this poster contest, I was actually able to Well, I won the first place for the high school division. There were about 100 other kids, and I got first place. And
009I was able to go to the Jones Beach Nature Center. And um we had awards there. And I was interviewed by The Leader, and there was an article about my poster contest. And I got to go to Maritime, where my poster was displayed there. Those photos are at Maritime. The photo on the left is the man standing next to me was actually the man who wrote our marine science textbook. Yeah, so that was pretty awesome. Yeah, his name was Thomas Henry, and he's holding the book there. And I was able to meet several other people. Um able to meet Darlene I was able to listen to a presentation by one of the founding members of Help the Bay, Carli Roech. For those of you who don't know, Help the Bay is an organization that was
010created by five Native American women from the Shinnecock tribe. Because in the Shinnecock tribe, they never had um any proper sewage and its treatment. So, their water, which was once very clean and pristine, which had a very vibrant ecosystem, ended up turning toxic. So, nothing could survive in that water, and they didn't have any help. So, these five women, Carli Roech being one of them, were actually able to use kelp to filter the water. They grow kelp and use it as a natural filter without having to use any crazy technology, spend money that they don't have. So, I was able to listen to the presentation that she gave. I was also able to listen to a presentation from the author and biologist, Carl Safina. And I was actually able to get three books signed by
011him, which was pretty amazing. And this was the poster that I did. Mine was on the nitrogen cycle. There were several different things that you could have done it on. Um in several different ways. Some people did mathematical models, some people did written, some people did visual. I did both. There's a QR code in the corner in the corner, which links to this slide presentation. And just to sum it up, my presentation, my poster talked about how the nitrogen from fossil fuels, from sewage, and also just natural causes ends up in the waterways and it causes a surplus of nutrients which is essentially a buffet for for bacteria for bacteria and phytoplankton which creates a really big problem because the when there's too much phytoplankton then when they die the dentifiers which decompose the phytoplankton
012and it uses so much oxygen for this decomposition process that there's not enough left for organisms to survive. So very few end up surviving and when they do they often end up very sick. Even people there are a lot of different types of algae that can turn the water toxic. So if you go in the water when the when the algae blooms are there then you can get really sick. Even just salt spray from that has the algae can make you extremely sick. And we can get away with that but marine life cannot. And the other problem with the sewage is that every time that it rains in Island Park I don't know who lives in Island Park and who doesn't but we are told that you can't go in the water for 24 hours
013after it rains. And the reason for that is that the bay is such a small enclosed body of water that with all of the sewage that's being released from all of the Long Islands into the bay there's just too much. So you end up with a influx of bacteria. So if you were to go in that water you could end up with all kinds of infections. And it's a really big problem in Island Park. And they're actually trying to help the solution to it. One potential thing they are trying to do is potentially reroute the sewage to the ocean so that it'll be more spread out, but this project is still underway. So, this is an ongoing problem that we all have to work to deal with in our problem that never used to exist
014before. And yeah, in conclusion, this was my marine science project. And because of the projects in class, I was able to meet some really amazing people, get the opportunity to learn about some really amazing things, and discover that I'm very passionate in marine science and ecology, and that that's what I want to do when I go to college. So, throughout my experience in the marine science classroom, I truly enjoyed the opportunity to engage in real-world experiences. When we do labs, we observe local plankton populations, and I was amazed by the diversity of the life under the microscope, as well as the critical role plankton play in the marine ecosystems. We also examined things from our local area in high school, such as the pond, where we examined a beard sponge, and learned about the importance
015of natural water filtration, which came to the conclusion that sponges can filter large volumes of water, helping to maintain healthy aquatic environments, as well as providing important habitats for plants and crabs. Throughout our other lab days in the classroom, we also designed and constructed our own water filtration system, which gave us a deeper understanding of both the process and the cost involved in cleaning water. We have to consider efficiency, materials, and overall expense. And it was surprising to see how complex effective filtration could be. Through this work, we also learned that beyond visible pollutants like bottles, straws, and fishing lines, one of the leading sources of plastic pollution actually comes from everyday laundry in the form of microfibers. When I was in this lab, I was honestly I was amazed by the amount of garbage
016and pollutants we found inside of the boluses that were sent to us. Um so this is done in another lab uh where we dissect dissected an albatross pellet sent from Midway Island and we recorded our findings to the research center in Hawaii for a shared database. The albatross is a highly polluted bird often uh spending years at sea before returning to their remote island. The albatross feeds primarily on squid, fish, crustacean, and alongside all of this we discovered a lot of fishing line and plastic in the samples. This serves as a powerful indicator of ocean health and the widespread impact of marine pollution. Finally, we have had many opportunities to hear from guest speakers. One being Elizabeth Ryan through NMS, who spoke to us about marine mammals and the serious impacts of environmental pollutants. She
017also highlighted the growing issue of entanglement in fishing gear, which poses a major threat to marine species. She focused on the critically endangered vaquita, a small species of dolphin with an estimated population of only 12 individuals remaining. We learned how they are often caught in ghost nets, which are abandoned or illegal fishing nets set by totoaba, a fish caught for its highly valued swim bladder. This presentation was both eye-opening and powerful, showing us the real and urgent challenges facing marine life today and reinforcing the importance of the conservation efforts. Thank you. And hi, I'm Maddie. I'm also a student in marine science class. Um my product presentation was enhance our learning and It was enhance our learning in marine science and the product base um learning and field trips. Um along with Elizabeth as I
018said, I also found you know why she's actually to also be very relevant and impressive. She shared many insights into many aspects of her work emphasizing how important and effective communication is when it comes to creating and supporting environmental laws. She spoke on her work on how best to reach your projects along with her involvement with the blue lab as well as her research on whales, sharks, and lobster traps. Her presentation highlighted how science, communication, and policy all work together to protect marine marine ecosystems. Um as you can see on the bottom left is um some pictures from you know what from you know what presentation as the uh aquarium she works along with. Um she's a researcher in New England and who works in New England aquarium. Uh students were able to listen to
019a professional researcher who can complete her work in the aquarium and she also explained her work on various different projects and students were actively engaged in the presentation and they were really eager to learn. Along with you know what we also completed a project called the Bali virtual project in which each group researched different aspects of the reef and we created information an informational brochure and presented our findings to the class. My group studied types of coral in the reef. Um while other groups explored additional components of the reef reef ecosystem. This project taught me how to help protect these reefs and be more environmentally friendly. Throughout the year we have taken the time to study with each group's topic in depth, allowing us to build allowing us to build a comprehensive understanding of marine
020environments. And that can be seen at the top right of the presentation, um which is the research project. Students completed their research on a specific species and a specific coral reef. Um we each created a brochure with many colors, um and we all worked together, which is really cool. Along with those two different um project-based learnings, we also did a great white shark migration project using Ocearch, which is a website that you can look up online. It's a tracking site to investigate why great white great white sharks travel long distances. And in my personal opinion, I believe that they migrate for feeding and mating along with the search for warm prey and warm waters and whirlpools, which are called warm water water eddies. This led us to infer that they are drawn there due to
021increased nutrients and a greater availability of food. Research on the sharks is helping learn new things about the ocean I didn't know before. Um that can be seen in the top left with the students working on their posters, one of them being me um and my partner. Um the project um was a hands-on project was a hands-on project learning about great whites and why they travel to warmer climates. The project was followed by a shark dissection, which we just completed last week. We um examined the inside of the sharks along with the inside sharks and students really got to see, you know, what that's all about and how they eat and how how they digest and all that. And this particular shark that we dissected was a dogfish shark. It was pretty medium size and
022it's pretty cool. Um along with projects, we also go on marine field trips. Uh one of the most uh memorable experiences was visiting the Riverhead Aquarium, where we observed one of the largest closed-system coral reef displays in the Western Hemisphere. We also learned more about sharks through their local exhibits, which supported our research for both the great white shark migration project and our shark dissection. During our shark dissection, I was able to identify male and female sharks because of a lesson taught in the aquarium, which was that male sharks have claspers and female sharks do not. I was also able to identify specific sharks in the unit based on the ones I looked at in the aquarium. This is because the ones in the aquarium were from the shark unit, which was really interesting. Um
023during the trip, we also visited the Marine Rescue Center, where we got to see and learn about rescued sea turtles and seals native to our area. It was really cute. Um at the aquarium, it focused on rehabilitation, aquarium exhibits, uh the conservation efforts, and it was educational and interactive. Um along with the aquarium, another field trip I especially enjoyed was the whale watching trip, where we observed humpback whales, spinner sharks, and a pod of approximately 75 dolphins. An unforgettable experience of marine life in its natural habitat right in our own backyard. I was able to watch a whale lift its flipper in the air and splash back into the water. We will also be visiting the Fire Island Lighthouse next month. At the beginning of the year, we studied shipwrecks, buoyancy, and marine navigation, along
024with marine technology such as remotely operated vehicles, ROVs, and autonomous water underwater vehicles, AUVs. This upcoming trip will help bring up concepts to life, and I'm super excited to go on it. We are very grateful for these hands-on experiences which are both engaging and meaningful. Um through the whale watching trip, we observed marine wildlife, we collected data, we looked at real-world ecology, and various aquatic marine life was visible. It was very educational and interactive as well. Um going into the Fire Island Lighthouse, I hope to look at coastal history, um maritime navigation, look at ecosystem exploration, and it is a landmark in history. All right, good morning. >> My name is Nathaniel. I wanted to take marine science class this year, but I thought that if I were to be a future marine biologist, I
025would learn about the animals near the beach. And I learned so much more than that. And I was actually really inspired by the animals that we learned about because some of them I thought were extinct. And I thought that if they weren't extinct, then it turned out to be some of my favorite animals, like the nautilus. Um I also made a big long shark. Uh these are part of my ceramic projects. These are jars and the lids are the animals. Uh I don't know. I just always felt inspired by marine science and being in a marine science class helped me really come out of my shell and being creative with the animals that I learned about. Thank you. As you can see these pictures over here, students really love to learn on field trips and
026we would love to experience more opportunities to actually participate in marine exploration outside of the classroom especially. For example, we hope to potentially bring back the fishing trip on the boat that we as students go on every year. Um unfortunately, it was denied this year. And we're hoping to go to the pier, but it would really be great to bring back the fishing boats cuz I feel like students would be able to look at more diverse fish where, you know, on a pier you get to just kind of view one area, but the fishing boat would be different to dive the marine, you know, the marine life seeing going from place to place on the boat. So yeah, in conclusion, that's the mission. Thank you again so much for inviting us to be here tonight.
027Um in addition to what everybody spoke about, this is aligned with the new um New York State common education standards that we're going to be looking at how to weave in those standards into topics in science classrooms. So, thank you again. Thank you. All I can say is I wish I was in high school cuz I would be taking this class. How cool is that? They're one of the best in the rescue centers where the best teachers get to learn and it's a great job. Thank you so much for sharing this and for showing us how much you learned. You could hear the passion in speech. Are there any board members that have any questions? May I? Yeah. So, now that we get to hear from the students, you are the highlight of the meeting.
028Because we do this to help provide the programs that will inspire you and help you find your way. And your presentation today, all of you are very different and you could all hear the passion and the inspiration in your voices as you spoke about River City Science. And I Ms. Ross, Tracy, thank you so much for bringing such a vibrant program, for loving it and for ensuring that it's been inspiring our kids to grow and learn, the hands-on, the contest, the creativity piece, the fishing trips. I I think it's all beautiful for life skills. Especially just as our last presenter stated, we do live by the beach. You know, and we are very fortunate to have the ocean basically in our backyard and you only love that which you understand and you are showing that
029you love the beach now because you understand it. So, I thank you for that and I hope that you spread this passion and inspiration to your friends on the beach or if you see somebody throwing trash on the beach, tell them to pick it up. Um, see people using extra fertilizer on their lawn, tell them that extra nitrogen is not good for the run waves. Use your voices from what you've learned in class to help better your community. Um, I I I I I I just think it's wonderful. I do have one question though. We We do have a pier outside of the Nike school. I remember cuz on the boat you can see it. Do you ever get a chance to utilize that or is that not for students to utilize? I know that
030you said the fishing trips were better, but we do have that pier there. I know that pier at Sandy was destroyed. I don't know if it was rebuilt. It It's rebuilt and it's actually been cleaned over there. So, that might be a nice resource. I think I don't know if you can fish off that pier, but it's it's a cool place to look at. Yeah, it's a cool place actually to walk down and to observe because you when you do have low tide you will get to see a lot of life life living. So, it's actually something worth worth experiencing. But, thank you. I have a couple of questions. First of all, I love your presentation. Um plastic pollution has been a passion of mine for many many years and I know the sprouts were
031involved in that as well. Are we doing any better? What can we do? What have you discovered about the health of our oceans and our waterways? Can somebody enlighten me a little bit about that? Yeah. So, something that a lot of people don't realize is that most of the plastic pollution is not from the plastic that you can easily see from water bottles. It's from like I think it was said it's microplastics. So, most of it is little tiny pieces of tiny little stickers that you can never see unless you actually peer into the sand and try to see it. And they are currently trying to do research to mitigate that, but it's still a real big problem especially since our floating house has a lot of plastic. So, it is I don't know if
032it's getting any better, per se, but we are becoming more aware, which is a step in the right That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for coming out. I just have three comments. I thought the greatest remark was I have I'm sort of a model on my shelf. My first reaction was I I'm an old dog and I've been around a long time. And if I were to have to go back 18 years and have this presentation, I would have to say probably be mostly young men that would be giving the presentation. And I'm just delighted to see young ladies coming up in the field of science. You notified two of the numbers of students who got awards at the science fair and science competitions. And the numbers of
033young ladies was outstanding and overwhelming in terms of the total number. So, I think you're all kind of pioneers and I'm kind of grateful for that. I thank you for the effort you put into doing that. This is not easy. Second, I'm delighted to see the names of former students and I thank the track coaches and science teachers who are connecting and remaining in contact with former students because they can be such a great resource for our kids. Not only in terms of the learning, but maybe in terms of schools and where you might want to go to college and what you might want to do in life. Do I like working in the the bars and the aquarium? Maybe you might like it, too. So, it's such a great great resource. So, I applaud
034you for that and thank you for that, as well. I thought the presentation was very interesting. And usually at this time, we usually ask, since it's the middle of budget time, is there anything you need? And then the restoration of the fishing trip, which I served for, is there anything else that you might want to make a wish for because now is the time. Excuse me? Uh the bathroom, maybe upgrade the bathroom with like more room within it. Okay. All right, that's good. But yes. I don't know about this year, but I know a problem that we had last year was that there wasn't any marine science posters in the library. So, if you have So, when you wanted to work on it during the school day, you couldn't know where it is because the
035classroom is locked or where you can't get there. And you And I know a bunch of us students have very busy times with sports and clubs and other homework. So, we do our study hall, but if you don't have the textbook there, then you can't do your homework. So. Well, that's Okay. This is a good point. We'll show you yes, please. Uh I'd like to add that I think that there should be a marine specific classroom. Um I noticed that when we did our dogfish dissection lab, Miss Grouse was maneuvering herself around the classroom with a cart and the dogfish were in like a bucket and her her should be able to get around all the desks and chairs. We do have lab desks, but then we have like a 4 by 5 like 20
036seat like sections in the classroom. It's just difficult because, you know, there's spills and there's smells But it would definitely benefit if there was a marine specific classroom. And that also seems to be a very reasonable request. What is your name? We'll take it into consideration. And my final point is about the times we committed ourselves when our second graders are learning how to swim. I'm just delighted that our high school kids learn about the ocean. Since it's so much a part of our life here, it should almost be mandatory for kids in this barrier island to learn about the ocean and how best to protect it. So, once again, I applaud you people for being pioneers in coming up tonight and making reasonable requests. And for doing my duty by school. Thank you very
037much. Thank you. OKAY, DO YOU WANT TO ADD SOMETHING? SOMETHING ELSE YOU WANT TO SAY? Do you think you can or you don't have to? I would add maybe some better equipment for the dissection because uh I've noticed that you guys have sections. Sometimes our blades are a little bit too dull to actually cut through any of the specimens. Yeah. Okay, good good point. But you know we'll work on all of that. We do have a beautiful new dedicated green science lab that was approved in our bond project. So some of the money had to be maybe graduated by then, but it is coming. Promise. And the others that we can work on. Come back as alumni. Yeah. How about that? I just wanted to add on to what they said. Last year we were
038trying to file some clams and I genuinely thought that I was going to break my finger. They would not slice. They were just like hammering it. So yeah, better equipment, please. Thank you very much. And listen, you are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, but if you have other things more exciting to do, we understand. You can feel free to leave. Yeah. Go Tigers. Thank you again. Thank you. You know, we'll go to you. Thank you, Dr. Gallagher. So this evening we're going to be talking about pupil personnel services. We're going to talk about what we're proposing for the 2026 and 2027. So pupil personnel, you'll you'll see that in the next slide, is special education, but it's more than special education. It's health services, it's psychological services, so um and we'll
039talk about all of that as well. So, we're looking at and the function code is where you find it in the budget, is uh 82250 is special education. You see actually a decrease in what we're proposing for next year of about 1%. Before we talk about the specific decrease, let's talk about what's included in the budget. So, the proposed special education program budget includes funding for teachers for special classes, integrated co-teaching classes, resource room, speech, and home health services. Also, occupational and physical therapists as well as therapies, out-of-district placements including BOCES, other public schools, and private schools including residential schools, teacher assistants, teacher aides, materials, technology, supplies so students can access everything. So, special education and this function really encompasses a lot a lot of our services for students. It's not just the teachers, but
040it's also all of these other what sometimes we call related services and not just in-district teachers, but our out-of-district placements, the programs outside of the district. All of that funding is in that function of 82250. So, the special education program budget was proposed includes our contractual salary increases for staff pursuant to our contract and net increase district-wide of 0.6 FTE. So, just a slight increase in what we need in terms of special education teachers based on the needs of our students. Um there are code corrections that you'll see for next year based on some staff shifts among schools and then we always do updates to the percentage of staff included and their salaries included grants or the way we put them, which is our special education pre-K program. What I mean by that is that
041sometimes we'll have staff that we think are going to be in a certain area, but we plan now and then over the next 6 months, you know, there's some shifts take place. So, then we have to do some corrections. So, if you see if you do look at the line by line when we put that on on the web next week, you may see some changes in the code. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's a reduction in any program. It could just be a shift based on what was what was in the grant and what's covered in the general fund budget. So, that's what I mean by that comment there. So, the the main driver of the decrease in terms of the overall decrease of about 1% is our decrease in out-of-district placements at private
042schools due to some of the students graduating out and some shifts of those students to public schools. So, that really amounts to that slight decrease and offsets some of the increases in other areas of the budget. So, in addition to our general fund budget, and when I talk about the general fund budget, I'm talking about A2250, and that budget, as you can see, what we're proposing is just shy of $22 million. Besides the funding that we have in our general fund budget of about $22 million for those different teachers and other related services that I talked about, we also have two grants, two federal grants, that support our special education students. And one is called the 611 grant, that's about 1.2 million, and the second is the 619 grant, and that's a small amount of
043about 62,000, uh which is really just for our younger our younger students. And what we can do with the funding in those grants is we can put some additional services, some physical therapy, social work, what we call BCBAs or board certified behavior analysts, our RBTs, registered behavior technicians. We have our new assistant director of special education in one of the grants, 611. We also have professional development in there and some other supportive services like the counselor app we talked about last year. That's in one of the grants as well as some supplies. So, we really try to leverage whatever federal funding is available to the district and we use it to uh really support our special education program and the services that are in our general fund budget. So, that's our special education program as
044the highlights and what um is included for next year and some of the drivers of some of the changes in the different codes. Now, I'd like to talk a little bit about health services and health services are nurses, the bulk of what uh goes on in our health offices. So, the nurses and some of the clerical staff there. And you'll see just a slight adjustment, a slight increase um and it's really based on some slight adjustments in staffing allocations in the current year. So, uh what we had planned for for the current year, you know, we needed to add a a little bit of additional this year and so we need to put it in next year's budget. So, it's not so much a change from the current year to the next year, but just
045some adjustments based on the current year. You see here we had a budget for one assignment of a 0.6 and it turned out it's really a 1.0. So, that's an adjustment in that funding there. And that's A2815 is the code, the function in the general fund budget where you'll find all of our nurse nursing services. The next few codes A2820, psychological services, and A2825 are social work services. You see in the psychological services, you see an increase of about $107,000. Um and I'd like to just point out a note for a second. When we talked about uh program last year, we talked about two new district-wide psychologists that we were going to be hiring. And one was that it was going to be funded through a federal grant, and the other was unfortunately was not
046part of the budget for the current year. So, the funding needs to be allocated for next year. We did a budget transfer for this year in order to cover that second district-wide psychologist. So, again, that's more of an adjustment in the current year, and next year these two reflect that additional funding that's needed. So, we have two new district-wide So, district-wide psychologists in the current In the social work services, there's no real change in allocation in this year. District-wide of our social workers, it's just an adjustment into what was covered by a grant, and then what's covered in the general fund budget. So, like I said at the onset, sometimes we think a certain percentage is covered in a grant, and then it turns out that it changes, so we have to make some adjustments
047in the current year, and so next year reflects those adjustments we've made in the current year, but no additional of social work services. It's the same allocation on a district-wide basis. The next is what we call pupil personnel services. That is again the state code description that pays 2830. And what this is included here is of our executive director of PPS, our registrar, as well as our staff who performs the board functions. And because we are expecting to have one of our staff members, one of our support staff members retire at the end of year, um the vacancy for that of our retirement will be at a lower cost than a new hire, so that's why you see a reduction there. Not that there's a reduction in staff, but just an adjustment based on what
048we're projecting for that new hire for next year. And that's the highlights of that pupil personnel function 8283. We're We're to the close of our budget development process. This is really our last meeting to talk about major functionaries. The next meeting, which is April 14th, will be budget adoption. We'll have a presentation that will talk about um district as a whole. We'll kind of recap on what we've done and um on April 14th is the budget adoption, like I said, where the board will then adopt whatever final budget they want to present to the voters. Um that that becomes the board's adopted budget. May 19th is the budget vote, where the community has a chance to actually vote on the budget. It's always the third Tuesday of May. And the week before is our budget
049hearing, where anyone in the community can come and talk about the budget that the board had adopted on April 14th. It's not an opportunity to change anything in the budget, but it's an opportunity to speak about it. And so, there's one more meeting, April 14th, where we can get input from the community, where the board can talk about what they'd like to include or what they'd like to eliminate. And we'll also talk about our revenue projections. So, we'll talk about where we are in state aid. We don't have a final state aid number yet. We don't have a final state budget yet, but hopefully by April 14th, we will. There's been some discussions about whether there'll be a 1% increase in foundation aid or a 2% increase in foundation aid, right? So, right now, we're
050looking at around 2% increase in foundation aid, because that's what's been talked about lately. It changed from what was in the governor's executive budget. Uh we'll talk about other revenue projections, and then the board will decide where they want to set the tax rate. And that will be at the April 14th budget adoption meeting. That's it for this evening. Thank you for listening. Does the board have any questions first? I just a comment for me. First of all, thank you. You always break it down, make it simple simplify it for us, so I appreciate that. And it's nice to see a few places where it actually went down and not up. So, thank you for that. Thanks. Mr. DeVita, thank you so much for your presentation, the transparency, and all that goes into our special
051education program. So, I I am pleased to see the decreases, of course, just like Ms. Felci said. Do you Do you feel that this budget will be enough to take to maintain and take care of our special ed population? Well, you know, I'll have to defer to my special education PPS colleagues. You know, we have meetings where we talk about what their needs are for our students, and we spend a lot of time in these meetings. And we talk line by line, code by code to see if the funding is sufficient, talking about the needs of our students. And there's always a give and take to make sure that we're as efficient as possible, but also as comprehensive as we need to be. So, um based on that, I I look to my special ed
052colleagues to say, "Do you also feel comfortable with what we've presented this evening?" And I see some head shaking, yes. So, I'm going to say yes to you that what we're presenting is really a team effort and is our best uh projections for taking care of our students for next year. Thank you. Um so, you mentioned there are some materials, technologies, and supplies so the students can access their education. What are some examples? Right. So, I'm just going to preface that the answer to your second So, in our schools, we have material budgets, and we give a an allocation per student of a certain amount of school supplies and basic materials that we know that they're going to be needing throughout the school year. Anything that a special education student needs to access their education,
053something that's additional, like And I'm just going to ask if you don't mind Dr. Roncancio if you could give a few examples because um you know, I know that you can say it much better than I can. So, So, for So, for example, if a student needed a assistive technology so that they were able to see material in some way, that there was some software package that needs to be added to a device, that would come under a supply code. If we had a student that needed an augmentative communication device separate from their device because it's what they need to be able to communicate, that would go under a supply code or technology similar to those things. That's what we're seeing. It's actually pretty amazing the technology that we have today. See how we can
054help our students, right? I'm sure you There's There's probably a plethora of other types of supplies that our kids might need that you have we can access now thanks to technology and AI. Thank you for And just a question to Dr. Galvez and Dr. I really How do we find a counselor at is working this year? Well, you know, at our last mental health committee meetings, we've been updating the committee on use. I would say it's been used more by staff than by students. But, I have gotten feedback that the students who are using it, it's been really impactful for them. I happen to be speaking with Ellen Garza the other day and she said that many of our Latino and our families are using it because typically, especially in the current climate, they've not
055been able to access counseling as easily as as, you know, English speaking families. And it And it is available in Spanish as well. And it's free to them, so it's a great So, I I That's a long way of saying I think the people who are using it are very impacted. I think it was 85% of the people who used it had never accessed a mental health service before. So, that's that's a big difference. So, Dr. Just remind me, is it just for our secondary students? >> Yes. Yes. Do we find that it might be for elementary students as well? I don't think so. I I think I don't think that our elementary culture here would support that. You know, and even I think we often do an opt-in where parents must give permission actively
056and then students can access it. Sometimes other districts have done it where everyone gets access and you know, then they do the permission. But I really do think parents need to be involved in those decisions and we've gotten feedback from our elementary parents that they don't think it's a good idea for their child to be texting a counselor and that which I kind of agree with. Thank you. It's end of my questions. Thank you again. Thank you. I just have a few questions. First, thank you listening to the video. Uh first one is I noticed from the presentation that this is a question of 0.6 FTE teacher. First that teacher is in the eighth grade or is projected to be? Who's Linda? That's Linda Olsen. Okay. I have Linda Olsen. Linda Olsen. Um second point,
057spontaneous reviews are currently going on with just the end of March and you have April and May. Probably June and maybe into July. Do you think you can speak with with reliability that this is going to be the package? I mean, there are not going to be any problems coming up in those reviews that you think might tip the balance and change up some of the backlogs? I'm pretty confident just based on years of our knowledge over time knowing the students. You know, there's always some possibility of, you know, outliers either way, right? Our generating our expenses to send students out of district, but sometimes we wind up bringing students in. So, you know, I'm I'm pretty confident that there won't be any significant change or decrease. And talking about confidence, how confident can we
058be that Washington will not under fund us in terms of withdrawing funds for special ed? Can we be confident when we go forward that we won't hear from Washington that certain funds have been cut, restricted? And it'll be up on us to make to make up the difference. Well, you know, you never you know, but I know that based on the history of what's happened over the past couple of years, there's a lot of threats that are made at the beginning and it scares everyone and then the administration, you know, kind of pulls back but then it doesn't really come to fruition. So, based on that track record, I guess I feel comfortable saying that I think it's going to be hard to cut funding for special education nationwide. I mean, these students that really
059need it. You know, we rely on it to, you know, to the tune of about 1.2 million dollars. Some districts rely on it more than that. Um so, I think it would be very hard for people to go that way. Okay. And um my last question or comment concerns that last year in the budget there was an appropriation made to two district wide psychologists, which was a novel kind of request. I didn't quite think I could support it but I did. But I'd just like to know, given the year or whatever the eight months we've been into the school year, has that innovation of the two district wide psychologists proved to be beneficial to schools and to more importantly the kids that this was to be service. So, the answer is yes. Um the two
060positions have a caseload. They're supporting the students that are out of district and their families. So, there's direct attention to those caseloads. And how many kids we have out of district? Approximately? 16 million. In the 16 16 Okay, thank you. So, I do believe it's been extremely helpful. I think this day I've been able to also be a liaison to the buildings for students that may need an out-of-district placement. It also provides us with the relationship that we've had in the past to continue so that when we are in the community seeking for placements, we're competing with other districts. So, I think that relationship goes a long way to helping find those placements. So, I do think overall it's been extremely beneficial to the families and students. People, thank you. Thank you for closing last
061year. And congratulations on a successful Thank you. Questions or comments from the public on the world language topic only. Board of Education and new and old business. I just uh at the last presentation on elementary schools it was proposed that in the budget will be increased with that classes in the elementary schools. Uh where is that time coming from? Firstly, and secondly, how was it arrived at that it was phys ed rather than cursive or literacy or math or science or art that is the extra. So, we're replacing what was called either FLEX or Spanish depending on how long you've been here, the um world language special that was once a six-day cycle. We're instead moving that instruction to the SPIRIT program where students will have the opportunity to be introduced to a variety of
062languages. Um with the advent of programs like Duolingo and Babbel, it's much more possible and it's a better way to teach language instruction. The reason we put Vis Ed in is that it's been a consistent request of our community that our students have more physical education time and less of that structured PE time at lunchtime. This will allow for for example fourth and fifth grade to have perhaps seven um chorus or band rehearsal or lesson at lunchtime because they're not locked into that additional Vis Ed space and that Vis Ed time to be in the band. And just my thinking and just my last question is am I ever going to see Mandarin offered as a like in the terms of language in regular additional course delivery? Probably not from a a human. And from
063your Well, because it is difficult to find people who are certified in Mandarin and something else. And once you hire a teacher on a 10-month contract, if a program isn't supported enough, it's not a full-time schedule. There's also frankly a shortage of Mandarin teachers in Maryland state. So they tend to go to districts that have larger districts with this possibility for a full-time hire and a one off. You know, as I listened to our reading science and the other presentations, student workshops, I just think we're being somewhat negligent in terms of the amount of offerings and all that and all the high school kids. I'm not saying we're not making effort, but I think we need to make increased efforts because the way the world's going is United States and China are just becoming almost
064mandatory. What's that? I think I mentioned at the last meeting I started to look at some different language acquisition software and I started with Spanish cuz I can speak some Spanish, but then I said let me do something I can't speak. So I went to Mandarin and by the end of a full lesson, I could go out and order at a restaurant in Mandarin. It was really really good high quality instruction. So, we this avenue may open up other avenues for us to try other different languages instruction for our students. As much as Mandarin, it's Arabic, it's you know, languages that are up and coming in the world that help for our students to know. German, Russian, um With all due respect to the parents, but the two to three extra periods a month are
065short business and best use of that time. An academic setting. Thank you. So, my question um is really for our high school representative right here. I know that we just had our high school Olympics. Could you just give us your feedback on what it was like on Friday? What do you think were the strong points? And if you could make it better, what would you do? Okay. So, first I'll talk about like the actual events that we had. That'd be great. >> So, for for class Olympics, first I want to congratulate all the classes that came to participate and really showed out. Like we had a great showing this year. The school spirit. In the actual Olympics in the in the gymnasium, for all the events, we had the two new events. We had knockout
066and we bought this like really big inflatable bounce house. And and like we're not renting it, we bought it. Like this is going to be used for years now. And you get to see four four people in the middle of a bounce house hit each other for I think that's the biggest thing this year. So, we had Of course that only lasts like five shots. So, I did want to win. But um so, getting those actual like new events in there really like got the crowd going, I feel like. And we had we had great student participation in the events. And then after school, we had we had great turnout for the skits. You know, I heard from many people that the skits were, you know, very funny and I'm glad the seniors guys the
067win on this year, because we couldn't lose to the juniors again. Um That was great. Um some strong points, I think bringing in those new events, the master sphere we saw. Teacher participation, I I love the fact that some of the teachers came to participate. I want to highlight somebody, Mr. Book. He's um He's very competitive when it comes to So, if I could change anything to make it better, I'd probably say that probably a little more of the driving sphere. We We could promote it those days a little better, and that would allow the students to, you know, as the boat like we had like the physical delay because of the snowstorm and stuff, but probably just advertise those days more. And I just wanted to say that um there's so many opportunities to
068be involved with through Class Olympics, like whether that be just actually partaking in the events, um buying our school's share, actually just cheering on your friends, um joining the events. There's so many opportunities to be involved and have that sense of belonging. Like you can ask anyone who's ever been in student organization with Class Olympics. If you spend 6 hours with somebody in the auditorium after school until like 10:00 at night with your senior skit, you're going to become friends. And I've made some of the best memories and connections ever through Class Olympics, and I highly encourage anybody entering high school who's already in high school to really just seize this opportunity and take it because it's great. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's great. Questions and comments from the public? Okay. Announcements, Low Fee
069Classroom Teachers Association. Karen Swoboda, PTA. um first thank you to Miss Ross and Miss Christie and all those kids. Um I will echo what they said too. I think just something we need to think about is how much it grow or has grown. And we're talking five sections that we have right now. So it's very hard to keep the same budget and have five sections and still be able to do all the things that these kids would like to do. So I really would we all would appreciate if that down would be in consideration of that. Um in addition thank you to Mr. Quigley for that presentation. Um almost done. One more to go. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I don't know what that was. Group C, anybody here? Okay. PTA? Thank you for all
070you do. And the student organization, do you have anything else you wanted to add to that or is that pretty much what your update was? Pretty much. Yeah. Congratulations on a great uh uh Class Olympics I think is a highlight of the school year for you guys. Very much so. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Yeah, I just I just wanted to thank you and the lady because it is It's a credit to you that you're able to sit through a meeting like this with all the presentations and the options are many. But your your service is much appreciated by us. Perspective is much appreciated by us. I personally wanted to thank you for your time and your energy and how well you presented yourself at the occasion of the Olympics when we asked the students in
071the SLO. You did a great job and thank you very much. Very much. Yeah, you you really did. Thank you. Thank you. Motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Have a great night everybody. Have a nice holiday break. I have many good years to come. This is my last one.