001Good evening. Welcome to the monthly meeting of the Limick Board of Education for May 7th. If we could all please rise for the flag. Mrs. Arona will lead us in the pledge to America and justice for all. Roll call. Everyone is present. Miss Plesi is not here. As we heard that beautiful music playing as we came in. I want to thank Eric Riley on the violin, Kevin Ko on the violin, also Eric Matturn on the cello, and Andrew Tarpenti also on cello. Thank you for that. You should also know that uh before this meeting this evening, we invited the all county music and arts students and students selected for the Long Island Spring Festival Association and Parents, Educators, and Kids Festival to take a photo with the board. We congratulate all of our many talented
002students on their achievements. Congratulations Those children that did participate in that, you are free to go home because we know you have some studying to do. So, thank you for sticking around. Going to do the approval of minutes. If there are no changes, may I have a motion to accept the minutes of April 23rd meeting. Mrs. Dino second, Miss Kelly. All in favor? M. Murray abstained. Still, we're we're going to move to the art gallery. And I just want everyone to know that Mr. Cunns does work inside. And I don't know where he's going on the weekends, but it is definitely nice out there. The burning gallery present its final show of the school year celebrating the exceptional work of this year's Limbrook All student artists. This special exhibition showcases artwork from 33 Limbrook art
003students in grades K through 12 who were selected to represent Limbbrook in the prestigious 2025 ASA allcount art exhibition held on Sunday, March 9th at Herex High School. Organized by the art supervisors association, the all county art show is a distinguished event that honors the highest quality student artwork across Nassau County. ASA is a professional organization of art supervisors and administrators that advocates for excellence in the visual arts education at all levels while offering a vital forum for innovation and dialogue in art instruction. The work on display reflects a diverse range of mediums, techniques, and subject matter from expressive paintings and drawings to complex digital pieces and puppets. This exhibition not only highlights the incredible talents of Limbrook's young artists, but also honors the dedication of their teachers and families who support art education in
004our schools. Join us in recognizing and celebrating the creativity and hard work of these outstanding allcount student artists. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Guns. We have two retirements this evening. If teachers aid Deborah Geyser could please stand up. Whereas, Mrs. Deborah Geyser, a devoted teachers aid in the Limbrook Union Free School District, has announced her intention to retire effective June 30th, following an exceptional 23-year career with the Lindbrook Public Schools. And whereas Mrs. Geyser began her service in 2003 at the elementary level, quickly earning a stellar reputation for her unwavering work ethic and heartfelt commitment to students. As former Waverly principal Lucille Massie noted, she is to be commended for her strong work ethic and her genuine love and concern for the students she serves. And whereas Mrs. Geyser later brought her talents to Limbrook
005High School where she dedicated the remainder of her career to the Career Development Program, CDP, becoming an indispensable part of the program's success. And whereas Mrs. Geyser has been described by CDP teacher Miss Annie McKenna as essential to the program. Selflessly volunteering to take on a wide range of responsibilities, including serving as the coach of the Challenger basketball team and joyfully decorating room 108 for holidays and birthdays alike. And whereas Mrs. Geyser has always worked without seeking recognition, quietly and consistently supporting her students in countless meaningful ways driven purely by compassion and a deep sense of purpose. And whereas the board of education extends its sincere appreciation to Mrs. Geyser for her extraordinary service and wishes her a joyful and fulfilling retirement alongside her husband Charles as they plan their move to Florida and with
006her sons Charles and James. Now therefore be it resolved that the board of education hereby accepts with gratitude and admiration the resignation of Mrs. Deborah Geyser for the purpose of retirement. [Applause] want to come up. You're not getting out. You got to go to the step and repeat. Are you crazy? [Applause] Thank you so much. Thank you. I can't see. Terry, she's not here. Next one. Okay. We have one more retirement tonight which we will read. Although Carla Garvey is not in attendance secretary at the high school, we could read that resolution. Whereas Mrs. Carla Garvey, typist clerk in the Limbrech Union Free School District, has announced her intention to retire effective June 30th, 2025 after 22 years of devoted service to the Limbrook Public Schools. And whereas Mrs. Garvey began her career in education
007as a teachers aid in the Rockville Center School District in 2000 and joined Lindbrook in 2004 in the same capacity. Working at both West End and Marian Street schools, she immediately made a positive impact bringing her caring nature and warm presence to the students of the Limbrook community. And whereas in 2013, Mrs. Scarvey found her professional home as the voice of the attendance office at Lindrech High School. For more than a decade, she became a familiar and reassuring presence to countless parents and students who experienced the friendly and reliable Mrs. Garvey when calling in sick or signing out. A proud native of Iowa, she brought her signature Midwest warmth and hospitality to every interaction with students, parents, and staff. And whereas former LHS principal Mr. Joseph Reus once noted, "For your creative problem solving, for
008your professionalism, and for your ability to communicate well with other students, staff, and parents, you are so important to the way the building operates and is perceived. Mrs. Garvey's thoughtful leadership and attention to detail transformed how attendance was managed in a full open campus high school, leaving a last lasting mark on its daily operations. And whereas the board of education expresses its deep gratitude to Mrs. Scarvey for her extraordinary service and commitment and extends heartfelt wishes for a joyful and fulfilling retirement spent with her husband Shawn, daughters Diana and Julia, their spouses Adam and Michael, and her beloved grandsons Camden, Blake, and Weston. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the board of education hereby accepts with sincere appreciation the resignation of Mrs. Carla Garvey for the purpose of retirement. [Applause] You may now depart to
009enjoy your resolution. Congrats again. [Applause] We're now closed the regular meeting so we can begin the big presentation everyone's been here for. Joel Press will within eight minutes present us with his budget. I I thought I had I had one minute for every person in the audience. I bet you the intern could do it in 8 minutes. I think so. Eric, would you like to come present, please? Mr. Bman said I had one minute for every member of the audience. He didn't specify which audience. I choose the audience that was in the auditorium. Therefore, I will speak for about an hour. Thank you. Just kidding. Just kidding. Um All right. So, thank you uh for having There we go. Excellent. Uh I'm happy to be here to uh present the budget this um one final
010time. This will be our final presentation of the 2526 budget. Um tonight is the budget hearing. This is required by u by law to be presented around a couple weeks before the the budget vote itself. Um just briefly I do want to repeat um this was a tough budget year. Getting this budget into balance took a a lot of work and a lot of heavy lifting. Um, so I do have to thank the administrators uh in the district and particularly our um my colleagues in central office who put in a lot a lot a lot of time and effort onto this um and the LTA um for their cooperation and help with the retirement incentive which is really um without that retirement incentive we would not have been able to present a a balanced budget
011without a lot of pain. So um there is really no pain in this budget I'm happy to say. Um so let's get into it. So the budget that we presented that the board adopted uh in in March um maintains these programmatic priorities. Um top of the list being the implementation of the profile of the owl. Uh the continuation of building out the continuum of special education services throughout the district at West End North and at the high school here. Um we continue to leverage our partnership with Northwell Health for social work and mental health support. Uh we will continue to integrate the science of reading and the writing revolution in the intermediate elementary grades uh and introducing additional microcredentiing opportunities here at Lindbrook High School. In terms of staffing, we uh are adding one uh
012professional staff member uh that will be an occupational therapist. This will be the third over a three-year period um that we have been bringing occupational therapists on staff. This really offsets the costs that we would traditionally see in our contract services. We have typically been um bringing in contracted occupational therapists. Um we are starting to bring them inhouse and that's actually um been beneficial for us. Um so the costs get offset. Um we additionally the budget is abolishing 15 uh FTEEs of teachers through attrition. Um, and the budget also continues uh to fund uh position 1.0 FTE, a professional staff that was added after the budget last year when we recognized we needed additional uh ENL help. All right. So, in terms of the budgets themselves, we'll start here with the superintendent and board of
013education. Uh not much of a change here. No change at all in the superintendent's budget and a slight increase uh in board of education. There's some increases in the cost for the pole workers who work at the budget vote. Uh curriculum instruction and assessment. Did I skip something? Sorry. Give me one second. Okay. Um this one actually we're we're seeing a decrease uh of of almost 10%. U this is largely due to a reduction in other contractual expenses in workshops and curricula curriculum writing expenses. Um we have shifted that professional development to internal staff occurring during the school day. So that's allowed us to save um funds there. Uh and a decrease in the charter school tuition uh through the reduction of one uh one student's tuition. Hit the button the wrong way. Personnel transportation
014and student support services. Uh we're seeing an increase in this budget of about $750,000. The large increases here um are due to uh us having to rebid our transportation contracts. Uh I do want to point out um we present the budgets in a budgettobudget format. Um what happened here because the the increase seems rather large, but really what we're seeing is an increase over a two-year period. Um we were notified last year by a transportation provider they were not going to renew our contracts. um which is you know typical standard practice although they had not um they had been renewing the contracts for a fairly lengthy period of time. So when they did um say they weren't going to renew um we had to go out and rebid. We have been paying well below market
015rates for a long time. We benefited tremendously from that. Um and I can tell you because I came from another district and we were paying a lot more in that district than um Lindbrook had been paying. Um so we had to rebid the contracts. The uh the bids that came in were higher um than what we were paying but still actually below market rate um for that other districts were paying. Um the issue was um in terms of last year is that I'm we're presenting budget to budget since we found out about this these contracts not being renewed um last year after we developed the budget. Um we're showing actually an actual expense this year of about half a million dollars over budget um because we were not able to budget for the actual expenses
016that we've seen. So uh if we were to look at actual uh 2425 to proposed 256 the increase is not as large. Um so you're seeing basically about if you took the increase that we're seeing here basically cut it in half that's really the increase um actual budget 2425 to proposed budget 2526. Um so I just wanted to point that out but we are seeing increases across non-public uh across the indistation as well. Um there have been no changes really no increases in any of our routes. In fact, we've actually decreased um one of the routes at at KC. Um so there's no increase um in the routes. Um these increases that we're seeing are due to contracts. I do also want to point out um that when we uh first heard about the contracts
017not being renewed. Um Dr. Burman has negotiated uh on the district's behalf quite well with our uh uh trans main transportation provider and they have been actually very accommodating. Um when we went back to them and said these our costs are going up tremendously they said okay they would work with us and we were able to actually reduce this increase that you're seeing while it is rather large is less than it actually could have been and would have been had Dr. Burman, not gone back to them. Uh, and, uh, I don't want to say strong armed them, but she's a very good negotiator. So, um, so I just did want to point that out. Uh, in terms of finance, operations and information systems. This is the business office. Um, the increase here is largely due
018to steeply rising premium, insurance premiums. Uh and we had a reassessment of district properties that went up quite a bit as well. So the increase here is almost $350,000. Um we also had to go out and get our own flood insurance. Uh our main insurance provider used to provide that and was no longer able to do that. So um the increase here um as I'm sure you're all seeing in your own homeowners uh insurance and your auto insurance um rates are increasing at double digits. Uh we are seeing that as well. Um debt and interfund transfers really nothing to talk about here. We're in the sixth year of 20 years of debt service uh on the borrowing we did for the bond. Uh and inter fund transfers themselves are u flat. Facilities an increase of
019just over 3%. Um we are showing a net decrease across our um utilities expense lines. Uh but we're also seeing increases in the area of the asbestous and lead uh abatement testing line. Uh New York State is requiring all school districts this year to test for lead in water. Uh they actually also lowered the threshold above which we have to um remediate any problems. U they the threshold was used to be 0.15 parts per billion. It's it's cut in in third. Um so we are anticipating based on our testing last time a lot more of our our um water outlets to not pass and we'll have to remediate them. So between the testing and the uh the plan remediation we're seeing increases about $68,000 there. Um we're increasing our maintenance codes. We have aging infrastructure.
020Um we've been having um issues with some of our infrastructure failing. Um we're trying to rightsize the maintenance codes. So there's an increase there. Uh similarly in the HVAC maintenance area as well. Terms of capital projects in the budget, this is an increase of uh $50,000 over last year. Um we're budgeting $600,000 for renovation of three bathrooms up at West End that are just they are they are very very outdated. Um and so we're uh replacing those. At the same time, given the conversations we've had about um moving the continuum of special ed up to West End, um there's going to be additional staff. There is already not enough faculty restrooms there. So, we're going to create additional um staff bathrooms at West End. And then there's $150,000 in there for the renovation of classrooms
021at West End. Uh again, to continue building out the special ed continuum. uh our school budgets uh elementary and secondary overall is about an 18% increase. Um besides generally increases in supplies and materials, we are seeing um in contractual increases in activities as clubs and activities and uh instructional supervision um at at athletic events. Um we are also seeing the effects of that trans those transportation increases show up here um for things like um field trips. This is again due to the rebidding of contracts. You'll see that the transportation showing up in several different areas um throughout the budgets as we present them. This is one of those areas. Um special ed, another area where we'll we're seeing an increase in transportation of uh about $470,000. Again, all tied into the rebidding of contracts. Overall,
022we're seeing a reduction uh of just over $100,000 in special ed. Uh this is largely due to a sizable decrease of over $900,000 in our uh private tuition codes. Um this is due to a combination of factors including uh our continuing effort to bring students back in district uh students aging out of the uh the programs, students graduating and then uh other students exiting the program in some cases when students move away. Um other decreases here, we restructured some of the expenses for uh the Northwell Health Partnership. We move them out of this code into the um guidance and social work code. Uh and then we're seeing an increase in um related services. Uh but that increase is offset by about $100,000 for that occupational therapist that we're bringing on staff. And then an increase
023of just over $100,000 in our public tuitions, public out of district tuitions. Terms of communications and technology, this is an increase of just under 8% about $164,000. um 168,000 increase in network administration at Boseis. Um this is due to our one to world project which is uh we're providing uh laptops and devices to all of our students. Um those devices are getting increasingly more expensive. Uh additionally we're moving software into the that into the Boseis network administration code from other non-BOSIS codes. um about $50,000 increase in telephone code uh due to phone system upgrades uh and adding backup internet lines at all of our school buildings. And then uh this is off those increases are offset by a decrease in uh computer repairs uh due to equipment and services that were purchased this year that
024we don't need to purchase again next year. Um athletics and health again transportation increases showing up here due to the rebidding of those contracts. So, we're overall up about $130,000 uh in athletics and health, $167,000 increase in transportation. Um, and then increases in coaching salaries, athletic supervisions. Uh those are contractual increases um offset by a decrease of about $57,000 in supplies and equipment and then a decrease in the athletic trainer code. U because we brought the the athletic trainer similar to the occupational therapist used to be a contracted service provider. We brought that position inhouse. Uh fine and performing arts uh is down about $22,000. Uh that's largely due to the fact that we had a a a fairly large um purchase budgeted for 2425 that we don't need to um repeat in 2526. We
025bought some coral risers um and that expense um we don't need to do that again. Guidance and counseling. Um this one is up uh $34,000 net. Uh overall increases due to us again moving the Northwell Health Partnership the expense for that out of special ed into guidance and counseling. Um and then um a reduction for uh budgeted cost for central Nashville guidance that we are no longer using in favor of Northwell Health. Uh special programs here. This is um summer our summer high school. This is summer playground adult education and the like. um the increase here of about $73,000. Uh this is because um in part we are expanding the summer program. We're adding an academic component to that program uh as well as just general uh cost increases for all of these programs as
026well. Um I'm going to mention here, we have mentioned it uh in past meetings that there will be an increase in the cost of summer playground this summer. Um that's going up to $300 for our uh indistrict kids and then $330 for uh the uh students who are not uh in the school in the Limbrook school district. Salaries and benefits uh going up about 2% here. Um again we've added the occupational therapist um but this increase is um low much lower than it would have been had we not been able to do the retirement incentive. Um, so that retirement incentive is is the effect of that is reflected here. Um, in terms of our benefits, we're budgeting for uh a 10% increase in our health insurance premiums. Um, that is generally in line with what
027we've been seeing. This year was an aberration. I do hope it holds. Uh, the increase was very small this year. Um but you know I if experience tells me anything um nice ship has done this before and then hit us with a 15% increase after a 0% increase. So um so we're being we're being very uh conservative here in our budgeting. Uh social security just going up because of salary increases. ERS is going up about $200,000. um that is largely due to a sizable increase in the actual ERS rate which is direct uh which is dictated to us by the state. That rate has gone up effectively 9% on its own. Um ERS is actually going down. Uh that is affect a result of two things. number one uh our salaries not um increasing because
028of the retirement instead not increasing as much as they would have but additionally the actual TRS rate decreased um effectively 5% um year-to-year so that rate has been going down so here's our overall expenditure summary this is a summary of all of those previous budgets that I presented our overall budget 110 million153587 an increase of uh just under $3.8 million or 3.53%. So that's the budget as we present it um here in in Lindbrook. Um every district does things their own way. Uh the the state then comes down and says we you have to present the budget in the in their threepart budget summary format. Um this allows people to compare apples to apples across um all districts if someone were interested in doing that. So, here's our three-part summary. We are required to present
029the three parts being administrative, program, and capital. Uh, our administrative um budget being just under $10 million. Program the largest portion as you would want it to be. This is the educational program um 83,669,816 and the capital at U$6.6 million. Um the percentage breakdowns here capital is 15% of the budget administrative costs are 9% and the program is 76% that has held steady from the prior year. So the details of what comprises the administrative budget are listed here. You see the overall increase of 8.27 to seven uh percent things that are in here um you know special items that is um insurance and our association dues for Boseies um things of that nature so that's that's gone up quite a bit um largely due to the increase in insurance that I spoke about earlier our
030program budget the largest part of our three-part budget um is listed here it's you know teaching special ed instructional media um again this is broken out differently uh than the way we presented the budget in previous slides, but the total here being 83.6 million, an increase of about 3%. And finally, our capital budget, its facilities and operations, the benefits associated with the capital part part of the budget, debt service, and our transfers um to special aid and school lunch. So, that's up about 3.29%. So, um, these things are generally in line with our overall budget tobudget increase, which is 3.53%. And that's the end of the three-part budget. Um, so now let's talk about how we're paying for the budget. Um, our use of reserves. We are planning uh an increase here of $300,000 overall
031in our uh budgeted use of reserves. ERS going up $200,000. That is in line with the increase that we are budgeting for the ERS expense. Uh and the other increase here from year to year um was an increase in the TRS reserve um of $100,000. So a net overall increase of $300,000 but a total use of reserves of $2.99 million. Um our projected balance of reserves after use and these reserves is $1.5 million. The other portion of how we are paying for the budget is our local revenue. Um really not a big change here. Um the overall increase in our local revenue is about $500,000. 300,000 of that is in our increase in use of reserves. The other 200,000 is in our pilot payments. That's payment in lie of taxes and that increase is largely
032due to our budgeted increase uh in the pilot for LIPA. our state aid revenue projection um state budget was due April 1st. They don't have a budget. Um usually we we have um final state aid numbers at this point. We do not this year. So what we're using are the projected um aid revenue projections from the executive budget. Um so we're expecting here um generally an increase in foundation aid of about a million dollars. um with decreases um in some of the other areas. Uh most of the other areas are expense-based aid. So it's if we spend the money, we get reimbursed for that. Um we what we are seeing actually even if while our expenses increases some of the aid ratios, so we spend money um the ratio that determines how much we get
033paid um changes from year to year. And we are seeing actually a decrease uh we're actually Long Island is seeing gen in general a decrease uh in our aid ratios and that has to do with the fact that um they use wealth ratios. Long Island is looking relative to the rest of the state more wealthy uh or wealthier on a year-to-year basis. So when that happens, our aid ratios go down, but I won't bore you with too many of those details. So, our total general um fund state aid is about um $21 million. I break out the UPK money at the bottom because that um $842,000 is not part of our general fund budget. The general fund budget is the budget that the community votes on. Um so, we break out the UPK money because
034that is um allocated to our special aid fund, the F fund that we call it. Um so, we just break it out there. So, our total state aid from the state is $218 million. The other way that we pay, the largest um single source uh of funding for the budget is our tax levy. Uh and so part of what we do is we calculate our tax cap. Uh and this is that formula. I won't walk you through necessarily all of the details, but we start with, you know, the current year's um tax levy and then we run it through this formula. Um I I just I like to point out News Day likes to say, "Oh, the tax cap is 2%." Um and it's not and they do it every year and it's unclear and
035misleading. Um that 2% is a one part of the formula um which is shown here on the third line from the bottom. There are other factors in here uh including the taxbased growth factor which is the uh the growth in the taxable property within the school district. So uh when we go through this formula slide one and slide two uh we take into account things like debt service, capital projects and our budget. Um the Boseies capital exclusion which is basically what part of what we pay to Boseis uh in terms of our administrative fees. Um there is no ERS exclusion this year. I left that in there because we did have an exclusion for ERS last year and our building aid. Um so when you run that formula it brings us to our allowable tax
036levy limit. That's the tax cap and that number is $78,895,593. Uh that's a 2.93% increase. So that is that is Lindbrook's tax cap. Uh so when we determine what um our tax levy actually is, we start with our proposed budget the 110 153 587. Um, we look at our state aid, that's the the 20.9 million. We look at our local revenue, our projected applied fund balance, which is 1.525 million. That remains unchanged from the current year. Uh, and we get our total estimated revenue of $31.2 million. Um, the difference between our proposed budget and our estimated total revenue um is 78,895,593. Um that is what our tax levy cap is. That's the 2.93%. So we our tax cap is 2.93%. We are taxing at the cap. So proposition one on the ballot when you all
037go to vote is the budget. U proposition two is the use of the technology reserve. So we are asking the community for permission to spend $400,000 from the technology reserve. Um, we're asking to spend $175,000 um to continue the district-wide wiring project. Um, we have been doing this now um each year at a different building, upgrading the network wiring. Uh, additionally, we're asking for $225,000 for device replacement. This is largely going to be the replacement of touchscreens at our two middle schools. um they are uh running on operating systems that will no longer be supported and will no longer support the touch functionality. Um so we're upgrading we we would be upgrading the touchcreens at both of the middle schools. We are also um asking to uh looking to purchase about a hundred laptop devices
038for uh new middle school laptops. Um just want to note that uh voter authorization of the use of reserves has no effect on the budget on the tax cap on the tax levy I'm sorry. Um and uh has no no there comes at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Proposition three uh another use of reserves this from uh the capital facilities reserve. Um the roof here on the old portion portion of the high school um is past its useful um lifetime. Um Mr. Seda and his team have been doing yman's work in keeping uh the roof from leaking too much. Um but it is time it is time to replace the roof that um where we've got an estimate of about $2.7 million to replace the roof. Uh, additionally, we're budgeting $500,000 for the renovation
039of a science classroom up at uh, North Middle School. Again, use of reserves like this uh, comes at no additional cost to taxpayers, has no effect on the tax levy uh, or the budget. Proposition four, we're asking the community to reauthorize one of our capital reserves. Actually, this is the continuous facilities improvement capital reserve. uh that reserve was established five years ago for a period of five years. That five years expires in June, end of June. We're just asking for an extension of three more years on that reserve uh and to increase the total full capitalization to $18 million uh and to maintain the maximum annual funding threshold at $2 million. Uh again, this also comes at no additional cost to taxpayers. this reserve would just be funded with any fund uh any uh funds
040left over at the end of a fiscal year. So in summary, the budget that has been adopted by the board 110,153587. It's a 3.53% budgettobudget increase. Uh our proposed tax levy at the cap of 78 uh 78.9 million uh 2.93% increase. Uh just a couple other things to note. Last day to register to vote if you are not already registered, May 14th. That's a week from today. Uh and the allimp important budget vote May 20th. Uh the polls open at 7 a.m. They close at 9:00 p.m. Uh and you can check our website if you are not sure of your voting location. Uh one last thing to point out. Um if the budget does not pass uh on May 20th, uh the board has several options. Uh the one is to present the same budget
041for a revote in June. Uh second option would be to present a modified budget again at the uh a revote in June. Third option would be to go directly to a contingency budget with a tax levy increase of 0%. Uh if the budget uh goes to a second vote and does not pass, then we are required by law to go to contingency uh with an automatic 0% increase in the tax levy. Uh our increase in the levy is about $2.2 million in our in the proposed budget. Um that would mean that goes away. Uh and the board would need to reduce the proposed budget by about $2.2 million. Um there are additional rules that are associated with a contingency budget. Uh I won't get into them now. Hopefully we won't have to get into them.
042Um but uh there are certain rules that do apply. Uh and with that, I will open to questions from the board. Uh I don't have any questions. This is like the eenth time that we as a board have have gone through this work. But I do want to just acknowledge and appreciate everything that both the uh administrative team here and the LTA working in partnership to allow us to put out a budget that is both under the cap and does not cut programs. So just commend to everyone who is involved in that. I'll second that. Mr. Press, if I could ask you on page three. Yes. Could you just clarify for the public that when we say we're abolishing 15 FTE teachers through attrition that we are not cutting teachers? I just want to make
043certain that everyone understands what attrition is. And could you dive into that for me, please? Yes. So, we we there were no layoffs. um in in the budget. Um we had a number of uh teachers that had retired. Um we are not replacing those teachers. So that that's how you know in terms of the retirement um that's how those positions are able to be abolished. Um we also had additional teachers who uh resigned or left the district for one reason or another. Uh and through planning again, central office, cabinet, building principles, administration, um we were able to figure out that um we did not need to h we did not need to replace those positions. Thank you so much. And as noted, um Mr. President, we know how much work had gone into this, how
044many different meetings we have had on this and how much work was done really from the level of the teachers all the way up to the administrators, the principles and to obviously administration. So, it's never easy every year. You know, I don't think people actually understand how much work went in this year because of the restrictions we had financially. So, uh we all appreciate the work. Oh, but I would be aiss not to throw out a parting shot that for those that are paying attention watching the news, the queen that is our governor decided that she's going to decide that every school district can't have phones in the schools. and she's putting at least $13 million towards that. So just imagine what school districts can do with $13 million to come up to a plan
045to not have those phones in the schools. Like somehow she knows what's best for Limbbrook, what's best for Bridgeampton, what's best for Albany. So I always like to point out those things. So every November when you have to vote, you can look at those issues. So at this time if anybody from the community wants to address budget issues, we will close this meeting afterwards. We will then have public session where you can address any issues you want. But if you have any questions or want to address budget issues, um please come to the microphone. Seeing that there are none, we are going to close that part of the meeting. Even though the agenda doesn't have um I mean I thought all these students were here because they were so interested in the budget and they
046come to my attention they are not and when my son took his semester abroad I absolutely loved going to Italy. So we will revamp our schedule now because I do have the gavl right so I can make that decision. So we will we will now have that part we will now have that part of the presentation. So, if you want to come up or handle whatever it was you're going to do later. I mean, had you brought us a little sampling of the food from Italy, we would have been a little more on Good evening. I'm very honored to be standing here to um just recap on our recent Italy trip over spring break and um yeah, we're just going to talk about it pretty quickly, but let's get started. Okay. Um Okay. So, on
047our first day, we arrived in Rome where we traveled around. We went to the Parthonon. We we went to a gelato making class and a tiramisu making class and we went to the Trevy Fountain which was very fun and we got to see all the different sites and the history there. Um on day three we visited the coliseum and the Roman Forum which showed us where oh what's it called? Wait, what's it called? Um the cross thing I forget. Whatever. Whatever. Whatever. Um, sorry. Um, but we went to forum in the coliseum and it was very fun. We saw the how much work they put into it and how long it took. And on day four, we took an overnight fair an overnight ferry to Sicily where we arrived in Polarmo. We saw nice things
048there. Yeah. Um, on day four we visited Polarmo which had beautiful structures of buildings and the architecture was just amazing to see. And the thing that I love most about this is that people who were studying it like Italian like me, we were able to utilize that in every part of the day because some people aren't able to like use that with their family and it was just amazing to do it every day and just get used to it. Um, next, seriously, we sent you to Italy and you sent us pictures of pizza. The food there was phenomenal and I would love to I miss it so much. But it was next we visited Tormina and we went to a a man-built theater and it was just it was another beautiful architecture. And in then
049we were able to roam around and every day we were had free time where we were able to go eat and I was a part of a group and we went up 75 flights of stairs up to the top of a mountain and we went into a abandoned church that they were like allowing people to sightsee and it was very beautiful and you were able to light candles and it was amazing view. The next day we went to visit Mount Etna. And when we went up there, the winds were really strong, but it was it was just beautiful to see like all like from so high up there cuz you were able when you looked up all over the edge, you were able to see the entire town in front of you. And then later
050when we got back to the hotel, we went up to the roof and they surprised us with the fact that Mount Etna was erupting like hours later. But it was a little scary, but it was just phenomenal to see. Um on day six we visited Syracuse and Katana and our tour director Franchesca, she was actually born there and um we got to see her city and the culture and it was just so amazing to see everything incorporated and just um taking our like taking our prior knowledge that we have learned in our foreign classes and bringing it to um her hometown. So yeah, and then for Easter we spent it in Pito and Solerno. And um yeah, in the morning we stopped by Pizzo and at night in Solerno, we actually went to visit a
051mass and the um priest actually called us out in English and he um yeah acknowledged us and it was just really great to see um that kind of like cross over. So yeah, and on day seven we visit visited the Amalfi Coast and um on this day we took a lemon farm tour and um yeah, we got to see the like pass down generations of um this man's farm and we actually got to try the lemons and um yeah, they were very different from our lemons and Yeah. And on day eight, we visited the ruins of Pompei. Um, does anybody have anything to say about that? Do you want to say anything? No. Okay. Um, yeah, we um explored explored the archaeological site and we got to see all the towns and all the um
052civilization of what they formed before it got um obviously torn down. So, And unfortunately, we had to leave at some point. So, we said bye to our um tour director, Francesca, who really helped us throughout the whole trip and she was so accommodating to everybody. And yeah, she was just a great um tour director for us. And finally, we'd like to say a big big thank you to Miss Tranina because without her, this trip would not have been able to um have came to life at all. And yeah. And we also want to give a big big thank you to our chaperones. Um, Miss Marinoli, Miss Sanchez, Mr. Paleo, and Miss Ley who are all here tonight. And yeah, we're just going to have some people um speak really quickly on their experiences. So yeah.
053Okay. This trip was truly the trip of a lifetime. My greatest dream is to travel the world and I couldn't have imagined a better way to begin that journey with this unforgettable experience. Miss Tranina and the incredible chaperrons made every moment meaningful, turning every trip into something truly extraordinary. Every activity was both enjoyable and engaging and I find myself missing it more and more with each day passing. This experience was not only amazing, it was the perfect first step towards making my dreams a reality and a little less professionally. I bonded with so many people that I never crossed paths with and they're now my closest friends. Um, good evening. Um, first of all, I would really like to thank the the board of education, Dr. Lynch, and our pre and our principles for allowing
054us to go on this amazing opportunity. We literally got to go to Italy. Like, that's like 9h hour flight away. And obviously, we all had to make a choice like spend our spring break. I played baseball. I chose I had to choose that over baseball. And I honestly think it was 100% worth it. Like she said, um, like Julia and they said, um, Miss Tranina and our chapron were amazing. And Francesca, we love Francesca. miss her. Um, she she was our tour guide and very knowledgeable, very professional, and she was really the best. EF Tours did an amazing job playing this out for us. And yeah, thank you so much for the opportunity to let us go. I'll say something. Good evening. Um, so I've been taking Italian since seventh grade and we always talked
055about the culture and like the stuff that um you experience in Italy and I was like always like oh I was unsure about it but going to Italy and like I can like spot out like oh like during lunchtime most Italians go home for lunch and eat even like in the schools and I like totally didn't realize that was true and I just I was able to like to talk to people in Italian too like understand what they were saying. I think I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for this trip and this amazing opportunity. So, thank you. We'd like to just give one more big big thank you to you guys as our board and um for having this school sponsored trip and um we hope that in the years forward we can
056continue this and um yeah, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. You got to tell me something about the food that you ate there. So, I mean, you were talking Italian. Tell me some of the dishes that you had there. Philly, you hungry? Oh, tartufo. I got free tartufo for sending bona pasqua to an old Italian man and it was really good. They ate gelato on a bos. Oh, and a brios, which is like um like a bread roll. Very good. The the was so good and the pasta was very thin, but it was it was really really good. And it wasn't as fattening as it is here. Yeah. A lot less preserved than it cooked. Well, for us it was important to hear back from you because it's been a while since
057we had students do a trip like this. So, one, making sure you were able to do it, you know, priority first being safely and in a healthy manner and so forth and and being no issues was important, but also hearing how the trip went for you, the excitement you had and how it impacted you is very important so future classes can go and experience because like you said, it is a very unique experience to go away with people you grew up with and people you didn't know that well and to bond with them and to see another culture. So, it's very exciting for us and very rewarding to know that you enjoyed that experience. Thank you. Thank you for telling us about it. Thank you. We'll actually give those students a few minutes to you
058could leave, but we know you're not here for the rest of the meeting. Moving on with our meeting. Um report from trustees policy committee. Tonight is the second reading and adoption of policy 2350 board meeting procedures N4321 for programs for students and disabilities. Miss Luna, I don't believe we have any updates from the PTA. Uh no, nothing for this meeting. Mrs. Kelly, anything for DEI? Just very quickly, the DEI diversity council had its last meeting on May 1st. During that meeting, there was a more detailed discussion regarding moving the work of student belonging and inclusion as a standing item to the building level shared decision-making committees, which is known as compact. Districtwide issues could be discussed at the annual compact meeting with the board of education and potentially quarterly district-wide compact meetings as well as
059through the PTA school and community and curriculum groups. Second half of the meeting was dedicated to Mr. McDermott who demonstrated the extensive communication features available in Parent Square, including translation and accessibility. Finally, on behalf of the board, I would like to thank all of those who served on the district DEI council this year. It was a pleasure as my first time in the role. So, thank you so much. And thank you to Dr. Bleis for being there with me at every meeting. and we have no old or new business. So, moving on to superintendent's report. Thank you, Mr. Belmont. So, just to give an update on our board goals. Uh, so the first is our implementation of the profile of the owl. I'm going to go a little out of order here and give you
060a preview for next year just based on I wish the kids were still here for this one, but uh when we we when we unveil the formal profile of the owl, as you know, last year we did a deep dive with the community. This year we did a deep dive with the faculty. So, four themes have emerged and that fourth theme is something we're going to be calling global citizenship and I think uh we have just seen global citizenship at its absolute best. Uh so that was just a a great thing. But uh in addition to that, we did have our first professional development committee meeting. Uh and again, as I mentioned at the last board meeting, we're now going to drill down and get teachers involved in planning their own development aligned with the
061profile of the Alice. So, we're very excited about that. Um our second goal was uh was the multi uh multi-tered systems of support and we that committee with school and community which is the PTA committee that was uh tasked with working with us. Uh we operated on SEAL goals, social emotional learning goals and uh we had a the the rookie of the year Mrs. Boyce was uh with me on the on the on the committee and uh just we we we did a quick recap this week of what we accomplished as a committee and I think we felt this was like we did a lot like that some that we really moved the needle. So the biggest one was uh the launching the Northwell partnership and it wasn't we knew we were going to launch
062it but it's also how do we communicate it? How do we get it out to parents? Um that's the committee that helped us critique the website. No, you should say it this way. No, you should say it that way. Put it up there. make sure people find it. So that was invaluable. Um I cannot remember uh parent universities being as well attended when it's when they were concentrated on social emotional learning. Mr. Belmont, you attended a a parent university. It was really a great thing. Uh we launched uh the the screening at the elementary and the middle schools. That was all done with the feedback of that committee. Uh and then we're going to now start to see uh just like DEI is going to be moving to the buildings, uh SEAL work is going
063to be uh to the build. It's one thing to talk about philosophy and calling it out as a separate thing. I don't think that's where we're about anymore. I think we're about doing the actual work and that will be happening at the building level. So, uh those were just a lot of goals that were um uh accomplished. And then our third goal, uh it was very exciting. I I'm a horrible secret keeper. So, I've seen the first preview of the new website and it is going to be beautiful. Uh so, we're going with a much more sleek, more modern design. Uh we're trying to work uh we have heard you loud and clear. I think our navigation of our current site is a tad confusing. Uh so we're we're we really working with PTA uh
064to make sure that it's it's streamlined so that people can find stuff where it is and we are looking forward. It's an ambitious launch date but uh we think we can make it by July 1st. So and I thank Mr. McDermott and Mrs. Cornichello uh for for helping us out. Um so those are kind of the three goals. A couple things I I do want to talk about that I do want to mention Mr. Press uh that his staff was just awarded the uh the finance officers association international a a certificate of excellence. So that makes their second certificate this year and the 12th or 13th uh annually. So uh that is really what it's for is transparency and reporting. And I said to the board this particular I mean we're always transparent about the
065budget but I I think you folks need a lot of thanks. We took you out a lot of nights. We took you out on Tuesday nights just to discuss where that retirement incentive was going. Uh so you really did a lot of the work and we talked about it warts and all uh all through the process keeping you informed and keeping the the public informed. So I thank you on behalf of that and again big congratulations to Mr. Press and his staff. Uh and now we'll turn it over to Dr. Bleis for the curriculum update. Thank you Dr. Lynch. I'm going to piggyback on some of the uh board goals, especially with the profile the owl here. So, uh we're happy to announce that our high school students enrolled in Miss Erlick's advertising and marketing
066and Dr. Tineber's virtual enterprise 1 and two classes have begun work on microcredentiing through Corsera. By the end of the school year, 38 students in advertising and marketing are on track to earn Adobe content creator professional certificates, demonstrating their emerging abilities to create strategic marketing content using industry best practices and generative AI. Through this four course series, these students are learning how to understand and apply basic visual design principles, explore diverse career opportunities in design, gain hands-on experience with Adobe Express to easily create professional quality design piece projects, and build a stunning portfolio that showcases their design expertise and proficiency with Adobe Express. Also, by the end of the school year, 51 students in virtual enterprise 1 and two are on track to earn their IBM business analyst professional certificates, learning the job ready skills
067needed for a career as a business analyst. Through this seven course series, these students are learning strategies and methods such as process modeling, requirements gathering, stock stakeholder engagement, project management, systems analysis, data analysis, and visualization. Thank you for supporting these wonderful opportunities for our students as we continue to implement the recommendations for the profile of the owl. you know, this is a really cool kind of things where kids are actually working getting on work credentials so they can get jobs at the end of uh these opportunities which is kind of awesome. So very good resume build for all these students. I just want to add I do want to add something to that. So I don't know if Dr. T is here but just to it was very interesting. So I'm on LinkedIn and I
068have a lot of contacts because I'm old and I've been in a couple of different places. I've been in this industry for 37 years. So, you kind of get to know a lot of people. But I come home one night and I have like 25 notifications and I'm like 25 notific Oh, there he is. 25 notifications like who is notifying me this and what Ben Dr. T had done and just a basic real so uh pillar three of the profile of the owl is real life skills. So what he had the kids do is say the words, I am honored to have participated in a Cosera course that gave me this credential and then the bit of genius. Thank you at Paul J. Lynch for this opportunity. Thank you at William Belmont for this opportunity.
069So now it tags me. What do you think I'm going to do? I'm not going to like appreciate that post. So I appreciate that post. I'm a little out of my comfort zone because now I have like 25 friends who are seniors at senior high school on my LinkedIn network. And the best thing I saw last night, Ben, I didn't even get to tell you this. I saw my contacts liking their posts. So these are superintendent in other districts. These are curriculum directors in other districts. I I don't know if people know I was in the software industry for uh a year. So my contacts from the software industry are now liking our kids posts. So now their names are out there. And just that simple, you know, we all know what that is. Thank
070you at Paul J. Lynch. That the network is what it's about. And to learn that at 16 and 17, I didn't know that until I was 32. So for them to learn that at 16 and 17 years old, that's as real life skill as it gets. So uh yeah, I think we we're on a on a good path there. So uh I assume I'm about to go home and have a 25 other notifications and I'll have to back on that. So just to piggyback on that furthermore of what Dr. T's been doing, working heavily with the real life skills that our kids need, we have on LinkedIn, um, which Dr. T will soon be taking over the Lindberg business networking site and we continue to add, you know, Dr. T and I several years ago
071created this and now the kids keep joining it and connecting. what it would love to do for maybe more than the five that are here, but for anyone listening, we have now probably getting to the hundreds range of our students that have graduated that are there. This could be a great resource when you're looking to hire someone or our kids are looking for jobs. It would be great for anybody who's listening on the video out there. If you're looking to hire, this is a great place to look to go to go to join to post jobs that you're looking for or looking to connect. I can't stress to you enough, I know we have many educators on board and some that are not. It's an incredible resource. And so Dr. Key has been funneling these
072kids constantly. It's just it's in essence what Facebook is socially, LinkedIn is professionally. And it's an unbelievable resource. So if I'm coaching a kid and he says he wants to go to law school, he wants to be an engineer. He connects with me on LinkedIn. I have 5,000 contacts. He can go through my contacts. Now he just has to hit somebody up and say, "Hey, um, can I have a 10-minute conversation? I'm looking to go into this career. Is your company hiring? So, it's more than just the the thumbs up and so forth. It's an incredible resource and if we can find a way or it's always difficult to find somebody to take it and run it, but we have the infrastructure now on LinkedIn for a business networking site for for LinkedIn students and
073graduates and alumni and hopefully that can continue. Billy, I'll just follow on what you said u with Dr. 's um VE class, virtual enterprise. Sometime in the first quarter or second marking period, there must have been a lesson on use of LinkedIn and how to use it to reach out because every single kid in the VE class, I one day went into my LinkedIn and I had 30 or 25 invitations of all kids who want to be my friend. And it's odd. I'm seeing all these kids want to be my friend. And I generally on social media wouldn't want to interact with students, but this is on a professional uh platform. It's really cool. They all took the initiative. They all sent presumably because I'm a board member and maybe some others saw that as
074well and they all reached out and now yeah they're seeing my posts. I'm seeing their posts and you know you're you're spreading it. It's a great resource but that's the real world skills that we're talking about right. It's great to learn all the topics we need to learn math and reading and writing and social studies but in the real job market these are critical skills. And I think you know it goes handinhand with the microcredentiing right how to use LinkedIn. I have people who work in my law firm who don't know how to use LinkedIn and we have these high school kids who are using it like masters. It's really cool. So, thank you. And now Mr. Lunar and I are going to have a competition is who here who has more friends. You are
075definitely going to beat me in that one. All right. Well, they're figuring that out. I'm going to continue. Uh Lindbrook's annual Steam night will be taking place on Monday, May 12th at 7. As we said last time, everyone in grade four uh is invited to the Limbrech Senior High School gym to see all about the wonderful steam opportunities at the high school. They'll also have an opportunity to uh visit our facilities and hear about some of the clubs and extracurricular activities involved up here at the high school as well. Uh last thing, and I know this is unrelated to my report, but I do want to make sure that people notice this. Uh earlier today I sent out a parent square message uh updating about the power school uh basically the data incident that uh
076we received an extra report. So I just want to make sure that you heard about this uh development. Power School informed us that a threat actor has reached out to multiple school district customers throughout the world in an attempt to extort them using data from their previously reported December 2024 incident. As a reminder, following that incident, P school offered and made widely available credit monitoring and identity protection services for a period of up to two years for students and faculty regardless of whether their information was individually involved. Uh in that parent square message, I resent that link today. So if anybody is interested in that credit monitoring, please take advantage. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bleus. And just another uh shout out for that Steam night. So that was something that we used to call
077women in steam and now it's just steam because again calling out uh it's it's it's a good thing for everybody. I think that's that's the whole concept. So I really if anyone's watching or when you watch this replay, please have the kids come because Lindbrook High School in the area of the sciences and engineering is doing incredible work. And I think sometimes if all you've had exposure to is your elementary school which are doing incredible work. But when you can see what your career path can be and when you get kids inside our science research lab and when you can see our uh our computer our CAD lab and when you can see our science labs and you can see our drone lab and you can see our you know that that this is your
078high school you are coming here and it may make you think about what you should be pursuing. So I really think that is a uh and we have our own you know it's it's one thing for our teachers to talk It's our own kids. So these I mean when you've heard them up here I mean some of them they they have these projects that all of us like we polite and we like oh yes very interesting. We don't know a word they're talking about but um that's just how brilliant these kids are and when you hear them on this steam night explain their pro projects to fourth graders and they're able to actually explain the project and the fourth graders ask a good question about the project. you know, I just done all the uh
079the elementary uh science uh fairs and you can actually see that progression from that science fair where they're making slime or they're doing all the that that stuff and then where that progresses up to uh to what's happening here at the high school. So, I I would really encourage that uh uh for people to come out and and Dr. Lynch is not overselling. I have a junior and we've started the uh college visit um nightmare and our research lab here is definitely on par with or ahead of a number of the labs that we've seen in colleges that we're visiting. Maybe not Hopkins, but you know, it's it's up there with with with some good schools. So, um it's a credit to the district for having supported that. It really is a beautiful and um
080very well um uh facilitated. You know, everything in there is is top-notch. Hey, Mr. Press, Capital Project. We were we were just talking over here when we were in high school. We were happy to have a Bunson burner, right? All right. Capital projects updates. Um, not a whole lot has changed since my last report, which was actually only about two weeks ago. Um, but the uh the door projects at uh West End and Marian Street continue to move along. The company that is doing the wiring for the uh well, this is going to sound odd, the wiring for the wireless door locks. They have to wire the wireless devices that communicate with the wireless door locks. Um, that work continues. Uh, the real heavy lifting will happen over the summer. Um our bathroom projects here
081at the high school, the faculty bathrooms here and at the administrative building and then the um repointing work at Marian Street was approved by the state. Um we're actually opening the bids on that tomorrow. So fingers crossed we get some good pricing there. Uh and that work will actually also uh happen um this this summer. Uh there was some work that was completed out here. We installed some new bleachers uh on the softball field here at the high school. Uh I saw a picture of that. Um and they look great. Um but uh hopefully by our next uh board meeting I'll have a little bit something more concrete to report along the lines of these uh capital projects. Thank you. At this time we'll move on to public comment. If anybody would like to address
082the board, please come to the microphone, identify yourself, and indicate if you are in or out of district. Hi, Ivy Riley, uh, resident. Um, couple of things. First, I want to also plug the science research symposium along with Steam night because yeah, um my kid is a product of the science research program and it's an amazing program and um I you you'd have to see it to understand it. I know that he stole your title, Dr. Lynch, but he did do the work and he learned it from the amazing stu the amazing teachers here. Um, so that's the first thing. Um, the second thing is that, um, I was very excited to see and hear the comments from the kids that went to Italy. And I think it's great that we brought back this trip
083or an international trip. But the one thing that kind of bothered me when I was hearing them speak um and it brought up some some thoughts was when somebody said that they were going to be benched because they missed sports. And that's something as a parent of athletes we've experienced ourselves and in you know football my son chose not to go on our summer vacation because he didn't want to miss a day of football and that was his choice. Um, but when you're on a school trip, I think that, you know, a school sanctioned trip, I think that's a little bit different. And I think when there are school events that kids go to, there should be some consideration to and some maybe collaboration and communication with the with the athletic department and the coaches
084about accepting that as part of the educational process. I just want to bring it up because I think it's a conversation worth having and it's something that we can do better in Lindbrook with um you know there's choices but there's school and when we're trying to increase their um ability to have this global citizenship and they are afraid to go on a trip because they're going to miss a game and then or two or which is happening during a by the way religious holiday and happens every year. Um it's they have to make this decision between doing something for school and and playing knowing that they may never play again for the rest of the season. And that's just stinks. So, um I'd like you to all think about that and and maybe have a
085conversation and and see if we can make some progress in a better direction if we're going to push this global citizenship. Um because I think it's a great idea. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Seeing nothing else, moving on with the meeting. Moving to consent agenda. I'd like to ask for consent agenda on on resolutions 255 C1, 255 C2, 255 C1, NC1 through 255 NC4, and 255G1 and 215 G22. May I have a motion, please? Mr. Lunar. Second, Mr. Aragona. All in favor. May I have a motion to accept the consent agenda? Mr. Murray second. Mrs. Dino. All in favor. Um, even though I put all kinds of notes in regarding the vote. I'll repeat what Mr. Press put out. Budget vote election is Tuesday, May 20th. If you registered with the Nassau County
086Board of Elections, you are registered to vote in the district election. Individuals may register to vote for the Lindbrook election may do so in the district clerk's office Monday to Friday between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 400 p.m. The last day to register to vote is May 14th. We also have a registration on that date from 4 to 8:00 p.m. in the high school conference room. Always Terry's favorite part of the year. Please contact the district clerk if you would like an absentee or early mail ballot application. Polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on May 20th. Our next meeting is on June 11th. And that is all, folks. Have a good night.