001My heart sounds I'm Tyler. >> Nice to meet you. Last time it was James. >> Yeah. Yeah. James got covering. >> Yeah. He's >> sad. No, not yet. >> Welcome to Man. That's all. I'm ready anytime. >> Yeah. >> All right. Right, we're good. >> Oh, okay. All right. >> Good afternoon, everyone. We'll call to order another meeting of the board of education of the Manhasset Union Free School District. We're happy to be here and back for another school year. So, uh, we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. So, our first order of business, we're very excited to once again
002uh welcome our new interim superintendent, Dr. Christopher J. Pelletary. Uh we're going to do a uh a ceremonial oath here in uh in public. I know we've sort of gone through this a couple times, but um if you could please recite the oath for us, uh we'd be excited to uh to do it with you. Thank you, uh, President Post and thanks for using my professional name, Christopher J. Pelletary, Nicole over there. Oh, thank you. I, Christopher J. pelletary do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New York that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the interim superintendent of the Manhasset Union Free School District from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 according to the best of my ability. >> Thank
003you. >> This is great news and welcome again, Greg. >> Thank you. Thank you. Um, so next is is obviously just approval of the minutes. This year we are going to do this the right way every single time. So I'd like a motion to approve, a second. Any discussion? And then we will vote. So do I have a motion to approve the minutes? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Great. >> Nicole, are you able to see who made the motion and the second? Y. >> Yes. Thank you. >> All right. Super. Um, next I believe we have uh Do we have your superintendent report? >> Yes, sir. I have a superintendent report. Thank you very much. I do appreciate that. The summer is coming to an end. We are doing a great many hires
004as uh we see that we need staff. Uh we did have some staff over the summer who may have gotten a position closer to home or something else that they were looking to do with their lives. And so we do have folks that we are hiring up until the last minute. We're very confident, Dena, that we're going to have everyone in place for the start of the school year. We're very happy to hear that and parents will be happy to hear that as well. I'm I'm certain if you dropped your kids off today for track or the past week for football or anything like that, uh you will know that there's a great deal of school construction going on. There is work going on. It sounds like my block at home. It was a lot
005of construction these days and uh we are doing almost every building. We are all three buildings have had work inside, outside, fields, new tennis courts. It's amazing. We have a new turnaround at the security guard gate. We're going to have a gate there. Uh really so much going on around the district. Took on a lot of con uh construction and it is moving according to plan and we will have that finalized for the start of the new year save for the secondary auditorium and the shelter rock auditorium. We will get those done as soon as possible as well. But and those will be spectacular places when you when you see it. It will be worth the wait. But uh an incredible amount of work has been done um according to the uh guide of our
006during that conversation. There are some concerns around parking at the secondary school. I want to say that we have heard the community about that and heard our staff and students about that. We did lose some parking spots that used to be up at the Long Island Railroad and uh that is a concern to us as well. We are looking at some options here shortterm and longterm to help our community and our students with parking and more details will follow with that. So, we hear you. We know it's a concern. We do have the physical plant that we have and we're not going to get any bigger. So, uh, we have to work with the the under those guidelines, but we do have some plans as we move forward. We'll again share more of that information.
007Uh, the cell phone ban many have talked about. I know Mr. Rotor put out a a letter recently to the community. I spoke with him again today. He's going to put out some more information, some more facts around that. One of the concerns was lunch. Are kids going to be able to go out to lunch and take their phone with them? And yes, the plan is that they'll go to the locker, get their phone and and and take it with them, uh, and then put it back in their locker upon upon return. uh parents who have a concern about being able to contact their their child. The district worked with our technology team and I confirm this again with both Riches uh our technology rich and and the secondary principal Rich that we will have
008a system in place through the district issued Chromebooks that students will be able to email parents and parents will be a able to email students through those what we call whitelisted emails. So, we're not going to just throw the district security, you know, cyber security plan in the garbage so that we can get take on every email. We're not going to do that. Your your email that is whitelisted, that is con confirmed by the district that you have filled out on your cards in the past with the district. That is the emails that will be able to get through the firewall and you'll be able to contact your your child. So, if there's a concern around that, please reach out to your school principal or or AP and they'll be able to work with you
009on that. But you will have that means to contact your child and they contact you. And of course there will be office phones throughout the schools to uh help support students just like the old days, right Ted? When we went to school and uh we had a tummy ache or something, we ended up in nurs's office or we ended up in in the principal's office. Hopefully it's not the principal saying call your parent, right? It's for something good. But those phones are there and we recognize that students may need to call a parent say hey it's raining today. Track is canceled. Can you come pick me up? We recognize those conversations need to take place. Uh so those are my updates and it's not just cell phones. I just want to reiterate that also internet
010connected devices. So whatever that means that's those are those devices that uh will be needing to go into the into the lockers. Any questions on anything that I offered there in my superintendent report? Yes, Mariana >> about the whitelisted email. Could we if there's another whenever Rich sends out I think there's usually another beginning communication could we put a link or where like if a parent had to update their email address or add um usually they've only put one primary but now they may want to put you know um another responsible adult so to have that just because I know for pickup and whatnot um and just make it easy to update the email and send it. >> We'll do that. Thank you. >> All right. Anything else? I for one am excited for the
011the cell phone ban. I love my cell phones. I have two of them. >> I'm sure the teachers are excited. >> Everyone loves their cell phones. But and and so this will be this is a major behavioral change for our students. So, we should expect there's going to be a lot of angst. But um I would just ask our outstanding staff and and and faculty to work with everybody and and get to the right answer. Right. It's it's not I'm sure there'll be some bumps in the road, but once the plane levels out, I I think this is going to be a great thing. I do. >> Yes. Especially, you know, when you mentioned staff, the staff at the fourth rated fourth best high school in New York State, right? that information just came out
012recently. Uh I'm sure that they'll be able to work with our students and uh again as my conversation with Mr. Roer, Dr. Roa today, uh we're going to communicate a lot around this with our students as well as our parents because the students are the ones that are really feeling the brunt of this also while here at school. >> Okay. All right. Great. Thank you for that. Uh so next on the agenda here is finalizing elementary section sizes. So, Tyler, can we pull that up? >> We have a uh presentation here. >> Representation. Yes. You know, it was actually number four on Long Island. Thank you, Rebecca. Dr. Chowsky. Number four on Long Island. >> Yes. >> Not New York State. >> Very impressive. >> Upside. >> Yes. Very impressive. So, our elementary enrollment projections
013like to go through this slide uh these three slides together. Very quick presentation. Tyler, can we go to the next one, please? Thank you so much. One of the things that impresses me as someone that came new to the district is you'll see both these slides nailed the number. We were looking at 30 sections in Shelter Rock and that's what we have. You can see the class sizes there. Wow. Again, as someone new to the district, really impressive class sizes. Look at kindergarten. We have 12 students across those four sections. We have thought a bit quite honestly about potentially having three sections, but I will tell you that there are five pending students that we know of that now you're going to have 13 13 and then a 14 and there are other packets out
014potentially as well. Historically, Shelter Rock gets four to five students throughout a year. So, I did not want us now being at numbers of 17, 18, 19 uh at kindergarten. So, that's why we're going to start out a little bit lower there. Every other number is is what we again anticipated. A number of sections is 30 and that's what we had budgeted for. So great job Tyler. One more please. Muny Park budgeted for 38 sections. Again came right in on that number and really impressive numbers in terms of uh class sizes throughout. Any questions concerned? Yes. When do you anticipate that um the packets that are pending be received? >> Yeah, we we call all those folks. We try to get them in. We got one in uh this past week that was complete. We
015were able to register that student. We got two in that were incomplete. So now we call those folks and ask them to get them in as soon as possible. We obviously want children starting on that first day. There is a kindergarten play date tomorrow at both schools. One's at at uh I'm going to test your knowledge here, Dr. Chowsky. One is at 10:30. I got it. One's at 10 at uh at Muny. That's right. And the other one is at one o'clock at Shelter Rock. Oh, and my meet and greets are there as well. So, I'm going to start out on the playground. I'll meet some kids and some parents. Then I'm going to go into the libraries at 10:30 at Muny and at 1:30 at Shelter Rock. Anyone that wants to come down, say
016hello, staff, parents, happy to meet folks. Thank you. Any other questions on enrollment? And and again, I'll say I'm impressed that from a year in advance, right? Six months or so, you guys nailed the projections for the enrollments sections. Good job. >> Yeah. I mean the only comment for me is just we this this had been a focus a couple years ago and we obviously had some larger enrollment in in some of the grades that have now metriculated to the middle school but it's a big area of focus. We wanted to make sure this was um an area of a focus right we we just didn't want 25 26 27 kids in a class and now it looks great. So, um, you know, I'm happy with the progress, but we do have to watch, you
017know, our declining enrollment on the on the >> Speaking of Yes, without a doubt. If you look at the sections and the numbers of kids going out and then the kindergarten sections and numbers of kids going in, yes, we we are going to have to have some long-term planning as we look at those numbers going forward without a doubt. But the community, I'm impressed with the board. You put your money where your mouth is, right? You said we wanted to do this and the community wanted to see this happen and you lowered class sizes. I I commend you. >> All right. Great. Anything else here? >> And we may not know. I know there's the building there's a set of homes that are being built. I don't the Manhass crest. When are those projected to
018uh I I we talked about this at one point. So when are we projected to see potential >> we actually sent a potential buyer, Mr. Antoine here to Manhattan Crest last week or two weeks ago. I actually sent him over there because we were trying to get a call from someone to find out and he went there. So, John, thank you for that uh service there. And we were able to get some information from them that two more homes are coming on market uh soon, shortly, and then they're expecting more as we roll forward. Uh but we don't have it was two like five bedroomedroom homes, but it was only a handful of two that they said in the initial like right now that would impact us uh at at enrollment starting right now. But
019Maria, you have other information. If I remember correctly, um, a few months ago or maybe a month and a half ago, um, we were told that I believe 10 families already are enrolled in our district from Manhasset Crest. Um, they're they're building and selling as they go along and they do have more than just two homes on the market currently. >> Okay. >> Things are sitting, I think, a little bit because of interest rates having to go down. I think their sense is that they will have sold two five B five bedroomedroom homes, not five family homes, five bedroomedroom homes uh in the in the course of the next few weeks, months that would could impact enrollment, but nothing given these numbers that would would harm us in any way. But we'll we'll we'll stay
020on top of it as I said and now we have some some folks over there that know us at Manassa Crest and we've been communicating back and forth. >> Is it possible also to uh find out either from them or would it be from our town of North Hemstead in terms of when they would be rolled onto our taxes? Definitely thinking about that as well. All right, great. Anything further here? All right, so now we'll move on to our regular agenda, you know, board discussion and committee reports. Obviously, we haven't had uh committee meetings yet. I think everyone has their liaison assignments. I think I feel great about that. The team is excited to talk to community members, talk to others about all the important topics and as as we've said publicly, you know, one
021of the great ways to get involved and and to be uh part of the solution here is is to join these committees. So, I'll say that again to everyone listening at home. Um please, you know, make avail yourself of this. It's a great experience. It's a great way to get involved. So I think we can leave it at that for now unless anyone wants to make any comments about a particular committee topic. Sure. >> Um the main one that I would say is I'm part of the SCA which is our parent organization. It's very very important that everybody joins. Um the money that we raise goes back to your kids helps the school to do extra for our children. So please when you see it at open house please contribute whatever little bit you can
022give would be wonderful. Thank you. >> All right great. And then CAC finance we will I'm repeating myself but obviously the transportation um contract will be part of what we talk about. I think that'll be a subcommittee that we can form to do that work and see how we can best optimize all of that. So that that's one other point. All right. If nothing further on committee reports, we'll move to uh the personnel agenda. We have some uh personnel to approve here. Everyone's looked at that. Uh any questions? >> Yeah, one quick question. Dina, I saw like so for example for health they have like the asterisk where it's waiting for certification. How long does that take? Um >> so a little bit different that one. >> So it's all different but for that particular
023one um they completed everything. We're just waiting for a test results. So that could be up to 30 days. So we bring them in as a sub. Um and then once they pass and the certification's there, then we can uh pay them appropriately. >> All right. Do I have a motion to approve the personnel agenda? Personnel schedule, I'm sorry. Oh, >> Nadia. Okay. Nadia Maria, any discussion? All in favor? All right, it's 50. Thank you. And now we'll move to the consent agenda which has a fair amount of items on it. Some of them are are business as usual items. um instructional services agreements, ratification of conference requests, uh Bosey's educational services agreements, Manhasset and Bosey's musical instruments, excess of technology equipment, extension of food contract, uh appointments of people to our advisory committee. We
024thank all of uh you know all of our our constituents here. Rich Schultz, Eileen Bower, Jay Agarwal. Um this is really fantastic that you guys are are stepping up and uh looks like a lot for for MAC as well. Uh Aaron Royce a former board member which is exciting. And then uh you know our annual approval of our district-wide safety plan and uh you know I just mentioned this it is a shared responsibility. I I read the plan again. I think it's comprehensive. It's one of the most important things. Uh and I just ask that our that our team here you know continue to reinforce all of the themes outlined in that document because uh it's you know it's critical for what we're doing. That looks like it. Any any questions on anything in the
025consent agenda? Right. Do I have a motion? All in favor? That's 50. Thank you. We'll keep going here. So, um, upcoming items of interest. Wow. So, that was fast. Uh, so, so this is a great meeting. Uh, so obviously we have the start of school. We have, we have a big couple days coming up. You know, all the staff is coming back. We're excited for that. First day of school is next Tuesday. And then we have our upcoming uh meetings in September and then and obviously October uh which we're all looking forward to. Uh and now we have uh public comment. I don't think we're going to get much public comment today. >> Yeah, Brian, thank you for being here. >> Hey, get that out of the mic. >> All right. So, um, look, it's
026it's the start of school. It's the most exciting time of the year. I'm I'm really excited for the year ahead and, uh, I look forward to working every with everyone. So, with that, we'll, uh, make a motion to adjurnn. All right. All approved. We are adjourned. And Tyler, you can uh, send us off. >> Thank you.