001Fellow Central School District Board of Education annual budget hearing for this evening, Monday, May 11th, 2026. At this time, I'm going to invite some very special guests of ours. Um, Miy, would you like to introduce our special guests? >> We'd like to welcome our fourth grade we den uh up to help us with the pledge of allegiance. So we have many of our members joining us today. Come on guys. the United States of America for it stands nationality. >> Nicely done, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us. Each year before the budget vote, the board of education is required to conduct an annual public hearing regarding the school district budget. In a moment, I'll be turning the meeting over to the permanent chairperson, Mayor Chad Clark. Who will conduct the annual budget hearing and election. So,
002at this time, resolve that the board of education approves the appointment of Mayor Chad Clark as permanent chairperson for the 2026 annual budget hearing and vote. May I have a motion? >> Amy, >> Second, Jen. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carrie. Mayor Clark, the meeting is now yours. >> Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I first would like to ask for a record that the meeting minutes from last year's budget hearing on May 12th, 2025 be read by Colleen Olri, our district clerk. >> Referring to the meeting, the minutes of last year's meeting after the welcome and budget allegiance, Mayor Chad Clark was appointed as the permanent chairperson who was to conduct the annual budget hearing and election. There was a motion made by Amy Bartalada and seconded by Katherine Branson Dennis that the board
003appoint Mayor Clark as the permanent chairperson. Mayor Clark reviewed the rules of conduct for the meeting after which Mr. Shamo readed all and made an introduction to the annual budget meeting presentation and explained the purpose of the meeting. Mr. Charlo and Mr. Sinatio reviewed the budget details including propositions and an introduction to the board of education candidates to be included on the ballot. The floor was open to the community for questions which were addressed by Mr. Sinatio. The minutes of the previous year's meeting of May 13, 2024 were read by the district clerk and an introduction of the board of education administration and board of education candidates was made by Mayor B. A motion was made by Shan Edy and seconded by Katherine Branson Dennis to adjourn the meeting at 6:50 p.m. Thank you. As
004in the past, I want to review the rules of conduct that we'll follow during this meeting. First, all remarks should be directed to the chair who will decide all questions of order. Second, I would like to remind everyone to be courteous in language and department. And third, please avoid all personalities and do not allude to others by name or motives. During the questioning period, which the superintendent will moderate later in the program, we'll ask anyone who wishes to ask a question to state his or her name so that the district clerk will be able to act take accurate minutes. Let me start with some introductions of the school board, school administrators, and the board candidates. The current members of the school board include Christine Shea our president, Sean Edy, the vice president, Erica Bquatic, Justin
005Pritchard, Amy Bartalada, Jen Tedesco, Kelly Rosider, and our student board member, Tucker Bernett, who's not with us. Our school administrators include Jean Charlo, superintendent, Don Weber, the school business executive, Julie Dharma, the director of special education, Michael Free the director of athletics, Michael Dingman, the director of technology, Brian Releer, the director of facilities, Amy Mitchell, director of food service, Jackie Pierce, our director of transportation, and principles Lauren Mosa, Kathy Maloney, Stephanie Rice, and Brian Cidi. Before introducing the candidates for the school board, I would note that this is not a time for any of the candidates or their supporters campaign for a school board position. There are three seats and three candidates. Two seats are three-year terms and one seat is a two-year term. The candidates with the top two votes will assume the three-year
006terms and the lowest will assume the two-year term. This year's candidates for the school board are Peter Chapman, Shaun Edy, and Jessica Johnson. The budget details and propositions will now re be reviewed by Gene Charllo, our superintendent, and Don Weber, our school business executive. Mrs. Charlo and Mr. Web, moderate for the discussion. >> Thank you, Mayor Clark. Um, so I just want to welcome everyone. Thank you for being here, especially our smaller guests. We're thrilled you're here. Um we're we're grateful that you're here to learn about the 2026 2027 Marcela schools budget. Um last week all taxpayers should have received um at their homes the Marcela schools budget newsletter. Um and if you did not or um you misplaced it, this information is also on our website. If you go under about right on the
007homepage, you click about and go to budget information. It is on the right hand side under the 2627 um school budget information. It is there's a line um that is for the budget newsletter. So tonight, Mr. Weber will be coming up in a second. U Mr. Weber, our school business executive and I will be providing an overview of the 2627 school year budget and really our process in its development. Um, we encourage you to ask questions and engage with us um, as we go through. If there's there's anything that you're curious about or don't understand, um, please ask questions. Um, and if you're anything like I am, you will leave here and think about a question, please feel free to reach out to us anytime. You can call the district office. Don or I are
008are happy to talk through um, whatever questions that might come up um, after tonight. and we'll be sure to display our contact information at the end of the presentation. So before we launch um into specifics about the budget, I do want to just uh display this slide. Um honestly, this collage of all of our students uh pictures and the programming that they're involved in is why we do what we do. Um we are committed to offering excellent programming um and we allocate our funds appropriately to do that. And so we'll talk a little bit as we go through this presentation just about the decision making in um aligning those funds to um match our commitment to students and student experiences here in Marcelis. So, these are um various terms that you're going to hear throughout
009the presentation tonight and um Don and I will define them as we go. And in addition to defining them so you understand what they mean, we will also put them in context of what they mean in relation to our budget for 2627. And so let's just start with some of the fast facts um of the budget. So our school year budget for 2627 is $43,330,431. That is essentially what the budget that we put forward um for 2627 is going to be. Um you will see here on this slide at the first bullet um we are still relying on what's called an appropriated fund balance. That's about $1.5 million. And so that is essentially a pool of dollars that is set aside um really for the purpose of funding unforeseen circumstances. So, if you think about
010your own household budgets, I'm sure from time to time you have a washing machine breakdown or your hot water heater. Um, and so that in a school district is exponential the things that that can happen. And so that that uh amount of 1.5 million really helps us. um if we have an expense in the budget that that raises um we we can allocate those funds there um just to help mitigate. So the tax levy increase this year is 2.7%. And um that is essentially what's allowable. Um and we simply need a simple majority to to pass that. Something that I think some people don't necessarily understand or are confused by is this 2% cap. I think some people say, "Well, if it's if the cap is 2%, why is it 2.7? You're going above the
011cap." That is actually not the case. So, the 2% cap is basically it's a ninestep formula that Don has to actually send to the New York State controller. And part of that formula is either the lesser of CPI or 2%. So it's simply in in the case of CPI or 2% this year uh CPI is much higher. So we had to plug in 2% into that ninestep formula and when we put that 2% in um the tax levy increase was 2.7%. So you will see the the total amount that we're uh with the tax levy is a little over well probably 23 uh669,873. That is the amount that we will levy from the community to fund the schools. Um and like I said we need a a 50% simple majority to pass. And so something
012else that you will see on the ballot um is um three propositions. One is the school budget, which I I sort of just gave the overview, but also the purchase of transportation vehicles. And so we have what's called a replacement schedule. So, we have really a plan for 10 years in the running of when we're going to be replacing school buses because again, you don't want to find yourself where you have, you know, a fleet of defunct buses and you haven't planned well. So, um we have a replacement schedule that we are continuing to follow and Don is going to talk a little bit later about some of the specifics of what we're um putting forward on the proposition. But I do want to just emphasize because I think every year this has been um
013some confusion. The proposition that we have going forward for the uh purchase of school buses are for gas buses. We are not purchasing electric buses at this time. Um there's a lot still to be determined with electric buses and um what I am hearing is that there there is going to be a push of that mandate. Right now it's 2035 and I'm hearing they're going to push it to 2040, potentially 2045. So, um I just want to emphasize that so that there's no misinformation about that. And then the library levy. So by law, if there is a public uh library in the boundaries of a school district, school districts have a legal requirement to put um that proposition forward to the voters. So that is what we will do. Um really we're assisting our public
014library and I know many of you in this room appreciate having that resource. Um and so to some extent we're a vehicle for the library to to um also collect their funding. And so um on the revenue side of our budget, just so again people have an understanding, you saw the amount that we plan to um to levy. Um but when you think about the revenue that a school district receives, there really two main sources of revenue. And so one is state foundation aid and the other is expense driven aid. So um when honestly when you spend money the state will reimburse you a portion of what you're spending on different resources. Um and so those are the two main areas that we get aid from the state foundation and expense driven aid. And that
015accounts for about 39% of our overall revenue. Um, and then our tax levy is about 54% of the overall budget. And again, Don will go over uh that more specifically. So, I'm sure probably everyone in this room has heard that funding across New York State for schools is diminishing. And one of the reasons for that, plain and simple, is that enrollment across New York State and probably most schools, enrollment is declining. and Marcelus is no different. Our enrollment has declined significant significantly over the past 10 years. Um, and so the sentiment is that the state says if you don't have kids in the seats, then you don't need as much money. Um, and so we are really struggling with just making sure that we're making smart choices, um, but also being very fiscally responsible as
016we're seeing this picture not really improving for the next few years. And so that being said, um, you can see some of the increases that we're expecting. Um, gas, electric, sewer, insurance, no different than many of you in your households. costs of things are going up. Um, what I do want to just show are the things that we sat down as a administrative team and really crunched numbers. We looked carefully at anybody that was retiring. We asked the question multiple times, do we really need to replace that person? Um, and again, all thinking about programming and making sure we're not negatively impacting programming. And so you will see we have about six total reductions um that we made and then um some reductions that we made through attrition. So some we made that teachers who
017really just don't have full schedules and then others um that we cut through attrition and it is not just in the instructional area. We also looked at our technology department. Where do we get some savings there? And so I am going to ask um Don Weber to come up and he will take it from them. you. My name is Don Weber. I think some of you the room know me, but many don't. So, I'm the new school of Mississippi executive here at Marcellis. This is my first year doing the budget, the first year in the district, although I've lived district for nearly 15 years now. Um, I'll take you through the budget process starting. I'm going to start with this. I'm going to get a little bit in the weed of some of the numbers.
018Um, so I would like to encourage anybody who has questions to just raise your hand. It would be easier if we don't do this more as a conversation other than just reciting numbers to you all. Uh, so if I say anything you don't understand, I have a question about, please stop. uh when the initial budget um was put together in January, um we were the way I developed the budget really was to try to estimate what would it cost us next year to maintain all the same services that we have. So we did >> I think it will be bad for hearing. So just a little. >> Oh, so with the budget development, I tried to estimate what would what would it cost us next year to maintain all the services we had last year
019without really adding anything uh with the price of just everything going up. We have contractual increases with our employees and things that school districts need to pay for. Not fun things I think like you saw on the previous slide, gas, electric, and other utilities. But really, it was going to be about a $2.5 million increase just to maintain the things that we already had. Um, we were seeing less than a million dollars increase in state aid. So, that left us with initial budget gap of just under $1.5 million. Um, I think the district uh here and maybe not some other places, we do a very good job within within our means. So we look at how much money we're going to bring in and that determines how much money we spend. Don't have a heavy
020reliance or or a history of relying on fund balance and reserves to pay the bills a year. We're not living off our savings account historically and that's a good thing. That's what we want to do in a school district or in any government really. Um so getting diving a little bit into the numbers we had we started the year with a gross increase in contractual uh increases for salaries. So our employees many of our employees are unionized so they have increases that are built already into uh their agreements. So we know what their wages are going to be next year. Uh initially that had a gross increase of 1.2 2 million that wound up being an increase in this final budget of about $550,000. So we had to find uh we we had reductions of
021eight staff that amounted to $664,000 that we got that down five and a half excuse me $550,000. We had increases in employee benefits of over 300,000 that I think you saw in the previous slide increase gas electric and sewer utility. Our utility prices are expected to go up about 30%. We're part of a consortium. So we purchase our utilities on contract them. So we sort of know what our prices are going to be in the future. We're not as susceptible to fluctuations. We were able to lock in early in September. So, we know what those prices are going to be within reason for the foreseeable future, but again, we know just as you know at home that those prices are going to go up. We also are expecting this kind of typical some increases in
022insurance costs. So, this slide just kind of attempts to give a picture of, you know, where do we stand with our peers? Um, you'll notice there aren't a lot of names on this slide. That's kind of the uh uh professional courtesy that school business officials give each other. They don't, you know, like to call each other out in public. But these are these are the full value tax rates of other school districts uh in our area. So, where do we fall? So, we're we're in the bottom half there. You may notice uh that that tax rate doesn't necessarily reflect what's on your individual tax bill. Uh we're going to I'm going to get into that a couple slides from now, but there are six towns in this school district. And not every town assesses property
023at the same percentage of value. Some towns assess close to 100. And we have one town that assesses that just over 1% of value. So you have a house that's worth $100,000 at one town, you could be assessed at $100,000 and in the other town the be assess your assessment $1,000. So the tax rates will be reliable within efficient. So this brings all those rates up to 100. So you kind of see them on an even plane. uh the proposed budget for 2627. You'll see this in the budget newsletter. The state really requires that you break this down uh to display our property owners. So you can see how much of the budget overall budgets going towards administrative expenses uh which are the cost of the administrative team buildings operations and and principles those sorts
024of things. Uh how much is dedicated to program and how much is capital program are of course just what you think program would be. our our teachers and student driven expenditures and capital are really our facilities. What are we paying for buildings? We have loans that we've taken out to do building projects over the years that have backed over time. That's about 20% of our total annual budget. I think uh in central New York as far as the administrative percentage of the budget I think we are really pretty efficient under 10% for this part of the state is pretty good for a small school district uh in upstate New York. So that is pretty efficient. >> So we talk a lot about uh expenditures the money going out. This uh slide is going to talk
025some more about uh the money that coming into us and it comes in really from two main sources. It's state aid and property taxes and you can see the difference there 25 26 26 27 uh not a whole lot more money to the district from New York State. So 16.6 million almost last year, 16.8 8 billion this year. So, not a big influx of money for the state of New York. Uh property taxes, uh if we go to the cap, 2.7%, we are going to the cap or proposing to go to the cap would bring in uh $621,000. So, an overall uh increase to the district of under a million. And that's really where we tried to bring the spending at. If you're only getting $991,000 of new money, then no, the way that we
026do business and the way that we budget is you can only spend that much more money. We're not going to go propose to run the red. The other sources uh to the school district are pretty varied. The vast majority of that is appropriated fund balance. And as Superintendent Charlo said, that's really just um the cushion that stays stays in our budget. You'll see it year after year for unforeseen expenses. You have um kids that move into the district that need services. You have things that break that need to be fixed that we couldn't necessarily budget for ahead of time. Need to have a little bit of cushion in the budget same way you would have an emergency fund, you know, at home. Uh then we have the other large part of that really is interest
027um on money in our savings account. That's the other largest revenue source there. So uh this slide I'm going to we're going to attempt to estimate talk a little bit about property taxes. This is going to get confusing. I'm going to warn you ahead of time uh because property taxes are a little bit big. Um so I'm for 2025 26 this is estimating taxes on a property that's worth $100,000. And the thing that I want to point out and I'm going to say more than once is that this slide is misleading that no I don't think hardly anybody's taxes will go down. The reason that it says the difference there for a property worth $100,000 is going to go down $171 is that in most cases the value of your property has gone up from
028last year to this year. If the your property had actually stayed worth $100,000 from last year and this year, the assessor would have lowered your assessment, right? Which means in that case, your taxes will go down. So, it's kind of hard. The state really mandates to try to explain this information, but so little of it is known ahead of time. Um, but I do you do have a pretty good idea or I do have a pretty good idea what I think the tax rates are going to be in August. U each town assessor files their assessment role or their tenative assessment role on May 1st of each year. So I know or they have stated what their level of assessment their equalization rate is going to be in each town. Uh in Milis you'll see
029that in a second under the actual there Milis assessed property gets 69% of value. for 2526. And New York State is saying that those assessments now represent property at 61% of value. Which means what? In theory, or really in practice, the assessor hasn't gone out and changed very many assessments unless people have built something. They put a deck on, they put a barn up. Those are really the only houses that are getting increased their assessments for the most part. Um, so if you live in Kumis, your property assessment hasn't changed, but your house house is now worth more. So it means there's been appreciation. You can see uh in Marcelis, it went from 68% all the way down to 58%. That's a change of almost 15%. So the state of New York thinks that property
030values in Marcelis have appreciated across the board by 15%. And that's that's true all the way down through every town. You can see a TISC was the one I I mentioned earlier. They assess property at at about 1% of its total value. And they don't they choose not to assess property at full value. So their tax rate is much much higher. The tax rate in the pound of $1,275.96 for every thousand that says it's confusing. I see I see something connecting spaces which is why on the slide earlier we talked about the true home value tax rate with the tax rate on true every town in our district has a different actual tax rate. So every tax bill the six different counts has a different tax rate. So to kind of equalize them, that's we
031that's why we use that tax rate on you can see in some towns on the far on the far right hand side taxes on a $100,000 house if your assessment stayed the same. Some of them are going up, some are going down. The reason that is is that the state of New York thinks that property values in some towns are appreciating faster than property values in other towns. that the whole $23 million that we're proposing to levy for the school district gets divied out amongst those six towns based on the full value of the property in the district. So they're like slices of a pie. So some slices got bigger this year based on New York State's estimate of their percentage of our district as a whole compared to last year. um contingency budget. So
032what happens if the budget fails? There is a contingency budget in place or there will be a contingency budget in place if the budget were to not pass. Uh the contingency budget takes out any non-essential equipment across the entire budget. It's about $87,500 that would be removed. Uh non interactual salary increases would also be removed. That would be another $221,000. So if the budget were to fail, it would be reduced by just about $300,000. That would be our budget. It could be reduced further if the school board elected not to use fund balance to the path left by the property tax levy. So if we were not for if we're proposing the 2% increase is $623,100 if the initial contingency budget would assume that that gap gets filled from reserves. If the school board elected
033not to do that, the alternative would be to reduce the budget even further by another $623,000. So that takes us through this year's budget of the money we're proposing to spend for 26 27. This is a history of reserves. This is, for lack of a better term, just our savings account. How much money do we have in the bank? uh employment insurance reserves $28,386. You can see uh many of these amounts haven't changed very much over the years and again that's because we don't rely on our savings to pay our bills, try to live within our means. The capital reserve was the money dedicated for that for that purpose. extent of borrowing money. We saved money over the years when we wanted to build uh new repairs to our buildings or build a new building.
034Um so we didn't have to borrow as much saved it and spent it out of our savings account so that we didn't have to pay a mortgage payment on it into the future. As you can see some of that money going in and coming out as projects get done. uh retirement contribution reserves. That's money that can be allocated uh to offset the cost of pension really contributions to the pension system and we it changes from year to year largely to do with the performance of the stock market. Um, but we are required to pay into the teachers retirement system and the New York State employees retirement system percentage that changes annually really depending on how well the stock stock market is doing. We were fortunate this year that that rate went down from last year.
035It's just over 8% of every employees salary for teacher retirement system. This year where last year it was over 10%. So that kind of in a in a tight budget year that really did help us a little bit this year. Employee benefits reserve that's also referred to as ELR. That's for paying out employees a time that they're owed or money that they're owed for sick and vacation time where they leave. But we haven't had a need to dip into that. Unappropriated fund balance is our uh fund balance for savings or not any particular purpose. That's allowed to be up to 4% of your total budget. We are well within that 987,000 this year. That has no designated purpose, but it's our rainy day funds. And the appropriated fund balance there, 1.5 million, that's the amount
036that's also it's considered part of our reserve, but it's really part of our annual budget. But it is money that we have for our use. So, uh, aside from the budget, uh, uh, the other propositions that residents will be voting on this year for the purchase of school buses. Um, there is there are going to be three 35 passenger buses, one 36 passenger bus, a wheelchair bus, uh, and one 10 student van at a maximum cost of $867,000. this. Our buses are on a 10-year replacement cycle. So, we have just under uh 40 total vehicles. We try to replace four every year. In the past few years, we were purchasing diesel buses. We're moving now towards gas buses. The maintenance cost on the gasoline buses, you know, are just lower staff times and in terms
037of fixing them, it'll be up. We are not proposing purchase electric buses. And the third proposition on the budget vote will be for the library. That's on their own behalf of the library. They're proposing to increase their total levy by just under $15,000 and we'll get a tax cap as well. The budget vote again is Tuesday, May 19th. We've got three vacant seats and three candidates for those seats. Mr. Peter Chapman, Shan Eden, and Jessica Johnson. The qualifications to be a voter for the budget, you have to be a district president. You have to be a citizen of the United States, at least 18 years of age, and you have to live in the district district for at least 30 days prior to the date of the budget vote. Um, so you don't have to
038own property, you just have to live in the vision. Anybody have any questions? Something I do want to mention is um you know we we've constructed this budget before New York State has even passed their budget which is really challenging our school districts because we um you know I think we we predicted that we'll get 2% which is what we we've been hearing but we won't know for sure probably until after the you know the vote on the 19th but um again I just I think That's worth noting that we're we're still waiting to hear from the state really what what our aid is really going to be um for server. I'm wondering I was looking at your production work this year to make up for your budget gap. That's kind of a one time
039fix. What are you planning on doing going forward? you know, I I think year to year we we're going to look at what our step, you know, again, depending on where the budget is next year. Again, we're hearing that it's going to be challenging. Um, every year we we look at it and figure out where we can make reductions that will not impact our programming. And so to be honest with you, I it's something that I can't even predict right now until we're in that situation next year. But this whole process starts in October, November, and we we start looking at all of our our staffing. We look at our enrollment um and start making those those predictions. We h are committed to keeping our class sizes at the elementary level low. Um in comparison
040to other districts honestly um that that is an area that if something is catastrophic down the road is something we would need to consider. Can we really keep class sizes as low as as they are? Um I'm that that I'm committed to. Um, but until we really are faced with another challenge, it it's hard for me to predict because I just don't know yet what the staffing and enrollment needs will will be in a year from now. But I am hoping and praying that we don't have to do anything drastic that impacts programming. Any other questions? Anybody in the front? Any questions? >> Great. Well, thank you all for being here. It's we appreciate just being able to um this has been really a a lot of hard work, not just by Don and myself,
041the entire administrative team that's here tonight. um a a lot of sleepless nights that you know trying to make sure that we're doing you know right by kids and following our mission and um not easy decisions but we feel good about where we are and and again being fiscally responsible to our taxpayers um that is also something that is incredibly important to us as well. So thank you Okay. So that concludes our annual public um budget hearing and so at this time I will adjourn our meeting. Resolve that the annual budget public hearing be adjourned. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. Justin >> Justin. >> Motion. >> Kelly. Thank you. All those in favor? opposed. Carried. Okay. So now at this time we will move on to our regular board of education meeting Monday
042u May 11th 2026. And if I could have our special guest join us again for the pledge of allegiance to open up this meeting would be great. America stands indivisibley and justice for all. We'll begin this evening with recognition. >> Yes, we have lots of recognition. So, um I just want to give a huge shout out to Claire Chase um and really the whole community that rallied around us to um help us implement uh the MACH DWI simulation. It was the first time that we did this I think in in 15 16 years and um it it really was an extraordinary event and um I think really sort of hit home for our students the seriousness of um drinking and driving and um just incredible. I mean, I think the shot of the helicopter landing,
043it just it really you felt like you were on the scene of a of a real crash and um all the students who um were actors. It just it went off beautifully. And again, all to Claire Chase and her coordination of so many different things to make that happen. So, thank you again, Claire. Uh teacher appreciation week was last week and here are just a couple shots. Um, you can see parents from uh the KCH PTO, TMS PTA, and some of our high school parents there serving our teachers all sorts of treats last week. So, um, just a huge thank you to our our parents who support us and support our teachers during that week. Um, it it's interesting because I I look around at what our our PTO and PTA does. Um, there was
044even a masseuse on campus. So, um just incredible. Uh really grateful. Skills USA. So, there was recently a Skills USA competition at the fairgrounds and um all of the students that you see there competed. Um I do want to just give a huge shout out to Dominic Dubar. Uh he came in first place in cabinet making and qualified for nationals. So, um just incredible. You can see his cabinet um there that he um put forward for the competition. Uh extraordinary talent sixth grade play. So we had um the sixth grade play last weekend and um it was amazing. And something that you may not know are we had um high school students that were really the force behind the whole play. um they wrote, directed. Um it's you know got all of the students in
045sixth grade um set up to do the lighting and all of the background um the crew. So just an amazing job by our high school students. And again, I I really believe we have such an amazing program here with drama and it's because of uh exactly things like this, the sixth grade play. Our seal of bi literacy students, they competed a couple weeks ago and um you can see them all here. They were this is right before they left for the um competition. And um if you remember they actually present their um presentation in their target language and um they are often asked questions by teachers in the langu their target language and so they have to respond in the target language. Um something to note and I was actually there that day and something
046that is a difference between Marcellis and all the other schools our teachers prepare our students without notes. So, our students get up there without note cards. They they get up and they do their presentation. Um 100% of our students reached the seal literacy. They will be on hand June 8th at our our board meeting June 8th just to do um just a short mini part of their presentation. And then the third grade play um I do want to just shout out Dean Clauss and Janet Kramer. They are two retired teachers from KCH who we actually convinced to come back to to do the third grade play and um I dare say I think they thoroughly enjoyed it in their retirement. So um these are just a couple shots you can see Lauren Masa had a
047had a part um and what a what an amazing show again a testament to why our our dramas uh and our plays are so wonderful. And then we had um two students compete um last week in the Central New York Association of Music Teachers Instrumental Competition and there are three spots um and two of our students got first and second place. So Maddie Carver is a 10th grade student. She plays the flute and Cat Benadetto is a 12th grader and she plays the bassoon. You can see um Cat here pictured. Um but just what a win for for our students. um and a huge testament to the work that Wendy Wy does with those fits. And then finally, um Liz Milikin, I know I reported this out a few meetings ago, Liz Milikin actually won
048a New York State FCCLA, um award for spirit of advising. Um, and what happens is at the state level, they put that forward to the national FCCLA and Liz Milikin won the national FCCLA award for spirit of advising. She will receive that award in DC this summer. >> And that's it. At this time, we'll move on to item number three, presentations. >> Yes. So, uh, just quickly, I know I've mentioned this before. Um, a few weeks ago, Mr. Montgomery, myself, uh, Brian Stevie, Tyler Cooper, and Heather RC attended an event at OCM Boseis. And it was a collaboration among school districts across central New York around the portrait of a graduate, New York inspires, and the new graduation measures that we keep hearing about but haven't seen yet. So, um, it was a great workshop.
049It really allowed us to have conversations about well we don't have the information yet on what the graduation measures are going to be or the guidelines. Um but we certainly spent a lot of time talking about the portrait of a graduate and things that we could start doing now uh with our staff and our students. And um when you look at sort of these six attributes of the portrait of a graduate, academically prepared, creative innovator, critical thinker, effective communicator, global citizen, reflective, and future focused. And so our principles right now are presenting this to our um our staff just so that we can start thinking about how can we get ready for these new graduation measures. what could we do UPK all the way to 12th grade to start infusing some of these things um
050you know as simple as getting first graders up and used to presenting even if it's just for a small amount of time. So, um, those are the things that we're starting to think about, um, in regard to just getting ready for what's coming from New York State. Um, and as we receive the information about what those measures are going to look like, what those pathways are going to look like, um, we'll we'll really start that work intently. And then the next presentation I could ask um both our elementary principal Lauren Masa at KCH and our DMS intermediate principal Kathy Mahoney just to report out on things that have been going on um at their respective schools and sort of a forecast of what's coming as we went down the Sawyer. We don't have any slides,
051so we're just gonna talk. Um, so thank you for giving us the floor today to talk about what's going on in our buildings um most recently and then into the end of the year. Um, at KCH, we're entering our final stretch um with much to celebrate. So, I'm just going to recap for you, but our students and our teachers are not slowing down. Um, we are continuing instruction every day. We are getting ready to do our end of the year benchmarking and our teachers are already in the works for planning um for next year. Um, we're going to continue to focus on student growth and supporting all of our learners, but we have some fun mixed in there, too. So, you may have seen on social media that our kindergarten team did an inaugural egg
052drop. Um, and they all of our scholars worked to really creatively build contraptions that would protect their egg from cracking. Um, the grounds and maintenance team were incredible. Installed installed a barrier on the roof at KCH so that myself and Miss Deso could go up and launch them. Um, we went up first thing in the morning to test it out and your vertically challenged principal um, could not actually reach over. Um, so Ryan Reeler and his team uh, quickly came and actually moved the entire thing forward with some contraption that they built themselves so that it could go off without a hitch. We invited families and community members and the long pole. Um, and students um were able to watch as their contraption was thrown over the roof and then they opened it up to
053see if they had a survivor or a Humpty Dumpty and they got a certificate either way depending on how their egg far. Um, so it was a really great hands-on learning experience for our students that involved creativity and problem solving and a lot of community spirit. And the goal is that that becomes an annual um tradition at KCH since it went off so well. Gan mentioned our first and third grade musical. Uh Mr. Clauss and Mrs. Kringer came back out of retirement very gratefully and happily to do so with the help of Mrs. Patterson, our music teacher. Um and the production was incredible. Um and yes, it definitely made them fall in love with the theater and the arts, but it also helped them um learn that everybody makes mistakes, their principal included as I
054was rehearsing with them. Um, and it developed teamwork and confidence um, and definitely a love for the arts. So, that was fantastic. Um, we have lots of field trips coming up at KCH. Um, this I I think this is one of the unique things about KCH. Our students have a ton of opportunities in district, but we also get them out of district as well. Um, the KCH PTO um, picks up the local share of the costs for all of these field trips. So, we're grateful to them for their support. So, what we have coming up, um, UPK is going to Roi Farms for the day. All three cohorts will go there and experience the farm. First, uh, kindergarten, um, will be going to the agricultural center here on campus. They're also going to the zoo.
055Uh, first grade is wrapping up hospital land visits. That's been a long stint because we really only take one or two classes at a time. And then they're also doing a new field trip this year to Green Lakes. They're doing the animal mysteries field trip um which some of them have already gone to and some of them are going to be completing and they do things like um look at trail cameras that the state park has at night. They look at animal tracks. They go on scavenger hunts. Our teachers and students have come back with some really great feedback from that. So again, I think that's something that we're looking to do in the future. Second grade is also going to Green Lakes, which is a new field trip for them this year. They are
056doing the erosion field trip. So, they're actually going to build erosion tables and uh learn about the different ways that the park is using um strategies to effectively mitigate erosion around the the lake. Um so, that should be uh great. No one's gone yet. They don't have feedback, but I went with my daughter uh last year and it was a great experience. So, I'm hopeful that our KCH scholars experience the same. And then third grade has a whole slew of things for the end of the year. Um they participated in the village earth cleanup which was the yearly thing that they do. They're also taking trips to the historical society, the stemman house and the town hall to sort of deepen their local history connections which is a great thing I think about Marcelus even
057with growing farms like we sort of leverage the expertise and opportunities that we have here in the community. So lots of field trips planned for KCH. Um, I wanted to provide a little bit of an update on Mustang Spark, which is our new extracurricular programming. Last year we did one session. This year we bumped it up to two. So, some facts and figures for you. We had over 30 clubs, about 33 clubs that were presented to our scholars over the two sessions. We had over 360 scholars participate in total in both um in in the sessions and we ex plan to expand this to three sessions next year. um the feedback we have from our parents and our scholars is that they appreciate the opportunity and they want to continue to see that to grow.
058So, we're really grateful to our parents who volunteer to run clubs and our teachers um here in the district that also do that. As far as end of the year school KCH happenings, we have our last all school assembly where we'll be focusing on the characteristic traits of enthusiasm and leadership and giving out awards to students who demonstrate those. Uh the Marcelus Library is also visiting at that assembly to kick off their summer reading challenge and we have a KC cheerleading group that was run during Mustang Spark and they are expected to bring some cheers and teach us that at our summit. So much to look forward to there. Uh and we have a couple annual KPH things that happen. We have our reading challenge which if you've been following Mr. Montgomery in the role,
059he's done crazy things like kiss a pig and a frog. I don't know if I'll be kissing any animals, but I think you slept on the roof as well. Last year, I did morning announcements on horseback and then rode onto campus. Um, there is something planned this year. I can't really say because there are scholars in the audience and I can't help it get back to anybody. Um, but we have something uh pretty exciting in the works over at KCH, so stay tuned for that. Um, and we also have KCH field days, which is a a big favorite of our students and we look forward to all year. Um, so I just want to appreciate I we appreciate your support. We're we have a lot going on and >> I share more enthusiasm and excitement
060as we celebrate the end of the school year social media too. The kids the it's palpable. The kids are excited. You can feel it coming. And we are also preparing for our end of the year benchmark assessments and progress monitoring. Um we look forward to analyzing that data not only to help our current students successfully complete the school year but also to plan for next year's um academics as well. The assessments help us to reflect on all of your growth. You guys have done a tremendous job this year and it's nice for us to see that. Um and it also makes sure and ensures that we're continuing to help you guys protect everybody. Um, in the spirit of planning for next year, we welcomed our rising fourth grade students and their families to DMS for
061formal presentations and introductions last week. Uh, the students and their families were able to take a self-guided tour of DMS. Uh, they spent some time getting to know the teachers and the feedback from this event is always positive. Um it is um they the feedback I received has almost consistently highlighted how it helps our youngest students transition into DMS. Um we all know that students learn best when they are comfortable and this is just our first shot at helping our students transition in and feel comfortable in our building. Um, another shot at helping our youngest learners um, enter into our DMS intermediate building is in partnership with our PCH third grade team. U, the third grade teachers take a fourth grade class and the fourth grade teachers take a third grade class. And that gives
062our fourth grade teachers time with third grade to help them walk through the building, do an in-depth tour, um, meet all the players, the nurse, um, the counseling office. They come to the main office. They take time in the library and in the cafeteria. Um, and our fourth graders have the benefit of reconnecting with their beloved third grade teachers. And I know that the third grade teachers will give me feedback like I cannot believe how much they've grown over the past year. So, it helps our fourth graders to reflect on their learning. And it helps our third graders become even more comfortable in our environment. Continuing with fourth grade for just a little bit longer. They have been hard at work this year learning all about New York State history. They are looking forward to
063many upcoming field trips, but I'd like to highlight the Chinango Landing field trip. Barry will get up close and personal with Mount Fols right to the Erie Canal and they will deepen their understanding of the importance that the Erie Canal had on New York State's growth and economy. And what that does is it really helps to bridge that divide between what we learn in school and real life learning. So, we're looking forward to that. Fifth grade, um I'm not sure if you all heard it, but there was a collective sigh of relief last week as fifth graders finished their third state test. This again was not an easy testing season for us. Um the test was rather rigorous. All three of them were rigorous across all grade levels. And we once again um the New
064York State experienced just a little bit of problem with the the platform. Through that though, our students, not only our fifth graders, but fourth and sixth as well, persevered and showed us what they were made of. Um they don't give up when things get hard and that it's very difficult to teach. So we thank our community for that. Um those students, our all of them across the grade level showed resilience and determination. Um and we appreciate that very much. There has also been an audible buzz in fifth grade with the upcoming wax museum on the calendar. Um, this is always such an incredible event for us. It's Thursday, March or May 21st. It feels like March, so excuse me. I got the frost alert tonight. Um, this is a collab collaborative project that extends far
065beyond the social studies class. Um, our kids incorporate research, writing, presentation skills, literacy skills. uh we are very much looking forward to meeting all of their characters. We have Albert Einstein coming and Ameliahard, Louis Armstrong and many many more. So if you have not been to that and you can come to that it is an incredible display. Um it's always exciting for our students and it's always exciting for their families too. We're looking forward to the upcoming fourth, fifth, and sixth grade band concert and the fifth and sixth grade chorus concert. It's amazing to me through lots of practice and the steady guidance of our amazing music teachers, our student students learn how to collaborate and they learn that individual responsibility that comes with learning songs and and instruments. Um they create an incredible ensemble.
066It not only is a great display of our students and their growth musically, but it is also a great display of our commitment at Marcellus to the arts. Um, and last but not least, our sixth grade students. Uh, they were part of a fantastic performance, as Jean said, the cat of the house over the weekend. And what truly makes that such a remarkable event is that it is almost entirely studentrun. We have an adult in the auditorium, but I have been in that auditorium many times and it is adult hands-off. Our kids from sixth grade through 12th grade run that show. Um, they did write it, they directed it. Um it was mostly seniors but we had representation from freshman on up. Um it is for me it's just I love when our kids get
067to learn from our older students in the district and we are very lucky that we have the campus that we have um to to be able to facilitate that. Um it helps to foster experience unlike anything that our students get when they're standing by the teacher. So, it's really incredible the confidence that that really shines through in that experience. Our sixth grade students also headed out into the community this past Friday to help some local organizations with spring cleaning. We had groups walk to Steman House, the Marcelus Park, the Town Hall, and Fred's Trail, as well as a group of students who were bus up to the Sycamore Hill Gardens. Um, this is an experience that helps our kids realize the value um of responsibility and service to others. Every teacher commented on how hard
068the kids worked and their desire to help. Um, it was a wonderful way to end the week and an important reminder again that learning takes place outside of our present walls. Just as we are preparing for our rising fourth graders, we are also preparing to say goodbye to our beloved sixth graders. So, we have some activities uh that we're looking forward to this week with our sixth graders. We'll host the incoming seventh grade information night and then the sixth grade community dinner. Um for anybody who is not familiar with our community dinner, we invite um families to come in and students to come in and the teachers serve the students and me um dinner and there's a beautiful display of all the pictures that were taken throughout the year. Um it is just such a
069nice activity. um we are able to just have conversations and enjoy the camaraderie and it builds such an incredible community for our kids. Um we know that those relationships are necessary for a positive school experience and we really are doing our level best to make sure that our kids have lasting memories at DMS Intermediate. Um we at DMS would also like to extend our thanks for your continued support. Um, our kids are so very fortunate to have all every adult in the community rooting for them on a daily basis. So, thank you. >> Thank you. >> That concludes our um presentations for this evening and this time we'll move on to residents comments. Public expression at the board of education meetings is encouraged and a specific portion of the agenda shall provide for this privilege.
070In most instances, the board shall reserve judgment regarding questions and concerns that are brought to the board's attention at a board meeting as it is typically not prudent for the board to make instantaneous determinations. In addition, many issues that are brought to the board's attention do not require a formal determination by the board, but instead are most appropriately addressed by the superintendent of schools or persons designated by the superintendent without further board action in accordance with board policy 3220, community relation. Do we have any residents comments at this time? All right. At this time, we'll move on to the business portion of our meeting. Um, we'll look at item 5.1, the first reading of board policy. Resolved that the board of education approves first reading of the following board policies. Policy 39 3290, operation of
071motordriven vehicles on school property. Can I have a motion? Jen >> second Erica questions or comments before we vote. >> So this this policy really isn't changing drastically. The only thing that we're adding is ebikes and e scooters. Um as you could imagine on a campus this large with all of the parking lots and student drivers. Um it it really is terrifying when you see ebikes. weaving in and out. And truly, one of the other things that I have seen and I've stopped um students um at at dismissal at KCH and you have the you're just the little ones walking to their bus and you know how little kindergarten UPK are, you know, their eyes are up in the air and so that's a that's an issue too where the ebikes are coming through during
072that type of dismissal. So, um you know, I I I appreciate ebikes. there is a a time and place and um I think to to protect the district and protect our students and drivers um that we really have no choice but to to put in that they are not allowed on on campus to be to be used on campus. So, one of the questions um I had is we we have a a staff member who rides their ebike. No problem. they just need to once they're they're down on Nurse Street get off of the bike and walk it um up or um disable the the electric part of it. So, um I I really do believe it's for the safety of, you know, everybody that comes to campus because anybody here who's driving would feel
073horrible if if they hit a biker that was on an electric bike and sometimes they just come out of nowhere because they're going so fast. Any other questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Item 5.2, approval of boys ice hockey combination with Syracuse City School District. Resolved that the board of education approves the boys ice hockey athletic team combination between Marcella Central School District and Syracuse City School District for the 2026 2027 school year. And I have a motion. >> Motion. Justin. >> Justin. Second. >> Second. Sean. All right. Any questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Item 5.3, approve, approval of girls swimming and diving team combination with Skinny Atlas Central School District. Resolved that the board of education approves the girls
074swimming and diving team combination between Marcellus Central School District and the Skinny Atlas School District for the 2026 2027 school year. Can I have a motion? >> Second. Erica, questions or comments before we vote? >> So, this is really the only one before you the combination that's different than what we've done in the past. We have had um two to three students in the past couple years swim at Skinny Atlas. So um but but they were considered a separate team. They were our Marcelus team. We are now will be a joint team and diving gets added to that. Um one of the reasonings for that is um the enrollment in swimming and diving and in skinny atlas is declined. So they invited us to to combine officially and um honestly it just opens up opportunities
075for our students and you know it's a great opportunity. >> Any other questions or comments? All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Item 5.4 approval of girls wrestling combination with West Jennese Central School District. Resolved that the board of education approves the girls wrestling combination between Marcella Central School District and Syracuse City School District for the 2026 2027 school year. And I have a motion. >> Jen second. >> Kelly. Questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Item 5.5, approval of varsity wrestling combination with Anadaga Central School District. Resolve that the board of education approves the varsity wrestling athletic team combination between the Marcela Central School District and Anadaga Central School District for the 2026 2027 school year. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Amy, questions or comments
076before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Item 5.6, ratification of contract with Marcelus Transportation Employees Union. Resolved that the board of education ratifies the tentative agreement between the Marcellis Central School District and Marcellis Transportation Employees Union for the period of July 1, 2026 through June 30th, 2030. Can I have a motion? >> Jen. Jen >> second. Kelly >> Kelly. Questions or comments before we vote. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Okay. Moving on to item 5.7. Approval of benchmark advance as the K5 I'm sorry as the K through five English language arts program. Resolved that the board of education approves the adoption of Benchmark Advance as the K through5 English language arts program written by Benchmark Education Company. The contract will be for 7 years at an approximate cost of $375,239
077to be paid for in five installments. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. Erica. >> Erica. >> Second, Justin. Questions or comments before we vote? I just want to sort of reiterate what I what I mentioned last time. The last time um that we adopted a program was over 10 years ago um and the ELA program. And we are honestly in my estimation in dire need um to be up to date with the science of reading. We are we are doing a lot of that work, the science of reading, but in an ancillary way. And so, um, I, you know, again, I appreciate Bob Montgomery sort of took up the the charge this year, uh, in making sure that our teachers have the opportunity to pilot benchmark advance. Um, and one of the things too,
078you'll notice here that, um, we are going to be paying for it over the course of seven years. So, um Bob worked diligently with um the publisher just so that we could do that and um rather than you know what we're we recognize the budget constraints so it's really going to be coming out of textbook funding the budget line over the course of that number of years. So, um I I I think it it will be um an an incredible improvement to what Wonders was because we, you know, again, like I said, we've been using that for um over 10 years at this point and I think we're at a juncture where we we've got to move forward. >> Um Bob, I don't know if there's anything specific we want to add um just about
079your belief that that's the program for us. >> Sure. Our teachers are were well voiced to make the decision about a curriculum because in 2019 we started our work at KCH on the science of reading. So the teachers came equipped to evaluate a program to make sure that it was the best match for us. So we were well poised to make such a big decision and I congratulate them all on making that um trek this year because it was not easy. Um but we are poised so that they can lead their teams into next year where there's a lot of work that's already been done to customize and work through the um curriculum pieces as they are. >> And I know your committee was very thorough and explored several different programs and met with other
080districts and got feedback from several different um area thought leaders around the programs that are out there. >> We'll develop a really good partnership with FM because they have this in their K4 buildings as well. So that'll help us to um have a partner in that as well. >> Any other questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Moving on to item 5.8, approval of town of Anadaga tax collection agreement extension. Resolve that the board of education approves the town of Anadaga collection agreement extension for the 2027 and 2028 tax collection periods. Can I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Kelly. >> Second. >> Justin, questions or comments before we vote? >> If you remember a few years ago, someone retired in the town of Marcel. So, we shifted. We
081had to find somebody who would be willing to collect our taxes. And so we're simply just continuing that relationship with the town. >> All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. >> I. Moving on to personnel items. Approval personnel items. Resolved that the board of education approves the following personnel items. You can see them there listed before you. Items 6.1 through 6.4. Can I have a motion? >> Amy, >> Erica, questions or comments on any of those items before we vote. So, the establishment of rates is something we typically do around this time. It really just helps um Don and and really all of us um when we budget for summer help, um we can do a better forecast by making sure we set those rates now. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. Okay, moving
082on to item number seven, consent agenda. Approval of consent agenda items. Resolve that the board of education approves the following consent agenda items. You can see them listed there before you. Items 7.1 through 7.6. Can I have a motion? >> Motion, >> Sean. Is that Jen? Okay. Um, all those or questions or comments before we vote on any of those items. >> The only thing just to note is 7.1.2 is disposal of textbooks and we were careful to add this obviously after the adoption of benchmark advance. That is a lot of our um wonders folks that you know here we're going to have a whole new program coming in. We need to make way for it. So um that's what you see before you there. All those in favor? >> Opposed? Carried. All right. At
083this time, we'll move on to item number eight,formational items. >> So,formational items. Um, just a a thank you again to the our former seventh and eighth grade ELA teacher, Arty Scotty, um, for his donation. I don't know if you remember, but last year he donated $10,000 for the sound and lighting control booth at the new uh DMS auditorium, which really we got to to live with the the sixth grade play. We got to experience it really for the first time. That plaque right there, it has not been um put up yet. They're just waiting to there's a a couple other things that need to be sorted out with the lighting, but the plaque is ready um to to be placed um right at that um sound and lighting control booth. And I know Christine that
084you have a letter from Art that you wanted to just read. >> I did. Yeah. Um Art sent a a beautiful letter and I thought it would be really nice to share with with the board and with the community. So he um sent this to me on Tuesday, April 21st. President Christine Sheay and Marcela Central School Board of Education. These bright and sunny April spring days remind me of the first time I set eyes on Marcelus. I drove from Sunni Albany through the gorge from Camilis alongside a beautiful creek, a waterfall, the old lower crown woolen mill, and some late 19th century houses with bright flowers and adjacent to the school campus. I was immediately taken with acquaintness of the village of Marcelus. I interviewed with principal Bill Groing and assistant principal John Dalton, soon
085after which I accepted a position as seventh grade English teacher at Driver Middle School. It was the beginning of my entire 33-year career in education. My $10,000 donation to help with the renovation of the beautiful middle school auditorium is hereby dedicated to my students, their parents, my teaching colleagues, the entire staff that kept and still keeps the middle school running so well, and to all my neighbors and friends in the Marcellus community. They taught me as much as I taught them. I have fond memories of walking to raise funds for Baltimore Woods as secretary of the Marcelus Environmental Commission, being secretary on the Marcelus Free Library Board when it was in the old building, and being president of the Marcellus Community Council, as well as deacon and elder of the First Presbyterian Church. The middle
086school auditori auditorium holds a particular place in my heart because it was here where I acted in and directed some Marcel some plays for Marcelis Shirt Sleeve Theater, sang with the Marcelus Coral and and sang and acted with my colleagues to entertain the school and the entire community in various productions. All of this is why I still come back to see my friends 20 years after my retirement. I'm grateful for all that Marcelus has given me through all these years and I'm privileged to be able to give something back. Marcelus is truly a great place to live and that is why it occupies such a special place in my heart. I just wanted to and that's from Art Scotty from Portsouth, New Hampshire. And I wrote to him and I encouraged him to come visit
087us anytime he's in the area and enjoy the auditorium and I thanked him for all of his service to our students and to our community. >> That's a beautiful letter. It's interesting just to hear the name Bill Broling. That's Rolling Auditorium. So, it's it is amazing to think that some of these people who some of our buildings are named for, >> you know, weren't here too long ago. >> Yeah. >> So, thank you for reading that out. >> Great. >> All right. At this time, we will end the public session of our meeting and move into executive session. resolved that the meeting public be adjourned in an executive session be convened for the purpose of discussion of personnel contract negotiations and disciplinary action relating to a particular student. I have a motion >> motion >>
088second. That was uh Erica and Kelly. >> Great. Okay. All those in favor? Carry.