001school district Monday. I know. Everybody start meeting. We're going to get started with the meeting. So, if you can sort of head this way, hopefully you can find a seat. [Music] Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the Monday, June 16th, 2025 board of education meeting for the Marcelo Central School District. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationisible and this evening will begin with recognition. Yeah. So, we have quite a bit of recognition. Um, we just at 5:30 celebrated our retirees and I do want to just formally give them a congratulations once again uh during the board meeting time. So, Rick Belvido, Teresa Clark Mcnaney, Terry Koy, Dean Cross, Janet Kringer, Pete Lasserto, Diane
002Mardo, Tony Sinatio, and John's parent. Again, thank you retirees for your many years of dedication, service, and commitment to Marcela Schools. Uh we would not be what we are today without all that you have done for us. So, thank you retirees. Uh we are grateful for you and excited for your next adventure. And just to echo that too, just on behalf of the board, your dedication to our students, our community, we are so forever grateful. One of our most incredible assets that we have is the staff. And so we are so appreciative of all of your dedication and congratulations and certainly enjoy your retirement. And so I do also want to just recognize our tenure candidates. Again, we just celebrated them as well, almost as a passing of the torch from retirees to our tenure
003candidates tonight. Um, Maria Antil, Tim Baker, Colleen Cross, Missy Cronin, and Eric Ersio. Our teaching assistants who received tenure, Stephanie Fellows, Abby, Katie Riley, Nicole Steinraver, Ashley Trembley, Angel Madson, Jill Moan, and Megan Fowler. So, thank you um for all that you have done. Um we are grateful for you. And I just want to as we're ending the school year, I want to give just a a huge shout out to our entire Marcela Schools back faculty and staff. I think um as you get to the end of a school year, you recognize just how amazing um day in and day out the staff is and staff at every levels of this district from teachers to teaching assistants to our custodial staff. Um so just a a big huge shout out and a thank you um
004for all that you have done, our entire faculty and staff for creating such an amazing school year for our students. And then I do want to just recognize uh over the weekend we had our third grade play Once Upon a Lily Pad and it was um you know nothing short of awesome. And what I love about this district is we start with our students at a young age for them to get that drama bug. Um, and I believe that's why we have such a strong program at the high school level because we start with our students at at a young uh age. And um, this is just a a shout out. You'll see Lauren Masa, our elementary principal. Uh, Dean Clauss and Janet Trainer here. Uh, Janet and Dean have together uh, worked on the
005third grade play for many years. And so, um, as you know, they are retiring. And uh again, just uh kudos to the incredible commitment that they've shown through the years. Uh we had our special Olympia last Tuesday and so um just again shout out to Cara Lux and all the staff members that made that event such a success. It was held at FM High School and you know the pictures you could tell a thousand words and it was just such an incredible event. Um, and uh, our our special education athletes did an amazing job competing and had a had a blast. And then a thank you to Marcela Sports Booster Club. Last Tuesday, the Marcelus the Sports Booster Club sponsored an honors banquet for our athletes, our senior athletes. And you can see the picture
006here. just again an extraordinary event to honor all of our athletes for their years of um just their participation in our athletic programs. And I do want to just give a special shout out to Karen Johnson and Katherine Seota. They both have seniors uh and will no longer be participating in in Marcel's sports booster. But um they are two uh parents who just pitch in always for anything that we need. It's been a a beautiful partnership and um anyone that sees the Marcela Sports Booster Club on Facebook, that is all Kathy Soda. So um I think they're looking for someone to pass the torch to. So if you're interested, let us know. But um again, Karen Johnson and Kathy Seota have been a huge uh integral part of Marcela Sports Boosters for many years. And
007then a final thank you. Um Katherine Branson Dennis is finishing up her tenure on the board of education. Um and from the bottom of my heart, I know from the rest of the board, we are so grateful for all that you have done for us. um you have just been a steady presence on the board, logical, calm, but also an advocate always for kids. And so, thank you so much for all that you have done. And that's it for recognition. So much to celebrate. Yes. Okay. So the the retirees that are here and the tenure candidates, please do not feel like you have to stay. Um you can exit at any point. I don't want you to feel like you have to stay for the whole meeting. So you you do have that ability to
008exit if you'd like. Okay. And at this time we will move on to presentations. So I do want to just give you an update on the DMS auditorium. Um the work is happening relatively quickly. Uh Tony, myself and Ryan Reefer were actually up um on the scaffolding above that as you can see um really sort of viewing some areas of concern. Um they're starting tomorrow to paint the ceiling. Um what's incredible is being on that scaffolding and this is the scaffolding. So, if you can imagine, this is up at the ceiling level, and this is where we were today walking to check out some of the problem uh potentially problem areas, but the intricacy when you're able to get up there and really see, it's it's a spot that you don't often get to see
009up in close. Um, but the detail, the ornate detail and craftsmanship, um, is incredible. So, um, tomorrow they're going to be painting the ceiling. Uh they're doing some repair work on the walls and uh it's coming along very nicely. We're expecting to get the seating probably in October um and hoping for an opening there in November. And then the other thing that I do want to just um give an overview of very briefly uh last week we held a uh community forum uh about dis distractionfree schools. So, um, as probably everybody in this room knows, the governor um has put forward a a law. It's educational law section 283, the use of internet enabled devices during the school day. And so by August, districts must adopt a policy um that prohibits the use of internet
010enabled devices by students during the school day anywhere on the school premises. So just to to clarify because there have been questions, well does that mean just during instructional time? No, it is the entirety of the day passing time during lunches during study halls. Phones cannot be be out or present um during the entire day from bell to bell. And as far as devices, people are asking what does that mean? What what type of device? It's smart smartphones, tablets, smart watches, um or other devices capable of connecting to the internet and accessing content on the internet. And then school, school grounds, buildings, structures, playing fields, um anywhere essentially on campus, um those devices will be prohibited. There are exceptions and so that is something that we're talking through now. obviously to manage a student's health
011care that would be a valid exception um for translation services in accordance with a student's IEP and in the event of an emergency. One of the things that schools will need to do uh when a student registers, but also in the beginning of the school year, is communicate with families and parents to lay out exactly what are the alternative methods of getting in touch with your child during the day in absence of them being able to text or communicate freely. And so just to give you a little bit of data and we had around 184 responses. That's really not a a large response considering we have about 1,400 students in this district. But so far this parent survey um we had about 65.2% of people who completed the survey um who say that yes absolutely
012this is a good idea to ban um these devices. And about 34 8% of people um who did not necessarily agree. And so the implementation again this is a draft um that we have considered as an administrative team. I shared this at the community forum last week. U we had about 10 to 12 people attend that. Um, so when students enter in the morning, we'll remind them to to in home rooms to power down their smartphones, their watches, and place them either in their backpacks, their lockers, the cubbies. Some of this will be grade level dependent. Um, devices will be expected to be out of sight. If devices are seen, they'll be confiscating confiscated and result in a discipline referral and a call home for a parent pickup will happen. So um the state one
013of the things that is a part of the policy that school districts must adopt is every September school districts have to publish on their website the discipline data related to non-compliance with the cell phone policy. So again, that is why there will be a referral and then our plan is to contact parents to say we had to confiscate your child's phone. You need to come and pick that up. More information will be coming out right now. This is simply just a draft implementation plan. We have been in contact with other school districts. In fact, I have a meeting tomorrow with superintendent from across central New York just to discuss and put all the ideas out on the table. Um, but this is where we're sort of leaning at this juncture. If you have any questions
014about it, feel free to contact me, email me. I'm I'm looking for feedback and ideas. So, um, again, this is really what what we're thinking as a draft at this point, right? And so the next one is our student presentations. And so I'm gonna ask Brian to come up to introduce uh just the seal of literacy process and what our seal of bi literacy students went through to achieve this incredible honor. Yeah. So our seal by literacy uh honor essentially is one of the if not the singular most impressive things that comes out of this high school. Um the amount of work and the time and attention and really the artful m mastery of these student presentations is absolutely incredible. Um so students meet with uh both Heather Cis and I uh in conjunction with
015some of our world language teachers, all of our world language teachers in the fall um to basically explain the process and it's a it's almost like a point-based rubric scenario where uh it truly is a biiteracy game that we're playing here. So it's not just being proficient in another language, but you also have to demonstrate your, you know, your competency and your excellence in your home native language of English as well. So for a lot of students, they're earning points along the way based on completion of, you know, successful completions of AP exams in the English language, uh, having exemplary grade point averages in their English classes, taking college classes to kind of satisfy the the first kind of rudimentary component that I think oftentimes people take for granted. um that this isn't just proficiency
016in another language, it's also demonstrating your mastery in English as well. Um and then we unpacked the the English uh sorry the the Spanish and the French side of things as well. Um and the the culmination project is a public presentation uh this year was over on OMI's campus. Uh Marcel has drummed up quite a reputation for itself. When we showed up uh for our designated time slot here at Boseis, it was like rolling up red carpet and everybody's like, "Oh my gosh, it's Marcelus the peer." Uh we sent the highest percentage of students based on our like a per capita rate uh of any school district in our area. Uh Marcelus is the real deal when it comes to beritacy. Uh what we would like to do tonight is just give you a very
017very small taste of what those student presentations look like, feel like, sound like, taste like. Um, so with that, I'm going to have a couple of student presentations and then at the end of the student presentations, uh, we'll get our world language teachers up here. Uh, and we will dawn our bery medals on our recipients that they will probably wear at graduation in just a short week and a half from now. So, with that, I'm going to turn things over to Shay. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! really [Music] shall [Music] It's a [Music] Hello. Uh Charlotte Back to you for legality. Representation assassination [Music] of assassination. or say 12 month and Espanol is [Music] Francisco. [Music] Estarios. asche. [Music] Master question. [Music] This accidental [Music] You know, artist. [Music] Political comics. So, Brian, before you start, I
018I do want to just say and echo what Brian said earlier. There is no question that when we show up to have our students present in the field of bi literacy, we are by far uh exceed other school districts. And that is directly related to the work that Jesso and Maria Antill do with these students. And and the students know this. They spend numerous hours making sure that they're prepared. They they have them review over and over their presentations, make sure that they can converse because not only do they present, but the judges ask them questions in the in the language. So they're they students don't know what questions they're getting. They have to know how to converse in the language. So uh just a huge shout out and I'm sorry if I stole your
019thunder, but Jess Quo and Maria Anvil are the backbone of this seal of bi literacy program. All of our world language teachers contribute for sure, but they are the reason that it is so successful. So kudos to both of them. If you can both stand up. Just for perspective too, like if you're anything like me, you understood very little what just went down. But when the students actually do this, this was a very much paired down version of their actual presentations that they did a couple months ago. Uh this is probably what maybe 25 to 30% of what they actually did uh in their formal presentation. Uh that is in front of a panel of adjudicators. There's at least two to three either native speakers or language teachers from around the area that come in
020and they actually score and judge the kids based on their ability to articulate themselves and do their presentation. It takes so much energy and effort to teach kids how to give a public presentation in English where you're not just reading this bullet points that are on your slide. And as you noticed, there was none of that going on and it was happening not in English. Uh it is truly one of the most remarkable things that happens here. And like Jean said, an absolute testament to these two right here because the work that they do with the students to get themselves prepped and ready does not happen inside of the course that they actually teach. This is all truly above and beyond. Um, which is why it is truly such such an amazing feat and such
021a big deal. Uh, and we will be giving kids here in just a moment uh a seal of literacy medal uh that they earn from the state of New York. They'll have a special seal on their actual diploma that they receive uh a week from Saturday and they will probably wear their survival medal in the cereo [Music] the French teacher and I'm going to call up the French students for their medal And I'll let I'll just hand it to you. So I want to say um I've taught some of these students four years and I've taught another group for three years and I know them very well. And this group maybe was one of the most biggest worriers of all my whole career. Um, and I want them to know, this is for everyone, but
022I want those students to know there was never anything they could ever do to disappoint me in any way. And I felt that way about them by ninth and 10th grade. Um, because they are so hardworking and they are so kind and they love to learn. So, it's been my pleasure and great pride to teach them. So, I'm gonna start with Evanso. And our patient up. is actually getting the trial in Spanish and French. So, I'm going to let you Bellford. Spanish side of things. Um I've had majority of my group for two years. Um had one person sophomore and senior and the other student and senior and then we got lucky and sh this year. Um this group they had such creativity and just such curiosity. Um I really appreciated the the topics that
023they came up with. You know they made it they were challenging me right from the get-go some of the stuff they were coming through it's like okay let's let's do this um but it kind of just goes to show you know they they are really a really special class I've really enjoyed working with them and I just want to tell you guys I'm just so proud of you guys because the progress that you made from either sophomore year senior year from junior to senior just it's it's outstanding so really really great job to you guys so our first one is Kaitlyn I know I'm Spanish here. So bear with me. [Applause] freaking sharing. All right, that's it for team Spanish. I do want to throw one more shout out there. Uh we have one short
024medal, but we will certainly get to her. Uh but this is a graduation seal. Uh this graduating senior actually earned this at the end of her junior year. He was not involved in any this year. Um but so So we have a few more presentations. We're shifting to independent studies. So last Thursday we had Yes. If some of you that are want to exit, you may exit. So last Thursday we had an independent studies night and our students that have worked closely with Tyler Cooper all year um presented there for 40 Tyler. I think 45 44 presentations. 43 43 I was close. So 43 presentations um across the board on Thursday night. There were several students um because of some conflicts and it was mostly track conflict, right? Um that are here tonight who are
025going to just do a mini presentation um for the board and the community. Um, one of the things, you know, talk about the cilab literacy putting us on the map. The independent studies work that Tyler Cooper is doing has put Marcelus on the map. I mean, if you're paying attention to what is going up on social media, the projects, the internships, the opportunities that our students are receiving, um, again, fully because of the work that Tyler is doing, interfacing with companies, interfacing with the community um, has been tremendous. And I know I've said this before, but I have people from other districts at calling and hey, how are you doing that? Your kids are having such rich opportunities that we can't possibly provide. H how are you doing that? So, um I do want to
026just introduce Tyler and he's going to sort of do an introduction and then we'll have the students present from there. Thank you, Charlotte. Um, so if you see some of the students showing up tonight a little sun-kissed, it's because we just spent the last five hours on a Black River. So just them being here and not still floating down the river is a huge accomplishment. So they may be a little out of it, little little sunburn, but we'll be all right. So to get to independent studies, um, one of the things that we're going to talk about kind of introduce to the board tonight is a rebrand and renaming that also took place throughout the course of the year. So we're going to go to the next slide. Yep. So, um, in talking to Mr.
027CV and talking to the counselors and other districts, um, Addie Wy, who is was part of the program, but not actually getting credit because it didn't fit in our schedule, was so, um, excited to be able to pursue graphic design, rebranding, renaming that she worked with Mary Beth Rayfield to be able to do a rebrand, rename to kind of make it our own. independent studies kind of exists in other pockets in a variety of capacities, but really what we wanted to do is get to the essence of what we were trying to do, expose student professions to be able to create um a kind of path for their future. And if you notice, it's got the little flames. If we go to the next slide, we also put the tagline on there. So, we wanted
028to tie this into the district's mission, vision, values of connecting, power at night. And so when we see professional pathways and we have the little tagline, ignite in the future, it's paying that subtle nod to okay, yes, it's it's kind of this its own unique idea, but it's still under the umbrella of the mission and the vision that the district has overall kind of push our students into those opportunities. Next one. So in a couple of moments, we're going to have the students give kind of like the uh the 5-second of what was really a two-hour kind of presentation on Thursday. I just kind of want to walk through because when they do their posters, this is what you see going up. And I using Addis as an example, they have some sort of an
029evidence. They have some sort of tie to the experience that they had. And then it's really kind of collegiate level or professional level poster presentation. So it looks kind of okay, there's not a whole lot here because they're really the content knowledge holders. So this is what you do see. What you don't see on the next slide is all of this. So it may just be like, "Wow, Addy did a a little like cool logo, but in essence, she spent the entire year interfacing, going back and forth with Mary Beth, doing multiple renditions, having whole plans, think finding and and finding the voice of what they wanted to do, and then polling both the district, other districts, uh the college community, and also the VI professionals to be like, "Okay, what would make the most
030sense for if you saw this title, you would know what we're talking about?" So when the students come up, you see a digital representation of their posters. But what you won't see and what kind of what their experience is is all this vertical information, which is really what I would consider to be the meat and potatoes versus just the poster presentation. They click the next one. Some questions that we gave for the audience to ask that you can kind of be thinking of you want to put them on spot. They've been warned. So we we warned them when we did the the community presentations and they've been warned this evening that if there's some questions that you have, ask them about the process. Ask them about the content given that kind of abbreviated form through
031the next. So like I I'm sure Mrs. Charlotte's mentioned in talking about where we're headed in the future of education with the blue commission coming out. A lot of this is what we want to offer to all of our students, not just a select group or core. And so we're really trying to build out the infrastructure and the capacity for this, finding more professionals and we're very fortunate here. The reason why it works in Marcel is because of our community. There's nothing special that I do and I'm I actually prefer to step behind the scenes and point the finger to the professionals that are working with us like Mary Beth Ra. We have Brian Sod um here tonight from McLar. Those are the people that make the magic happen because the first thing that I
032admit when they walk through the door is I'm not a professional in any of the fields including education because I don't want to play that role. I want to be the facilitator, not the mentor. I want you to find someone that is p passionate about the field or the content that you are that you can connect with and get that real world experience. And so that's really what makes this happen. And when you look at talking about English, when you look at when she's talking 43 students and I'd be happy to share the list and I've shared it with Mr. Montgomery in terms of where our students are going, the profession they're dealing with. This is the list and so you'll get kind of a sampling here this evening. We actually have a second page
033of all these additional students. So with that, we have the new unveiling of professional pathways. and to give you kind of a sampling of what we had happening the uh the previous evening on Thursday. We're have some students come up and share their posters and some things that they work with. We're going to kick off. Hi, I'm Ken. Um my study this next year was becoming a social studies teacher. Um so over the course of since probably November, I've been working with my professional PMS primarily an eighth grade social studies teacher but he has one seventh grade class that happened to fit with my schedule perfectly during my study hall and lunch. So after fourth period every day I would go down to Mr. Jones class and I would I started by just um meeting
034with students and observing while he taught lessons and he did activities with them and then I proceeded to make my lesson plans. Um he did a lot of um document reading and a lot of um critical thinking questions where they to read and understand and answer questions on historical times in American history. Um I did that for a while and then I continued doing that and I eventually made my unit plan for one of their units towards the end of the year and I didn't do the first couple things, but I did the rest of it. I redid the five lesson plan and we each lesson had its own set of notes and I made a slideshow for each set of notes and fill in notes for students um which was followed by a quiz
035after each lesson and we did that all five times. There's some samples of my list up there. Um and then We also did other activities including um presentations where the students had to go through documents such as um a bill of rights and they um had to go through the amendments and they all each one too where they deciphered it essentially and sent it to their classmates and explained it to them in a way that they Any questions? What I love about that is that you gave up your study hall, your lunch, because you knew it would benefit you. And I I just appreciate that that's what you're excited about. You were willing to do that. So, kudos. All right, Mia. Hi everyone. My name is Carl. My study focused on um prosecution um kind
036of a large sense um kind of how um jurist prudence so um the ideologies of law can be used to um resist or the prosecution. Um so I started with working with um Mr. Peter Hakes who works at the district attorney's office um for the county um court system um and basically developed um how each case goes from a point of arrest to all the way through trial and kind of each steps um going through that. So um developing kind of kind of um ongoing analysis analysis of evidence collection um but basically shifting it over to kind of the changes that are continuing um through law now that technology is a big part of the court system. Um technology is wildly changing um how our legal system will work and so um keeping yourself educated
037how you know normal people citizen which criminals are go from a arrest to a trial is really important I think especially with everything going on in the world um so new practices the development of ethical practices were kind of a big part of um my project I also worked with um Mr. James Gaskin from um and just he was a great use of kind of you know he's a older lawyer and kind of has those original practices and kind of Mr. Peter Cakes who is now developing no um all my professionals kind of guided me going to a liberal college next year and studying political science. So just kind of developing kind of what type of law that I would like to I have a question. What during your independent study, what was something that
038you learned that really surprised you? Um, kind of the um importance of communication. Um, I've never really struggled to talk to, I guess, people older than me, but you have to have professional conversations versus just, you know, if you and I were talking in restaurant. So, it's just the importance of communication skills. [Applause] Hello everybody. My name is Le Aldridge. Um, some of you may know me as an avid runner, which is what I base my independent study on today. Um, initially throughout my independent study, I started out in the field of exercise science. I wanted to explore how running affected the body, how warm up, more specifically affected your performance in a race or a practice or just anything running related. Um, so through that I learned that exercise science wasn't my thing or
039wasn't what I wanted to do, which I think was a really helpful thing. It helped me pivot to more a field of business where I decided, oh, this is more what I want to do. Um, however, I still kind of used aspects of exercise science in my um, business side of my uh, independent study. um with the help of Candace Hoffman um who is actually my former coach um I learned a lot about um how like running affects the body and through meetings with her I got to learn um so when I pivoted to um more business administration side of things I started off with consumer habits and why how runners buy into things how they like for instance buy shoes. So initially in my exercise science thing I sent out to the runners on
040the team and through my business side I sent out um forms to every runner I knew college level Canada level wherever. Um so I surveyed for age how often they bought and through that I learned some actually really interesting things. Obviously the most popular brand is Nike. We all know Nike and Nike was by far the most bought speaker. Um, I also learned that runners prefer to shop in store versus online, which might surprise some people in the digital age that we are in. Um, to me, if I I will pass these around if you can actually just go through and see like how they work. just passed down. But um through this I learned like a very valuable lesson um that independent study has helped show me that like one field even though you're
041dead set on it might not be the field to me. Like I still love the idea of um exercise science. I don't I'm going to college for business administration but I don't necessarily know if I want to involve exercise science come back to biology or something like that. And thanks to this I experience I learned something maybe more of the right fit for me and I actually learned a lot. Um that's all questions. Any questions for Liam? Yes. How far did you realize that you wanted to shift? Way too late. Um, I was actually I was actually past the current like I got into the second semester of the year and I think I'm about maybe like a fourth of the way through that second semester. I was like, "Wait, this really is not working
042for me at all." And I pivoted and through pivot I actually like work was done easy like work I was just worked way more think that was a very valuable like skill like you have to love what you do. You have to be doing the work like it's going to work much easier. Liam, what brand do you prefer? Um, I like Brooks, but I also love Nike for different things. I would probably say I'm a Nike guy. [Music] All right, Jack. All right, so my name is Jack Lucio. I'm finishing up my senior year at Marcel this year. I'm attending Sunni Tennessee next year studing business administration. And um so the title of mine says from sidelines to signing and that's basically because likely I changed my my profession midway through the year. So I
043started out the year doing athletic training. I'm a three sport athlete. I play soccer, indoor track, outdoor track. I love everything to do with sports. It's kind of my life. So originally we took a disc assessment at the start of the year with Mr. Cooper and that basically just showed our top interests and different career options and what worked best for us. and I saw athletic training was at the top of my list. So the first step that I did is I just went to syracuse.com and I searched up all the athletic trainers at Syracuse University. U Mr. Brandon Hall, he struck my eye. He was the head football trainer at Syracuse and I reached out to him. I sent him an email and we scheduled a meeting and from there we kicked it off.
044We started talking about his job. I visited the facility just see a day in his life, see what it was like and I had a blast. I really thought it was for me. I had a great time. And then a couple months later, I realized it wasn't for me. I realized there was a lot more science into it than I intended uh for there to be. I'm not really a science guy. So, I decided to kind of pivot and do real estate. Um, one of my good friends, Liam, I know his mom, Janine, was a realtor around here. So, I reached out to her. It was kind of easy because I already knew her. So, I sent her a quick email. We started talking and I set up a meeting with her as soon as
045I could. And the first step that I did was I went to an active listing with her and I visited the house and saw the whole process with what she did in the way that she showed it to clients and took photograph photography for it and learned that there's a lot more to selling a house than just what you see from a social media post. Um, and then after that, I actually visited her offices and spent a day in her life and just saw what she did on a day-to-day thing and not actually out in the field. And it really clicked for me and that's what I loved about it and I realized real estate was probably better than athletic training for me. Um, and one thing that I also wanted to talk about was
046what Mr. Cooper does for this program, which hasn't really been talked about, is the communication aspect. I know Mia mentioned it earlier, but every day we start class, Mr. Cooper, we shake our hand, we make eye contact, he says, "How are you doing? How do you been?" And I feel like reaching out to professionals, it's a lot more than just figuring out what you want to do. It's how to communicate with someone. It's how to hold a professional conversation. And I think it's the most important skill in life. It's something that can't really be taught. You have to go out there. You have to do it and talk to people and just converse and see what it's all about. So yeah, no hesitation. Awesome. My name is um and I did my independent study on
047veterary medicine and my presentation is more focused related on a uh gene mutation but I'll tell you about my process. So like I started inventing medicine when I was very very young. My cousin uh actually I think now he my second cousin he owns his own practice down in Patter New York. So I'd always like they always bring my dogs and I was like so started an interest very very early in my life. Um through the process I got to connect with Gabriel Press at Lake Country Vet. Um and through that I got to see a lot of different things. I got to see um surgeries. I got to see blood tests from I got to run blood tests. I got to see X-rays. I got to shadow appointments and like see how like the
048business and everything work. Um, I was with Lake Country the entire like school year and I'm actually still going with them and meeting with them. Um, but through this process, I learned that like yes, I love animals. Yes, I love vet medicine and I love all the aspects of it, but like I don't really know if I want to fit into if I if I want to be a veter. So, I really kind of still doing this and one of my coach is a educate educator at the KC. She's a third grade teacher. I was like kind of interested maybe teaching. I sat in a couple class with her and learned that yeah, teaching school, but maybe not teaching. And I was interested in nursing too. And when we had the career fair, I um
049went and I talked to the nurses, got a bunch of like got a bunch of information on them and started like researching more nursing, realized, yeah, maybe not nursing. So I started digging deeper and um I next year I would be taking this class and doing rehabilitation and performance therapy because also when I was at um Lake Country I got to see uh a therapist come in for dogs and we sat with dogs all day long and worked with dogs and I've always had an interest in horses too. So um next year I'm hoping to connect with anymore because they have a big rehabilitation center for horses and learn about equipment rehabilitation and performance therapy. But yeah, so my presentation is more on this uh drug this multi-resistant mutation um which it's a it's a
050gene variant that the dogs inherit and they are it's a the gene codes for the protein uh P gleo protein and it when the gene codes it blocks and toxins and drugs go like build up and it's just not very good for the dog. But I found this out when actually at shadowing appointment a dog came in with this exact um mutation and I walked out appointment with Gabby. I'm like what's that? Cuz I remember seeing that and she gave me this paper and I started researching more on it and that's what I decided my presentation about. But yeah, that's all. questions. I think your brother has a question. What is the most aspect of your independent study so far? Probably figuring out to do the poster on because I had so much to I
051could do the poster on. I got so many surgeries. I got to see like stomachs attached to that wall. I got to see so much and learned so much. It was very hard. Well, my name is Andrew Shaw. Uh, my project this year focused on the benefits of regenerative farming. I started out my project this year in agroecology which is a process of farming which is good for the environment and also helps reuse materials around the farm and throughout the year I kind of as I moved into the topic I realized I also wanted to move away from it at the same time. So later in the year, I switched my major in college to finance, but I wanted to stick with what I had already gained from earlier in the year. And I researched
052the financial benefits of regenerative farming. And I learned that the uh practices that they use, not only can you help around the farm and for the environment, but it also can help you make profits as well. Um, so throughout the year, I worked with Taproots Farm, which is a small regenerative farm located in Skinny Atlas. Uh Jamie Hunt showed me around his farm and he showed me the processes that they use of how they can measure like all the units that they need to make sure that the way they are farming is also saving them money while at the same time they're doing something good for the and through that process is when I kind of realized I want to move into finance but I want to stick with it at the same time. And
053next year I plan to attend Vermont where I'll be majoring in finance but sticking around the world of agro coverage questions for Xander. So, just a couple things that I I'm sure you all heard, but um just the fact that students are learning what they might want to do, but also more importantly, what they realize they don't want to do, which is really just as important. Um the soft skills that our students are learning are incredible. As we know, those are really sometimes more valuable than even what they may be memorizing or or or learning. Um, I do want to uh just say I think Amelia you talked about the career fair and so again Tyler is being very modest just so you all know he essentially pulled off the career fair too. Um, so
054all Tyler's connections he will call anybody and ask for help for our students. He's not shy and that's what is has made this program so successful for sure our community members but Tyler is a gogetter and has created these opportunities for our students. He really just opens the door. They have to walk through, but he's the one that's opening those doors for our students. So, Tyler, um I appreciate that you're being humble, but you are a huge part of why this has been incredibly successful. So, thank you. Thank you students. And thank you everybody for for being here for that. Um many of these students because they went to the uh state competition for track and field they could not be at the independent studies Thursday night. So this was a great platform for them
055to be able to present their work. And now director of athletics report. Yes, if you don't want to stay for the rest of the meeting you can leave. Um Mike Free is getting up just to do a sort of a summary of our spring success. [ __ ] What? All right. So, I'm just going to go through the successes that we spring in and athletics just enough. Um, for our team sports, first we have three teams that won league championships this spring. Then, if we move on to the next one, we had one team that won a section three championship. And if anybody watched this boys lacrosse game, this was probably the best boys I've seen a long time to end up winning over sitting in this room right now. You didn't mention who we beat Mike.
056You have to Oh, yeah. Especially especially after losing them in the regular season. I think that game. But that that go counter left. He got that face off coming down on a fast hurry fast as Jimmy Cox Jimmy Cox did like you can't it was like I don't know it was a helicopter move between two defenders and sitting for the night. So that was a great game in and of itself. Now the rest of the the rabbi is about the success of our outdoor track and they were just amazing this year. So, every one of these gets listed here, whether they're at the relay or individually in the next two slides placed first in the section three championship tracks. So, they are section champions in their in their respective event, multiple events for some of
057these individuals out here at GDC. Just what an outstanding year we've had. So now this next slide, we go on to the outdoor track and field New York State qualifier results. I put the places on here so we could see where we are. So the girls 4x4 relay at the state qualifier, they ran a time, even though they placed second, they ran a time that qualified them automatically to go to the state championships. So they went on to run in the state championships as well. And at the New York State qualifier, all the rest of the between the 4x8 boys relay, Colton Konowski and the 400 hurdles and Matty Foy and the 100 meter hurdles and 400 meter hurdles, they all won first place, which automatically qualifies them to go states. So then we go
058to the state championship meet this last weekend. And here are the results from these these groups that qualify. Every single one of our groups that qualified to go to states placed in the top 10 states. That That's just amazing. So Golden places ninth in the 400 hurdles. The 4x4 relay with Karen Aldridge, Emmy Roser, Dorothy McMahon, and Mattie Foy. They placed fifth 4x4 relay. the boys 4x8 relay with Jack Lucio, Liam Eldridge, Jameson Palin, and Xander Shaw. They placed third overall estates. And then we go to the last screen and Madison Floyd on Friday placed first in the 400 meter hurdles and won a state championship in division three for the 400 meter hurdles. her time in the 400 meter hurdles also qualified to go on and run in the federations. They used to do
059the federation separately years ago. Now they do them all in one event. So the federations is just all public schools, all private and proial schools, right? So she qualified to run in the 400 federation hurdles on Saturday. So then on Saturday she gets she wakes up and first thing in the morning she runs the 4x4 and places fifth with that group in the 4x4. Then a little while later runs 100 meter hurdle hurdles. Sorry speak very well and she wins 100 meter hurdles and is state champion and made 100 meter hurdles and then that afternoon she ran again in the 400 meter hurdles federations and placed sixth. So that is just an amazing weekend. A great group of kids, all of our sports teams. We we are just we have some great athletes coming through
060Mars right now. Kudos to the I want to just quickly show this picture. Jimmy, I'm sorry to embarrass you, but do you recognize this? So Mrs. Jennis took this when you and and Connor were in fourth grade. And the day after your skinny Atlas win, I I happened to go into Mrs. Jennis's room, Mrs. Mchaki's room, and she's showing the the students all they were all excited that those two boys were in their classroom. So, I just had to share that because it was so sweet to just stumble upon that scene. Do you remember this photo? I do. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. All right, this time we'll move on to item number five, resident comments. Public expression at the board of education meetings is encouraged and a specific portion of the agenda shall provide for
061this privilege. In 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 appropo appropriately addressed by the superintendent of schools or persons designated by the superintendent without further board action in accordance with board policy 3220, community relations. Do we have any residents comments at this time? Moving on to the business portion of our meeting. Approval of tenure tenure instructional staff. See resolved that the board of education approves the tenure appointments of the following. You can see them all listed there below you. Can I have a motion?
062Amy second. Second. Catherine. Questions or concerns before we vote? Questions or comments? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Moving on to 5.2. Approval of boys ice hockey combination with Syracuse City School District. Resolve that the board of education approves the boys ice hockey athletic team combination between Marcellus Central School District and Syracuse City School District for the 202526 school year. Can I have a motion? Motion. Sean. Second. Erica, questions or comments before we vote? So, you're going to see several combinations here, 5.2 through 5.5. Um, you know, just kudos to Mike Free because, uh, in some cases, some of our athletes wouldn't have opportunities to play the sports that they love because we don't offer them here. So um you know many of these combinations are really in service of making sure that um our
063students have every advantage opportunities. Yeah. All those in favor? Opposed? Carry. Item 5.3 approval of independent girls swimmers for fall of 2025. Resolved that the board of education approves the Marcellus independent swim team under the supervision of the skinny central school district for 202526 school year. Can I have a motion? Catherine. Second. Second. Josh, questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Item 5.4, Four, approval of girls wrestling combination with West Tennessee 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 2026 school year. Can I have a motion? Sean second. Erica, 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.
064Resolved that the board of education approves the varsity wrestling athletic team combination between Marcelo Central School District and Anadaga Central School District for the 202526 school year. Can I have a motion? Motion. Justin. Justin. Second. Amy, questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? I opposed. Carries. Item 5.6, approval of transfer from assigned appropriated fund balance to unassigned fund balance. Resolve that the board of education approves a transfer of 381,500580 from assigned appropriated fund balance to unassigned fund balance. Can I have a motion? Erica, second second. Sean, questions or comments before we vote? So, I did ask Tony to prepare a memo and he's just going to sort of give you an overview of the rationale behind this. This is a that happened several years ago putting it back to where it was.
065So with the decision to reduce our reliance on use of of this unappropriated fund balance, we now need to transfer those funds to somewhere else. And so it's recommended that we transfer those funds to what is the the least restrictive um portion of fund balance or or choice of fund balance, which is an assigned fund balance. So, it's really that simple to we're just simply moving a pot of money. Um, and so I can give you a very I'll try to keep this very brief. As I said to genes, this can I can I can uh develop diarrhea of the mouth pretty quickly on this particular topic. But to go back two years ago, uh the there was a commitment made at that time by their administrative team to reduce approximately 10 positions in the
066district over a period of three years. And so at that time, it's really simply put that we chose to rely on the use potential use of fund balance to fund positions that we weren't able to reduce at that time. And so we got through the 24 school year without needing to use those funds because we were still receiving some co dollars. Fast forward to this year 2024 2025 we still maintain that same level of uh use of appropriated fund balance and also had not fully committed to the reduction of those FTEEs. So this year we will in fact use a portion of that uh those dollars. Now let's jump to 2526. We don't want to continue to rely on use of fund balance. So we pulled back on the use of those dollars but that
067so if you remember I had shared that this is a particularly difficult budget year and this was a a contributor to the the difficulty of of the 2526 budget is that we had to to then move forward that last push to reduce FTEES. So, so we're hopeful that uh now that we've done this that we, you know, this should be the last um uh major need to reduce staff. No, no guarantees of course because we don't know what the future holds. Uh but we're essentially making uh you know, we're honoring our promise I guess from just just about three years ago actually when the discussions first started. So So that's what's happening. Pretty simple. Any other questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Moving on to item 5.7, approval of
068first and final reading of board policy. Resolve that the board of education approves the first and final reading of the following board policy. You can see that before you policy 5685, maximum temperature for school buildings and indoor facilities. Can I have a motion? Motion. Justin. Justin. Second. Catherine questions or comments before we vote that we have to put in place and um we a lot of room is what it is. That's why it's before the final. Yeah. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Item 5.8. Ratification of contract with Marcellus School Office Personnel Association. resolved that the board of education ratifies the tentative agreement between the Marcelus Central School District and the Marcellus School Office Personnel Association for the period of July 1, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. Can I have a motion? Amy, second Sean,
069questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Carrie. Moving on to personnel approval. Did I miss something? Oh, yes, that's right. Okay. Before we get into personnel, we are going to We'd like to have a motion to pull out which one? 6.1 6.15 and vote on that separately. Can I have a motion? Catherine. Second would be Erica. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Okay. So, we will at this time we will vote on items 6.1 through 6. So, we have to pull a couple out. We are going to vote on Let me just check one thing. Hang on. You're going to pull out 11. 11, too. Yep. Okay. So, at this time, we're going to vote on item 6.1 um through 6.4, take out 6.5, and then vote on items 6.6 through
0706.10 and 12, 13, 14, 15. If you can keep that all straight. Okay, it's all right there before you. Okay. Result that the board of education approves the following personnel items. Can I have a motion? Okay, that was Katherine and then second was Erica. Okay, you can see those items before you. Any questions or comments before we vote? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Now, at this time, we will vote on um 6.15. Resolved that the board of education approves the following personnel items. 6.5. Can I have a motion? Motion Justin second. Josh. Okay. All those in favor? Opposed? You are abstaining. Yes. Carried. Okay. And now at this time we will vote on item 6.11. Appointment of building and grounds health 2025. Resolve that the board of education approves um the appointment of buildings
071and grounds 2025 summer help. Can I have a motion? Motion. Sean. Sean. Second. Catherine. Questions or comments before we vote. All those in favor? Opposed? And I will abstain. And Amy is abstaining as well. Approved. Moving on 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. Can I have a motion? Motion. Sean. Second, Justin. Second, Justin. Questions or comments about any of those items before we vote? just the health and well care services um just for for public we have some students who attend Word of Life Academy in Baldwinville and so um we pay a portion of health and welfare nursing etc health services to Baldwinville school district to to service those of
072our students. All right, any other questions or comments? All those in favor? Opposed? Carried. Okay. At this time, we'll move on to item number eight,formational items. So, just a few information items. A reminder that we have uh changed the calendar. So, the last day of school for students in UPK um through sixth grade is Wednesday, June 25th. It is a full day. Um students in seventh and eighth grade, that is their last day as well, but it's a half day. Okay. So, just a reminder, we'll be sending parent square reminders out as well. Um, we are making a few changes um for staffing for grades four, five, and six. Mrs. Mahoney in the intermediate school and I are working on a communication just to let parents know what some of those changes in staffing are.
073Um, we believe having teachers change grade level really builds not only camaraderie, but capacity and understanding the needs at at different grade levels. And um so we think it's a a great change and our our staff is excited as well. So um we'll be communicating those changes to families in the next week. Um and then finally, we have been working with our Marcellus faculty association. Uh at the end of last year, it was probably like in March or April, the state came out with a new evaluation system. So, if you remember, it's been APR, um, annual, uh, performance professional review, and, um, the state just shifted to 312E. And, um, what that does for us is a is a few things. Um, if you recall, we have had to hire independent evaluators um, because we
074are a small district. And so, that requirement is now uh, gone. So we will no longer have to um you know hire independent evaluators to evaluate our teachers. Um in addition it it gives teachers sort of different measures. So there is the observation the walkth through um and obviously informal walkthroughs which which we do um aside from the evaluation process but there's also what's called a measure two. And so, um, what has happened in the past is we've had a district-wide, um, for no better term, it used to be called like a a a cocktail of regent exams. And that score would be calculated every year for teachers across the district. And it was really it it honestly wasn't a ton of meaning for a teacher who's in elementary school. Although certainly their impact at
075those younger ages probably contributed to the success of the region score. But um now it's going to be a measure to where teachers are going to either have they had a choice of a smart goal um creating common formative assessments with their teams portfolio action research. there's a menu of things that they can choose from and it will be directly correlated with our professional learning plan. So, um Bob and I have been working closely with the state and with our Marcelus faculty association uh to move forward for this first September. So, um we're we're pleased we've done a ton of great work. the state was actually, you know, kudos to Marcellis because they said we're one of the first ones to endeavor and they want our plan so that they can help guide other districts.
076So, um, I think we'll we'll be in great shape. And that's it for information. All right. At this time, we will enter executive session. Resolved that the meeting in public be adjourned and an exe in an executive session be convened for the purpose of discussion of the evaluation of the superintendent. Can I have a motion? Second, Catherine. All those in favor? Opposed? Carried.