MCS Board of Education Meeting - February 13th, 2025.

001are we all set Mr Lincoln thank you all right let's uh get things underway this evening and uh first we'll stand for the pledge I've asked uh Miss beard if she would lead us in the pledge tonight welcome everyone to uh our Board of Education meeting tonight um before we get any business underway uh I'd like uh to ask uh the board and everyone here um to uh to just uh um commit to a moment of silence in memory of the Bowen family thank you uh first on the agenda is uh Communications from the public and press I don't see anyone here from the public we do have a guest here this evening but we're going to uh ask him to uh to talk to us a little bit uh in a few minutes um

002but I don't see any press or public here so uh we will move on on to uh board correspondents and uh under board corresp we actually do have some board corresponden for the first time in quite some time attached to your agenda is the announcement from St Lawrence Lewis bosis uh president Roger Bennett of the dates of the Bose's annual meeting and the component District's vote on the Bose's administrative budget uh as well as the V uh vacancies on the Bose board um the annual meeting is April 10th at the Bose Administrative Office in Canton the local districts will all vote on the administrative budget and the Slate of nominees to bosis um on April 29th and that night is our regular uh April board meeting night and related to this um also attached to

003your agenda is uh we've received a request from Mr Bennett um who is one of the nominees or is whose position is one of three that is um up for uh reelection um we've had a request from Mr Bennett to nominate him for another term and uh Roger is here this evening and Roger if you'd be good enough to to make your way over to the uh to the microphone so you can be heard we'd uh we'd like to hear uh a little bit about you and uh some of she's bringing the mic to ah there we go thank you very much um so uh Roger you have the floor okay um fortunately we have changed our board meeting till 4:00 this afternoon so I'm able to be here I did stop and see Ron

004and talk to him about the nomination and so forth and I guess the point I'm trying to make is how do we better communication with all the boards many years ago we had a county school boards and it was very very active and you had time to meet with each other and talk today that seems to have gone to the past there is a board and they do meet on the annual night of the meeting uh I'm going to try to convince some people to kind of reinvent the wheel and get back into better communication I've always said when I've been here that I'm only as close as the telephone and I'll give you my number right now 315 323 and I'm used to getting calls 24 hours a day I don't like them at

005night anymore but if that's the time you have to talk then I'm more than willing to talk to you I'll try to answer any questions if I can't answer it I will find out and get an answer for you other than that what else do you want to know about me well I guess I I do have a question under understanding that um you can't get into names or anything else very much related to this um we haven't really gotten any idea what's happening in terms of the uh district superintendent vacancy can you just comment on the process for that and timeline and and so forth yes the president of the board of bosies will receive a letter at some point in time and I'm assuming it's going to be sooner than later there was

006a survey sent out which was filled out in with the different districts and stuff and until the letter is received to the president we know no more than you know about how it's going to be I know that the Franklin County bosies Superintendent has been appointed and he will be the one who works with our board to get a new member the determinate the the letter that Mr Bennett was referring to I believe comes from the uh Commissioner of Education because when whenever a district superintendent leaves any bosies for retirement or any purposes the state conducts a review of that bosis to find out a study on that bosis to see if it can be dissolved changed merged whatnot before they would open up the vacancy so that's the letter he's waiting for from the

007commissioner because once he's assuming that letter says that our bosies will stay the same yes then then that them open up so that they can start the search process so they have to wait for that but I just want to I know those things and he didn't I just want to make sure it was cleared up that that's what we're were waiting for right thank you yep any other questions for Mr Bennett do you think that there will be any reach out from from the Bose board or from from the Bosey board to the district maybe asking for what we would want in a new district superintendent or any other hopes we would have for the bosies in the future given that we're going to get a new leader I don't know that that would

008be up to the superintendent that's coming in to set with us so that we can line up how we're going to do it and I have no idea at this point in time how we're going to do it I'd hope that we communicate and get input but I can't say how it's going to operate at this time till I get the letter and find out more I'm just as knowledgeable as you people are about it I mean you just don't get it until you get the inputs okay any other questions well uh Roger uh first of all thank you for your many years of uh service um representation on the bosis board um you also put in a good bit of time right here at this board table we thank you for that um your

009nomination is uh on our agenda for uh approval um and we shall see but uh I I I I think you're looking pretty good I will add one one little thing that I have the benefit of working for bosis and I can tell you from my uh 19 years at bosis it is very very very rare that Roger misses any event thank you well thank you Roger uh appreciate it uh thanks for coming in yeah well I'm thinking I'm going to wait and see how the vote goes well you're certainly welcome to stay um okay um next uh we have we'll move to uh information from uh board members we'll start with the student ex officio report and Ms beard watch did we ever get our tangerine chicken I think we did it one of

010the uh one of the we did at the superintendent superintendent interviews that's right yeah can I have a question can I ask a question you're saying the corner bathrooms are frustrating can you elaborate a bit okay thank you any other questions for Isabelle okay thank you uh moving on to the facilities committee report um my understanding is that uh Mr LeBlanc is not going to give this report he was not in attendance so I think uh Mr Tusa has it uh the uh facilities committee met on January 21st over at the cab building uh we met with uh Megan vanderbrook from King and King um we discussed uh the next Capital project um we are looking at doing an RFP for a construction manager for that project and uh the due date uh the due

011date for that should be the end of February early March and uh hopefully with interviews uh for construction manager to take place uh in early to late March um the project is looking to be quite sizable and it will primarily just be a a nuts and bolts project um there are quite a few different areas uh of need and uh so it it uh it's it's looking to be a sizable project and the next facilities committee meeting I believe is February 24th okayy thank you Dan any questions for for Dan on the facilities all right moving on then to the policy committee report and trustee Monroe the policy committee met January 14th 5:30 in Ron's office uh we reviewed policies in the 4 and 5000 series policies 4270 screening committees for administrative positions policy 4310

012superintendent of schools and policy 4320 superintendent Board of Education Rel relations uh those were all review only uh the policy committee reviewed those there were no concerns or recommended changes policy 4330 administrative administrative St staff uh there was updated language to include the assistant superintendent of instruction and we also recommended adding language to the policy to include the director of educational Support Services um as well as um updating the food service director as responsible for reporting to the superintendent and no longer the Director of Business Administration policies 4410 professional development opportunities and policy 4420 compensation related benefits those were review only uh we reviewed and no changes policy 5110 budget Planning and Development uh there's a paragraph quote a schedule of Reserve funds setting forth n setting forth the name of each Reserve fund a

013description of its purpose to balance of the close of the third quarter of the current fiscal year and a brief statement explaining any plans for the use of each Reserve fund for the ensuing fiscal year end quote um so we plan to make sure that in the budget Planning Development process we include this as a separate item in the budget newsletter and public budget presentation policy 5120 School District budget hearings policy 5130 budget adoption and those two policies were reviewed review only at uh no no concerns or changes uh as they stand with education law policy 5140 administration of the budget also reviewed only uh no concerns or recommended changes and then there was a policy 51-50 the contingency budget uh we recommend to resend uh based on Erie Juan's recommendation it's also a duplicate

014policy there there were also other items uh up for discussion this policy committee meeting in January AR uh we reviewed we went back to the table with the uh the board Norms that Mr hagget presented to us uh in the December meeting I believe and so we discussed um we looked at the sample that was provided through nisba and then we looked at the draft that was provided to us um and then the policy committee reviewed it uh and we just recommended uh changing the language at at the beginning of each header to the board aspires to we felt that that was Blanket coverage to um cover the changes necessary uh 3275 nomination and recognition of community honores so this was also another uh reviewed policy from the January meeting at the request uh of

015Mr hagget and if you recall this was the policy that um that discussed the number of total petitions signatures required uh in order to have a naming or recognition of any type of facility or District asset uh so the policy committee did discuss this and um basically what we decided was that the um give me just a moment here we did recommend that the leaving the Thousand I believe it's a thousand signatures is that right Kevin says a th000 currently that we wanted to uh we recommended keeping it um as it's written in the policy we actually felt that that number was relatively low um we had some discussion about um how a th000 signatures represents roughly uh 17th of community voter voter input currently even so um so the recommendation was to keep that

016policy as written and that was everything from the January policy committee meeting can you repeat the number of that policy that is policy number 3275 it's not there on the agenda to approve no no I it was just a question I I requested that they that the policy committee go back back and look at that because uh it's my belief that the number of uh of letters and the number of signatures is too high and uh I I just made the request and I I very much appreciate that you took the time in the meeting to uh to have more discussion on that I I do appreciate that I have a question for the policy committee y do what's the update on policies for AI are we working on it there's something coming up soon

017is it on the agenda we so it it uh it gets brought up uh a number of times in meetings and so for my understanding uh is that uh we're kind of waiting to see what irie1 provides uh we we understand that they're working on some sort of draft and um so we're kind of waiting for guidance from them to figure out what the what the Benchmark is for AI based policies and then you know we can kind of review what they suggest and um discuss as as recommended and seems like it's evolving very fast and a lot can happen so could we put a deadline if we don't have nothing from Ary could we get something somewhere else and thisa already has a policy and maybe we can use that as a guideline just

018to get started could we look at that and maybe make it accept I think we owe it to the teachers and to know what they're doing with this teachers we owe it to is because we want we want the Liberty to use it but there's a lot of risk also for HR I don't know if HR is using it there's a lot of risk for the there's a lot of liabilities for the district if we do something wrong using that tool I I believe we do now have an eerie one draft at least so we can compare that too we can put that on before the summer at least if at least back Kevin February I'm sorry Zach Zack you're the chair yeah okay so I've got noted we'll uh we'll take a look at

019nisa's uh policy that they've suggested and we'll discuss it uh at the next policy committee meeting in two weeks see why we can bring it up and speed it up thank you you're welcome any other questions or comments uh concerning the policy committee report okay um before I move on to my report uh I I did uh skip over the public forum on um the 2526 budget and um Mr Burke is going to uh touch on that uh during his uh reports uh to the board so uh we'll continue for now um with uh with my report uh the first thing that I have is uh I just mentioned diligent Community uh we had a uh presentation last month um by uh diligent Community um we've uh had uh um myself and Ashley and uh

020uh mallerie and Ron uh sort of an ad hoc committee uh had a little bit longer presentation um there's really not much more to say about it but we do have uh an item for Action later on in today's meeting um next uh I last Friday attended the nisba area 6 legislative breakfast in Lake Placid um there were about 75 or so board members and uh district and Bose leaders that attended um Senator STC was there as were assembly members Billy Jones and Matt Simpson um just a few takeaways uh they all the three legislators and attendance all acknowledged that schools are in a better place than they were uh last year at this time concerning Foundation Aid um but also pointed out that one of the big losers in the school funding area this

021year is New York City um because of the way poverty is measured so uh that's going to have to be addressed at some point so there's some question how um things um you know you know may shake out uh shake out um attached to your agenda is a document that nisus has put out outlining their uh top 10 legislative priorities and uh these topics formed the the basis of what most of what was discussed at the breakfast um and again just a few takeaways um Senator St and assemblyman Jones uh both uh sort of hinted that may see a pause on the EV bus mandate we hope that that is true um lawmakers uh the three lawmakers that were there I mean uh were asked to look at supporting not only increasing allowable earnings for

022retired teachers to help keep them in the classroom but also um State incentives to encourage young people to get into teaching um they were also asked to support affordable housing op options to help teachers be able to afford um to live where they teach um and that is an issue that is uh uh plaguing uh districts like sarenac Lake and others in the adarac uh uh region um because of the number of uh short-term rentals and that kind of thing driving up housing costs um the legislators were asked to support changes to the civil service system uh increased support for special education students students and programs um and we also heard comments from uh Regent Katan and uh nisus executive director Chuck dedri that uh who both attended um so that's just a a little

023bit of what I took away from uh the legislative breakfast last Friday um the next item that I have is uh sort of a a goal goal report for uh our Board of Education goals um I asked Mr Burke um last month to make sure that we had some uh information on the district goals and I thought it was only fair that uh uh we also give sort of a midyear summary of what's going on with our uh approved Board of Education goals for this year um those are attached to the agenda um board goal number one was that the Board of Education will velop a written handbook for the student ex officio board member uh that is essentially complete and the uh completed handbook was approved on um at our November 18th meeting and

024uh the completed handbook is linked to the document on board goal number two the Board of Education will develop written procedures for onboarding newly elected board trustees um there were several objectives that were uh set forth and uh We've made I think excellent progress uh although it's not completely finalized um there is an onboarding outline that if you would just uh take a minute to open um I'll just walk you through quickly what uh what some of this um program is going to look like um there's a sort of a forward uh sort of the the reasons why um we're we're doing this um so each uh each session um the first one would be at the end of May sometime in June um the focus of the meeting would be welcome and introduction to

025board service this would be for the newly elected trustees um the goal for the meeting would be to welcome them and and just kind of get started on the basics and there is a uh a list of of the folks uh on the on the board in in administration that uh would attend um each session has a a list of a list of tasks or uh you know subject matter to cover and it also includes a materials list which um uh everything is linked not everything is linked but most of the uh um items are linked and you'll see as you uh thumb through this that uh each of the sessions it's it's the same type of thing there's uh a goal for each meeting a list of tasks um a bunch of materials uh

026that would be used for facilitation of uh discussion of those um uh subject areas and uh again we go through July with this we go through a meeting in August uh the meeting in August would be um sort of a tour of the district which would um be um available not only for the newly elected board members but for uh anyone else on the board that would like to um see all of the district's uh facilities and in September we get into uh some student data student metrics at Etc um and again the formula is the same a task list uh there's an objective for each meeting and uh a list of materials that we would use to facilitate discussion in October we get into uh employee contracts evaluations both board and superintendent and uh

027the last uh session would be either November or December and it would be um sort of an assessment of um the onboarding um program and uh to try to get input on how effective it was and what if anything needs to be changed or tweaked um this is um for for any of you and most of you who are sitting at the table went through sort of uh what was termed at the time new board member orientation that was no more than maybe at the most 3 hours over two nights and it was very very cursory um I think we need to do an awful lot better uh in preparing new board members for service on the board of education they need to be brought up to speed more quickly and I uh understand that

028this is uh very ambitious but I also think it's something that very much needs to be done in order to um help new elected folks um be better board members quicker more informed and more aware of uh what's going on in the district and and how things um are handled uh in our organization so that is the uh new trustee on boarding back to the um the goals report so that's essentially what uh board goal number three right no or that was board goal number two uh board goal number three uh the Board of Education will investigate the cost and benefits of changing ing our document storage board Clerk recordkeeping and uh agenda workflow platform from Google to diligent Community um we're the rubber's going to hit the road tonight we're going to vote up

029or down uh on uh diligent Community this evening um I think we met uh all of the objectives in terms of forming the ad hoc committee um uh we've gotten a quote for the platform um we've uh seen uh demonstrations of it um hopefully you spend a little bit of time with the demo account over the last couple of weeks and uh we'll uh make that decision this evening our last board goal uh number four the Board of Education will create a focus goal on the graduating class of 2025 by using tools such as the LIF track survey a graduation ceremony policy and uh board sponsored reception event for seniors um this is the one that uh we haven't really done a whole lot on although uh from what I understand there's been some some

030inroads uh um made with the uh getting the life trck survey underway um but as far as some of these other uh parts of this goal we haven't really had uh a lot of time put in on on this but we do have a plan um the uh the status report is basically that the ad hoc committee that is uh been put together is going to be meeting on the 26th um Miss Murphy is or Mrs Murphy is going to be chairing um and uh the Board of Education policy on the graduation ceremony is being drafted by Mr peretta and will be reviewed by the policy committee so uh we do have uh some definite action steps to take and that will be happening uh before the end of the month so that is my

031update on our Board of Education goals I have any question yeah any questions I have a question so you didn't say much about diligent you you said you met you looked at it do you have any more information do you like it do we like it the uh um any more information was information that um would have uh sort of been formed in the users in the board members Minds by um uh going to the demo account there were um I sent out an email to everyone um encouraging them to do that um there were lots of helpful uh demonstration videos uh on that uh demo account um so hopefully uh some some time was invested by uh individual board members in investigating a little bit more getting more information on that um I I

032don't really have [Music] um I don't have a horse in the race I just I just uh was interested in because I had been exposed to um this product at various nisba events and things that I had been to uh you and I had talked a little bit about uh the the fact that you you'd been exposed to diligent Community as well um I just thought it was something that was worth yeah investigating I was exposed and they said good things and everybody that I heard said great things about it but I also asked what we were using and we we're satisfied with what we're currently using and I asked Ashley who's the main user and she was satisfied with Google not that the price is expensive but I want to have some feedback from

033people who tried it and use it because I didn't I didn't try it I didn't use it but if that's what we adopt I'll follow the group but I would like to know from people that have a lot of interest who tried it what you think uh Ashley has surveyed um her F some of her fellow board clerks and there are uh other districts in uh our region that use U not diligent Community but its successor program board docs um everyone is going to be uh migrating to diligent community at some point uh in the future uh but there there are uh several districts that use board dos right now uh in our region and um according to um the gentleman who gave the um demonstration for us last month uh there are roughly 450

034or so districts throughout the state that use diligent products so um that's over well over half the districts in in the state are are using board dos or diligent community so uh I I find that uh an interesting aspect of you know the the the question of whether we should go in that direction does anybody have feedback go ahead I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt no I I tried you know looked through the videos I found it to be very user friendly but in my notes I wrote down that I wanted to hear from Ashley because you're really I wanted to hear directly from you what you think about it and is it worth the change e was it worth the cost little yeah so the cost the cost of it is it's aidable

035correct yeah do do we know what our true cost will be for this yearly after Aid given that we are at about an 80% Bose's Aid it would be under 2,000 okay so the cost is not a factor here it's about adapting and the resources it's going to take to adjust and all that and there's nothing broken nobody's has a passion for it I don't see why we would bring a change when we don't need a change it's like we're imposing something on her she's happy we're happy I don't see why we're changing my opinion we'll vote on it or we could postpone also for next year we're can review when we're going to get more feedback but so far I guess we're changing just to change and we're feeding a vendor that's trying to

036sell something that's just different not necessarily better my opinion that that kind of Echoes my sentiment too I I feel like um there's a lot on the on the goals and maybe it's time to just put that on a back burner and and think about it a little bit more um I didn't have time to do the demo I I just haven't had time um and that's something that probably if if we're going to make a change I'm going to need some help like I I don't feel comfortable that I can do it all myself I'm going to need somebody who's kind of there to guide me along so that when I'm looking for something I know where to find it because it's kind of like a dashboard right so you have to I mean

037I think some of it's intuitive but not all of it and I actually like having the email reminders Like That Ashley would send out where she says you know there's been a change or please check your agenda or something like that because I do I regularly check my emails like that's something that I religiously do but I don't know if I have to inter face with some other kind of technology in between that if I'm going to feel that accessible it's just my opinion kind of follows up our theme from our policy meeting is it a want or a need do we really need it I mean it's not that oh Finance I'm sorry yes um know is it a need it's not that much money but is it a need I I'll kind of

038mimic what I said last meeting too when I was exploring into the Sy had the opportunity to s in the presentation but um Ashley's definitely right from the policy side of things um it has incredible advantages um the fact that it integrates with irie1 uh but also the search index to be able to type in a few words into a glossery and find uh fairly related policies I think uh cutting down on the time to search for policies I think is incredibly efficient as well as efficiency in Ashley's time too because we all know that she's very busy and so I feel that once she gets into the system and very familiar with it the ability to enter notes um kind of as they come up in the meeting and actually turn those uh board

039meeting notes around um almost in the same evening I think is incredibly efficient so there's definitely some Roi to to go with this for the cost of under $2,000 for sure um especially as we become more familiar with the with the program but um kind to speak to Trisha's Point too I I I totally get where you're coming from about new systems and trying to figure out how to navigate them um but in terms of what we would need as board members it's fairly it's it's a it's a easy click path you're just going to click through to the information that you want to see and that's that's pretty much it apart from logging in but um and then the other side of that is I really like the Community page not that it has

040to replace our website but the fact that we can put um important information like our board um objectives and goals right there on the homepage we can put photos show um I just I think it goes hand in hand with why we're doing life track as well you know we're trying to tie our school district to our community and we're trying to reach out to graduates in alumni and we want to connect everybody so if we stay kind of current in this platform I think we have an opportunity to connect with our community in that way so it's it's got its advantages I think and I also see how it aligns with our objectives and goals too so so that's that's my opinion we'll have opportunity for more discussion when we uh um get to

041recommended actions um okay so the uh the the last thing that I have on my report uh I just wanted to um emphasize the uh there was one other change to the board Norms that are also uh uh on for recommended action tonight uh in addition to um what Mr Monroe reported to you all about the uh changing the Board of Education will to the board of Board of Education aspires to there was one other uh change um that I wanted to to float by you this evening and uh that was under the communic the last bullet under Communications norms and I think this addresses uh a concern that uh trustee Murphy um brought up a couple of months ago um a lot the it reads now allow the president to act as board spokesman

042on Ma U spokesperson on matters of public record and the superintendent to speak on behalf of the district so um I think there was a little concern that the U the um the communication Norm example as it was originally written um gave a little bit too much latitude to the board president uh to speak on behalf of the board and I think that uh takes care of that concern just wanted to point that out and the only other question I had on the um board goals was um someplace I read that the life track survey is now open okay so I'm curious what that means and what it looks like for somebody like Isabelle I not so none of your teachers have talked to you about what life track is or why we're participating in

043it as a school district all my knowled it so are we waiting for our ad hoc committee meeting to start promoting that or let me let me go back to sorry let me go back to Mr Oliver As I understood from him he had opened it up um and that right after break he really going to start pushing hard he'll have QR codes I believe around the building talking with students about what it is we'll also be able to track the this year exactly who has completed it who has not we won't be able to see you know we won't be able to identify what the student said um there'll be the that anonymity but um that should help us get far higher of a percentage of return rate so my understanding is it was

044open so the students and again I want to confirm with him but I thought the student should have gotten an email by now from Life track that it's open here's your password type thing right but there so for instance like when they do um f f forms yes they usually have the guidance counselor come into either English or social studies one of the core classes and talk about you know what those entail why you might fill one out Etc so are we going to have something akin to that for the high school seniors because you wouldn't have to go into every English class or social you could just go into the one that's Senior English or you know Etc and then that way you're explaining what it is why we're having it and why we

045want seniors participation let me gather that back from Mr Oliver I know he understands the importance for you know long-term planning as well as for the board information of why we're doing the life track and the commitments that he's already made to making sure that we have far better return rate on those um but let me get that from him I I don't want to speak for him with he's tonight okay well maybe um when we meet on February 26th we could just have him perfect talk to us about it okay sounds good okay thank you can I add a question to this did you mention that there's going to be QR codes everywhere I believe that's one of the things that he had indicated he would be doing is putting up Flyers that have

046the QR codes so that the students can go directly to that survey so QR codes means we got to have phones everywhere in the school try was waiting for it is that what we're encouraging only after 2:30 at the end of the bell schedule because students like Isabelle never carry their phones we know that maybe that's what they'll be doing in the bathroom well well also too like the QR codes are just for seniors so what is going to stop a freshman or a sophomore they have they they have to log in okay very good sidebar I don't like QR codes QR codes are a b nice place to get virus you don't know who put those there and it's an easy way to get to a place you don't want to go so I

047don't recommend them anywhere you're not the first person I've heard that from unless it's in the class and they say if you go to this website if it's that the material is given by a teacher but if it's on the wall in the bathroom or somewhere it's very risky I agree that that's why I kind of want somebody to come in and present what it is because then they could bring the QR code with them and after the kids log in they could they could do that but it will then as you said it will require the seniors bringing their cell phone to class so it kind of has to be very organized do oh maybe have the presentation in the senior lounge and just say you know all graduating seniors um we're going to

048be doing this all day long and and you know when you have so it's like when you have a study hall you can go there yes okay okay so maybe do it that way I don't know but I think it it needs some thought well we're halfway through February just to point that out when this is one of our goals so we're pushing up against the window of June okay I think that um concludes my president's report so finally uh so I'll turn uh the the floor over now to Mr Burke and I think we're going to start with the um the public forum on the budget is that correct we can certainly do that Chris could we try the other PowerPoint that I gave to you I think you should have it okay um

049why don't we start with Mrs Charleston and then I'll make sure I email that one to you so you have it is that okay y Okay so we'll do the uh review of the mid-year goals okay so as you are aware uh we are doing our district goals a little differently we are focusing on three main District goals of the ABC's attendance benchmarks and climate so I will just give an update of each of those Chris is it on display it's not letting me go to the next slide perfect okay so within the presentation um there's two visuals on the first Slide the first one is our visual of the ABC goals if you click on that logo it will bring you to the district goals that were all written out just wanted you to

050have access so it's at your fingertips quickly in the right hand corner there's just a little uh infographic this is a snapshot of the the district data if you click on that picture that will also take you to uh um the shortcut of just looking at our goals overall I believe Ashley included a hard copy as well in your board agenda and the reason that I'm doing that is I do have snapshots of that data information within the slides but sometimes it's a little difficult to read those numbers so a attendance uh attendance our goal is chronic absenteeism and I'll get to that in a minute but we did want to capture um I'm trying again Chris to go ahead there we go so although it's chronic absenteeism is our goal we did want to

051highlight daily attendance as you know uh each of the buildings they have a lot of incentives going on with the student body and I'll talk about those in the implementation slides um but prek 6 daily attendance this is all three Elementary buildings um from September June last year the 23 24 School year it ended right around 93% and we are on track so far from September to January to be again right around that 93 percentage for daily attendance so we we just wanted to highlight that uh 712 it's hovering right around the 90% which is where we ended last year for daily attendance as well so we're pretty proud of that so before I get into The Chronic absenteeism I just wanted to I tried to take some visuals of um a recent uh post

052from our com troller so this is a study the data is from 2022 but it was uh released in October of 2024 this past fall and what it highlights is all of the states Across the Nation so it's basically saying this is not a mesina issue or concern this is um happening across our nation post pandemic and so New York state is approximately 29 % chronic absenteeism and uh within the article it does say schools that are similar to mesina have more of a chronic absenteeism around 33% and you'll see our 712 numbers look very similar to that so just wanted to share that article with you for comparison of National Data so our first slide here shows our pre6 so in the left hand side you can see our goal by the end of

053this school year is to be at 22.13% and as of now we are at 2.23 our goal was to have a 1% decrease at prek 6 and so far this year we are currently at 1.9% decrease so we've um surpassed our goal uh with that being said there's still another half of the year left and just a reminder chronic absenteeism is students who Miss 10% or more days of school they are considered chronically absent the 712 our goal was to decrease 2% each year so over a 5-year goal of decreasing 10% so our goal uh by the end of the school year is to be at 31.1 15% um and currently our chronic absenteeism at 712 is 32.8 so we're seeing a 35% decrease so although it's not on track to where we would like

054um we'd like that 2% decrease um there are a lot of efforts going into this goal and um Mr Oliver's takeaway was he is at least happy it's heading in the right direction it is decreasing So within the district goals there was an implementation page so um I I will quickly share these notes these somewhat mimic how we used to do our district goals with more of a narrative style um so quarterly building attendance committee meetings those are happening at the prek 6 level um and that's where they they collect data they're looking at um different students they're connecting with families at 712 they have the M mtss multi-tiered system support um and really are having weekly conversations at as as a team so team members are usually principes assistant principles counselors social workers School

055SES nurses SRO um working collectively looking at the students um and actually our Hub of school tool has a new dashboard where you can see students that have chronic absenteeism and um what their percentage is and it it uh color codes at red yellow green so it's a nice visual that these teams can use um to support students and their families as I said attendance in incentives uh everyone I spoke to with the principles they wanted to give a thank you to Dunkin Donuts there's been a lot of really great things and the Dunkin Donuts here in massina has um been wonderful to work with schools are doing fun things like scavenger hunts they're having monthly contests um they're doing Home Room competitions uh they're having winners create uh a lunch lunch menu item um

056brag tags on the door so um I will say that your admin team is really working hard on getting students to school and something else to highlight that was presented at the board meeting last time was uh the prevocational opportunities for our grade 10 students we really do see um Improvement of attendance getting them here uh I also had me mention the communication problem solving with families our team continues to work on that and then um utilizing parent Square the next slide I have some information about parent Square this is our overall dashboard uh each week I get a summary of how the platform is being utilized and when we rolled this out to staff we said we were um starting with direct messages and posts just to get familiar with those and so far

057we have 5635 direct messages that means staff and and uh families communicating and 3,386 posts the second uh infographic shows the interactions with families and just the direct messages back 1,474 out of 2,472 so um we can see that it's being highly highly utilized we're getting great feedback especially at the prek 6 level um 712 likes the platform um they're they're still wanting to use other forms of communication if that's how they're communicating with families and it's successful and so yes if you're able to communicate with families and email is working well for you we're not necessarily saying you have to change that immediately but we do uh make sure that they know it's for the benefit of the family to use the one platform so going on to B for men benchmarks um actually

058I'll pause there does anyone have any questions about attendance so Nicole um how do you count a student who comes in tardy are they counted present or is that counted as an absentee um it depends on the time of day that they're here and I don't know the exact number of it um but when they're flagged tardy they are not flagged absent okay and another question that came up from for chronic absen ism is it excused only and no it's unexcused and excused so basically if you're out you're out that's this so even if they have a doctor's appointment that's counted as an absence yes yes okay Y is it a standard to do is it a National Standard to do that to count them out even if they're excused with a doctor's note so

059this is per New York State this is a a data report that I pull and um that's the information it's called the cers 107 and it's excused and unexcused and that's what talks to our New York state report card for chronic absenteeism I don't know how other states do it in the but that is how New York state does it because if if they're sick you know if there's a pandemic for example if everybody's sick it counts against us I think the the Heart of heart we don't want to encourage people to come to school if they're sick and then spread it to everybody and then everybody's sck but really this data point is chronic absenteeism you're not in school right so it's just saying learning loss like if you if you're missing more than

06010% um whether it's you're sick or you know you went on vacation whatever the reason is it's saying you're not in school learning and that just gives us the information that we need to say students are either with us or they're not so to that probably too has to do with like how long so say for instance my son has a doctor's appointment at 10: he's gone for sometimes you wait in the doctor's office a while let's say he's gone for 2 hours that might not be enough to count him if he comes back afterwards then it's that's why we they sign in and out at the office the clerical team is really great on reporting within School tool and school tool talks to the state reporting okay right so everything is entered there okay

061yep okay okay so we'll move on to B for benchmarks and uh our goal here was increasing proficiency of the 3 through eight assessments as well as the New York state regions obviously we have not given those yet and so I will share with you what we use for Progress monitoring for benchmarking throughout the year um and you're all familiar with I what we pulled for this information is called a projection report so uh this isn't how many students are in each tier which you've seen previously what this does for the 3 through eight assessments it says based on the beginning of year and middle of year assessment Benchmark assessment with I ready they project what they're going to get on the New York State assessment they project whether they will get a level 1

0622 3 or four on the New York State assessment which is helpful so on the left hand side you can see highlighted in yellow our goals and then in the column I circled in red that is what the projection is so this is for ELA for 3 through a Ela grade three our end ofe 3 through a assessment goal grade three is 41% it's projected at 46% grade 4 47% project projected at 49% grade 5 48% projected at 40% grade 6 46% projected at 53 and so on so you can see we're right on par with our goals um and so this uh information has been shared with grade level leaders and Department chairs and they when they meet with their professional learning communities tomorrow will be reviewing this data and what you can do

063is you can um drill down and see the actual students that might be right on the cusp of that too and you know give them intervention to then get them to a level three which is proficient on the 3 through eight the same information is on the next slide but it is math it's set up the same way and so grade three you'll see 62% um the projection is 73% grade 4 60% projection of 67% and you can see um the pattern continues so we are overall uh Happy with our projection report and again um we're using that mid midyear Benchmark assessment to help um Data Drive the instruction the next slide shows the regions our goal is to have 72.7 s% proficient in the New York state regions we don't uh necessarily give something

064as uh I ready at the high school level to all students so we don't have those projection reports at this level um but we wanted to highlight some things that are happening teachers are currently reviewing passing rates of all of their their regions courses they are looking at um some midyear data and um Mr holiday just wanted me to highlight at his building that the four nights of students staying um there's the late bus for two of the nights Monday Wednesday and now um and also Raider Academy Tuesday Thursday he just wanted to say that that has been making a great difference students are staying often for the 4 days and getting that additional academic support that they need continuing with the implementation of The Benchmark goal um the the meetings with the grade level

065leaders Department chairs uh principal directors again that happens at the beginning of the year this information was shared and will be TurnKey to their teams tomorrow um we will continue with the I ready and other Benchmark assessment data the goal about the special education progress monitoring um in talking with Miss Castell she really said it's on pause because when they started researching it it's a universal screener whereas students with IEPs are so differentiated it almost didn't match so um they are they are still researching that and um it's somewhat on pause at this point and I try to just highlight some professional learning opportunities that are really focused on academics um science of reading a very Hot Topic in the state and across the country and we have many teachers that have participated in a

066five-day training through Sunni newal um that's for K3 science of reading we have hosted two summer literacy um camps here and are continuing to grow our numbers regionally we do that uh in partnership with bosis and um also just having our instructional coach Jackie siden be able to to support teachers with um new learning we had Analise record here mathematician um we're looking at new elementary math programs and I'm just fine-tuning our report cards to ensure that they really do align with what we're teaching and Grading and I I included the quick infographic of the shifts happening at the the new regions and the standards and implementation there and our department chairs are doing a great job with their teams um and many are attending professional learning on that questions on benchmarks before I go

067to climate one Nicole sure okay thanks wondering what the uh why the expectation for ELA is so much lower so our overall Ela scores oops I'm going the wrong way I'm sorry so we start with our Baseline so we used last year's scores so our Ela scores are lower than our math scores so each year we're hoping to improve Ela 2% whereas our math 1% so that's why the percentage looks lower because our actual scores are lower in ela any reason why for that that you can imagine why are they lower I don't have a great answer reading program um I think what we're doing right now is trying to get as many staff trained in the science of reading um and we have really great implementation in many spots and we just have to

068ensure over time that all teachers are trained and that all students have access to highly trained teachers in the science of reading that has been a a main goal I'm looking at grade 8 39% I'm am I I I may not be correct in saying this um at the junior high there's honors math yes 7th and eighth grade this this current year they did split it up between the two grade levels previously it was just at grade eight but not Ela so teachers who are trained in differentiating are probably struggling they have really low students really high students they're getting lost they're bored and I mean it's 39% in eth grade that's that's a great point I actually never connected the two of the honors but that does make sense and Nicole for the math

069so you said it used to be honors in 8th grade that was the algebra one right yes it still is um but what they've done is instead of just cramming the curriculum in one year they've spread it out over the course of two so they do a modified um grade 78 during grade seven and then in grade eight they do the algebra one um which I think is a move in the right direction yeah yeah um and and to Joy's point you know it it's hard when well let me ask you this so the accelerated I'll call them accelerated um math students are they self- selected how do they get into this more accelerated program so there's a committee uh the building principal I'm unsure if the assistant principal is part of it um counselors

070they're looking not only at their grade level um I'm sorry their uh their grades but also um study skills work habits right like it's a collective decision looking at the whole child and they do use Benchmark data as well I ready scores what if a stu what if a student wants to but the committee doesn't think that they're going to be successful can they try it anyway I'm unsure about that I'd have to ask Mr holiday any other questions about benchmarks yeah I just want to make a comment um and go back to the the difference between the proficiency levels with the reading and the math um it it it's I I've never I haven't seen a math assessment of any kind that I wouldn't call a reading test so if you if I I

071think I think this is somewhat misleading uh the kids if they're scoring so well in math they're readers and they're reading well because if they're not they can't score they're not they're just not going to score that High um and so with something like I ready uh the a lot of that proficiency and you can correct me if I'm wrong but much of that much of those numbers comes down to vocabulary knowledge often times and so it just and it's everyday vocabulary it's not necessarily subject specific stuff so uh sometimes youve you've got students who are scoring lower on on something like I ready than than what they're really capable of so it's uh sometimes the data can be a little misleading that's all and you are accurate with the vocabulary so I did not

072include all of the I data but vocabulary and reading comprehension are where we where our students score the lowest um the phonic awareness and phonics is actually higher um and if you read a lot of articles about science of reading you'll actually hear the phonics and phonic talked about a lot there's um you know kind of been that reading Wars for decades going on and that's what it highlights and that's our data is showing our students are strong in those areas we're looking at the vocabulary the reading comprehension which is a lot more abstract um but we're looking at resources to help improve Pro that we're this District isn't unique in that either that's that's there's there's a national Trend with that at the very least uh I okay Sor I understand the data but

073in your opinion do you think the kids nowadays no more at the same age as 20 years ago like the curriculum is getting hard every year absolutely and we're asking them to perform even more every year so it's no longer read a passage answer a question that you can find right in the passage that does exist but it's more application of knowledge it's more inferring um and those are abstract thoughts um and so it does go back to the vocabulary and overall comprehension of reading and understanding so we're pushing the student a lot AB because we're increasing the curriculum we asking them to follow those Benchmark mm year after year yeah those are the those are the shifts in New York state standards absolutely yep higher level thinking more abstract more inferring thanks um speaking

074State Standards real quick it just kind of popped in my head I think it was September I had asked a question I had read an article about the states uh there's some discussion about the requirements for regions for graduation is there then any further discussion or updates on that uh are you talking about the new Pathways and the blue Riven commission I believe so yeah yes so um they put out a timeline meaning n had put out a timeline and we are currently in quote unquote the planning year of implementation um there's a lot of question marks what are we planning for uh your question that you just asked is something we are asking as well they are adamantly saying Regents are not going away Regents will be one pathway and um there will be

075many other Pathways like our seal of biliteracy seal of Civic Readiness um we'll see more of those but we are unsure at this time what all that actually looks like do you think that so once his Pathways goes into effect if it goes into effect do you think that we're going to have to look at these goals a little bit differently I think we're going to have to look at everything differently and those are the honest conversations every time I'm meeting with our professional development committee meeting every time we're meeting as an admin team we're looking at that we're we're just um trying to be as transparent as possible as saying as soon as we have information you will have the information um it is a little it feels a little unsteady um but we're

076just waiting waiting to see where it heads okay I'll go to climate survey and as you know climate survey we give once a year we will be administering the climate survey when we return from February break this is actually a little bit earlier in the school year uh than we've done previously and we are excited about that we'll hopefully have the information back a little sooner um so although we don't have the PLC survey results Mr Burke and I thought we would at least share some discipline data um that's usually a good measure of overall climate and culture um and one thing we would like to highlight is in the superintendent hearings for grades 7 through 12 there were 38 superintendent hearings last year and currently at as of the end of January there has

077only been five so um that that was a really great data point to share everything else looks quite similar um obviously the bar graphs are about half the size so that shows we're going to be probably very similar to last year we broke this up to ISS OSS and superintendent hearings on this first slide and on the second slide we have um the five major s SSE which is a report that we give to New York state every year um of assault weapons harassment threat and drugs the first graph is prek 6 where you can see um really there's very little of any of those and then the 712 um you can see our numbers again are very similar to what they were last year um and then that last um bar graph uh the

078SSE the drugs The Vaping does go in that category and so that certainly it goes back to um what Miss beard says is we know there are concerns and we are continuing to work on that so implementation of climate goals we again will have the survey administered they are continuing with their support teams in each of the buildings for uh professional learning the prek 6 has been focused on tcis it's therapeutic Crisis Intervention for schools and the 712 has been working with uh National speaker Kelvin Oliver on alternatives to discipline we uh do rely on our SRO and our additional social workers they are helping with attendance seal support uh behaviors family interaction and Community Resources and another implementation um point was our district and building Dei diversity equity and inclusion committees uh we lost

079our facilitator uh from bosis she went back into the classroom at a different School District so we do not have the district committee but we do we are continuing the building committees and we have facilitators sharing the work that they learned at the district committee last year um with their teams at each of the buildings does anyone have any questions about climate and obviously I will have more data once we do the PLC climate survey Isabelle somebody said something about um now that we have uh separate study hall monitors and that the teachers aren't doing that that that's really helped the school climate do are you feeling that yes I do agree with that statement yeah yeah so it just maybe takes a little bit of the pressure off the off the teacher to have

080to hustle and get someplace and then get everybody set to go and yeah teachers have more free periods this year and also it's students to see the same face and not have a change semester schedule oh that's a good point then does that give the teacher more free time like say you have a study hall and you want to go and maybe get some extra help like do they yeah actually every day during nth period I go down and get help on my calculus homework so I really like it yeah okay great thank you thank you for mentioning that that is listed and Mr Oliver did want to highlight that that that has been something that really has positively impacted the climbing culture at the high school so uh wrapping up District goals the next

081two are the non-instructional goals that um superintendent Burke will um give you updates on those thank you for your time thank you thank you nice visual by the way that presentation excellent visual ABC and all those G GRS hey uh Chris could we go to the slides that have the capital project okay thank you so on the next Slide the the overarching question is why would we begin even talking about a capital project when the reality is we just closed out the last one the last Academic Year and the reality is we actually broke ground on the last Capital project in the 2021-22 school year we won't begin breaking ground until the 27 28 years so we're 6 seven years apart and there's still a lot of work to be done on and I think

082it's important to remember that in the last Capital project it was certainly very aggressive working at all of the buildings and because of covid and costs associated with covid all of the work that was identified as being a priority could not be completed and there is no trer place than that right here than in the high school outside of the auditorium a lot of the work that had been identified as being needed simply could not get done so again that's why we're going to be going back to the voters really soon to ask for their permission to engage in another Capital project and I just want to go through some of the Highlight highlighted areas of where that work will be starting in the high school again we know that this is really where the

083um where the work kind of stopped in the last Capital project we know we've talked about this quite a bit uh with our steam tunnel leak last year the importance of updating our um heating system will'll be transitioning from a steam boiler plant to a hot water boiler and that will be taking place um again we'll be replacing those from the cab running the hot water over to the high school um we'll be freeing up our parking area again getting that drive-thru Lane so that'll be reopened also at the high school replacing some air handlers and cooling units in the cafeteria and the media center also replacing the air handler in this building in this in this room the location of the air handler is such that we cannot access it without removing some chairs

084and bringing in a lift it wasn't well planned we just couldn't do it in the last project so we're either going to put a catwalk in or simply move the air handler there will be partial roof replacement replacing the ceiling and the lights and part of the reason we need to replace ceiling and lights is that all ties into the HVAC system um we've got to get into the ceiling and now is the time to do all of that work one thing I think should hopefully make a lot of our folks happy if they have any students athletes that use the soccer fields um or the Elder softball Fields we'd be looking at adding exterior toilet rooms um we'd be basically renovating some interior space but with having ex outside doors um so that we'd

085have restrooms for those folks I'm hearing from I ate lunch with four of our interact students yet on Monday I'm sorry on Tuesday and they all happen to be females and they were all very excited to hear that we will in fact be looking at the women's locker room renovation um that is certainly a priority pool renovation and that's really what it will be is upgrading our pool making sure that uh the decking is proper we do have quite a bit of work to do there as well with um The Gutter system and the tile of the pool itself the next one may cause some angst among our community replacement of the turf typically when that turf was placed into our field it had about a 10 to 12 year life expectancy we are already

086beyond that life expectancy we have to test it every year to make sure that it still has that rebound and we're continuing that we we're passing that test but that test we will fail eventually and it's coming close um so that Turf does need to be replaced if we're if we are to maintain a turf field likewise the track needs to be resurfaced that is wearing out and we are also going to be looking at replacing the stadium lights simply because the ones that we have now are too high for our people to do um any light replacement it has to be contracted out and we'd be having much higher efficiency lighting as well at JW ly the big item here is relocating the office right now you are buzzed in and then you have

087to walk across the hall to get to the office to sign in we're going to be relocating the office such that it'll be a direct contact with the office prior to being allowed inside the building so again a major security upgrade and then some basic items there again we ran out of money in the last project to do the ceiling and light replacement we'll be adding cooling to the main um large group Gathering areas the gym cafeteria Media Center a partial roof replacement repairing some of the gymnasium floor refinishing all of it and possible Locker replacement our current lockers are 9in wide lockers which is extremely tight for students to put any backpacks in um so again we're looking at being able to do that at the three elementary schools the theme is pretty much

088the same adding cooling to the gym cafeteria Media Center bottle fill stations which would replace our bubblers and we're doing that because of the um increased demands with having almost zero PPM of lead um by having the water the bottle fill stations we have filters it takes care of that that concern for us um all three buildings are slated to have interior finish updates which really means especially in the main corridors replacing the the paneled walls with ceramic tile which is more hygienic and also just much more updated at Jefferson one little thing there that we'll be doing that's different than the other buildings is some sidewalk reconstruction and last project we put a sidewalk right adjacent to the building which Falls underneath a SL slanted roof which creates a hazard almost all winter so

089we'll be relocating some of that again Madison same thing adding cooling to the large group Gathering areas bottle fill stations interior update at Nightingale the only real difference there is that we'd like to be able to add a fence which would distinguish the John story walking trail from the playground area um we wouldn't necessarily be fencing in the playground but again just having a a separation between the two at the bus garage we have quite a bit of major work to do a complete overhaul complete replacement of the heat system that has been there since the uh the building was built likewise our section of the building will have a full roof replacement upgrading the fire alarms and I just wanted to put that last one in there because it'll tie into the last goal

090um if we truly have to go with electric bus infrastructure um that portion of that U cost out at the bus garage is estimated right now to be 2.4 million so I wanted to make sure I highlighted that very very well at the central admin building we already talked about the HVAC replacement the boilers would still be there but they will become hot water boilers as opposed to steam again that building also is due for an entire roof replacement upgrading the fire alarms we'd also be when we downsize the boilers they'll be the boilers will take up about onethird of the current space so where the current boilers are now we would be adding basically like a concrete walled structure so that we'd have Secure Storage and above that we would have storage access uh

091just for paper products that type of thing okay on the next slide this is where it gets really interesting and we start talking about the cost the estimated cost as of today is 79.9 million the building Aid that we are slated to receive would be 97% I always want to put that caution out though that just because we have a 97% building Aid ratio that doesn't mean that that that's what we're actually going to get there will be certain aspects of the project that are not going to be aable um there may be we're already a little bit over our cost allowance at the high school and if that continues um that would be an unable portion um we anticipate that uh having spoken with fiscal advisers which the finance committee will do again right

092after break um we anticipate not using any more than $7 million to offset those unable costs so that we would have a $ Z impact from this project to the local taxpayer um and that $7 million from our capital reserve is slightly less than half of what we have in there now so we'd still be walking away from this project with a little more than $7 million um remaining if the board approves the capital project we will be voting on that at the same time as we vote on the annual budget which is May 20th there will be a number of community forums to go through these much more in detail um we worked with I worked with King and King today we plan on doing two at the two right here in um in

093the school buildings one at the junior high one here at the high school and then going out to the community hopefully one in Lewisville possibly at the North Fork fire station and also at the community building here in mathina so again trying to reach out to the public as much as possible taking the show to them taking the presentation to them um but what I really hope especially at the Junior High in the high school if people want to kind of see firsthand we can also give them a tour take them to see the pool the exact areas of concern let them see the women's locker room um sometimes being able to see it up close and personal is is worth uh is worth that time and effort so we're well on our way to

094this Capital project and again if it is approved we would not be able to break ground um until sometime in the 2027 28 school year nice summary you can't expect to buy a house and not invest money on it like 5 10 20 years you have to keep investing and the regulations are changing and the steam is a good example if we don't invest in something it's going to break so we were planning on doing it we didn't do it now we have to do it and it's like all those competing needs for the high school we have to address them it's only going to get worse if we don't invest so it's like your house you have to invest a little bit all the time and we have a lot of needs so well

095said when we first started out we really had wanted to do the entire HVAC system at the high school including air conditioning and just the HVAC alone exceeded our maximum cost allowance for the entire building um by about $5 million so we really had to scale things back and and really what what do we need as opposed to what do we want so we're going to focus where the needs is the most in each building and slowly if we have money we can invest and spread it out more to the rest of the building go ahead Kevin Mr Pera I one of the I had an idea I was thinking about the capital project one day it's kind of a really abstract idea one of the issues that we typically have is all about scheduling

096and then lead time on items like rooftop units and what what not and I the idea is I wonder I don't know that it's ever been done this way but if the architect was able to specify the rooftop units and the district purchased the rooftop units themselves as opposed to having the contractor do it and then we would save that lead time on the project and get the rooftop unit that we want and then you would schedule out the labor and the installation through the contracts and the other thing I was thinking is you've always got a labor issue with whatever contractors got for labor and time and the schedule you're always very constrained in a 9we summer to do the work I wondered if you could break the project up into multiple projects with

097multiple Mechanical Contractors if that would get you the labor you need to shrink your window on your phasing just a couple of ideas just flush them out with it's it's kind of abstract stuff I don't know that I've ever seen it done this way but I've kind of thought about it with some of my experiences as ways to save time and money just you can stew on it yeah I won't be sleeping tonight as I think about that thank you no because that that that is interesting that's a good concept we did talk about phasing some of the like the HVAC system so that we might focus at the high school first and then move our way over to the other four buildings um one of one of I think the concern of the facilities

098committee especially those of us that are on the inside um is working at all seven of our district buildings at the same time it's so well you know um we're only a couple miles apart which is our benefit but when you're working at seven buildings we will have a construction management team but they're only as good as how Greg and I are able to keep them on task and you know having that daily interaction with them so um we we have been talking about that on the periphery in terms of how can we not necessarily be working at all seven buildings any questions on where we are with our Capital project okay the last non-instructional goal was to talk about bus electrification and I would just assume not um however we we did complete the

099study it was an isera Grant conducted by arcadis it is pretty thorough it gives us all the information I think that we need um that has been turned over to both Ms electric as well as to King and King and that's where you see that estimate of $2.4 million on the bus electrification um I'll be honest I'm not sure quite frankly uh after we just spoke we had a meeting at the bus garage I think it was two weeks ago um to discuss adding two electric buses through a through a grant from State education department and as we were talking we're not quite sure where we're going to get the power if we have to Electrify all 40 plus vehicles at the bus garage um and and how we're going to get that power from

100the substation to our bus garage and what that cost is going to look like um and I don't know and I and I I'm hoping is just kind of jabbing at me um Mr McMahon suggested that perhaps we'll need to move the bus garage closer to the substation um I I I haven't I haven't dared ask him if he was really serious about that but it could be it might be cheaper to build closer yep which is just down the road and it would probably be just a storage lot quite honestly with uh you know with the power there and the plugins we know we're not going to put them under undercover so so that's the progress we' made on that last instructional goal which we've done what we need to do and now we're

101just kind of waiting for the capital project any questions on those two goals no but I'm I'm really hoping that our legislators can convince our governor to push these requirements back because I don't think they've really thought about it I mean we're talking a seriously heavy piece of Machinery it is going to wear out the tires quickly they're very expensive to be replaced um my husband has an Eevee truck I call it the Beast it's so heavy it's wonderful but when he steps on the gas like it really goes what happens if that bus is in motion and the person's trying to break it and it just won't slow down I mean I'm worried that they haven't really thought about all these things as far as safety for kids and then up here we've got

102to have heat so they're not going to use the batteries for heat so they're going to have to have some other alternative form of heaters on the bus yeah we will have diesel heaters on the buses so we're getting rid of diesel buses so that we can have a diesel heater and an electric bus okay that's what I mean I hope that somebody comes to their senses and says we haven't really explored this and and also since we started that study we have now a new air product that's going to produce some different source of energy that doesn't pollute so it's a good alternative that we have to look at that might be cheaper maybe that we didn't consider so we've looked at it with our products um I have a lot of concerns that

103the technolog is not quite there yet with buses um there's only so for hydrogen powered bus right now there is or at least as of a couple of months ago there's only one company in New York state that's authorized to um produce a hydrogen bus and we have to give them we provide them with a gasoline or a diesel powered bus they remove that combustible power plant then they put in um a hydrogen battery power plant which is all good except that um we lose our entire warranty on that on that bus so any of the other components that would go wrong that's gone um I can't order a shell of a bus without the power plant so somewhere that diesel motor that gasoline motor is ending up somewhere else um when we spoke with

104Air Products we would you know we could possibly arrange for some sharing um at least temporarily of using their facility to uh fuel our vehicles um however at some point we'd have to put in our own hydrogen fueling station and the cost of that is more than three times the cost of the electrification for the for the uh infrastructure at least now um so I think there's a lot of unknown with that um I don't disagree with you I think hydrogen may very well be the way to go in the future it's just I don't think the infrastructure is there yet um but perhaps perhaps once Air Products is here and gets up and running maybe we'll see a change in that technology all right want me to continue okay uh the next item is

105just a quick discussion about the school calendar there's a a committee from all the component districts um of our SL bosis that works on this and they work backwards they use the state regions um calendar and they work backwards to get the 180 days and try to get all the vacations in and any any holidays um old or new and so we've seen that proposed calendar it does include for us five snow days which is good at first there was a miscalculation we thought we only had four but it it is actually five any questions with that school calendar we don't have a lot of leeway anyway the way they work it out so it is what is he we also have five donations um from various organizations and you can see those couple of

106them are three of them will be going to um the robotics $1,000 to the Jefferson Musical and $250 uh to the Nightingale musical so certainly a big thank you to all the community supporters of our students in our school would you like me to do the budget presentation at this time sure Chris were you able to get that okay and I thought I had shared it with Chris but I think I shared the other one with him twice instead of each of these so on the budget planning on the next sheet um the board has already seen this this is the state aid analysis based on the governor's proposal I won't bore everybody with the details again but what we are looking at if the governor's proposals remain intact we are looking at a foundation

107Aid increase of just under2 million um which was great news one of the things that I would call out on this these sheets that we see these analysis especially when it comes so early in the year and January is very early these numbers are not complete mallerie and I were talking about this earlier today if you look down our building Aid ratio looks like it's decreasing by $1 million and typically I don't get too worried about that because that means we're paying off bonds or that a Project's been completely paid but I know that was we knew that wasn't the case and in fact that's probably going to end up being a plus $1 million okay so I think I had that number right mallerie right so it'll be up from at 3.1 so about

1081.2 1.3 million extra um but again that's not necessarily great news because that means that's money going out of our that's money we're paying um so it's just a reimbursement it's money in Money out um but again these numbers are very preliminary other than our foundation Aid okay on the next slide preliminary budget expense increases if we were to take our current budget this year and simply move it forward with no changes we'd be looking at $986,000 increase which is a 1.4% increase we also have the additional component of our budget which is the Strategic budget process which is where the administrative team gets together and we talk about about what it is that we think we need or want additional for the next year as that stands right now um I'm really proud to

109say that our strategic budget is right now $1.3 million um as an admin team we really worked hard to identify um what the purpose of the Strategic budget is and when the admin team came together there was not a lot of fluff in fact I would say there was almost no fluff these are actual things that are admin team said we think we need we think it would improve our program for next year um this time last year with a strategic budget was somewhere north of $4 million of additional spending that was being requested so again I think we're working very collaboratively as a group um to be to be realistic of identifying needs and wants so therefore our total draft expenses the increase there is $2.3 million and again please keep in mind this

110is just a draft it's still going through finance committee I would be shocked if that number does not get dropped from $2.3 million down to something significantly lower our tax cap on the next page is the tax cap has been calculated using raw numbers straight across um as 4.27% increase would be allowable under state law again we don't believe we're going to be anywhere near that we are I think as a finance committee aiming for zero or as close to zero as we can possibly get I I don't know if I'm speaking out of turn Mr Pera are not okay so again we are aiming for zero but we again I think it's important to note that what our what our tax cap is and then the final thing I just want to touch on

111bus purchases I'll be recommending um a proposition that we purchase four full-sized diesel buses um at a cost of 180 almost 18 $84,000 per bus for a total of 720 almost 721 th000 again we use our Reserve money to purchase those we do not Bond those so it's an outright purchase and we do have um more than enough in our reserves to cover that and again we replenish those every year um I will note that the buses are more expensive than they were last year one part of that increase is strictly just due to the inflationary cost the other aspect is um looking at some of the add-ons I think that are important for our buses for our student safety and our student Comfort um little things making sure that we have the tops painted

112white you know studies are showing that it drops the the interior temperature by as much as 10° um so for our kiddos that that makes a big difference um especially in the warmer days um having some different controls that are on the steering wheel as opposed to off to the side so that the driver can maintain visibility of the road rather than having to look for where the switches are to open and close the doors and activates lights and then also just again another little thing grab bars on both sides of the steps our older students really don't have a problem but watching a four or five-year-old trying to make those big steps um it's a challenge for some of them so again have grab bars on either side really just it's safety enhancement um

113and then the final thing that I've added on to all four buses this year are luggage racks that go underneath um anytime we take a sports trip the rule is all sports equipment needs to be housed somewhere other than the passenger compartment um the last eight buses that we have purchased did not have those um so again I'm getting a little bit nervous that we're going to run out we're going to be running a fleet without um without the necessary safety equipment to get our student athletes where they need to go so all four buses will have that and again much more information to come over the next couple of months as it relates to the proposed budget and I believe that concludes all of my reports okay thank you Mr Burke um we'll move

114on now to recommended actions and first up is the consent agenda and I would at this time ask if uh any uh board member would like to have any consent agenda item removed from the consent agenda for further for individual vote and potential further discussion we don't he hearing no requests I would uh entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda move second I have a motion and a second any questions or comments I had a question about um let me see who this is uh these are warrant so again we're having large numbers on cafeteria in general but is that like a standard is that standard like it's a it's aund almost $160,000 to cafeteria these are like P payables right yeah I think so yeah okay thanks any other questions on the consent

115agenda all in favor any opposed that carries moving on to other items for Action uh we have uh first up approval of uh our Bose's nominee Mr Bennett any questions or comments all in favor any opposed that carries approval of the board Norms second any questions or comments all in favor opposed all right a uh motion to approve the um arrangement with diligent community so move do I have a second nope okay no second that motion dies for lack of a second next is the approval of of the 2025 26 school calendar so move second um any questions or comments all in favor any opposed that carries next is a resolution on a paid administrative leave do I have a motion go moved second any questions or comments all in favor any opposed that carries

116next we have a resolution on a section 9113 of New York State education law questions or comments all in favor opposed that carries next is a resolution on uh section 75 of New York State education law moved second questions or comments all in favor any opposed that carries and for personnel action items we'll turn it over to Mr Burke Mr haget I recommend that the board approve the action items on Personnel listed as 1- move any questions or comments all in favor any opposed any extensions that carries thank you now next we have new business and uh do we have any items that board members would like to uh see placed on a future agenda I have a comment earlier in the meeting when I asked Isabelle for more details about the problematic uh Corner

117bathrooms I knew about the problems I just want to know what she was feeling about it and that just want make sure that there's no confusion because we know about the problem you mind if I talk about it a little bit more in public no so what we've heard from students is especially at the high school is a fear about using our gang style bathrooms and part of it really goes right back to and when I say gang I I shouldn't it means that there's more than one toilet in the in the room it's not a gang of anything right but what we're hearing from our students as Isabelle said because there is so much vaping that goes on there's guilt by association and especially if you're a student athlete that becomes a real major

118issue um or even if you're not a student athlete and you've got a clean record and you're not using the Vape that's a major issue so one of the parts of the capital project that we're looking at is again I couldn't share everything tonight but um is to convert one boy gang bathroom one female gang bathroom into um individualized restrooms so so that we'd have more options for our students yes we're going in a right direction any other uh items that board members would like on a future agenda hearing none move on to Communications from the Publican press U Mr Bennett uh anything you'd like to you're welcome um I don't think we need another executive session so uh I would at this point um entertain a motion for adjournment so move all in favor

119any opposed make write that down M Mr Hazel