001well good evening everybody i'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to firstly the public hearing the large city school district of middletown board of education public hearing for the proposed 2021 2022 annual budget call that meeting to order at this time and i'm going to ask mr bison if she would lead us in the pledge of allegiance thank you pastor i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr bison roll call uh mrs clark mrs blumenow here mr casenzo here mr gomez mrs houston here mr lassener mr purina here miss tobiason yeah mr williams here pastor williams here thank you thank you mrs clark um moving on uh
002now our presentation from our superintendent mr richard del maro so good evening community members of the large city school district of middletown it's always a pleasure that we have this opportunity to share with you on this very very important notice of public hearing as to what will appear at our tuesday may 18th board of education election night for our members to our board of education and as well as important the school district budget tonight is a summary of what has been presented to all of you at our board meetings even though they've been virtual they've been presented to you at each of our meetings since early winter into the early part of the spring term also you can have all of the um presentations and slides that are up on our website so if you
003want to review them in more detail you can and tonight i'm going to introduce you to our assistant superintendent okay so a little tech difficulty but we got that arranged and taken care of so i'm going to introduce you to our assistant superintendent of administration mr mike tuttle who has uh intricate knowledge of each of these line items that he's going to share with you tonight mr tuttle uh thank you mr gomorrah president williams uh members of the board um as mr omar said tonight is our public hearing um this is something we must do annually before we actually have a budget vote or any type of vote for that matter or referendum uh this is on may 6th which is today and this is for our budget boat which is on tuesday may 18th
004as in for the new york state law as we talked about this is one of those requirements that we must have a public hearing and we must present the budget in three components which is the administration the program and the capital the administration is a central office and the program is all the instructional and the capital is essentially buildings and grounds uh sros and things like that as we look at our proposed budget which we've been talking about um since february beginning of february uh but we've started planning much much sooner than that um obviously based on state aid runs in january then new state aid runs in april when the governor passed the budget and legislation came through and the american rescue act and so a lot of things have been really unique for
005us this year is developing the budget and things have changed drastically since january's inception of the first eight months so with that we're just gonna go over what we've already talked about over the past two months uh this is our proposed budget um on the the gray area here you'll see that's what was adopted for this past year and then over on the right you'll see our proposed budget um and then you'll see an increase in a percentage change from the previous year so if we go down to the bottom uh all inclusive with our administrative our program and our capital and our benefits um we're at 210 million 221 thousand 201 dollar budget uh that's an increase over last year's spending of 5.11 a lot of things that we're looking at are increased medical
006costs covet costs that are going to be coming in and health care costs as well and so with those combined just those three things alone we're seeing a substantial increase for our budget this year um and once again as we talked about in our previous meetings and the board adopted this at the last meeting uh there will be a zero tax levy increase um that's kind of an important uh number for us because i don't think the district has ever had a zero percent increase um for its budget and that's partly due to the um 13 million dollar increase in foundation aid that we received since january aid runs um so we were able to offer the zero tax live increase to the taxpayers this year which should really help on these pandemic times and
007hardships that folks are are having due to job loss or you know just receiving their own types of revenues so once again it's going to be a zero tax levy increase this year on our budget um that was proposition one we also have proposition two uh this is to create a capital reserve um this will be a 20 million 20 million reserve over 20 years uh that's not to say we need to put 20 million dollars in the first year we have 20 years to put 20 million dollars into this account um and essentially you're using unappropriated fund balance at the end of each june 30th and we can actually allocate money into this reserve which will help offset any future referendums or emergencies that we have in the district and if many of you've
008been around in the community we know we have emergencies um pop up now and then and we also have capacity issues that we must deal with so we're you know we're expanding our buildings and our programs and things like that so it's very important for us to have this type of reserve it's also very important to know that you cannot spend out of the reserve unless it's a referendum and the community votes on the money to spend out of the reserve and the board as well okay so it's not just a fund we have just arbitrarily spending money out of this reserve so that's kind of important to know um as far as our contingent budget if our first budget we put up goes down um we're actually one of the requirements is we need
009to be below two percent tax cap and we're well below that we're at zero this year um zero percent tax levy and then the budget must pass with 50 plus one positive votes um to pass if it fails then we go to what they call a contingent budget and or we could put that budget back up again for a revo so we have multiple ways of going at this the re-vote would be in june the district has never experienced a re-vote to my knowledge um and then we go to contingent rules the levy would be the same as last year but that's the same levy we're having this year so it's really you're voting actually to decrease activities and things for the students with equipment no field trips and we would actually have to charge
010for facilities used in the community so essentially for this year and you don't really have many years like this where the tax levy is the same as the year before um so it would really um in this situation not really help us to go to a contingent budget at all um and that's really part of our public hearing and that our goal is to present this before the budget vote and actually have community input it's a little bit more challenging being remote and doing it this way we had the forum open um for a couple of days and there were no questions that came in um but one of the things i do want to point out uh the district is working and every year we put up um our budget flyer uh this will
011be coming in the mail next week and this will have all the important information regarding um programming and tax levy information and where to vote and things like that and our budget vote is on tuesday may 18th um and please come out and vote so with that i think we're all set and that's our public hearing all right i'm just trying to roll past yep thank you i was just trying to unmute um the form had has been or had been opened we did not receive any public comments um on this and so uh with that being said uh if there's if there's nothing else uh uh mr chris there are a couple a couple of comments so mr crusenzel you raise your hand first sir um the community taxpayers need to know that when
012they get a tax bill it might not be exactly the same as last year might not might be less or might be more so if you could explain uh the tax equalization uh program uh that but clear any questions they might have when they get their tax bill yeah um so that's kind of an interesting question thank you um so the equalization rate is something the state does every year uh they go around and value the wealth of each community and then they equalize um what they feel is an equalization rate for the balance of taxpayers right so they feel one year um the city of middletown may pay more they may get a hike in their taxes where wall kill could go down uh town away we could go down so each year depends
013on the equalization rate from the state and this the school district has zero input on that um so you may see an influx although our tax levy remains the same dollar amount their share of each municipality may change based on that equalization rate um and then i was having a conversation uh coincidentally with someone today the other thing that can actually change your tax bill is the amount of new homes coming in so if there's more taxation being spread around on the same dollar amount that may also help offset your tax bill as well so we have a couple things so we are having some more properties come on board i mean though doing our tax rolls so that's very important for the community as well that's that actually helps spread the wealth um of
014the the tax levy amongst each household so there's two things to look at the equalization rate and how many homes are actually paying taxes in the municipalities thank you mr bison you're muted thank you pastor williams mike just to clarify on the proposition the 20 million can be put in over a course of several years correct correct it's not 20 million that we're going to put in this year that's correct yeah so we can do um usually depending on the year um we fund it based on what we feel the board feels is appropriate the board has to approve how much money we would put in the reserve each year so each year usually um before july we'll send a whole bunch of packets to the board about putting money into reserves and that's one
015of those reserves that we would do now this year could be zero you know one year could be five million what it can fluctuate over 20 years so that's the benefit of the long-range planning so essentially what you're doing you're you're doing some really good long-range planning having this first of all creating the reserve and then having money in the reserve to offset any future building costs any future building repairs we've used uh the existing capital reserve quite a few times one is for the two major roof repairs over at maple hill that was that was a very huge help that we had had that reserve um and that actually became zero zero uh increase in taxes uh because of that capital reserve so thank you something important to have thank you very much [Music]
016thank you mr ferrano thank you president williams uh mr terrell first of all you and your staff did an excellent job on this budget tremendously not the best budget that that i really remember in all the years i've been on board the the the question i have there's also besides the uh asking the public to approve the capital reserve isn't there a capital project that work that is that's correct mr creno so there's the other which was what we call what we explained in the last couple meetings was a hundred thousand dollar capital outlay project right this is a smaller project that the state allows you to do each year for a hundred thousand or less and then they'll once you do that inside that year you get the aid we usually get 70 70
017000 back on that each year so it's kind of important for us to keep that moving um and this year what we're proposing in the budget would be the um capital outlay project over at twin towers to help fix some of the windows that that were identified as some problematic windows with leaking and things like that so um this this would be very helpful over there thank you all right uh if there's nothing else thank you mr taro uh thank you superintendent tomorrow um i uh entertain a motion at this time to adjourn the public hearing don't move move the second it uh all in favor hi hi nobody's opposed uh thank you that meeting is now adjourned and now i take this opportunity to call to order uh the regular may 6 2021 meeting
018of the enlarged city uh city school district of middletown board of education meeting uh i'm going to ask mr williams if he would um meet us in the pledge of allegiance at this time i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr williams uh we now have our mission of the enlarged city school district of middletown mrs houston we strive to provide fiscally sound educational opportunities in a safe environment that continually supports our diverse student population we will enable all students to graduate to reach their full potential to become lifelong learners and to become to be competitive productive members of society thank you mrs houston roll call mrs clark mrs blumenow here
019mr crescenzo here mr gomez mrs houston here mr lasineer mr perrino yeah miss tobiason here mr williams here pastor williams here thank you thank you mrs clark um i'd like to entertain a motion now for the approval of our agenda tonight so the bisons just decided so moved and seconded by mr crocento uh any discussion all in favor aye opposed so passes now i'd like to um entertain a motion for the approval of our regular minutes regular meeting minutes from our april 22nd to 2021 meeting don't move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed and so passes so we're going to take a pause for just a moment because we want to take an opportunity to uh to recognize um some wonderful individuals in this uh in this district and
020a one a great accomplishment um and as they are coming in i want to as they are all coming in well everyone is coming in real fast so i i'll hold what i was gonna say uh i was gonna make an announcement i'll make that announcement in a little bit but uh we're going to give everybody an opportunity to come in and meet us uh here uh but we still got a couple a couple couple more coming on but as they're coming in i do want to invite everybody on tuesday night the 11th of may uh to meet us at 6 30 here in this virtual environment uh as we have our candidates our meet the candidates board forum we have eight individuals that are running for uh the board of education this year and
021tuesday at 6 30. uh we we will be having our candidate forum our mr edwin estrada is going to be our moderator for that evening and so we want to invite the community if you'd like to meet uh meet or find out something about these particular candidates we invite you to join us here on mini tv at 6 30 on that evening uh and you'll have the opportunity to meet uh all of the wonderful candidates have decided to throw their hat into the ring and so with that being said i'll come back to that a little later but we have uh we have all of uh these uh great gentlemen have joined us here uh in the virtual room in the virtual version virtual uh space here tonight and uh i want to take the
022opportunity to to welcome and congratulate our middletown varsity football team the the they are now the 2021. let me make sure 2021 section 9 double a champions and listen it's been a long time they have made a great accomplishment we're so excited to have them we have with us well we have we have our we have our athletic director mr david coats is here with us but let's get to the team we got we have uh the the captains i want to make sure i get the captains first we have captains uh dalton howe dalton howe rodney bell and isaiah jackson are here with us head coach mr tim stringfield assistant coaches chris conklin rich or uh jason lichtenstein edison tucker tom giordano uh tom willard uh bobby mangano and shane reagan and so we
023want to welcome you all uh we celebrate you we're excited about this this listen i was there that night it was great and you all did such a fantastic job and and so reads the board we want to we're we're here to celebrate you tonight and to let you know how proud we are uh proud of all the accomplished that you've made uh with even with this abbreviated season um so let me let me get right at it let me get right at it um let's go let's go to uh dave dave you can you can you can say what you got to say then come on with it thank you mr del moro and president williams members of the board of ed education um obviously it's a privilege and an honor anytime you can
024uh you know you know have a championship team and and have a platform like this is extremely special for all of us but uh i couldn't be more proud as the athletic director of middletown on what uh schroederfield and and the staff did uh and especially what the boys did uh these last several years after coach schrempfield took over from coach donahue we built such a strong foundation and uh you know coach schrenfeld just took it to the next level and um he did it he did it with uh class and style and it's uh most fitting that uh that middletown celebrated that night on monroe woodbury's football field after so many years of monroe woodbury celebrating our field for a section 9 championship so um it was it was an extremely interesting season but
025the the you know the boys persevered on many levels uh the coaches persevered on many levels with uh what we were faced with with uh not even knowing if we were gonna have a season but they were prepared uh the kids were were getting themselves prepared on their own on many occasions to get this benefit from and then uh to not have the john bell trophy in middletown since 1994 um is just uh a long time uh but i know that we've had great conversations with the kids and the coaches we uh our hope is to have this uh in our trophy case all year and uh hopefully we uh it stays in our trophy case for for years to come here so uh my cats go off to all the boys uh all the
026coaches for all the hard work and dedication they've uh exhibited over the course of this season but also over the course of many seasons uh and just celebrating with everybody that evening uh we did we had a good contingent of fans down here but we felt uh we heard the screams all the way from middletown all the way down route 17 so it was a special night and uh all the credit to uh coach stren and and and the boys awesome awesome so let's let's let's hand it off to the to the coach tim you've done you've done a tremendous job coaching and we congratulate you i know you're probably sleeping with that trophy and yeah it hasn't uh left far from my side the last two weeks um but no i mean sort of
027uh going off with what uh mr coach said um it was a special season uh the these kids they i mean i couldn't even think about going to high school during all of this um and then let alone coming out for a sport um something that you've been playing forever and not really knowing if you were going to get that chance as a senior to go out and and finish sort of what you started and i mean i think everyone by now knows what happened last year and that left a very sour taste in our mouth for a long time it was a very tough off season for all of us because of what happened and and everything sort of crumbled underneath us on one of the best seasons ever and uh these kids came
028out and they had more obstacles than i could even count to go over and they did it all without hesitating um without complaining once and i mean a lot of people will say uh hats off to the coaching staff but i'll tell you what these kids came together like a family um and we went through a lot of ups and downs as the season progressed and they never blinked at anything and it just it amazed me the difference um these four years have made um for all these kids and for all of us coaches uh i mean it is really like a tight-knit family and the things that i saw these kids do this year um was just astonishing and i mean rodney isaiah and dalton sort of led the charge and they were named
029captains in the beginning uh we usually vote for it but we're such a short year um i felt after last year and going through camp um those three were our leaders and the things that they got these other kids to do um just blew my mind um and and we usually uh get a chance on thursday nights before the game to talk um and dalton always got up and he said something that just charged the kids up um then the coaches got to talk and um the last one he's actually not here um jagger uh blue now he said something that will really stick with me for a really long time and i don't really want to repeat it here but the thing that he really got across was how much this culture has changed
030in four years and it was such uh almost an honor to hear that because you don't really know what the kids think um and to hear them say it uh and really to to come together as tight as they did in such a short time such a short season and to really gel the way they did um i mean i couldn't take more hats off than i i can for those guys and all the assistant coaches um i mean the things that they did this year were astonishing i mean they stuck with it uh because none of us knew what was gonna happen and when we finally got that call for march first to actually happen uh we were blown away and we knew that we only had so many opportunities and i think that
031they really took advantage of it and to have this trophy i mean i get to hold it but this goes for everybody in the last 27 years who played this sport um and gone through here and they 100 deserved it this year and i couldn't be more proud of a group of kids and i know a lot of them are going to be gone next year but what they left and especially the kids last year and i tell this to all those kids last year they proved that middletown football could be winners and it was a long time where it wasn't that and they set the stage for these kids to come come through and i'll tell you what what they left and what these guys left i think is going to have a ripple
032effect going into the future awesome awesome tim jason you're here what do you want you wanted to say something the coach yeah i mean i i was just here just to watch the ceremony and be you know just i'm still enjoying this a lot you know as a player here and then coming back as a teacher and a coach you know to be part of it those guys that were on the 94 team were like people that i looked up to as heroes you know and like a lot of those guys like i was a little kid when those guys won that as crazy as that sounds and a lot of those guys have reached out to him and i've talked to those guys you know joe stone and that whole crop of just like
033iconic players you know to hear those guys about how proud they were you know and you know just that alumni base and the support to get from those guys was was amazing to see those guys all these years later still watching and following and you know it meant a lot it was you know to be out there with those guys and experience it on the field this year to come back and have the opportunity to do that was it was it was unbelievable you know it was funny because like you know the kids see the rough and tough side of you all the time as a coach and then that you know if you'll go misses and the reality hits you and you kind of start crying there and they're like coach you crying it's
034like guys it's been a while like we've been working for this for a real long time now i'm going to be honest with you i'm going to cry a little bit like i i just i wasn't ready for this and uh you know because you're playing for it you see yourself doing it and you see yourself winning but then when it happens you're just not you know you're almost in a state of disbelief and you know watch what tim's done here it's amazing you know he's really brought to another level and you know i've watched as an outsider for the last four years and to be part of it this year you know it's really impressive what he's done with it it's you know it's that east strasbourg connection you know you got you know
035you got coach woolslayer you got you got tim now it's it's obviously they're producing good people out of stroudsburg there so you know it's very proud to be part of this uh you know really appreciative of you guys taking the time to you know honor these kids and tim for his you know his hard work awesome jason and we didn't we we saved the best for last um uh these these uh three three these three young men these champ these uh these champions and these captains uh this is a lot a lot of people can't say that uh and you guys can so uh i'm gonna give you guys an opportunity you know to tell us how you feel uh tell us how you felt and then uh so i got you on my screen
036here so rodney why don't you go first why don't you go first i got you on my screen first i just want to say thank you for having us up on here it means a lot to us um yeah it's been a tough year um with the quran that happened in and um um i just knew when we won like it was special it meant a lot after all them years of not winning than us doing this especially after what happened last year yeah it meant a lot that's awesome thank you rodney um uh a dalton come on man talk to us um thank you guys for having us up here um again um everybody's talking about the chip game we also we also beat bluebird too i don't know if anybody is really into
037that but we beat newburgh for it's been a i don't remember how many years but it's been a while too so thank you to the coaches thank you for not giving up on us thank you for all the years of hope and uh just making the program better so hopefully our uh this season just helps helps out future seasons you know awesome darling isaiah um thank you for having us first i want to say before march i didn't even think we were going to have a season and after wiping last year i felt like i was about to graduate going out getting screwed and then not having the season but then we were blessed to come back and be able to play and win the title and it's just paving the way for future years
038to come awesome awesome well listen we congratulate you guys my fellow board members my fellow board members if you have something to say please take take this opportunity we can take another few minutes and celebrate celebrate uh uh these this team they're representing their entire team we can take a few minutes to celebrate if you have anything to say um please um mr bison vice president tobiason what i want to comment on pastor um is is the good sportsmanship having that trophy is wonderful but hearing comments on the sportsmanship that is um demonstrated by our youth our football team that means a lot we're top dog now but i think of a few years back when we weren't top dog and those guys would go in there and play their hearts and souls out and
039i admired the men and i certainly admired this team and hopefully perhaps some of those that didn't have that wonderful experience a few years back of being top dog are there this year sorry that everyone couldn't be there to enjoy that moment but my heartful congratulations to a job well done and thank you tim jason i think i missed one of the coaches but um it is with grateful appreciation thank you thank you any anybody anybody else mr mrs mrs um mr houston has been putting comments in the in in the comments section about you guys and so you can read that uh fred did you have fred you were going to say something yeah i want to congratulate these guys um especially like they said after last season the uh that was a rough
040one and to come back and the word redemption kept running through my head you know through this whole thing um starts with leadership uh it's funny story i've played against uh j lichtenstein um tim and uh and adult flag football and i know how intense those guys get and also bobby coach bobby um so it just carries through you know i think it starts with leadership and um i've seen a bunch of the guys that you know on the team dalton and a bunch of other guys from uh from young young guys and um it's awesome i just want to congratulate these guys and uh the word culture came up and in middletown sports that's so important i'm glad somebody said that um and just congratulations again um and also edison tucker that's my guy
041great coach great mentor and um just great energy from that guy the whole staff great job guys chuck chuck bleeds blue for sure tuck tuck and i talked with i went to school with tuck so that tells you how old he is um but but uh he will anybody else anybody else any any of our fellow mr christopher marino go ahead mr perino mr purino thank you so much uh president williams again my congratulations to the wonderful team and the great coaching staff and i know also and maybe you want to speak about this you hold the your players to certain academic standards am i correct on that uh yeah i think that um coming into it i think um i think the first time i actually spoke in front of the board of education
042i really emphasized the student athlete and this year was something different um because of the fact that everyone was going through the same situation and the mental state of these kids were off in the beginning and we only had a couple weeks to really get them back on track and again that that's another thing that goes for them i mean that the things that they did um sort of fixing all the problems in such a short time and uh thankful for a lot of the teachers who help them to really realize that um [Music] and to see them face to face is so much different than talking to them over the phone or talking to them on facetime or a zoom call um seeing them face to face is just what they need um and
043they need to know that there's people in in their corner um to to really help them with whatever they need and i mean the the student athletes that's sort of what we go for and and i've told these kids that there's been times where there have been kids removed from the team um that don't really show that standard and i think i saw a really good quote the other day where if you um work if you lower your standards you lose really good players but if you raise your standards you lose the bad players and i think um sort of keeping those cancers out of the locker room um you get all of those good kids and you get that feeling in that locker room where they know they could do anything and once they
044believe i mean it's it's going to be hard to beat anybody again great great job and you've done it you've succeeded so our help thanks and congratulations again to all the team members it's not easy i know thank you mr crescenzo and then mrs blumenau right now at this moment you are the face of the district and the district could not be more proud um your hard work and dedication has paid off there's the trophy to prove it and from my heart i thank you for everything you've done thank you mr bloomer now i was just wondering um you know we have worked so hard our students have worked hard um the coaches mentioned that you know at times they were independently working out and uh and i know having student athletes um you know
045living in my home for so long the dedication that goes into a sport um i was just curious um can you share where what's next for these young men on the especially the three that are here with us tonight where are some of our seniors are headed next year now would you guys like to talk about that or do you want me to talk about that [Music] come on robbie i'm going to orange county community college i'm going to try to get in for nursing but they accepted me for liberal arts so i'm going to try to change that around cool good for you um i'm still deciding where i'm where i'd like to go tomorrow i speak to i speak to a few coaches so hopefully hopefully um i get i get in so
046we'll know by tomorrow all right fantastic good for you um i'm still deciding on where i want to go but i'm also going for nursing but i haven't made a decision yet thank you for sharing i wish you all good luck and the rest of your teammates as well congratulations for a fantastic season and um and best of luck to all of you and thank you to our coaches thank you mr del maro you're muted sir feedback okay i'd just like to just say on behalf of the entire district you've really made us proud i think mr grossenzo made a good point the fact that you are the face of the district people are talking about the program and what is a program it's the kids involved coaches but more importantly the attitude you bring
047on the field and i was at the i was at a few of your games and i was at the game in monroe on the 30-yard line there with mr coats and pastor williams and it was cold i i forgot my coat and it was chilly and uh so coach there's uh strand out there after that uh issue at the end of the first half there hmm i was about to run out i think mr coats grabbed me from behind to pull me back and wouldn't be in a technical area and all that other good stuff there but the fact of the matter is that you warn my heart even though it was cold out there because i was listening to dalton i don't know you probably didn't even notice me because you're about four
048times the size of me but the fact of the matter is you came right by me and after that and the way you guys handled that that could have been a real real difficult look the game ended in three-point difference that so that that coach's change of um decision was very significant and you guys handled that extremely well you didn't get down you crossed off the field got ready prepared the coaches talked to you under the goal posts and you guys came out like like it was yours and so um i want to hope that you continue that voracious appetite in anything you choose to do and so and you have given us evidence that we're on the right track and the legacy that you leave behind for all of the the kids behind you
049is a strong one and a positive one and i want to personally thank you for that hey mrs mrs houston i'm sorry i missed you she had her hand up mrs houston you're fine um thank you i just wanted to say that my father always taught me that you have to have something to look forward to so the anticipation of that moment when you could finally get on the field must have been building so i say savor and relish this celebration and then keep it moving forward because the best is yet to come in each of your lives so congratulations to all well thank you thank you again congratulations to all of you uh and to the entire team to the entire team i know you guys are here representing your team um uh as
050a former as a former athlete as a former athlete there's nothing there's nothing like uh team great teammates and so we celebrate all of you we celebrate all of the coaches um i was out jason was ready to cry and i was ready to give him a big hug so so tim you were about to cry too you were you i saw i saw the tears in your eyes but i think your wife was have more tears in her eyes but we celebrate you guys and thank you congratulations you are the face of middletown we celebrate you hold on to this man this is gonna be something you guys can hold on to for your entire lives for your entire lives nobody can take this away from you nobody so celebrate we congratulate you thank
051you so much for coming in and joining us tonight thank you dave thank you thank you tim jason uh rodney dalton and isaiah thank you committees you guys have a great night have a go thank you everybody thank you for the support awesome awesome great awesome yes but i think i think that it's important that we take these opportunities to celebrate we've had a challenging year and a challenging year on every front and and everybody is there's so much there's so much um uh things negative things that we that we we have to face and we we had been accentuated and uh and and it's not to it's not to minimize any of the any of the challenges it's not to minimize any of the things that we that we're facing and that we still
052have to face as we go forward um but when when these kids have worked so hard i think we ought to celebrate these victories with them this is their victory and and their victory is a victory for everybody and so i'm grateful that we were able able even in this virtual environment to come in to celebrate these uh these young men uh and the hard work that they put in uh in such a short time so um again again congratulations middletown varsity football team 2021 uh section nine double a football champions we're very proud of you let's let's let's move on um real quick um we still have recognition announcements and community reports if there's is there anything compelling is anybody we have i know mr farino normally has has has some things we will
053try to keep as brief as possible and uh and and complete our meeting tonight but uh i'll start in fact i'll start with mr perino tonight if you have anything for uh the community announcements and uh community reports i'll be i will be brief uh persian williams well sunday's a big day mother's day am i correct or not yes sir okay well happy mother's day to all our viewers and all the mothers in the community also today is nurses day and not only school nurses but nurses in general we have a great nursing department in our in our district uh led by barbara kura and so congratulations and it isn't tomorrow food service day or if that's coming up so food service day another hard hard-working department debbie dunleavy lauren uh burr and all the
054members of that department they pack meals they get meals out early they serve meals in school on on and on also a shout out one of our students was featured in the middletown time zero record uh jacob eisenhower nice job and he wants to go to ithaca and hopefully he'll come back to middletown and teach music we always like returning returning graduates additionally last week tracy sorrentino presented a set sale and i've heard nothing but positive comments on that the high school catalog looks like a college catalog and finally i want to shout out to um our director of facilities bill bartlett who's here with us tonight tom scott and also lenny zapka for bringing in the new facilities i know eleni met with our insurance carrier one of our insurance carriers along with bill
055they were very pleased with everything we're doing in the facility and the security in our building so i have others but we want to be brief so we can move on thank you thank you mr purino anybody else tonight mr bison yes i also want to recognize um all of our teachers and their support staff because tuesday was teacher appreciation day and i think it usually goes the whole week but we have a phenomenal staff and as i always say you never know which child entering your classroom will be our future president doctor lawyer indian chief and i definitely recognize your efforts and your hard work into making each of our students the best that they can be so have a wonderful teacher's appreciation week oh one other thing i just wanted to say um
056i i don't want to keep repeating this the lewis ogden scholarship i'm a little bit short to make me four thousand dollars just a tiny bit but that will ensure that we have uh two scholarships a year for the next four years or a student or two students who are interested in pursuing a career in criminal justice and i want to thank heartfully thank all of those who have made a contribution to the scholarship fund how short are you rose a hundred dollars john i'll send it i you got my check for a hundred dollars although i contributed i want to contribute a hundred dollars so you have four thousand okay thank you very much wow thanks mike you gotta be getting another check this sounds like a marathon wait a minute here i'm on
057the phones here do i hear more than 200 there from mr purina the the telethon right mr perino said how short are you i thought rose would say five foot two uh anybody else before we before we close this part if not all right well we're going to move on we're going to move on we've got a little bit of ways to go and and and a little time to get there but i do again thank you everybody uh moving on to our personnel action items uh we're going to we're going to keep our administrative memorandum uh separate but i i like to entertain a motion for the approval of personnel memorandum 25 a administrative please don't move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye aye opposed it so passes if
058there is no objection we will have our approval of personnel memorandum 25b instructional and personnel memorandum 25c non-instructional together may i have a motion please subscribe zach lyson and mrs blumenau thank you uh any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed that's so passes i know we do not have any introduction of personnel but we will be having the introduction of personnel at our next meeting uh should everything should everything go well uh thank you um at this time uh an opportunity to address the board um i i don't think we had anybody on our on our forum but do we have any letters to read tonight i have one all right mrs clark if you if you could uh please okay um we received a letter from senior mark germain and to summarize uh
059he is unhappy that the district has made the move to five-day in-person learning he believes that fridays should stay asynchronous and all finals should be cancelled he believes the pandemic has been hardest on the students and that the district is ignoring them you thank you mrs clark thank you mrs clark and uh thank you uh mr germain for uh sending your letter certainly certainly um uh you you will be reached out to absolutely so thank you moving on superintendent's report mr demaro thank you president williams vice president mrs tobiasen it's always a pleasure to speak to the board of education as well as to the large city school district entire school community uh it's with great pleasure to give the results of the lace uh the latest survey we had regarding our six to 12
060age group grades so that the determination whether or not they wanted to come for five days a week would be possible within the guidelines less than six feet as was originally proposed to the school districts throughout the state of new york and so that we uphold all of the parents that were in a hybrid model to see whether or not they wanted to remain in the hybrid model or extend in-person learning to five days a week with those understandings and it is uh with my pleasure tonight to report to you that the overwhelming response from each of the three secondary schools indicated so and that we will be able to bring back our students grades 6 through 12 starting this monday coming may the 10th for the remainder of the school year 5 days per
061week at the high school it was 89 percent of the respondents wanted to have their children returned to school five days a week 91 at monhagen and 86 at twin towers so the evidence was very clear to all of us that's what the parents preferred and we will continue working to the end of the school year in this model so i want to thank all of the individuals and family members who responded to the the survey and we want to thank all the teachers in preparation for this change in programming once again this will remain to the end of the school year and as we receive more guidance about the ensuing school year the 2021-22 school year we will as always continue to talk uh and share out with the community of what those guidelines
062are we have not received anything from the state education department as we prepare for all of the end-of-year activities so we're very excited this will start on on monday as you heard a couple of our board members talking about specific days this seems to be the appreciation month and certainly on may the first was administrative appreciation day right this particular week is as this is tobias and aptly said teacher appreciation week right so these are the appreciations that are going on celebrated in our school district as well as all throughout the country right today was as mentioned school nurse day and certainly we have a very dedicated school staff and this year or the last 18 19 months really put a tax on their work as we went through this kenora it is the virus
063and the pandemic has been very uh an arduous task for everyone involved families certainly individual students adults alike but also our nursing staff and they really really met the challenge in a very very excellent manner their efforts were extraordinary working with staff and students and families endemic hit personally to their house this virus is over-encompassing and they handle it and are handling it very very well so i want to thank each and every one of the nurses all right tomorrow as uh mr perino mentioned the fact that our food service under the supervision of mr levy and miss uh have really done yeoman's duty when we talk about herculean efforts we have now delivered over three million meals that is correct it's not an exaggeration over three million males since last march only up until
064this week and we will continue doing that throughout the summer and it is obvious that there is need in our community and once again our staff and all our departments are meeting that need for you because we care about the family in which we live called our school community so we want to thank everyone for all of their efforts it's been a very challenging year to say the least i don't think i need to belabor that point at all the fact is that no one plans for a pandemic crisis you know the the fact of making pivots back and forth is frustrating for families with their work schedules personal schedules we understand that these things were necessary to do to meet the new guidelines that the state was coming out to make sure that we
065were in compliance but more important to make sure that the environments in which we were offering education in our abilities were safe and healthy and making sure every reasonable effort was taken to not be part of the problem but also really trying to stop the spread of this and certainly we were hit in our buildings our teachers helped one another cover classes administrators covering it went on and on and on but i want to thank all of the families the parents for your patience perseverance and understanding so this all goes into appreciation so tomorrow there'll be a token of our appreciation to all of the employees in each of the buildings i will not mention in line uh what that is it'll be a surprise for everyone i will be uh emailing all of the
066building principles after this meeting uh what it is and what they need to do to share out but i will say this we're very appreciative and thankful and most importantly grateful for all of our employees on behalf of everyone in this school district we know that you were the ones the heart that drove this through this we're not there yet i understand that i'm not saying that but the fact is we would not be where we are today without your hard work and understanding and i thank you i also want to talk about our scholar athletes um we just heard earlier uh this evening our head coach of football tim stredefield talk about student athletes and i'm very very very very pleased to announce that this year we have five scholar athlete teams in order
067to be eligible for that one must maintain a 90 average or above with 75 percent of the roster in the third marking period and tonight i'd like to graduate these teams that uh attributed all of their efforts to achieve this goal and we have the girls tennis team the girls cross country team the girls swimming and diving team soccer and volleyball teams so shout out to each of you you're putting new meaning into student athletes knowing how important it is to maintain your academic progress and growth but as well as excelling in all the sports that you selected to participate it's not easy as a former high school athlete you come home tired trained after all of your classes then to go on the field the court the practice and so that mentally you drain
068dragging yourself into the house i'm having perhaps a bite to eat and then get to do some work get prepared for school and the cycle starts all over during a very very difficult time exacerbates all of that so uh everyone should understand that your accomplishments is something special and we want to thank you coming up this week the week of may the 10th is a very very important week as we celebrate our students showcasing in the area of stem our science technology engineering and math programs we all know an annual event that has grown each year uh and has been well received and well attended by our entire community well we will continue to do that even during these difficult times this year so monday we will have a panel of students virtually discuss what
069each of these subjects mean to them what value they receive them they'll talk about the courses that they've had at the high school or continuing to have as they end their careers here at middletown high school this will be a very special night in which they'll be able to share with you on tuesday we will not have any stem activity because it is meet the candidates night the board of education night that will take place over at presidential park elementary school started at seven o'clock and so that we did not want to have two events scheduled at the same time however wednesday and thursday stem night activities continue however it'll be in person and a very different approach and we want to thank miss wally mr noah o'connell mr sorrentino at the over at the
070high school for putting on this program along with our assistant superintendent mrs crenin the activities at each of these nights very very different than before in terms of showcasing the experiences the activities that they have in their classes they'll be going through nine different rooms uh and i don't want to share out it will be a surprise as they plan this very very very carefully and they want to keep that uh excitement and anticipation for you to come so we welcome everybody it'll be in person on the 12th and 13th that's wednesday and thursday of next week over at the high school and then uh ending out rounding out our week is the annual arts and music festivals so please come out see your your children's work posted listen to some of the music going
071on in terms of individuals playing their instruments their hearts out and showing their creativity again showcasing the talents here in middletown so i welcome everybody i think it's a great week to celebrate uh and uh invite you please to come and participate uh and uh and finally i'd like to just remind everybody that this is all possible because of your tax dollars what does your money produce we have a robust a national recognized academic program we heard on the sports fields we are excelling on these fields but more importantly we are helping our children grow and become better people we are talking about growing in many ways which been difficult over this last school year and all the events that have taken place we know in terms of outside of our school communities around the
072country our communities around the country have been experiencing a great deal of despair and violence and oppression well now is the time in which we as a school district come together as a team working together and becoming better for who we are recognizing that and moving forward and i want to commend our teachers for all of the professional development that they have taken place this year and they have actually participated in looking forward to becoming better instructional leaders inside their classrooms you are the leaders of learners this is what school districts are all about growing facing the difficult topics to be discussed about racism intolerance diversity part of who we are as americans in terms of growing and becoming better for who we are so very proud of the school district and we'll get a
073little snippet next week of what happens we know that there's more going on than just stem and art in music and athletics we know that we invite you parents to come to the events that school districts in particular our school district have for parents and the programs that your principals and teachers put forth i want to thank the teachers it's been a very difficult year and more than just this week of appreciation or tomorrow's token of thank you we cannot repeat how important your efforts are in this in the lives of each one of these children yes children k through 12. we heard the boys speak to that this evening so we want to thank all of you for those efforts all of the staff thank you very much and that concludes my report this
074night thank you thank you superintendent del maro um we appreciate that and and certainly um we echo all the sentiments all of the all of the thank yous uh for everybody that has worked hard this year including our students um it's been it's been a rough year but i i do i sincerely believe this is that regardless of the circumstances we will not come out of this as victims we will come out of this as victors and uh not a victim to our circumstances but uh if we continue to strive continue to push continue to learn and to grow um and and fight and fight through fight through this together um as as a community not just as a school community but as a community as a whole um i sincerely believe that we will
075come out victorious uh through it all um so we're gonna move on to our action items uh i'd like to entertain um a motion for approval of financial memorandum number 23 please don't move moved and seconded any discussion thank you any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed it so passes i do want to state i do want to make sure i state this um that we receive these we receive all of these uh action items prior to the meeting if there are any questions we have the opportunity to ask the questions uh we and we uh you know there's we'll get down to one that we that we that we was a last minute one but we did have the opportunity to address it prior to the meeting uh uh and so uh i
076just want to make sure we're not rubber stamping anything we're going through it and we're looking at it and we're and if we have questions we ask them uh uh motion for action items b approval of special services memorandum number 21. don't move second second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye aye opposed so passes uh action item c approval of the 2021 2022 instructional calendar second any discussion can you can you can explain to us um that that um that shift in the indians um the instruction calendar so i'll be uh more than happy to do that of mine nick not all right this year uh like next year coming up the orange county uh superintendents along with the orange also boces program wanted to continue having the week off in
077february in terms of a break after the uh winter recess and therefore that you know predicated our instructional calendar uh to have some changes to it that we've had over the past couple of years remember this that we are required to be in attendance minimally 180 days a school year that is new york state education department's requirement and therefore uh regardless of where your holidays what you prefer to have the fact of the matter is that you have to have that assurance of 180 days in session now the fact is that it's very very important that our program at the high school mirror the orange oso boces career technical education center or program better known as c-tac right because we have a very very very large contingence of students participating the largest in the county
078by far bar none largest in the county attending we have over 425 students this year and that program is continuing to grow each year whether they are attending plumbing carpentry law enforcement culinary masonry large engine repair small engine repair and so on and so forth there are many programs that our students participate in and we do not prohibit anyone from attending who wants to go there and therefore it is very very critical for those students to have mirrored their programs because the other half of their day whether they attend ctec in the morning and 10 middletown classes in the afternoon or vice versa a tennessee tech in the morning attend middletown classes in the morning and attend seatec in the afternoon the fact is that those two programs have to be congruent meaning together so
079that they're not missing out one or the other so that they need all of their unit credits to graduate so that predicated where we are today so the difference is that we will not have um some of the holidays that we've had in previous years in order to meet the requirement of 180 days the fact of the matter is if you look at the calendar that's in front of you that you will see that we still have the half day for thanksgiving as traditionally but the fact of the matter is our christmas or winter recess will start a little later than in years past and then also our spring recess will be shorter than in the past based upon having this week off at the summer and starting on september the 1st some of the
080other districts uh have negotiated to start earlier before september um but in our teacher's contract uh that's not possible and so that we have brought to you tonight the instructional account that meets the state requirements and provides in most cases traditional holidays we have honored all of the holidays that we normally have for other groups of religious respect and therefore i do think that this is an appropriate calendar brings with you it is um a very clear one and again meeting uh with the uh middletown teacher association president as we are we discussed the calendar before to bring it to you so this is what we're bringing to you i think it's a very good calendar and i look forward for your approval if you have any questions i'll be more than happy to entertain
081them well if not um we've had the discussion all in favor aye aye aye opposed it so passes um action item d approval of moa directors and supervisors have a motion please so moved second moved and seconded in a discussion all in favor opposed so passes approval of moa for food services don't have a motion please moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed so passes um approval of moa for uh lamb lam we have a motion please is that what is that letter g j i lost track of the not yet no we're on f thank you we're on f uh approval of uh uh this is action item f approval of moa for lamb we have a motion please second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye
082opposed so passes uh action item g approval of change orders don't move moved uh mrs houston will take you as a second uh uh any discussion mr perrino um just wanted to uh point out we actually are getting a credit of twenty thousand five hundred dollars uh in at twin towers because the existing pulleys and uh uh other materials can be used on the partition so congratulations to all on that it's nice to have some money coming back into the district with the uh with the construction good absolutely thank you we've heard the discussion uh all in favor aye aye opposed it so passes um uh uh action item h approval of of secrets type 2 twin towers partition that's it so move second thank you any discussion all in favor aye aye aye aye
083opposed it so passes uh motion for uh action item i a motion for approval of co-workers for our upcoming elections we have a motion please don't move moved mr bison seconded she had her hand up uh any discussion all in favor aye aye aye aye opposed it so passes um action item j a motion for approval of retirement incentive stipulation don't move and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed opposed that is that's one opposed and uh and and the rest are eyes thank you the eyes have it and so passes uh thank you uh now uh any community um committee reports on tonight uh mr mr perino okay thank you uh first of all uh mrs clark keeps me going on the ieps and i must say i want to congratulate kara
084marconi and her staff they're very very well written there's a number of them but they do a nice job we did have a safety and security meeting virtual meeting uh matter of fact paul fox spoke on the rafter uh system uh lenny uh uh lenny zappa gave us a uh an update on the national safety award which he is uh trying to obtain for the district it's quite the it's quite the thing actually there's a number of sections on it but uh he he's gone right through it now hopefully we'll be successful on that uh mr bartlett was there and uh he gave an update on the construction going on this summer at the various buildings and two buildings will be available this summer uh maple hill and the high school the others are having
085significant work going on uh william a carter installing sinks in classrooms and replacing tile and i'm just going to do this briefly truman moon a bait and install new floor tile accommodate uv vents removed to replace uv vents in upper classrooms uh also to remove fire or alarm replacement in the building wide continuing on with truman moon site and play area we repaved parking lots adjacent to the building entrances roadways and parking lot across from the main entrance presidential park create new playgrounds an oval beyond bus loop remove existing playgrounds add handicap parking paved front parking lot across from lower entrance maple hill and store bat insulation on top of ceiling panels all four wings to improve sound transfer be between classrooms manhagen replace tennis courts and provide heart uh handball ports uh twin towers
086replace classroom carpets on all three floors a bait underlying floor tile and install new floor tiles and the high school replacing spa expansion tanks for boiler systems and boiler exhaust fans so mr barley and his staff are going to have their hands full this summer but i'm sure the outcome will be outstanding thank you that's it on the uh the committee reports thank you mr perino any other committee reports if not thank you everybody uh is there anything new and compelling for roundtable mrs houston thank you pastor um at the last meeting it was getting very late and we had um wonderful presentations throughout the evening but i know everyone was tired and um there was something i voted now on and i just wanted to share a little bit about my reasoning behind that
087um without taking too much of everyone's time but at least it's early tonight but i wanted to start with a quote from margaret mead who um said it's important to teach children how to think not what to think which is why i voted no on that particular item there's a lot in the news and i'm not going to get political that's not my goal here um and i i um wanted to mention that there's a poem that i remember from my own childhood in fact my mother had it on my wall when i was a child and i'd like to read it it's children learn what they live if a child lives with criticism he learns to condemn if a child lives with hostility he learns to fight if a child lives with ridicule he
088learns to be shy if a child lives with shame he learns to feel guilty if a child lives with tolerance he learns to be patient if a child lives with encouragement he learns confidence if a child lives with praise he learns to appreciate if a child lives with fairness he learns justice if a child lives with security he learns to have faith if a child lives with approval he learns to like himself if a child lives with acceptance and friendship he learns to find love in the world and with that i also want to commend one of my fellow board members mr williams mr freddie williams but you're great too pastor william um because he he's always mentioning and i see it in his facebook post what a wonderful um thing it is to be
089positive about things and um so um i just wanted to share something i found online that having positive thoughts and thinking um having kids think positively about themselves helps them have a good sense of self-worth and feel safe in the world it will also help them lead fulfilling lives and have a brighter future thoughts are powerful and the younger kids learn to have the positive mindset the better chance they have to be happy so um along those lines um i just i was thinking about um it's important that we teach kids how to think and there's an important um important uh thought it was a quote by and alexandra traefer the best teachers are those who show you where to look but don't tell you what to see um so we we teach kids um
090in some of our new curriculums more than um we should be teaching kids more just what to think but how to think critically curiously creatively independent um some of our state and federal curriculums over the last i don't know decade or so have um left children without the opportunity to um express themselves a lot of uh how will i put it parroting just regurgitating information rather than processing it and saying how they feel about it what they've learned from it we're told that standards require um i'm trying to come up with the right words um bear with me i had taken a few notes here but my battery was dying um negative things and we teach them they're victims and we we or that they're an oppressor i think we have to be careful that
091every situation in life is different there's no split line people all have different hearts and different experiences and i think it's important that we we encouraged a positive mindset rather than a negative one and that is why i voted no on the critical race theory uh teaching training that went through last month and our last meeting i guess it wasn't last month but um and that's all i have to say sorry for my jumbled words but i had a lot of thoughts i wanted to get out thank you thank you mrs houston thank you thank you for uh uh for uh your statement uh we're gonna we're gonna if there's anybody else nothing else we thank you we're gonna move on uh i wanna make the announcement our next meeting will be uh again uh
092our next meeting will be the 19th of of may it'll be a wednesday evening because we will have to certify um the vote uh on that night so everyone prepare uh for that evening uh as to what where we will be what we will be doing will that will be determined as we move forward uh also uh just a reminder again this coming tuesday the 11th of may is our meet the candidates forum uh while the candidates will be live together uh with with uh uh in person it is not open to the public but it will be streamed on midi tv and on youtube and and the public is certainly welcome to come in tomorrow is the last day for you to be able to submit questions so if you have questions the public
093has questions that they'd like to submit uh certainly those questions will be looked as many times we have questions that are are redundant and repeated and so of course our moderator will be again mr edwin estrada so i look forward that will be 6 30 on tuesday evening 6 30. we have eight candidates that are running and so we want to make sure that we have plenty of time to be aggressive but it make at the same time not be uh not to be uh uh long and so that it would become a tiresome event and so thank you everybody um for uh this evening uh may i have a motion for a german please don't wait to adjourn so there there was a uh john john john beat you to the to the front
094so but we'll take we'll take we'll take you as a second thank you uh if there's no discussion all in favor aye opposed thank you everybody good night everyone evening good night good night you