Middletown City School Board Meeting 03-18-2021

001good evening everybody we'd like to welcome you to the march 18 2021 regular meeting of the enlarged city school district of middletown take that opportunity to call this meeting to order at this time i'm going to ask our mr williams mr freddie williams if he would lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mr williams uh i'm going to ask uh mrs houston if she would read the uh the mission statement followed by that we're going to have mr perrino uh we'll have a few minutes a few moments of silence but let's let's have the mission statement first mrs houston yes can you hear me yes

002okay we strive to provide fiscally sound educational opportunities in a safe environment that continuously supports our diverse student population we will enable all students to graduate to reach their full potential to become lifelong learners and to be competitive productive members of society thank you mrs hughes's mr purino i don't even see him where did john go i think we might have lost mr perrino for a moment what we'll do is we'll go with roll call and as soon as mr purino uh is able to log back in that's the whole thing with this technical with this uh technical uh uh situations these virtual situations uh as soon as he comes back in we will we will move back and allow him an opportunity to do the moments of silence but we'll go to roll call

003at this time mrs clark could you please uh do the roll call this is blooming out here mr cresenzo here mr gomez mrs houston here mr lasineer here mr perrino miss tobiason yeah mr williams okay we just pastor williams here okay okay john the power went off at john's he's trying to get back on okay okay that's that's that's legit so uh we when he gets back on we will we will allow him that opportunity to do the moments of silence so but we'll move on with the meeting uh i need a motion i entertain a motion for the approval of our agenda tonight please second and moved and seconded discussion all in favor aye aye opposed it so passes like to entertain a motion for the approval of our regular uh minutes uh regular

004minutes from the march 4th 2021 meeting so moved moved and seconded ready for the discussion all in favor aye it so passes our mr purino has entered back into the room at this time uh so if if if there's no objection uh we will pause for a moment and allow mr purino to uh to do a few moments of silence in respect to um those that have departed uh us at this time mr perino thank you so much president williams i apologize the power clicked off and although we have a a generator it didn't go on in time so i i'm back and then again my apologies for that uh again this year it's been a tough year with people passing among other things members of our staff members of our uh community who have

005helped us uh the first moment of sounds this evening is for mrs dorothy lombardi lombardi was a library clerk she began in 1970 at the old liberty street school she worked for almost 25 years i happened to work with dot as she liked to be called i found her a very very hard worker dedicated not a clock watcher if you need a dot in a media center that the there was a program or uh a large order of materials came in she never she never refused very soft-spoken person she was a loved by both the staff members and the students she served as community her communities a member of saint joseph's church she sang in the choir she was a member of the altar rosary society and also she served as a an auxiliary to

006the american legion members of the american legion auxiliary among her other volunteer organizations uh that's one moment of silence the second moment of silence is for maria rotunda marie rotano the mother-in-law of melissa rotundo melissa is a very well-respected member of our district central registration center mrs rotundo as or connie as she'd like to be called she was known as a very again a very hard worker she held positions in strict corporation and the bakery industry devoted her family and was known as for her excellent culinary skills the third moment of science is for chief louis ogden lifelong resident of the area he served his country from 1966 to 1970 as a member of the us navy when his elicit his enlistment ended he became a middletown member of the middletown [Music] middletown police department

007force he went through the ranks and became chief from 1994 until he retired for this position in 2002. now he was not finished with law enforcement he became a professor of criminal justice at suny orange he also served he never he also served on many volunteer organizations believe me he never refused an invitation of the district to be presenter whether speaking on laws that pertain to juveniles substance abuse bicycle safety on and on now a fellow board member mrs uh houston knew chief ogden for many many years and she's given me permission to read something that she sent to mrs tobiasen so i am going to read that short statement lou was an amazing grandfather and husband to a very good friend of uh and a very good friend of many years uh barbara and

008his father skippy and brian he was a strong silent type humble with a gigantic warm heart i had the pleasure of chatting with him first thing in the morning every school day for three years in a row and he was truly it was truly my pleasure it was at the catholic store and he stayed every morning to say prayers and the pledge of allegiance without setting an amazing example for his grandson will and his classmates will adore him and lou adored will may he rest in peace and make perpetual light shine upon them finally mrs tobiason is chairing a committee a scholarship committee and she's done an excellent job setting up that committee i'm going to throw uh throw it over now to uh mrs tobias who can explain more about the scholarship thanks rose

009go ahead yes john thank you very much um no words can express the loss that we all feel um with uh lou passing what uh our intentions are is to set up a scholarship uh hopefully two of them in the amount of 500 each this year we're hoping we're going to be able to continue our efforts and that would be for a student who would be interested in pursuing a career in criminal justice so it's still open if anyone has any donations they can send them to me they can get them to the enlarged city school district of middletown on the memo you would need to indicate that it is for the lou ogden scholarship uh the reason why i had asked they'd be sent here barbara is my neighbor and we want to make

010sure that folks get an acknowledgement and a thank you for their donations again um my address is on sycamore drive in middletown uh and would appreciate anyone that wishes to contribute to this very worthy cause again rose how should the checks be made out to the checks need to be made out to the enlarged city school district of middletown and on the memo it's very important that on the memo they put the lou ogden scholarship fund thank you thank you john thank you pastor williams thank you thank you sir thank you ma'am uh we're going to move on we'll move on to our personnel action items if there is no objection we will uh combine uh personnel memorandum 22a instructional and personal memorandum 22b non-instructional together may have a motion for that please so moved

011moved and seconded uh mrs houston raised your hand as a second uh are you ready for the discussion [Music] all in favor aye it so passes uh thank you moving on um to our board recognition announcements and community reports uh uh we'll go around we'll go around briefly briefly on tonight um for our board recognitions and community reports i'll start uh i'll go by my screen so i'll start at the top of my screen with mr gomez um uh central christianity the church which means new life christian center church is hosting a major food distribution drive they have one today this thursday and we'll be doing one next thursday they're located at 40 dunning road middletown new york i know a lot of members of the middletown community went last time last year and again

012they'll do what they're doing next thursday uh the uh the town of walcott police is assisting with traffic that's on 40 dunning road so anybody from the community parents staff are welcome to get a nice food supply that is available for them from this non-profit venture to help the community thank you mr gomez thank you mr gomez mr c mr cresenzo i have nothing tonight thank you very much thank you mr c uh uh mrs hugheson i have nothing tonight thank you thank you mr houston um um mr freddie williams [Music] good evening um me and uh uh are looking forward to rolling out some easter baskets to the uh less fortunate families of the district um so she reached out and uh we're working on that so we'll have some more information to follow

013uh coming soon i want to thank you mr c for the uh you know encouragement and the no that's it all right thank you mr williams um uh uh mr lazineer oh i can't hear you mr la city you're unmuted but i can't hear you it's those new earbuds no still can't hear you [Music] i'll get back to you if you get it if you get it we'll go we'll go to uh mrs bloomer now and then and then i'll come back to you unplug the head unplug the headphones and see if that works from the computer mrs bloomer now all right so i just want to um put on my new midi mask for a moment it smells nice too um the board is getting a mask courtesy of i'll take it off now

014so you can hear me curtis courtesy of justine schwab whose daughter um has uh pretty much you know gone into business during quarantine um and so she's making all kinds of masks but i just wanted to give a shout out for my mask and all board members are going to receive one as a as a gift which is really nice um i bought a few and she was also doing a great she's always doing some kind of fundraising our middletown parents page is really active um lots of positive you know it's it feels good to be part of positive comments on a regular basis and just hear parents who have been in our district um for many many years support what good is going on and um mr del maro had mentioned something earlier that

015uh to to all of us that um it's great to hear that you know middletown is a is a is an example um for our larger community so it's i just wanted to say thank you and just share my mini mask awesome thank you mrs blumenow uh mr lassener did did we pull it together yet you got it now yes okay okay i switched my earbuds uh i think i think we should just recognize uh the effort that was put forward uh everybody got the uh the notifications over the past couple weeks that uh you know we're gonna have students going back five days a week and that's uh no small undertaking on the part of our administration uh our buildings and ground staff our cleaners that make sure our buildings are completely safe for

016all of our students and you know our food service workers that are working um not only with the children in school and we've taken on uh additional in school but also making sure those students that will be remote uh get those meals as well so i think uh for the community this district has really kind of pulled together and given um you know parents who want their kids in school uh that opportunity now and uh you know i've spoken a lot of parents and then many of them have their kids in remote and they said they're happy that you know they've had the option and now others will have that same up thank you mr lassenia thank you mr perino thank you very much uh president williams um firstly we will not be back until

017after the holiday so i'm sure i can speak for all of us when we wish everyone a very joyous easter season east of course april 4th in a uh a good passover uh for those people's celebrating passover and i think that begins march 28th so guten pesach was celebrating passover um women's history month this month and i want to say that uh our the head of our media department the chair of the media department emily young laundrogen and her staff did an excellent job it's just great what they've done in each of the media centers and i'm not going to go over that tonight because it's still it's still march and we're still in that but i'll do it the next meeting even though it will be april uh but i wanted to be i

018wanted to give a shout out to amy creed in superintendent of instruction for setting up the workshop for the board with three realms of aces which was i i think that was excellent ordinarily uh i find that i get bored in some of these uh discussions but not not with this one because this was something new and for the public i just want to read a little bit of the introduction the aces connection is accelerates the global movement to prevent and heal adverse childhood experiences men in premises aces and supports communities to work collaboratively to solve the most interactive and trackable problems left unaddressed doctors toxic stress from ages harms children and families so i'm just going to read that but the three aces the influence of children household community and environment and the uh

019presenter on this dr feldman went into this in detail i find that i found it very good and i would recommend that our entire staff be in service on on this and finally um as you always mentioned uh pastor williams the black history month hispanic history month they run from the july 1st to june 30th and it does not does not surprise me that our when our instructional staff we have a great instructional session includes the material uh about various ethnicals various racial groups in each unit it can be done it very easily can be done because there's so so many contributions i just want to continue and i want to read a little more of laura warlike thomas's book all cats are black in in the dark and i just want to read this

020and really she could be used an example of the uh uh what happened in her life at three aces she was able to rise above everything became an author and a very very good artist i just want to read a couple things and then i'll we'll pass this on jerry kleiner uh let me use this book and if anyone else wants to read it he said that's that's fine also so i'll just take a minute here and one of the things that our presenter talked about was systematic john you're mute john you went to mute real quick uh i knew okay how about now yes sir speaking about prejudice this will be offensive to a lot of people it all depends on what side of the road you are on i can recall back in

021the days of school times i hated valentine's day because you would sit in class and all the popular white kids would get wonderful valentines but then when it came down to all the black kids sitting in the back of the class you were lucky if you got a valentine probably from a teacher maybe if you made a couple of friends you would receive a valentine card and on the valentine card that we received there would there were always guaranteed to have a black sambal sitting on a fence eating watermelon or a gorilla with a big smile and a banana in the hand or an alligator with big teeth or an orangutan swinging through the trees or a bunch of monkeys with red suits on this is what i got for valentine's day i didn't like

022my valentine and i did understand then what this meant but as years went by i got the idea so that's one thing just finally i want to read something else and add end on a light note and remember community was one of the uh is one of the uh elements of the three aces and community so the guy's name was joe stack i think i think but he had an ice truck it would be a hot summer day when you could see the waves coming from the sidewalk it would be so high even the dogs and cats were walking they couldn't chase each other with the heat and all the kids would be sitting around and then they'd say here comes the ice man here comes the ice truck and he would deliver blocks of

023ice to people in their homes he would chop up a great big piece of ice with an ice pick put a cloth over his shoulder and hoist that great big piece of ice and walk with some to somebody's house with it but when he chipped off the ice sometimes he would miss it and the ice chips would fall on the ground or fall on the back of the truck and i'm telling you the kids used to scramble to get the pieces of ice chips i mean it was like someone gave us a million dollars in heaven we would sit in each of those ice chips we would follow him from house to half we'd have a treat all day and and then there was another man who used to sell fruit and i can relate

024to both of these because we did the same thing with the stock ice chuck i can remember it as it was now is a red and yellow truck because it is a small not too big of a truck and he would pick that ice up and carry it into the houses and we used to do that and we should easily also try to get ice off the milk truck that used to come by and then there was another man who used to sell fruit and that would be morse uh morris goldfarb uh and i went to school with alan goldfarb he's come around with a truck with a steak sides on himself through some of the kids would steal it when he went into people's houses but like i said we were taught not to

025steal not to lie so we would stand there and maybe big beg for a bruised apple a couple of hands full of grape he was a nice man i remember that and you know it's a strange thing when i was a teenager i ended up working for his wife doing housework and like i said i used to cut the grass and shovel the snow and when i took the lawnmower back there would be a truck with all the fruit on it and i'd take maybe a handful of grapes i wouldn't dare take anything else i always thought that god was going to strike me with lightning for taking anything that's how much fear they put in us this is the first lady that ever showed me locks and cream cheese she was jewish she was

026awfully good to me so one day i had that for lunch but this book really impressed me not only being a a native middletown person but all the hardships that were like thomas had to overcome and uh finally i want to agree with um mrs bloom now justine schwab has been a tremendous asset to this district since her children started in elementary school she's always there when we could go to programs she was always at each one of the programs i attended so i think i'm done now and i'm sorry for taking time but i just i'll go on next uh next meeting with the women's history month thank you thank you mr perrino thank you mr um mr bison thank you pastor williams uh first of all my thanks for john for bringing up

027the idea that we came up with to honor lou ogden again contributions are more than welcome secondly freddie one of the things that i had thought about if anyone is not using their ham or turkey that if they spent uh enough money at um shoprite if they could drop the receipts off i'm sure that we could use those to fill some of the easter baskets the last thing since john is always mentioning books i received as a gift it's called images of america and it's middletown revisited and it was a great trip for me down memory lane even though i was a transplant here to middletown i enjoyed it very much i don't know superintendent del maro if we have copies of this i know it had been brought up that one of our administrators

028was looking into developing a middletown historical link to i believe to literacy and writing meaning nicole i think brought it up to us if not i'd certainly like to get a copy of this for her to use um with her literacy program in the district we'll do not a problem john i didn't find your picture there though who was the author uh peter lascaris no marvin cohen oh marvin sure okay so i i i if you didn't notice i i turned and looked while you were talking about the book because here in my office um to the right of me is the entire wall of books and and that book is on that on my shelf right now as we speak and so uh it it is certainly uh as a third generation uh middletown

029resident it was really nice to be able to look and to see uh the the history of middletown uh uh and it's only and and i'll say it like this it's really only one perspective because there's so much history from multiple perspectives and if if if things go well over the course of the next year or two i think i might be looking into into authoring something from uh from other perspectives from the perspective of uh of of people of color in this in this community who have been here for a number of years we have many families here that are multiple generations multiple generations just like i am so uh thank you thank you for that uh mr bias and i also do want to take the opportunity to thank um the administration uh

030of mrs creedon and superintendent del maro uh mr tuttle also for uh setting up our the trauma-sensitive workshop for the board is something that we that a year ago many of the administrators took part in a three-day session uh and and i thought that it would be uh it would be a good thing for the board to partake in this particular workshop as well uh and and so i think that everybody that was able to be there which was most of the board i i i i sincerely hope and that you enjoyed this session and it's only the beginning uh i also i also want to um leave leave this word i uh in this season with everything that's going on there's we've dealt with a lot of trouble this last year a lot of

031crises this year but i sincerely believe that crises are opportunities um for us to be able to to grow opportunities for us to be able to to soar and to excel uh despite the things pressure pressure uh makes us stronger and so uh i want to leave you with this with this uh quote this quote uh light life and i said this to my congregation life is not a problem to be solved but it's a gift to be enjoyed so if we stop going through life looking to solve the problems of life and begin to enjoy the gift that life is i think that we will all come out much better uh with that being said uh mrs blumenow talked about masks so uh let me just let me just put that up go middies

032[Laughter] go go middies all right let's move on let's move on uh tonight uh we're moving on for our opportunities to address the board uh we have we have uh with us tonight uh uh uh uh a community community member who is coming on this is the first time that someone has actually taken advantage of this particular forum um i'm going to ask mrs clean can you facilitate this for for for us if you don't mind park mrs clark is ready to go she's all set oh mrs clark is ready to go okay mrs clark uh it's it can you facilitate from this point please thank you sure the um we do have somebody who's on right now if they want to do their speaking first hold on to dean ayers oh can you hear

033me yes yes good evening all how are you very well good welcome i'm not sure if this is actually the forum for this but um i had some questions um for the board regarding because i have two adolescents in um the school district and i wanted to know when school starts and with the classes already being large how are we going to maintain the distance with and keep it safe for all the children so what would what would do uh do you have another question because what we'll do is the the uh our superintendent uh is going to be addressing this exact question during his superintendent report so that you'll make we'll make sure you get the answers i'm really i'm really grateful that you took the time to come on it's to me it's

034exciting that someone actually took advantage of this opportunity to come on and hopefully it will encourage some others to do the same uh uh but the superintendent mr domoro is definitely going to be answering if you continue to continue to watch the meeting and it's coming up it's coming up uh almost almost shortly after after uh we come out of this section of the meeting is going to be coming up and you'll be getting your answer uh very soon all right is there anything any other any other questions why we got you here you are are you good i actually do have one more question yes um the trump the trauma that the children went through you know throughout the the year that school has been closed um i definitely know my children have experienced

035trauma uh how we're gonna address that within the school system because i know how i'm addressing it at home i have my kids seeing the therapist now how we're going to address it during this school system because you will see behaviors absolutely and and just you are you are like on fire tonight i i have to be honest with you you're on fire tonight because you literally are right in the vein that we're going to talk about the superintendent is also he'll also address that during the superintendent report so that we keep all the continuity together and you'll get your answer all right [Music] yes thank you thank you ms dean mrs david thanks thank you for coming on we greatly appreciate you i don't see i can't see the whole name so i hope

036i got it right excuse me if i didn't uh but uh we thank you for coming and and addressing us on tonight um mrs clark if yes we also have three more comments as well okay um the first one is from lauren iacono and she says thank you for your plan to have our kids back in school my question is why can't the kids go back for four days if the total of children that opted to go in person is less than what the classroom can hold my son is going back and there were three kids in class today they need in-person learning is there any way to look at each class individually and be flexible they are instantly happier to be back they learn better in person my son is struggling in math for

037the first time in his school career thank you for your consideration the next one is from anita phipps can my son attend in person because we did not see the email about the survey he is in the fourth grade mastery program and his grades are declining please give us a second chance to change him to in person as he is not doing well remotely thank you for your time and understanding and the third comment is from derek phipps i never received a survey to have my son go in person my son is in the 4th grade mastery program and is not doing well he would benefit from in-person learning please give him a chance thank you and those are the three comments all right are there any letters to be read anything like that no

038no all right well thank you to all of those who uh those who joined us in the meeting and to those who sent comments in we thank you um i i hope that you are watching tonight um all of these particular uh points and issues our superintendent is prepared um to address on to address tonight and to touch on uh and i i think that uh everyone will be pleased with um with what will be reported tonight uh so thank you very much we're gonna move on because we've got a long way to go uh a lot of ground to cover tonight and with that being said i am going to turn it into the hands of our superintendent mr richard del morrow on this evening for our superintendent's report mr del maro it's in

039your hands chief thank you very much president williams vice president tobiason and the board of education of our school district as well as our entire school community uh i'd like to begin by thanking the board for giving me this opportunity to share um what we are doing in our school district especially when we're talking about prioritizing equity i certainly will get to uh the questions as well as they were all questions really comments uh that we talked about the re-entry plan that we put out uh revisement for but before we begin i'd just like to get into our continuing work um with equity uh prioritizing that as a focus uh and uh as i've been doing over the last several board meetings so i keep the community informed and aware of the activities uh and

040the march on this long journey i certainly um not going to be solved overnight but one thing we can guarantee in the school district that there will be a consistent march to that end in terms of uh making sure that our classrooms our environments our campuses are bias free and inclusive and racism racism in a negative way will never be tolerated in any shape way or form [Music] in terms of prioritizing as we've been talking about we started out working with um a committee uh working on hiring we thought that uh one of the issues that we need to work on that it would be a long-standing work and that endeavor is trying to make our faculty and staff more commensurate with the demographics of our student body and certainly that takes a great deal

041of effort in trying to widen the uh how should we say the pool of candidates for our school district right so we decided to have hiring as a priority but certainly there's other work going on which i'll talk about in a minute here is the continuation of the slide here talking about the equity hiring task force we have met several times consisting of different constituents inside our school district in our community looking at the issues regarding hiring in terms of the extents of work we've interviewed candidates that uh decided not to take our position and find out why we also can uh interviewed candidates that did take our position why they chose our school district and of course we're talking about candidates and now employees staff members of color uh and the other part of

042the hiring since this is a large topic hiring uh we talk about the equity in looking at marketing and uh and how do we settle in ourselves how are we going out actively looking for staff of color and the other part of the hiring we decided to do in a committee work was the intake and process of hiring what is the process how do we go out and seek this a large large large task of inclusiveness so we're working in in that area as you can see here i'm not going to read the slides they're up there they also will be posted on our website the other part of what we're doing uh is taking a larger piece of the of the work and then that is our equity audit we have an equity audit

043committee consisted of about 11 individuals a parent was on there board members were on there staff was on their central office staff uh business individuals uh to look at the aspects of our community and that is in all of the areas whether it was from the board of education standpoint whether it's from administration standpoint whether it was from um work staff inside our school district and this committee took about four five sessions to look at various questions and we will analyze those questions to develop challenge as you can see here what we're planning around where do we go from uh answering all of these questions and have challenge statements to focus on our areas of intake and process and hiring how we're going about how we think about things in our school district uh there's

044equity among our leadership roles and promotion holidays and all of those issues as we move forward we have to be very mindful of that we have to keep this as a major focus and where we're headed in terms of our conduct of school community activities right to go over these examples uh and activities to really underscore our commitment our unwavering desire all right to make our place safe for all of our students to make it bias free to be inclusive to be diverse as we can be right and to not address anything less than not accepting racism in any way shape or form in our school district so we continue to do this work we'll have an equity audit going out very shortly to all of the community and we will analyze that and to

045look at what would be our next steps as a result of that i just want to thank the board for their support in this continuing work uh and we will look at this what we call an equity lens map but basically it's a survey and so uh we will make announcements uh in all our communiques to parents to be mindful that it's in there and we encourage everyone in our school district to fill that out so we get a very very very broad uh how should i say feeling and understanding of where our community is because we're here to serve you the other piece i wanted to talk about as we move into um the same topic what's happened in our classrooms you know we've been working with culturally responsive activities which is the curriculum

046review and changes and being more diversely responsive to our community and to make our students feel comfortable and certainly as we were talking about it last month as we look into reading is so important during this month and in our effort celebrating diverse i have a whole all books here i wanted to show you i wish we were alive but we're not so i'm going to do that we're going to go here we go uh in our march to reading for our our students celebrating diverse readers we also have these in spanish too uh dual language and things like that and all of these books uh have characters and the story lines of so students can relate uh to um themselves as far as feeling comfortable uh we're very very proud of all the work

047and resources the teachers work here our administrators helping teachers implement these in our classrooms uh so that we this is a year-long process this isn't i think it was mr perrino had mentioned we were talking about black history month as we have mentioned i have mentioned that black history is our history and yes we identify february as that but we're not in february any month so does that mean that we don't talk about anymore oh no absolutely not it has to be integrated into the american fabric of our history to have a honest look at our history and sometimes when we look in the mirror we don't like what we see similarly as we look back into our history it may not be something we're proud of however it is so important to look at

048that so we don't repeat it we hear that over and over and over again and it's so true you know what have we learned from that what we are doing about it so our classrooms certainly our resources are different today than they were [Music] you know a couple of years ago as we continue to march in this direction on this long journey and we're very proud that we're doing this work and i'm very proud of the staff all the administrators the teachers the leaders the faculties the support people that support us in our effective work that we do with our most important job and that is to educate our youth our students it's so important and so this cannot be done without a collaboration from everyone and i would just like to thank everyone who's

049involved in this uh and continuing to march forward the next thing i want to talk about is some of the questions the parents are all um buzzing around and absolutely understand why it's our re-entry uh plan that's been revised and as you know due to the guidelines that we've been following by the department of health that we were not permitted to have students within physical distance of six feet front back left and right right well they have relaxed some of those restrictions and we're allowed to have them less than six feet with plastic barriers so we ordered enough to cover all of our students in our school district polycarbonate barriers meeting all fire code requirements that will be forthcoming the next 10 days or sooner and we'll get them ready for what we talked about

050re-entering back into five days a week and i'll explain why we are moving into five days a week all right april the 12th monday april the 12th is that return day right now we're still in the cohort learning environments cohort one monday and tuesday those students are in person learning who chose to be in person cohort two wednesday and thursday similarly who chose to be in that and of course we have about half of our student population who have selected to be in virtual or remote learning for the entire remaining school year right so it's about 50 percent about 3 600 in one environment 3 600 in another give or take a few right so some of the classrooms is one an aptly put some of the classrooms have two or three students some do

051not and i think it would be very very unfair and almost impossible to say this class because you only have two or three when we were in the hybrid to come back sooner but now with those relaxation of the physical distance and the barriers that we will have we are able to bring back all of the students that choose to want to be an in-person learning and we will maintain uh appropriate safe protocols with the barriers they still have to wear their mask they still will be checked temperatures as they enter the building the abilities will still be disinfected hand washing will be encouraged and so on and so forth why five days a week because we believe that we when parent had mentioned about trauma when many parents are concerned as we read in

052all the literature and parent discussions about the gaps in learning that has occurred over the last now a year we're about a year into this from last march about this time of the year we had to close down schools as we know it so we believe there isn't anything that can compare to in-person learning and we want to go five days a week to provide the emotional social and academic learning and the gaps that need to that's why we have right now any parent that wants to have additional support and the act in the area of english language arts reading math k8 we have those programs at all of those schools and all of the three elementary schools and our two middle schools and at the high school in the collaborative area you have different

053days for different content area where the content teachers are there on a science day or math day in english day or social studies day to get the support that they need in those content areas so we have additional time for support now i think one of the questions was what are we going to do in terms of helping the students with we return to school for trauma built into our curriculum k 12 is social emotional learning activities i can go out there so the fact of the matter is we know that to be true we're addressing that through the curriculum but also be reminded we have support personnel student support personnel in each of the buildings so i encourage any parent who feels that they may need their child to have special attention please contact

054your child's principal and we will provide the service that would be appropriate for your child's need but please know as an ongoing daily instruction integrated into the curriculum k-12 different programs for k-5 different programs for the 6 8 program different program for 912 but it is designed to do that addressing the social emotional learning sel as they as you hear the acronyms so we're trying to understand remember we are trying to make connections over content has been our mantra our philosophy this year and we will understand that the students uh there is loss of how should i say gaps in instruction and receptiveness of content and we're providing additional time we will do that at the summer time as well and make adjustments for in september because of what has happened over the last by

055then year and a half but please we understand we the the needs for additional support it exists right now today right and the number of individuals who have uh requested to come out of virtual to come into in-person learning we did have that survey that lasted open for about eight days now we posted that on our website it's been on our facebook page and also teachers were to put that into their google classroom all announcing this but as a result of those for a myriad of reasons we're going to extend that ability to have parents choose in-person learning if they are not in a hybrid now that they're virtual or remote only have until tuesday march 23rd to inform their building principles that they wish to come out of the learning environment remote virtual they're

056not attending school at all if you are in cohort one accord two we just assume you wanna be there for five days you don't need to respond you're there you're there five days if you want to go into remote just let us know that too but i don't think people who are in a would choose to do that in in a large number so please understand this i'll say it again if you are in a cohort one or two you don't need to do anything you go automatically into five days a week if you are in virtual and you missed the deadline you now have an extension a final extension to tuesday march 23rd that's this tuesday coming up at six o'clock we'll say six o'clock get some time for parents to come home so

057the last extension i repeat will be tuesday march 23rd the classrooms will be safe they'll be disinfected as they have been because of the numbers we're able to accommodate all who want to do this so parents if you have apprehensions about the physical distancing please understand they will do it with barriers now there'll be a plastic barrier it's like a tripod think of those science tripod that we all had in elementary school and science fairs or what science rooms right but these are clear plastic they'll be on affixed to the desk and in an elementary they'll be more of a boomerang shape because that's the shape of the desk and those more traditional rectangles will be a rectangle and we'll put whatever we need in the classroom for the number of students that need to

058be in the classroom please understand we understand a your frustration we understand your desire to have your child back in the class we're with you believe us we are with you and we're very very pleased to be here we're marching toward this very uh diligently cautiously and paramount in our mind in our work is safety so i do believe i answered all of the questions five days a week we're going for everybody you're in co-work one or two you don't have to do anything you're there five days right if you answered already from the first eight days you're there we took care of you you're in you're 71 stu you're there don't worry about it if you want to change your mind now that you missed it or you changed your mind no problem no

059worries just let us know by tuesday march 23rd by six o'clock and you will be included guaranteed all right however please parents understand it takes a lot of work to plan the logistics to maintain these safe environments so this is the last extension because we have to plan accordingly now i know this will go up on the website we'll post all this information it'll be on the facebook it'll be in the google classrooms so there shouldn't be a reason that people are not receiving this up-to-date communication that we are extending that ability for someone to move from a total remote into in-person learning that's the end of the superintendent's report i want to thank you again for giving me the opportunity uh board of education to communicate what we're doing in our march in prioritizing

060equity in our schools as we continue to do that with our staff and also the diversity of literature and resources and bringing that so that our students can identify with the characters in the books and story lines and culture that they so deservingly need to know more about themselves and feel good about themselves and also they're about the re-entry plan the extension march 23rd parents six o'clock if you're in virtual let us know thank you and good night oh you got a question from mr gomez not so much a question i just want to take the opportunity to thank you mr delmore on the administration for responding to the concerns of parents that want to see their children return back for five day instruction i think it's important to note that when parents a couple

061of months back were asking for the option to stay uh remote or hybrid that our district listened and that responded affirmatively and then now for parents that want the children to return full time we're also given the same opportunity it's important because at the end of the day the children don't belong to the parents and we want to make sure that the parents know that their school district is respected and accountable to their concerns and we thank your leadership not just in responding but from a year ago when we entered the pandemic i think it's fair to say very accurate that you were non-stop i'm sure without sleep at times and making sure that our buildings were safe and that our staff and that our children are safe and then thinking that same spirit will

062continue to go forward and hopefully for great things to come in the full and again my my appreciation to yourself to our the um mrs creed and the rest of the team i also want to get my hands off to my colleague mrs houston has been very vocal on the issue as well and that's important that we as trustees remember that uh one of them we are the the people the community was served they are the masters and we are the servants and that we are responsible to their concerns thank you thank you mr kumas right chief we i think i think it's you're still you're still on right isn't it time for i think mr perrino had his hand up uh yes yes mr perrino richard just very quickly uh for example i had

063a neighbor relatively new to the street asked me about the equity challenges uh is it possible to have and i i i told the gentleman what we were doing is it possible to have a booklet made up of the various equity challenges and have some at the board office so people can pick them up those people moving into the community yes we are working on that uh document already um our equity team has discussed that over the last several meetings we've had we'll we will get that um develop and get that out to the community as soon as possible yes thank you all right so the last part of the superintendent's report i was referring to uh the pieces that i i wanted to present out to the community but also equally important especially during

064these times and all the information we've been receiving in the newspaper about school budgets and the american rescue act that just has been enacted and how that's going to impact our school district but the last leg of the budget presentations by mr tuttle will be presented in about uh 10 seconds or less as he prepares to give the final piece to that now uh certainly uh in the newspaper uh yesterday it indicated or was it today i think was uh today yesterday we received the information and uh today's paper indicated that the amounts given to a certain positive community uh so um we hope that as that money as the indicated in the newspaper and information we receive um will it will float through the governor's office and they have 30 days to receive that

065and then they have 60 days to let the districts know of that amount what will come to us so um i'm going to pass it over to mr tuttle now to talk about the last legs of our budget presentation as we get ready for super tuesday when our school community votes on the 2021 2022 school year budget mr tuttle you know a second okay okay thank you mr tomorrow um president williams member of the board tonight as mr del maro discussed we are in our fourth presentation this one deals with revenue we've gone through administrative instructional capital benefits and revenue is probably by far the most challenging because now we have to support all the initiatives that we put expenses to so um so before each meeting we go through just some a couple assumptions

066um just want to keep making sure everyone's aware and if things change i'll note that as well the average consumer price index for most things is two percent as it is every year um our health insurance premiums are at about a six percent increase for this year or for july one looking ahead our consultants give us those numbers they do all the metrics and analyzing and they come up with a figure for us for moving forward our tax cap the maximum was 1.56 and it's not really 2 percent this year so when i get down and do the calculation you'll see that it's a little bit more than 1.56 that's because we use more money in the capital expenses and things like that but it does not go over two percent and um that's by

067designed by the comptroller and the governor uh teachers retirement system estimated 10 increase um that's all the retirement for administrators and teaching staff that's our contribution and the premiums go up every year based on their fiscal analysis as well same for the ers the employee retirement system that's going up an estimated fifteen percent uh both these services um is going up five percent and that's for most everything that's for the ctec program that's for um [Music] those with disabilities program uh anything else that we do down at boces we actually just see an increase in average of about five percent some go up higher some go lower some maintain the same but similar to uh like our district they have contractual obligations and um they have increases every year our foundation aid you'll see is

068that zero percent this is all based on this january state aid runs two years in a row now it's zero uh community schools stays the same that's inside the foundation aid uh debt service uh payments have increased about 20 percent this year um our contractual salaries um anywhere over five million dollars a year is what we get an increase every year just in moving salaries from one year to the next um and the big one i just added uh for this budgeting assumption is the cobia 19 expenses continued um you know we added a significant amount of funding to maintain health and safety um that's cleaning the buildings that's air filtration um that's actually overtime that's maybe possibly extra cleaners um so that's going to be a continued expense probably for the next year maybe

069two uh depending on how the pandemic moves forward so uh it's kind of hard to guess what that expects would be but we do have some money inside the um other budgets to cover that um as i always try to give you the estimated um [Music] budget percentile as we go through every budget you can see 57 57 is instructional administrative seven benefits are 21 of our overall budget and capital is roughly 15 um that's just a slice of the pie for uh where all the funds go um so really to simplify it for us this year um this is really you got to focus on this is from the january runs um when the governor was saying hey there's 20 aid cuts uh coming this year there's all these things are going to happen

070um and then um so things have changed a little bit now that we see that there's an american rescue act uh there's a copa stimulus act before in the fall so you know we're starting to see some different types of revenue streams coming but what i wanted to just point out overall if you look at the bottom line we're receiving about 3.6 million dollars more in state aid this year than we have in the past last year and that's basically due to our both these expenses increasing and our aid coming back to the district from using boces so that's using um buying technology students with disability expenses um c-tec expenses all those types of programs that we send down the boscis we get money back every year so it's one of those things we're trying

071to focus on and actually we have a financial transfer tonight to put money in a boxes account to buy more chromebooks so um then we get that aid back next year so we use it as a revenue stream so overall a little over 3.6 million and that's as of january 2021 state aid months um if you look at the state a runs in depth you'll see that the governor has taken has given us a star aid and then he's taken away the star read in lieu of giving us a stimulus of 7.4 million if you look at that middle row there so that's 7.4 million i believe is already part of the 17.7 that we will get with the uh rescue act so essentially we're down to 10 million looking at give or take depending

072on whatever their age the governor will take away from us based on the funding uh some other estimated revenues that we have a list of them uh this is where we generate about six and a half million dollars um and it could be with the pilots that's the payment lieu of taxes so if any new uh programs come into the community and they they um get a deal with ida dea they can actually pay us payments instead of getting assessed for the full value and that's just to increase business and get them on their feet so we also have interest on penalties and taxes we have a utility tax that is the cell phone usage tax in the area so we actually get a benefit from that so anyone that keeps buying more people buy

073cell phones and use them the more money we get as a district so we see that go up a little bit each year and that's almost two million dollars so it's a pretty good revenue for us there um charges for services uh we have a date we have our school tuition um that we receive from other schools but on the expense column we actually spend money out too sending students to other schools that would be like the appropriate schools for health care and things like that when you'll also see we all have a health services line as revenue as well um we usually have the refund for prior years expenses that's from our boces typically what happens is we'll uh we pay boces based on what we sign up to pay contractually and we do

074that now for next year and then we usually sometimes over assess what we're going to purchase and then we get a refund back and that's usually about 1.2 million sale of equipment that's usually surplus equipment uh this this year about two 2500 uh based on and that fluctuates each year depending on what kind of equipment we're selling um the other one is our interfund transfer which is a big one that we take from our debt service reserve and add 500 000 to our revenue that actually helps us offset some of the expense based on our debt service so overall our total revenue is about six and a half million um and that's actually down from last year about 160 000 and some of that is the rent over at truman moon we don't have boces

075renting over there so that's where we're seeing that little bit of a decrease and again a lot of things in this revenue is really taking your best guess from the average three years because we have no idea what the interest will be on on money moving forward and we you know so it's we're just putting some best guess at some of those types of revenues but it's usually pretty close when we get done by the end of the year um so the big formula that we do for our tax cap uh there's a nine step approach um if you look on this column uh there's one through nine um essentially we're taking last year's um tax levy which was seventy seven million four hundred four thousand uh 150 and then the commissioner gives us um

076a growth factor and then we get a whole bunch of other calculations in there based on basically data that we use with the py means as previous year so that was last year's pilots and if you go down a little bit more you'll see current year cy that's this year's pilot so we're increasing the pilots a little bit but overall when you get to the bottom um which is kind of well i was talking about the 1.5 percent sick 1.56 percent growth max um that's what's hampered us to only come up with a 1.96 percent growth for us although the governor and the comptroller you saw the law was two percent we were always over two percent in every district we'll be over two percent based on the way the formulas are written um but

077um so for this year our maximum levy increase can only be 1.5 million dollars that's the maximum without going overriding [Music] the budget and getting 60 plus one percent vote um so our tax lobby levels um i know most people like to ask and get answers to these so if we went with a maximum the 1.96 percent uh the maximum levy for us would be 1.5 a little bit over 1.5 million so if we went for the maximum to increase over last year's levy the maximum we could go to the taxpayer will be 1.5 without going over uh the cap okay uh one percent which is what we've done for the past two years i had last year but we've done that for the past two years would be 774 000 and then if we

078went for a half a percent that's half of that is 387 000. um so you can see the range uh that we can work with um you see the maximum and obviously if we want zero is zero um so as mr del mar was explaining american cares act we don't know what that will actually look like for our funding so we'll that'll determine how we go with the tax level um our revenue summary so state 815 million um other revenue six and a half local property tax now this this number here has one percent on the levy um i use that as a target for us uh when we're looking at overall funds and then increasing our unappropriate fund balance a little bit up to 5.6 million our total revenue right now projected uh is

079205 million 395 665 dollars and you'll see on the next slide that's a little bit shy of where we need to be based on our previous summaries um so just real quick what we've already presented is our administrative our program our capital budget and our benefits budget so if you look at the bottom of those it was 210 million 979 thousand 142 and that act that actually overall increase in our budget was 5.49 percent now that's basically looking at contracts that's including all the extra covert expenses we believe we have our boces increases and then also some health care increases in there but that's primarily where we are a little bit over almost 11 million dollar increase on budget to budget and that's a lot to do with covid um and those types of expenses

080so when you look at the overall budget proposal um so as i just explained it's almost 211 million dollar budget and proposed and our revenues are 2.05 and so we have a shortage right now five 5.5 million dollars um so we we're hoping to figure out uh how we're going to cut that based on the governor's runs based on state aid and there's legislation now with the senate and the assembly um to actually infuse a few more billion dollars into the foundation aid so we have a lot of different things coming into play where we're going to see um where we can close that gap um you know and obviously using our budget what we presented is you know going on the same obviously we can look at supplies and some equipment but um we

081would need to look at some other stuff if we needed to get to five and a half million um so we can look at our the other thing in our proposed budget our tax levy maximum as i talked about was the 1.96 percent which we could get to 1.5 million um and our total levy amount would be 78 million 921 279 and that would be with the maximum increase of the 1.5 million and so we haven't done the maximum in a long time here in middletown so we're just putting that as our ceiling obviously looking to stay under all that so we don't need to go out to the public for any additional voting and then our tax cap is 1.96 and that again is the maximum we can go uh considerations before the final

082budget which um we'll we'll tally all that and present that at the next meeting mr delmar will present that and um we'll give some direction however hopefully the state budget will be passed by then on april 1st and then we'll have a real good handle on all the revenues essentially the revenues drive what you're going to do inside the district so as i said april 1st is the state aid revisions based on the state budget being passed we can look at our reserves and how we use some more reserves our tax cap that'll be a consideration where we end up there program cuts is always one of those considerations which is we never like to touch that that's never you know a great conversation and then i would say the american rescue plan uh 17.7

083million dollars so we're hoping that this rescue plan will really benefit the district um you know and give us a great opportunity to keep on doing what we're doing moving forward uh if we had to go to a contingent budget um the first vote um it's 50 plus one the second boat is 50 uh percent plus one and then i talked about previously if we wanted to go over the cap which would be going over 1.96 percent we need 60 of the boat plus one for both first and second boat and then if we wanted to go contingent we would just use the same levy as last year minus all the um other expenses of equipment and supplies and stuff like that so we don't like to get to that third bullet there the contingent

084part uh hopefully we can pass this budget on the first round as we've done several times and you know i don't think we've had a failed budget since it's become the city of middletown and the city didn't vote on the budget um so recapping our schedule we'll be back in three weeks um on april 8th uh which is nothing really on the calendar for the budget other than we'll represent the summary and then on april 22nd it will be a big day we need to adopt the budget and we also need to vote down the boces budget on april 22nd we just got final word on that um so that'll be a big voting day on april 22nd may 6th is our budget hearing and then obviously the big day for us super tuesday budget

085election vote is on may 18th and then that'll take care of the voting for us i can open up to any questions um mr crucinzo i see your hand up first i don't really have any questions this is the 11th budget that sat through and remarkably you make it look very very easy and i know how complicated this was especially under the these conditions um i think it's a very very sound budget it's going to cover our needs hopefully it will protect jobs and programs the voters have to look at this and understand that this is what the district needs and this is what we can do with what we have so i guess what i'm trying to say is i want to thank you and the administration and everyone involved i know it's it's

086not a one person or a two-person job uh there's a lot of people involved a lot of hands in this budget and to me it's fiscally sound and i think we're going to be in very good shape so thank you very much you're welcome any other hands i can't see everybody sorry all right guys um as far as the budget vote goes i don't think you've heard anything from albany will it be the ballot maryland's as we had last year we will be in person voting everything is that we know as in person as it used to be is in the past thank you thank you very much for an excellent job yeah people can contact the district clerk if they want an absentee ballot um obviously we can hand those out as well so

087that's how they feel safer that way thank you okay nicole okay um so first of all thank you for your excellent presentation um i wanted to mention a few things um first of all as a teacher um outside of our district i i've personally seen how our students have paid the price of this pandemic socially emotionally academically as miss dean ears had stated it's a trauma that our kids have gone through and the financial impact on our taxpayers and other stakeholders in the district is equally impacting us in so many ways but um i was contacted by a concerned citizen a grandmother of our district she preferred to remain unnamed but she reached out to me with some of her concerns as to our budget she wanted us to keep in mind the reality of

088the pandemic of the finances on the taxpayers of new york but with that being said i as a board member i'm equally concerned about our kids have missed out on so much i hate to see them miss out on more but as for the the taxpayers who are also the parents of many of our children in the district um the financial reality is there um this particular grandma said she feels that extras need to be very carefully considered um as you said there was a 5.5 million dollar shortage her strong words did resonate with me um she said we cannot continue to bleed on the back of the school district she would like to see a zero-based budget or as close to it as possible needing to be adopted by the middletown board of education

089and she believes it should be put up in may for our residents to approve and in her words the gravy can't be served this year just the meat and potatoes and i don't think she meant it sarcastically um but just as re as being a realist um this is why i i gave it a lot of thought what she said and i looked into it and did my own research and i think it would be really helpful if we could propose as close to that type of budget as possible a zero based budget plan would that format our methodology for every single expenditure we take every stakeholder into consideration on a line-by-line basis and it would guarantee that we've looked at every possible source of funding and as you said in mr del mora we

090have so many unknowns this year between the state of new york and the federal government um but um she uh got me thinking so i did my own homework and i'm in a zero-based budget and you're a financial wiz so i'm sure you're very familiar with all this but um all expenses must be justified and it allows us top level strategic goals to be built into the budget discourages the blind budget increases um uh justification um of um and identification of old recurring expenses optimizing costs and just revenue requiring all expenses to be prioritized for each new period and tying them into the functions grouping and measuring them against previous top level strategic goals allows us to basically avoid those blanket increases and decreases so maybe at i don't know if it would be appropriate

091but at our next um financial um fair funding committee meeting we can talk some more about this but i thought it was worth mentioning um that this this taxpayer had legitimate concerns and a good way of looking at it wanting just the most amount of accountability possible and i um thought i would bring that up now and thank you again for the excellent job you did in your presentation this evening thank you thank you paula can you come for the tv on your mute paul yeah thank you very much um mrs houston i think that i i just would like to um speak to that point i think that over the past i i can't even we have reduced our spending in every line we have fine tooth combed this budget our i believe and

092totally trust that our our superintendent our assistant superintendent of business and his team are fine tooth combing our budget every single year and i know that there have been years where we have been up against um major reductions in state aid in um you know and and and funding that we've had to cut positions and reduce jobs and reduce programs and reduce supplies and we've fined tooth comb to come in right now in this kind of um you know uh i i just want to be appropriate mr tuttle um in this environment with the type of um funding that we're looking at funding cuts or you know that we're looking at i mean i i can't imagine that we could be um looking at anything but trying to be as finance fiscally and financially responsible

093as possible and i truly believe and i don't i don't want i i don't know that i i i'll say this i do believe that that's not what you're saying however for an outsider who is kind of watching and giving their two cents with all due respect does not see um they can you know it's a it's right there they can look at every line in this budget just like we can it's public to look at um but i just i just feel that it's we need to trust that right now our business department is doing what they can to keep our expenses in check and make sure that we are being fiscally responsible as a board member as a trustee i believe that that's happening and i i trust in our administration that that

094is happening and so please i don't want there to be any false or misunderstanding that we are not doing our due diligence on a regular basis to save our community as much money as we possibly can considering that we are fund mostly funded um by by non-communi resources so and thank you for your work on the budget um mr tuttle and your team um this has been a tremendously uh you know difficult year so much is up in the air uh i i think in the next week or two we're going to see um changes coming you know just because of the political climate going on in albany um we might end up being a pawn in this so we have no uh we were getting hints no real um you know no real firm

095numbers so that's right sorry just to follow up i don't think i just wanted to follow up with that um with the um comment that you made i'm not suggesting that we don't trust our administration but our stakeholders have asked for a little bit more transparency and it's my duty as a board member to ask these difficult questions but again as you know mr tuttle and working with you on financial uh the affair funding committee i i think you're doing great work it's nothing like that um but but they want to see um you know if we have this 5.5 million dollar shortage they want to see you know what each line of the budget shows and i'm just bringing that to the table thank you thank you so much but our budget our budget

096is laid out very you know like line for line that anybody could read and look at and um and you yes you are a you are a trusted uh member of this board and a respected member of this board so i am by no means saying that you're not what i am saying is that when you bring when you bring to when you bring a comment like that into the public forum it raises questions unnecessarily and so if you if if there are questions that i know that our administration be happy to answer them directly to once again that comment was from one of our stakeholders and i was sharing with the board what she wanted to communicate yes and i believe that that can be done directly through mr tuttle um and and all

097due respect miss houston alder believe me all due respect this is your first budget it's a very complicated procedure when you compare our budgets against other districts which is hard to do because we're a small city school district we have different constraints and what have you you'll find that over the years not just today not just in this economic climate over the years we have cut the budget to the bone regardless of what one stakeholder believes and one good example of that we have uh 7 500 students uh 400 staff whatever we have the least amount of administrative staff than a regular district than a district not even close to our size so that's one very good example of how uh we're cost conscious and it goes all the way down every one of those

098line items and as far as transparency goes anybody anybody anybody in this district can get in touch with this administration if they have questions about it and if you look at the chart here budget hearing may 6 that's when people come in and ask their questions you know research these questions ask the questions and they will be answered at that time so to talk about a lack of transparency that has never existed in um 11 years i've been on this board of education so i'm saying that it's zero basis all due respect all due respect this is your first budget you learn from this as you move on you realize that a lot of the things that this person brought up has already been addressed and i'm saying that a zero-based budget would give our

099taxpayers more transparency and showing them the same information that's all thank you for your base budget let me let me jump in let me jump in i just went into that okay excuse me [Music] excuse me let me jump in because uh this this this this is a great this is a great discussion and and everybody is everybody is on point but i i want to remind you that this particular point what we're discussing is premature it's premature on our our next meeting i'm glad that you i'm glad you brought up and it's your right to bring it up but i do want to i do want to note out note that this is a little premature this particular part of the discussion is premature the next the next meeting which is our uh april

100what is that what is our next day april 8th will be our opportunity once we once we see what the budget what the budget the state will adopt and then we see what our final runs are and we still don't even know if that is going to be our actual final runs but it'll be at that time that we'll have to give we as a board will have to give the administration uh uh their marching orders as to as to how we want to draft this as a board how we want to draft this particular budget and so of course with their of course with their um with their recommendations so the discussion tonight is actually a little premature we don't have all of our information we have uh mr tuttle has given us what

101we what we have up to this point so i think that um i think that it would serve us well and i'm not trying to silence anybody but i'm just giving a little bit of advice it would serve us well if we pause for a moment let's get the rest of our information let's see what the next two weeks hold as far as as far as the state is concerned and then as well uh we make our we make our necessary uh uh uh request to our elected officials as well as albany the fair funding can get involved and then we can move forward with a much more educated educated discussion because right now i just don't think that we have all the information that we need to be able to to effectively have this

102discussion and that's what i would go ahead i thought you were finished that's right that's all i'm saying no and i respect that i just figured if i didn't bring it up now then if i brought it up at that next meeting some might say i was too late with it so i'd rather be ahead of the game no i i i do understand that but again again you know the budget season is the most difficult time for all of us my first year under budget season i was a deer called headlights and so i think that is important for us you know let's let's let's pause it and i think we can bring it up you wouldn't be too late bringing it up the next meeting right but i do want to say that

103it's very important that that list that assembly woman gunther and senator martucci senator schmidt and senator brabanik had to ask for should be prepared and sent to them as to exactly what our needs are so they can um fight the good fight in albany for us because um that is something that was directly requested of us of mr tuttle so it's it's so important that we we express every need to our our elected officials and make sure that they know what those concerns are and um we get as much as we can for our taxpayers and for our students who deserve the best especially after the year they've been through and thank you for sharing all of your opinions i appreciate that certainly not trying to be a troublemaker just want to do uh my

104due diligence as a board member who represents all of the stakeholders in the district thank you i think mr perrino had a question mr moreno you know i i think sometimes he you have to look at the end result and in the last two years uh we've been at one percent and one percent and hopefully with all these runs and the promises that we're getting from the federal government it'll filter down to us and maybe we can go lower than uh one percent i hope so i fully realized this year has been a terrible tough year on our taxpayers too many of them are out of work because of the covert epidemic so you know again trusting the administration to bring in the the final results the best possible uh percentage and then we can

105decide if we're gonna go for a zero percent budget this has to be decided in september because the budget the budget uh we start working on it and the administration starts working on it in november if not a little bit before assessing the needs and the department chairs i've been through this many many times and we did have a zero budget at one time so i appreciate the all the questions and i appreciate nicole's questions and the various comments by other board members callers and so on so thank you very much thank you mr purino i i you know and i appreciate everyone's comments too and like i said i think that we're we're good i just think we're a little premature and it's fine it's fine uh i i would just add this and

106uh is that we we'd have to assume that a zero base a zero-based um a zero-based budget assumes that we have control over what our what our expenses are from year to year and and those of you that are here know that we don't have control over expenses when it comes when it comes to contractual agreements and contractual increases and and so um those things are not those things are not our pivot so we don't we don't have that type of control when it comes to those contractual things so uh it's just something to think about we've got a lot to think about over the next two weeks so let's take that time ask our questions ask the questions and and i would encourage i would encourage as as i've done for years on this

107board encourage us that when when people have questions if we don't have the exact answer for them that we direct them to the administration for the this administration has been very very diligent in answering any of the questions that any of our any of our taxpayers any of our our stakeholders have had over over the years uh much less this last past year they have been diligent in answering every question and i i certainly believe that they'll do such so we've got a lot to think about and a long way to go we're not there yet so any other questions i don't see any do i see any hands no mr tuttle what's that for me anything else uh uh mr del maro no i you know just in summary um in terms of some

108of the discussion and dialogue in terms of what mr perrino said that this budget process starts in the early part of the school term and to think that we anyone may think that we don't look at each line item that's been presented it would be an incorrect assumption either mr tuttle's running down in my office i'm running in his office sitting down what is this what is that what is this what can we do here we we've taken a very very very conservative view on this this school year budget we put a self-imposed hiring freeze on all non-compliant positions we have to be in compliance with state and federal regulations and this school district prides itself on maintaining that because these are services in most cases if almost not all the cases programs for our

109children there isn't a line on him that has not been [Music] scratched over scurried oh we don't assume because a line has a mount on it that we just roll it over for the next year that is not done and i just would like to [Music] alleviate anyone's concerned that that might be a possibility if we think about it a one percent increase yields us about 760 000 a zero increase in budget which would be the no increase in the budget right would not provide us that that amount of money which not is indicating that there is a great deal of gravy that people think that there's inside this budget i can understand why we might say 210 million dollars is a great deal of money and indeed it is but every line item is

110posted throughout all of those presentations does mrs blumenau and others have indicated and that the board does ask questions about those i'm not going to repeat what had happened over the last several months since february but prior to february as we begin to hear or what like back in january mr tuttle had mentioned about what the governor is going to provide us our school district provides um the taxpayers a very sound budget and the state of new york provides the school district based upon its capital in this community the appropriate amount of state aid that's entitled to us now there have been times over the last several years and i think our board in particular mr gomez knows about this that we did not receive all of what we were [Music] to receive from the

111state government in terms of the formula based by by the courts because it wasn't in the cupboard because of the state decrease and we had to reduce staff over 100 positions were lost in that big budget cut and i can assure you not all of those positions have been restored so um i welcome these type of discussions to alleviate any concerns that someone may have regarding how this budget's arrived at or how it's reviewed and scrutinized and scrubbed not to hide anything on the contrary to be transparent our budget presentations to the community are very thorough very open and transparent in this budget there aren't any new positions i have spoken to each and every principle about their positions that they would like to have again why to provide not administrative positions teaching positions staff

112positions support positions for our classrooms and we do that annually and we did it this year and we will continue to do it what's difficult is we don't know the revenue package from that will actually actually come to the school district 17.7 million dollars is a great deal of money and it's going to flow through albany and albany will then have 60 days to let each of the school districts know that's the federal regulation based upon the american reserve act and we will do accordingly but i can assure you we look at each line item and we do not roll over you know a basic premise a zero-based budget i'm familiar with that budgeting process assumes many of the things you are articulated with the use of but the biggest one there is that it's

113an automatic oh it's there we have absolutely not we look at class sizes class roles we move fte of full-time positions around based upon enrollments before and every principal can attest to that before they come to me with a increase they have to justify that need and what other alternatives that would meet the needs and accommodations of our students be arrived at a different manner than another position i have those conversations with prince almost daily almost daily i i just want to assure our community now obviously our community has every right to ask the questions and why not this why not that's what this is all about in terms of public input to the questioning the public hearings we're not we're not concerned of the questions we are concerned that people may think that there's

114a lot of gravy here i think that uh mr cosenzo mentioned it we do not have a top-heavy administrative team we have a 200 million budget and we have a central office team of three people so i i want to to how should i say assure our community we continue to look at we do not take this lightly we realize the plight of the taxpayer we've been doing it over the last couple of years there has been prior to the last two years has been no just one in percent increase and a one percent increase only yields as the presentation presented about thousand dollars seven hundred sixty thousand dollars now i know that's a great deal of money it is but remember we're talking about a school district that services over 7 500 children you

115know if we include that's what's inside our school district our out of district placements which means our product community are higher than that 77 100 students we have over 1200 employees and all the buildings and operations that need to take place to continue the high quality of an educational experience we offer we could continue the conversations we will we welcome the questions but i want to rest assure our community that we do not just blindly move one line item to another line item that is that is not done please don't take what i said as criticism it's not to say that i don't trust it is to say that there sometimes are better ways that we could improve upon how we pre report upon our budget and um allow us to avoid blanket increases and

116decreases it's just a suggestion for that old adage um working hard uh smarter not harder so thank you certainly uh so that no one would infer that we just have blanket blanket uh responses to uh the budget we do not yeah i just want to ensure that that's not done and we always look ways to improve certainly that's growth that's part of education but i can assure you each line item each i get teased about people can't spend the diamond here without me uh squeezing that that diamond all right thank you thank you mr tuttle thank you mr del maro thank you board let's uh let's move and uh go on to our next uh part action items uh i want to entertain a motion for the approval of financial memorandum number 21 please still

117move your second second move and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye uh approval of special services memorandum number 16. don't move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye aye opposed it so passes i want to serve before i go on i want to make a reminder to everybody that the board receives all of these action items in advance they have opportunity to ask necessary questions of any of these to our administration again i you know i serve as a reminder nothing is being rubber stamped everything being looked at and everything and if there are questions the questions are being asked uh entertain a motion for the approval of our ou boces nominations which include uh eugenia uh pavic and michael bello don't move second moved and seconded any discussion

118all in favor aye aye opposed so passes entertain a motion for the approval of our change orders don't move second moved and seconded uh can we just have a quick a quick uh public explanation of of the the change orders please okay well oh yes mr freeman mr is that is the chairman of the change order committee okay thank you very much uh president williams and i i want to thank uh bill bartlett and uh tom for working uh with all of us on these change orders and i i i must say i one of uh a number of bill bartlett staff helped with this and i want to compliment his uh assistant uh sharon cerise uh savarese sharon uh when i call there at uh usually that's my one of my faults i call

119people early i call it seven o'clock in the morning and she's usually she's usually there and uh if not seven ten after seven and bill's usually here but here it goes um a couple of some of the change orders uh sight and playground improvement our genio brothers provide and install 630 linear feet of vinyl plus privacy fence now that that is in back of the presidential height the vinyl fence to replace a wooden stock k fence offense we've had a number of requests from neighbors and that stockade fence is getting long in the tooth so this is going to be replaced monhegan middle school provide outdoor basketball backboard and with extended support updating the basketball and poll support system designed to move the support polls out of the area of play so they're being updated

120and new ones are being installed the high school built a covered walkway to protect documents as they leave the building modifications to the original design to take care of discovered conditions which require the relocation of concrete footings and structural stale when you make improvements to one area that always uh creates a maybe a little issue in another area so uh that's that's that one um uh the going on the removing store windows with uh with brickfill the second floor removing and replace windows in the second floor lobby with shorter windows and provide the brick infill uh to convey roost installation um so that's that's that so this is a sample of some of the change or they all seem to us to be very necessary and correct and encompassing various buildings uh not only uh

121monhagen high school uh the carter elementary school and so on so uh that's that's it uh nothing unusual everything appears to be very necessary to us thank you mr purino uh thank you for the discussion um all in favor aye aye aye opposed it so passes um i will entertain now in a moat um of approval of stipulation i believe this is the one you wanted me to take note of for you uh of uh this is action item uh ten action item e uh again particular motion any discussion all in favor aye aye [Music] um it's an abstention an eye to the obstetrician i just want to say for the record that due to my participation on another board it was appropriate for me to recuse myself from that vote thank you pastor thank

122you yeah and mr gomez that was i i just want to make sure for the record with that that's how you raise your hand was that was that an eye it's an i'm sorry man thank you thank you it so passes uh we're moving on uh committee reports uh briefly committee reports um our policy committee uh i'm going to turn turn you in uh at this point into the hands of the chairperson of our policy committee mr blumenau all right thank you i just wanted to check that my mic was on because i have to go back to my screen to talk about the policies so there are two policies that we are two policies that we are voting on this evening okay um the policy committee has reviewed um the policies that have been

123set forth by erie and recommended by erie one boces um it is our it is our duty to um to review these and then to pass them uh you know and pass these policies um and vote on these policies so the first policy is um 30 to 40 uh non-discrimination and anti-harassment in the district and um that is uh that is the first policy the second policy that we'll be voting on is gender neutral single occupancy bathrooms um and i'd like to um i'd like to vote on uh policy five six three three do i have a motion oh yeah mr president i moved we will there'll be the opportunity for discussion after the motion second second thank you thank you um that uh so we now have a motion and a second and now

124we will have discussion on policy five six three three i'm sorry three two four zero right non-discrimination five six three three is right it was right okay thank you sorry they're they're reversed in my they're reversed in my um on my page uh five six three three which is gender neutral sing you single occupancy bathrooms all right just a few minutes yes uh yes from the wreck i i said i will put on the wreck of my position with respect to policy five six three three and policy thirty four twenty with respect to policy five six three three gender neutral single occupancy bathrooms i will support the policy uh and i just want to plan the record why i believe it's important that every every child's uh constitutional privacy rights are protected and they're meant

125and that includes and it's the position of many parents if not majority i think of the parents in our community that when it comes to communal bathrooms the girls have the right their right to privacy be safe and secure and they get a girl's bathroom be a girls bathroom likewise boys bathroom be a boys bathroom i do believe that having single occupancy gender neutral bathrooms will address the concerns many parents hold with respect to that um which is not only as a matter of the privacy interest of their children but also when it comes to moral and the religious vows they share again which i would argue majority values in most of our community and whether your home majority or minority perspective everybody needs to be considered so i think gender neutral single occupancy bathroom

126will address those concerns so that whatever student whoever is using a bathroom they'll be say their privacy intercept protect and respect it uh with respect to uh policy 3420. your comments for that one thank you i'll be again trying to put my position on the record on that thank you i understand and i i think that we are all um you know we're all in favor i think we just we just heard that our mission statement being read that we're supporting our you know all students um in our district uh and you know no matter you know what their their life choices are um it is our responsibility to support them and protect them um is there any other discussion hearing none uh i i had a quite a bit to say but um i

127don't think i need to do that now um excuse me the where this policy came from actually it came from the transgender community that there are a number of laws that protect people within the lbgtq community and um so what one of the places where there's some confusion um is the question of gender identity and uh sexual orientation gender sexual orientation is who you're attracted to right so be it um heterosexual homosexual um non-binary whatever but the transgender is the uh gender identity so according to this definition gender identity is about you our own personal sense of being male or female or someone outside that binary trans people can be gay lesbian bisexual or anything straight and basically it's been proven and it's uh i believe you're born that way so the object of this

128um policy and by the way it's a law it's a state law that has to be approved whether we want to or not and if we don't follow it we get severe fines but the transgender community is probably at this point one of the most it's dangerous to be transgender today basically there's a quick way of saying it they're four times likely to live in poverty transgender people experience unemployment twice the rate of general population with rates for people of color up to four times the national unemployment rate ninety percent of trans people report experience harassment and this is where the bathrooms come in mistreatment or discrimination on the job 53 of transgendered people report being harassed or disrespected in a place of public accommodations for example a bathroom 22 percent of respondents who have

129interacted with police reported harassment by those police with much higher rates report for people of color almost half the respondents 46 percent reported being uncomfortable seeking police assistance 41 respondents report attempted suicide [Music] compared with 1.6 of the general population um and more disturbing um less than one percent to two percent of the entire population is believed to be transgender ten percent of attempted suicide suicide in just the last year 22 percent to 45 it's hard to keep these records during their lifetime 66 percent have experienced self-time and they're two times likely more likely to be assaulted than any other member of the lgbtq uh community so what this does is not only single use for that purpose but also for families if you want uh like changing a child something as simple as that

130a mother and a son could go in there if they needed to father and whatever so um and and these are so common in in the mall doctor's office every place of restaurants especially if they want to save money on not having two separate bathrooms their single occupancy and you'll see the sign they're male and female so i i fully support this um and it's it's been a while i'm glad it's here uh the governor passed it about four or five months ago and now by i think it's march 23rd it has to become law so that's my two cents thank you [Music] sorry any other discussion okay seeing none all in favor of adopting i any opposed all right the passes thank you very much and now we will um talk about the next

131so this is the this policy is uh policy 3420 um for 2021. it is non-discrimination and anti-anti-hero in the district again the policy committee has reviewed it our questions um that we had went to uh went to our attorneys and um there was a discussion and so we can i'd like to um ask for a motion second thank you and discussion [Music] kevin yes thank you madam sharon thank you for your work and all and all these matters during your years as policy share we appreciate appreciate you you've endeavor i had indicated to my colleagues uh that i will vote uh not in favor of the policy i do expect the board to approve uh policy 3420 and that's a member of the board of trustees that will support their efforts uh to ensure that

132there be uh uh that we no discrimination or harassment in our district has been our history um the the the reason and the argument i'm making it maybe isn't necessarily one for school we're studying more for legal circles uh it's that uh the emphasis here is the protection against harassment and discrimination based on being part of a legally protected class the the the are the issue i'm raising which is more of a a uh a thought to consider is i believe that if we are to be more effective as a society in taking a stand against harassment or discrimination if this shouldn't matter whether you belong to a particular group or not it should be more it should be based on the the principle we see in our founding documents i will even go as

133to declaration independence we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and thou by the creator were sent a lineable rights in other words are right we possess them as well as individuals as opposed to belonging to different groups or competing groups i think will be more effective in deterring discrimination and avoid a scenario where one group may be claiming right superior to another group at the end of the day we're all equal in god's eyes and we're all individuals that's more it may be more again of an argument in legal circles or or in the court scenario but i thought i'd bring that out um right that's the only concern i have the only other issue i raised uh was that i know that as an example of harassment the

134policy does make reference to something that may be published on writing uh i raised concern particularly any attempt by individuals or people in the future to try to infringe on the right speed of educators or students to use literature or expressions because some might find them uh they're not happy with them you know while we've seen things such as cancer culture censorship of literature debates or attempts to let's say religious clubs try to use maybe certain quotes in their uh in their advertisement and most instances the courts are ruled in favor of the students with favor of of the educators so i'm just hopeful mindful that we always keep our minds open on those matters so that we make sure that again the rights of all as individuals are protected again i do expect the

135policy to be approved and i will support the district in its effort to enforce it but i believe long term as a society we need to reap embrace the principle and even incorporate it that our rights are as individuals and all of us as individuals deserve to be protect of our god-given rights that's all i have to say [Music] thank you mr gomez is there are there any other comments i i agree with the premise of the policy and the intention but i have to agree with mr gomez on the legalese so i will be voting against that policy for that reason only thank you thank you mrs houston is there any other discussion i believe that this could probably be a healthy debate uh but this is not the time for it um and

136so uh i i will uh i will be voting in favor of this policy and so i just wanted to make sure that i added that to the to the mids um thank you all right mrs houston did you have a further discussion just wanted to add that as mr gomez said he will fully support the district's um intention to up uphold that policy and my my intention is the same thank you that is good to know thank you so much all right um may i have all in favor of supporting this policy hi thank you any opposed oppose okay we have two oppositions any extensions all right thank you the policy carries so we can add those to our policy and uh just to give you a heads up we just did receive a

137another policy to review so that if you haven't already gotten that you will be getting the policy committee will be reviewing that policy and then we will have um debate any questions concerns will go to our attorneys um and also anything that needs to be localized is localized for the middletown school district and then we bring the policy for a vote to our um to our board so just so so the community understands the uh the process it is uh we do have a set policy committee um so that policy committee reviews asks the questions goes through it we've done uh probably hundreds of policy reviews uh in the past couple of years um and uh and so i welcome the input thank you everybody thank you mrs blumenow thank you everybody um uh moving

138on i don't believe there are any other community reports on this evening i'm sorry order committee audit committee please yes um the audit committee met um last thursday evening march 11th at 5 15 before i ask for the motion for this board to accept the minutes i just want to review with the board what the yeah the policy what the audit committee reviewed the committee reviewed the weekly claims reports for january 25th february 1st february 22nd march 1st and march 8. we also reviewed the internal auditor's report and we re reviewed the january treasures report mike do you have anything that you want to comment on the internal auditor's report before i call for a motion on the minutes um the other report um the internal report is something that the group comes together with

139and decides what areas of the district we want to look at this year was purchasing and human resources so there was a couple findings on the purchasing side and then also they were looking at for a policy that was board approved so in contact with the auditor trying to resolve um some of the misinformation that was in the report um but the committee did see it um and we agreed to approve the the report um based on that we would get it adjusted and then if we need to reconvene the committee we would but um overall the district is doing very well um you know with our internal controls and things like that so it's something that's it's mandated for us to do is have an internal auditor come in and they did that they

140usually do that in the spring of winter and spring and so it was overall a very good report [Music] thank you mike um i'll also now ask for a motion from the board um to approve the minutes from january second i have a motion and a second any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye motion passes unanimously i'm going to use pastor's little um statement that he makes for the general public we have two members of the public who serve on our committee linda knapp and mr jones we receive all of the weekly claims order reports via uh the computer email and they are reviewed and questions are submitted um for uh explanation so this is not just a rubber stamp um secondly i just want to announce that our next meeting will not

141be until june 10th and that will be held at 15 in the evening thank you and i appreciate your support thank you mr bison mr perino thank you president williams uh we did have a couple other committee meeting the iep committee keeps going but we also had a a few day march 10 we had a safety and security meeting uh our director of uh security lenny zapca called the meeting and uh he discussed a couple a few things at that meeting one very interesting the raptor visiting system that's a relatively new system which we co-starred with boces many of the other districts are using that for larger districts and what it does it flags people with possible problems you go into the building and you present your license a form of identification it's scanned and

142the whole thing's hooked up to new york state registry and uh again for potential problems will be noted and if there is a problem uh emails will quickly be sent to administration school administration and the sro in the building so again another layer of safety and security in our buildings uh fire destroy uh fire drills were also discussed were required to have war before uh december 31st and four after and uh uh mrs abkha recommended has recommended we wait for the final ones until a larger number of students are in the building we also have to have lockdown bill lockdown drills by state law and that is being completed uh uh fire inspection uh mr zapker talked about the fire inspection what are we doing and what we're doing to fulfill our obligations for this

143he is also going after and it'd be nice if we could achieve this the utica national school safety award and that actually encompasses every possible aspect of safety and security in the school district uh not only reviewing these uh safety and security measures i mentioned but also such things as a concussion protocol on on and on there's a huge booklet that has to be filled out so we wish him well in this and um continuing on uh at the meeting also was our director facilities mr bartlett and he updated us on the construction the cafeteria the cafe is substantially completed and the new media center this is at the high school will be substantially completed by may 28th with uh just a punch list to be done also on the summer not too early to

144think about that presidential park we're going to hopefully repave the front circle parking lot of during the update drainage monhegan middle school replace again the tennis courts which i spoke about the best the uh the baseball and handbag the hamburg uh handball courts truman moon repay repave roads and parking lots new sidewalks twin new flooring replacement abate the oil flowing tile and install new tile which would take care of the uh of the situation where carpets have uh have been held in together with tape a carter possible hallway flooring replacement if you notice here this district always keeps up on maintenance of the district and providing a safe and secure environment for the children we don't let things go it's just like a house if you let things go it's just going to it's going

145to get worse in the future so again all this costs money to do it's a big district and but these are necessary enhancements improvements and maintenance items so that's my that's my report on the uh that committee thank you thank you sir uh moving on moving on uh if there's nothing is there uh fair funding uh quickly please thank you yes just so thank you mr president just a reminder that on tuesday march 23rd 4 30 we'll have our fair funding committee and uh i hope that see we could present to the committee that they uh a hopefully a draft of a letter to the legislature to to urge him to go back uh on the bandwagon for school funding reform that will address not only equitable funding for our small city school districts but

146also willing to take up uh unfunded man they reform and i think i think the if we have bipartisan comprehensive uh reform uh that could be achieved but there has to be a spirit of bipartisan cooperation which never appears to be the the train of thought in albany but uh it's time it doesn't hurt to think out of the box and to prove the status quo wrong so uh we'll see if we can work on something like that thank you mr gomez president williams yes ma'am i see that mr bartlett um is back on i don't know if he has anything that he would like to contribute i know he's been with us for the entire meeting mr barley i think mr perino covered it very well he gave a good outline of what's coming

147up this summer as well as the change orders and i think we're in good shape thank you for letting me are asking you're very welcome sir thank you sir thank you appreciate you well everybody if there's no objection um we will we can bypass a round table and tonight it's been a long evening and we've covered a lot of ground uh is are there any objections to bypassing round table tonight no all right well then i'm going to actually option two adjourned i gotta beat mr cresenzo thank you thank you thank you mr madison that that's exactly that that's your script so there's been a motion is there a second i said there's a second i said tonight all in favor aye no opposed tonight thank you everybody thank you middletown public uh for joining

148us tonight our next meeting will be april the 8th april the 8th we look forward to seeing you then good night everybody everyone have a wonderful day you