Middletown City School Board Meeting 02-04-2021

001well good evening everybody we'd like to welcome you to the february 4th 2021 uh public hearing public hearing uh for storm water management uh plan of the enlarged city school district of middletown we wanted to call this this particular hearing to order at this time uh going to ask mr gomez if you would please lead us in the pledge of allegiance everyone rise okay absolute pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to a republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] thank you mr gomez uh moving on roll call mrs clark mrs blumenau mr cresenza here mr gomez here mrs houston here mr lasineer here mr perino here miss tobiason yeah mr williams here pastor williams here thank you thank

002you mrs clark uh moving on we're going to turn you now into the hands of mr bartlett at this time and uh he's going to be making his presentation um bill it's in your hands thank you thank you pastor and good evening our district our district is required to maintain a storm water management plan this is our yearly public hearing for informational purposes to the community storm water is water that runs off from our properties either from snow or rain events off the roads the parking lots and the sidewalks throughout the year we we are required to monitor the water that leaves the district sites to ensure that there aren't any pollutants and to make sure that the systems are operating as designed the plan is available to the public during regular business hours in

003the buildings and grounds to office at 223 wisner avenue it's also on the district website at middletownschools.org under facilities management there you'll also find some tips for the community on how to prevent pollution and it also explains the importance of not interfering with storm water structures and the flow of the water off in the sites there's information there as well on how we are handling the storm water that comes off in the construction sites we currently have three active permits for the upcoming site improvement projects at presidential park mon hagen middle school and maple hill annex these projects are going to start up this summer as i mentioned the plan is available for public review at the office here at 223 wisner avenue and our phone number is 326-1194 are there any questions from the

004board all right this concludes our annual public hearing of the storm water management plan thank you mr bartlett we appreciate it um with that being said um i'll entertain a motion to adjourn the public hearing motioned by motion by uh mr bison and seconded by by i think was mrs hewson uh that that had her hand up so i'm gonna we'll do it that way uh if there's no discussion all in favor opposed all right we are out of out of the public hearing and now i will call to order the regular uh meeting of the large city school district of middletown for february 4th 2021. i'm going to ask mr perrino if he would lead us in the pledge of allegiance for our regular meeting please followed by that if you if uh mr

005purino you continue with the moment of silence thank you yes could you please your eyes pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the fly of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you the moment of science this evening is for mr james derusso mr derusso served as a master mason in this district for nearly 20 years a forever middletown resident born and raised in middletown attended the middletown schools very active in the community the middletown elks saint joseph church as well as in a number of other organizations everyone liked jim he wonderful personality he was very accommodating to all requests so please remember mr derusso and your thoughts and prayers thank you thank you mr perino moving

006on uh mr lazineer if you could please read the mission of the enlarged city school district of middletown yes we strive to provide a fiscally sound educational opportunities 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 sir uh roll call mrs clark mrs blumenow mr cresenzo here mr gomez here mrs houston here mr lasineer here mr purino here mr buyerson mr williams here astor williams here thank you thank you mrs clark uh moving on i i will entertain a motion for the approval of our agenda for tonight please subscribe mr lazineer seconded by mr perino uh mr seconded by mr perino any discussion all in favor aye opposed

007so passes i will now entertain a motion for the approval of our regular uh minutes from our january 21st 2021 meeting please sorry here we go thank you moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye so passes thank you everybody moving on uh uh briefly into our personnel action items um uh we'll entertain first adam a motion for the approval of personnel memorandum 19a administrative so second moved and seconded discussion all in favor opposed it so passes if there is no objection we will uh uh we will combine a personnel memorandum 19b instructional and personnel memorandum 19c non-instructional together may i have a motion for such please it's been moved and seconded any discussion all in favor oh i'm sorry yes there's a discussion thank you yes mr reno thank you very much mr

008president uh on the non-instructional personnel action items for tonight is uh one mr carly taylor who is retiring in august mr taylor the a excellent head groundskeeper he managed he and his staff managed to keep the uh all our sports fields almost as a golf course in fact as good as a golf course uh very dedicated all-time work work values he was a craftsman in his art he is a craftsman in his art and he will be definitely missed again as uh jim derosa very accommodating so uh please uh if you seek holly uh please thank him for the work that he has done for this district thank you thank you we absolutely agree uh with that sentiment uh uh uh all in favor aye aye opposed soul passes um there's no introduction of personnel

009tonight um recognition announcement and community reports um we can go around and be if we we can be as brief as as possible but we'll go around i'll start uh i'll start well who wants to be first tonight who wants to be first tonight for a community for community reports and announcements is there anybody mrs hughes mrs houston had her hand up first so you get to go first i promise to be brief just want to thank mr perrino for all he does in keeping us all in tune with the whole community i love that he is so in touch with everyone he's been such a splendid member of our board and i'm so grateful for the opportunity to work with you and um thank you thank you very much uh uh anybody else with

010a community we community report announcement mr mr lasiniere yes i just wanted to um point out the effort that was put in this week by our buildings and grounds department uh we obviously had a major major uh weather event and they came together i know we had two days off we had a delay but uh you know those facilities were clear and ready to go and i also want to uh recognize our food service staff uh it was frigidly cold friday and they were out there uh handing out meals at the bus stops at the the curbside pickups uh you know these are all things that we're kind of going above and beyond um you know just right now we're we're kind of one big family and uh you know i think everybody deserves the

011recognition when something comes along absolutely absolutely great bringing that up yes yes sir i think we all we all probably had that on our list and and i'm glad that you i'm glad that you brought that up it's it's extremely important that we recognize uh it was midnight uh i looked out my door you all know that i i well i'm saying this i'm saying this everybody on youtube is gonna stop by my house um but i i i don't live too far from i don't live too far from uh from twin towers and i could look out my door and i could see uh the buildings of ground staff at midnight at midnight going up up and down the sidewalk and so um i wanna i wanna commend them in the middle of this

012storm the work that they the work that they were done were doing so uh kudos kudos to to all of those the buildings and grounds as well as food service and everybody everybody has been playing a big part during this time uh mr gomez i saw that you had your hand up sir yeah as we all know starting this week and the next week is uh lobby day where members of our school community board members get the opportunity to speak to our different elected officials serving orange county are numerous assembly members and uh state senators uh as a member of fair funding uh myself as well as miss houston is also a member of our committee will be addressing fair funding concerns with uh when our elected different elected officials i believe miss houston i'm

013going to yield to her when the committee reports because i think she spoke to one of the elected officials and i think it's important that all the members take time to speak not just about funding issues uh last week i believe it was or two weeks ago there was a tragedy uh an issue that we've discussed by a tragedy occurred in curious joel where a child getting off a school bus was tragically run down and killed i'm happy that this board has been proactive on that issue we passed resolutions over three years ago along with the the common council of middletown and i commend all our members of the common council led by then kevin witt our standing member who's part of our family now what um uh against uh changing the law that's another

014issue i would like to raise i know that senator bona stick for years along with assemblywoman gunther sponsor legislation that will die in committee so i hope we could get legislation passed at the state level penalizing uh reckless drivers that child that might not save a child but it will be the word will be out there less incidents and and again my heart goes out to this family and carries joy my prayers and i hope that tragedy doesn't occur anywhere else no parents law should have to go through that that the beautiful little boy a little girl about to run from the school bus into their arms instead has to be run over by another car absolutely thank you thank you mr gomez anybody else yes mr perrino i was waiting thank you uh president

015williams um you know this year has uh been rather difficult in fact very difficult many respects but you know a number of our staff members are adopting uh and i'm going to talk about one of uh our members this evening um lieutenant commander uh wall and master and uh chief uh springlin uh they are slingling they have adopted uh their program to not only meet the needs of the students but to meet the needs of the community in terms of covet i think a number of us have attended the past and review i know kevin vince rose has been there from time to time in president williams also of course this year there was no in person a past interview but by law the uh area management uh for the u.s navy they have to

016conduct an inspection so this year was virtual and what it was it was a round table with the various cadets the various grade levels uh commander lieutenant commander miller conducted this uh inspection and you know i receive reports that our unit uh did very very well the written report is not out yet but uh a shout out to a senior uh senior student uh justice sanchez for her work in helping set that up and i just wanted to also announce there are a number of graduates of this program who are doing very well i'm going to cover a couple of them tonight and because time is short and then i'll go over uh the next meeting perhaps some of the others uh one of the graduates uh lieutenant uh justin mcconnell first lieutenant justin marcano

017he is uh he has been selected to fly one of the latest uh uh planes in our arsenal and that is the offspring and i i think besh is putting that up on the screen as we as we speak uh this plane is uh not only a a fixed wing plane but at times it can fly uh as a helicopter that's my understanding of it and to do this you have to have excellent hand and eye coordination i think i picked it peaked out in about third grade when i learned to skip so i'm sure i i couldn't do anything like that but congratulations to uh lieutenant uh uh lieutenant mark connell for uh doing this a couple of other uh of our graduates uh naha attabill uh mhs 2016 she was uh appointed recently

018to lieutenant commander which i believe uh corresponds to the uh rank of rank of uh major or lieutenant i think major and she was assigned she plans to be assigned to the foreign office in france as a linguist specialist um so she'll be she will be a naval attache and uh perhaps her assignment will be in africa so congratulations there uh lieutenant uh junior grade jessica glickman currently assigned on the uss winston churchill deployed in the in the persian gulf and here's another one uh uh tyler jet along mhs 2006 a second lieutenant as a result as his graduation college he's now starting medical school under a medical school under a a military program so many of our graduates who have participated in this ni njrotc they're they're going on and they're really accomplishing they're

019a credit to not only program but a credit to mhs and the middletown school system and there's a number of other graduates but i'll cover them at a later meeting because time is sure we have a long meeting tonight thank you so much president i'm done thank you thank you sir great appreciate it mr mr williams mr freddie williams good evening everybody um i want to thank all you guys for your information and kind words uh especially a big shout out to the um the ground staff at the uh i was in florida at the time so um i can't imagine all the work playing being put forth uh but i've seen a lot of pictures and stuff also i have an announcement um on february 14th that is next sunday i believe um myself

020and uh mr anthony williams from the district and i'm sure pastor will be stopping by we're going to have a black um black history month event that's going to be virtual so there'll be limited you know limited space in uh it's going to be at my barber shop at 6 west maine um but i just wanted to put that out there and i'll uh shoot everybody on the board some more information as we uh get closer to the date thank you freddie is there a possibility it could be videotaped and perhaps shared later on then yes ma'am well it's going to be virtual so it's going to be live we're going to go live with it and we're going to record it also thanks yep no problem thank you absolutely anybody else before well i

021want you to um there are going to be a number of events during this month for black history month our superintendent our superintendent uh uh made a very important point um earlier on before we got on the meeting is that black history black black history or african-american history cannot be uh uh uh boxed into just a month 28 days it's ongoing it is ever going it's something that is ingrained in the history of our nation and of the world and so we do just take this month to specifically recognize it and so i want those of you that are here and even those of you that are viewing tonight to afford yourself of some of the some of the different events uh that will be happening most of those events and they'll be you can

022look and find out there's a lot of different events going on in our community in our area most of them are virtual because we cannot be in person uh uh because of covet right now um it's just uh it's just the the current normal that we have to deal with um but it does nonetheless it's important for us to uh make sure that we avail ourselves to the information and the opportunity to learn uh some of the some of the more uh obscure uh i would say uh uh figures in african-american history we all know the rosa parks and we all know the we all know the martin luther kings and the the emmett tills and all of those but there are so many figures in in african american history and dare i say american

023history and world history um that we we need to we need to avail ourselves too and and i would say this um that even in middletown uh even for our own local community that we that we uh learn some of the firsts here in the city of middletown and our region and our area as it relates to african-americans and so i i that was just my that was just my introduction into the beginning of the month uh we were in four days and we've got a whole month to go and even after that month is over we got to continue we've got to continue so that being said yes uh mr gomez i just want to add mr president many people don't realize that the underground railroad used to run through middletown the old horn

024presbyterian church which now is ebenezer pentecostal somebody's a god church was one of the sites for the underground railroad there's some we have a lot of rich history here that's why i'm suggesting that we should turn the armory into a museum of history just something to think about yes sir yes sir thank you thank you that and that's that's that's that's wonderful information a lot of people don't know there's so many things that they that we don't know that we that we we can learn uh and that that we will be able to see that all of us all of us are reflected in history all of us had something to do we didn't no one got here by themselves no one that none of us none of us is an island unto ourselves we

025all needed we all there were those that came before us and laid foundations and we're not trying to step on their shoulders we're trying to we're trying to stand on their shoulders so that we can go a little bit higher not trying to step on them and push anybody down we just want to step up a little bit higher by the things in the foundation that was laid before us so uh let's move on i don't think i think that's that's it let's move on um opportunity to address the board uh did anything come in on the google docs nothing nothing came in today we do have a letter tonight we do have a letter mrs clark if you could please read the letter okay um this is from maria blonde dear mr del moro

026administrators school board and district clerk taran clark we listened to superintendent del moro's report on january 21st 2021 and have pulled out these words from what he said how do we get through those disagreements is critical and how do we learn that through example through trial and error through listening drawn out maybe a lost art listening to one another not hearing one another listening doesn't mean we have to agree with one another respecting each other that is all the day after speaking these words to the enlarged city school district of middletown community three members of our care team james rollin carrie mcmahon and myself met with mr del morro miss creeden mr williams and miss tobiason we asked how many teachers of color as opposed to white teachers there are in [Music] on january 22nd

0272021 we still don't have an answer to this simple question later in our discussions miss creedon said she sent all of this information to beloved community maria asked if this information is sent to beloved community why could it not be shared with us we did not receive an answer why as concerned community members in the enlarged city school district of middletown community is a simple question about the race of the teachers in the district not answered is this an example of listening as mr del moro touts this feels like being ignored to us not just ignored once but repeatedly ignored care which stands for community action revolutionizing education is a community organization consisting of parents grandparents students and educators in the enlarged city school district of middletown our vision and mission are care's vision is

028developing the enlarged city school district of middletown community into a model of holistic education through the empowerment of its people to produce a safe and productive educational environment the mission of care is to provide a direct voice to the administration of the middletown central school district care will advocate and assist in the development of the multilingual multicultural education and awareness of the necessity of equality for all if a simple fact stating the number of educators of color in this district is not being answered how could we possibly have faith that the equity work mr del morro claims that is being done in this district is being done with integrity i said in our meeting on friday january 22nd 2021 the board resolutions are a watered-down version of our petition which has over 600 signatures and

029this petition has been met by a brick wall mr del moro and mr williams disputed this statement the brick wall we are feeling in the superintendent and school board's refusal to acknowledge the need to create a culture of anti-racism and social equity with community involvement this work needs to be led by educators of integrity who speak the truth who listen with empathy who honestly want to look at what is and what is not working and are ready to collaborately create an action plan with timeliness sincerely maria blonde middletown resident care co-leader and grandmother a future student thank you mrs clark thank you mrs clark that was uh that was our public our public opportunity to address we received nothing and we and we have uh read the letter that was sent in we're going to

030move on uh we're going to move on uh superintendent's report uh mr del maro we put it now into your hands thank you thank you paris to williams members of the board of education vice president tobiason and of course the community of middletown [Music] tonight um we have a few items that we want to share with the community uh one of which uh is uh as pastor williams mentioned about black history month and i had mentioned to the board in a previous meeting this evening that we in the school district have a myriad of activities and in a few moments mrs quinn is going to share some of the salient essential activities that are going on in our bill and obviously we cannot enumerate all of them because it would take a very long time

031to do so so we commend all of the administrators and teachers students and parents all involved in those activities inside our schools as we make our student body very aware of the total contributions of black americans african americans not only as we talked about designated for february as it is a national initiative certainly we will continue doing that as we have for a number of years but also to ensure infuse it in all of the content areas every day that our school is in session throughout our curriculum throughout our activities and in the areas of science and math and social studies and geography and literature so that it becomes ingrained in terms of a very natural progression of understanding that black history is american history and how it contributed as we all learned to understand

032about the contributions in the war for independence that are known as the american revolution which i perceive it to be an ongoing issue the american revolution as we evolve as a country daily so i'm going to just pass it right now to this is created to enumerate some of the activities that are taking place this month but more importantly throughout the school years that's what's in critical here it's just not a beginning and end of one of the 12 months in the calendar this is creedent thank you mr del morro president williams esteemed members of the board of education and the school community at large i'm really excited to come tonight and share with you all that we're doing inside the district as mr del morrow already mentioned the contributions african-americans have made to american

033history and culture are being celebrated in a myriad of ways throughout the month of february black history month by the students and staff inside our schools but black history is american history it happened it continues to happen all around us so in middletown we believe that the histories the stories and the voices of black people should be centered honored and uplifted in our curriculum every day not just in the month of february as a district we've placed greater emphasis within our curriculum guides and resource procurement on including topics that related to the black experience in america as well as highlighting black voices these intentional shifts create space for our teachers to talk and ask questions and encourage dialogue with students we teach throughout the year through a racial lens of equity that uplifts black voices

034a few examples if you were inside the schools of how we are elevating the black experience in america are that they're exploring geography and resources of africa through virtual tours museums and online exhibits there's a spotlight on the rich culture and contributions of african civilizations through an exploration of text media artifacts and more high school students are discussing the impact of african culture on our world history at the elementary level maple hill presidential park the annex william carter are all using read-alouds to highlight or introduce new books to students written by or about black individuals now this is not just done in this month but we have curated a diverse set of resources that are worthwhile reads all year long at the high school they're sort of taking an approach using our remote learning environment

035now and they've replicated a jazz cafe and they're playing music each morning in the cafe the music features black musicians and takes students on a journey through time our middle school students have been diving in and working to explore contributions black americans have made to stem across buildings educators are encouraging students to have their voices elevated and to tell their story or the story of someone they know we're using flipgrid to create videos students are doing videos of themselves or of a family member we've guided them to create these videos around this month's theme by telling them maybe think about what black history month means to them or create a video that's centered on the black history month theme how can we connect history now to the history of black americans across all schools they're

036reading listening to and discussing poetry written by black authors which celebrates the rich culture and history of black americans the high schools featuring quotes by black authors and gives students an opportunity to respond in writing to these curated quotes we've taken resources that highlight virtual tours visits to museums online exhibits and more all focused on black american history this year again using the opportunity presented by remote learning monhagen middle school is hosting its first ever black history family trivia night there's opportunities to experience music and arts celebrations african culture and the black experience in america throughout all our buildings twin towers middle school came up with a door decorating contest this is the first week and competition finishes friday educators and students collaborated to come up with themes for their classroom doors so that students

037could feel the influence of black history makers when they walk the halls there's even an opportunity for students who have opted fully remote learning to participate by creating a virtual doorfront students are seeing themselves in their learning we have amplified student voices by specifically digging into our curriculum this summer with our educator teams and wow did they do a tremendous job they've created reading lists and classroom libraries where black authors are featured these authors empower students to use their own voices earlier this year mr del morro highlighted the amazing math hub our math team has continued to develop a mathematics teacher hub this hub features a specific section called mirror math this is a living resource where educators can find culturally responsive sparks practices and activities to use all year long the resources on this

038page are going to continue to be developed so that our students see themselves as mathematicians who come from a rich history of mathematical greatness while they're on their journey here in middletown i'm ending this segment of my highlights by recognizing one of our very own black history makers it's important for our students to see themselves as active in their school community middletown is blessed to have a history maker joining us here tonight the first black school board president since the district's inception in 1957 is here with us tonight our very own pastor john williams we want to take this opportunity tonight pastor williams to honor you and thank you for providing our valued students with an opportunity to see themselves as empowered through your leadership not only in our school community and broader community but

039your faith community and your home thank you our program offerings resources and instructional plans have been brought to life by our valued instructional teams the curriculum instruction team building administrators educators and entire staff teams worked to curate the resources and opportunities for our students and their families to celebrate black life in america i just want to take a moment to further remind the listening audience and our board members that we continue to honor resilience creativity and our culture we have been doing a tremendous amount of work on expanding educator professional development as you know we've really dove into the culturally responsive framework we've recognized and honored student voice by honoring scholar letters that were written to the board of education and presented earlier this year we did a close read of the board of education's

040strong statement in the form of a resolution where we condemned racism the administrative team just completed a three-day workshop on courageous conversations about race we have an awesome team that is continuing to work through the district's 30-week equity challenge there's two opportunities each week for teams to come together to have honest dialogue about race our curriculum redesign and reform continues to gain momentum inside the district we've set aside time each week for sel again diving into that culturally responsive framework and really making connections before we dive into content our code of conduct committee has been reformed and is really looking at a restorative practice and analyzing how we can better serve our students and educators thank you for giving me an opportunity to just briefly go over what seems to be i could go on

041and on and on um but but thank you a really important opportunity to highlight all the wonderful work being done in the district so thank you thank you mrs creed in one of the other areas that has been a high priority for the school district is our equity and hiring process we have started this process several months ago in which we made a slight turn from the work that we said we are doing in terms of racism and equity and challenging ourselves to look at ourselves in our hiring practice and trying to measure right uh where we are in terms of the number of staff educators uh that of color and commensurate with the number of students right now we have as we have reported countless times about 85 percent of our student body is

042of color in particular about 60 is hispanic and about 24 of the black community so that's about 85 percent right and right now we have always indicated this is a work that we've been trying to achieve a closer gap in between those two numbers and close that gap right now we have about as i have mentioned at many meetings about 15 or 16 percent of our current educators is of colors of hispanic matter of fact is about 11 hispanic at about five percent of black community in our educators and this is where we know we have our work cut out for us there are many factors that many of the school districts in our state and our country are facing at this time in terms of qualified individuals coming into the educational field but that

043will not curtail our passion and desire to close that gap in the book by may quote the author signal mister professor singleton a courageous conversation talks about two major areas to work in the area of working with students of color one to ensure that we have highly qualified educators and two a robust curriculum and i know that middletown is committed to these and i want to thank this board of education for giving me this opportunity to talk about briefly some of the data some of the activities that we have in these areas we are committed to this we have always committed to this we have started this work long before all of the issues that are faced in our society that have come to bear over the last several months why because we believe in

044bringing racial justice in our classrooms in our hallways and on our campuses always have been and will continue to work to that endeavor we as an educator community consisting of administrators teachers workers staff workers parents community members working together to this end our hiring committee [Music] to look at our process has taken a deep dive into this process we're looking into five different areas related to the hiring process intake process communication marketing and of course financial these five areas really are the drivers to hiring and we're looking at this within this community of educators design who have to be part of this committee and of that committee we have people of color administrators of color teachers of color there we have community members business individuals on that committee we will continue and committed to work

045as this ongoing work is so important to all of us here as you look at this prioritizing thank you thank you prioritizing our equity what have we been doing to this regard as i talked about just a minute ago the five pieces of deep dive into this process an understanding of where we are where we want to go for example in the marketing we're going to interview currently hired educators of color this summer we've hired about 47 teachers this summer and 23 of those teachers 23 of those teachers were of color so we're going to interview them and ask them what attracted you to middletown what was said in the process of reaching out to you what did our website say do we need a whole different outlook on our website where are we getting

046a larger pool of qualified people to work with our kids as we move toward this you know there's over 650 educators on staff as we speak tonight the process is a long process but it will be as steady process as we are committed to closing these gaps obviously it takes time to hire these people because of the limitations of availability certifications and locations and things of that nature that will not stop us from moving forward the process also of how we go about reaching out to whom do we go what is it like to be a hire of color in middletown because it's not only important to hire but to ensure the retention of these qualified people to work with our kids to bond with our kids as you heard the multitude of activities that

047are taking place not only in this month every day we have a very dedicated staff who have committed to your children to your precious commodities we are committed to them in every wave facet so why hiring process of all of the issues that were articulated a moment or two ago in the areas of curriculum professional development we've also applied for my brother's keeper grant a federal grant we're waiting on the reaction from the federal government to that grant proposal even if we do not receive that grant but it is a very highly competitive grant we will continue to do the activities just like we were doing the last few years without the grant we will not shortchange our students of color [Music] we will not short chase any of our students in this district we

048are committed every student every day and that's just not a phrase to put on a banner we believe that we work that every day we talk about that in our administrative meetings faculties are embracing that every day i was on that 30-week challenge today have a very good conversation today and last week talking about how are we looking into improving ourselves with action there isn't the deadline to be met it's ongoing all the time with a direction for our kids that's what we're here for and we will continue to do that one of the things that is important to be accurate and i want it always to be accurate with numbers there's no hesitancy there's no clandestine agenda on this district's part or on this superintendent's part we know we have work to do in

049the area of hiring that is why we're prioritizing the highway we're not forgetting about the others we're still going to have the survey committee and inventory and inventory go out to all of and survey go to all of the community we will get that but why now about the hiring as a top priority because we're entering into the hiring season in a few minutes we're going to hear mr tuttle talk about the first piece of the 21 22 school year budget the administration part of the budget all part of where we are and where are we going for the ensuing school year and hiring starts soon after that budget is approved by the community and if they're not we have to work within the allocated funds that are given to our school district our community

050has responded very favorably because you know what we are doing for your children and we will continue to do that so i want to thank you for understanding all of these issues as we move forward and it cannot be done in isolation we have a very committed community very committed parents staff we've heard building and grounds i was on the phone at 4 30 in the morning with our building and grounds superintendent thanking our men and women cleaning the sidewalks our sidewalks in front of our buildings and playground areas and excuse me in parking lots but we had to move over 24 inches of snow a food service department we've been talking about that they're going to be nationally recognized if not already serving over 1 million meals that's correct not exaggeration almost like the

051poster come rain shine snow it doesn't matter they're out there we we thank them genuinely heartfelt thank you you know we have mr williams business owner february 14th is going to be in his office today what happened during christmas and working with our community we are committed as a family in this district and it's just not verbiage so i want to thank all of our secretaries these individuals behind the scenes keeping up buildings answering phones helping teachers out on nurses working with staff working with our children we were going through a couple of days of our testing because that was a requirement by the county health officials very very important working together all of them i don't want to leave out in the group because this district isn't where it is today without a collaboration

052of all of the units please don't misunderstand me there's a great deal of work to do in the area of racism and equity we are taking our initial steps and we will continue walking and fighting the good fight i'd like to move on to another topic that's of high interest and that is what the governor of state of new york gave allowance to to start and commence on february 1st that's the high-risk winter sports and tomorrow we'll post for the parents interested in these sports to participate or general knowledge to know how this is all working during this health pandemic crisis yes crisis that we are all involved in so the winter sports for high risk are boys and girls basketball competitive cheer and wrestling the other winter sports commenced on the 29th of january

053however we're talking about the high-risk sports that i just mentioned my recommendation to the board of education this evening after a very very very long thoughtful process a very very how should i say complex process in collaboration with the department of health state officials and good common sense for what the safety is always paramount and health of our students our staff our community so i'm recommending to the board of education that at the varsity and junior varsity level for boys and girls basketball and competitive cheer we will permit for the month of february because that's what the new york state athletic association has as the end of their season for winter sports we're talking about winter sports high risk in a few meetings i'll be talking about the the next season to be looked at

054is the fall sports and then of course after that the spring sports but wrestling due to the nature of that sport we are not moving forward with interscholastic competition this school season they'll be able to practice and compete with one another but they will not compete as many of the school districts many of the school districts have done so in the orange county into scholastic athletic association there are some that are who selected them that's their choice i never want to mislead but the majority of school districts including middletown and the largest school districts in the ocia which i just mentioned is elected not to do the competitive intrascholastic wrestling competition this year they can practice is only about three and a half weeks in the season remember it commenced in terms of approval on

055february first by the governor with the caveat that the orange county in our case department of health had to approve in the posting that you'll see up on the website tomorrow parents are all the regulations that we must be in place before someone is permitted in that particular sport and also a very i think it's about three and a half pages long from dr irena gelman the commission of health at orange county indicating the nature of the high risk the virus is still out there unfortunately and parents have to make a decision and we were very we the superintendents of orange county was insisted in making parents understand the informed decision that they're making worked very closely with our athletic director who was in close communication with all of the powers-to-be if you will in

056this arena it's required that on that posting you'll see that the parents and the students have to agree to the athletic code of conduct now please don't misunderstand code of conduct we're not talking about disciplinary it is the protocols and guidelines under this pandemic and again for all the districts that are participating in some of these winter high-risk sports and some not we're all following the same athletic code of conduct students who participate the athletes will have to initial and then of course on that paper it will have to be a parent guardian signature so i know many people have been waiting for this we all have been waiting for this and we're trying to do the best for our student athletes in this regard but we are very concerned about your health and we

057do believe if all of the guidelines and protocols set forth by the department of health are followed vigorously we will be fine and i still reserve the right in case we find out that they are not followed or there's some awry i will close that sport down and those who know me know i am a big advocate of sports but i'm a bigger advocate for our kids to be safe as an educator and as a parent i put my truth out there as i mentioned a minute ago i want to thank everyone for your support in this regard and we will move forward with a very steady movement in here as we look forward into the pros and the cons of what has happened during this period of time the winter sports and then look

058forward to making sure similarly that we participate in a safe manner in the sports seasons that's still forthcoming that is the fall and spring sports seasons i know we're not in full as we move to march first it was the beginning of the fall season but this is what has happened as a result of the pandemic this is not a middletown city school district's decision this is statewide protocols that must be followed okay moving on to the superintendent's report this evening we have the administrative component of the budget a very very important piece of the budget for the 19 20 21 22 school year and i think it's very important that we begin the process and now as we await for all of the information finances flowing through from the state department of education as

059well as the governor's office as we move through this spring term uh with the budget mr tuttle hey good evening thank you mr domoro president williams members of the board um yeah i was just uh reflecting back a little bit this is my fifth year of doing the budget for the district so um certainly more challenging times than we've had in the past um as you can see um tonight we begin with our administrator budget um and the next one after that will be instructional and capital benefits and then the big one will be for us will be our revenue so typically each year we wait patiently for january to come after we enter all our data in the fall to see what our state a runs will be in anticipation of this year we

060kind of knew what was going to happen we knew for two years in a row now we've seen foundation aid frozen um so we've not seen one in one penny increase in foundation aid which is kind of detrimental for a district that relies heavily on state aid over 100 and some million dollars a year on it so we find ourselves in a different situation than normal however if you look at our state aid runs you'll see that we do have a little bit over 3.6 million dollars in increasing aid however that's from um special aid runs like transportation boces and other specific aids but not foundation aid and the reason why the other reason why it's so high is the the federal government has passed the stimulus bill and that some of that money is

061being funneled down to the district so we're actually seeing some benefit from that which is very helpful in this time otherwise we'd be in some dire straits as far as the budget would be concerned so let's just start digging into the budget um oh hang on sorry um can you see uh right now we have uh some assumptions for budgeting um and with that we have the cpi rate for most items is two percent that's typical and that's really just an estimate based on consumer price index so that's what we kind of base all of our increases on the health insurance premiums this year this is the premiums we're looking at a six percent increase and this is based on a lot of the cobit expenses that we're seeing that we need to take care

062of and then just some other um high risk medical concerns in addition to um premiums it's just the nature of healthcare that just keeps rising um so let me go on sorry i didn't have those shown up there um so another thing that's um going to be a problem for us this year is the comptroller has implemented a 1.56 percent cap on taxes instead of two um historically we go for one percent in the past few years we've done it one percent on the levy um but a lot of districts including ours because we're going to need to find a way to generate revenue we can only go to 1.56 so that could be a little bit problematic for us once we get deeper into coming up with a final budget um trs that's the

063teacher retirement system that's the amount of contribution the district is responsible for for each each person that is each staff member that's in the teacher's retirement system and that's usually about an estimated 10 percent uh it fluctuates anywhere from 9.5 up to 11 but for budgeting purposes we usually use 10 uh the ers the employee retirement system a little more expensive for us however we have half the staff uh in the district is in the ers as well so that's kind of costly for us um so that's about roughly 15 estimated this year so those are some of the budgeting assumptions we have i have a few more because i think it's important for us to start making sure we're talking about all these things that are going to impact the budget um typically our

064both seat services go up five percent a year um and it may not be just a cost it may be just uh we're sending more students we're looking for more services we're looking for different things at boces so we average about five percent increase there uh our foundation aid increase decrease i talked about before zero percent uh increase or decrease so we're stagnant and that's for two years now foundation aid is zero and i know some members of the um board are talking with their local constituents uh this is going to be a problem for middletown schools and other schools that rely heavily on um foundation aid and state aid our community schools uh which is kind of embedded in our foundation aid that's at a zero percent increase as well um one of the

065things that's going to really impact us a little bit where is our debt service um it's up 20 it's which is roughly about 2 million of extra costs we need to pay for our debt service um so if you look at our state aid run where we got 3.6 million to a 2 million of that needs to go towards debt service so now we're down to 1.6 million um so that decreases our revenue pretty quickly and the debt service pays for all of our bonding of capital projects and banning the bond anticipation notes that we need to complete projects such as a library or high school cafeteria at the high school and other air conditioning projects that we have going on in the district uh and just as a point um our contractual salaries this

066year increased about five million dollars just in payroll right so that's just salaries uh from staff and contractual dollars right so that's a pretty big increase right there um the administrative budget is roughly seven percent of our overall budget and we're looking at uh probably eclipsing the 200 million dollar mark in their budget this year in general fund um so seven percent is a pretty substantial um amount but however if you look at the grid it's definitely our smallest budget that we have right and then next week next meeting we'll do the instructional which has the biggest dollar amount as you can see almost 57 so here is our summary for all of the administrative um categories we did send out last week what the budget was and we gave out two things to the

067board members one was the summary and the other was an itemized uh for each account so inside of each category you had itemized things such as salaries contractual supplies equipment and any other purchase services that were under that specific category um right now we're looking at we the main categories that we have is the administrative uh pieces and our boces pieces um right now we've estimated both sees to increase about three percent uh we haven't seen the final numbers yet but boces are getting ready to vote on all that and then give us the numbers pretty quickly um and as you can see here also is our supervision for regular school and special schools um increase and that's all contractually based right so last year we added more administrators and when you add more administrators

068you have more salary that's going to increase contractually every year um in addition to that we also have um contracts coming to an end in june 30th so we need to be wary of what what that can entail in our budget as well however that's you know we're planning ahead um you know the tighter the budget gets um the tighter that the contracts get so so overall for this year um you can see at the bottom i don't want to go through each item if people have specific questions after after they've seen the detail um we can certainly ask those questions um so what we're looking at the admin piece this is without benefits so this does not include the retirement system does not include fica does not include social security or health benefits so

069when we get to in a couple weeks we'll add all that together and then you'll see the total which is about 40 million dollars benefits cost us a year okay so we're almost at 16 million dollars without benefits um that's up uh 607 000 from last year's budget and roughly just under 4 increase from last year um so if we look at a historical proposed admin budget um typically at this time this is what we're looking at each time this this time each year after we get our first state aid runs so right now we're down we were growing a little bit but that was based on state aid so as state increases your budgets can increase now that our state aid is going the opposite way we're staying frozen we need to start feeling

070where we're going to cut some uh spending so at this point we're down just a little bit below four percent and down just a little bit over one percent from last year's budget uh and i'm sure by the time we get done with all of our presentations and getting some final aid numbers and once the state actually finalizes their budget april 1st hopefully that happens maybe we'll get some more revenue which we usually have in the past although last year was an oddity due to covid no there was a lot of uncertainty some things to always remember this past year with revenue with the state recovered everything was shut down casinos were shut down restaurants travel tourism hotels so all those places that generate revenue and taxes um they're shut down there's no there's no

071money so um that's gonna be a challenge that's gonna be hard to recover from the next couple years uh generating all that money and getting people to start traveling again um so we're gonna hopefully um we'll see some increase next year but right now we're worried about this year and managing what's inside of our budget this year so a couple thing couple days to remember um one of the big ones is uh tuesday may 18th is our vote um we're still undecided exactly how that's going to happen i don't think we have direction yet from the governor if we can do ballots or if we can do multiple they there were talk about um having multiple days open for voting instead of one um so there's all these different things that could be happening this

072year um as we saw last fair year mainland boating once we got our got all our envelopes together and mailed out um we actually had the biggest response ever for voting um so you know gives people more voice and more opportunity to vote so that's to be determined how we're going to do that um but as you can see we have quite a few dates here for um budget talks uh with the other one big one for the board april 22nd where the board needs to adopt the final budget okay so over the next course of the next couple months we'll be presenting instructional and capital benefits and then the revenue will be our big discussion um you know how much where we want to go with tax rates and things like that to pay

073for all our expenditures um so that'll be the big one and then but we have ample time because i think we actually have a couple one or two board meetings in between all that to have other discussions and um really figure out where we're going to be because our first stir as i speak as i'm sitting here now we're gonna have to look at doing some cutting uh where that cuts come from we're not sure yet so we'll we'll have some more presentations to discuss that himself uh i can open up the floor for any questions go ahead vince uh you gotta meet with her yeah thanks um on the health insurance are we still doing well with the self-funding as opposed to yeah actually we are we just had a nice report from the

074um our consultants um so really going up six percent is not too bad um and don't forget we also have a reserve that we can help offset some of those expenses so that's what we're kind of looking to do this year a little bit start using some of the reserve to manage the um benefits you know the one thing we don't want to keep doing the reason why we went to that was because we initially wanted to save money but now we're really conscious of not increasing premiums and and health costs to the employees so trying to balance was there a reason why the tax tax cap was lowered does this make sense um i i don't know the reason i'm just thinking that the comptroller due to the fiscal crisis of the state and

075people may be out unemployed um and all these different things that are happening um they probably wanted to lower so that the taxes weren't passed or the increase in revenue wasn't passed on to the residents that would be my i'm sorry um that uh five million dollars contractual increase do you have an idea what a percentage what percentage increase that is um i don't off the top of my head that's not important i was just curious well our i can give you this number events i know right it's roughly 80 million dollars in salaries okay okay so 5 million increase all right i can see it thanks 4 maybe i guess and the last question uh increased uh more supervision for special school has our special education population increased that much no we just we've

076hired more staff in those areas from last year the admin and then contractually their salaries are going up and it's based on each year is different contractually based on your years of in district your tenure your step that you're on your longevity so there's things that fluctuate every year under those contracts again again just remember though that isn't just salaries that's everything underneath it consulting fees professional development supplies equipment anything else that they need um to function in that school thank you thank you miss houston had her hand up next i believe okay so my question for you is ultimately when will we have an idea of how the election and voting is going to take place and who is the ultimate decision maker um that's good questions uh i don't know i'm hoping hopefully

077we're getting some direction pretty soon i'm i'm going under the umbrella that we're going to go back to machine boating however probably need to work we're going to start working with taryn and trying to figure out what that actually means from the orange county board of elections and also the governor kind of dictates how that's going to happen if they don't want people um coming to election sites you know so we're trying to figure that out and i think that's going to be um coming out soon over the next month or two and then you know obviously having discussion with the board i don't know how much flexibility the board has if this if the governor says this is what you're doing so yeah yeah i appreciate that i am i just wanted to say

078for the record i i would have to respectfully disagree that i think that the mail in voting is a good thing i think that we need to have in personal voting and i'll be anticipating to see what happens with that thank you mr tuttle i appreciate your presentation okay um can i jump in because part of that part of your question um mr houston is is a part of my um orange county school board report tonight um and and uh mr tuttle actually hit the nail on the head that that the governor has yet and they're asking but the governor has yet to give any direction along the lines of how we should operate if we remember what we did last year uh we need direction even as to how we collect signatures um you

079know with kovic going on how how is how do we go you know is it safe or proper to go door-to-door to collect signatures for the petitions and what we do here in middletown as far as the number of signatures for some other school districts their requirements are are are by percentage yes thank you for that pastor yeah i agree um it'll be interesting to see what happens because last year i hope that this year the direction from governor cuomo is better than last year because last year we were told that petitions weren't allowed at a certain point door-to-door which i understand because of kovid however solar salesmen were still going door-to-door but we as elected are uh candidates on unelected officials we're not allowed to so thank you for your your insight i appreciate

080that yeah that's the hope and that's that's that's the hope is is that that that the governor who actually has you know he has the authority to do so the governor will give us uh uh direction a lot earlier than he gave us last year you know so that we can avoid some of the pitfalls that we had last year even though we had a great turnout it it was i don't want karen to have to go through uh the same process that she went through it's stressful it's it's and and no one even recognizes the cost that we that we as a district had to put into that as well so let's let's hope let's hope for a better direction from albany yes those two things that you just said um also hit the

081nail on the head because miss miss clark did an outstanding job and um it is expensive for our district to take that especially in a time of such a financial crisis thank you so much pastor and mr tuttle any other questions paul i haven't read oh mr premium i'm sorry paula yeah oh go ahead paula yeah mute i believe you so much i just had a question about the legal the legal fees line that can you just talk a little bit about that increase right so um actually that one didn't the legal line did increase that remained the same for us um that's primarily all of the labor labor relations and all in this past year we've had a lot of covid conversations with them about personnel and labor um and it's also our general

082counsel fund um and it's also any other um special education um funding that we need to do for legal fees and things like that so um we try to keep it at that slide um okay yeah i can get you there i'll look again yeah yeah all right so that's the legal fee that's um 299 000. right so that's that didn't that didn't change and we're just trying to do a trending over the past you know three or four years and how much we actually use out of that so i guess i guess what i was looking at was the where it says legal personnel i guess that was yeah the personnel yeah the one personnel below that is 126.6 right change of 18 right so we had additionals we approved additional staffing in that

083um department so that's why we're seeing an increase there right now okay yeah that may change yeah that was a substantial number um so that's why i questioned it okay thank you you're welcome go ahead mr prinal asked many of the questions that i was going to ask about those increases uh just uh uh uh piggybacking on what vince said about our health insurance the self-funded health insurance yep do we have any calculation mike about how much we're saving uh by quote self-insuring as opposed to belonging to the consortium i can get that number um i think we're over five to six million dollars we've saved over the past um since 2017. so it's a substantial savings for us that's a substantial amount so yeah in other words that decision has paid off um and

084the reason why we did that back then was um you know there's some the orange health plan which is a great plan uh was just seeing some spiking health insurance premiums and so we decided to go and switch to our own um and with our consultants they actually help us monitor the expenses and we get our best providers and we do rfps to get a different provider if we need them you know it helps to have that consultant guide us and get us the right companies to help us save money keeping the benefits the same the the second and last question the purchasing that increased mike was that driven by the covid uh that we had to purchase covert dormitories or we'll have to purchase that right so if you look at the purchasing line

085that's our purchasing department um we've did some restructuring over there as well um so we had added an additional staff member over there due to a lot of the extra purchasing that we have right now thank you you're welcome it costs money to spend money that's right part of mr del morro's presentation and mr uh tuttle so i guess either one or both could address them uh we've we heard uh from superintendent the moral of our district's vigorous efforts in hiring and diversifying re uh through uh recruitment reaching out to a diversified diversified pool of potential employees or a new generation of teaching staff one of the issues uh for young teachers coming out of college after the master's program is also comes down to dollars and cents how does the employment benefits package that

086our district offers to new teachers compare let's say with other districts of similar demographics especially for teachers that want to teach and i like the idea of a diversified district like ours how does our district compare let's say with the city of poughkeepsie uh yonkers or spring valley or or harvest rock uh because of at the end of the day thousand cents might play a factor which just will give them maybe a higher pay as well how does it compare with surrounding districts like monroe woodbury menacing because sometimes uh when it comes to a close decision that may be a key factor [Music] you want to answer that right um do you want to answer yeah i'm rich uh my audio went out for a second uh two can you please repeat the question oh

087okay sure i promise bros it won't be that long how those are benef the benefits package we're offering uh new teachers especially now we're invigorating for our recruiting uh new teachers compare with other districts that may have similar demographics let's say like uh city of pakistani haverstraw uh or spring valley yonkers you got young teachers they want to teach in a diverse school district but it may come to dollars and cents especially when they look at their own financial situation starting a family school debt and that may be the deciding factor how we packaging how are we marketing salary benefits package compared to other districts i think that's important and that is extremely important and certainly uh in that one of those five deep dive areas that i had mentioned in the presentation was financial

088and certainly uh what you're talking about would be a big piece of that uh discussion basically excluding the salaries and we'll talk about that first i'll put off to a minute or so right our health uh benefit package packages rivals uh norman we are one of the top flight in terms of our low out-of-pocket expenses that people have to pay for and the coverage is very very a strong program so the actual health program is very very competitive and certainly a top-flight program the other issue here is salary and salary varies uh and all of the districts are always looking at each other's salary offerings for obvious reasons right as we move on this state on this west side of the hudson river and you move south onto a rockland county of course there's going

089to be higher salaries as you move closer to new york city and the uh areas that you've mentioned as well on the other side yonkers uh and new york city you know there is a difference in the cost of living between living in orange county housing medical expenses clothing et cetera et cetera et cetera uh all of these have factors however the salary that we offer here where we are certainly not the on the top of the list we are certainly not at the bottom of the list we are in middle to a higher quadrants of our salary offerings right the times that we are unable to compete with salary for some prospective candidates is the comparison between new york city salaries from their board of education and ours uh so again we have to

090look at our financial availability in terms of offering what we can afford and also keeping in mind the salaries inside orange county now obviously the pandemic health crisis impacted many people in a negative way and we enumerated those reasons over the last almost now a year believe it or not we're just about a month away from the pandemic hitting us march of last year and so one of the um silver linings in this huge black cloud is the fact that we had um we had a uh issue with uh competitive jobs with new york city obviously we cannot compete with that right but we will be able to be very well competitive uh in the salaries in our orange county here we look at it very very so there's also transportation issues housing issues there

091are many elements that go into the decision of why someone moves into our school district but our health benefits package rivals no one we are really very competitive there very aggressive there and our salaries are very aggressive we look at our substitute salaries so we look at that annually there and we've increased them recently to attract people to come into our buildings on a per diem basis so we're constantly looking at the salary package and packages our administrative package is very very uh competitive very competitive so um again the hiring committee will look at this uh and take a deep dive into the financial piece to all of this but as we stand now um i do not believe from what we hear from those people who have not taken the job outside of salary

092from someone uh who have been accustomed to receiving assad from new york city obviously if they move into this area they have to waive the cost of living differentials that exist and some of them have we've had more people apply and accept positions from new york city that live in the general vicinity here geographical area you know as far and we have people driving in from the binghamton area on a daily basis we all know for many years from pennsylvania and so on and so forth so uh those benefit packages that we offer is very competitive we always look at them and we will never describe the fact that the salary is a major part of that but we have to live within our means my next question goes to the aspect of jobs to

093job security i know mr tuttle uh mentioned and we've been discussing in all our meetings the the possibilities of budget cuts we've already seen how foundation aid and community and community schools have been zero changes for two years you have young teachers as you mentioned who are new teachers coming out of columbia education school brooklyn college other schools and daring to come up to the hudson valley the concern of course is job security what uh assurance can we give new teachers that in taking that big bold step on behalf of our children and their own career aspirations then they're not going to find themselves god forbid with a pink slip because of the realities of the the budget situation we're facing here or just about anywhere in new york state i certainly would be less

094than honest if i saying that there would be no uh concern about a reduction in force in any of the areas if that becomes necessary based upon the bottom lines of what we'll actually receive from state funding obviously our source to increase revenue has decreased as you heard from a tax cap of 2 to 1.5 percent so that is the major portion of our revenue outside of that's the app valorium tax that's the property taxes basically we're talking about there and the other side of that ledger is state funding state aid so obviously we have always taken the position over the last 15 to 20 years when we've gone through these cycles where there has been a decrease in state aid we tried to maintain the integrity of the instructional program at the classroom level

095certainly we will look at all areas of our school district we have been doing that over the last several months we have not hired all of our positions that we were able to make sure that there wasn't a major disparity in services rendered by not hiring these positions in order to start saving dollars so that we would be able to how should i say minimize if at all need to reduce our force right one of the things that uh we um were able to do in the last negative budget cycle that took place probably now nine or ten years ago is that we have maintained that place where our structural program was kept sacrosync and that uh other districts who were laying off we were able to hire them but we're talking about retention as

096soon as those school districts started to rehire by state law those people are required to be offered the positions and and almost all of them went back so we have to really think about how this all plays out in terms of what's best for our students our school community but i would be less than honest to say that a reduction in force will not occur but i can assure you it will be one of the last resorts necessary because we are very very very committed to the robust curriculum and instructional services and support not only academically but emotionally and socially as we have put a great deal of effort over our last several years into the social emotional learning matter of fact uh in the presentation by mr tuttle there's a mention of increased administrators

097that increase that line item we increased those administrators because the enrollment at the high school increased that we wanted to maintain a reasonable amount of connection you know our commitment is you know connection before content we've been talking about that at the beginning of the school term here we're talking about those individuals connecting to children and the same we added uh two administrative positions one in each of our middle schools last year because of the increased enrollment my last question uh uh you mentioned in your presentation uh mr del morro uh you made reference to the promise keepers grant i think promise keepers is a very wonderful program as one of the uh i believe was started by former president obama but it's a community-based program i was one that's dear to the heart of

098president williams and one which i myself shared the same excitement came you could share for the i guess the public who might not be aware of what promise keeper is explain to them the program and the grant i think they'll be really appreciated by the community sure my police keeper is a program primarily geared to boys of color of the african american community in trying to develop leadership qualities and really aspirations that they will be able to be positive contributors to society to themselves to their family and to their loved ones around them and there we are connected with community very much we have worked with several uh community agencies within our our orange county uh such as but not limited to uh the cornell cooperative extension we have on the uh leadership orange we

099have several our our two police law enforcement agencies middletown police department walk hill has been very um how should i say partnered into all of the work in working with uh probably this in the grant with about 16 to 17 young men right and uh there is a socialization of bonding with leaders in the community indicating to them that you will be able to aspire to anything that your passion brings to you the skills that you want to develop now there's a day for dress for success being able to view virtually now of course we have some restrictions because of all the pandemic stuff but virtually a visit we're working with a piece to the grant which is a federal throw through which means that the federal government has allocated money flowing through the state

100and the state to the schools but it's a competitive grant it's a four-year competitive grant of a substantial amount of money over those four years to work with this year's focus is parent student engagement the family engagement so we had to put into there in terms of the requirements of the grant the activities not just the run of the old oh let's have a parent dinner which is nice to have but we're moving beyond that helping parents work with their child or their children and bettering the community better than their family better than the aspirations for their children so we're looking forward to being recipients of this obviously uh the deadline to apply um was extended from last friday to this friday so the readers won't be able to read all of these until a

101few weeks obviously this is to commence for the 21 22 school year but please know this that we were doing many of these type of expectations and activities prior to the grant and we will continue doing that this year even before we have the grand allocations hopefully we're recipients of it but um is a very very successful program um i know that the yonkers public schools uh have been one of the charter members in new york state uh and new york state is behind this we're one of the few states that have launched uh a sponsorship statewide not to say that it doesn't exist in other states and we want to be part of that because we see the value in local mr fred williams uh did a very very important partnership last year with

102the kids and i know that we will continue doing that as has become a very important hub in our city for our young men and ladies too but the fact of the matter uh is that we're working with uh the my brother's keeper is about young men and so that um we're very fortunate to have committed staff dedicated to this and community members to be sponsors to each of these uh boy young men thank you and i didn't realize my camera was down my apology any other questions about the budget good no i don't think so okay if there's no other questions well are there any other questions inside the superintendent's report as before we move into item 11 action items um in terms of mrs crean's presentation my presentation on the hiring process and

103the sports as well as the budget we'll entertain any questions before moving on i want to thank all of you for your very astute questions and continued support for the students and parents of our community thank you thank you thank you um mr del maro mrs creeden and mr tuttle thank you so much for um the report i know that this is it's been a lengthy night but it's necessary um in this season for us to do this this this is going to be a tough budget season all the way i have some comments that i'm going to make but i'll wait i'll wait and make them at round table um uh surrounding surrounding the things that have been reported that have been reported some of the things that have been said and some of

104the things that we've seen tonight about i'll reserve those for um for for a few minutes in round table we'll move on to action items moving on to action items uh i need a motion i want to entertain a motion for the approval of our financial memorandum number 18 please so it's removed and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed it so passes um i do want to also remind the community that the board has the board uh all of this information the board uh is not just once again reminds you we're not rubber stamping anything uh we receive this information ahead of time we have opportunity to be able to ask the pertinent questions of surrounding each of these items they've been addressed to us by the superintendent and by the administrative uh administrative

105team uh so uh we don't just rubber stamp any of these this this is absolutely um gone over sometimes with a fine-tooth comb uh in order to make sure that what we're what we're doing uh is proper uh moving on approval of special service memorandum number 15. we have a motion please joe move second moved and seconded any discussion all in favor aye aye opposed so passes moving on uh motion uh for approval of the continuation of construction testing that has to do with uh well why don't you why don't you explain to us real quick mr tomorrow what that has to do with we need a motion first yes let's get a motion first so move second moved and seconded now for the discussion uh of mr del maro basically that's talking about in

106our projects here to make sure that all of the testing that is required on each of these projects are meeting the new york state safety standards for construction as well as national standards and building and so that this is very very important that we continue doing that um and is there anything else you want to add to that michael uh or or mr bartlett but basically that's what this is about yeah it's like the testing of soils and different things of justice and things like what about water and things like water yeah yeah things that are necessary for the completion of the projects objects thank you uh and the reason i ask the reason i ask for the explanation is because uh most of us here on the board we understand that but sometimes the

107public doesn't understand that and uh you know i want to make sure so uh we've had we've had the motion the first and the second we've had the discussion all in favor aye opposed it so passes moving on approval a motion for the approval of construction management services services on our 2021 capital projects moved did i get a second second thank you thank you moved and seconded any discussion all in favor opposed it so passes thank you um motion for the approval of uh change orders someone moved and seconded um discussion mr perrino uh the uh change order committee uh any any uh for the public explanations of any of the change orders please i i do not have that because i did not receive the change orders maybe some members of the committee received

108any one of our committee received those can we can we can we there's there's mr mr bartlett can we talk about the change orders real quick sure yes i'd be happy to do that there's a number of different ones that came through um let me get to the right page uh we had some um installation valves and access doors and truman moon's heating system um that was one of the change orders for we had another one with some flushing of the building pipes we were in the carter building in order to get the flow correct so that we can heat the building properly uh there's another one um for temporary power that was needed when we did the abatement um for the the work over in high school now there was also a couple of

109transformers that need to be relocated to accommodate that work uh there's a change order for um increase the size of the cement pier to accommodate the the masonry brick installation there's a change order for ceiling tiles and carpeting in the media center um there was in this new media center there was a design in a particular color that was designed into the building the material was ordered ahead of time ahead of time accordingly and there was a change in that color so um there's a slight increase to change that the color out so that's most of them um there's another one to add a couple of outlets in the cafeteria of the new cafe area for the food service so that's just a list of a number of different ones that have come up over

110the last month they're actually embedded in the uh agenda as a pdf so you can just tap on that and you can see everything that mr bartlett just outlined i just and thank you i looked at it earlier i looked at it earlier but i i wanted to want to get an explanation for the for the whole but um thank you thank you mr barley appreciate that uh uh so we've had the discussion uh all in favor all right hi opposed so passes um moving on of our approval of our board resolution for sports show move second removed and seconded i will take the opportunity to um read read the uh resolution is that is that all right with you uh mr del maro please do all right um subject board resolution sports uh motion

111okay i want to make sure uh make sure i got this whereas the enlarged city school district of middletown has reviewed the guidance released by the orange county department of health and has determined that it can and comply with its requirements and b is so resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools that subject to any change in policy by the board or change in guidance from the state and or department of health for the remainder of 2020 2020 2021 school year the board of education hereby approves students in the 9th to 12th grade and middle school students who are eligible to compete at the junior and varsity levels through the advanced athletic placement process app to participate in any sport that is offered by the district and approved for participation by new york

112state and or the orange county department of health including those sports deems to be high risk except that the re except that the wrestling team will only participate in practices and will not compete in tournaments or against other schools and be it further resolved that the participation by any student athlete in any sport including those sports deemed to be high risk shall be conditioned on the student athlete complying with all rules and requirements set forth by the district the orange county department of health new york state or section 9 of new york state public high school athletic association we've had the motion uh we've had mo first and the second for motion uh this is the resolution that that uh ties in specifically with the superintendent's report on sports and so we've we've had the

113motion are you uh we and we've had the discussion so uh uh approved anybody so moved for the eyes hi amen i'm wait i'm waiting you guys sound like my church i've been trying i've been trying to get a man from the church but amen i'm sorry i'm sorry i i i i phased out for just a moment i phased out i thought i was in church i thought i was in church waiting for an amen um opposed any opposed so passes uh so passes uh moving on uh moving on now to uh action item g approval of revision of our 20 20 2021 instructional calendar calendar may have a motion please second any discussion i wanna clarify that please uh mr tomorrow can you can you clarify that that once again please absolutely um

114in our continuing efforts to increase uh teach your student contact be it virtual or in person uh because of the health pandemic quarantines that we've had in each of the schools uh classrooms are unable to be serviced because of staff members being quarantined and all of the indicators that have really curtailed what normally we have educational process on a continual basis certainly we've been in a very difficult situation that no one has ever experienced before and hopefully it's coming to an end in a relatively short period of time to that end we're trying to look at our calendar coupled with how we structured which was pre-understanding that this school year would be like this because right now we're starting our discussions believe it or not for the instructional calendar for the 21-22 school year and

115certainly with all the uncertainties uh uh trying to find out what's going to happen come on july 1st of the new school year so therefore we looked at our current calendar with that attempt to increase contact time and looked at our shortened session days and uh coupled with what was the time in which they were doing parent conferences and moved to our fridays uh a structural day in uh eight synchronous days uh and synchronous days on fridays in the month of march to more parent conferences so basically we're moving from half days or half opportunities uh to parent conferences and move them to full day conferences so that we can reach more parents in a parent conference and at the same time increase contact with teachers instructionally we maintain the evening conferences we did not

116eliminate them because we know that there were would be some parents who need them and we tried very diligently to make sure that we didn't have uh levels elementary middle and high school overlap on same days uh because we know that many of our families have the children in different levels and so we want to have complete opportunity it will be virtual again we had a very high participation rate in our community on the virtual parent conferences and teachers are excited about the increased participation so we look forward to another successful parent conference season coming up shortly thank you sir uh approved all those approved hi i opposed it so passes thank you thank you so much moving on to our committee reports first uh uh our audit committee um mr biasin uh and first

117before i turn it into your hands let me let me um uh thank you for um proceeding without me um you you all know i've been having a few health challenges since the beginning of the year and i absolutely was not feeling well that evening and and so thank you for um excusing me from from the audit committee meeting in your hands mr bison thank you very much pastor i'm going to come back to the approval we met last thursday night january 28th and we reviewed and approved the weekly claim reports for september 21st september 29th october 5 october 13th 19th 26th november 2nd 9 16 23 of 2020 and in january for january 4 11 and 19. for the public what happens is that the committee submits any questions that they have and they

118are answered by our treasury department we also reviewed and approved the treasurer's report for september october november and december i'll now go back to the approval of the minutes what i need for my board is an approval of the minutes for the september 24th 2017 meeting move by john seconded by i believe paula thank you very much uh all business we had none under new business we started to discuss what areas we would like reviewed for the internal audit for this year it was agreed upon at that time that we would look at human resources and our next auto committee meeting will be on march 11 2021 at 5 30. thank you i think you need to um finish the motion you you had you had the first and second you you had the first

119and the second i think we need to finish the motion glad you're on your toes there pastor i'm not i'm really not the any discussion on the approval of the minutes hearing none may i have a vote for accepting them answers unanimously thank you thank you i i i'm really i'm really not i'm really not on my p's and q's tonight but uh thank you we're covering one another tonight we're covering one another that's what that's what teamwork does yes it does um committee reports i i believe that fair funding uh has a report tonight uh we're gonna ask uh for our mrs pewson she's going to report for the fair funding committee on tonight mr houston aye thank you um i want to thank uh mr gomez my esteemed colleague for um his leadership

120on this committee but i um was fortunate to be able to participate in a um wonderful collaboration today with assemblyman carl brabanek and although he is not our direct um we're not part of his direct constituency we are a neighboring constituency and um i thanked him on behalf of our community for being a voice in albany representing all new york state taxpayers students teachers parents uh staff and administrators and anybody else i left out there as we know from jeff smith's financial presentation at our last meeting for which i thanked him for his thorough presentation and brutal honesty regarding our monetary situation there are far too many unknowns and factors that will impact this year's budget and um i i'm afraid some of what i'm going to say overlaps and might even be redundant but

121i think it's important for everyone in the community to hear um but those those things range from the economy heavily influenced by the covet 19 pandemic prudent and judicious use of the fund balance and overall reserves anticipated under the year cuts the cost of the state's share of the 6.5 million dollar medicaid deficit for the previous year federal aid stimulus packages political undercurrents and as he put it state consideration of gambling and legalization of marijuana just to name a few of the interesting things he spoke about last month and continuing on from our conversation today i had the pleasure of listening to mr bill haas the orange ulster boces vice board vice president speak and he shared with assemblyman bravoneck the new york state um school boards association's 21 20 2021 state budget priorities that

122i think it's important to share with our community those being education funding and budgeting hoping there will be an emphasis and through our representation in albany asking for a decrease in the over-reliance on federal funding to fund school aid rejecting attempts to consolidate and eliminate expense-based and categorical aids expanding proposal to reimburse certain transportation expenses during the pandemic supporting the proposal to aid costs to deliver student meals instructional materials providing wi-fi funding these costs in 2021 not only spring 2020 reimbursing other standby transportation during the entire entirety of the pandemic rejecting proposal to cancel funding and eliminate the prior year aid claims list establish a new period of building and transportation aid amnesty reject attempts to continue the shift of certain cse special education costs from state school districts disconnect the between the star property

123taxpayer relief program and state aids for schools increase the under designated fund balance limit above four percent um increase flexibility with the use of restricted reserve funds enact at least temporary adjustments to the property tax cap minimum two percent allowable growth factor eliminate negative tax caps additional items include expanding the low cost of broadband proposal investing in new and improved infrastructure providing new dedicated funding for remote learning devices increase high speed broadband minimum upload and download standards provide relief from cost drivers and unnecessary mandates permanent extension of the small group health insurance waiver set to expire in repeal of the duplicative school district fiscal transparency reporting further authorization of regional high schools supporting extension of contract piggy backing allowance and supporting the repeal of the cap on the salt deduction and he went on i

124won't go into all of that but i'll just share the highlights i can always do that at another meeting but the nisba school funding priorities include the current state aid on federal stimulus pandemic adjustment expense based aids transportation aids the digital divide and foundation aid but um there were a few other repeating themes in the discussion that um i felt were very important to share with all of you the comprehensive broadband connectivity act was pocket vetoed by governor cuomo this would have required the public service commission to accept assess and map out the availability affordability and reliability of our internet and network access within one year many districts have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to improve building conditions and safety which are not being utilized by the students because they have not been in

125school full time in many of the districts and one of the things that was really apparent concern that was brought to many board members across the region is the and this was something that i was really happy to be a part of on voting on tonight that mr del maro was able to get the sports going again which is wonderful but the arbitrary conflicting guidance from governor cuomo health officials including the commissioner of health county department of health officials and the cdc and the mental health impact um the pandemic has had on our youth in particular numerous parents and guardians have pointed out that health department guidance has been lifted for a contact sport such as wrestling yet students in the classroom must still maintain the six foot mandatory social distancing rule in the building

126they are not allowed to have their children in school on a daily basis parents and guardians have suggested that the option of signing a waiver should be considered for students to be back in school daily and these are unprecedented times but the conflicting rules and guidance put board of education members and administrators in difficult positions as the mental health impact of social social isolation and distancing is a strong argument that cannot be ignored just today dr joseph mercola released an article that stated that one in six americans in a survey of 2 000 adults has entered mental health therapy for the first time in 2020 during the pandemic the social and emotional impact is having is is large on our children it's it's huge um what i loved that um assemblyman bravoneck stated is he

127is in favor of parental choice he encouraged families to reach out to their local government representatives although the federal stimulus will likely have a financial provision for mental health it should be noticed that noted that the stimulus as one member of our forum pointed out is a one-shot deal so we are looking forward to our upcoming meetings with our own representation as we are their constituents uh newly elected state senator mike martucci and assemblywoman eileen gunther and thank you for the patience with my lengthy report question thank you thank you uh uh mr houston mr perrino yeah very simply nicole i'd like to thank you for taking your time to attend the virtual meeting today i know it required some sacrifices in your part and i also want to compliment you on being appointed as

128an instructor at st john's in goshen so congratulations on both of those items thank you thank you mr perino and i i want to also uh mention that mr lesner and mr gomez and i thank you but i'm not sure maybe it was another board member have also signed up to meet with um assemblywoman gunther as well as um senator mike martucci i'm unable to make the appointment with senator i'm excuse me with assemblywoman gunther but i'm looking forward to meeting with senator marchucci next week so hopefully we'll we'll get back with you with some more good good information thank you thank you so that would be that would be me that will be at all those meetings this so that would be me i go i i go every year as per per my

129per my um position as well um as the as the vice president of orange county school boards association so uh we'll look forward to seeing you all there tomorrow and uh and throughout the course of the next week uh any other committee reports uh so um so briefly briefly i i i will tap into the oxford report uh we've touched on it um already so i won't go into into much of it most of what we talked about uh in the oscar report has is about what's going on now with the legislative the legislative agendas as well as the legislative meetings uh we we also talked about um the proper protocol for those particular meetings and so what i wanna what i wanna just add into this for the public and for those uh of

130you my fellow board members is is that these meetings as we know are many times very limited in the time that we have to be able to address all of the concerns that we that we all have if we were going to albany those meetings would be limited to just about a half hour hopefully with most of our legislators we'll get a little bit more time in the virtual environment but what i want to encourage you is is that after this we have we have the uh opportunities to be able to reach out to our legislators directly whether it be by email whether it be by phone call whether it be by whether it be by a letter whatever the case is so i want to encourage you um reach out to your uh reach

131out and have discussions with your legislators uh and uh and that's for the community as well uh please reach out and and so that we can address the many issues we know that we're in a one of the things that came out during the oxford meeting is is that yes we are in a in a a tough budget season and we understand that and and we understand that dollars and cents also equate to people uh whenever whenever you uh lose money lose money in in a in foundation aid or in an aid of any kind uh and when we talk cuts when you talk cuts you you have to come back to the human side of it and understand this sometimes and uh cuts mean people and so we we we have fought uh the

132administration has has has done very well at making sure that in any cuts that we have not had to uh cut anybody especially in this past year uh with the with the cove crisis that we've been in so i'm grateful for that and so i think that it's important in these discussions that we do bring back the human side of it as we are addressing as we are addressing the fiscal side of it we bring back the human side of it when it comes to dealing with mental health and all of those issues and the things that miss houston did bring up uh during her report so uh that was the oxba that was part of the oxford conversation on last night uh i i will also add this uh at this i i told

133the board i also expressed to the board last week or last meeting that i have been i have been invited um and have accepted uh a position on the uh nisba nisba's new commute um committee for diversity diversity equity and inclusion and so i've i've been invited to be the representative for uh area nine which is our area uh uh for for nisba and uh that meeting will be within the next week or two uh and so i've received my received all of her information and invitations and so i look forward to um uh being involved in in continuing that work uh even as we go forward so that was my committee report now we're gonna uh we're going into um roundtable and since i'm in since i'm in roundtable i said i was going

134to save my statements save a statement that i had for roundtable um i want to thank first of all uh i want to thank first of all the superintendent and the administration for all of the reports tonight um i want to uh make sure that i express uh that uh i i am grateful for all of the work that is being done we understand that we're not all there yet it's not there and it's continuous work that's being done this continuous work that's got to be ongoing um aside from mr perino aside from mr perino i do not believe that there is anybody here in this virtual room right now in this virtual environment that is has been connected to middletown any longer than i have uh mr perino is the only one is the

135only one mr mr john middletown perino is the only one that has been connected to this district for longer than i have and connected to this community in this environment uh and i say that to say this i say that to say this you know even my mother was a 1949 graduate of middletown high school uh third generation um uh i i know what it is to grow up black in this community and i know what it is i know what it is i've grown up with with many of the many of the uh people in this community uh many of the many of the young people that we see graduating i can say that i knew i i graduated with their parents or their grandparents i hate to say that but uh it's a

136true fact and and so uh i've seen the ups and downs i've experienced the ups and downs of this community and i know that there is a ways to go uh but i i categorically deny or categorically oppose the the notion that uh there is nothing being done i categorically i specifically stand up and say uh that that we are working the district is working is it perfect it is absolutely not but we are striving and we are pushing and so uh i i i will i will outside of this board table outside of this board board uh environment i will stand up in this community any day and say that we are striving and we are pushing i do not have to see i don't i shouldn't have to say it because my record

137speaks for itself my record speaks for itself actions speak that's why uh that's why from this point on uh i'm just going to i'm just going to say what has to be said i think at 56 years old i'm old enough to say what i want to say and and and old enough to say it to say it uh directly and so i'm not gonna i'm not gonna sugarcoat stuff i'm gonna say what needs to be said because uh this is not the district that i grew up in this is not the this is not the district and i know that people are frustrated i know people are people have frustrations i understand that i understand that but we have to pause we have to celebrate the victories and address address the problems we have

138to but we cannot we cannot continue to to be adversarial in what we do and so i i just said that whoever's listening can take it wherever they want to take it and they can deal with me again as i always say you know where to find me so yeah on the street there's a whole nother there's a whole other thing um but nevertheless um round table if there's any other any other uh anybody has anything else to uh add to the round table you can do so at this point if not thank you our next meeting will be on february 25th february 25th uh so we we look forward to seeing you again we are we we are taking it uh day by day and moment by moment we hope to be back in

139person but we we have to take it day by day and moment by moment but i thank everybody for uh uh sticking around tonight is almost nine o'clock and it is time to go and um get some spaghetti and that's cold okay so thank you motion the second part you need a second second there's a there's the second favor opposed all right well thank you everybody we're out have a good night good night good night [Music] everyone you