001our recognition tonight. So, we're going to be on come up to the podium. Come on, guys. I'll just say a few words, too. We wanted to invite you to sign because you exemplify our reader profile. um you're not only a compassionate student, but you excelled in the area of basketball with a thousand points. It's amazing. And congratulations to the entire team. Um that really also shows the dedication, but also the ability to work together, which is something we're always really focused on. So, I'm going to turn it over to Coach K, share a few words, and then if you'd like to speak, you're also welcome to have a few words. >> Okay. >> Um yeah, so when Mr. asked me if I I'd come tonight. I jumped in. I said, "Absolutely." Even though it's uh
002it's the first night against the tournament, the game schedule, but I was like, "Of course, I'd be there for Matt." But I I don't know if a lot of people know this, but we were one of the last games to get a th000 point. We had kind of the old school mindset that it's, you know, the team and the numbers on the wall that matter more than the individual. But if anybody's if anybody's looked at that banner um and you look at the banners with all the the sectional championships, the league championships, like 50 years of excellence that we've had in our program, and there's only eight names on there for the boys basketball team. So, I think it is really important to recognize those that made that that achievement that that helped um inspire
003the next generation, too. One of the best parts is once Matt, you know, Matt is working really hard and playing really well and scoring all these points and we're winning and these kids are coming and I know he's got my cousin here. Uh, tonight too. I came to pretty much every game, but you know, they look at that and then that helps fuel the next generation and keep that excellence going. So, I think it's important and um for Matt too when I look at those those eight names and I go back really far but not all the way. Um, I can't speak for John Dell of our Adam in 91, but for the rest of them, they did it in four years and Greg did it in five years, but Matt did it in three.
004Um, and that's really, really hard to do. Um, as a sophomore to come in and to put up enough points to put himself in position. And then on top of that, he came back with a serious knee injury or knee surgery over the summer and he missed the game. And we're thinking, "Oh man, it's going to be tight." Um, we played 23 games and he needed 22 of those um to get there, but he did it. Uh, I'm so incredibly proud because when you guys come to the games, you see him making the shots and scoring the points. Uh, which is awesome. But like what I saw was, you know, he's coming back from injury and he's text me, "Hey, can we get in at 5:30 this morning to get shots up before school?" You
005know, because he can't do the full practice after school. It's like, "Absolutely, Matt." Um, so it's just validation uh for for Matt and all the hard work he put in. I couldn't be happier. So, congratulations. Father, thank you. Thank you. I love that. Thank you to your family for um setting us a wonderful student. It's terrific. Um and see that brings us to our second recognition. Um it's um our art students who participated at the Columbia Green Community College art show and we start with Ben Queen and then November Iva Cobra. Did I get that right? Yeah. All right. Mrs. is it? Oh, both here. Good. Um, similar to what I said about sports, um, excelling in the arts is just as important as us, too. Showing that creativity, innovation. We're really proud that you
006were recognized at the college level, too. So, Mr. Can't be prouder. Our whole art department is incredibly proud of these, too. They've been ID students. They've been working the entire time through high school working on their portfolios. Uh their work was chosen from our district, the three art teachers as great examples of work that we were very proud of. So they went to Columbia Green Community College and we want to recognize for the work there. There's about 19 schools that bring that were allowed two works of art, the first school to bring and um Benny received um an honorary honorary mention and November's work was certainly you know talked about that as well. Um they're just incredible. But not only are they really incredible with their portfolios and their artwork, they're just genuinely amazing people.
007I mean they I get to spend a lot of time with them. They they work with Mrs. Larson as well and um Mr. Monson sat on the students um and but they come into my room a lot. I just been blown away with how respectful and helpful and kind to everybody. So overall just amazing people to be around and very proud of being you know getting to work with them all these years. So thank you for the recognition. Makes me very happy to see them being recognized for their work and for just great human beings. changing the look artwork. >> Um, >> no, it's a >> exceptional um and similar thank you for being wonderful students. Like you said, it's just so important to all see compassion and also talent. So, thank you. Thank you
008so much. That's part of the night. That's it's all about, right? Um, so that brings us to our student board of ed. >> Oh, wait. Oh gosh, I miss my support. I apologize. Um, call me Lynch with our sister at Redhead High School, which is being honored tonight. Dr. Rather will come up and we'll talk about that. So I'm going to talk, >> but you're going to uh you're so we can uh talk about you. >> Um so we're really incredibly proud to share that Connie H, our assistant principal at Red High School, has been named the 2026 New York State Secondary School assistant principal of the year. So that means across the entire state. She was nominated by the principal and myself and she has won that award as the best principal in New
009York State. She'll be going on DC to represent open schools across the country. I think we have New York with that as well. Most importantly, um you're exceptional colleague, thought partner. She really cares deeply about the students in the school. I think that's number one, that Mrs. Lynch relates to students in the school very well. Um, anytime that you go into her office space, there's always a student there that she's really giving good directions to, but also just showing some empathy and compassion about what they need to be doing. She's also very smart with instructional design, way classrooms should look, and really looking towards the future of what education should look like. So, not only is she an excellent educator, she's also just a really great person um that cares deeply for every single student
010that walks through the door. So, we also want to play the video. >> She didn't know about this. Um we're going to play the video that the students may >> Sorry. We can play the video that some of you may have seen on Facebook, but this really the words of students is really what's most profound when they talk about Mrs. Lynch. love this so much. I've never had like a special bond with a teacher or like anyone before and I have whatever. This is just the best. She advocates for everyone here at Bucket School. This lunch is one of like the most kindest humanities in the school. She is always like around the hallways and interacting with students and she always said hi. She's a really good person. She's always like sometimes like a bad
011day or something, she'll always reach out and like come up to me and ask me if I'm all right and stuff. >> She makes such a great effort to connect like every single student and on such a personal level in the hallway over the college. Miss L cares so much about students. She's always there for whoever. She's always making laugh, always being supportive, and really it's just an amazing human building. >> Every time she sees me in the hallway, she makes uh a joke about how I'm always throwing the halls and we laugh about it. >> By freshman year, she was like also like new to the school. Um she I couldn't open the locker and she helped me lock up. Um and it was like very I was very stressed because like I was
012new. Um, but it definitely made it and the rest of my career would definitely change. I was out in my parking spot um in the summer. She like came by like to me was just talking to me about how I was like um had like a really cold spring. So she asked me how like everything was still like me and my friends through the hallways and we're going to study hall and this lunch she came into and grabbed a couple of us and said come with me and she had a big box of ice cream and she yelled and that's just one of the way Miss Lunch cares about you as a person and really like wants to make your day better. >> This lunch is out in a lot of situations that she really
013got everyone. I was like taking an after school class and like giving me some paperwork in the hallway and she came by and like just asking me about it and we had like a 30 minute conversation where she was just like asking me about the material and like engaging with me like something that I think about and she like connected into her life and we just had like a really like fulfilling conversation. She just always knows what's like going on and he's just always making connections and it's just really meaningful to have that in the day. >> Congratulations. Congratulations, Miss Lynch. Congratulations, Miss Lech. >> Congratulations, Miss Sledge. >> Congratulations, Miss Lynch. Congratulations, Miss Sledge. Love you. >> Thank you, Miss Lunch. And congratulations. >> I want to add I always think of this poem
014when I think of you. Wor saying, never underestimate the power of like a word or a gesture. And that's you like you know you you read the students you go up to them and you act you care what they think and what they're saying how their day is and obviously they feel that way too. So we are so excited for you. We congratulate you. We appreciate everything that you do for our students and we look forward to celebrating it throughout the year. >> Well, thank you so much for taking the time to recognize me tonight. Um, I feel very honored and I I feel honored to be able to come to a district every day and work with the most outstanding students. Um, a very supportive board, a dynamic building leader who I have to
015thank for this nomination. So, thank you, Dr. Ronnie, and I appreciate your continued support. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So now um if anyone needs to go understand we appreciate it. Happy birthday Carol. >> All right. So that brings us to our student voice edies of the field. this past weekend happened and it was phenomenal. Everyone in it was so great and there were so many young kids in it which really helped us great. Um, so just like shout out to all of them. That was amazing. >> Uh, first some student council updates. We just had our Shamrock sale for St. Patrick's Day this past Monday. It was a huge success with all of our three shades spelling out. Um, we have also started planning even more upcoming events with a teacher appreciation event,
016a table at Apple Blossom, and events for global volunteer month. We've also started looking into finally planning an NYC District 4 conference held at Summers High School sometime in the near future over the place. Um we had originally plans to do it last year but there were some scheduling conflicts with summers. So we had to push it back a little bit. Um and we're pretty excited for this opportunity as we might allow students to go through scale version of the statewide conference and maybe encourage more students to attend the one in November whose theme is um revolutionizing their shows. So, I'm very excited for that as well. >> Um, so the metric sports just wrapped up and then spring sport is happening next week. Um, so we're now in the spring sports season. Everybody's in
017the preseason. So, we're looking forward to some games coming up and um getting the final spring season of the year, but super excited and talk about games. This past Monday, Junior spoke the SAT um and were interested in getting the results which will come out on April 16th. Hopefully good results. >> Um and then seniors um we uh they're starting to interact with the last couple colleges um in these next couple weeks um and decision is slowly um so super excited to everyone stay out of trouble. Um, and then I students and A students getting ready for those exams in May. Um, so that'll be coming up pretty quickly after spring break, I feel like. Um, and then as we all know, I'm sure we're very excited for it. Spring break is coming up in
018just over a week. Um um I'm sure lots of students are looking forward to the next spring break to catch up on studying, travel, and even have the Europe trip for many students at the high school who I'm very I'm sure very excited for and it'll be amazing opportunities and have amazing numbers. >> You are. I'm excited. Lastly is this Sunday there is a Portland basketball game against teachers and staff at 6:00 at the fundraiser for the class of 2026. I believe it's our last one before graduation. Um so hopefully good turnout for the program. So looking forward to that. So thank you for having us. >> Fantastic. Lots of good things coming on. And as always ladies can know that if you need to go home study and if you're very uncomfort students you're
019more than welcome and we love having space so whatever works. And so that brings us to our first um presentation. It's the my budget presentation. >> Good evening. It's wonderful to see you this evening. >> How are you all? Um, thank you for the opportunity to be here with you this evening. Um, but as most of you know that I know some of you are here in bed of disability and I'm with my assistant superintendent for business and operations and we're here to discuss our 20167 administrative budget with the board of education. But the highlight of our evening was getting to celebrate your students success. So, thank you for that wonderful opportunity. We're always so excited when the kids get filled before us, we get to be a part of that celebration as opposed to
020when people leave them behind us waiting for them to write and we feel guilt. Um, so we are to present our administrative budget to answer any questions that you might have and to share a little bit about where we are on your journey innovation partnership and growth and what you can expect from us as we move into the next school year. Um, I would like to recognize this evening that we have a member of our board of education here with us to support us, Miss Terrence Mike. Um, thank you for coming. And you know that we have two open seats on our board for next year. We have um Mr. Mike Wheel who is retiring and Mr. Bryce who is um not running for reelection. So um the deadline so have one day for nominations
021um is March 20th and at best that I just want to get the dates right. Um our annual meeting will be held in our conference center on April 8th. We hope some of you will consider joining us for the annual meeting. It's at 4:30 p.m. in our conference center followed by a dinner prepared by our pulary students. So it would be wonderful if you want to join. just let your friends know and she'll share that with us. Um, we will vote on the budget and on the candidates on April 28th. Okay, awesome. So, I get to come back and do the thumb later. I mean, I like do a thumb now. We'll be talking about numbers, but I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to Mike to talk a little bit about numbers.
022>> Thank you, Dr. Lucia and uh I'm a Ronda Valley. I've always enjoyed coming to Redcept when I played you guys basketball never Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. I know the sacrifice makes the board members of giving up. So we're going to try to move relatively quickly. We'll use some time at the end for questions, but obviously we have any questions as I'm moving to just a couple items. We really start in the fall like even school districts do we really start thinking about the services that districts may need for the following school year. It's a little tough because we're trying to project rates and build our rate structure for services that you haven't even signed up for yet likely won't start realizing the fall. But the reality is we need to
023be able to by January publish our services guide that'll have our rates in it and also provide service request forms to school districts so we can start using our information to build your budget by April 3rd. I ask for those service request forms to come back. Need a little bit more time certainly work with you. That's just kind of a snapshot. It gives us the ability to start planning our staffing for the coming year to look at the vendor contracts that we might need to service your needs and it gives us about a month or month and a half to kind of work within our own teams but also with the school districts to make sure that it's as tight as they can be for our board to approve our initial budget which I joke
024five minutes after they approve it is outdated because there's going to be some change in requested service level almost right out of the shoot as Dr. Lucia mentioned on April 28th we'll ask the component districts to vote not only on our administrative budget but also on the candidate for our board. Um tonight we're really going to talk about the administrative budget. We have an administrative budget. We have a capital allocation and everything else you're going to decide to purchase based on the needs and the wants of your school district. Um the one thing that you have going on is really our administrative budget. So we're going to focus our attention here tonight. Um, and then by June 10th, I'll ask our board to approve again our initial budget. I'll submit that to SCV and we'll
025immediately start working on moving on the changing needs of the districts. This is just a pie chart. Again, we'll talk about administration, but I always feel like it's somewhat important to show the districts really are individual kind of program departments. It's about $125 million in terms of overall revenues. The largest share being the lower right hand quadrant there the yellow high LLP simplify our special education programs kind of moving counterclockwise CT stands for career technical education so that's a trade program very familiar with just under 10% capital administration the very top there small slivers but that cross contracts will be services that your your district takes out with otheries The largest one that we have is the um Hudson regional information center. Many districts will purchase a lot of their information technology services through the
026Rick. Management services would be things like school safety and security public information officer services, things like that. Learning technologies would be the equipment and the software and hardware programs you'll purchase to meet only your instructional needs, your non-instructional needs. Then resources is really our curriculum and professional development. Our key budget assumptions, obviously we have to build a budget and start with assumptions just like school districts do. We have a teachers contract that will end June 30th. So obviously a successful negotiation that balances not only a fair agreement with our teachers and related staff within that contract, but also the needs of of our district and there needs to be approved with the budget. I think it's going to be really imperative. um health insurance. We're part of the Duchess Educational Health Insurance Service Consortium right
02724 members. So we have both obviously just better than that. That's for active and retirees and I'll talk a little bit about that skew between active and retirees in just a bit. Strategic investments in our CTE programming both instructional technologies and instructional equipment. We want kids to leave our trade programs and ultimately join the workforce having worked on the equipment and using the types of technologies that they're going to use when they are employed and right from seamlessly from our programs into the workforce. We're seeing more and more special ed referrals especially for low or 130 referrals last year. If you were to visit our our campus, you'd see the basic space. How are we going to meet those needs of those students around the community? We've seen growth in early college and dual enrollment
028programs. Um, how are we going to ultimately satisfy your needs as you look to build out those programs moving forward a new safety and security service? We're really actually enhancing the safety and security service that we had previously. You know, it's going to be really great for the region. No one can guarantee safety as much as we think that ultimately we'll be able to put you in position everything possible. And then lastly, our budget obviously increases throughout the year traditionally as we add more students, we add more service, but on those line items where it's static and you have some budgets where we have fixed supply, fixed contractual, we want to have the same cost containment structure that you guys do all the way. you have more of a fixed revenue stream. We want to
029have those same sort of right places. We're building a lot of budgets. Um there's a lot of line items within the administrative budget. Obviously, I've tried to distill it down just to make it easier to look at. Our total budget increase year-over-year will be 4.14%. Mentioned earlier that the health insurance increase that we're using is 9.9 and 3/4 of our administrative budget is is with health insurance. So, we're pretty proud of the 4.14% number there. I'll tell our pieces here in just a second. The non-retirey administrative expense. This is really the cost to kind of run that the Bose sees from the administrator and from the central office on a day-to-day basis. It's our board of education. It's our superintendent's office, our deputy superintendent, business office and HR function. So, the active employees increase there
0301.09%. We really try to keep our finger on the cost structure there. and then retirey health insurance. So within the Dick rates I mentioned 9.9% average the Medicare rates are a little bit lower and most of our our retirees are Medicare eligible. So we actually gain a benefit from that. And it's important that I I I highlight that regardless of where the employee works during their employment at the OCE by law they're health insurance cost needs to be moved into the administrative budget upon retirement. So we're obviously very um dependent upon those defendant rates and traditionally as those rates move our administrative the budget goes you can kind of see that in terms of revenue. So once we have budget obviously we look at the revenue our sources of revenue come from uh charges to
031our components and other revenue. Our other revenue comes from two sources. one, we get a payment from the deed consortion. We alleviated providing with financial support for that, but the much bigger share is interest income. We're seeing interest rates drop year over year. So, I'm expecting about a $30,000 reduction in other revenue year-over-year. That $30,000 gets added to the share that the district need to pay. So, the district share is actually 12.94% just below 5%. How we divide that cost up to our school districts is also dictated by by law. We must use mechanism called our product resident weighted average daily attendance. Probably a term you can forget after I leave here tonight, but it's essentially your enrollment. There's some waiting for secondary age students. It all comes from numbers reported by the schools. The
032state feels that it's a non arbitrary way to take your administrative pie, carve it up and distribute it to your particular students. Um highlighted in blue there is red hook a year euro waters is expected to be down 28 yearover-year when the county decreases 50. So actually your share of the pie is decreasing a little bit. So your year to year increase is 3.27 or a little bit better than next thing I want to show is capital and rent. U this is an allocation to school district so we don't vote on this but because it's an allocation we want to make sure that we disclose it to you. This budget is primarily a million dollar contribution for small capital improvements. This wouldn't be a capital project. These are things like if we had a roof
033leak, if we had an HVAC, new go, doors, windows, things of that nature, things that are outside your operating budget. Um, but we just kind of need to have some funds to make those fixes to keep the facility in same same or better shape than it is now. That that million dollar contribution makes the last five or six years. And then there's also rental fees in here. So, we pay school districts and then we have classroom parent. Appreciate the partnership. Um, classroom rentals that we have in schools we include in this budget. That's $61,200. Year-over-year, you're actually a $679 decrease. So, that down%. The last financial chart I'd like to show is our surplus and state aid. So, I'd like to show on the left hand side what the overall contract was. um with Red
034Hook last year was just a hair over $4 million. On that $4 million, we received surplus back of 265. And surplus is any revenues in excess of of expenditures. Traditionally, we'll see this if we're able to increase our enrollment. We're able to put another kid in the classroom. Typically, don't need to hire another teacher or make any more heat or light. Those additional revenues that we drive can typically come back in the form of surplus. Unlike schools, we can't keep an unreserved fund balance. Every penny that we have, every penny of revenue we have exceeds expense has to go back to the school district. We start again in July. That's kind of what made what makes fun of the most also kind of put pressure on us to do the right thing year-over-year. And then
035in the middle is your state aid 1.175 million of state aid received on the services that you have with us for 1.44 44 million primal funds coming back on that $4 million, right? So it's 35.5%. I got a little caveat there that special ed services are actually paid directly back to the school. So that percentage in that account is actually a little bit higher visibility back. So I understand a little bit with that in kind of the financial piece of Dr. Duch. turn it back over to >> Mr. This is what makes it fun for me. So, we have um wonderful partnerships with Red Hook and we have Red Hook students in a lot of our programs and we like to share the numbers with you so you know where they are. So um our
036special health alternative education program which is in our high school and you have three students in our resilience academy and we have one student in our salt point center which is our K special and special education center. Um and we have 36 students in our career and technical institute. You have six students in our electrical trades program, five in the HBAC, four in cosmetology, three nursing assistant, three small engine technologies, and 15 that Mike likes to call assorted others, which means there's one or two students across a lot of different programs. So March 5th was my technical official one-year anniversary in in this role as you can see and in April we really did embark on this journey and it's kind of language of innovation partnership and growth and we've really um taken a lot
037of steps to move forward and maybe progress when it comes to innovative practices and innovative services designing new space. So we undertook a sign the process for our engagement for excellence and you can see behind you that we identified through stakeholder input four priority areas for the agency. The first priority area really define split sees um as a central service hub. So what we really mean by that is we want to see everybody first call. If something gives a call, we want to find a way to make whatever that they need to be successful happen. And really, you know, our primary goal as we work through this document and in thinking about the design of all we do is to continue to expand and enhance opportunities for those students who are often furthest from them,
038right? And so we want to be able to help our school districts do that. We're also that cycle service piece for the state education department. So that's the first goal. The second is really about talent management and development and that's really about people, right? And so we often sort of like civil service in our districts and I think um coming up in April is our first educator job fair at just both civil service and certificated positions and we'll have um sessions through civil service for folks to learn more about that. Student engagement and experiences is where the hub of our work obviously lives. We're really excited to continue to provide as many services as possible and offering expanded opportunities. A great example of that is that just today um our director of CCI came right
039into our um cabinet meeting just so excited because they just finished installing their ambulance simulator in our EMC program which is very cool. It's like there's a literal ambulance in the middle of the classrooms. They wouldn't let me try this. And um we continue to really try to enhance what we're doing to align. We're also really working hard to expand our partnerships. For example, our partnerships with our colleges and universities through enrollment and a partnership with um IBM and their quantum labs. Um we've been able to open opportunities for students. I heard Mike say that we are a little bit out of space and I do um thank the leadership team here who's been very generous in helping some of us relocate as we've had some work done in our administration building. um some members
040that I share that just help to understand this. We're trying to provide opportunities for students who are for this time. We just did an analysis of our kindergarten enrollment uh referrals and in 2022 coming out of CO we had 85 referrals in that year for kindergarten alone. In 2025 we had 180 referrals for people. We're able to accept approximately 40 students in kindergarten and that's a lot of babies who don't have placements. It's actually kind of a a jaw-dropping number of babies who have to go back to districts. Districts have to find a way to try to support their needs and often we're not the first proceeds that a district might reach out to for that referral. Right? So we are trying very hard for um to move forward with space utilization study and to
041try to understand how we can continue to expand programming. Um we do have a space utilization study up on page.org. It's one question through thought exchange. If you think there are programs or services you would want to see us offering, please take the time to respond to that. U and we'll be seeing a lot of state programs forward. Um we cannot accept another class for student center of kindergarters without doing anything. We can't accept it in a kindergarten class she so it's really important for us to take this with us. We really appreciate I know you already have a long night to rewrite your admissions and then we don't we're not nearly as fun but um we do want to take the time to answer any questions that you might have and we really do
042appreciate your partnership and your time but we did see some of this before. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Thank you all. Appreciate it. I have a question. >> Too late. >> I'm kidding. >> Six years I've been sitting and listening to both these presentations and I don't think I've ever asked and I know Dr. Word and her team probably know this well, but it'd be helpful for the rest of the board. what can we do as a board to help support Boseis in the context of supporting their students? >> So, um I'll I'll have an answer too, but I think that I would say a couple of things to them. I mean, really being wonderful advocates for um your own district is a wonderful place to start, right? because when districts are
043funded well and they're able to implement what they need, they have the resources available to be to be able to help us build our programming and really create those opportunities for students. So, I think that would be the first thing. Um, and to just be aware of, you know, advocacy, of course, you know, supporting our budget is great, too. Um and I think really just um understanding the power of collaboration and partnership and continuing to support that work that happens. You know, Dr. has really been one of my constant partners since I came back to go overseas. You know, she's always there to support her colleagues and her peers. she serves on any committee that is necessary and we're really able to do bring things together and work to support their leadership teams in that
044way and really keep a focus on making those students that have the opportunities that they need. So, you know, come forward and says, you know, well, you know, it's just about one student. It's never just about one, right? It's really about thinking more broadly about the context of our region and making sure that students have opportunities what she said. Thank you. Sorry for my question. >> Okay, good evening everyone. I'm here with Mrs. Dinberg to present um the first draft of our budget for the 2026 2027 school year. Um, so this is an opportunity for everybody to hear the budget, ask questions, and we can make recommendations before the adoption of the next. So, just to walk you through some of our district priorities, a lot of these things were presented um at our budget
045workshop at the beginning of February, but we are looking to support the implementation of the implementation of more outdoor learning spaces. We've talked a lot about things that we're putting in place for the blue ribbon commission, either graduate profile, anyone from high school. We're looking to support year one of the winter circle program. They were here to present next um board meeting which is great. We also want to uh take a look at the opportunity to support our welding certificate program which Dr. Rodney is putting in place. Um and we have ongoing upgrades to district facilities. We're always looking to match our instructional priorities and student needs. And we also want to support lands for their culturally responsive sustaining education program which um Mrs. Smith and Mr. Brown talked about in February. We always consider
046when we put together the budget, many different factors. We look at the economic climate. We always have school funding review. Uh we look at all innovation program, our student needs. We need to match facilities and instruction for our programs. And as always, we look at the financial stability of the district. So our budget status. So currently our board is scheduled to adopt the budget on April 9th. um in our communications later tonight. That date might be changing because we do have um a public hearing on the lighting permit for the field on April 9th. We do have a conflict. We may be looking to move that board meeting. We do have the formal budget hearing expo on May 7th. That's actually going to be at Mill Road this year. So, we'll have the budget um
047expo starting at 5:45 and then we are going to be in here. Voter registration will also be available here in the Q cafeteria on that day and then the vote will be on good evening everyone. I'm really excited to be here to do that. my first redundancy. So you'll see on the side here are 26 27 form at the top of the slide are the code and at the bottom are the revenue codes. We do have about 500 account codes that make up those expenditures. We won't go over all of those tonight. Heather said time. So you'll see here that our budget for next year is 67.3 million. That's a 3.66% increase over the current year, which also equates to about 2.4 4 million. Uh we do have the same amount in our revenue budget.
048That's at the bottom of the slide. We are required to have a balanced budget. So that's why those two numbers match. I just want to take a few minutes to talk about some of the items that are up here. You'll notice that the salaries budget has an increase of about 1.87%. That's lower than it would have been in the prior years, but there are some things that are affecting that. First of all, we've learned that we're expected to get more in our UPK aid than we did in previous years. So, we'll be able to totally fund the costs that we currently have for PK through the grant rather than having some costs in the general fund. And then also, we show in our budget the savings from our retirees. It's my understanding that we have
049more retirees this year than we do in normal years. And so, we actually remove the higher salaries from the budget for those retirees. entered what would we would expect to pay for the teachers. Um, also up here is our Bosey's budget. Um, I did show a very slight increase that's because we looked at the BOS's budget that we had. We noticed we had in our budget that we just weren't utilizing. So, we reduced a little bit, but the BOS budget does include some increases like the cost for the Miller Circle program that we're also excited about. Um, and we also have our early college access program to post these which is really good for our students too. Um, even though that's increasing a little bit, we do have some additional aid that will come back
050to us next year and that's included down below in the state. You'll notice that the equipment is increasing about $85,000. Uh, that's primarily for two reasons. of car kit for dinner circle. It's not included in the OC services. So we have a budget for that in the equipment. Then we also did some re allocation of budget. We moved about $33,000 from our contractual code into equipment to accommodate some furniture and fixture upgrades at the high school library. Again, those are not new budget. I'm not the 31,000 33,000 was not new. It's just the reapplication. And then also you'll see that the debt service payments are increasing about 32%. This is for new debt that we have in the books for two prior projects. We had a project in voted in 2019. I believe it was
051a solar project and another project voted in 2022, a districtwide project. We just uh issued the bond for that and this year. So this budget reflects payments on the on that will start next year. We do have additional building aid that will help offset some of that debt service cost. And we also um I'll show you what tax cap how much our tax is going to that service to. And then finally the employee benefit line u we did a budget like Mr. Spar said by just under 10% a composite rate for health insurance increases. However, we do have a health insurance liability for retirees health insurance on our books. You may remember in December, Mr. Martin talked about that. It's about $9.4 million. And we're going to use about $460,000 of that liability to offset
052some of the cost for health insurance. Auditors don't like to see that on their books. So, we really do need to have a plan to slow it down. Uh this year 26 27 will have the highest amount that we spend on it. And then every year after that for a few years we'll use a little bit less of it until it's totally and then at the bottom part of this slide we show that we do have other slides about taxes. I'll talk about that then but the 3.61% increase is the is the tax allowable tax levy. So we are within the constraints of the tax cap. Um also you'll see that state a is increasing 3.61%. It's totally a coincidence that both amount the uh governor's proposal includes a 1% increase for us in foundation
053aid but there are other items in that state aid amount other than foundation aid. We have some expenses like our aids for transportation the high cost aid for special education and also our services. Um and like you said earlier, we are expecting to see an increase in that services aid primarily for two reasons for the early college access program and also because the salary cap for most city services has increased this year from 30,000 to 40,000 and we'll receive that additional next year. And then finally, the funds appropriation is nearly the same as last year. That's really the number that we use to fill in the motion cap because our revenues do to match our expenses. Uh there show chose a component budget. New York state requires that school districts show the budget of these
054three components and in capital program. Uh the administrative portion of the budget covers the district-wide management and oversight. It's central administration, school administration, business operations, legal services, insurance, and even uh any cost that we might educate. Uh the program component represents the core about instructional mission of the district. It includes classroom instruction, special education, student support services, athletics, co-curriculars, and also transportation services. And the capital component includes the cost of maintaining the facilities for our custodial staff and also for bus purchases and any debt service on the capital. Um we have two slides regarding the tax cap. This slide just shows a summary of the major factors that affected the tax cap. As I stated earlier, our tax cap increases through 6%. You'll see here the uh first factor is the consumer price index. That's
055really the contributes to the allowable levy growth factor which is the same for every single investor in New York state. It's tied to the consumer price index and represents inflation. New York state sets this factor each year. It's kept at 2% and um it really controls how much a district has to spend on the operating cost from one year to the next. I think in 2025 the inflation was actually increased by 2.7% but we are limited to that 2%. And then the tax based growth factor uh that's different for every school district but it's also set by New York State that reflects physical growth in the district's taxable property. So represent new construction or significant property improvements. It would allow the district to slightly increase the tax levy to account for growth in the tax
056base. It's also used for salary operating costs. And then finally, we have the tax cap increase for capital. Capital work is an exclusion to the tax gap. Um so um the new gap that we're bringing on provides increase of 63% in the overall tax gap for the district. And this might be the calculations unless someone really wants to go through the whole thing. can't read it line by line, but you'll notice we start with the base tax up at the top. We apply those factors that we just talked about and it brings us to the overall endings of 3.61% or 1.49 million. So everything that we just talked about is included here. One additional thing are the pilots which are payments taxes. We do have one pilot for the town of Red Hill for a
057senior housing project. I believe we've had that pilot. So the difference between what we receive one year to review the next year does have a slight >> uh what was the uh tax cap last year with the Yeah. Um allow us to go above the juice. What was it last year? >> I don't know what it was last year. It was very similar last year, but our capital was lower. >> So, also on the board agenda tonight are a few other items that we like approval to put propositions. The first one is our vehicle proposition. If you remember, we Mr. Percio and I discussed this February in our transportation presentation. We are looking for three hybrid SUVs. Um the SUVs that we have now are ended life and we do use these to go longer
058distances. We're looking for two 16 buses which are our smaller fans and we also maintenance truck. So out of that it's just over $500,000. Our transportation over five years is at 46.6%. So our net cost would be just over $330,000. The buses will be these buses. >> No bus uh for the passenger buses. Yeah. For the two passenger buses. So the two passenger buses will be gasoline. >> Yes. >> And then the SUVs will be gas. >> Got it. Okay. >> So we talked a lot about the capital project this year. As we know, we're looking to support a bus garage renovation. So this is um a picture of our current bus garage at Lun Avenue Middle School. It was built in three phases over the last 75 years. So the middle section is the
059original. We added on what we call the bus store pole barn on the right and then the end section here where our washway say on the left that was their newest addition in 200. Just to remind um the public and the board some of the additions inside the bus garage. This is the dispatch administrative offices. As you can see um as we talked about it's very crowded in there. lines of privacy space. It's difficult for Mr. Pers to have private conversations. The office has to go to a bus if we need to have a private conversation. So, we need to upgrade their office space. This is a picture outside the administrative office. You can see the back where the um bus is and that air conditioner is coming out. That's actually the back of Mr.
060P's office which is made with some type of cardboard. Um, this is a view of the employee bathroom. You can see that where the tub is cut out and the exposed pipes. We also have a break room which is not suspicious and the number of staff that we have there. So, this is our mechanical area. On the right, you'll see where the restroom is. And as we talked about when we made this presentation earlier, one of the things that happens is that anyone that needs to use the restroom needs to walk through the maintenance area. Um, so there's often different repairs that I have for buses and things such as tools and improvements and things that are are not ideal condition for people to use the restroom. You'll also notice that too, the type of
061space and lack of storage area that we have. So that we end up having to keep some of our tools and equipment out um in that maintenance area. These are maintenance bays for both large and small vehicles. You can see some of the cramp conditions. The other issue is that the floors are not completely level. need to redo all of the space as well. Our storage space. So, this is otherwise known as our pole barn. As we discussed, the bus is just fit. You can see the nose on the right hand side of the picture. The um the mirror was on the light was all the way up to the end of the um the wall and it actually requires the driver to come out one door. They are not able to circulate. The entire
062bus just fits and we're able to close the door. So in the new renovation, what we're looking to do is extend out the front six feet so that we extend the area and have room so the driver can actually walk all the way around the bus and also so that we can put some new on the board on front of those storage bays. This is our washbay station. So currently this is a drive in pull out station. So we're looking to upgrade the station so that you can pull through. So the buses go through, they get washed and then they can just circle around. We're also looking at the capital um project proposition to upgrade the infrastructure for the welding program. So Dr. Ronny's talked a lot about the certificate welding program. There's a lot
063of enthusiasm and excitement for our students and in offering this program, but in order to run the program, we would like to put these this is an example of what the welding stations would look like as individual stations. To support this, we need to do some infrastructure in our electric and our ventilation. So that is included in that for the capital project acquisition. So in total the cost uh between the bus garage and the infrastructure work at the high school it's um just over 15.8 million. We are making a recommendation to use 1 million of our capital reserve. So if you remember um a few years ago we started the capital reserve fund. We currently have $1.7 million in there. We're looking to um to use the 1 million as a contribution to help lower
064the tax burden. As I mentioned before, New York State does not fully fund um and aid the bus garage renovation or addition. So, they will not aid any area that we consider bus storage. So, that bill mark that we talked about where we store the buses overnight, that part is not gated. So we won't know the exact amount until unless this project passes and they submit the plans to SVD and then they will come back and tell us how much is needed. So because of that we think that this is one of the purposes of our capital reserve was to help lower the tax burden for our taxpayers. So by applying that $1 million we would end up with our total borrowing amount of 14 just over 14.8 million. So on an average household of
065$400,000, it would be about $28 a year over 21 years. It starts off a little higher and then it gets lower as that service drops off along the way. And we also have um a rental proposition um for the Brandon Library assembly library on there. this year to make policies. Did that answer any questions? >> I I do want to highlight too that that the governor has the ability to approve coming up, right? Building a for bus storage. >> Yeah, both the assembly and the senate are recommending that the governor um approve to help support infrastructure for buses that they approve all building aid on anything that has to do with supporting your busy. So if that were to come through that would be great because then essentially 100% of our project wouldn't be eligible
066right. Is there a reason why um we would not get stated on a maintenance vehicle? And so when you said that you would move it out six feet six feet forward the back side. So the front if you're looking at the front of the bus garage where that we we currently have manual doors that cover. So we would be looking to bump out the front six feet um and then put a new envelope down and that allows the bus to to pull in and it allows room for the driver to circulate and also have to put in new mechanical doors. Do we have updated drawings on what the bus driver will look like? >> No. So, we have preliminary drawings on um the renovation and what where the addition will be, but we don't get
067into detailed drawings unless the population passes and then we'll have more renderings and or additional things that we can >> partly different than what we have. >> Yeah, I know. I'm just looking at, you know, for the public to see like, you know, it's nice to see what you're voting for, but what even if it I know it won't be exact and they can't get into that, but just so they have an idea of what we're voting. >> Yeah. Our plan is to um make a video of what it currently looks like um and speak to andio will be highlighted in the video, but go through and discuss that and then look at some renderings of what it possibly could look like. I don't know if it'll end up being like a prefabricated building. Um,
068so those questions will all come into play as we evolve. >> Yeah. And I think it would be important if we do a video is it's a bus garage. So it's not about how pretty it looks. I said it looks pretty, but you know, it's really about the mechanics and the functionality uh and the safety, the charging capabilities, the lift, um the mechanics of what we can do, the safety uh enhancements that will protect our workers. So I think those will be the things that in a video I think will be more important than like if we just show a pretty bus garage. >> I mean my point >> kind of aesthetically pleasing. >> We wanted to look aesthetically pleasing because it is it is sit next to building but I think that for something
069like this the functionality is >> yeah we have lifts that were borrowing at this point. um it's really not functional at this point. >> It's a great point and like that which I actually interviewed Anthony earlier this week to go over all of those sectors and primarily it's just you know we look at the conditions of the bus garage for our staff but also for safety and we want to run conduit and the pole bar and cover with concrete so that in the future we can build on new structure for charging that were come up. We have the um six chargers currently in here now. Um so there's a lot of factors. It's not just one thing, but I think that being functional is is the biggest um point that we want, especially with the
070lift. The lift is broken. We spend money every month to rent one. So, having our own um that's functional, you know, our maintenance is really important. >> Yeah. I think it's important to note that we did not put EV buses on this proposition mainly because the governor, it actually proposal right now to go to the governor is only hund00 million. And I think our district alone could use $100 million. So we're not seeing um the ability to offset the cost for those too. And I know that there's been a lot of discussion about our current EV buses. Um so I don't know if Anthony if you want to touch on that. I know you have some representatives with you as well. >> Thank so I have Jeremy Johnson and Shak. They're beer prone with New
071York bus sales and they're willing to answer any questions that the board may have. Um, so we we received four new PV buses. Two of them were delivered. I used one for a day and a half and there were some defects in the bus. They were willing to take them back to the dealer and repair those defects. when the bus went back, it ended up having a a check engine light. So, with the EV buses, there's two companies. Um, Bluebird has one side of it and Cummings, the uh the diesel manufacturer has the second side of it and they do the EV batteries, they do the EV motor, they they have a lot of components inside that bus. And so the buses went back for repairs to the New York Bucks bus sales and then
072they had to go to Cummings. So Cummings EV. So bottom line any sort of a mechanic is tough to get to them. They're not knocking on the door saying ah we want to be mechanics. Now you add EV to it and there's less mechanics. So Cummings and Albany only has one mechanic to work on on the buses. So all four of our buses went there. And when they work on an EV bus, they have to derate all the batteries. There's a whole process to it. So you can't bring one bus in, diagnose it, and say, "Oh, we'll pull that one out and get the next one in." and you have to bring that bus in, diagnose it, and then do the repair however long that takes. So, they end up getting a backlog. We were
073fortunate enough to have uh New York bus sales work with Cummings and they'll bring more resources to help Cummings. They're going to bring another mechanic down from Syracuse. They brought a mechanic um from the Bronx up to Albany and they're in a process of getting our buses back on the road and getting them delivered to us. Um I just I I don't know if you want, but I have a list of buses that we worked on here at Red Hook over the winter. I have uh two two propane buses and they were out out of service for about four weeks because they needed fuel pumps. When you do a fuel pump on a propane bus, you can't bring it inside because of the vapors and the fumes. So, you have to evacuate the propane outside
074and it has to be a a dry day because if there's any moisture in the air, once you open up that propane tank, all the moisture gets absorbed in that tank. So, you need specific days um that you could work on those propans. And I I would say both of those propane buses were out of service for about 4 weeks with the uh fuel. I had uh two gasoline buses, actually three gasoline buses. I had bus 138, bus 140, and bus 143 that were out of service as well over the winter. And then our one diesel bus, that one was out of service for about two weeks. Uh that needed a EGR valve, which is a simple fix, but to get the part in, it it took quite a bit of time. And then as
075far as even our SUVs, I had two of them that were out of service for about a week each and uh they needed water pumps over over the winter. So, it was a rough winter. And it's not just the EV buses. We we hear a lot about the EVs. Um a lot of criticism, but there's also other buses as well. And I just I want to make sure everybody is aware of that as well. Um >> so I think that's important distinction too if the board has additional questions. I think there's also some of the reality that this is uh you know evolving technology you know I mean you probably look back when they first started driving cars and there was conversations about that so anytime that you enter an arena where there is new
076technology or new energy sources it's going to be part of it but I I think that it's important to note that that's not the only thing but I would also like to commend that we have a partnership and we have the dedication of these groups that are seeking to make sure that Red Hook successful with on boarding these EB buses and they're very attentive to our needs and they've been down here meeting and we're going to be going out and visiting with them in Albany as well just to talk about how do we continue that partnership moving forward. So I think it's just important to know the board has additional questions. I think it's just important that we are able to hear directly the truth about the situations that are going on in the bus.
077I was just going to say like I appreciate the transparency about the EV bus obstacles. Um, you know, I think because we're facing this this mandate, you know, I think it's important to still advocate for what these challenges are around this mandate. Um, you know, but there are a lot of questions and concerns in our community. So, I think just really being clear about what those obstacles are would be really helpful. Um, and just being really transparent about, you know, when these buses, you know, they should be dealing with these buses. >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's important that we have honest conversations. We're going to have to talk more in depth about this next year because the mandate remains in place in the state and as I mentioned last month. There are um
078we've had some positive experiences with the two buses that we put on the road, but there are challenges and one of them it's very cost prohibitive um without any kind of grant or incentive money to pay for them. In addition to Dr. Gordon's point, it's new technology. They don't have the infrastructure or the text to work on the technology that becomes a challenge as well. So, it's a balance in trying to um see how we move forward with the mandate in place. The other thing is that um I I don't know that everybody's aware of starting in 2027, we can no longer purchase fuel buses, but um bus companies are not allowed to sell them to school districts either. So if we don't purchase can't purchase a field bus and don't purchase a Navy bus,
079we're also faced with the situation of not being able to purchase a bus, which creates another change. So all of those things that we really need to consider, but I do want to thank Jeremy and Shock and how responsive these guys have been and coming to meetings, they always pick up the phone. So I know that they're hearing it. They have challenges themselves, too. But they've been wonderful to work with and grateful. >> And there's no modifications in the budget, the governor's budget for EV buses. She did not modify the timeline. There's no modification. So, this was continuing exactly the way that it is. Can you also highlight the cost? I think there's a misconception about cost. I know we have grants for all these buses. There's exceptions about how much we paid. >> Yeah,
080absolutely. So, um just to remind the board, we qualified for NARTA grant which allowed us six buses. We got $220,500 for each of those buses. Um, the first two we already paid for. They each cost us $13,000. We paid just over $26,000 for the two buses. The four buses that the voters approved last year that we've been invoiced for 63 after um aid and were incentive, they cost $63,000 a bus. We have not paid any for any of those four buses. We haven't put out any money at all for towing repair. We haven't paid for the buses. So the only thing we pay for the first day that um just to remind the board too they cost about half a million dollars a bus. So it's a large expense to put in place especially now
081that we've capped out um we maxed out another 14% allowable um amount of seats to be able to have grant money and ask that too. So that's also a change. And when um Anthony and I met with NAERTA, we asked them if more money comes through from the state districts like us where we've maxed out our ability to access that grant, will they change the the guidelines? And they don't have an answer to that. >> I do have just one more followup question about that. So, how does this work with our bus replacement plan? like if we're only looking to purchase in the future or can purchase EV buses um and we have a situation like where we do we have multiple buses that are nonoperational how we foresee that being a problem I think
082that's absolutely going to be part of the conversation the other thing that happens is why we don't purchase a vehicle we lose that aid right and we use that as a revenue source so there's challenges across the board right now company's been very proactive we have a full fleet we've been able run our um buses every day. Our kids are getting picked up and dropped off from being able to do sports runs. So, we're fine right now, but I don't know if that's sustainable in the future. And that definitely needs to be provide us with buses to util. >> Yes, absolutely. Jeremy, he he drove those loner bus up here himself personally because that's just the type of people they are. They they know we're we're stressed right now. We're not, but when these sports
083trips we start doing four sports trips today, we're going to be dressed for buses. So Jeremy supplying buses for us at no charge. Do you think that the additional I mean is there extra wear and tear we're going to be seeing over the next three years while these fields get renovated? Like I mean do you account for a certain like amount of mileage per bus or bus? Does that contribute to some of the the like overuse? I'm just trying to understand >> for like sports situations. It it it's just it's part of it's part of the business. You know, it is all accounted for. Basically, what we do is the year. We we try to have a replacement plan of 10 10 years. Sometimes we go 12 years with a the vehicle. Um we we
084have great mechanics. They keep up with the maintenance and they they keep the buses going. And if DOT comes in and inspects the bus twice twice a year, every 6 months our buses get inspected by DOT. And if they see something that's getting old, they'll they'll say this is the last inspection. You you got to get ready to, you know, put this one out. Um the other thing I I forgot to mention is uh EV 145. That bus, it didn't miss a beat all winter. It has 9,400 miles on it and that one was the most recent one to get sent out. We're still waiting diagnostic for it because we have these other four buses ahead of it, but it it's not a bad run for for the first year to get 9,400 miles. So,
085I I'm definitely impressed with it. The kids were happy with it. It ran every day in that cold weather. We had -2 - 8° warnings and that bus was out. And right now we're we have easy EV 146 that's on the road and that one has about 5,000 miles on it. >> Do we have a current uh bus replacement plan? >> Yes. >> Because this is the last year that we be able to purchase. I know we're not purchased any um gas buses this year, but this would be the last year that we could. I know there's concern about the cost of the electric buses moving forward. So just wondering how that plays into our plan for the next five years. >> That's exactly the point where we have to talk about that is challenge
086for sure. I mean we're fine right now and the way that we started it and buying four buses last year allowed us to buy the hybrid vehicles this year. So we could we got that revenue from buying a big bus. But it's absolutely something that needs to be part of the conversation moving forward and how we're willing to navigate that. Yeah. Even when the mandate comes, there's still going to be gas probably for a good how many years because you're not just going to like say, "Oh, we're not driving these anymore. It's still going to be, okay, we're going to slowly transition, but we're still going to have the gas and still have the propane." I mean, it's going to take I couldn't even guess 20 20 years for a full transition if you think
087about it because you're not just going to stop using your gas and propane buses that you currently have. So, I I don't even know how many years would be the entire fleet be you guys have an idea, right? >> That's how I don't >> but that's still the >> correct. So I think that means we're we're moving now, but we're an entire fleet. >> So our newest gasoline bus is uh 20 2024. So again 12 years that that bus has 12 years of life, too. >> We wouldn't stop using that. >> Do you guys have anything to add? >> No. Uh Jeremy Johnson over >> uh Jeremy Johnson bus sales uh just here to show the support for the district. I mean again we're all going through this together. Uh as you mentioned technology evolves
088you guys have here to support whatever direction the federal takes. So this app any questions I know we were talking about the budget but I think it's important to uh address >> going back to the budget. I think at some point we were talking about a video to highlight the bus garage. Would it be also possible to include the other elements of the proposition? >> Yeah, welding and vehicle just to put it all in one place. >> Sure. Thanks. >> Thank you. budget should be the next meeting. >> The propositions that the language have to be approved tonight in order to get on the ballot and the timeline statements that the budget can be adopted with the next board meeting to be adopted by is all right. So that was our first recognition of visitors.
089Anyone like to speak? >> No, that's not that's >> okay. >> So, so that brings us to our first transition. there's anyone would like to speak. We ask that you have been state your name speaking the microphone and we ask that you um have topics that are either on our budget pertain to the desk. Is there anyone All right to budget now. Does anyone have anything that they would like to discuss as far as the 2016 budget? Um, no. The language the language need to beed and the same for the proposition. Um so for if you look at the legal notice number three the practition has um the specific language and going back to number four does not have So, can I get a um a motion um to approve the legal notice uh of
090opposition? Motion. Uh any discussion to that? All right. All those in favor. All right. And then um we need a motion and a second to approve the new public infrastructure for the welding program. Second discussion. All those in favor? >> And then um I need a motion and second to approve the legal notice for the May 2026 vote. um to the discussion on that. Yeah, I think um Jen wants to note that proposition two. >> Yeah, the legal notice of which will add the word So, let's um just to be able to say that let's vote to add that London Avenue and the Red High School. >> Yeah. Okay. So, I got a motion a second on that. All those in favor and then go back to Okay. You already got a motion. >> I
091I hope so. >> So I would also like to commend the um play. It was absolutely wonderful. And commend the actual theater program in the time that I serve for what it looks like now. involved with the dancing and choreography and singing. Um I think it was enjoyed very well and I believe they said it sold over a thousand tickets. So I mean I think that was why we built this. Um and also just to note the middle school has a midsummer night streaming the Shakespeare play Friday and Saturday if people are interested in that to support our upcoming actors and act pieces um moving forward. Um, I just want to highlight a few things from our community conversation for those there who received any notes from there and I just wanted to thank the
092community for coming and our district leadership and our administrators for participating. And just a few highlights when they went through and discussed skills, programming, experiences for the future. There's a lot of things that they spoke about that we were doing well um that were providing some hands-on real world learning uh focusing on the arts. Like I just said, we had uh our social emotional learning programs. We provide a strong academic foundation. There was a lot of discuss about a playbased uh model um and nurturing that with the environments that need created. There was talk about what tech inspiration and talking about digital tools and things that they talked about that we could do better in this area was focusing a little bit more on uh how we see ourselves in the future using technology, how
093we see STEM expansion, how we incorporate AI, artificial intelligence into that. really also focusing on giving our students more career and real world pathways and deepening the uh critical thinking and problem solving that our students encounter in our classrooms. Also focusing more on practical life skills and we know that financial literacy is becoming mandated but we've also been doing that but also supporting students become more independent. Um we added the word resilience recently to our mission statement. So I think that goes nicely with that. Um they also talked about incorporating more with student voice and leadership roles. So letting our students have those ability to take those leadership roles really I think helps them in the future. And as far as our facilities, how they can evolve to support the skills in our programs in
094the future. um what we were doing well was the outdoor and garden programs were spoken about and how um looking at sustainability programs. They also were doing well with um spaces that support collaboration. As many of you know, we've been updating our furniture, our spaces. So, just being acknowledged in that area. Um, also acknowledging our wellness and movement, just our gym spaces have changed. Um, space for all of our outdoor recesses. We've included playgrounds over the years, walking paths, things of that nature. We've also been involving students in the design of the school, asking students what they would like their school to look like and incorporating that. Uh, what we can do better is they want more outside stuff, which is great, which we're definitely talking about that. Um improvement again learning environments outside enhance
095food and kitchen activities. Um somebody wanted a waffle and burrito bar. Hold on for that. Um kitchen space for student learning. Some more authentic ways to help our students uh in that area. um looking what we did uh could do a little bit better too is more wellness focusing more on gym access outside of maybe school hours and looking at technology and innovation. Uh how does virtual reality technology come into play and that sometimes this comes up with technology once you invest does that now become obsolete. So really keeping that in mind. Um looking at inclusivity and accessibility, uh more inclusive programming, looking at facilities and logistic improvements, lockers, I know the lockers and reduced backpack dependency. Um maybe looking at our late bus transportation, community connections, um use of our pack center more, maybe
096some collaboration with other districts came up. And the final question that was asked is what should community engagement partnerships with families and community members look like in the future? And the things that we were doing well was the parent square. I know that for years people were talking about we had many different ways of communication. So parent square came up um more newsletters, the fact that they're at community conversations, the community partnership team. There was talk of community and school connections activities that were that were going well. Um like partnerships with barge for the girls program, our family fun night, our PTA meetings. Um also something we're doing well is our student centered experiences. Our students were able to go out and to the farms, the hospitals, have local connection but also hands-on experiences. We
097also building relationships with our community that was seen as a positive um and involving parents. And what we could do better was expand it even more. Um having maybe more open houses or things where parents can come into the school, provide more volunteer opportunities and improve two-way communication. Um so it's not only like provided one way. um us maybe some surveys to get a broader audience and to strengthen our partnership and our programming. Um PTSA at the secondary level look to strengthen that expand some of our board partnerships and increase access to school resources. um add an electronic sign um that that came up. Uh programming and events more multicultural and international events may be open to the community. Equity inclusion enhancement enhancements improve language access. Uh more translations, ensure advisory groups have diverse voices
098and manage participation equitably and technology and community improvements. improve team communication tools for sports teams and use teams and similar tools that all students can access. So yeah. Yeah. I I I think it we looked over as um an administrative team and there's some of the thoughtful things that we are going to be looking at like immediately was the instructional technology plan with the fact that technology is evolving so quickly and the impact of artificial intelligence. just to be thoughtful about what that would look like in the future so that we have a plan um and how do we teach students to use it responsibly? How do we how does that incorporate into our teaching and our practices and something new comes out every day? So like the comment about when you put something in
099place, does that become obsolete and does the next thing come and how do we have our students do that? Um, and looking really at digital citizenship, which we've been doing for a while, but how does that look when you incorporate and um, also too, we had our first Mill Road community partnership tour and I can go through some of the strengths there too. Um, it was wonderful. We heard from our facilities director, our technology director, and then um our principal and assistant principal in Mil Road toward the school and had a really good opportunity to see in classrooms, go outside, have just a better understanding of how the school is run. So some of the strengths for strong relationships that are built at the elementary level, a very dedicated staff, the it's very student focused
100at the elementary school, the emphasis on the whole child. There's good family partnerships, good communication, there's supportive s services. Um there's a positive school culture and some areas for growth for Milro 2 was improved transitions and procedures. I don't know how I can do it, but arrival and dismissal. Um that's always very difficult. But maybe looking at that stren and then also continue to improve our communication, continue to enhance our academic support and our instructional uh practices to meet all diverse learners and continue to um expand and look at the social emotional behavior supports that we have for our students and increase um professional learning which we did in the last conference day. here is that have that vertical collaboration across um the grade levels which I think also having Milro be a prek five
101also comes into play uh strengthen our family engagement and clarify roles and responsibilities I guess like who do I call if I have this you know needs and so kind of define those areas so we look forward to having that same group come back to tour I believe the high schools we can go in order again um and then we will go to plans. So I'll I'll just provide updates throughout that just some areas that we look at and then we just discussed too that synthesizing those areas and providing what our next steps are and revisiting those so that we talked about people making connections but this is our mission, our vision, this is our profile of a graduate and these are the reasons why we're doing these things. when we get that community input,
102what we're putting in place and why we're putting in place, maybe we don't put it in place, why we didn't put it in place, I think it's really the key to, you know, finish that loop. Does anybody have any questions about that? How many people? >> I think it was about 15. I'm not sure if they all that was about 15 people. >> 15 people. So and and is it going to be those same people that >> that's what we did last year too. So sticky. >> Yeah. Unless someone couldn't make it when we would have a sub list. >> And how is the turn out the response for the survey? >> It's good. Many people >> I don't know the survey >> the survey sent out to me. Yeah. I still see that in
103um I'll get to it. >> I think that's it. I I did want to highlight that if you get a chance that the Senate and the Assembly uh one house budget proposals that are waiting for the governor and I think um we got went through some of them with the prek which is great to hear from Linda that was uh huge because we know that when we started that the district was taking on a lot of that. that advocacy for that funding was hurt which was wonderful and I just we're going to keep our eye on the store uh school bus storage aid because that will really affect us but just to go back that there is not enough money for the electric school uh infrastructure going across the state oh they're going to be
104looking at a the artificial intelligence literacy act which I think is going to be interesting saying, you know, we have some brand programs. So, I will keep our eye on that to see um some brands that will be intended to support digital equity and AI literacy in the education system that's coming up this fall. Thank you, Dr. many things going on. So last Friday was our superintendent conference day and I know the schedule was shared with the board of ed. Um there was a lot of teacher choice in that um professional development day. We always do an exit survey for our um times that teachers have and they have the choice to most teachers do it. So, let me just go through for the Milro Elementary faculty. The exit survey um had 65 responses and
105out of five there was a 4.85 score. Um and a lot of people had a lot of positive feedback that we will utilize during our next professional development committee meeting to move us forward for our next um superintendent conference day at the Lynon Amin Middle School. 33 responses and that overall um day score of five was 4.48. Um again a lot of there's many components to our exit survey. So we get a lot of written feedback about next steps, how will they use the professional development, what else do they need, what were the takeaways, what can they apply next day, next week. Um so that was very good. And at the high school another um very productive day. They really did a lot of presentations on future job trends and current innovations. They did some
106performance-based learning assessments and utilized book LM um and they spent the afternoon in departments working on um developing alternative assessments for those areas that did not um have a weekend. So that was very good. Overall there's 55 responses and that rating was 4.2. So that very productive as I said the data will be used in our next committee meeting and also shared with administrators um steps for protection we also highlight some of the board reports that principles have done I'll start with the high school this time um teachers and administrators have been doing your state board of graduate and they're inspired and as they usually Northwest today to build a vision for performance based learning assessments, student services and in high motion getting ready for the end of the year but also planning for next
107year. So they pushed into English classes to introduce new course selections and new course offerings. Um they've also have been meeting very busy meeting the students to determine the schedules for next year and over the last four weeks they have met with over 400 students and they're about 95% finished with that. Um also college planning night with school counselors will be on March 24th and BLT is currently reviewing morning arrival protocols to maximize efficiency and safety. So that's what's going on at the high school. I always appreciate the student board members reporting out because you really give a very good snapshot of what students are experienc. So I get to hear what the teachers are experiencing, but it's always fun to hear what you have to share. So with Lynen Avenue Middle School, the Latin
108culture fair was on March 5th that was um hosted by the international club and led by their advisor Liz Nami. always a wonderful event for students, staff, families, and community partners, and it really is a true celebration of Latin culture. Um, we had an eighth grade student followed by the New York State wrestling competition and the whole building gave an amazing send off with a lot of spirit, a lot of good luck. So, that was fun. And then three of lamb students performed at the New York State Band Directors Association symposium. That is really high honor. So it was really great to have those three students go and attend. Um still working on the master of glams. They're looking to make a structural change to an 8 period day 50 minutes and they're working as
109a team to do that. They're still working through some challenges with banning chorus, but there have many suitable solutions that they're still working through. It's again starting to be New York State testing time. So in April, April 8th through the 9th will be ELA. April 14th through 15th will be math and science for 8th grade only will be May 7th. That's happening at Williams and Mil Road. always a lot going on. The young scholars program wrapped up and students had the opportunity to showcase creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking as they develop many projects over the last two months. Uh, Mil Rose also collecting SAT and working on science experience that really brings learning to life as only nature can. Student council is working on exploring the possibility of organizing school talent show and they are
110also thinking about developing a student news broadcast which would be a wonderful way to communicate out to their their um other friends about what's happening at Zoom Council. Crossroads um wrapped up its winter section, its winter session. It served 61 students and that's an enrichment program after school. Um they did beginning and intermediate chess, winter exploration, snowshoeing, crafting, and Lego engineering. BLT is working on thinking about ideas for the mural update for outside the prep second grade main entrance. So on there in athletics as the um winter has ended there's sports season and as of today there's 177 student athletes signed up for sports for spring sports and um modified will begin their practice after spring break under PPS a lot of professional development going on um for PPS they're currently working on um planning
111for next year transition meetings, projection meetings. Um they are fine-tuning the professional development for um all points which is working with our flex classroom to design more curriculum and assessment tools. Wilson does work with a full day training. We want the tier 2 decoding intervention program. An effective school solution did provide training to our aids and our bus drivers focused on problem formed approaches for supporting students. Last but not least is technology. big area that's happening in technology is looking for um the big part of the regional information center will no longer support our school data data management system for our students. So um Brenton is working to see if um which area which other posties will support that and he intends to um a lot of work looking for the right place for us
112and there will support and we'll go with them looking contract with them. So that's the summary on the office. Lots going on. I'm hearing so great. Um and facilities. So everybody can see the lock down button here. It's the um the yellow box above the light switch. It currently says they're not in use. They're um happy to report that they're all installed across each of the three buildings. That was part of our capital proposition from last year. So, we are using spring break to admission all of them, which means we're testing every single one of them in the building. So, the students aren't here. So, some people in the village might hear some of those alarms going off throughout the day, but it's purposeful because we want to make sure that they're all work and
113integrated into our system. Um, we are working hard to change over the lights at Lance to LED lights. So, Mr. Roy and his staff have been working diligently to do that. If you'll remember here at Mil Road in the high school, they all the lights. So, we changed LED as part of our capital project proposition and lands were doing on our own. Um, we did offer an AED training at our conference today. I'm happy to report that we had 16 more staff members training, which is great and really helpful to have um the number of staff that we do in case of medical emergency. So, I think we're up to 47 staff in the district that are trained in CPR and A. the great news from food service, the farm to school showcase, which will
114be here on May 7th. We've got incredible feedback from farms. So, we're expecting many different moms to come, including, if you'll remember, um the indoor organic gardens. If we tasted the broccoli powder, if you guys remember powder, they're coming and they're bringing a surprise guest chef. >> Yeah, I'm very excited for that. So, I hope everybody stops by and gets a sample and needs our surprise guest chef. That would be great. We did have I mentioned um the CIA volunteer program with the Culinary Institute of America. We did launch that on March 2nd. Had a lot of success. We are looking at repeating that in April. So, we're going to try to do it once a month. Um we had great feedback. We had over 40 students volunteer from culinary. So, which was awesome to
115come into our kitchen, work with our staff. So, it's a mutually beneficial relationship. Um we do have to spread them out because we had so many, which is overwhelmingly great. So, we're going to continue that. I do want to point out um one of the things that the state and the assembly both agreed on is allowing breakfast in in schools to be considered part of the 30% initiative. Um but one of the things that the um food service department in the state that oversees all of the schools to ask them for supports as administrators to ask the legislation to um also increase the reimbursement amount because if they include the breakfast and with the lunch and don't increase the reimbursement amount, we can actually lose money and hurt the program. So they have to change
116the whole program for it to be beneficial to school. So, um, Sam Pride sent me a draft letter that I could share with the board if you'd like to see it. I think it would be something that we should about supporting. >> Yeah, it's great. Um, we gave the update on transportation tonight from Mr. Fertu. So, that was great. And one thing I wanted to mention in technology that we had planned as a summer project that we went ahead and did was the fire wall replacement. So in districts >> okay >> um one last thing I just would like to the board bring to your attention is um to make some changes for our board education dates. So right now we have meetings scheduled on April 9th. As I mentioned in my presentation, we are
117scheduled to go before the village planning board for a public hearing that night, which I know that I need to attend. Board members may want to attend as well. So, um, in our original calendar, we had a post meeting on April 21st. That actually needs to be moved to the 28th. That was clarable error. The Bose vote is on the 28th. But what we are proposing is that we hold a regularly scheduled board meeting on April 21st. If it works for the board, then five o'clock start date for a public meeting because we do need to adopt the budget prior to April 24th. So that works for the board executive session. >> Um and just to make mention May 7th, the budget expo, I did say in my presentation that that has been moved to
118Neil Road. Um, so our communications about that have gone out and that also means the public hearing on the budget will be here at 7 o'clock in this cafeteria on May 7th. Um, May 19th is our budget vote and then we are looking to cancel the May 21st meeting because what we've done historically is after the vote I read out the results and then we have a ratify the results. >> May 19th. Okay. >> May 19th. Yes. So at 9:00 when we close the polls we'll have the votes. I'll read out the results and then it works to we can ratify the results as we've done the last couple of years. And then that leaves us with our regularly scheduled meeting in June on June 12th which will also include our last committee meetings for
119this year. And I know that um a board member asked if we can try to look at creating the dates for next year >> sooner than later. We're we're waiting. We need we need that Bosey's vote date >> so we don't have the same problem. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Great. That brings us to committee policy. Anything out the first three for me and first for student evaluation that's and um solar. For that one, we just had like a very minor sort of logistical question in policy. But needs of staff members who will be >> together. >> Okay, great. >> And that brings us to advocacy or community engagement. Um so we did have our first store and we also um talked about community um conversations. So I know that Dr. Warden will remember that. So
120I think dinner to both of those. Um, does that count? >> No, no, no, no, I like that. Um, and then we also went over our board by um, you know, some of the key points that we tonight, but that will also go out and, um, this we didn't discuss it with Mr. Dr. Pay was saying about the >> Yes, for the lunch. time. So that could be something we could put on the next agenda to take a look at and that brings us to facilities. >> Yeah, I mean Dr. Hayes covered a lot in terms of the capital province. We spent a good amount of time on that and then Lou gave us a timeline on the field. So just to bring everybody up to speed, um we are going to bid shortly. I
121mean pretty aggressively in the next couple of weeks. um to try to get that by April 21st so we can approve it at the end of April. um he already has identified multiple um GC there's a lot of you know dirt digging as he kept referring to just to just to remind everyone the two fields that we're going to be focusing on and I have to use the term football field because that's really what's going to be now and then the um secondary field when you drive into the high school uh which is currently the soccer and lacrosse fields men and women's well men's and women's soccer women's lacrosse Um, you know, it there's never an ideal time you have to rip the band-aid off. This is a very lengthy process. And I think while
122elements like timing, seeding, watering, dryness, summer seasons all come into play. Um, they're really hoping to invulate the digging. Um, and we're still kind of valuing sod we're leading with sod, which requires a tremendous amount of irrigation. But the punchline to all of this is that we will have to wait. um a couple seasons before we can actually fully utilize those wheels again. So, we need to let the like I'm I'm already hearing some you know rumblings whatever anticipate fall of 2027 when those fields will be usable. I mean they will try to accelerate but I think at this point we've invested so much time and money to like accelerate it unnecessarily is not great but I think if we use SCD and all the elements align and the irrigation align um we may be
123able to most likely accelerate them both but they're just giving us sort of that like get that under radar fall 2027. So those two fields will be on commission for quite a while. Um we're going to build from the inside out on the track and field, right? We're going to start with the inner and then we will be laying a track. The big discussion there now is just um there are layers deep of original track concrete base. I'm learning a lot. Um it looks like we're probably getting deep a little bit of debate. As as Lou said, there's good snow. We're not going to come in and replace it with good stone good stone, but we want to go deep enough to really give it a healthy refill with fabric and lining to make the
124tractor soft or you know and safe. I don't know that's a word soft in a good way. Did you want to supplement something? Yeah, you have it correct. So, we have actually um our current track was built on top of another track and there's a layer of rubber there that is had a test that is no longer good. So, we need to go all the way down to this young base. >> Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously we're all up to speed on the lights. We did a presentation to the village board this past week. Um I learned a ton about lumens. We're very luen healthy. That was my term. Um you know, but as always, it's part of our board goal. Everything is envy sound. Um, and I think in total we would have five
125lights on each corner of the, you know, sort of sending corner of the track and then one by the long jump, which will potentially be adjusted slightly because of the new parking garage, the bus garage. You might have to do it. So, it will be lovely. It's just going to be a project, but I know we're going to get started. And I know Tom said in his administrative report, unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of reallocation of fielding with deeds and bard, but I know he was doing his best. That's just a heavy, you know, lift on his part. So, thank you, Tom, for all these hours of trying to juggle these sports teams. Um, you know, we got lucky, I think, in the fall. Maybe we'll get lucky again. Um, but yeah, we're all going
126to have to compromise a little bit because it's, you know, it's an investment in time. You know, they will be beautiful. We'll be looking at beautiful fields that we can't use for a while, but we'll be able to use eventually. So, we'll keep you posted obviously on every step as we go. Um, but that's the projected timeline though. >> Great question. Is there a projected date or season that the track would be able to be used? Do you know that? >> Is that closed now? The track for the spring. >> It's a track the track is not useful. Not yet. It's not track. >> Where does track go? >> I think for me it's having a hard time finding a place to consistently practice track and piecing that together. But I think you're asking Austin
127is to let them start the project in the track. You know, you're saying like has to come use the track. May maybe I don't know. That's a good question. Probably >> spring 2027 track. >> Yes, it'll be in place. Yeah, it's possible. I don't know enough about the track and field events to know what has to go on the field itself. Anyone vers, but the track should be open >> on the soccer fields. um they're not going to be available till you said fall >> fall 27 27. So for next year um are we going to have to do all the games away? Is there an option of using line in the football field bar facility? >> That's all. make my point short. Um, is there a way we can have home games somehow here
128in Red Hook somewhere like this was why we propose all that stuff back because we don't be away and obviously the board has the availability but other than that >> about running uh if they're not using their field could we rent it? I I think um Tom calls all the need that we have. He's great. Kingston mind back. He reached out to everybody and I think he tries to get whatever he can. They were really gracious about football season this year stadium to allow us to use that. That worked out really well. So he, you know, he's well aware of the timelines and knows that that's something that needs to be arranged. Not that I personally don't want to drive an hour and a half every day. All right. Any other uh comments or discussions?
129Um and then that brings us to the um the countyy's um board candidate nominations. And we received two letters. One from Mark Flyer and from Jimmy Do we have two? >> Yeah, they're just >> Yeah. >> In the past, we've almost always had candidates come Okay. >> Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, I do remember him coming. That was >> Mark, right? >> Um I believe school boards. >> Okay. both. >> Are we selecting both? >> There's two open. We can nominate both. >> So both of them are nominated. >> Okay. So that so that that brings us to policy review and approval. Um >> I don't think so. Um so uh I'm just going to paraphrase really quickly again did this but uh second reading policy 1620 the first read to policy 5741 is alcohol testing
130and then the first read of policy 7210 student evaluation motions. Um can I get a motion and a second? >> Motion. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? Hi. >> And that brings us to uh the business consent agenda. Um items 1 through 16. I got a motion and second on that. Second. >> All those in favor. forget we are told you are that was the school calendar. All right. So now we're going to um would you personel um items 2 through eight? Okay. Um, all those in favor I mean a motion and a second. Now I'm all a motion second motion. All in favor. So just want to congratulate some of our retirees. Nancy Jansen longtime special education teacher. We thank her for her service and her dedication to um inclusive learning and being
131a leader. She was also a department chair. Deb Taylor um one of our aids in our school district 28 years with Bangbridge formed wonderful relationships with the students and the faculty and staff as well as we have a retirement and bus where he's worked on bus he worked as bus driver for 10 years. So we really really appreciate his dedication to safety and transporting our students and so thank you all. >> Great stuff. >> All right, that brings us to our second wish to visitors who would like to speak. We ask that you come to the podium or state your name and keep our comments any motion. We we do have to do that for the Boseies. We have to second or vote. >> We do have to >> Yeah. Sorry. >> Um it's past
132my bedtime. >> Yeah. >> You're good. >> All right. All right. So, a motion to step in on his for the donations. All there. All right. Motion to second. It's way past my bedtime. >> Hi, how are you? >> Sign up those three spots there. >> This is it. How exciting is this? >> It's so exciting. >> I know.