001All right. Thanks everybody for joining. Um going to call the meeting to order. Uh if I can have a motion to adjourn executive session and uh end the regular meeting. Second. All in favor? Right. All right, if we can stand for the pledge. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Warden for a number of recognitions. So, we have some wonderful students here tonight that we're really excited to recognize. I'm going to start with the elementary Milro Road yearbook design winners. So, if they would please come to the front with their wonderful arch teacher. So, this is a big competition. I know you right right there. Right in the front center. Absolutely. So, you get on camera. That's the important thing. Um, so I know that this is a really important event at
002Mill Road and it's highly competitive and we um are so happy that you are expressing your creativity. That's very important in the school district. So if you want to talk a little bit about the competition and these wonderful students, you could get in the mic and you can face the board. Okay. So, their only um real requirements were that it needed to be school related. We wanted to see um Milroad on their design and they had a lot of examples from previous winners to look at and you know we talked a little bit about copyright and how important it is to be creative but also to be inspired by past designs so they would kind of have something to go off of and there was so many was so hard for Miss Lawler and I
003to choose from but um we had the top five winners so Nancy Chaplac was our front cover. So, she'll have this to say [Applause] home. Um, Ellie Shoot was our back [Applause] cover and then there was three inserts. So, Indiglo indigo Clemente one of the inserts And Katherine Pthik was another insert. And we have one more. Unfortunately, Olivia Larson is not feeling well tonight, but she was our third insert. So, yeah, there was it was a really good competition. These these kids really pulled it out. So, I'm super proud of them. Great. And just to let you know that as you go through school, this continues to be a big thing, especially when you get to the high school and you could be part of the yearbook with graphic design and all creating the papers.
004It's a lot it's a lot of work, but does anybody want to talk about their inspiration? I know it's it's really exciting to talk. Um, but uh, anybody want to talk about why they picked their design? Okay, it's okay. It's okay. They all look wonderful and we're really happy you're here and congratulations on your efforts and on winning. [Applause] And uh just so you know, 25 years later, I know who won my cover and back cover. I remember them. So you're you're going to be remembered in 20 years, too. All right. Shout out Cleo Cleo Chang and Cory O Farerrell. No, not me. Oh, okay. I was going to say, well, if it was you, it's kind of easier, right? That's funny. Got a good memory. Um, Mrs. Schultz and Chai Cuttingham, come on up.
005So, I think this is a great segue to see our elementary students seeing our high school students and some of the things that they're going to hopefully continue to do when they end up in high school. But this is a outstanding award. I know Miss Schultz will speak about that, but Chai, this is a a a wonderful distinction for you to receive. So, Mrs. Schultz, yes, this is a very exciting uh every year they have a jured art show up at Columbia Green Community College. Um Dr. Summers actually joined us this has come before and came again this year to uh see the exciting um all I mean all the artwork there is amazing. There's 12 different districts that um generally u bring their artwork in and sometimes there's a few more sometimes a few
006less but uh this year there were 12 districts and every district is allowed to bring to uh two works of art to show off the the artwork they're doing at their school. Uh so we get to the art teachers at the high school select two works uh from our school and Chai Cunningham was one of the students um that we've selected and Ava Huner who's not able now but um the I mean the students all do great work but these two students stood out to us as really hardworking very talented very wonderful students all around. So uh it was really an honor to have them representing our school and uh [Applause] The first place prize from that. They're both winners because in our school district of all the students, all the art made, which again,
007we're very proud of all the students that we have, but Chai and Ava really stood out as not only really talented, wonderful students, but also genuinely great people. I mean, just all around um wonderful human beings. So, uh again, very very proud school. Um so thank you for acknowledging Ty and Ava. I always give student an opportunity but it's okay to pass too about your artwork or is there a story you want to share or don't want to share? That's okay. Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful. [Applause] Okay. So, we have Alexander Richman if he could come up as well. He is our Bosei student of distinction and Victor is here with them. We're very proud of our students and especially ones that are out and about learning different things. Um, I'm lucky enough to to
008know uh your family for a pretty long time. I don't know if you know that, but they've known my mother and father for a pretty long time, too. So, it's it's really wonderful for me to see you up here. Um, and we appreciate all the work that you've done um to get here. And I know Victor's going to speak on your behalf. I don't know if anybody's familiar with uh underststudies, but uh I'm the understudy for the person who's his home room teacher. Um but I'm going to read from a couple of teachers um about so Mr. Plant is his home room teacher and he said in my class this year, Alex completed financial math. He also did several weeks of regent algebra and passed the January algebra regent exam. He's a conscientious worker with
009excellent attendance. He's prepared for class every day and will advocate for himself if he's having difficulty. Al Alex is a pleasure to have in class, has a great sense of humor and is very respectful. U Miss Briggs Lay his fizzed teacher says, "Alex has been in physical education for two years. He's very cooperative with any physical activity we are doing. He's an exceptionally good bad mitten player. He demonstrates great sportsmanship with his teammates, is polite to staff and students, shows responsibility, and continues to work hard during physical education class. And Mr. King, your teacher, uh, Alex is a responsible and polite student. He's goal oriented, works hard. He's had great attendance and is a model student. He always he's always willing to help. is on track to complete his 11th grade ELA and social studies
010classes. Um I uh I I work with the Astro Day treatment program and last year what a difference last year and this year really kind of grown this whole year. Great to see. Well, thank you Alex. I guess you don't want to say anything because you It's okay. But, uh, Alex, thank you for representing the school district so wonderfully and it's so great to see you grow and thrive where you are. So, keep up the great work and we're rooting for you. Um, I think that's all for tonight as far as recognitions. All right. Uh before we move to uh student POE remarks, um any of our uh students that were uh recognized, uh you're welcome to stay. It's an exciting board meeting. Or uh if you want to get home, uh now would be
011a nice time to uh uh move on to better things. All right, you're up. Ready? Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Hi. Um I wanted to start with student council. Uh so we just did a shake sale on um Can you hear me? Sorry. On uh St. Patrick's Day, we made mint shakes and vanilla shakes and that went really well. Um, we're planning for a blood drive on April 8th. Um, and it is open to the community, so we're hoping a lot of people show up and support. Um, we're planning for a spirit week before spring break. Um, mentor club is having a unified spring sore suare event planned um on April 5th. Tickets are being sold for $5 during lunches. Um, class of 2025 is working on finalizing prom ticket prices and ordering decorations. Um the
012bye-bye birdie uh play was very successful. Um they had three great nights on March 14th, 15th, and 16th. Um all spring sports have started and baseball has their first game on March 28th and track has their first meet April 7th. And there is a Latin culture fair Thursday, March 27th at the middle school starts at 12:30 p.m. There's a college fair April 9th from 6:30 p.m. um to I believe 8:00 p.m. And also there is the spring concert on May 20th and the district art show on May 20th. So lots of stuff coming up. Thank you. All right. Uh that brings us to uh the blue ribbon commission and pathways. Dr. Summers and Mr. Roddy, sorry. So over the summer, the uh board gave us a list of presentations that they were interested and we've
013been talking about this basically last year and much of this year the differences in graduation requirements. So this will talk a little bit about what the state is proposing and then where we are in the process. And I love your template. Yes. Happy kids going to a happy school. Happy kids. Okay. So, good evening. I'm Dr. Summers. I'm the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction staff and staff development. And with me is I am Kyle Rody, high school principal. Okay. So, this is certainly a collaborative um effort. And I will show uh share with you that I did give you the um handout from the blue ribbon commission on graduation measurements. This started back in 2019. And this uh will give you a complete summary of the steps that were taken to move towards um a
014more equitable degree program for high school graduates. So there's an executive summary and what they wanted to do. their two goals to create equity in New York State public education and to ensure New York students gain the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in future endeavors. So, um this guide will if you had a lot of interest in it, please read it. There's a lot of information in this and it really does go step by step of the process the state education went through and they did um have a lot of stakeholders involved in this process. So the why behind the blue ribbon commission is was to create was created to review existing practices ensure that these align with an equitable and future focused approach. No more of we've always done it this way. So
015they're moving forward. The result of the work is New York inspires a plan to transform education in New York. So they looked at four aspects of this process. To adopt a New York State portrait of a graduate, to redefine credits and learning experiences, sunset diploma assessment requirements, which would be the regents, and move to one New York State high school diploma. So the portrait of a graduate, it's something that a some districts across the state have already done on their own, specifically Red Hook, and we'll talk about that shortly, but basically the state wants to identify what are the skills students need to demonstrate when they graduate. So, you know, this is a topic that sounds very familiar to us, but now the state is following suit because they know that, you know, what success
016means in the future, just like now, is beyond just what we do in our individual classes and individual content areas. It's so much more. The skills are so much more. Um, so they want a holistic well well-rounded education that emphasizes critical skill development. Move on. So, how does this impact Red Hook? Well, you know, the best piece is that we already have our own. And in a moment I'll show the comparison between ours and the states. Um but I think it shows that it validates our approach to skill development that the district has started. Um I should note that the Raider profile began before I came here. So I can take zero credit for that. Um but it also shows that you know we and the time we spend in conference days and in faculty
017meetings talking about skill development and embedding those skills really is right on the money right now. Um so we can go on. Um, if you look here, this is a a really cool chart in a lot of ways. You know, we talk about the Raider profile a lot. Um, in the high school, we also talk about the IV learner profile, you know, and there's so much similarity. And I'm not going to read through every line, but if you just look briefly, you can see that there's a common thread tied between the Rotary profile, the IV profile, and the state's portrait of a graduate. You know, it's all those soft 21st century skills that we often talk about. You know, critical thinking, innovation, um, empathy. You know, I think it's said different ways, but it means
018a lot of them are are the exact same thing. Being people that are adaptable, flexible, and able to tackle unique problems and emphasizes collaborative problem solving. So, we can move on. So, another piece that the state's talking about is redefining credits and learning experiences. So back over a hundred years ago, the committee of 10 decided how public schools should operate with the different you know um you go to English and social studies and math and it really hasn't changed since then. U but the world dramatically has and will even more in the years to follow. So they want to move away from Carnegie units. Now this is one of the kind of most exciting and scary things um that they're talking about. And this I want to underscore the devil is going to be in
019the details and we don't have the details yet cuz you know in the verbiage when you read some of their information that might be in the handout that you have and other resources they talk about if a student demonstrates mastery they can move on to the next thing. So does that mean if someone is a whiz in math in October they should move on from algebra 1 to geometry in the middle of a school year. What does that look like? So that they have to give more criteria. But I think the intent behind it is exciting because you know ultimately students can show mastery and learning in so many ways. A lot of ways that might not fit into a typical school report card but are valuable nonetheless. So volunteering, you know, working at a
020nonprofit, you know, helping out at home, taking on certain responsibilities, the the options are limitless. So if the state can recognize some of these aspects, portfolios, community service, project based learning to show that mastery and earn credit, it's really compelling. You know, you think about someone that spends, you know, 40 hours on some project where they want to, you know, almost like a cast project like they do in the IB, but a project that makes the world a better place, like I know the board has talked about Danielle's work with the suicide awareness walk, you know, why aren't we recognizing that as such a degree of learning taking place? So this would enable that which is which is exciting. We can move on. So again the implications for edok it directly aligns with the IB
021diploma program and the CAS project. Um more opportunities for our students to engage in the real world flexibility for credit attainment which can be very exciting um depending on how it's rolled out. It aligns with our current interdisciplinary courses and project-based learning. Um ultimately as I mentioned we're waiting for guidance but there there's a lot of um real exciting opportunities there. move on. So, this one is I think has been on the forefront like in page one of the newspapers, sunsetting diploma requirements saying New York State students will no longer have to pass regent exams to graduate. Um, and I think that's, you know, welcomed for a number of reasons. A kid's dealing with some terrible challenge outside of school on the day of the test, they don't do well, that shouldn't be a barrier
022to graduating. You know, a student comes here as a 16-year-old that might not speak any English, but they have to pass the English language regents that can only be given in English. that's not equitable. So to be able to say someone might not be a good test taker, but they understand in fact master the content. How can they demonstrate that? That's going to be something that's going to provide a lot of options for us. Um so students instead of taking a regent exam, maybe they can do a project, make a portfolio, put on a play. Um you know, one of the things the state is going to be doing is putting out um rubrics that we'd have to use. You know, there's some people that push back against this are saying if we take away
023the regions, New York State's going to water down our education system. And I think what the state's doing is really smart by saying we're going to give rubrics to make sure there's still uniformity and a certain level of mastery that has to be demonstrated. Um, I think I'll be even more excited when we actually see the rubrics and see what they entail and how directive they are. Um, but you know, this really opens up a lot of windows, but you know, the regent will still be an option. students can still take a regent under these circumstances or a school could still offer. So I think there's going to be a lot of interesting discussions both at the district building level within departments between teachers because there might be some students that love and would much
024rather let me take the test. I don't want to do a project. Uh but I think you're going to have everything in between. So the flexibility is going to be very welcome. Uh quick quick question uh on IB. Uh we're now going to in also have um you know IB for all for 12th graders. Uh, do they have to pass the IB exam to pass that class? No. The um, it's it's interesting. Um, well, we certainly encourage them to do their best, but we don't get the IB exam results back because it's externally assessed until after the students graduate, right? So, the students actually graduate in June. We don't get those scores back in July. So, we even if we wanted to use that, you know, as something on their grade book, um, we wouldn't
025be able to. I got it. We encourage it because that would potentially yield college credit for some students, right? Okay. Um, so it's a two they probably have a cumulative assessment year. Yeah, it's a two-year long course. So there's some internal assessments that happen in 11th grade, but the big one is at the end of 12th grade. Right, Danielle? Okay. Um and if we go into the next page, there's actually a little little more about IB. So if you jump to the third bullet point, you know, New York State actually has a document of certain exams that students can take in lie of regent exams right here right now. So if you take the um AP English exam in 10th grade and you get above a certain score, you can count that in lie of
026the regent exam. Um we don't always necessarily, you know, encourage that, but it's certainly there. They also list the IB assessment on that list. So we thought this is great. you know, maybe we can start not offering it right now, but we called the state because of that exact thing I mentioned before. We don't get their scores back until July. How can we use this as a gateway to graduation? And the representative at the state said, "That's a good point. I guess you can't." Even though it was on their actual guidance document that they gave us. Um but for our purposes you know in 11th grade among the other things they do in IB English they create this learner portfolio that's just a beautiful compilation of all they're learning throughout the year that certainly is
027more rigorous more intensive and more summitative than any one pop exam. So you know that alone I think would meet the criteria but there certainly going to be the external exam as well. Um, overall for Red Oak, as I indicate, you know, there's a lot of opportunity here. Um, and we have a lot of classes that have been engaging in project-based learning more and portfolios more. So, I think there's already a lot of ground work done for our teachers to really leverage this and provide those opportunities for students. We can move on. Um, and the last one is probably the most cut and dry. Um, there's no no longer going to be a regent diploma and advanced regions. It's going to be one diploma. Um, students get a New York State regions diploma. um you
028can earn certain seals and credentials to like stamp on top of your diploma um which I think is a nice thing and shows additional um skill competencies but it's not going to require someone to stress about am I going to get advanced not advanced um it's just going to streamline the whole thing so you know if you move to the next slide in Red Hook I mentioned those seals and credentials we're working hard and Dr. Dr. Summers has been very supportive of us bringing in the seal of civic readiness, the seal of biiteracy. We're hoping that'll start um next year to recognize students that really excel in civics or you know um being bilingual. Um really continue our emphasis on CTE pathways. We're looking at maybe starting some of our own in-house. Um and just
029to clarify, this will not impact IB diplomas because students that earn an IB diploma still earn their regular New York State diploma. It's an addition, not in lie of. Um, and I think that wraps it up. Um, the timeline is up. You know, I'm talking about it, you know, in an excited way, but there's really a few years before things really get rolling. They're in the capacity building stage. So, if you see here, right now, they're planning um and I I think they're still going to be planning after um the summer of 25, but next year they'll start installation. There's a few other nuances with the blue ribbon commission. They're going to require financial literacy. Red Hook already does. They're going to require education and climate education. our science classes, a number of them already
030do and in the new NextGen science standards, that's even more emphasized. Um, but in fall of 27 to summer 29, they'll be implementing more and more aspects. There'll be one diploma starting with those cohorts. Um, they'll start sunsetting those dipl those assessment requirements and then after the fall of 2029, full implementation for students entering grade nine that year. And I think that summarizes it. So uh at what point in the future from your timeline will regent exams uh or passing the required number of regent exams no longer be a requirement for graduation based on what they're putting out. So this is as granular as we've really seen. But my read on what they've given us initially is at the end of the 2027 school year those students would have an option. But it wouldn't surprise
031me if they do tweak things along the way because they're going to get feedback and there are, you know, some pretty powerful lobbying groups in the state that are going to push back against some parts of this. Um, but I believe that year, um, I think that certainly for the first few years, we would definitely offer both. Um, but we really need more guidance because if they are going to guarantee us that year there's not going to be a requirement for the regions, that frees up some kind of head space from instructional planning. Um, but if they kind of waffle and it's we're in 2020 at the end of next school year and we still don't know, we're going to have to operate on parallel tracks. We need to make sure students that maybe, you
032know, didn't pass one and think maybe they aren't going to have to know they need to, right? So, this is exciting for me, but for like our counseling department, it's going to be a lot of work because it was, you know, it used to be simple. You pass the class, you got the reasons exams, you were in seat long enough, that's it. Now it's going to be all right this kid did a portfolio but they got a reasons here and that um which I think is good but there's going to be somewhat of a learning curve which is healthy sometimes. Yeah. You mentioned that there would be a rubric released by the state and I was just curious is there a sense of like whether there might be like a beta rubric for us to
033kind of continue working off of and um preparing for what we need to do. Yeah. So there's nothing that they've published that I'm aware of, but simultaneously to starting the Blue Ribbon Commission, they did a a pilot program to support schools that utilize project-based learning assessments. And that's the verbiage they use when they talk about these rubrics. So there are schools that years ago have gotten special permission to offer these exams or projects, whatever, in le of the regions. So the state's really trying to prop them up. Um, some of the schools they're highlighting in that pilot are IB schools and all the IB assessments are what they utilize there through that formal process. Um, so they haven't put anything out yet, but I think that if we look at IB that gives us and
034the inquiry based instruction that kind of gives us somewhat of a roadmap that might make sense for us. Um, you know, there are schools like there's a lot of these schools in New York City that use the performance-based learning assessments. So, I'm sure, you know, they're going to be putting out what's worked for them. Um, but I do think the state is trying to really get information from a lot of stakeholders because when they started that kind of consortium that allowed them to get a lot of folks in the room and kind of share what worked for them, what didn't. Um, I don't think they've publicized a lot of those findings yet, but I'm sure that's going to inform their work. Students that don't graduate but go on to get a GED can, uh, get
035credit for the regent exams that they have passed for one of the four sections for the GED. When the regent's exams go away, I think those students are going to be left not getting credit for what they may have accomplished in school. Well, they can they would we would still be able to offer them. So, if this I would hope the state would Oh, they wouldn't go away. Yeah. So, we could still offer them. Okay. Right. Okay. Right. All right. Questions? Right. Everything's we think. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. All right. That brings us to our first recognition of visitors. Uh just, um reminder, uh anyone that would like to speak, uh come to the mic. Uh make sure you speak into the mic so our listeners and recording can capture it. Uh
036you have three minutes. Please state your name so our clerk can uh put that in the record. And when you get about 15 seconds from your 3minut time frame, I'll give you a polite wave. So with those rules in place, if anyone would like to address the board. Sure. Good evening. My name is Bryce Holland. I'm a resident of the city of Pikipsy and I'm seeking your consideration for election to the Duchess Bose's Board of Trustees. I attended Arlington Central School District and I recently graduated from the University of Virginia with a self-design major I titled Cradled Career Education which was inspired by the famous Harlem Children's Zone which I'm so excited to be working with. On March 5th, I was nominated for the Boseis board by the Pikipsy City School District of Education, which
037I have the honor of serving in my employment at the collective impact nonprofit organization, the Pikipsy Children's Cabinet, if you haven't heard of us. When I was in college, I was soulful and sentimental. I knew I wanted to study education to help children. I was born into poverty in the city of Pikipsy and I felt I had something to owe to the kids who were just like me who would not have the opportunity to go to college as I did. During college, I avidly searched rather obsessively for this idea of a silver bullet so that all kids, no matter their backgrounds, can grow up to have successful careers. And I was constantly thinking about this powerful statistic that I learned that 80% of a child's waking hours are spent in a year outside of school.
038I say all that to express firstly I'm a proud native of the city of Pikipsy and resident of Duchess County. Secondly, it was to explain it was to explain my personal commitment and belief in the power of Bosey's programs such as career technical, adult education, resilience academy, and special education to eliminate opportunity gaps across the county. Bose serves a vital role in helping students with diverse learning needs to achieve their goals and ultimately realize this dream of socioeconomic abobility for all of our children. Emphasis on all. So for me to be on a mission to eliminate opportunity gaps is very personal and very purposeful. In this polarized age where fear and crises are normalized, no solution has ever made more sense to me than the importance of local work like education. Uniting communities with the
039shared idea and understanding that for our children as well as our democracy, neighbors must work hand in hand against adversity. I believe Duchess County can be a model of that and inspire others to do the same. An America where place-based cultures thrive, where every person is passionately doing their part in their communities, I think would be a much kinder America, one better prepared to face the challenges of our time. So, to that end, I hope you'll consider my nomination and vote for the Boseis board of trustees. I'm deeply thankful for my education and its opportunities that led me to my personal passion in education and local advocacy work. So, it' be my honor to be of service to you all on the Boseies board. If you haven't already received my resume and cover letter, do
040let me know. But with that, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, anybody else? Hello, my name is Mark Fleshower. I'm from the Ryback School Board and I am also a candidate for Duchess Bosey's board. Um, I'm excited about Duchess Boseies and the great strides they've made over the past few years with many new programs and the completion of their building project. I am completing my 19th year on the board of of the Ryback School District. I have been the president and vice president of the board over the years that I've served and I've been on many of the committees that the board has. I also represent Rybeck at the Duchess County School Board Association and I've served as president and vice president of that organization as well. I'm a great believer in
041collaboration of which Boseies is a prime example. Um I also believe in the importance of programs for students who may not be collegebound such as CTI. I feel there's a great need for cyber security and education as I work in IT and um I think Boseies can be a leader in providing those services. Uh I did also send a letter that I hope you've received and I'll hope you consider me uh when you vote for the Boseis board in April. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Uh, budget discussions. Thank you. Good evening. We are here uh to give you a overview of our budget process this year. Mr. Martin's going to fill you in on the budget. Um so we just want to talk about what our process has been and what's on um
042for consent for tonight for both the EV bus proposition and also for the capital project. Next slide. So here are some priorities. A lot of these we went over at our budget workshop, but just to give you an idea of things that we are including in the budget for the 202526 school year. Um implementation of universal prek classes at Mil Road and support of full-time aids in both prek and kindergarten. Right now, some of our classes have full-time aids, some have part-time aids. So, we're looking to make that transition. We are looking at the possibility of staffing to support prek early intervention assessments and services. So right now, um, pre-K students who are evaluated, there is a shortage of service providers in those areas from the county. So we're looking to hire some people inhouse
043to help service our students that will eventually become our kindergarten students. Uh, we'd like to expand technology courses at the high school by hiring one full-time person. Things that that would include would be a welding pathway, woodworking, engineering, and drone courses. Um, Mr. Rody and Dr. Summers just talked about the shifting of graduation requirements and the blue ribbon commission recommendations. We are still working on upgrading all of our district facilities to meet our instructional needs and our student needs. We are continuing to support this will be year four of our 1:1 student laptop initiative and that does span from grades 5 through 12. We are expanding our IB program um from 11th grade to 12th grade last next year and we also are focusing on Lamb's creative arts and world language. Next slide. So, holistically,
044these are considerations that we make when we put the budget together. Um, a lot of them we've talked about before. Obviously, the economic climate is always something that's in the forefront of our minds. We look at making sure that our um staffing meets our instructional needs. Our facility needs um also match what students have access to in terms of their tools and resources. Um, we want to support the future focused work. And we also always want to be financially stable and make sure that we're responsive to the taxpayers. Next slide. So right now we are looking for adoption of the budget on April 10th, which is our next formal board meeting. We will have a budget hearing and expo on May 8th. This year we're going to flip it. So we'll have the expo first
045followed by the budget hearing at 7. Um we have voter registration on May 8th. Also that will be in the atrium of the lobby. And then we have our budget vote on May 20th. Next slide. Good evening. Uh and thank you for an opportunity to talk for a couple of minutes about budget and finance. Um I will not go through this slide line by line, but instead if you give me a couple of minutes, I'll talk about some of the highlevel themes on this year's budget. Um so the first thing here is this budget slide screams out routine budget year. Um the question is why why is it looking like a routine budget year? Well, there are a few factors. Um one factor is that there really are no budgetary emergencies. Um and even better
046than that, some years we have a confluence of budgetary emergencies and we certainly don't see that this year. Um if we look down through this slide, there are certainly some things that we have to manage. Um we have the ongoing every year it's a structural deficit. If we want to try to do next year what we did this year, the rate of expenditure growth will almost always outstrip the rate of revenue growth. So on this slide, you notice um expenditures are moving right now, this is the first draft budget at 3.45% while revenues are only moving at 2.84%. Um and that's a difference right now of about $384,000. I say right now, this was prepared about a week ago. In that week, I've cut that about in half on paper and cut it down to
047nothing in in the back of my head. Um, so you look at this, salaries are moving at a rate a little faster than we would like them to, but it's the market we live in right now. It's the environment we live in. Um, health insurance is moving a little faster than we'd like. We're actually ahead of it on the budget this year. So even though health insurance is moving at 2% here health insurance is moving at 6% budgetarily I think if we bump up about 2% we'll be able to cover next year's health insurance costs. Um ERS employees retirement system is not behaving nicely but um we will we will manage it. Um state aid we wish it would move along a little bit faster. We heard the governor say that foundation aid would move
048at 2%. The the legislature is saying they'd like to move it at 3%. Um foundation aid though represents between half and 2/3 of our total state aid and some of the other categories are either stagnant or decreasing um because they're expenditure driven. So, um, one reason that this looks like a relatively easy budget year, routine budget year, um, is that there are really no emergencies out there to deal with. Like last year, for example, when we were looking at a decrease of $1.1 million in foundation aid. Um, another reason is our fiscal position. we have um a fund balance that allows us to absorb uh volatility and it buys us time uh to manage fiscal uncertainty. So um our fund balance at the end of June of 2024 was $12 million. It sounds like a
049lot of money, but it actually puts us in the lowest third of school districts in the state uh when it comes to uh fund balance as a percentage of expenditures. But that fund balance does give us the ability if managed properly and when necessary to absorb volatility and it buys us a little time to deal with uncertainty and things that may get thrown at us during the course of of the budget year. Um, another important factor is that in the 2425 year it looks like we will run a modest surplus. So what that means is our budget is running ahead of expenditures a little bit. Therefore, as the real expenditures look like they're going to grow, uh we won't have to move the budget quite as fast as the real growth of the expenditures. And
050again, that makes this um a reasonably uh routine budget year. Is it is it preliminary to ask what a modest surplus means? Um I probably Okay. Probably. You don't have you don't Yeah, you don't have to answer that. Um pro probably, but you know a percent of total budget maybe in that vicinity. I was I was thinking ahead towards the uh capital fund we established and whether or not that might be an opportunity. Yep. Um so um this budget right now first draft is really built on just taking what we're doing this year and moving it into next year. Um it it what I need to do from here is bring this into balance three weeks from tonight and also take a look at how do we absorb without going over tax cap or taking
051undue risk in next year's budget. How do we absorb the handful of new things that Dr. Hayes mentioned on her slide. Uh I put those uh into either the light lift category, the absolutely necessary category, or they come with a potential revenue source attached to them category. So I think we're going to be able to s to accommodate those things into the budget as well uh when you see it in final form in three weeks. Bruce, can you also go over the taxbased growth factor again? Yes, you notice that um the tax items in the revenue section there are at 3.97% and that would be under the tax cap. Uh the two major factors there are that the CPI index for the tax cap uh allows a 2% growth in the tax cap calculation. Um
052but then much like last year uh there is also the taxbased growth factor. What that is is real growth in the tax base within the Red Hook Central School District. So I don't mean the assessor came out last year and said your house was worth 500,000 and this year he says it's worth 600. This is real new building, real new additions, real new improvements that actually broaden the tax base for the Red Hook Central School District. And that factor this year uh was 2.13%. So over 2%. Uh we've talked about this a little bit in the last couple of years. Um we we've experienced some significant taxbased growth factor. I think it was 1.35 two years ago and 1.05 last year. This year it's at 2.15%. Um, it enables the district to uh levy a
053larger tax and yet not directly impact taxpayers to that same percentage because it's being spread across uh a larger tax base. And if we just one other thing, I know that a lot of people are watching TV as we speak and um hearing about the Department of Education. We're not 100% sure if it how that will affect federal funding, but just for the board's knowledge, how much of the budget is federal funding? Um, so federal funding sits in a separate set of accounts, the special aid fund or the federal fund, but we move expenses that would otherwise be in the general fund over there. Um, and it it represents all in about a million dollars worth of funding. So if clearly if that were to disappear in its entirety, that would be one of those
054things that we would need a little bit of time and a little money to absorb without a dramatic impact on on operations of the district, right? I think just a couple additions. So we don't know what's going to happen for with the state budget that's due in April 1st. Um, as Bruce mentioned, we do have reports from the Assembly and the Senate. There are some variables in that. So, one of the things that everybody seems supportive of is raising the amount of reimbursement for prechool students for univers universal prek, which could help our budget. Um, right now the state is still talking about funding all universal meals for students. If they don't do that, that's something that we have to take a look at in our budget. Um there was some federal funding cuts with
055school lunches um to the tune of $660 million. There's some effect of that on us. So there this is not completely final, but we will have a final version for you on April 10th. Okay, next slide. So other items on the ballot in addition to the budget. Um we've talked a lot about the New York State mandate of EV buses that is still in effect and that um takes place by 2035. We have to have all of our fleet turned over to electric vehicles. We currently have 44 vehicles. Um we did purchase two EV buses for the 2024 2025 school year. They will arrive tomorrow and they should be on the road by midappril. We're going to drive around the village. Yep. Um so this year, as we've discussed, we do have some grant money
056from we did qualify for the nice grant um which allows us to buy four more vehicles. So, we are looking for four more EV buses on this year's proposition. Um, not to exceed a total of 1.2 million and not to exceed 300,000 per bus. I just want to remind the board that um that is not the price of the bus. So, we do get grant money and then we also get aided on the full cost of the bus. So, at the end of the day um it's a very minimal cost to the district for that bus under $10,000 a bus. We also have a capital project. That capital project includes interior upgrades. So, as we've discussed, anytime that we do exterior work, we have to have interior work done in order to get our state
057aid. So, for this year, uh, Lynden Avenue is looking at adding a kiln for their ceramics program and their art program. In order to put a kiln in, we actually have to fire rate the room, which is pretty involved. So, that would be one piece of the um, work that would be done. The other one would be looking at bathroom renovations at the high school. So in the high school across from the library, there are two large bathrooms upstairs and downstairs. So we're looking at some aesthetic upgrades there. We do have to do work in both of those buildings for cost allowance share because the outdoor work that I'm going to discuss actually applies to both the middle school and high school. Next slide. So we are looking at reconstructing the outdoor track. Um we've
058talked a lot in the last year and a half about the um condition of the track and the cracks and the um issues with drainage. It was last resurfaced in 2010. So we are looking for a full reconstruct of that. Next slide. This is the fence that's currently around the track. We've talked about this as well. There's a lot of rust and um gaps and obviously some holes and gates that don't work. So, we'd be looking to replace the track and the fence. And then, um, this is the current condition of field one, which sits inside the track. So, we would be looking at a replacement of the existing field to a new grass field. Um, and we'd also be looking at installing new field lighting in the perimeter of the field. Next slide. So,
059the cost of that project would be just over $6 million, which includes capitalized interest. Just to remind the board, we do our current state aid reimbursement rate is 64.4%. Um, so it would cost an average household of um worth $400,000 an average of $20 over 15 per year over 15 years. It starts out a little bit more and then it actually goes to nothing. So that's an average over the 15 years. We also have um the Red Hook Library proposition and the Tivoli proposition on the ballot. And we have two vacant board seats this year. That's it. Happy to answer questions. Any questions? No. All right. Good. And I I think uh and Bruce uh uh help me if I'm wrong. Um or Dr. Hayes. Uh uh I think the things we need to vote
060on tonight are the secret language. Secret and legal language, which includes um the things that I just talked about. It's the actual proposition language for the bus proposition and the capital project. Wait, sorry. Say that again. So, it's the legal language that would go on the ballot for the Yep. Yeah. And then there's something with a security camera. That's that's the secret secret. That's the secret. Yeah. Yeah. For the construction work. Was there for the work inside the buildings? Was there also consideration for some bathrooms? Am I remembering that correctly? Yep. The high school bathrooms. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? All right. I'm confident that Bruce in the back of his head knows how he's going to close that last gap. All right. Uh so moving on then. Uh we do need to vote
061on um items three, four, and five. We should vote on each of these individually, I believe. Um, uh, do I have a motion on, uh, the seeker language for Mil Road? All in favor? Wait, what? Sorry. Discussion, questions? No. All right. All in favor? I. All right. Uh, now I need a motion on the seeker language for the high school and middle school order. Any questions, comments? All in favor? I. And lastly, uh, approving the legal notice for the May 25, 2025 vote. Second questions. All in favor? All right, Dr. Warden. Okay. Um, I know the mayor is here and I apologize for not bringing you up for the Boseies distinction, a student. I didn't see you, but uh, it's great to have them here. Um, and I'm also glad that you're here because I
062just want to quickly um highlight the great work of our SRO's today. Uh, David Schmidz. We actually had a student who was choking in the cafeteria and his swift action of performing the Heimlick maneuver prevented a serious tragic outcome that could have happened in our school. So, we're very lucky that we have SRO's that have exceptional training that are able to spring into action and save lives. So, we want to bring him back um during the April meeting when he's able to attend, but we really want to thank you for um collaborating with the school and partnering with the school. We have such a great relationship and uh I know that Mrs. Smith is very grateful because it's one of the scariest things in a school when something like that happens. But having people who
063are highly trained, who have calm demeanors, who are able to spot something that's out of the ordinary um and quickly being able to save that student, I know the parents are obviously uh internally grateful, but so is the school district for the service of our SRO. So, we will have him come back, but we uh want to extend that to you to also send to them that we really appreciate. Um it it amazing. Um couldn't do it without them. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So, moving on. I know um we have a lot of stuff happening in the district. Um it's March. It's a longer month. We do have one day of a snow day give back. Um, you could see through the reports with Mil Road, we have 75 families who attended our prek informational uh,
064meeting. So, they went really, really well. So, I think it was helpful to have it earlier and able to extend that information out earlier. Um, they're also going to continue at their BLT to work on a May wellness day. Um, so they're going to be able to continue to encourage healthy habits and um, and working on community engagement. if some of you were able to go. I know Kate was able to be there. I don't maybe some of you I think I don't know maybe others were there. The Lamb's Math Fair which is always spectacular event because it's there's magic tricks. There's these really insightful interactive um projects that the students really get into and inspires the fact that math is fun. Math is accessible for everybody. We're all good at math. So, it's a
065great day to see. Um, I know that Miss Smith had a wonderful day yesterday, so I want I She doesn't know I'm going to do this, but if you would you want to come up and talk a little bit about that. Um, we know that we have been um she is Martha Stver's campaign manager or talent manager, but you had we had a really big day in the district yesterday. Miss Smith was able to celebrate Martha again. This is a big one. Yeah, Martha was recognized yesterday. um by state senator Michelle Henchi for the women of distinction for New York State for women's history month um yesterday at the cap. So we met uh when we arrived actually the chief of staff sent someone to meet us at our our car in the parking lot
066and they really rolled out the red carpet for Martha. Um we met Governor Hokll. We spent the day with Michelle Hinchi. Um we had lunch with Dee Barrett. We met the controller um who uh tweeted something about Martha wishing that he uh she had been his teacher when he was struggling through trigonometry. So um and we sent you a a cute picture of the two of them. So um it was a great day. Um she was recognized among really tremendous women all over New York State. And what was really special is after so many of them came to see her and introduce themselves to her and thank her for her service. So, um, we got a private tour by M Michelle Henshi. We got to see all of the desks at in the Senate assembly,
067I mean the Senate, uh, chamber and and also the assembly. So, we saw that, you know, she pointed out FDR's desk and Wow. She showed us how, you know, how everything works behind the scenes. So, it was really special. That's great. Awesome. All right, we'll go on to the high school. Mr. Did you go anywhere yesterday that was that exciting? Okay. Um, as you know, we have our wonder wonderful validictorian saludiatorans amongst us even at this table. So, uh, we're really excited and we'll continue to honor them. We have a dinner in Brewster. We'll have uh a breakfast in Bikipsy. So, we have a lot of fun events and then another event at the school. So, there's quite a few things that that will go on. um a robotics team, I don't know if you
068said that already, so I forgive me if I'm repeating myself. Um completed the regional competition in Udica and they placed seventh out of 100 teams, which is really impressive. So, we're really happy for them. Um student course selection is concluding at the high school and the master schedule be constructed. So, we're really happy about keeping that up to date and being able to get our schedules out to our students um fairly quickly. We're going to have an upcoming college fair on April 9th if anybody's interested in coming just to help promote the different colleges for our students. Um Mr. Castello and I we've done a lot of advocacy um with the village, the town, and also the region on mental health services. So, we're happy to hear that the um mental health services are going
069to be coming to the northern part of the county in Reinach. So Jack and I will be meeting with their chief program officer of the family services to talk about how we can partner more. We did bring up the idea about perhaps having some sort of satellite in the school or how that would work, but we're just happy that the the services will be accessible. Um it's for adults and for I think children are going to come after the adults, but just to have that partnership and talk about um we've really been missing that and um really are happy that that's going to be coming. So that meeting is going to be happening in the next couple of weeks. Um Tom, there's a lot going on here. Is Tom? Okay. Sorry, Tom. Um but we
070know that we have the spring season just start started. So it was good weather and hopefully the weather it's always fun to start seeing everybody outside running again. And um we we expect over 250 students athletes um to participate this year. Our girls basketball team finished uh season at 10 to nine and for the division championship and the fourth seed in the class A sectional section nine tournament. The boys basketball team finished the season with 17 to3 record and they were number three seed in the section 9 class A playoffs and secured an opening round home win against Port Jervis. Um Owen Daniels meddled in the backstroke at the New York State Championships with an eighth place finish. She's also presented as the section sportsmanship award of the of the state finals, which is huge
071on top of also being great. Um, and then the wrestling team earned a second place finish at section 9 tournament. Um, and Edit Giorgio and Edwin Cleenstein were section champions in their weight classes and represented Red Hook at the state championship on February 28th in Albany. So, we are doing good. a lot of different people and I know Mr. Assatada will bring some of them um by to be recognized by the board. And just finally the um district um through technology we as an administrative team um had cyber security training through Donna provided it for us and we talked through different scenarios that could occur in the district if something happened with our data, something happened with our financials and what we would do and resources and um ways that we would work together. Um,
072so not only do we do drills for safety, we also are looking at how to handle ci cyber security issues if they come in the district. So Donna did an excellent job um keeping us all, you know, another thing to worry about, but it was good to have that training going on. Um, and I'm going to leave the facility stuff. Erin will probably cover some of that. And then lastly, we had our community conversations. You know, the board um had was able to see the feedback So we had three questions. I won't read through the whole thing, but overall we had three questions. Um during the community conversations, one was what skills, programming and experiences do we feel are necessary for the future? A lot of people spoke about soft skills or continued to be
073really important. We heard a lot about um technology and AI and cyber security, the need for more vocational training. that we need for more teaching critical thinking and independence um self- advocacy having a balance with with um computer use that came up a lot and developing interpersonal skills. Then we talked about what our facility should look like to capture these skills. Some of the I think um themes that we heard were just keeping up with natural um upgrades to our facilities like serving lines, air conditioning, but also continuing with our flexibility of our classroom designs and outdoor spaces and gardens, working a little bit more with the community. um personalizing, for example, if you were able to see a Miss Smith report, our students creating murals for other teachers, like personalizing, having more student involvement
074in creating the facilities and working with us on those um spaces um and keeping modern in a place that's not so modern um as best that we can. And then we talked a little bit about the future of community engagement with our families, like how do we continue to foster that. Um, and and we talked about different ways to streamline information so we're not overwhelming people. We talked about the electronic sign outside of Lambs. Um, and just how to teach parents how to use all the different technology that we have to make sure it's accessible for them. and perhaps uh conducting some surveys at the end of the year. So those were some of the big highlights. There's much more details in the report that we gave if anybody wants to ha add anything or
075has any questions about it. I as in the past I thought the uh event was great. Um, and I know on the one hand we want to try and get as many people to come as possible and I think it's it's it's great to hear from a lot of people, but I thought the size was good because, um, it g it it it gives every, you know, parent community member that comes, you know, enough chance to speak and really share their thoughts, which, um, you know, the bigger the crowd, the less the opportunity. And I think that's a really good way to get feedback from people. So, always like hearing from the students, too. I think that's like a really impressive part of the conversation. They have so much to say and great ideas. So,
076it's always nice to hear those directly. Yeah. No other questions on that? No, I'm good. All right. That brings us to board of ed review. We've got a couple things here. Um first, uh committees, uh policy. Um, so this week was a little bit lighter than our past. So there's um a lot on first read for tonight from previous times, but um this time we reviewed some uh health related and nursing policies uh just to bring them up to date and um make the language a little bit more streamlined and um get rid of some of the stuff that wasn't necessary for us to hold in a policy format. All right, I'm going to finish the committee reviews and then we're going to backtrack. I skipped over a couple things. Sorry about that. Um, they
077were trying to remain low on You're not off the hook, Dr. Summers. All right. Um, uh, let's see. The next committee we had was, um, community engagement. [Music] Um, Kelly, I know. Okay. All right. Hey. Um at the community engagement committee today we spoke about our recent event, our community partnership team and how the first visit the um the visit to the high school went. Um there was a lot of positive feedback provided. Um overall like really uh great great feedback in terms of the overall experience. Um attendees loved seeing the building. They love seeing the students in action and seeing the various programs that we offer at the high school. Um and then there was a lot of great dis discussion. Um in some cases uh there were things discussed about what was offered
078in the particular building in the presentations that were given by some of our directors and then also about some broader issues related to state aid and um things going on at a more macro level. So, we're very happy with how that first one went and we're excited for the the next one that is tomorrow. So, um stay tuned for more on that. We're we're going to continue to gather uh feedback and talk about it in the committee and then try to create a you know a closure loop in terms of um providing that feedback into actionable steps or recommendations to to present to the board at large. Um and then other than that, we were also visited by um the director of the chamber of commerce and we spoke a lot about um different ways
079to improve walkability and how the chamber and the school district could partner on various initiatives. Um I don't know if if anyone wants to speak more to that. No. Yeah. One thing I might just add is um kind of a question is as we're going doing these tours and gathering more information and feedback from the community um would the board feel okay if we also excuse me couple that information with the community conversations input that we've received and sort of review all of that kind of together um as we kind of figure out what things are sort of actionable things that are let's let's go ahead and do these or what things maybe are more like longer term bigger picture for the district to think about and for Janet and her team to look at.
080Um can we just put all that input sort of together with the community conversations with this partnership? You mean a like a consolidated document? Yeah, exactly. Are they are they in the same are they in similar formats that you can merge them? Well, not so literally, but more just so that we can make sure that we're like doing something with this feedback and that there is like a you know this is valuable information sort of making it move in some way. Well, I imagine there's not that many I I bet there's a lot of overight. So I think it's just taking a look at what was said out of community conversations and then sort of vetting that up against the feedback that you all received in this great document that organizes. I'm sure there's a
081lot of commonalities and then you can just sort of highlight what are the differentiating and merge those. Yeah. You know, it I it's a it's a good point, uh, Jen, and and maybe because there's a lot of information, it might be helpful to think a way to think of a way to synthesize what are kind of the top key takeaways um uh from from all of it. Some of them there's there's a lot of commentary and I've looked at it and some of the commentary is interesting and nice and thank you. Uh um but then there are some things that may be actionable um and maybe there's a way to um you know kind of boil that down. I think maybe that's is that kind of what you're suggesting? Yeah, there is an area of
082just distinction that the the partnership team's goals and the community conversations goals. One is like the district's goals and then the other one are the board of education goals. So maybe to to make that that the purpose of both of those are different. So yeah, I'm fine creating like common themes, but I think it's always good to go back and say what are the district's goals that align with the community conversations because that was the point for us to get that information. What was the board goals? Right. I agree. And obviously some of them are sort of the same, right? Um but I think it's important probably to kind of have somewhat of that distinction. And so we're making sure that we're meeting all that because they are different. Our communication goals are definitely different
083than yours. Yeah. So maybe that's more of a question for you in terms of whether you feel you want to treat those as separate. I don't know. Let's see how it kind of, you know, goes and because we have the communic uh community conversations now and we can kind of maybe it'll inform like do we need to create different goals too, right? because that's kind of how I see when you get this. It could just be like creating a completely different goal based on hearing what we're hearing. So, there's two different purposes for those two events. That's what I'm trying to Yeah. Yeah. I I I I I hear what Dr. Warden is saying and I think um uh it's a good point. I think both uh in both cases there's a lot of commentary
084and somehow I think we need to synthesize what the key takeaways that you know as an admin for community conversations or as a board for what we're learning from uh the uh school visits are um but they may be separate lists right we can compile our feedback from all three tours like once those are completed then we have the community conversations and we can compare the two but keep them separate you know and then look and see what themes you know maybe overlap something like that but they are two different I think what's important is that we somehow make sure we extract the key takeaways agree and you know so we can look at that and maybe when we have our board retreat this summer um we can think about how to how to process
085that right but I might change my goal based more on the community partnership and vice versa right you know so it's not like I'm not going to get stuff for our team there either so just to like add something to it. So if you already have you're compiling a list from this team but then you have a similar feedback here just synthesizing that as a committee you can look and say oh well this theme comes up a lot we want to highlight this or however you choose to present it but I think it's a nice capture to have it in two places because you know you're getting good feedback from the community kind of getting it right my priority is to make sure that we do something with this information and if you're wanting to
086own the feedback from the community conversations. That's great. Then we'll, you know, focus on what we're gathering. I just want to make sure that we're not letting things slip. Yeah. I'm just more like making sure that they align to like our goals, right? So like are we meeting this and do we need to develop something else which probably will be both. Everything's done in collaboration too. And I I also just want to comment like reading through the summary of the community conversations like what is always interesting I like the way it was well organized. I was not able to attend. I was at the girls basketball final game. Um, and I always say this, a lot of what is being talked about I feel like we are doing and weaving in every day. So like
087for example like non-technology skills, emphasis on life skills at the high school like reflecting back to the introduction of the ninth grade course on how to mindfully assimilate to high school. like it a lot of what I think we do and you you try to do I know this is not always the forum is to show not tell the district like people in the community all that we're doing on a constant basis I think there's this idea of like that is a fact what's our action item to address that a lot of these we're we're addressing you know what I mean and I'm just curious how much of that is conveyed out like I understand what you're saying like take feedback what is the action item but there's a a lot of this that I'm
088reading and I'm like, you know, I think about the presentation that Donna Seilback did to us on cyber security education. We are doing it's like we are doing it's not just like a I don't know. I don't know if I'm making any sense. I I think I I think I understand what you're saying. There's there's a lot of the commentary like when you read it suggestions and well, we actually are doing that. Um um social emotional learning. Yeah. But but um but the the idea um isn't you know isn't that oh if if people aren't aware well I mean if people aren't aware of some of the things we're doing perhaps we should you know take note and make sure that you know we do educate our community on what we're doing but uh what's
089really more important is to glean from the thing from the feedback the suggestions that maybe we're not doing or areas for improvement. And those are kind of the key summary takeaways whether it's from the community engagement uh facilities visits or um community conversations and they can be separate short lists that you know Janet can you know work separately because I know Janet thinks um you know uh she has goals and then that flows down through how the rest of the organization and what's interesting is a lot of the attendees of community conversations if they would attend a tour could could like we could roll out more tours would see things like adaptable classrooms layout. You know, I'm just reading through it. I'm just trying to say like it's still our job to keep pushing out
090the information as much as we can about what we're doing. That's what a lot of this comes down to in my mind. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think we talked about some of it was good to say, yeah, the community values that and it's important to keep that, right? But utilizing resources like Bard College, so they're affirming that, right? Or maybe making that stronger, you know? I think it's kind of Yeah. So, some of it was validation, some of it was improvement. Yeah. But we did talk about the fact like some people just don't know and how do you communicate things that people don't know and providing like tours every day is just not going to happen. So, we talked about the video from the high school that we created. Yeah. I
091mean, there's Yeah, there's, you know, only so much we can do, but it's a great event. We got a lot of good feedback. Let's make sure we uh um it's another opportunity take it into account and and and act on what's uh what's important. We can showcase some of those too, you know, at the the expo, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh moving on, uh we'll finish the committee reviews, uh facilities. Yeah, we had a great meeting. Um Aaron did a great job. We finalized obviously the wording that we just approved, but um ex from an exciting standpoint, we were able to look at the uh final drawing plans of the new gymnasium. Yay. And a really buttoned up uh and aggressive timeline that will hopefully have that renovation um starting in the beginning of
092June. There is a little bit of debatement issue. So, we're going we they informed Principal Rody today and he received the news beautifully that he cannot do testing in that area, but he's totally fine. It's worth sacrifice. But we're we're looking into making sure that like if there's containment obviously if they're going to do any abatement to make sure that all areas are sealed that would not affect any of the students. But in order to get this completed, we need to start as early in June as we can. Um they factored in some extra wiggle room. Um, we talked about I asked if there were going to be any, you know, supply chain or or any issues there. They have already alerted the companies of the order to come. So, they're already making the materials.
093I mean, it's really moving along. They have they've thought of everything. So, I think we're on a good path. Um, it will be beautiful. We're not gaining more space, but it's going to be redesign. We are gaining more space behind the stage where that will be the red zone now. So, we're an additional 75 seats, which is section substantial. Um, and just it's just all very well thought out. It'll be ADA compliant and safe. And so, that'll be a really beautiful visual for us to celebrate. Improvements in lighting, which we talked about. Yeah. What' you say? Lighting. Oh, recess lighting. Yes. So, some added It's not going to be glaring in there anymore. Yeah. Um, so that's the big push. Then we talked about how believe it or not at the next facilities meeting we're
094going to we're going to have Tetroche come in and already start to talk about the next capital project. So you know this is always ongoing we kind of ideulated a little bit about different exterior interior concepts some you know sort of less exciting but necessary areas like boilers and some potential outdoor areas like maybe a tennis court. you know, we're just you're just throwing a lot of different things around and Aaron will provide more detail on some district priorities. Everyone's giving her their wish list right now. So, are these slides or are they um drawings? Okay, they were drawings like architectural. I think is there a way to share them out with the rest of us. So, or is it just one copy? Yep. I certainly can share them with you. They're literally just architectural
095black and white drawings. Yeah. I wanted to wait till it's colored. I mean, are they are they are they in PDF format that you could send? I can send them. Yeah. So, that's what was submitted to the state. We we have to wait for the project to be approved by the state before we can go into the design process, which is probably the fancier version of what you're looking for. Yep. And the nice thing is it's an interior project, so we won't have any hindrance of weather over the summer. And then the other exterior work will be the columns, which are a little less taxing, a little bit more structural. Um, so you know, a lot of exterior beautifification. It's good. It's gonna be good. Um, we also ended the conversation really briefly just talking
096about the value and importance of the Raider Sports Club. Um, and they do have their spring social coming up, which is a really huge event. It would be really great, I think, if um, we could get some more support from the board to attend that event. Um, they do a lot of great things for our student athletes. Um they're having raffles, silent auction, and um it's at the Grove next next Friday, March 28th, 6 PM. Yes. And if you haven't been to the Grove yet, it's fantastic. So they put on a great event. They're doing Sunday roast in the afternoons now. Sorry. Sorry. I commercial plug there. Yeah. Sorry. They do a lot of events for the district and you know some of our No, it's great our groups. Um all right, great. Now let's
097uh backtrack. So uh is there anything uh we need to mention regarding um the request from uh the Tivoli and the Red Hook public libraries? Yes. So I mentioned in my presentation that on the ballot will be um money asked for for the Tivoli library and the Red Hook Library. These are just their request letters. So Tivly is looking to raise $107,000 roughly and the Red Hook Library is looking to raise $234,000. So it's just moreformational and the amounts are pretty consistent with years past. Correct. Yeah. Um All right. Dr. Summers update on learning and teaching. Teaching and learning. Okay. Good evening. So I am going to focus on our last Friday which was our superintendent conference day. It was a very successful professional development day. This is a collaborative effort with our professional development
098committee which are members from each of the school districts with administrators and also our administrative team did a great job really knowing what their teachers needed and we also received feedback from our teacher leaders. So with that collective and collaborative effort, we um offered at the elementary level responsive classroom. This was an offering um to all staff including faculty and support staff. And this is uh a way that our classrooms are organized the language that is used to be supportive. It's a very positive approach to building culture in our elementary classrooms. But this is something that all staff were trained in. Therefore, out in the playground, in each of our specials, um all there would be coherence as far as language and approaches to building culture within our elementary building. At the secondary level, we
099um offered a number of different things. This was based on it was focused on our street strategic planning at a district and building level. building levels have um worked with their faculty on their building level goals aligned with our district level strategic planning goals. So that was a key thread for this conference day. We at the middle school level they had Dr. Rapolley who worked um with branching minds and progress monitoring. So they were looking at interventions, how classroom teachers can do tier one, tier 2 interventions and how that works with our platform branching minds. We also they also then went on to do um work with Dr. Linda Jordan who comes with to us and this is the um I think the third time that we've had her. She's excellent. Um she's from successful
100practices network. She works closely with Dr. Bill Daget and she did a keynote for both the middle school and the high school separately so she could key in on the different levels of students and developmentally and she offered empowering learners for an unpredictable future the three R learning model that framework is something that Bill Daget has published on and has worked very diligently on over the last number of years and it talks about resilience rigor and relev events so that if we are offering that type of instructional program that students will really um be engaged and it's um so it's a great framework that we will continue to work with um I will work with administrators and faculty and teacher leaders on that framework for the middle school Dr. Jordan also did le an afternoon
101learning session on leveraging AI tools and strategies for future f focused classrooms that was very eye openening for some of our faculty of how these tools of AI can help support lesson development um and really a a lot of things that we do paper and pencil computer that will really be a timesaver but the key element of that is to make sure that you review it you edit edit it and also know that it's accurate. So, there's still a lot of faculty work in that arena, but it certainly could help um in many areas. The high school started their day with Dr. Jordan with the keynote on the three R learning on the R3 learning model. Then they worked at a department level on the strategic plan. Um, and they're really looking at engagement and
102how how does that look at each of the different departments. Dr. Warden and I walked around and visited each of those department meetings and teachers were fully engaged. Our teacher leaders were really leading great sessions and talking and brainstorming about how can we apply what Dr. Jordan just just taught us and how can we apply that also to engagement and strategic planning. In the afternoon they worked on um department meetings and also again working at a department level to really plan out how the R3 learning model can be applied. Um and so we had a very productive day. We do out of my office we do exit surveys and just I'll give you a quick summary of those. Um the overall rating at the Mill Road level and this is out of five was 4.88.
10388. Overall rating at the middle school was 3.62 and the overall rating at the high school was 3.6. All good scores. Um we this information has been shared with the profess professional development committee and I will read each of the comments um that and responses that are given by our teachers and then shared them at a high summary level with the administrative team and also the professional development committee. So very successful day. um people were energized and ready to go. So, we're very happy about that. I gave the board, did I include that in the Sunday? Okay. The um actual framework and the rubrics that we were going to look at to see if the district was making progress in those areas. So, you take a look at those. Maybe I didn't. Did I see
104it there? Um I was just curious what the Okay. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place. Sorry, you were saying you put it in the I didn't I can check again just to give you the framework that she's talking about and the different rubrics that we can look at to say the district's proficient in this area and then future focus. I'll check out. I think I did. I just had a question though about the responsive um classroom training. The responsive classroom training. Is that something that's done inhouse or do we have an outside consultant come in to do that? We had the outside um responsive classroom trainers come in for that. We do that. I think the last time we did it was probably seven years ago. We are looking to get a turnkey
105trainer. um trained in-house. So that'll be a process. Okay. We had four different trainers come in. Okay. Cuz their um max size for training is 30 people. Mhm. So we had 120 people trained in responsive classroom preK through five including um teacher aids. And then that's sort of how that training is being put into practice is monitored somehow by after once after the training occurs. How is it monitored? Oh, the administrative team monitors it. I I think it's selfmonitored by grade level leaders and um it's really a culture of a classroom. We've had responsive classroom for a long time. This was to make sure that everyone was upgraded in their training and also um we have had a lot of new staff over the last couple years. So we wanted to make sure that everyone
106was trained. And then what about at the lambs and high school is it's not a program at that level responsive classroom. Yes, it could go up to grade eight but at this point we're looking at a different program for the secondary level. Oh, what is that called? I can't tell you at this moment. We're looking at a couple of them. Okay. So, there's not like a general name for it, but they also have PBIS. Um, which is like an overall just a cultural working on behaviors incentives. Um, they actually have the Martha Strever Gold Coin. Gold Coin, which I did give mine out the other day. Um, so that's a schoolwide behavior intervention, which is not a program, it's more of a mindset. So, it's focusing on building um here are their expectations. You reinforce
107the positive um behaviors in that and that goes along with what um Dr. Summers was saying with the MTSS training. So, it's also teaching correct um social emotional behaviors and the academic piece. So, they have that already in place that they're working on. So, I'm assuming whatever you're talking about next is like a a more of a defined like role. And you also have your um different lessons that you teach during your um I'm going to say the wrong thing because it's it's 8:30. What? Thank you. During your advisory period. Okay. Thank you. Any uh any other questions for Dr. Summers. All right, Dr. Hayes. Great. Thanks. So, one of the pieces of um community feedback was about training the aids in conflict resolution. We did that last Friday, the secondary aids. Um so, part
108of our ESS grant, we do get some training. So, they were be able were able to be trained in house on conflict resolution and also working with students with disabilities, which was a nice opportunity because a lot of our aids don't have formal training. Um, so but they do have a lot of contact time with kids, so we took advantage of that opportunity. Um, I was able to go to the Red Hook Education Foundation board meeting. Um, so a couple things that were really exciting in terms of their support with students. They are offering a scholarship this year to two graduating seniors, one who is attending a four-year program and one who is attending a two-year program. And the commitment is $2,500 per year for each of those awards, which is really great. So, they
109are having a gayla on June 20th this year and the money raised is going to go towards the scholarship fund for next year. Um, they're also supporting a renovation. We're looking I've been working with u Mr. Rody and Mrs. Lynch on redesigning the high school cafeteria to make it more um of a space similar to a lounge with different types of seating. um an opportunity for kids to collaborate, more access to um electrical outlets to charge their um laptops and things like that. So that we are looking to get away from more of those bigger industrial style tables to um you know high tops, booths, two tops, those kinds of things. So um the education foundation has committed to help raise funds for that. So that was great. Um I mentioned that the two EV
110buses that we purchased are being delivered tomorrow. So, we were able to um get the chargers for those and that's all hooked up at the bus garage. So, we'll be able to charge those in-house. We just have to wait for the two-way radio system to be installed and also for the cameras. So, they should be able to be on the road um by midappril once that's done. We have moved on to start planning our video for tuition paying students for Lambs. Um we shared the high school one at our February budget workshop. So, now we're moving on um to work with the students at Lambs. um to to go into the next phase. Um and then Kate mentioned some of the facility upgrades, but we are looking to continue our projects if um we have
111some surplus in our budget this year. So, there's lots of things on the wish list, but as you know, we started the painting project at the high school. So, we'd like to expand that to the gym hallway um to replace that blue and pink or salmon colored with a red, white, and gray. Um so, we're looking to do that. We have started to replace some of the lighting at the middle school to LED lighting. So, as you know, the capital project that was approved covers the high school and Mil Road, but Lambs was not. So, we're doing some of that in-house on our own. Um, we're also looking at upgrades for our exterior with different signage. We did the work on the pack last summer, so we're looking to expand that to different buildings, just
112some building signs and street signs. Um, so those are opportunities for us to work on this summer. And lastly, I do have um some updates on our board meetings. Each of you have a packet um that I wanted just to go over with you briefly. So on the front page, a couple updates for the meeting. So April 10th is our next board meeting. We will have committees on that date. Um and then Tuesday, April 22nd, that's actually for the Boseies vote. We're going to change the time of that to have um an executive session at 4:30. Right now, we're hoping to have a candidate for the PPS position for you to meet and then we'll go into a public meeting at five o'clock um strictly for the Boseies. Right now, we don't have anything for
113consent or personnel, but if we needed to, we could add it then. Um and then May, as I mentioned, May 8th, we have our public hearing. Um so, we'd like to start the meeting at 7 and have the budget expo before that. Last year, we did the reverse. I think this year we're going to try to start the expo around 5:30, wrap up around 6:45, and then anybody that's interested can come to the budget hearing at 7 o'clock. That'll be in the pack. We have our budget vote May 20th, and we're going to hold a vote right afterward at 9:15 to ratify the vote. So, that will cancel the May 22nd meeting. We're actually supposed to ratify it within 24 hours so that way we can get it done right away on the 22nd. And
114that will mean our June meeting. We will hold committees on our June meeting for the final meeting of the year. So that wraps up this year. And then we have a draft schedule of next year's board meetings. Um you can take a look at on your own to check your calendar. I know it's hard to coordinate everybody's schedule, especially in the summer, but take a look at those and see if they work. As I said, it's a draft, so it's up for discussion. Certainly, um we can rearrange things. The one meeting that is really difficult for us to move is that August 7th meeting for the tax rate because in order for us to get um the tax bills out on time, we are somewhat limited in that area. But take a look at it
115and then we can discuss further if anybody has any questions or comments. Thank you. I I think the most important thing is that people look at that July 3rd reorg meeting. Um it doesn't have to be that date. We just need to make sure that we have a quorum. So, I don't know what people's plans are. Um, and then the August dates, if you could just let Jordan know. Um, we have more flexibility with that. But we'll put the updates to this school year. We figured some of them just made more sense. The only actionable item on the April is Bosey's vote. So, we figured it probably would be better to have it at a different time if it's one item. And we probably will have some interviews during that time prior. Yeah, July 3rd
116is a Thursday, the the 4th to Friday. So, it's going to be like a long or super long weekend. Um I I I suspect people may have vacation plans. I don't know. It's early. You could change the time on that, too. So, it's really um what's the latest uh we have we we need to have the reorg meeting done? Um I think I thought it was like I thought it has to be within the first two weeks. Within the first two weeks. Yeah. So, I'm I'm I mean, we don't have to make a decision now. We've got time, but I just, you know, people should check their schedules and see if they're going to be taking vacation that kind of Fourth of July week or if we wanted to do it the following week. Just
117Yeah, just as is throwing it out there to think about check your schedules. Yeah, we can have Jordan send a an email out just to remind everybody so that we could get the dates because I know that I don't think we provided them as early um last year. So, we wanted to make sure that if these don't work and we I know some of you zoomed in from some exciting places, but if you don't have to get up at 3:00 a.m. and get on a meeting or 3:00 am your time, but nor different time here. So, yeah. And we can look at the time for the reorg too if people um like an earlier like an 8 a.m. that's fine too but we can give you some that's true if people are going to be
118take going away for the Fourth of July weekend you know maybe leaving on a Thursday evening or something. So anyway we got time to figure it out. All right. So we'll post those changes too. Okay. All right. All right. Let's plow ahead. That brings us now back to the uh board of ed review and uh item number two uh BOE member comments. Open discussion. Happy spring everyone. H happy spring. Happy spring. Yeah. All right. I thought about say I just wanted to point something out. It just came to me. When I was on the board my first year, Mr. Richman, whose son was honored today, came and advocated. Um, Alex was a lot younger and he was like, I know my son knows the path and we need to get these kids into Bosey's like
119earlier. I remember he spoke so passionately about that. This was seven years ago. So to see Alex standing up there today, I was like, this is amazing, you know, because it always resonated deeply with me about like, you know, kids, parents know their kids and they know where their kids need to go. So it's just such a nice thing to see. I've thought about saying it before, but I convinced myself in all this time to say it publicly. Great family and it was just nice to see. Yeah. So, one other thing about the um Red Hook Education Foundation, just to jump off that, um they sent out an email as part of their ongoing communications from their president, Laura Roberts. Did all of you receive that? Yes. Okay. I just want to make sure. Yeah.
120But it it highlights what Aaron was going through. So, yeah. I did forget to mention the play. I know a lot of you went and how great it was. It was not intentionally left out. Um, and I know that some of the members will be coming and honored in the April meeting, too. So, I know a lot of you got to enjoy that. That was so good. I went twice. No, you're good. Okay. All right. Sorry. Um, all right. Sometimes I have to try and like pull things out of people. All right. Uh Bosey's nomination and uh I think we've all received uh you know resumes, letters. We've had three people uh come and uh speak. We had and I won't get all their names correct. Um Gully Gully Sanford and Mark Bryce um uh
121who spoke and and Mark I believe Flechman. Um uh we can nominate none. We can nominate as many as we want. Um I'll I'll share my thought. I think if someone comes and asks for our nomination and they come in person and speak, I think um uh I would support nominating them. I agree. I agree. Yep. All in so all in favor of uh Could you read the three names just so we Yes. Yes. So all in favor of nominating those three. Oh, wait. I need a motion. Second. All in favor of nominating those three. All right. There we go. Uh that brings us to policy review. We've got uh many first reads here. Um any questions or comments or I need a motion? A motion. Second. Any comments or questions on any of these
122policies? All in favor? I I All right. On consent agenda, I need a motion. Second. just graduation. All right. Are you paying attention? Yeah, you're sharp. Yeah, I don't know if I All right. She's reviewing the board packet thoroughly. Um, somebody graduating maybe. Any other comments or questions on anything on the consent agenda? All in favor? I I All opposed. And that brings us to personnel agenda. Do I have a motion? Motion. Second. Any questions, comments? All in favor? I um in I don't know. Just want to say something really quick. Excuse me. I just want to um congratulate a bunch of retirees. Uh Jerryanne Kerry, who's our high school nurse. I know she tremendously helped us through the pandemic, but just her presence every day, I know, makes me feel better that the high
123school's running smoothly. She's a wonderful person. Um, so we're sad to see her go, but we always wish people wonderful in the retirement. We also have four other retirees. Laura, who's a teaching assistant, Angela, our senior typist at Middle Road, I'm excuse me, at the middle school. um Barbara Frier who's a transportation aid and Darlene who's an aid and combined they have over a hundred years of uh service to the school district. So we really appreciate their dedication and the thousands of uh students lives that they've touched. So we're going to miss them all but we really appreciate their service. Excellent. That brings us to second recognition of visitors. Do we have anybody that would like to address the board? No, Bruce. You have three minutes, Bruce. All right. I'm I'm going to assume Go.
124I'm going to assume uh there's no one else that I don't see. Um All right. Uh then that brings us to a German. Do I have a motion? Motion. Second. All in favor? I so weird that he like doesn't sit at the board table. It didn't really occur to me that it wasn't consistent.