001Christmas my son. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Recommend a motion to approve the revised 2025 board of education meeting agenda as presented. I'll make the motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I I any oppose? Motion carries. All right. So, we're going to have our we have our spotlight, our recognition. And tonight, we're recognizing our board of education. Uh this evening, we have a couple awards to give out and some goodbyes to say to some of our board members. Uh our first uh recognition is for recognizing Carolyn Peek, vice president for the board excellence recognition program. um she has one of
002uh completed um a earned one of the board excellent recognitioners awards ranging levels one through four. These achievement uh levels are reached when members accumulate points for participating in NISBA's training workshops, events and activities as well as for taking board related roles like the board president and NISBA advocacy liaison. So congratulations to Carol Yeah. Our first board member that I'm going to recognize is Christine Keller. uh she served three years from 2022 to 2025. Um all of board all the outgoing board members uh will have bricks installed around the flag pole which is in the courtyard behind the turf field with their uh years of service. Uh they'll be installed in early July. Uh Nancy Taylor from the Roundout Valley Education Foundation will be in contact with building congrats for their to be installed so
003we can all go check it out. Congratulations If I can just add a few things. Sorry. Um, you know, Christine, you've been so valuable on this board. You really brought kind of a calm demeanor. Um, you know, always levelheaded approach. Um, really appreciate the kind of that levelheaded direction that you brought us. So, thank you. Really excited that you were a part of us. Um, I also just want to comment on the breaks. Um, so this paid for by us as board members. So I appreciate, you know, all of you contributing to that. Um, a few things. One is it doesn't put any burden on the taxpayers, right? We're covering the cost of those bricks. Um, but it also supports the RVF and um, as everyone is aware, the RV EF does the bricks as
004a fundraiser um, to raise funds. They continuously are supporting our programs here at Rondell. Um, so I think it's a way for the board members not only to give back, but also to recognize those who have served with us. Well, thank you. Our next board member I recognize, I know he's going off to greener pastures 2022 to 2025 is Dr. Al Roberts. [Music] I'm gonna say something about Dr. Roberts as well. Um, so Al, to be quite honest, when you first joined the board, I wasn't sure what approach you were going to be bringing to us, right? But I quickly learned your wealth of knowledge and experience with within the educational field, right? Having formerly been president at Sunni Olster, it was so valuable to us to really focus in on kind of our academic
005direction and and how that should be our focus. And a lot of I think the goals that we've come up with for Dr. Spado and the district come from a lot of what you have brought to the table. Um I think the focus that I appreciated that you brought up with you however was ensuring that as a board we functioned as a board and really focused on governance, right? not jumping into the weeds and micromanaging, but doing that high level governance, setting goals, and allowing the superintendent to then take that and move forward and and manage the day-to-day of the district. So, I appreciate you keeping us all in line, making sure we did what we needed to do and what how we should have been operating as a board. So, thank you. We all
006appreciate the consent agenda. I think that was the call. Sorry, I pushed Thank you. And our longest serving board member who I'd like to recognize is Miss Don Bley up here. Do you want me to say anything? I am good. So nine years is a huge amount of time to dedicate and volunteer. Right. I don't think anyone appreciates the amount of time that being a board member takes from you. I appreciate your dedication and your commitment continuing to be here for our students. Um, I think Don, what I seen in terms of your contributions to to Rondal is your focus on special education. I really value what you brought to the table, continuing to advocate not just for the special education student, but for all students here. Um, you have often said that, but you
007really stood behind that direction in your approach, in your thinking, your decisions. So, um, I really am grateful. I'm going to personally miss you because you brought a lot of historical things to the table in terms of what we've done in the past to help kind of guide the board. Um, but thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Next on the agenda is bus update. We're practicing our sharing. Am I sure? So, we have a New York State mandate uh passed by Miller Bond Act in November of 22 transitioning uh all of our uh buses to 100% zero admission. So, by 2027, any new school bus purchase must be zero admission and by 2035, all school buses in operation must be zero emission. Uh again, we were awarded a $10 million grant from the EPA uh clean
008school bus program to offset the upfront capital cost of this new technology. Uh this prevents any kind of burden on the local taxpayers to approve a levy bond to pay uh for these buses. And our recommendation is to take advantage of the federal funding to comply with this mandate uh versus imposing burden on the local communities to foot the bill in the future. And again, once these federal rebates disappear, once surrendered, they're not going to be rewarded back to districts. So, our job is our our charge is to, you know, foster innovation, prepare things for the future. So, we feel like this is the future. Uh we want to be prepared for it. You know, feel like our job as a school district is to get students ready for for the 21st century, foster innovation
009uh throughout our district. We're recommending taking uh advantage of the EPA school bus program grant. Uh it's already secure. the funding is um you know already there New York is moving forward here the mandate is is still uh there some details may change like granting extensions but it's New York is moving forward with this mandate and again we don't want to cost the taxpayers more money so we we scheduled uh we were we were scheduled on the town of Rochester's planning board agenda with first student on June 9th uh that was postponed uh we were pulled from that June 9th meeting uh they had a list of items for us like fixed lighting at the bus lot and other other facilities upgrades that were included in the project. Uh there is some some momentum here.
010You know, first student met with planning board today and uh if we can get down to the original contract only having 20 uh buses on the lot, 20 EV buses. Uh we may not have to go through the planning board. We have to maybe go through um the building department instead, which the planning board will be out of this. Uh if we go back to the original contract, uh again, we're going to sit down and work with our fire department if we go this route. You know, we still want their feedback and to keep our kids safe and how to keep the bus slot safe with having 20 EVs and 20 charging stations there. Uh but we're very encouraged and you know, we're looking forward planning next step next steps to make this become a
011reality for Ronda and we'd be the first, you know, district in the area to to have EV buses, which would, you know, be exciting as well. Any questions about the update? Right now, they have more than 20 buses on that lot, right? And then those buses, the rest of the diesel buses, we'll we plan on housing them on campus. And the five with the $10 million, we get 25 EV buses. And we have to figure out a way to charge those five buses somewhere around campus. Okay. Well, we got charging station behind the high school. Yeah, we have two. I don't know if they're in I don't know if they're operational right now, but there I'm sure a little further. Yeah, I don't think the power either. I just worried about, you know, the winter
012time and and going out into the mountains and whatever else. Is the fleet 100%. Is it 100% turnover? Has to be 100% of electric. Well, they what they're planning is to having the EV buses be more the local routes around here and then we're still going to have diesel buses that operate. Okay. We have over over 40 I believe over. Okay, cool. Great. And I do I think we answered this question. We asked for our student this question in our last meeting, but we had someone from the community asked a question that he had read somewhere. The contract ownership of these buses after five years, the contract states that they go to first. Um I think there was some concern about that. But what first student has committed to us based on our discussion with
013them the last meeting is they have no intention of pulling these right once they're here they will serve our students and they will stay here uh as long as we are with with person thank you any other comments on the EB bus update thank you Dr. I know this has been um a lot of additional work on you in terms of you know pulling in local politicians and trying to get support um working with the town board as well. So thank you for leading this forward. We certainly don't want to lose $9 million right and have that burden shifted to taxpayers. Um I'll get public comment. Is there anyone um from the audience who wants to make public comment tonight? Oh. Um, okay. Thank you. Um, uh, recommend motion that the board of education approve
014the consent agenda items 1 through 26 as presented. I'll make the motion. Second. Any discussion? Can I just have I just just for my knowledge base I just need to uh it was the learn well could you just tell me what Dwell is the um it's okay Dwell is a educational agency that we use when a student is hospitalized in medical or winds so they are an educational component while the student is in stay um in the hospitalization that's the education It's not important that they receive while they're there. So, we contract with them to provide that education. Great. I didn't know what that was. I knew a lot of I just had one question about my concern with the hold down instruction request form. What was that under? That was under Was that also
015under learn? Well, anyway, it was under exhibit A. If I open this up, I just get a response. My question was just that that uh with homebound instruction, the request form that even if a child refuses to work with uh uh someone who's on hold, we still have to pay we still have to pay them the services for that as well. Instruction is for student in medical condition, right? So we would be providing tutoring or services as per whether it's on an IEP or whatever the the specific situation is for that student. Right. So the student refuses to work with that person on homebound instruction. We still have to still have to pay for No, we only pay for services, right? Oh, okay. I like I just read it or I thought it was I
016thought it said you had to pay even if a student refuses to work. Okay. That was it. Questions. Any other discussion? All in favor? From the oppos. Recommended motion be it resolved that the board of education of the Rhonda Valley Central School District hereby approves the first amendment to the superintendent's employment agreement and hereby authorizes the president of the board of education to execute the agreement on behalf of the board. I'll make a motion. I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Any oppose? Motion carries. Uh board time. Jim, do you want to start? Yes. I just uh again wanted to I don't I guess it would be congratulations to our three board members that are leaving and I know Dawn uh unfortunately was uh trying to secure a spot and I'm just appreciate everything
017she's guided me with this year through through my first year process and I hope she continues to stay involved with uh with Ronda Valley in any any capacity that you can and wish to do So because you're really important and guided this district for help guide this district for nine years and we're going to miss miss you Memphis miss everything that uh you brought help us with help me as well. Thank you, Nicole. I second that sentiment. Wish you guys all the best in all your future endeavors. Um, we also have a curriculum meeting, Tuesday, Thursday, th Tuesday, Thursday at 5:00 at the district office. Um, all are welcome to attend public meeting. You can join us. Christine, I would just say it was a pleasure to be on the board. Um, when I ran,
018I didn't run because there was nobody running. There was four of the slots. I was running one. I was going to say four open person running. It was not my intention to be on the board, but um I felt like having four children go through the school district and I was they were on their way out that's I owed something to the school district and what I would say it was a huge learning experience for me. People that are on this board are super super dedicated, super smart and um it was just truly a pleasure. So thank you. uh district-wide safety committee meeting or uh met yesterday. The discussion was reviewed and made changes to district-wide safety plan uh after school events, parent pickups, parking permits and tags, signage for parking and radios and protocols.
019Um, I do want to thank the board for just uh passing uh phase five, project phase five, which uh includes the high school um HVAC controls. So, that is going to be on track and we should by September one of this year finally have the high school under control and able to control this. So, that's Yeah, that's been a while. Um, other than that, that's really about it. We have our new our next meeting is the next Wednesday, I believe, 19th. So, thanks. Um, for budget, um, we talked last week about reserve funds. Um, Tabitha wants to add a reserve fund and, um, we talked about moving some of the money from different places. We just approved all of that movement. So, um, so Tabitha is really doing a great job making sure that our
020budget is what it needs to be and making sure she's setting us up for success for the next year and so on. So, that was great. Um, and um, I want to thank you for past nine years. It's been great and uh, good luck. You know, I'll be around. You're not going to get rid of me that easy, but um, I look forward to feeding all of you. Dr. Roberts, we have our final committee meeting tomorrow and it's going to be an interesting one because we addressing the self ownership. Uh, but Lisa has done a fabulous job. So, we'll bring that to the next meeting. All the results and recommendations. The board stamps I was in education for 41 years and I've learned more about education in the last three course that I had no
021clue. And so, thank you for helping educate me and allowing me to say what I say sometimes, which sometimes a little brutal, but anyway, thank you so much. And I think my one accomplishment as I know super really proud to have you here. Yeah, thank you very much. Uh, I mean it's just at this point we're just echoing uh thank you to Steve and Dr. Roberts. Um, it's it's it's a lot of time that we spend sometimes doing this and having to, you know, to really talk about a lot of things. So, it's time so we can appreciate it and I do thank you for your time. And uh as we do wrap up, as this is June, our last meeting of the official school year, I do also want to say congratulations to Dr.
022Spado on your first year. That's I'm still here as a appreciate that. Great. Thank you. So echoing as well, you know, for the board members, I know I've already spoken about each of you, but it it's interesting. When I first started on the board, I wasn't sure how I was going to get along with certain individuals. Um, but you really do become a family, right? I think you start to really know each other, know how to work together, and I'm grateful for all of you, right, for being willing to come collaborate, have discussion. We'd all agree, right? kind of like siblings where you might you might have some fights and disagreements but I think in general we all are here for the well-being of the students um staff and I think we've done a good
023job making sure we keep those two items at the forefront of what we do. So grateful for all of you those who are leaving um I may still pick up the phone and and bounce ideas off of you uh occasionally but um thank you thank you for everything you've done. Okay. Um, Grace is not here tonight. Um, but we also did want to acknowled graduating this year will be leaving us. Um, but it was nice to have her her involved and present with us. Okay. Um, be resolved that the board of education approved the consent agenda item four through five as presented. Make the motion. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I any oppose? Motion carries. We don't need except recommend a motion to adjourn the June 10th, 2025 meeting as I'll make the motion.
024I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all. Thank you. They're protecting