001But so you know let's leave two not enough for three too many has a capability of adding more. So those are the issues that we eventually are going to have to resolve. Um the process is basically this. Every year our administrative staff and our superintendent will review all our classes, our executive side, the staff, all those issues get reviewed every year and they usually make that decision and we expanded track. This year it is a little unique, a little different between two schools. And so we want to give our stakeholders an opportunity to be able to meet with us and tell us how you see things so that you know that can be taken into account and eventually the board will deliberate over this and at some point the decision will rest Mrs. woman which
002methodology but after having all of us. So with that, who would like to be the first person to step up? [Music] Did you get it going, Gina? Yes. Okay. All right. So, I'm Deina Thirstston, town supervisor for St. Armen. Um, obviously Bloomingdale School is incredibly important to our community. Um, both of my children, I'm sure Mr. Farmer remembers both of them well. Um, went from kindergarten through fifth grade here at Bloomingdale. So, this school is near and dear to my heart. Um, I personally moved to the town of St. Armen uh 35 years ago so that my young son could my youngest son could attend Bloomingdale School. So that's how important this school is to me. Um and I know that a lot of members of our community feel the same. So, um, in my
003mind, it makes sense for the kids that are outlying. So, those kids in Lon Lake, Vermontville, Paul Smith, you know, Gabriel's Lake Clear could attend Bloomingdale school because they're out further. Um, have those kids attend Bloomingdale school. And then the Sarinac Lake kids obviously could attend the the Sak Lake school. And I understand that we have a population decline. And I understand the parameters that you're all trying to work with. Believe me, I respect that. I I understand it. Um I would just hope that we would try to um do everything that we can to make sure that the class sizes make sense for our kids. Um I as educators, you all know there's a lot of kids that don't do well in in busier schools, bigger schools with a lot of um activity. So,
004some kids might do a lot better at Bloomingdale than they do in Sarak Lake. So, I just ask that you would keep that in mind as well. And um you know, I know we we have a lot of housing initiatives um here in the North Country um that are eventually going to come to fruition. Um the the new loft apartments and there's 86 new units proposed at the uh Pure Cottage, the old AMA property. So, um hopefully we'll be able to get new families coming into town. Um I will tell you I know for a fact that um St. Armond is growing. Um we've had several new single family homes being built. Um not all of them are for short-term rentals. So that that's good news. Um so I know that this area is popular
005and people want to live here. We all want our kids to be able to stay here, come here, raise their families here, um, and grow and flourish here. So, um, hopefully we can get our population to increase some more. I'm really glad to hear that the incoming kindergarten class was larger than expected. So, that's fantastic news and hopefully we can continue to grow um our community and our housing stock so that people can come in. So, thank you. Thank you. Uh, in full disclosure, both my kids went to Lake Clair school and and one of them got caught up in a closing and they both attended jail. So, I know firsthand my own children that died here. Yeah. So, it's we know we have jail here. Yes, it is. It truly is. And it's the
006newest school. You know, you got the newest school right here. And I look around twice, right? But, you know, just looking at at everything that's here and, you know, this backdrop that's that's made, you know, it's beautiful. And thank you. Thank you all the teachers and the staff of Bloom Schools. Thank you. We all Thank you. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? I guess. Can I ask a question? Sure. Okay. I'm Nancy Heath. Um, you're planning I guess I I need a clarification of exactly the plan. Um, you're going to take third, fourth, and fifth and move them to Prova. No, we we haven't said that yet. What we said is last year we have three great classes in Prova. Okay. Third, fourth, three, four, five. Okay. And one a year.
007This year there will be two and one, right? As of this moment. So we're we somehow we have to equalize those three. And we have not yet decided how that will be. Okay. Obviously, um, if we're talking Franklin, we could put all of those grades in patrol or something to come out here. Okay. Too many kids just run to patrol. That's all. Right. Right. Okay. So, there is potential to actually bring not only um like the lower grades if there's too many at Prova because I guess that's what I've been hearing. Petrova is is is over it's over full. I mean that you have too many kids that uh they're they're eating lunches all different times because you're trying to cram everybody in to to make sure that everybody gets what they're supposed to have.
008But if that's the case and we have extra rooms here at Bloomingdale, um I would hope that the idea would be to bring those classes here instead of moving cars up there. And I understand the dilemma of trying to put the numbers where they need to be, but I'm hoping that you really look at Bloomingdale for the resource that it is and maybe to alleviate some of that uh overcrowding at Prova and if they're going to be busted in, they might as well they could also be bust out and apparently you are looking at that. So, and that's that's my thing. Yeah, it's a great question. Some of the things these things always have entanglements that are kind of hidden. For example, Mhm. Moving all the grade levels out here causes us some issues with
009special services because they are sharing the patrol on the whole building. Right. Right. So now we split that service up. We cannot get all the services done by getting them between the buildings. So then we need to hire people to be here and leave people there. The issue with that with that is we've got shrinking revenue, right? Many of our special services are paid by the title line as a federal program as you're all aware. That's one of the big things on the federal chopper, right? So, we're not sure what that's going to look like for sure yet, right? So, that's an issue. So, we're all here, but there are associated costs with that that we're not we're unable to add more of those costs. Right. Okay. on the counter on that all those classes
010in the dro don't incur any additional costs. So that's you know right push these are things we're wrestling I wish it was as simple as let's just make this move or that move but there's always some entanglement there which makes this not as easy do that it's easy done and that's why we want to hold a session like this so you could tell us what you see we can share with you some of the things you might not know and that that's one of them and I think there's ding in fact there's more entanglements I'm It's just the one I I put out there, but that's a big one for us. Okay. And is it that if this move is made, say for the next coming year, does that mean it can't change or revert
011back the following year? No. Is that a potential? It's always a potential. So, I want to just jump back a little bit to Deina's comment about class sizes. So our incoming kindergartens left the the anticipated class size number was 55 and last year we had 64 kindergartens. So when we did our facilities study they anticipated kind of a steady 55 number for incoming kindergarteners and last year we didn't hit that we were 64. So the first sort of is the facility study really giving us a true picture of what it's going to look like. The first data point was off by a lot of students. However, this year again facility studies said that the data point for incoming kindergarters again hitting that 55 mark. Right now we're at 42 incoming kindergarteners. So, we're significantly down
012from what had been projected. So, one of the things the board has talked about, forgive me a second. You invited me to jump in, so I'm going to jump in, but I'm in your territory, is uh we had as the board uh decided we would do a community um committee to look at the facility study and the use of the facilities. So, we did put that off because our data point said we're not aligning with that, but right now we are aligning with that as things are coming in for next year. So, I actually do have a slide I spent a lot of time on it I think is lovely and I'm going to just move you there because a lot of people ask me um can you fit up K through2 in this building?
013So the answer is we did the work and yes using every nook and cranny you can actually fit UPK through two in this building. All all class all classes. We could make this building a UPK through second grade SA Lake Central School District building. But as Mark mentioned, that means special ed comes also. And bringing special ed, special ed is a is a cohort. It's not just a teacher or a psychologist. It's the whole team works on with and for our students. And although and just using the last couple years like what it looks like for K2 for special services, we would really need to add additional staffing to have full specialized staff here and we would continue to need the specialized staff at Troa. Um, it's not a full-time job, but it's also not
014a job that would be um condensed enough that once you add the 40 minutes of February travel time from the time you walk your child back to the classroom, come back, clean up your desk for the next day, start your car, get in your next child after it really only left about two sessions in a day. So it doesn't it's not a full but it's not really sharable job either. So at the end of the day they would be full-time positions either. We'd also have to look at the cafeteria staffing because we feed so many more kids. Um and the big piece of that really is transportation because we already have some transfers. We do transfers. we would have to do transfers, but we would be transferring the littles and a lot of them from
015Trova to here. So that all goes back to this is not a this is not a done deal. This is something that the committee should look at because it may be what we decide is a great thing to do, but I think that's that's not for se that's not for September, right? We're talking about what are we doing that's equitable for all of our students next year and the committee should get together and the committee should look longterm and what that looks like. Yeah. Um I'm I'm glad to hear you say committee because I I wanted to ask you about that because I I the last board meeting uh school board meeting that I attended you had decided to hold off on the committee. Have you decided now to move forward with it? We we
016will be forming the committee to digital health. Okay. So, uh like in the fall you'll start putting that together then after or soon or sooner. So even throughout the summer you may begin working on that. You know to answer your question why we want you here is as a board we're incredibly frustrated that we pay a pile of money people to come in and do some projections for us for some of those to be as far off as they are. you know, in our mind kind of a direction we could head based on those numbers. And when those numbers didn't quite start jagging with what we were seeing in real time, that's why we stopped with the brakes in the committee. So, we can see how the dust settle. Well, the dust is settling and
017the numbers don't look in some cases like they were projected to be. So, now we feel it's not we've got to get this committee up and started because this is a going to set the long-term direction for where we're heading. Is this a possibility? Are there other possibilities? And like I told you, um, one of my kids was involved when when clear was shut down. And I remember I was a teacher at the time, but I remember the committee work that was done on that. I thought it was fair. I thought it was a good thing. There was a lot of opposition shut down for very good reasons, but I really felt that there was an airing of all facts and it was regrettable. Um, that's direction went. And before we do that here, um
018I don't want to skip any step. I don't want to miss any information or any possibility or any scenario. So that's why um we need to take care of the 345 through this year. But in the meantime, we're going to assemble this committee and we're going to take a look at our facilities and as many factors as we can. the money, the kids, um, quality of education, class sizes, all that input and see if we can come up with a plan that meets the needs of the most people because obviously no plan is going to make everybody happy. We know that, but we want to try to be fair to everybody. Um, I'll just say as a side, you know, as we're talking about staffing, sometimes it's easy to think, well, let's just hire three
019more people to both buildings. problem with that is when we do our budget, we are constrained by the tax cap. We just can't let any amount we want, which I think is probably a good thing. Um, our contracts to our unions. And so, in order for us to spend, you know, we're 70% people in this business. And when you're talking about savings or cost, it's mostly in personnel. And so, for us to do that makes a big difference in our operating budget one way or the other. And so we're looking at probably reduced funding at at the federal level, maybe at the state level. So that's the vice. If we were a welcome committee, we could say just spend it and all taxpayers would say okay and they'd override the tax cap. But we all
020know you that tax cap is probably not overridable in our community. Our taxpayers are generous to us. They're generous to all our classrooms, our classes, our kids. They support everything we do. We're conscious of that. We want to be mindful of the dollars. We're trying to balance that with the product we're putting out there. So, we need your help to try to do the best thing we can for this problem next year and then to somehow come up with a long range plan that meets the needs of our district, our communities as a whole, and specifically our students, our children support groups. So, we want to be very open. We want your input. And I will tell you this, anytime you think of something or you have something you want to discuss, although generally in
021the public comments, we don't do that for doing it tonight. Any of us will talk to you. We want to know if there's something we're not seeing. So that's where we're at. Okay. Stand up, please. Uh my name is Jill My son Hi, Nancy. No, Nancy. Uh my son Levon is in kindergarten at NORA. And my daughter, Isa, is incoming UPK. Uh it's my first school board meeting, so thanks for getting me here. I uh just a couple clarification questions. When you're talking about forming a committee, is the committee composed of members of the school board or like schoolboard members plus community members? So Jill, the way we set it up before is we looked at a combination of board members, staff members, community members, and stakeholders. So I don't have that structure in front
022of me, but there was kind of a target of people from. So yes, um we we as a board just don't believe in this top down. Um we'll talk about we'll let you know on an issue like this. We want to get the input from as many people as we can. We don't want the committee so big that it paralyzes itself. And we want to meet often enough that we keep this process moving forward. We don't want this to be a committee that three years from now we haven't decided anything that would be too late. So yes. Does that answer your question? Yes. I have two more questions. Sure. Okay. When you say when you're talking about next year, are you talking about May 26? Are you talking about the incoming school year in September?
023The grade 345 they should ask for yourself for September. Okay. Um, Diane, you said that you have 42 enrolled kindergarteners incoming. As a person who doesn't do things on time sometimes, I'm wondering at this point last year, because my son is a part of that large kindergarten class, at this point last year, were you tracking around the same? We were. We were higher. You were higher. So, the the joy of our new UPK being full day is that we have a really good handle on our four-year-olds coming into kindergarten. Um, in my 12 years here, the largest influx we've ever had from who we thought was coming to actually walked in the door in September was 12 in kindergarten. So, we kind of still use that as our high water mark. So 42 + 12
024and we we just we probably know you just because you haven't put your name. You haven't filled out the paperwork yet. We probably know where you are. They're all shaking their heads. Yes, we know you and we have you on the list. We hope you're bringing your your child here with us next year. So uh we can use whatever the number is plus 12 as what we think is the largest of what our our class sizes look like. Okay. Thank you. And my last a good question by the way. My last not a question, just a statement. Um, and I know this is really difficult and you've been talking about this for a long time and there's a lot I don't know that has gone on behind the scenes, but my only thing that I'd
025like you to consider is that my son and daughter are 21 months apart and I was really looking forward to them going to school together. So, the thought of them being split up is the only thing that I would like you to consider because I'm sure there's other parents going through that too. So, may I just ask the clerk? So, is your child coming to UPK or kindergarten? My son is in kindergarten right now. So, he'll be in first grade next year at Petrova. Okay. And my daughter is going to UPK at Bloomingdale School. Bloomingale school. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So, many of our community members had uh one or more of their children in the same school for um purposes. Some parents don't want their kids in the same school. you have
026the numbers. Yeah. The trend of incoming. I think as a school board member, I find that demographic information is really helpful just generally, but also specifically about kindergarten. Uh oh. Press ESC. [Music] Okay. Wait. You're in charge. No, it's not on my computer. Can you find me the kindergarten? Uh um it's not on the computer. It's just on the smartboard. home. Hey, can we just stop at homeschooling for a minute? Does anybody mind? So, since I'm here, one of the things I've read a lot on Facebook and in some of the comments, we had 20 people who wrote to us as a board was about the large influx of homeschooling. So I did want to just touch on that because that is somewhat true. However, that is really post pandemic and we match almost uh
027percentage by percentage of what's happening in New York State. So these are our current academic school year homeschooling numbers. Kindergarten is not required to attend school. We require it globally. It's not required by New York State. So, um you can kindergarten your child at home. Shane is a bit of a but that's that's where we are right now. This is where we are traditionally. So, New York State saw 178% increase in their homeschooling numbers um over the 10-year period and it really you can even see our numbers 1920 as we came into CO numbers were high um but we really align with that 178%. I did the 2013 and the 2023. So, our numbers are not significantly up for homeschooling. Uh, this is enrollment by grade. So, if you were asking, that's what I was
028looking for. So, you can just tell as we move along um what our enrollment has looked like over the past few years. Highest point in the 90s. Highest point was in the 90s. Yes. 1900. Yes. So when N's two daughters played hockey for me and kept me busy. Their class probably in the 120s 130s, right? And and the problem we have is even our class this year at 68 were graduating 86 87 89. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Hopefully all 89 hopefully all 89 are leaving us. We hope. Right. So the problem is our our total enrollment is decreasing overall. In the last three decades we've lost about what about 850 kids our population. Yes. I'm Jen Lee. Um, I want to say to the staff of cry, you guys are wonderful. My kids have blossomed.
029We joined uh we were there last year and they've just grown tremendously. My kids get on the uh wake up at quarter of 6:00 in the morning to get on the bus at 6:15. Um, last year, uh, I started a remote job and I got a a call from the bus garage saying that you'll you need to expect that your kids are going to be on the bus for two to two over two hours to get home every day. I had to change my schedule to meet the bus at a location to pick them up, and I still do that to this day. And I've been making professional choices, so my kids aren't on the bus over three hours a day. Have you guys considered how this is going to affect bus routes? Especially we
030have one of the largest districts and I know in New York State an hour and a half bus ride one way to school is not unreasonable. So the answer is yes. Actually the bus garage um has done some work. I've not had them move over because you have to come up with a final decision but I have talked to them about what this would look like and their answer is uh they would start fresh. rather than just trying to finangle what they're currently doing. Um really one way or the other because whether we have 15 students coming from Petroa this way or we have students here headed to Petrova um would would require some some changes in our bus service. And just so you know, my daughter was four years old last year. having to
031ride the bus for an hour and a half and then in the afternoon if I had to change my schedule, she would have had to sit on the bus with her brother who was eight, nine years old for a half an hour waiting for a high school student to meet up with their bus in order for them to get home. Jen, sorry Jen, um I'm glad you brought that up because that brings back memories for me. My daughter, she went to uh Lake Clair. Uh the morning wasn't too bad, but the afternoon we lived 6 miles from school. The afternoon was forever. Um ranging in the hour to hour 20 minutes to go 8 miles. And so my wife said find out about this. So I called bus garage as a fairly new teacher about
032six or seven years on the job. And you know they went through all the A's through Z's of why it was what it was. I didn't like it but in their world made sense. I was most unhappy about it and know I can say thank you that she made some adjustments so our daughter so I I absolutely feel what you're going through because I did it with one of my children and we'll get to the folks back I'm sorry I don't mean to take up so much time. Um I just had two questions. um one about Diane what you were talking about um the services and what that could look like if you tried to do the um and I don't pretend to understand exactly what you were saying but you were saying it wasn't
033a full-time job but it it was more than a part-time job and it just occurred to me and I'm sure it probably occurred to you as well you know could it be two and a half days in Petrova and two and a half days in Bloomingdale I don't know that question, you know, the answer to that question, but I'm I'm sure that you're thinking along those lines perhaps. Yes. Okay. I'm just saying if that you know to to make it work so it's a full-time position and and you know, don't worry, we you never have related services speech uh that there isn't some one more child. We could definitely benefit from that. So there's never there's never we call it related service provider. There's never a related service provider without a full schedule because there's
034always one more that could benefit. Right. Yeah. Just trying to make that work and looking to see whether we can actually make it work for the staff that we currently have. Sure. Okay. Thank you. And my I'm sorry followup question on the uh the committee. Um, I I'm just asking, you know, are you going to post something? Are you going to send out, you know, a do a have Aaron do an article so that folks that want to possibly be on the committee um can uh send a letter of interest if you could explain how that might go. So, when we originally were going to go this route, we did do that and we had some interest. So, we'll contact those people say, "Are you still interested?" But we will be putting it out through
035all our our media make sure that people have the opportunity. Okay. Thank you. In the back here, my name is Evan Blue. Um, class of 05. Long time no long history if I remember correctly. Um, I have two kids that go to Bloomingdale right now. They're right here with us. um she'll be going into first grade, she'll be going into third. So, this is sort of a big impact on us if we decide to do the split. I'll have a kid in each school, which drastically affects our personal lives and schedules. Um I'm just wondering, so my question, I think a lot of us may be thinking this, the budget is passed already. Yes. And how long has this been an issue that you guys have known about? How long have we known that this
036was going to be coming? uh since we we did the budget and we've been talking about it now really that long too. Just curious as to we started over a year ago um when we requested the study because intuitively knew the number of decline but we wanted to have a better so we commissioned the study. So, I'm trying to get ahead of this. Part of the issue that I spoke to is um the projections haven't lived to reality. So, we're scrambled a little bit. Now, one of the things Evan I would say to you is um there's a possibility that depending upon what decision made is that families that have children that would be in different schools might be able to make a request at both same school. It doesn't really help social interactions when
037she's got a class that she's already grown fond of. Right. So, my question just to finish it, let me finish this. So, what we probably won't guarantee is you want to vote in a particular school. That'll depend on so if we have to do that route, we'd much rather have people that want to volunteer to make that move um than than the other alternatives. So, we want to work with people if it's bad situation. And I first before we go any other route, go ahead. I'm just curious as to why we're just working with people now and the budget has been passed already. I How are we to expect that you don't already have a plan when you've already figured out the money? You've got a list of resignations here. You clearly have a plan.
038You already need to have a plan to make a budget. I mean, I work for the state. I'm very familiar with building the plane as you fly it and it's bad government and it doesn't work. So, I'm just curious, you know, why are we just talking about this now if it's been an issue for over a year? Why are you just hearing us after you've already figured out the money and how are we justifying the increase in administrative budget as well? I just I'm just curious. I'm not trying to be hostile. It's just it really upsets me that we're just talking about this now. We're just hearing about it as a community. It's kind of scary. Well, I don't think you're just hearing about it because when we started talking about the study, we were
039very upfront that our population is declining and we're going to have to make some shifts. So at that point is when internally we started looking at where are the shifts going to have to come from. So we've been working through it and as the admin staff and the superintendent narrow the scope of that that's when we're bringing in US stakeholders would make sense to bring everybody in until we have a focus of the area we needed to address. Sure. Go ahead. Well, I just I think I don't think we necessarily projected that we were going to have to reduce I mean the budget was there's there's issues with the state and and and our aid that's coming from the state and of course aid coming from the federal government. there's loss of any pandemic relief
040money that was kind of coming in for a few years and all of a sudden the budget got pretty tight this year and to try to keep all the services and and you know and classes and and opportunities for all the children that's when it became a clear place to to try to you know keep everything um for all children was to reduce the the number of of third, fourth and fifth from four total classes to three. So that's not you're going on for years that projection that's kind of fairly recent. Um so you're maybe that's why you feel like you haven't heard it for a while because it was kind of a new thing that came to us really just few months ago. Um and the budget had you know we were up the
041budgets maxed out as a at the tax cap. So there wasn't really a discussion to to you know go over the tax cap so that we could keep these classes you know so small to keep everybody happy and you know where they are right now. That was where the changes started but just from the budget. Yeah. The class sizes listen I'm a proponent for smaller class sizes if I can afford them and we we really have done that for as long as we could. So I think if we go back and look at the timeline, the letter came out from the federal government in February beginning March. I can't remember exactly when that was. So our timeline is pretty short. Originally, if I could if I could reduce staffing through attrition, that's what we've been
042trying to do for for years. That was what we really wanted to do. Unfortunately, we have to be realistic in what our budget situation look like for next year. Um, it's still not a full picture. And so that caused us to have to look at our staffing deeper than we normally would. And that's when that came forward. So, we did reduce the staff as part of the budget. We actually talked about that, but we now I think have talked about this for two or three meetings and want some input at this point as to where those classrooms would be. So, we've tried to do it publicly and anyone else back. Yes. Uh, my name is Pink Bradford. Full disclosure, I have no children in this district. Um, I live in Lake Clair. Um, but one
043thing I do have in common with all of you is that I do work in education. And that is first and foremost part of what I live for. Um, when I saw this in our paper, um, it really concerned me. I look special education. So looking at your little map there was um good for me to see. My concern was about special services. And going back to that map, when you say that the rooms will be utilized, every single room will be utilized. Does that mean are you still sharing rooms like a OTP speech is all sharing one room? Um are any sensory needs still being met for those students who need them? Um we mentioned about um Go ahead. I I think so. Uh this is just my map and me. So uh I
044speech had their own room. We needed a 611 and an 811 and a 1211 landing area. It doesn't need to be particularly large, but they needed a room. Um and you're 61 and your 81 or 700. Okay. Correct. Um we also have a motor lab at the Tro. So again, equity of services. We need a motor lab here at them. Uh the way that that happened is the motor it is a regular size classroom, but it would have OT and PT and the motor lab in that space. But it was a pretty nice the classroom sizes here are nice size. Okay. So that was um so I was also concerned about skilled nursing services. Um again you talked about um hospital part-time, full-time, OT, PT um would skilled nursing services still full-time be provided in
045both buildings? Okay. And how about for um school psychologists and child advocates? So psychologists we would probably share. We already do some overlapping with our psychologists. But are they stretched thin in that matter? We're actually um four maybe five. We we have a very robust uh counseling staff. Um I say that it's robust compared to uh schools our size in a rural community. um compared to the needs of our students post pandemic, nobody has a robust counseling program, right? Everybody needs more staff. But uh but I we do think we would need that counselor um because they are required for SEAL programming and they just do different things, you know, they're they're just a different job description than the psychologist. where we be able to um do some sharing with the psychologist really could not
046do that and provide the services and the counseling services that would be required by sharing staff. Okay. And how about your extracurricular um staffing? Are they shared staff also or would each building still have their own? They they are shared staff for music um art they're a shared staff. And how would that affect them or they actually could do um actually had that on their PE is 12 sections every other day. So that' be a full-time job for one person and that actually work out pretty well. And they do rotate through uh both buildings now. So travel is in their their schedule already. Okay. We do full days, but I think music did some half days. We did chorus like there's some people that doesn't have days. So that does that does fit. They're busy,
047but it does fit. I just I just had a quick question and I'm sure that you probably consider it, but um your numbers of everybody going into petroa includes like the St. Bernard's third class coming up too and moving into St. Bernard's numbers. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Hi. Uh my name is Kelly Fuller. I'm a mom of two kids. I have a second grader here at Homedale and a sixth grader in the middle school. I'm also a wife and a counselor. I work I'm a civil servant. I'm not going to say what county I work for, but it has a 27% poverty rate and it has most of the um income based housing in the district. Um so as part of my job um so I'm not here representing my county, keep in mind, but
048um as part of my job I work preventatively with families. I go into some homes that most people would not want to go into with all a array of things happening and it's often quite chaotic. Um so we I work preventively as a counselor with the family. I also um work with families that sometimes the f the child is removed into foster care before they get to kindergarten. Sarin Lake school district never even sees that child. Um I also track these children once they're Sarin Lake children. I see them. I continue to see them for years when they are placed in foster care often in the north because we have no foster care families in the south essentially. Um I also help foster children come back into their homes. Um so when they come back
049to their parents I help that transition. One thing that I would have always said is that is the safety of my children. I don't do a safe job. I have enemies for my job. I need to know that my children are safe. And I've always felt that because my children went to elementary school at a safe harbor in Bloomingdale, that that allowed them to be safe because it just works out that Bloomingdale is mostly lies in Essence County. Oh. Um, but it lies in a county that I don't work for. And it works out that my children feel safe and I feel safe. It would be the straw that breaks my back. I would not be able to do this job anymore. I would not be doing all the things that I just said that
050I do. And all the administrators are over here and they're all aware of if I'm doing a good job or not. And I'm I know that I uh there's a lot that I can be criticized for. But I'm trying really really hard doing a job that nobody wants to do. There's no master level counselors going into chaotic homes doing this work. And I'm not going to do it if my child is going to drop them and I don't feel that she's safe. And I understand it's not personally a safety issue in school. It's more nuanced than that, but I like my child going to And also I want to just add that the timing is is really rough in her I'm trying to protect her heart and she feels to her this feels cruel. the
051short nature of it, the fact that she didn't have, you know, the last chorus concert or the last, you know, special day before break or all these laughs. She didn't get to know that those were her last, you know, and that is incredibly hurtful to her. She's a very sad girl just thinking about this. I hope you got her email. Say one thing. So, two quick things. Um, I'm sorry I forget your name back. I appreciate your perspective on special education. That's my background. I'm also sped teacher now professor. Um that all is just wanted make sure none of what Diane was showing there about like could this building support pre but that's all multiple years away if that ever happened. That's not what's being discussed for tonight. Um and as to I I appreciate
052your comment in the comment gentlemen. I'm sorry I forget your name. Um I'll use your analogy. you know, we built the budget and we built the plane and then February, um, federal government came and chopped the plane, cho the wings off. So, we had to rebuild the plane as we were flying, which none of us want to do. Um, state is still not sure what's on Albany. They're talking about bringing the legislature back in the summer because no one knows what's going on in terms of school funding at the federal level. So, none of this was us behind closed doors. I'll give you my school email account. But like we're not discussing things secretly. This was no ulterior motives. Like we are literally meeting talking about this all in public. There's no emails about this
053between us. We talked about this in public. Honestly trying to respond to a crisis that none of us here made. Um I hate it for the kids. This is happening. But we have this is the definition of a rock and a hard place. And nobody here likes what's happening. But the timing was out of our control and so we're just trying to do the best we can and that's why we're happy this week is to hear from you folks so we can make the best decision possible. Can I say very good question? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Just to clarify, I don't I'm not saying it's not safe for kids. I'm saying I have to do my job. Okay. They're more likely to make I'm Yanni. I live in the suburb. My name's Annie Arnold.
054I live in the suburb called Vermontville. Um, it's like an excerpt. Um, since moving there, I have seen an influx of small uh, you know, small children's families move into Bloomingdale and Vermontville. So, I am supportive of that outlook. Um my both uh my oldest son goes to goes here and then my youngest goes to see Bernard's. Um so I think when presented with the two options I think the first thought that I had was um this is it. These are our two options. So, um, can you I think that you have been transparent and I know some of you on the board that are very intelligent, all of you on the board, but I know that lady in particular that are very important and I know you care about our kids. Um, this is
055a huge disruption whether it's providing kids. So I guess I'm I'm Can you elaborate on what options you discussed and you took off the list and basically more um information how you came to those uh two options? I'll start and then I know Daniel will pick up. When we first started looking at this, I think my view was shared by some of the others was let's run to a patrol and own it. Let's make deal until Diane pointed out that we be in violation of the teachers contract the amount of students have patrol. So then the next answer is well somebody from patrol has got to go to Bloomingdale and the next thing is well how is that decided? So that's where we landed on this and that's not a viable option because our contractual
056obligation want to weigh in. Sure. So Nancy threw out a third option was some could stay, some could go, we could make this UPK through uh three or UPK4. Um so we did look at that also as vital options. Um it's an interesting conversation that we have because we all we all sort of see the same face on the table but from our own perspective. So we have we have people who are here talk about their own children tonight and what's best for their own child. Their perspective is absolutely spot on for their particular family. And then Deina's here tonight talking about the community. Right. So her perspective on this is absolutely spoton about the community and the value of the school for the community. My perspective is a little different from both in that
057my perspective really comes from an equity issue. I have to look out for all thousand children in the district and all 400 children that are in the elementary part of the district and making sure that all of our students have equitable access um to educational experiences and what that really looks like. So, we haven't really talked about it tonight, but there are some things. It doesn't seem like a big deal to at Prova to go from three classrooms to two, like what's the big deal? And to be honest, we did move forth in fifth grade out here many years ago. I was early in my career here. Um had very similar conversations to families that were very concerned about their child coming. When we said, "We'd love to have some volunteers." Um, I don't know
058that we had any. If we did, they would they were counted on one hand without some fingers on it. And so we chose based on who went with friends. Everybody went with a buddy, that type of thing. This is a little different in that we do not offer special education services here in the living. So all of our students who receive special education services are at the children. So when I when I discuss going from three classes to two and removing four or five students from each of those grade levels, those are additional gen ed kids because we can't move kids that need services who don't have services here. So now where I can split my children, special ed kids spend a lot of time together um just like your kids do and in some
059of these grade levels they spend a lot of time and they're ready to go by fifth grade and make some new friends and spread out. So um it's important that our special ed population also have that right to spread out among classrooms. So moving from three classrooms at the troa to two and moving out some of our general education population is that equitable to our general ed population that's still atro and is that equitable for our special ed students that's really the end of the day the the struggle of what we're talking about your Bloomingdale students do 21st century, they get an opportunity for that. Like we we try to be equitable across the board with what we do. And at the end of the day, this really becomes an equity issue for all of
060our third, fourth, and fifth graders. And it's difficult because we're looking at the same issue. The perspective is just so different depending on what angle you're looking at from. And there's no right answer, right? because the pro parents if we had this conversation would be saying please don't move my child. So it's there there's no I wish there was a magic wand and everybody would say that's a great answer but when we get to the end of the day some people will think so but some will not. We've got to do the best we can for all of our students. Yes. Hi Mark. Um I'm looking what is the New York State legal class size for third graders? I don't there is no New York state legal class size. Um we have we have class
061size in contracts and our maximum class sizes in kindergarten is 20 1 through 3 is 22 and 4 through 8 is 24. So if you have 68 children in third grade next year, we'll have 60. You'll have 60. Yeah. Okay. This year so everybody moves up a year next year. Yes. Um my other question was are we still considering moving some of the middle school to the high school at some point as classes get smaller? That should be part of the conversation for the committee. The committee shouldn't just be elementary. It really needs to have a K12 vision. Okay. And the third thing I've um subbed a little bit at Tropa guys are wonderful. But one thing I did notice is um I think it's third and fifth grade are eating lunch at 10:30 in
062the morning which is really I don't think it's really a great idea for most kids. Uh here everybody is like oh let's eat. We're very good about coasting to make sure they're having a healthy meal. You can't do that at Petroa because there's too many kids and nobody wants a big plate of food at 10:30 in the morning. They're eating their dessert. They're drinking some milk and they're gone. So, I'm concerned about that for these children, too. I think they do need there's got to be a better way to handle this. So, Patty, part of the uh long term on this will address those kinds of issues because our district has shrunk so much. The committee's work will be to try to set a course that will even out all these things that we've tried
063to patch our way through. So I should share this board before I do it with that. In my opinion, the most important work we're going to do as a board for the next decade is to recharge the structure of our school and how we uh sign where we're going from K through 12. Is the high school going to adjust? I I tell this to the board members. When I was in high school, we had 164 people in that building with none of those classrooms out the gym and the classrooms in the health only using half of those. And so, you know, our perspective of what's too big is recent because in the 70s we're way bigger, especially when Pi's closed and we had those students in. So, we were jammed with less physical space. And
064what's changed in that time? the the special ed services and auxiliary services all require more space. We had one room in the high school when I was a student there that dealt with those needs. We have way more now and the building is the building. We've added a couple times but so that's the change really. Can I just add to a couple things? One, um I my one of my first jobs in teaching was a patrol back in the day when Josh was my principal. Um I'm the patrol leazison. I just got to say Petro is a fantastic school. I mean I Bloomingdale is too I grew up here. Boomingale is an amazing school. Petro is an amazing school. Um regardless of where the kids attend next year, the class size is going to be
065the same. I saw that in a lot of the emails we got from parents. They do better in that lower class size. Whether that extra whether that third class in grade 345 is in Bloomingdale or it's going to be 23 some people that's not going to change. Um, ultimately, you know, this is Superintendent Fox's decision, but my daughter go, she's a fourth grade of Petrova. If she got sent out next year, I'd be thrilled. If she stayed at Provo next year, I'd be thrilled. Um, having worked with inner city schools and some cities, we are damn lucky. Here we are. Um, so I totally get the fear here. Um, and I think it's valid, but I just wanted people to know that like we do talk a lot about what's best for the kids. Both
066of these are great schools. I'm not arguing with you. I think school I don't think I don't think there's a fear. I I mean different but yeah I know but I'm just saying like I don't have children. I have grandchildren but um there's concern I'm not saying that wasn't very good against me. I apologize. Um just but I said we get a lot of emails from parents. I'm talking about posting and this isn't easy for anyone but both schools are great places for kids. Um and so whatever deciding um it won't be easy for some families because we've had letters from families of saying do not send my kids to Bloomingdale before this meeting they came out to Bloom like oh my gosh like please send my kid to Bloomingdale it's amazing out here. So
067just want people to know that like where wherever the kids go they're going to get a fantastic education. Um I wouldn't be on this school board if I didn't wasn't proud of the work that this these people do in this district. So I just wish we all wish the new company we had more time to make the decision before it was thrust upon it's going to be thrust upon us. I just think it's a it's and I understand it's not a guy you know our frustration you know when you run for the school board you have to remind the things you want to change affect when you get on you come to find out that most of what you have to do is already dictated to you. We get mandates from the state that they
068have fund us for. Um, we often have to put our budget together before they tell us what the A will be. That's a trick in itself. The thing I would say is the idea that uh next year class classes in Blooming will be the same 12 or 13 kids just now be a lot bigger. Understand? Thank you. So right now we're just moving if if it were to happen moving there. So really we're not increasing what four or five kids per class, right? Well, I mean as far as overall numbers that we're increasing overall at the elementary. So the classes are already Classrooms are already there, right? Yes. So, we would be moving the students from here to there, increasing the overall number of students at by about 20 because the fifth grade going up
069is larger than that. Can I just offer something on the equity piece and I would consider it's equity and inclusion. Um, this been something that I've been thinking about for a while. Nancy, want to thank you. You brought it up, I think, at the last meeting through ES when we're talking about equity and inclusion throughout the buildings in the district. One of the things that I struggle with is the fact that our special ed students don't have a choice where to go. They're going to book. And on top of that, that I'm sure there's some young students that have special needs that would also benefit from smaller classrooms in a beautiful school who don't get that option and whose parents don't even get a say in it because of the way that we've set up
070our our buildings and the way that we deploy our staff with the resources we have. And uh I I would just ask that that be something that we take into consideration as well is that young people with special needs want to be friends with much more than just their own cohort and that they have a right to that and that they should be given the same opportunities for that equity we're talking about. Knowing that right now they're just not offered any in that regard. and that this conversation that we get to have is a is a blessing that they they don't they haven't been able to have and I I would love for us to take that into consideration so that families with with young people who need additional resources that they can have some
071equity in this conversation as Yes, thank you. Um, my name is Kelsey. Um, I have a daughter who was at Bloomingdale and has been moved to Petroa um because she receives services. So, I just I want to say thank you for pointing this out because I know I'm not the only person uh family that's been affected by this. Um, but it has had a huge impact. Piper, I'll say my daughter's name. My daughter's name is Piper. This is my son Asher. He will be in the UPK program. Um, hopefully we'll be out next year. Um and uh it you know to your point we have had a very challenging winter because our only option is to go to Croba. Piper started at Bloomingdale. We love Bloomingdale. It's not that we don't like Petrova or anything
072like that. It's just such a different atmosphere. It's a different school. She's been with her same group of friends from kindergarten and on and it it was a really big struggle uh emotionally, mentally for about 8 to 10 weeks. Um there was a lot of tears, there was a lot of problem um going through Can I go see um so it does it is really impactful and thank you for drawing attention to that because it is a huge huge thing and again I'm not the only person that's ever gone through this. There's been many families that have and if we didn't have to do that I would have loved for Piper to have stayed at because we miss it. These people are amazing. They they are amazing group of educators um and professional staff and
073I just hope that you all know that. I'm sure you do. And the educators at Petroa are also amazing. It's just very hard to explain to an 8-year-old why they need to leave their friends and that safety net. So, thank you. So, we have maybe 50 people in the room. You've already heard so many different perspectives, so many different needs, wants um in this situation. Imagine if you take the total population of our school and what's out there. So, this is what we're wrestling with. This is why we want you here tonight to share with us because there's just so many different ways to look at this. So many different means by each family and your children. Um, we want to do the best we can for the most people we can, but understand that
074because everybody has a little different view on this, any decision that's made, somebody's not going to be happy. And that that troubles us. Really does. I just want to say thank you for saying that. Thank you for sharing your story. Um I have personally gotten many phone calls from parents who said, "Davina, I want my child to go to Bloomingdale and they said they can't. They said they can't go to Bloomingdale because they don't have the services there." And I have to explain to them, you know, my hands are tied. I can't force the school, you know, and I understand the budgetary u, you know, your hands are tied, too. But I want you to know that I've heard that over and over and over again. How many people want their kids to go to
075Bloomingdale and they've been told, "No, they can't. They have to go to patrol." We don't like that either. Thank you. me. Kevin, uh, my daughter Nadia is moving into fifth grade next year. Uh, Kevin Eel. Okay. G E I L. And, uh, I first school board meeting. I certainly am grateful to everyone here for tracking this issue for so long and applying your wisdom to it. Uh I'm just looking for a little clarity on the two plans that are proposed. Moving some kids from Petrova to Bloomingdale or doing UPK through three here or through two, right? Um is option one, moving some kids from Petroa to here just a temporary thing and then are we looking at a more permanent thing? Just to follow up, do we have a decade's worth of demographic projections to
076give us some kind of idea as to whether or not the school will stay past a decade? So stay open. That is one possible that the uh K through two would not be for the fall. That would be a longer plan that the community will look at together. The um projections we had was pay a lot of money for We don't know how much we trust them given that the first time out of the gate numbers of kindergarten. So, but we have and I think the me we Diane and the board members went to all the municipalities and shared this information. You get a copy if you'd like to see what they projected for the next 20 years back. So, the answer is yes, that's there. the answer about the future of the school is
077something that we decided um through many work in the board about the total restructure of that whole I can't tell you tonight um what's staying open what's being closed whether we're doing a junior senior high club building we don't know because like this problem we want to get as many facts as we can and I think I just said I think this is the most important work we're going to do for the next decade our school and so we don't want backtrack. We want to do it right. Want to get as much in as we can. We want to be as fair to everybody we can. But we do have to restructure school because we're our kids less than we were 15 years ago. We to partially answer that question. I'm a social scientist. We
078I look at this data a lot. Earl migration is the pattern around the country. It's actually the pattern around the world. There are schools in Japan and no children left in them. And I so deina I actually really appreciated your comment on as a as a fellow public elected. Um we are I personally am constantly frustrated that there isn't a larger conversation going on in the community around affordability around good middle class shops and that are that are not just seasonal right where people can actually have a career that where they can raise families here. um it's a difficult place to live and I and I think that it's this whole conversation is downstream from that and until we figure that out I mean we can only do so much on that. So I'm constantly
079looking to people like you and you know there are a lot of other local leaders who are trying to figure this out but we're working on it. I promise. No, I know. And there's a lot of conversations at the state level happening and I think I would love to have the opposite problem of having too many children. We would love for MA to be housing and for lots of families to move in. We would love to be in the hiring market. I was just in a conversation by email with them um about a pilot program to help them um you know work on their affordable housing initiative there. Um, so the county is working on it. The Essex County Land Bank is working on it and we see growth. So, um, you know, we we
080do see growth here and we do see, you know, there are good jobs here. Essex County is hiring. If anyone needs a job, um, there's lots of jobs to be had. Some of you have to do a little drive to. Um, I personally know one woman who lives in Malone and works in Keen 5 days a week. because she can't find a place to to buy here that is affordable for her. I mean, we've had teachers withdraw about nursing. We're working on it. So, I think Joe's point is called what we're specifically talking about a larger problem that isn't just a school problem. No, we're we're seeing the effects of it from different funding reduction um cost all those things boil down to one thing. We've got to make some decisions about how we're going
081to operate uh third, fourth and fifth grade next year and how we're going to chart our future going forward. I would love if the committee comes up and we re re uh figure five years from now we get a population boom and then we're looking at hey we got to hire people. I need that because that's a good sign. That's my goal. This is where we're at. Who else? Anyone else? Anyone on the board? If I want to make any statements, just thank everybody for coming. Um, I want to thank people who spent the time to write in. Also, everybody has seen them. Um, I I tried to answer some things that were reoccurring. We did have a student who wrote to us mom here today. Is that true? Thank you very much for your
082student perspective and have have your student policy. We had staff members that did too. And this is this is a big topic. It's a big decision. I don't undertake it lightly. Board will all share their perspective with me. Um and just know at the end of the day um whether you agree or you don't agree is done and what I feel is in the best interest for our student body where we are at the end of the day. So so thank you for taking the time. Our half an hour turned into an hour and not and I appreciate everybody staying and being a part of your coming here tonight and sharing all these different views. Not only is it good for us, but the people that are here hearing other people's views on this is
083important for them as well. And we as a board have tried very hard to make sure the stakeholders are not out in the dark on all the things we deal with. And I think you've been able to see that we don't have magic wands to just do whatever we feel like doing. We have constraints, too. So, we're going to try to do the best we can. If in the future you or any of your neighbors or friends have questions or concerns, reach out to any of us. We'll do the best we can. You don't have the information up top. We'll be there for you. But we've had people that have asked questions during this process that have spurred us to look at things, check into things. Oh, is that true? Is that not true? So,
084it's good for us. So, what we'll do, thank you for coming tonight. We'll take a little bit of a break so that people don't want to sit through the rest of the meeting can can exit. If you want to stand, you can fix that. Don't take a little bit of prayer. Thank you for coming.