001I aliance 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. Okay, first item is the acceptance of the agenda. The motion, please. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed. Second item is the consent agenda resolution 0904. Motion, please. Second. Any discussion of the consent agenda? All in favor? I. Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved. Next item is public comments. Before we get there, I'm sure some people want to address the board. We just review our public session guidelines. Board of Education encourages public participation in school related matters at board meetings. The board is here to listen during this period of the meeting. Persons wishing to address the board shall state their name and organization. Generally,
002you have a threem minute uh timeline granted speaker. Board cannot permit in public session discussions involving individual district personnel or students. Uh and please don't use the name of staff or students. Persons wish to discuss matters involving individual district personnel uh should present their comments and or concerns to the board through a written statement. The public session is generally not a question and answer period. The board will not address specific questions or respond to specific concerns in tonight's meeting. nurses with specific questions should address their questions uh to Diane Fox schools and always board members are are able to uh answer questions if you want to reach out to them individually. President shall have the right to discontin public comment which violates his policy. So thank you for indulging me on that. Would anyone like
003to address the board? Thank you. Thank you, board. Um, my name is Joe Fell. I'm the vice president of the Sarinac Lake Teachers Association, and I just want to make some comments about uh next year's budget. Um, Sarinac Lake Teachers Association is very concerned by the cuts the district is planning to the teaching staff. As Diane pointed out at previous board meeting, this caused a storm. Members are very anxious and losing sleep knowing that people will be losing their jobs. In the past, the district has done a great job eliminating positions through attrition, minimizing the pain of cuts by not replacing retiring staff. This year, unfortunately, there will be pain. I'm here to speak on behalf of all members of the SLTA. Regarding attrition, we would ask the district to reconsider this option. The numbers
004this year are very low for retirement, but this is an anomaly. More teachers will retire next year, and there will be a large wave of retirement in the next four to eight years. If the district redirects funds designated for reserve to maintain staff this year and return to attrition next year, it will spare us the pain of these cuts. This staff you retain will be necessary and trained workers you will need to fill the massive losses of veteran staff about to retire. ones that have you can take steps to create a committed um core of teachers, ones that have found housing and are uh dedicated to the area, cut their jobs and they may leave never to return and then you have to start recruiting all over again. Retention may cost more than furlow, but
005it has real benefits. Conversely, cuts will have consequences that go beyond the pain of a pink slip. Another concern we would like to raise is over the past eight years the teaching staff has been cut by 75 jobs or about 7%. Through attrition, a move SLTA has accepted without complaint. The rationale for these cuts was made very clear to us declining enrollment. The district has maintained a ratio of staff to student of about 15% or 15 teachers to every 100 students. Yet, it would appear the same rationale does not apply to administration as their staff has increased by 33% over the same period when you factor declining enrollment. It's a 41% pupil to administration increase. Our membership would like to know the justification for this as the optics looks very bad to a group being
006asked to endure the pain of job cuts. Why doesn't leading by example apply in this situation? You may say they're busy, but we're very busy, too. You know what we've been through in the past five years? Going from remote learning to digitizing our classroom content, switching to hybrid, back to in-person learning, and then making up the massive deficits caused by the disruption from COVID. Add to that mandated curriculum development with digitizing our curricula, realigning classroom instruction, and more observations based on these changes. Then there's MTSS, safe school training, mandated reporter training. The list goes on, but we are busy. All of these initiatives were adopted with the goal of providing quality education in the district but entail more work for teachers. If you justify adding administrators due to added workload, teachers can make that very
007same argument. We prefer you not cut administrators but rather eliminate them through attrition too. But if you cut teachers, we feel that the burden should be shared. All of these our request is this. Please reconsider the decision to bolster the reserve fund. It's our understanding that now my numbers should be corrected. $175,000 will be added to an already robust reserve. It might be 165. Our fund would be at approximately 10% or more of the budget, while state requires that it be at 4%. Our members want to know what bolstering this already robust fund is of greater importance than staff retention. The district has consistently maintained that staff recruitment and retention retention is always a priority. Why does bolstering the reserve fund take priority now? There's also the community element to consider. Sometimes this kind of
008cost is worth it for the good of community. The people who will lose their jobs are your friends and neighbors. The human element matters more than a capital reserve fund. After the great recession of '08, the SLTA chose to give back wages to alleviate alleviate budgetary and personnel crisis and keep strong the quality of education in Sarinet Lake. We chose community over money and were able to alleviate the pain of a horrible economic crisis. We are asking the district to make a similar choice today. Please consider using the money set aside to bolster the reserve for retaining staff and invest in human capital. SLTA thanks you for your time. Thank you, Joe. Anyone else? Okay, I think uh I was going to talk about this later in the meeting. I think now's a good time
009to end it. You know, one of the things that the board um dislikes the most are decisions like this. The other thing that we're we're uh really want to get behind is the idea that if these choices are made, want to make sure that our seniority lists are accurate. There's no mistakes with that. I know Diane's working on that. I know your people have worked on as well. You want to do it correctly and contract it correctly. Um, whenever you're faced with with decisions like this, the the three groups that are affected by that are teachers and our CSA group and our administrative group. Those are the three bargaining units. And virtually all of them are indisposable. I mean, just as frustrating when we find ourselves in situations like this. Um, I'm just glad to
010hear Joe acknowledge that, you know, sometimes things have to get done. They're not choices. So, the least we can do is promise you that what gets done is done correctly according to our union contracts and according to all the rules that apply on on layoffs. So, that's one of the things we want to make sure it's done correctly. So, moving on, uh, financial report. Um, there are very minimal transfers at this time. nothing is over 10,000. Um I did attach the transfer report or transfer yes report anyway so you can see what was done. Um everything is saved on the share drive. There is a resolution there. Anyway, uh resolution number 091 2024 approving the current budgetary transfer board is presented by the school business executive. Motion please. Mike second. Uh any discussion? All in
011favor? I I oppose. The resolution is approved. So the next resolution on here is for two additional propositions. The two of our existing reserve funds, the capital reserve fund and the um for transportation maintenance equipment and the capital improvement reserve fund are reaching the end of their 10-year life. And so these propositions are to continue those. But in continuing them, we have to roll the existing balances into new ones, but they're for the exact same amount and then an additional 10 years. So there's no real changes that must be approved for 10 years. So we're approving that these propositions go on the ground. Yes. Is this a roll call? Yes. So resolution number 092 2024 approving reserve fund propositions for the 2025 district votes. Nancy Mike Nancy any more discussion? I just want to make
012it clear this we're just keeping the reserve funds active as opposed to deciding how much farmer. Yes. Nancy. Yes. Justin, yes. Joe, yes. Mark or Mike? Yes. Zack, yes. Cory, yes. Okay. So, the resolution has been approved. Place both these propositions on the pallet. Thank you. So, the next um item on the tag team is the budget forecast number two. This time you'll see the entire uh forecast with a balanced budget. We did um make some significant cuts in in uh last time we didn't talk about expenses and that's where we you can see that we reduced almost every single one um we could and increased fund balance slightly from the last forecast but we're still Yeah. So we'll we'll start with the revenues and just go over the changes in the revenue. So we
013had on line two actually pulled out some revenue because they were people that worked for us part-time and those part time. We've gotten some new information and they in fact should go in that line because it is revenue and they should be fully accounted for on uh line 10 because we carry them all year. Usually that revenue comes in in the spring. So it comes in so we we pay for it until the revenue arrives. So you'll see that change but that really is our dual OC uh people and our dental hygienist. So the change washes out to zero. Um it shows it revenue and then expenditure. Uh so since our last meeting things have gotten a lot clearer at the national level. Uh it's still clear as mud actually as to whether or not
014um what's happening at that level with our IDA and our title funds as they uh since our last meeting have worked to further reduce the federal education department. They do continue to say that those funds will be available, but there's no guarantee that the funds that are available will match the funds that we receive for this school year or that there won't be strings attached. So, we've taken a little gamble. We talked last time for a long time about the unallocated fund balance. So, we had a lot of people in our grants. We move those people into line 10 out of the grants. But we did decide to increase the use of the appropriate fund balance to $1.5 million from the 1.1 in hopes that we will at least receive some federal funding um to
015help us out. I I reiterate that we cannot continue to use 1.5 million without having some money to go back in. we will be dead in the water in a couple years and making up a significant difference in our in our budget if we continue to use that level of fund balance. But I am rolling the dice a little bit that there will be some money coming. I just am not willing to roll the dice that we're going to get exactly what we've gotten for the last few years. So that's the difference in the revenues. making the recommendation from Nikki and I to be a budget of $ 38,100,000 for next year. Um the union is correct. This budget does include reductions in both the instructional and non-instructional staff and you will see from 10
016to 21 the changes that that makes within the budget itself. um health insurance actually came in with our changes at $686,000. Our debt service which is 23 and 24 what we paid for our capital work has gone up. We knew that we've been doing a lot of capital work. Uh you'll see on the back it's still a very small part of our budget. We'll talk a little bit about that in a minute. Uh line 26 is an interfund transfer to school lunch fund. That is not a reserved fund. We're required as a district to make our school lunch fund whole if there's a deficit between what goes out and what comes in. And so um we have to make up with our general fund any difference for for what we receive from state, federal, and
017students who pay for snacks and that kind of stuff. It's run as high as $260,000 two years ago. Um we think that we're going to be able to hit around $200,000. What happens at the federal level will make a difference. So if you are buying a student lunch, you're paying $285 cents to buy the lunch, but although I don't have the exact figure, uh it's somewhere around 350 that we receive in the combined state and federal funding. So, we actually make more money for our students to get their lunch for free. Um, so depending on whether or not that continues, our best estimate is the 200,000. Um, the inner fund transfer to special aid, I was actually asked what that was and I said, you know, I have no idea. So, I can tell you
018that that is extended school year. That's summer special education services. Uh, last year it was actually $67,000. We do receive funds back, but it's a couple of years later. So, we do receive reimbursement, but again, we have to put the money out. The money coming back is not whole. And whatever we did was less expensive two years ago than it is this year with uh all the increases. So, approximately 40,000 for us to cover our extended school year cost for the summer. Uh yes, we have three uh Joe mentioned it. We have three reserves that we try to fund uh yearly. It's $80,000 to the capital improvement reserve, $35,000 to the transportation maintenance equipment reserve, and $50,000 to the repair reserve. Um, some of the stuff we have here is very expensive right now. You
019may not notice it, but there's no hot water tank in the uh in the high school. We're bypassing the hot water tank uh because our high hot water tank may need to be replaced and it's a thousand gallon tank. It's not like you just go to and pick up a tank. So, and there's no money in anyone's budget for these large items. Uh so this is why we keep our reserves uh in place so that we don't budget them yearly with a large amount that we don't use, but we know that we have a go-to place for those uh need should we have them. Uh you'll see our next lines are really the uh spot where we made a lot of a lot of changes. our equipment including buses. It just happens to be the
020way that that comes in this year. Uh for our bus contracts, contractual including fuels and residential placement. We've done our best with fuels. They're actually down a little bit. So, and we hope with our EPC project, we will use less fuel than we've been using. With the patrol, they used uh 46,000 gallons. Is that what it is, Nikki? Oh, sorry. It was 48,000 gallons of fuel last year at the Trova. We hope with all the work we're doing this summer, we can reduce that amount. Um materials and supplies were reduced, computer software, tuition, textbooks, and uh we are cutting back on some uh OC support services. So when you put all of that together, we have brought you a balanced budget of $38,100,000. Can I have a question? Yes, Joe. So, you said lines 10
021and 11 include staff reductions, correct? What would those look like without staff reductions? I'm going to turn to Nikki because we have done it without staff reductions. I just don't have I don't have it in front of me. Give me a second. while she goes to that obviously higher. What would that actually be? Question I have. So if you flip to the back page, there's a little pie chart and you'll see that of our budget, salaries and benefits is 75% of our budget. that service is about 5 and a half% and then all the other things that we do here make up the rest of that fun so that basically we're taking it out of our scholars and budget for the unallocated fund balance. Yes. So lines 10 and 11 without anything is 17,593,281. Can
022you say that? Yes. Total added together 10 and 17593,281 and that does not include any of the following lines that are dependent upon that number. So so for last time we presented line 22 which right now is 642,881 increase. Last time was 2,269,492. Is it accurate Nikki that I think you looked at this that as as the number of employees changes uh lines 12 and 13 would also go up. Yes. Because you have to make those contribution 12 13 14 15 and 17 all and 19 all increase. the health insurance the 12% premium increase that that what was it last year I mean I know it's always a lot shocking but was it that much last year last year it increased 5 and a half% next year is projected to increase Any other questions? Nothing
023else on those. That's it for today. Moving on to item six, bold business. Have any capital project updates? Uh, we have one more discuss. Um, I think it just said reserve. Yeah, sorry. I got out of order. Sorry. We're just in two different orders. We want to talk about the reserve plan. They do. So, one of the things the board of education should have is a plan for its reserve funds. And Nikki shared with you this sheet. Go. You got it. So, this is um just a kind of a little cheat sheet rundown of our reserve funds with an indication of what the plan is for each one. Um I did include on here what a reserve fund is. I know we talked about it last time, so I don't want to go into too
024much detail about each of these things, but I did put them on here for a reminder. um as well as our ending balances from the last school year. Uh and then if on the other side it actually tells you what each of these reserve funds that we have actually are used for. There's employee related reserves, property related reserves, and then what they just call other reserves which is certuary and then that's where our transportation and maintenance equipment will fall. Um as of now for the 2526 fiscal year we have no planned withdrawals for the employee related reserves um or the um property related reserves. the plan, the only one that we are planning on using in the 20 526 school year is the transportation and maintenance equipment which is for the bus purchase that we
025approved the proposition for last uh week. Um, and then each reserve is continually monitored throughout the school year. And then as we start planning for the next budget season, um, we review all of the monies from each of the reserve funds. And then um at the end of each fiscal year, the board of education reviews any unallocated reserves to see how they will be applied and decide where to either transfer them to another reserve or um what we would like to do from there. This is kind of a a quick rundown. Can I ask are we using some of the caps here to talk through the project. So yes, but because that was approved at the last budget vote, the transfer from our reserve fund to the capital reserve account or the capital fund account
026was done in this um last year. So it's not even though it hasn't been spent yet, it's still it's already correct. So we're not planning on moving anymore. It's already been done. Anything else? So, now we can move on to uh old business. Couple projects. Yes. So, our um some of our general work will be moving in next week. We're going to work second shift here in the high school. So, this should not disrupt our general day. And we believe we've had a lot of conversation about the track and when the track will go out of commission and right now it looks like the track will be fully functional until May 19th. It's really the last two weeks that track people section and we're making plans so people can be practicing during that two week
027but should be available to be a part of table. That's it for now on the new business. So, first item is get your calendars out. You want to set a date for the spring retreat. You want to try to get this in in May or June. You want to just pick a date and then it'll show up or so let's look at uh how about May 14th. See this is why we have to discuss the whole week. Okay, that's the week we'll do it. Yeah, agreed. Uh, what about maybe what about April 30th? Do we see Do we have Don't we have a board meeting the 29th? Yes, you do. Sorry. What day is you going to be in Washington? Uh, the 29th. What about the first? Sure. No, second. Anyone else? Second. [Music] Perhaps
028I can bring some questions that that you could share with each other. No. For sure. So, Friday, May 2nd. No, it'll be April, right? No, Friday, May. You went for the right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So, it be Friday, May 2nd, say 6 p.m. And uh you've been at the hotel through most of these Last time you mentioned that we wanted to try the river trail. They do have a private conference room there. Okay. I'd like to bring up the discussion that we are I know the board budget is a very little portion of um the budget but it is a budget and I just have a problem with spending money on the retreat for dinner in light of everything going on. I personally would rather either do a potluck or do something less
029less cash expensive. Um either thing I don't know cater the groceries cater to groceries. I just personally have a problem with spending. I have no problem spending the time. I have no problem cooking but I have a problem in my second. So, we don't have to have a retreat. I think we should still get together. I think we still should get together. And like I said, I had no problem cooking, but I had I just in light of everything going on, I just I have no problem. I don't care. However it works, I just I have fun with my Let's do this. I still think we Let's put some ideas together for the next meeting and uh we'll go from there, right? Fair enough. But that day works. What was that? But the date works.
030The day works. And let's let's pick this up. We got a lot to do tonight. Let's not spend hours on this, but it's it's a fair topic, right? You know, that was on one of my things. You know, you're going to be getting next meeting a a list of uh next meeting list of expenditures and then you'll know in real time what it is we're spending. And I think it's, you know, although the money the dollar amount to the budget is small, I think that there's an accurate uh an accurate opinion that we should reduce what we're doing as well. and we'll have all the numbers next time so we can talk about what we need last make sense. Okay. So, just I just want to verify on the count and then we'll just discuss
031what we're sending. We just all the time. I thought we were going to your house. Okay. So, we'll pick that up with whether we want to do it uh what manner. I'm not opposed to picking up my share of the dinner either. All right. Item B is the policy committee date and plan. Um following the, you know, the email traffic. Let me preface just by saying this. Um we often talk about things that don't fall under our purview. The policy for the district is the number one thing in a board's purview. We are supposed to be the ones that are the keepers of that, that update it, that uh freshen up, etc. And ever since I've been on the board, it's been difficult to get this pushed forward because let's let's be honest, it is
032a thankless, difficult, tedious job to do it. Um, and as a committee, it it it's probably right there with with uh labor relations in terms of the amount of time you got to put in to do it correctly. But nonetheless, it can't be s we got to get going. We got to make some some progress on this. So I what I'd like to do uh to assist the committee to see if we can't uh pound out three dates over the next couple months what the committee can meet and move forward. And there's some discussion about the direction of you know what you should do in terms of uh you know do you do them all? Do you pick parts? We know we've got mandated things. What do we do after that? That really is the
033committee's work. Um, but I would encourage you that at least start during the first meeting, one of the first things to do is hash out this will be the process and then you can go about the process. Those are all public meetings, correct? So, there's got to be um some movement on this committee, I think, is what I'm trying to charge all of us with. Are we all on the committee? No. Okay. Committee members are Justin, Joe, and Tory. Okay. Diane, you haven't met. No, we have met, but we have problems through the winter meeting with everyone scheduled and it's got to become a priority because just to give you an example, we have three policies that are required by law as of January 25th that are not on the books. So, we are there's
034out of compliance and then there's really out of compliance. Um, and one of those in the meantime has changed twice. And I understand that that's right now it's just we just have to keep going. Um, because it's so important to I agree with that. There's there's really some categories here. One are the mandated ones. They don't have a lot of say in so they just get updated, right? There are 52 um as of January 25th, there are 52 New York State required policies. We have 155 policies in addition to those that are SSCS policies. Um it is there's ones there's a New York state policies need to be updated first before anything. We need to get those three policies on the books. So let's hold there. That really is going to be the work of
035the committee. And I'm saying in terms of categories, got mandated policies. Then we've got our policies. Within that category, you're going to have to uh delete the ones that no longer apply. Just delete them for whatever reason. Then you have to take the ones that apply but need some semantic changes and then you add the ones that are needed currently. So that's really the categories and that's the charge of the committee. When you say delete policies, you're talking about deleting entire policies. No, what I'm saying is when you look at a policy and you say, "Wow, that no longer applies for whatever the rationale is." And that policy the whole board has to vote on. You would say, "Yes, as a committee say policy 18 says this, guess what? Um, we don't have walkins or
036boom boxes anymore." Right? So that's out. Or it could be that needs to be changed to whatever's there. So that's upset. Some might come out because they just no longer apply. Absolutely. There may be some that need to go in because of what what we do in today's era. And then somebody probably just need some language changes. So but that's you know that's your purview to make those recommendations to the full. Are we looking to make a date? Is that I think we should put we should all together put three dates out there and in those dates that way the entire board will know where the committee is going. I would defer heavy to the committee's desire for those dates because I don't have to go to it. Right? So, but I think I think
037we just need to get everybody on the same page so the entire board knows, okay, here's when we expect some of the stuff and then people at the committee know, okay, here's my obligations. If you feel differently, speak up. No, I think we need to get on the calendar. Yeah. It's just listen, everyone knows this is hard stuff, which is why um as a board for the last decade, this thing keeps getting kicked down the road. And I think we've done a good job, all of us here, try to stop that practice and tackle the things that need to be tackled. get a list of what we need to do. So there's a policy procedure all day. All right. So I'll take the lead if anyone on the committee would like to um throw out
038some dates. We can look at that. Can we start with an April date? Is um the week of the 7th to the 11th? That's the week prior to break. I'm good with anything in there. How would Monday the 7th be? And the reason I suggest that is we do have a meeting on the 9th. There could be some updates as to organizational um stuff that perhaps you accomplished. other staff. So I'm it might be messed up a little bit with stuff by schedule and until early May when uh on break I'm pretty maxed out in terms of all the stuff happening at the federal level is blowing up my professional life. So I'm in the quite a bit. So do you virtual I'm happy to do stuff virtually. We we can't like it because it
039has to be a public meeting but like I'm happy right the committee doesn't have to have me there to make some decisions. we can be like, "Hey, this is what we're doing." And I can get up to speed. But just I mean, there's very few dates in April where I could be available during the day. Definitely not that week before. I don't care. I'll bring dinner. Like, I just want to get this done because this is stressing me out. So during break again I be I'm happy to you know be back mid second week during break that's more availility entirely out of the country hence why we're talking about it tonight right all right how about this um what if we look at same idea Yeah. What about May 5th? That's the start date. Situation
040coordinate. May 5th. What time you for the record, Mr. 5 a.m. All kidding aside, we're up at that point. So, you tell us what's No, I mean I know it's 5 a.m. Have you watch? No, I mean anything in the afternoon is probably I'll be back in the afternoon. So, you want to do the evening? No, I can do early. I mean any anything I say 1:30 I'll get your time. How much time would you give for that person? I think my idea would be that you know you get your parameters of of what what you go after. Maybe you pick a group or an order of the groups that I talk about. Would it be reasonable that we have some examples? If we could get those that would take the ones that are totally
041missing. If we could even get those. So when you say that Tori, what I'm just looking for your expectation of me so that I'm prepared for them. If we could get the samples the samples ahead of time. Yeah. Um, and if we could all join that if this seems reasonable, look at the samples ahead of time, see if there's anything that sticks out that we would need to change alternative so that at that meeting we could discuss, you know, is there something that we have a significant issue or um does that and then yeah, if you're just living with samples, that's no problem. The state mandates are easy because we have no say. So I think what it is is we got to get out any state mandates that have expired and prepare to add
042those that have come down noon. I think we start with those. Let's have a time. 1:30. Is that two hours? 900 p.m. Let's say 3 3:30 and so everybody knows to state the law still policies we still have to even if we have out of date policies we still have to follow but by doing this we'll know for we will be in alignment that's really so that's uh the fifth Do you want to go uh a month apart, three weeks apart, five weeks apart? Well, we start getting into graduation supplement. So, we want two weeks two weeks from now will be done by one thing tonight. Uh Josh, do we I don't have those names in my Graduation stop 19. Can we do 1:30 again? 1:30 to 3:30. May 19th. You said 2:30. 3:30. 3:30.
0431:30. 1:30. Sorry. second we can do that. I think we would be on our way to getting a good chunk of this done. And hopefully what we could do is sometime between these meetings and you know because after that everybody's just crazy for graduation and then maybe in one of our summer meetings and see if we have some yeah some consensus and go from there. So June uh second religious second. And what would be great because each of these is followed by a Wednesday board meeting. If just a brief update to the board would be I mean we may have some meetings. Great. And I think going forward probably could regularize this year policy because there's always policy on on our on our list, you know, how does that align with what needs to be
044done organization? Thank you for your cooperation on that. I know it's a pain. We will all be grateful for the work that we do. Moving on to item C, new business. Um, I asked Diane to uh Gina, can you send Justin? I'll talk about So, I asked D to reach out to Dale Reoseis to join us to talk about uh superintendent searches. Boseies does provide that service. It's at no cost. Well, paid for what we'll be back. Uh, we have to do a meeting here. We want to do a meeting at Boseis anyways. So we're going to try to see if on June 11th we can do our meeting out there and then have Dale attend that meeting after that and we can actually do the search any way we want. But I think it
045would be good to know what Bosey's offers for the service and to hear how they typically do this and then we can make make some choices about that and that will get us if we do it in June that'll get us kicked off towards the summertime of starting to get that process in place. I would anticipate um somewhere between fall to mid winter as when we would start to button this down. So that's you know a lot of you ask me about how does this work? I've seen it done a lot of different ways. I know school other schools have done a lot of different ways. So we want to make sure that we pick a system that works for our school district and attracts the best candidates and gets our next superintendent with as
046little disruption as as possible. Anyone have any comments on that? I've listened to Dale before um when he makes this presentation and it's very informative. Okay, next item is reports. Uh superintendent, I have just one email from Jeff Branch. So, hot off the press, Winter Carnival is changing dates next year, which uh they're going to be a week later. They're going to start February 6th and run through the 15th, which means our calendar is already out of date because our kids will just be taking a random day off in February. Uh not at all connected with the carnival. So, I will be back at our next meeting with a request to make a change in our school year calendar. I did have one more thing to come to the calendar anyways. Our uh 12-month employees
047are scheduled for 261 days. They're contractually obligated for 260. So, it's with CSEA right now. I offered them the opportunity to weigh in on what day they might like as their additional day off. So, I'll get that, too. We'll bring both together. It doesn't change the student schedule. It does for the day off for winter carnival, but the 260 261 does not affect student schedules. And I have a feeling that our students are going to talk about the other things that have been on my desk and been great pride moments for our time here in Sol. So, I'm going to step under. Perfect. Uh to the administrators, Josh, Amy, um I invited Mr. Benware and numbers of our high school music school cast to visit the middle school for a preview performance and moment of
048importance. They came over on March 12th and performed the opening number and a few additional scenes for our student body. The goals were to expose our students to the arts and introduce them to opportunities available at the high school level. Many students reported to our staff how much they enjoyed the experience and they wanted to perform when they get to the high school. So, I want to say thank you to Mr. Benware and our high school musical actors was putting on a wonderful performance and helping to make that happen for our students. Modified spring sports start for us on Monday, March 31st. We have many seventh and eighth grade students excited to play softball, baseball, track, and lacrosse. And mark your calendars. Our middle school student council dance is coming up. Um, our student council
049has once again organized our annual spring dance set for Friday, April 4th at 6:30 in the middle school cafeteria. Mrs. Carol and Mrs. have done a great job and they have a wonderful and motivated group of student council members. Um, and the theme is under the stars. They are very excited. Lot of energy. Thank you, Brian. Uh, just a couple things. Just wanted to uh point out that we had a very productive superintendent conference day uh at Prova last Friday. um spent the morning uh grade levels got together um to ask questions, kind of play around in the RTI direct uh system as part of our MTSS process. Um a lot of good info there. Felt like it was a very productive day. Then we moved into the auditorium and did the second and third
050phase of our reframing behavior. Um just how to regulate your emotions and feelings, both staff and students. thought that was productive. And then the last thing, we're just uh gearing up for ELA testing on April 8th and 9th. Brian Bruce reports. Um yeah. So the last couple times we shared some celebrations and you guys asked for more of that and so that's what I want to share with you today. You have this sheet in your folders which has the red banner on it. Um I stole Dian's work but um this chart basically in 2018 and 2019 um the school was the district was notified that um and the middle school were um identified and targeted and um the work was to start in 2020. COVID started in 2021. And so in 2021 started with um
051those schools of Troy and and the middle school being targeted. By um both schools were removed from the target of the the identified and targeted list. And looking at this um slide that Diane shared with us in 2025 or 2024 actually um if you look at our um ELA 3 through8 scores um with comparable districts we score at one year the top um 12 comparable districts and by comparable we mean um they're rural schools they have the same you know student population demographic free lunch etc. And I just want to take a minute to shout out those three through eight teachers who have really taken the time to it's prickly to have, you know, somebody else in your business. And I don't mean me or the administrators even, just our whole teams kind of working
052together and um looking so closely at their practice doing all that hard essential work to um you know really look at some long health assumptions and actively modifying their curriculum and adjusting their instruction. um you know based on that data and I just want I think this deserves um a shout out at the board level. I know we did it at the district level but that is a lot of really hard work that our teachers had done and it just deserves. That's a fantastic and in to achieve that in that amount of time. I know when we first saw those numbers and you look at some of the districts how long they were on that under that headache. This is an amazing term. Yeah. As Dian said when she presented this was what's in the
053water and can huh. Good point. All right. Thank you, Erica. Well, 21st century continues to be in some sort of limbo. However, we received a wonderful email from our evaluator that through uh state ed, they have said that year four funding has been promised. So, uh we're going to party on uh as as much as we possibly can knowing that the rug could get pulled out from my bus at any time. But uh it was a sigh of relief across the board for all of us that our baby is still still kicking. Yeah. So is that f that's federal funding? It's federal dollars that are then gifted to the states and then the states administer them. Um so the state is trying to figure out a way to backs stop despite all the uncertainty of
054the federal. They only mentioned year four. There was no mention of year five at all. But it's better than the last week. It's better than Yeah. than calling 43 vendors and telling them we are so sorry to disappoint them and 143 families children that we would be disappointed. Anything else? That was a happy It sounded terrible, but it was Yeah, it was really good news. It is good news. Sorry. We have Thanks for that summary. We have to take the wins we can right now. Absolutely. Thank you, Suzanne. Spent the past two days at the CSE chairperson conference and day one it was heavily on um tier one instruction and MTSS and how it relates to the CSSE. So both joined me and then both these Christina Judas joined me at our middle school technologist
055and some pretty good takeaways. Perfect. Thank you Katie. Uh last week Bloomingdale loved having the portable planetarium star lab. I think I loved it more than the kids but it was great. You said you were looking forward Oh, I loved it. Um last week we also Petrova and Bloomale had Manny the BMX bike presenter who spoke about resilience, perseverance and kindness. The students really enjoyed that. This week, Pen Dragon was able to come to Bloomingdale to present in writing, uh, scripts and acting, and the students in stock really enjoyed their presentations. The Rotary came on Monday and donated a book to every student. So, we thank them for their donation. Uh, tomorrow's our student variety show that was coordinated by Mrs. Kogat, our music teacher, and this has been requested by the students since last
056year. So, they're very, very excited. We have 10 acts. Um, so if you're looking for some fun at 1:15, you're more than welcome. And next week we have our monthly assembly and student of the month awards. Thank you. student report. And today was our blood drive and then students like Thank you, Nancy. Uh just that I went to the man of no court, so it was excellent. I might have to go back a second time because want to make sure I understood it. And uh and then the state of the district was was uh enlightening. It was really helpful to to go to it. I'm glad several of us make it because that was very valuable. Thank you. Justin, Joe. Yeah, I was able to attend the state of the district which, you know, I
057I had seen a lot of that information and I think it's the more we can get that information out into the community, the better so that people have a sense of what the pressures are in the district. I think that's really useful information. Um, the music I wasn't able to make it to the musical. I I just want to commend everybody involved with that. There's been some really excellent letters to the editor in the paper about that musical and if you haven't seen them, I recommend them. Um, the last thing I'll add and actually the this will be useful for the teachers to know too. I was appointed to a state ed advisory committee on environmental education. When we had our first meeting today um with the new graduation requirements, New York State is going
058to start requiring um environmental education, interdisciplinary um and financial literacy. And so the plan is what is the plan? That's what we're trying to that's what we're trying to figure out. no new standards that nobody's changing standards but um but what does that actually look like to do that in schools and what kind of supports are necessary? We're working on that. We had our first meeting today. So that's my Thank you, Zach. Uh checked in with with Erica. Uh universal prek registration is underway and we're looking to fill our classrooms at Bloomingdale and St. Bernard with our youngest learners. Uh, please be sure to send anyone with a little person who turned four on or before December 1st to receive a registration packet. Nicely done. Okay, PSA's done. Checked in with Melissa. Uh, we're continuing
059to support teachers working to increase student engagement through student centered learning. In a nutshell, this entails offering greater voice and choice, encouraging and modeling studentto student questioning, defronting the classroom, uh designing multiple modes of assessment that are standards and learning targets aligned and fostering dynamic collaboration. So doing a lot of work there and you know again showing it so it's great. Thank you. Um today is healthy school meals for all New York kids coalitions uh postcard day. Thousands of New York State kids wrote directly to the legislators why it's important and what it means to them and members of the coalition descended upon Albany today to hand deliver heaps of those cards. Um so we are still pushing across the board. Um and then on the same thing the American Heart Association reached out yesterday.
060I had met with their grassroots advocacy chair um when I was last and only for uh healthy school meals and they have asked me to go back to DC um on their dime to uh fight for school meals at the federal level. So we're not giving up. Thank you, Mike. I also went to the state of the district meeting. I think it was uh very well done, very useful information. You know, my opinion of a contentuous situation with the budget, the more information the public has, the better decisions and better feedback we'll get. So, with that, we do anticipate an executive session um with medical financial credit or employment history versus corporation. Matters anything quiet motion motion suspension for discuss removal of the person corporation motion please second in favor opposed we are adjourned to
061executive session we'll take about five See you guys. want to throw up. in the counts from the word.