Board of Education Meeting 2/26/2025

001cookies okay everyone time to begin the meeting welcome to the Wednesday February 26 2025 Board of Education meeting if we could stand the [Music] pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God invisible with liberty and justice for all [Music] okay welcome ladies first uh item is the acceptance of the agend I could have a motion mik second go any questions on the agenda all in favor I I any opposed agenda is approved next item is the consent agenda resolution 084 2024 motion Jo second Mike any discussion on the consent I have a question okay go ahead well I just wondered I had a question about one I don't know if you need to pull it out just should just asked

002the question it was about the merger yeah same I'm just curious about that yeah see I mean I'm not change my vote I just was curious no no it's discussion time so we can discuss that yeah how does that work sounds awesome it's different than like the lake specifically like tennis was always a lake plet it is that we join that's not a merger though right that's still a merger that's a merger it's not so a combined is an SLP team okay a merger is just a straight it's a lake classd team that our students can join okay so and a boys tennis isn't doing that again it's just girls does it just say girls on the for Gina just girls maybe we don't have any boys oh that that's just girls girls okay and

003opposite for FL football like class and have students who would like to come and join okay so that's mer I I it was just the combine when we do the that's all my question and in that is that normally like we provide a coach they provide a coach or how's that or this no our students just play under their banner and vice versa their kids come and play so budget wise for coaching we we never charge that we have a have a little gentleman's agreement that we just charge out but I just didn't know know it doesn't matter to me which way is it the same with C so we can do that for after school programs as well cul no um you could somebody from like classic come and join our our uh music

004H yeah how How well was this was model un this is model un that we so that's kind of a onetime this is an exchange student who would like the experience so I gave it my blessing because it was so unique and it doesn't bump anybody remember when we talked about homeschool children coming and joining our kids we're not it's not like we can send one last because this this student is coming so which just be a neighborly for the exchange student to have the experience do we do that very much with Tupper Lake I've seen it these kinds of things way more with Lake POS but it's surprising that we don't do it more with Tupper Lake just hasn't just hasn't but it could it could we have had merges we had of lake

005on our girls hockey team in the past yeah it's a it's a it's a distance issue yeah it's much long longer drive to make the events BR we merged with like PL with platberg we had a student fori with Valley with swimming so I mean it just take opportunties there yeah know it's great that we can do that okay J you and I just earlier today um just when it comes to I want to say the disciplinary issues or how does that work for the athletic teams um with the mergers when they're merged when it's an mergers it's our team and they play for us under our rules we talked about SLP today so the combined team so just to make life a little easier one athletic director usually takes one and the other athletic

006director takes the other so for hockey for example we oversee girls hockey and the classet oversees Boys Hockey so if there's a discipline issue it it usually flows through the athletic director so if it if it came here but it was Boys Hockey we would pass it to the athletic director in like classd and vice versa if it was a girls hockey issue that first landed in like class and they found out about it they would call Forest and we would follow and if something doesn't get rectified um if it would be under just for argument sake if it's something that would be under lay classes perview but really isn't acceptable under our standards I'm going to press this because I'm it it might be all right and like Placid but certain behaviors are definitely

007not all right in sck L what happens then that is my concern with some of these issues um with the mergers and the SLP teams just that I can't speak for Lake pla children or Tupper Lake children or anybody else but I can stand for sinac Lake kids and if we have issues going through like classd we're I'm not saying this I apologize it's okay um you were concerned when you called me this morning about a student who actually attends Lake class at yes and so It's tricky because once it's handled through the athletic world if there if if the didn't come to a resolution that the family is comfortable with it would go to uh Lake Placid and the lake plid superintendent and if Lake blid doesn't handle it it's really not my call

008okay I want it on the record um that I am not okay with uh coaches in general I don't care play for um to berate students uh they shouldn't be berating students to begin with but to berate students in front of the rest of a team I don't care if it's their coach our coach who it is it's unacceptable behavior um we need to teach our kids by example and uh I just would like that on the record because some of this is going to be out of our control and uh I am concerned that there isn't a next step if we know that behavior is happening and it's not getting so a partial answer to that would be these mergers are always annual in other words you have to re up them every year

009for everything emerging and at such time as one school or the other is unhappy with how things are going they can choose not to merge okay so that's the that's the answer to what you can do when it's not under your perview okay thank you okay anything else on the consent agenda all those in favor I I any oppos cons agenda is approved public comments any comments from the public thank you very much financial report think Diane's gonna step in and handle that tonight Nikki son's birthday is today so she's homemaking Bagel pizzas but I said I can handle this because there is there isn't too much here weekly status report uh the transfer report is minimal as you can see nothing significant we continue just trying to clean up we're coming to uh when

010we freeze the budget on April first and the cleaner we have the budget when we get there the better life is so just so some movement to make things whole so if I could any questions I'm happy to try to answer them um otherwise if I could have the resolution please and the approval resolution 085 2024 approving the current budget CH report as presented by the superintendent to place the school business executive motion you can choose cotion any uh any discussion on the on the transfers all in favor I any opposed resolution is approved the weekly warrants are in the drive as usual we want to thank Amy McCormick she is filling in for Courtney part time doing some work for us she's been a lovely Edition as we continue to search for a full-time

011accounts payable person um and Nikki has spent quite a bit of time this week on the property tax cap it's coming in at approximately 1.95% which is about $437,000 she's first time and I give her kudos for not going in alone she's reached out to several different places to make sure she's getting her information corrected needs to be filed um by Saturday so she's if she didn't file it today she's ready to file it tomorrow it feels pretty confident numbers but any changes that come along this is the first five fing it is not the final filing so we can still adjust should we find things moving forward she's asking for help yes it's it's a lot it is a lot and Cindy did an excellent job leaving notes but even following somebody's notes sometimes

012there's a number or a suggestion there that you just can't make work the same way so she do a great job and Cindy has been helpful even in her absence that's the end of the rep um I'm not just keep yeah just keep mov I'll just keep moving this is actually one of tor's favorite things I ran the section load report thank you although we have no specific information it's obvious looking at what's happening at the national level looking at what the governor's proposal is for our school district for foundation Aid the move is minimal about $140,000 in plus and that's really because of some Capital work and some different things that money is even though it looks like we're getting a little money it actually is earmarked for something that the costs have gone

013up so it's not it's not money to go out to dinner with it's money to pay a bill that we already know we have so between that and a um type tax cap there is no question it's going to be a an interesting uh budget season so one of the things I thought the board could spend a little time on is kind of looking at what we offer and how those fill so I want to walk you through what's in front of you we're not going to go line by line tonight for hours but you might find it really interesting um and especially when we're talking about some options this will give you a little understanding of what it looks like so the first one is the section load report for the elementary schools and

014it has our numbers uh from January numbers are always fluctuating so if I ask Brian for his numbers today we might be off by a number or two but we're not off by 10 we're off only by a little so as you can see we have four kindergarten classrooms 67 students this year we anticipate a little less next year just based on what we know about upk and our local daycares but as we know what we think is coming and what is actually arrived sometimes are very different we did move up our kindergarten signups to March 31st to help us have a better handle on what those numbers will look like over on the side you'll see I just put for your reference the SLT contract we do have class size limits in the slta

015contract so for kindergarten it's 20 in first grade we have three classrooms because we have a total of 53 first graders in the district and that contract is 22 students per classroom on second grade we have four for a total of 60 students in the district um the contract is 22 to1 you will notice that we have 60 kids so that actually would be three classrooms and we currently have four um third grade we have four classrooms the contract is 22 to1 with have 68 students in third grade um once you get to fourth grade the contract bumps the class size to 24 we have 68 students in fourth grade which we have four teachers but really per contract is three um and then in fifth grade contract again is 24 to1 we have 74

016total students contract is four teachers when we look at this and move this forward to next year actually third fourth and fifth could all be staffed with three teachers instead of four so each could have three each could have three so Elementary is pretty easy and straightforward and I ran in our school tool software they have a section load report and in the section load report I'm going to actually I put them in order so the first first one you have is the middle school and it will tell you what the section is who the teacher is what quarter it runs what days of the week what the maximum is if there's a maximum and what the total number of students are that are in that class how many male how many female how many

017choose not to answer and the needs are those childrens who are identified with um disabilities that 504 and IP 504 for an iup so for example we'll just start with the first one and it's in red because it's a credit bearing class so the first one is algebra 8 and uh Linda Bard teaches it runs every semester every day the max is 24 and there are 24 eighth graders in there and interestingly it's 12 males 12 females right one student with with a special need eight parentheses eight in the parentheses is the number of students with needs because we never want to have a classroom of 20 and have 12 kids with needs in it okay so that so the computer will actually if you if you put all of this into school tool it

018will generate a a schedule for you you don't really use it that way I did try it when I was a high school principal I didn't really love it but you can put in the parameters in which it has to work so that's what the eight is for that's Max that would be Max needs in that particular classroom that is correct so a third so you can work your way right through this we and as I say I'm not going to go line by line but there are some unique things that are happening in our Middle School we are teaching oldfashioned typing in sixth grade and we do offer digital literacy as a 10we course in seventh grade um and in eighth grade our kids get double tap so in the world where industrial Arts

019is going by the wayside our kids actually get it twice in eighth grade we also offer ASL and another uh couple things we offer homework Haven every morning so students can come in early do their homework get some support with that and we actually offer 2.5 high school credits in 8th grade because you can take the science you can take the algebra and you can also take the half credit of Foundations and art and uh get that out of the way so if you're artsy um you can take higher level art classes much quicker than having to do another half year it's a halfe course in high school and language yes we've all most offer a language but that is correct so you could also have your language credit so so you really can arrive

020at the high school with with a lot of credits already under your belt um the max and the total sometimes I see that the total is higher than the max when what's the context so the I almost pulled it off and then I just left it um you can override that sometimes the max isn't actually the the max is put into the program um but that doesn't necessarily mean contractually that's the max you'll see there's some places here I saw 22 was the max 23 was the max that's not really true according to the contract it's probably something old that's been in school full for a while so it probably was overridden by the uh counselors as they filled it and the other thing you might find interesting so if you look at algebra it

021says algebra 8 and it says region and it says Z 24 and zero so what it will actually tell you is how many thought they were signing up for it how many said to their counselor I want to take this class how many actually got to take the class and how many didn't fit and sometimes you'll see those are really a scans too because according to the program eight kids didn't fit but when they actually go in and do it by hand um they can make it fit so that happens a lot with one-offs because kids will want to take all but but you can't schedule every one off in its own period or we'd have 30 periods it' be coming all day so sometimes I have to make some decisions on on what will

022fit thank you so I did General education offerings but I also ran in the back uh special education offerings because we as a district should be proud of the work that we do in special education we offer the full Continuum the only reason why some things might not be offered this year is because we don't have a student who needs it not because we just don't offer it and too bad you've got to be someplace else and so I pulled them out a little bit um and so these are uh special education offerings on the second page and I did the same thing for the high school and the other thing that's added to the high school if you dig back a little bit you will see a list of all of our courses that

023are credit bearing and there are a lot of them there you go how do we know which one there's actually a page Nancy if you keep going it's on the back towards the middle you will find a page it says college and advanced placement courses go and you'll also see the uh F Bose's program pulled out separately so you can see what's offered and who's taking what at Bose's security and law enforcement was new this year that's why there are no seniors taking security and law enforcement it just hasn't run for a year and again I pulled out the special education specific forces um just to run separately we offer some unique things in the high school in fact the instructor asks me every year whether or not she's gonna have a job the following

024year and I promised her I said as long as I'm superintendent I feel it's the gift we've given our community and I'm not and I'm not I'm not taking the gift back and that's driver's ad very School very few schools offer driver's ad as part of the high school curriculum it's a gift to everybody out there we offer ASL again that's pretty unique and our kids can learn to play the piano we offer a piano course among the many other things we' got a lot of interesting things that we offer but not many schools can you go to school and learn to play the piano and drive right you can we do it all not at the same time the so important here because it's not like there are places to do it right places

025to do it that's right there aren't driving schools just down the road there isn't a summer program like we're we're it it makes good drivers and it makes good drivers it saves all of our families a little money because they get a little break on their insurance for their child successfully completing driver's ad and a lot of stressful hours and a lot of stressful hours they're not spending doing the Bas uhuh I know so again I would encourage you to take it home when you have a quiet moment just check what we offer you can look at what our fill rates look like how many kids are in those courses and when we start talking about making some choices as we move forward I just think it would give you some good background um to

026to be able to speak to the discussion be a part of that we um the new slta contract new it newest we had a good conversation about um declining enrollment but also maintaining electives and so so I guess how how how does that prior conversation impact future conversations does that question make sense goes back to one of my favorites in that we we we we can do anything we just can't do everything right like we can do anything we want to do we just have to prioritize it yeah and I think that's even in January when I did my how to we put the bu budget together electives are why so many kids come to school and so I and stay in school you know so I do sort of gave you my electives that

027are my my passion like driver's that is not going away that's that's at the top of the list you know so but at the same time we need to look at what our kids are taking the conversation forest and I have been having over Athletics kids interests have in flow and they change you know five years ago if told me we were going to have a girls flag football team that was going to be uh a a varsity sport that you had to choose as your sport yeah's gonna play that right and now it's and we had indoor track that went away for several years until we had a core group that came back and could make it viable again so so kids choices change over time and that's why it's a good uh opportunity

028for you to see what we're offering and kids vote with whether or not they take a seat in the class so take a look and see what we've got and um get move from there yeah is your question for us then like are we looking at trimming adding what's the yes yes okay I I um and then there's attrition that plays into right corre so I Think It's Tricky it's complicated it's very tricky I have an open going out to staff tomorrow and U my title on it is to look it up I just made my title but it's like we we can't let it sway we can we cannot we can't Sway in the wind it's so crazy right now right we get Whiplash because every day when you open up the when I

029open up my Washington Post app I just want close it down by the time I'm done reading I can't handle it right and then School boards is sending me stuff and the lawyer is sending me stuffff and people are sending me like it's just we we can't we we can't allow all that to sort of take us off we've done this before we look at our money look at our income we look at what kids are taking we look at what our priorities are and then we adjust and all those things people want me to know today what we're going to do in a month and I don't because teachers have not put in their notice for retirement and retirements make a big deal we're talking about maybe bringing upk back in house and Staffing

030it in house but that really depends on our numbers what that looks like like we're everybody wants to know today including me I'd sleep better but we're really too far out from making any real decisions today right now the next couple of weeks is gathering all the information that we can so take so so your mission for us is to take this into account correct so that we can so when we start talking about and I start saying I'm just making this up please do not email me tomorrow do not have Mr goling email me I just noticed he was teaching some interesting things this year so if I say you know what maybe he should be in Tech instead because Josh Marlo is thinking about starting a uh a a CTE program for small

031engine Marine work right like you will know what I'm talking about you you know and again I don't know his numbers I was just looking at the list just checking out the interesting um elective so don't don't write to me tomorrow morning just a thought we're phasing out French is that yes what is it two two years yes and she's picking up health so so we have some people doing some creative things also as we face out because our kids who signed up for French have the right but those are the things we keep in mind that was great toour like looking at this kind of bring some things to uh to the Forefront so we're not going to phas out French till the last of our kids who are in French Leave French they

032have the right to to go far in French as they want to go but what could we do as she has extra periods that would benefit kids yeah I the one thing I I've heard from I know Bailey took first semester of it um a lot of the kids with language based learning disabilities have foreign language exemptions correct and that does leave a hole it leaves a whole in their transcripts and it needs a whole I mean in general and um for some reason and they don't entirely understand it American Sign Language a lot of these kids and you see a lot of these uh the sign language classes the number of needs kids compared to the number of non- needs kids um that's been really great because it's giving them another Avenue so first

033off I think they have a great middle school teacher yes exception but but there is a piece of ASL that is very different and that there is no written language so for kids who struggle with written language ASL is a great opportunity to be successful because you don't have to learn to write it there's so much these I mean it's been our experience but we've seen it in other kids there's so much no you can't do this or this is hard or that's hard and for them to be successful yeah especially in another language it just um I'm really pleased to see how many needs kids are in those classes and the numbers because we've only been how many years in high scho classes one right this year this year the first year I mean

034these are um they're good numbers for first year kids like it yeahuh either you take ASL no ASL Spanish yeah are you going to Costa Rico are you going on the trip this year yes I don't take Spanish anymore oh oh I'm sorry I'm calling you out and I don't mean to sorry can I ask you both a question are there courses that you wish we had like when you talk to friends other schools or like what are the things that you think would be beneficial we should have a cooking class was a local College I know and I think you've done some interes you know I will tell you that I have done some uh 21st century and some extra and no one showed up oh really yeah I had I had Kevin McCarthy

035at P Miss College he and I were gonna co- teach a class together and no one signed up we had extracurricular cook club we had an extracurricular cooking club so so our Middle School culinary arts class or 21st century is really popular right now right so maybe as those kids move up we compete with so much in high school too it's just a lot going on so I think kids would sign up for a 21st century culinary meary I think so especially if it's like an class that you can take during school hours we used to do that full B probably got rid of those classes 20 years ago I know my kids love the home acting the middle school you know what I mean like they look forward to that so I took it

036all the way through high school then my first job ever was as a susha it was great so we'll be back we're going to bring our first budget forecast at our next meeting um as you know the first one always have some Pooles in it as we start building but um we'll go from there so I'm happy to answer questions as you look through it you're welcome to call email it's a good resource to have handy when we get into these discussions thank you for doing that welome yeah that's next it on business I think Gina you want to make some announcements yes packets are available in The District Clerk's Office for those interested running for Schoolboard we have two openings uh Mr Mark farmers's tenur up as well as Zack Randolph's so um if

037anybody's interested you can get a jump start on it I have the packets all made up and ready to go out um it's also available on the website if you don't want to come see me I understand um let's see here the deadline for the signatures is April something April 14th I want to say um should have put that on there uh and I just want to tell everybody that um if you're hoping to vote in the election then please register to vote ahead of time last year we had quite a few folks that did not register to vote and wanted to vote on the very hot topic the turf field um so just make sure check with um Board of Elections I put a link in the um agenda should you wish to have

038quick access to fill out your application to vote you can click that little link and it'll bring your right to the application and you send it to Board of Elections depending on where you live either Franken County ess6 County Clinton County um and then I just wanted everybody to know that there's going to be a celebration of the top 15% um at the March 26th meeting at 5:00 pm 5:00 pm what time is that Gina [Music] five just looking around just so you all know and that'll be a nice little event and um that'll be good thank you old business any Capital project updates I really don't right now we're working on financing um we're taking a look we we have a $5 million ban for our 18.75 million doll Capital project that comes due

039in June um borrowing money is very expensive and so we are working with Gina farington and our uh financial advisors uh to see if we can start these projects off without having to do another ban between now and June and then we would go out for our funds all at once we save us about $40,000 if we can um cover ourselves in housee until the end of June um so that that's our hope we also don't want to be uh money for either people expect a paycheck every two weeks so so we're just working on that to make sure our cash flow will work on that so it's not really it is capital project update but no no uh work necessarily thank you and the 2526 District calendar yep so the calendar uh you looked

040at it last time the calendar is in front of you thanks to Kathy McHugh and our triangl um it actually has four snow days in it moves our our um academic conferences back to their usual stop spot before Thanksgiving so it would be Monday Monday's a full day for staff and students and then staff are here in the evening on Monday evening and for a partial day on Tuesday the other thing I put on is the October 31st we are supposed to do a go home early drill I've always just used our early release days as the go home drills we don't have them in this this year's calendar or this calendar that's in front of you um we're going to do it the day before April break this year but next year we're going

041to do it for October 31st um we lose many many of our elementary students early anyways because of trick-or-treating so it seemed like a good day uh to go home early that's not marked on here 31 I didn't put it on the calendar it would have been one more color just so I just put it on the unused snow days and just put its own box down there so it it has to be no less than five and no more than 15 minutes early this was probably done in 1927 and it's still on the books so and we're trying to get rid of it on state level that would be lovely because let's talk about a ridiculous event but we're going to we're gonna do what we're supposed to do any other questions on the

042calendar thank you for getting me fall academic conferences you got it so resolution 086 202 for approving the proposed District calendar motion please n second Tor any further discussion all in favor I any opposed calendar is approved next uh we'll move to new business we're gonna have a presentation um from from Ruth and Emily on the uh district for the school initi Josh asked us to take as long as we possibly could take time so we're gon to oblige him Gina are you advancing slides or oh so um for most of you or for any of you who know we've been involved in farm to school since well two years after I started here since 2012 and we've had a lot of different programs this last grant that we applied for it was the second

043agon Market grant that we got but as part of one of our objectives on at the end was to present to the school board because one of our big goals is to try to make a farm to school position sustainable in full-time and you know after we're talking about budget cuts I you know I I I do it with my whole heart and and respect of all of the situation and positions that everyone's under and so this is Emily b d for any of you who haven't met Emily um it's kind of frightening she and I kind of have a share a similar personality and tenacity that's we we come of terms with it we're we're at peace with it now but there's a lot that's gotten done in this Grand cycle so we're just

044going to kind of go over with you what we've done and and share all the great work hello thank you for having me um just to clarify my first name is Emily Bell my last name is Dian it's a common misconception um and I'm excited to talk to you all about you know the vast amount of achievements we've seen not just over the past year and a half two years um but get to just reflect on you know all of the achievements that Ruth and previous folks have you know brought um to this program it's pretty unique and I've been in Environmental Education for close to 20 years I'm I use a lot of lotion so I'm older in my look um so just to go through where you know beginning to end I like

045to tell people where we're going just an introduction and add a glance some history and achievements um maybe some stress points of the program over time what was in this Grant and what did we achieve um over the 2023 to 2024 year what's in progress now from today until the end of the school year uh and then some next steps so it's a little bit of a dot dot dot at the end of this presentation and I do apologize in advance but I have a very large and emotional two and a halfy old I have to zip away to once I'm done with with Q&A um and I will try to not ramble I've been warned to not talk too much about erosion we were practicing specific topic I can go on and on about

046um and one thing I am not usually going on and on about is myself but hiring me and talking about myself was actually one of the objectives in this grant was to hire a farm school coordinator at halftime year round um so just a little bit about me I'm really excited this is the first time I've ever been embedded within a school district I'm usually the class trip that you come to at a science museum or an environmental center um or running after school youth programs and so I'm amped to be here located in a high school because that's how I got started um was in an experiential High School in New York City um back in the dark ages of 2003 to 2004 so I've been in environmental organizations full-time when I graduated college

047in 2009 um and I've been organizing Community Gardens as my fun extracurricular personal activity since about 2010 so School Gardens Community Gardens go hand inand um I attended City University of New York um where I studied political science work an environmental policy which wasn't really so much of a major back in the Stone Age um and then moved here to Sak Lake from Oregon because I was uh in graduate school at the University of Oregon go Ducks sorry that's required um for stud environmental science and how to get community members involved in habitat restoration and apply ecology we moved here in 2020 and I was hired to this Ro September 2023 um here's just some of my my old stomping grounds of June restoration projects with teens uh this bottom piece is my community garden

048back in Crown Heights Brooklyn um that's me and Mr Met doing Department of Sanitation community outreach at I'll always call it shade stadium and then working in compost so I'm always talking about compost I'm always talking about aroan I'm gon to keep it limited um and sometimes I like to do uh creative science projects as well I'm going to let Ruth take and a minute right just a quick overview and I think we've talked about it but in 2012 the program started in 2014 we started the erer onic FR School initiative we had seven school districts in the North country that worked with us um in 2014 we applied for the USDA planning Grant and received $45,000 and that's that's our Walkin freezer so we could Supply More Foods we did training on that we

049did mini grants so we did fun stuff with it and 2015 but again with this I was kind of doing a lot of the work so it kind of came to the Forefront that I really needed help we needed a coordinator so the adding mark it was the second grant that was 42,000 we started with Andy Testo but again part-time he moved on to another job in the community after that we hired Zohar gist who she stayed for the grant lifetime um and really bu built um momentum in procurement and working with the whole initiative is I was really kind of her that was what she did um in 2017 we applied for another Grant and didn't get it um in 18 2018 to 2021 the district um funded a 20h hour seasonal coordinator govern

050coordinator role so that's really great the district has supported us and has kept us going in this so program has grown um and in 2223 as a registered dietician I had an intern and her program focused on Farm to school so Cecil worked with us on that and then applied one more time and we've got the current Farm to school Grant that's where we are next there have been a lot of achievements in this program Ruth mentioned procurement so I've never encounter to school that served so many locally ground Foods at it um 2010 zero locally grown foods served at the school and then today 45% of the foods give or take around different days of the week um is grown locally in New York state and that definition has you know there's many different

051definitions of what is local um but some of our own parents and volunteers here at the school are also some of our Farmers which is pretty amazing um these are the folks who are not just giving back their community in terms of food but they're also taking care of our local environment so in reinvesting those institutional dollars is huge and amazing um and that's been the biggest part of our program the places where growth was needed and so this is I've mostly focused on is not just back into school garden the physical infrastructure reinvestment um I know some of folks in this room have volunteered on that or volunteered some of their children to help me do that um but also the class room tie-in aspects of curriculum development I come to this with an

052environmental science background so that's also where I focused has been on K through 12 education um Bloomingdale they're so cute so curriculum develop teacher engagement is where it really starts and then our other goal of this grant has been looking at these Gardens some of which are well over 10 years old some were you know beat up by weather and uh you know Co and not being present um on campus let's just look at Peta again so nice um I don't want to go drag you guys through the all of the objectives bit by bit and read this entire slide but this grant has focused on hiring me as a full-time or part-time year round Farm school coordinator uh increasing the number of farms from 7 to 12 that we buy from increasing student knowledge

053so that's going back into curriculum development um and increasing the use of locally grown New York State crops from 30 to 45% which is huge I am not going to review this timeline but why I made this timeline is to just indicate that this is what our grant proposed in yellow or the top bar a lot had to change because Department of a market Aon Market they didn't the grant didn't get executed so we were waiting for we had everything ready but we couldn't so it changed our timeline and which made the difference of having two growing seasons in it until just one growing season yeah you can't see now that I even though I spent time for this diagram um we were supposed to have two growing Seasons we have one and so that

054changes programs it changes goals it shifts everything backwards or forwards um but that doesn't mean we haven't made a lot of achievements so far based on the goals in this brand if anybody wants that slide I will give it to you later um and so even within one growing season I'm incredibly proud of all of the connections we've made um and so I just want to go through some of those objectives that we're met um the Petrova Garden rebuild before I worked here I looked at that and said I want to fix that um and so when she started I said the first thing you need to do is fix that because we can't look at it and I can't have Mrs Fox driving by that okay um so this is how it looked and

055this is how it looks now so it's really exciting um we included as many different aspects of the school as possible to get this done so a woodworking students are who put all of these beds together um it wouldn't have been possible without pulling in the high schoolers and with community volunteers and conscripted sons from this family and that husb yes um and even our amazing facilities folks um have been incredibly helpful um or even folks who don't have kids who are our school age right they're so interested in this resource that they have been volunteering to make it possible um so that it's around when their kids are in school and we've been able to utilize these uh the patroa garden for 21st Century programming which we've been trying to take as much advantage

056of as possible because it helps us break down that 40 minute class period right you put your Cod on you get downstairs you touch a plant go back upstairs 21st century allows us to just to have more time with the kids um materials budget was expanded by applying to many grants from multiple different sources which I'm in the process of doing now um to focus on the ing some issues at Bloomingdale and on also rebuilding the high school garden with the help of the advanced design for the advance drawing for design students so ngss next Generation science standards curriculum development has also been a focus of this program as I've experienced it um for me finding out what teachers need rather than and bringing them something I made and hoping they need it uh is

057the way I try to meet people where they're at so bringing presentations to trova Bringing presentations to Bloomingdale reaching out to the science teachers in middle school and high school um has been really really successful and then surveying students and teachers districtwide so I'm not going to go through all of these standards I'm going to try to not more folks but going through the standards bit by bit is where I can find how Farm to school topics tie in so kindergarten for example parts of a plant um how you know how energy is taken from the Sun and brought through a food system uh We've tied in hey this amazing school trip every kindergarten takes to Tucker Farms can start touching on this science topic and then we can keep going throughout the year and

058growing inside even though it's January same goes for erosion which I'm not going to talk about now second graders do need to learn about this so hey I'm out there working on exactly this topic I can create a lesson plan or deliver a lesson plan that say someone I've been working with a lot has been Moran Gilmore who's been hired as a science coach to develop curriculum with Melissa Butler um after she retired from being the eighth grade environmental science teacher so one really great thing is hey Moren I saw this came through my email at Google classrooms can I teach this yes I have teachers who were afraid to teach this because they've never taught it before well I have a science background I can come and help them so kind of being like

059an assistant science coach working with Morin has been amazing um and teachers have reported it's also helpful it's not just for me it's helpful for them um so yeah this came through February 13th now that this presentation will be over and successfully received by everyone I can focus back on hey can I bring this to some classrooms for the second grade it's not necess science is not necessarily in our teachers wheelhouse K through five right not everyone's comfortable with it how can I show that it's fun it's not scary it's hand hands on and enjoyable third grade has been really exciting talking about life cycles um I won't go on and on about our native seed collection and mod butterflies but I can um we're actually gonna bring these seed bombs or Earth dumplings which

060is a much more peaceful name for it um it's Clay and compost and Native seeds I'm actually going down to the city this weekend and reaching out to third grades that at schools I'm connected to so we're at the top of the Hudson they're at the bottom of the Hudson monarchs start here they go there they still need seeds and nectar so can we actually create not just a seed exchange between schools but can we create a cultural exchange and even uh a pen pal situation between third grades here and third grades down ing the city that I'm already connected to they've been on they've been on midwinter recess though so they're not good at emailing um we've been using the gardens as much as possible but also the kids have been engaged in helping

061me do all the spring prep needed so I'm always trying to tie back into their standards but also what do I have to get done so that we have a garden in the summer so propagation has been something that the kids have really enjoyed um and I adapt it for different grade levels different modal um different size seeds for different size hands um and we've been propagating things in the things plants in the cafeteria which we've also been graciously given space in which is awesome um and garlic has been a really popular plant that we've we've had in the fall so what can I do in the fall just always being adaptable uh and then 21st century uh has just been a really great time to have fun it's been really popular we have some

062ways to adapt and think of you know improvements or some adaptations because our summer was head low enrollment but I think it's because we had it all summer instead of different sections and families can't commit to you know eight weeks of anything really um go D can this kid can she loves brother I love this kid she's a St Bernard student too which was really nice she's middle school now oh she well she was St so it was kind of fun that we kind of got that um but we've also these are the kids not just gardening they're harvesting basil and we turned it into pesto pizza so we miss I will also say that which was kind of fun is we grew plant too so they harvested the eggplant and I made eggplant Parmesan

063with them and then we put it on the menu it goes okay in the high school but that's kind of like our way of introducing things so kind of using that as as a step uh we also have a mural that we need to frame and put out on the the Petrova Greenhouse once it is not 19 feet of snow outside I know I'm exaggerating and then sometimes we just like to have fun and have no signs have a just be fun so here's our mural B has been in a number of work programs um and then we planted a pumpkin patch at bloomindale and in the first few weeks of school of the kindergarteners picked the pumpkins there weren't that many right there were exactly as many as I had classrooms so all right

064we're going to bring this red wagon around the kindergarteners delivered pumpkins to every classroom and it was just a really fun way to enter into the fall and we got them before the grandpa did which is what is important I kep this one because we are fun and all right so I let me clarify I have wanted forever to do a Lunch Lady Land float in Winter Carnival so I went to Mrs Fox and said so how do you feel about me doing that and Emily worked with uh the students in the set design class and so pass Go pass but we did have fun I always always have to amazing justify that I am fun I promise all right so project in progress right now as I said we're working on improving the high

065school in Bloomingdale Garden and we're doing a lot of cafeteria cafeteria composting work so not just getting it done but making sure we're hitting educational standards along the way um we have our 21st century battle Chef is kind of like an Iron Chef culinary program right now and then we'll propose another into the veggie versus our I'm not good at coming up with fun names I'm not that fun to be honest no I am um so into the veggie verse just keeps getting repeated and the kids know what to sign up for um so cafeteria composting is going to be really districtwide and we're actually going to have the Bloomingdale kindergarten and fifth grade Kinder buy group lead everybody um because Bloomingdale is best at comp hosting um and it's always fun when you put

066kindergarteners in charge of everything so they'll be helping us make a a video and animation to promote to everybody of what to do and what not to do in cafeteria composting uh The Green Storm and Art Club are involved here at the high school um and my new vision student is also involved which is really exciting that a new vision student said hey I like what Emily is doing when I was going around all of our kindergarten classes um they're really interested in Environmental Education so they asked Miss mun if they could do a kind of out of thee box approach to divisions and we're doing it and it's great um and then we're going to continue on k35 ngss support and curriculum development delivery as needed um so the future of this program here's

067a quote I actually found from zart from 20177 in the Adon daily Enterprise and I will let Miss P now and and so really in closing you know I've been having conversations with Mrs Fox I you know I realize it's a process and um it would be the goal of this program to be able to have a farm to school coordinator and especially somebody with this with a type of experience that Emily has it can go into the classroom and make it a POS position that's fulltime so we don't keep losing all the good people because they end up needing to really make that so thank you very much for your time and if you have any questions or you want to see what we're doing feel free to reach out and you are more

068than welcome to come to one of the classes or the veggie verse or the A and and if Emily can get Mr Marlo he's having fun in to dress up like a sloppy joe if we can get Josh to do that then then that's a good thing that we can do so thank you so much and that's that is who working with em and can I say that my daughter helped with the sloppy joe yes da was and she did the chop sooi too I think she did and it was she was so excited they were so excited to not only do it but then to see their work down go down the parade and and we were a better float than yours I just want M thinks that their float was better but really

069but it was great really did I felt really good about that that the students could really see their work in public so that was really and that was just an extracurricular fun thing for people who don't know how to say that but thank you very much Ruth if I can say one thing um we are all very lucky to have you and when I was down at healthy School meals in Albany um your name when they found out I was from Sak Lake and I look Ruth Pino all these faces go ah you're are so lucky and it came up again in DC um in Vermont schools and like you were known and how lucky we were and these numbers and I see what other districts are desperately trying to get to 15% or 20%

070so to see those numbers is just it's awesome well it's a labor of love thank you so much for acknowledging it but it really it's it's it's my passion and and I love doing it well I appreciate through because it's it's can I ask you a question the aen marcet grant that is playing right now how long does that well actually in two days but we're gonna we're gonna cover the position to get through till the end very specific okay so it it wasn't too long no no and had had things it would have been over sooner again but that market they just I think they did a transfer of of who was supervising grants or something and it just they didn't get it done to us um I'll add sorry yeah we should actually

071clap sorry we've been trying to do that thank you mauda um I am advising the New York State Department of Education on Environmental Education uh net has imp panel two panels of experts to talk about environmental Ed and uh financial literacy and so just FYI that this conversation is a live conversation at the state level right now around what is Environmental Education Vermont I've been working in a bunch of Vermont schools this past year way ahead of New York on this stuff and it's um it is in high demand among students and so as the state redo the graduation requirements this is one of the things that is being brought forth um as we move away from kind of high stakes testing and towards things that actually matter in the world this is being discussed

072more and more at a state level so I think there's a chance for us sry like to really lead here but what does that look like in terms of Staffing programming I think I think that's still a question for us to get head WR thank you both yeah thank you excellent can I add one thing um erosion erosion erosion we don't have enough time um this is so adaptable so whatever the need there is a way and even if this isn't funded again there could be train the trainers to build in to utilize this infrastructure that the school has so I also worked in Horticultural therapy and uh with younger adults and you know the so working with students with you know an IEP or an emotional need at any time you know the staff

073that's already here at the high school or middle school or Elementary School could be trained to go out and use this space or culinary everybody needs to know how to cook and do the dishes that is important um so I just want to say that it doesn't have to be science I'm just a huge nerd and I love science but I also like making art so the adap adaptability of something like this is amazing and um yeah so thank you for having me in general this has been very fun all right I have very emotional giant child thank you moving on to Item B de committee uh structure discussion so our Dei committee has been meeting monthly now for several years since the Inception really since the Inception and over that time Dei work in

074the district has but when we started meeting nobody was doing anything and over time we've hired staff we've hired Meg who's picked up the student piece of it the sty Stories the newsletter pieces um Melissa has picked up a big chunk of it she does Dei work when she meets with staff we've had a lot of um people in to meet with us so we are fin finding that as it becomes more a part of many people's daily work we're finding it more difficult to have a meaningful conversation every month so I reached out to Joe and Nancy who have been doing great work as the of longterm Joe you were there then you left and now you're back and and Nancy's been there and many of you have been there you were there for

075a little bit I think you were there Zach and Justin was there so yeah Mike's so everybody we've had a lot of people on and off the committee I'm thinking that the role of the committee has really evolved over time and suggested to Nancy and to my to uh to Joe about perhaps meeting less often maybe meeting quarterly it's a it's a bit of an oversite committee rather than a doing committee and you know when you invite people around the table to have a conversation with you month after month and you don't have a lot to say they they stop coming and we don't want that to happen either we want people to feel that their input is important um and they have something to say but we're finding it hard to fill every month

076with with that work so when I I spoke to join Nancy they suggested come back to the table because it was a committee that was put together by the board and have this as a larger conversation so okay it's not I don't think you missed anything but just to be clear it's not meaning that we're doing less work in this realm it's more that the work is going on it's embedded throughout everything that's happening at the school and that's success right but but the committee meeting on a regular basis doesn't necessarily have as strong a function as it did early on so that it's more about the just really the the committee which is a board it's a subcommittee of the board so that why it's coming here um but the work is no l

077i mean the work has just gotten more and more what what the effect of of our efforts yeah when we first started meeting it was more of a doing committee and it has gradually evolved over time to a committee I don't I agree with you I don't think we need to meet monthly and I I think it we would probably be better off with would see say correctly it would allow for Greater Community participation if we had more in meetings right which is what you said yeah so yeah I I think that's entirely appropriate the one the one thing I would really like to see though is in that policy is a is a reporting requirement Based on data and I don't know that we've been really good on that yet and so I know

078we do the the annual reporting but this is a complex policy and it would be nice to know do we need to change in policy are we needeing the policy I think it's a it's very aspirational work and it's kind of always as well and I think that that that yearly conversation around this policy I think is really necessary to which doesn't really impact the committee meeting structure it's more oversight for I'm I'm in agreement with it we just wanted to bring it to you all because we all have perview over it as a board my two sents is that I think that what is really important about moving the structure to a quarterly is that the communication has to be on point so that you don't have quarterly meanings that of the de committee

079and only two people show up you know what I mean because now you're having few fewer meetings so I think communication and and the time frame and making sure that people are going to be there are is much more important you know what I mean and you know to the fact that you only have 4 days you know so yeah we could talk about like one of those look like one of the things we did at the beginning of this year was to establish some kind of like tangible goals so so that we're working towards things of those meetings and not just meeting for the S Mee right right which I agree 100% I just think that you know when you move structur to a quarterly people tend to you know get busy right so

080all of a sudden you have quarterly meeting and two people are there and now what you wanted to get done there has now been pushed off two more meetings past there you know I think that's my only my two cents towards that so and I also understand it's like people are busy like people have a lot of stuff going on and if you're not you know if you're yeah this is also the kind of committee you don't see if you don't see that that monthly meeting being beneficial to change it the structure of so this is also the type of committee where you know things happen and we have to call meetings because things happen right because we have to respond to them so but that's like any other like we we do that for

081labor and policy so in that way it's no different than other meetings one question I think might be a productive conversation is just are there regular things that we have to do as part of this work that would help structure those four meetings right I'd have to think about that but I think that might be a useful conversation so that when we have those meetings we have a kind of standard format yes T you gonna say something um so the the conference that I went to in DC was actually the National School Association they've combined the advocacy Institute and the equity Institute and the big thing that they spoke about and I'm going to give you all kinds of stuff and there's all kinds of stuff in the Google Drive is that they're finding um

082that it's especially in light of everything that's going on politically that it's now it comes to the doing and that they're shifting a lot of districts are shifting their emphasis to to the doing less meetings but more okay what are we going to accomplish this meeting and and keeping on the how do we just make this part of every day how do we just make it part of we treat everybody like everybody else and it comes down to just every day classroom stuff and I agree with um I think that it would be nice to have some kind of uh more accurate instead of anecdotal data but something more solid or and I'm not sure how that would look it's in the policy um but I think we need to to really go after that

083all right thank you now merge nicely into uh toor's presentation of the National School Board Association conference recap okay I am not going to torture you all I tortured myself for the last two weeks trying to figure out how to tell you about all this stuff that I got um so I'm not going to torture I am G to make you take paper ho I'm sorry Joe okay what I'm giving you here is um the geographical uh map okay um I'm a school teacher I love paper it's the smell I'm also giving you the um fedal priorities that we took to meetings onit Hill um after the um first thing I will tell you is that New York state was the it was the National School Board Association no because it's going to make me

084not I have some um okay New York state was the number two um District or number two State as far as people showing up with 60 representatives from New York State um we're only behind Michigan who was at 65 um which is a really good and exciting thing because it means that we were we were um and that we were showing up if you can look at that map for me for a second I just gave you the wrong Pi I'm sorry um if you look at that map area six and seven okay all of the directors were there for misah all um of those 60 people that were from New York State me Wayne Rogers the area six director and Kathy Lewis the area 7 director were the only ones from all of area

085six and area seven okay what I will also tell you is very go J um in those meetings I had meetings um we met with the offices not the actual senators and congressmen because they were afraid to leave the for um stuff was happening that fast um things were changing the night before we went to Capitol Hill um actually had a meeting set for us to go over all the last minute changes um you two these are the details okay so so this is the deal of all of these people okay that went from New York State there was nowh open I was in um across the board whether it is the uh the companies the lobbying companies that work with school districts the school districts themselves I met with Christian Gill Brand's office I

086met with Chuck Schumer's office and I had the pleasure of meeting hem Jeff the congressman out of New York 8th District um from Brooklyn because he is the uh Congressional minority Le um they were amazing they knew where s was some of them vacationed here um they all said the same thing we have to be proactive we can't sit on stuff any um there is so much coming through uh there is a shotgun approach right now and hiding in the shotgun approach um is some really important things and on those Federal sheets um you'll see there's kind of uh the first two pages give little Snippets the rest are more detailed in there School meals was snuck in the weekend before so we went to um Capitol Hill on Tuesday this came in over the

087weekend managed to get it in ways and means committee is proposing a billion cut to school meals that's billion of the be so what does that mean that means 900,000 New York State kids will lose three mons 451 schools off the what they all encouraged us to do other than reaching out and talking to them when we see stuff on TV and in the paper I hoped Aon would be here tonight we see these huge statements these huge um sweeping recommendations from both and what every office said is we need to pick one thing everybody needs to pick one thing now we all know School meals is my thing my grandmother if you came to our her house she would force Fe you was just a thing and apparently I have inherited it um when

088I spoke to Hakeem Jeffrey's office here he is in Brooklyn he has the New York City School District um I was in that meeting with Daniel Grasso Grassroots advocacy for nisba um government relations and um Sharon wrencher who is the uh District thir Area representative um it didn't matter that she was from New York City and that I was from up here it didn't matter to them it mattered that New York City kids are not going to get the food so what do we do what is our job and because we were all overwhelmed and quite honestly it was really nice to go and see all these people in fancy suits and dress much nicer and with much fancier Vehicles pulling up to the valet than I had um Tomy woo from Congressman H's office

089said it is your job to clarify the chaos it's our job to clarify the chaos for our students for our staff and faculty for ourselves um and for our community we can't take on everything education is our thing and what I'm I'm asking for a few things here one is that everybody pick a topic I I've chosen food because it's something I I've been working with for a few years if you look on these These are kind of the base things that we have some control over on our level the US Department of Education being disbanded takes an act of Congress um even Mrs McMahon agrees that it will take an act of Congress can we fix that can we stop that no I mean we can't I'm a marine upholster I I can't fix

090that what I can do is I can keep going to our state and federal representatives and keeping on them and clarify find to our community what these mean what does 12 billion mean out of that so if you look at each of these um there's a little snippet on the first two pages and then it goes into more details I have gobs of notes on all of these um I spoke to people from other states um I've made a ton of contacts across the country um this is kind of what we came down to is these are the things that we can really push on that are really going to affect our district I have uh in the Google drive there is 42 pages on the legal things the legal updates that have changed in

091two months there is another 30 page document in there that goes into the exact details of Trump's first presidency and what's anticipated for the second his second term in office and timelines just to kind of give us an idea this is what he said last time this is what happened last time this is what got done this is what didn't the salt tax you'll see in here um is something the whole country is working around that's not a democratic thing that's not a republican thing that is um an advocate for our students um any questions so far just while I take a breath so again everyone agrees it's the rural schools that are going to be the worst um and we're also the schools that play the biggest part in our kids lives more so

092in the cities because this is the center of life um not only were there more people there for the city and uh suburban school districts they were also represented by the central New York School Board Association the conference of big five School Districts The Jesy Valley School Board Association the Monroe County School Board Association the Nassau suffk School Board Association some of these have paid Representatives that they were paid to sit there that's what they do they figure this all out and me having the big math that I have I sat down with all of the directors and talked about our situation here um overall you can go through all the stuff online there is some really interesting things there's several Supreme Court decisions that are coming up in the next three months things that

093affect e rate for us um on the legality of it um the constitutionality of it um Diane and I talked a little bit about um the immigration issues I just wanted to make sure that we're on top of it um because a lot of people don't think it happens in our area and yet Tupper Lake has already had an ice R um the biggest thing is that I think that as a district we need to improve our Clarity our compliance and our confidence I think we need to be as open with the public as we can possibly be I think as a board especially talking to other boards we do a great job with um open meetings law and being open with our discussions um I think we need to do a better job um

094now I've given you guys the details I've pulled from the website as I tried to look at the website and pull the documents I was looking for for tonight I found a lot of Errors stuff that's out of date it's not anybody's intention but it's perception and at this point we need to do everything we can to have the public have confidence in us with this election coming up people in general don't have a lot of confidence you can look at the numbers online they're low um we need to have them have confidence in us we need to have them have confidence in our kids our kids have confidence I I thank God every morning for Dwight Stevenson and Mr Phil and Mr Coleman and Mr Ellsworth for I I I think our kids are

095better grounded um I'm so glad Bailey has governed the semester um we know in the past the numbers have been very low for the school board election the turnout it's because people don't think their vote matters now Ryan camit um is a policy adviser to Christen Gill and his parents used to bring him up here every summer so of all 20 people in the room he knew where we were he knew our district he remembered our field he still comes up here to visit the thing he said was don't lose sight of the little things they are trying to overwhelm us both sides of PR forance um that we I want to say it how he said it um the moment that give up is the moment that they win so we've got to do

096what little we can I'm asking I would like to try again um to get more of the school districts in the area um I would like to make a push to talk to the school districts in the area especially us little small guys um Wayne Rogers from Malone he is our area director K said that he would help me grafts advocacy said they would help me um try and get the school boards talking because we united we need to stand up for the little guys um go through the stuff on Google Docs there's gobs of it um some of it is horrifying some of it is mind numbing um I have notes I have 60 pages of notes from two days in um they want to hear from us hem Jeff Chris and Jill brand

097and Chuck Schumer if they're specific cases where something's not getting paid or you're having a problem with um reimbursements or grants or anything they are looking for specific cases um they even said they live in a bubble of DC they want to know what's happening here but they also said if we have questions if we get headlines that sound like they're really going to affect us call them um I have personal cell phone numbers even they were that serious about wanting to help us um the website I think we really need to address um one of the things that they talked about was uh our board's being as open as possible through all of this because there's so much change um and one of the things when you go through our website there are very

098few pictures of the staff in faculty there's no pictures of us so I am challenging the rest of the board I have no problem putting my picture on I am challenging the rest of the board to put their picture on it sounds like a small thing but what the districts found that did this is it's not just thirst o tour at slcs with my cell pH it's a person it's a human being um because we're going to have to work together they're going to be Cuts we are seriously going to get name I mean that across the board all the attorneys said it's going to happen but we have people to help us um mbah is literally dropping stuff every day um there is a thing from National School boards Association in the drive about

099the latest immigration policy I had asked Dian about that just because there was a Rance on the L people don't think that it could happen here but to make sure that staff teachers know what's right and what's wrong what's legal and what's not um and again it's not about Democrat it's not about Republican it's about you guys and getting you guys the best education we can give you and the most support that we can give you and preparing for you for AF and yes food is a big part of that um go through it if you have any questions please read these if you read nothing else if you read these Federal policies um it's really specific um the numbers are close when it comes to um there's a section in there that will go

100over the exact numbers and what the votes need to be to make certain things happen and the numbers are not far away um and because we don't have um stefanic um um she's not taking meetings uh but there's still nobody in that place yet that kind of leaves us in a little bit of flux um questions doing that to one of the things I noticed right away that you know I think is is an easy fixer all these areas that are pointed out where um information needs to be updated dates people those things that should be almost an annual exercise uh by Department by school I asked about that last year I know you did so the first um bulleted Point here the staff directory Doug Fran's been working on that right along um well

101as of today so these are ones I pulled this afternoon there's half a dozen employees that no long work here and this was just I'm going by names that I recognize scrolling down I think the way what happens is because these things there's so much there I'm not sure everyone knows what their pieces or their responsibility I think that's how that gets missed so I think one of the things that could be cleared up is is process by which um we find out the ownership for all the parts and then we know um if it's not getting done who we address it to the special education section all of the special education documents are not there had I mean I know the the website is like its own thing thank you for all these updates

102Tori I've been following them pretty closely as well um when did We R like I I'm just wondering if like the website conversation should be a future item and we talk about processes for that because we updated it Jeremy Evans was still on the board I remember him talking about Ito yeah four five years ago 2020 and 2021 is most of the um there's a few changes but like we've referenced in the last year many times um the uh about the district code of conduct but this is the Dosa trifold thing yes I I I'm just this is I just want to get this this is my point Katie laba is still dean of students at Petrova Bruce is still the principal at Bloomingdale Bruce Boger still works here I just emailed Tom to find

103out where Doug's at with that because I know it's been an these are but this is these are actual documents that need to be updated oh these are so you go through and I I gave them to you to not going to bore the rest of you with the details if you want them I will email them to you but it's the actual documents yeah I can't put out a trifold banl that ass parents that don't have the current school year people in exactly I can go through and find out who owns everything and we're gonna talk to Carol this it's it's it is my example for let's be as clear and Dot every i and cross every T the policy issues that's a whole other ball of walks that's a policy committee that needs

104to have I agree but I can only just s can only imagine a parent that has that document and they want to get some information and they contact that person and they don't even work here anymore yeah to me that this is annually these things have to be accurate especially when you're talking daa special education Title Nine the Title Nine stuff we went to 20 2024 regulations we're back to 2020 regulations so it's all stuff it is also stuff that we could get dinged for so I want people not to doubt there's always going to be questions there's always going to be think that we're hiding stuff but I'm using the website as the example of the more clear we can be put my mug on there I have no problem the if we I

105know in the past we haven't wanted to push teachers to do it but if we can say hey this is why we're asking you to put your picture on would you consider it um the administrators all have their pictures on which I am grateful for but it puts faces to names and again I'm mad at Mr Dan well if Mr Dan has a face it's not just Mr day um a across the board they said little things little things those little things that we can do um I think there's there's simple things that can be done and rectified they're just oversights and then there's more complicated things needs to work that's it and that's what they said is don't get overwhelmed there's so much going on it's easy to get overwhelmed um I would like

106to have on the next meeting on the agenda um I have a short presentation on volunteering and civic duty and one of the things um people aren't voting um we tried to get some help for the library to move Six Tables because everybody at the library either has bad backs or his older or is my mom that's you know I won't say her age we couldn't Josh helped us uh we got a few kids it was big or steel it's not big stuff but it's it's that helping each other out because it's the right thing to do and I think it goes into the Dei as well is doing things just because of the right thing to do not because it's a policy not because it's a mandate not because it's a republican thing or

107a Democratic thing but just because it's the right thing to do and if we can start those right Small Things somehow the big stuff we start isolating these things and I will all that onle tomorrow and just a question for you thank you TOR yeah thank you Tori um some of these as the federal situation is changing those are going to come across our table in future meetings so we should expect that there's already four policies that are enforc oh I know I mean we've been getting legal guidance and a lot of is changing but a lot is changing and nothing is changing right same yeah there's so many court cases going on right now it's changing the ones that as it is easier to change them as they come across though um and of

108course I'm not going to be able to think of one off the top of my head but if there is one or two that we can adjust now okay this one's kind of settled we know this isn't going to go anywhere or then when these new two major scotus cases are decided okay then they affect these couple of policies if we can do it on a peac meal basis as opposed to ending up in September with a policy manual that we've got to adjust um that it's that not getting over making a point to not get over okay thank you for letting important stuff that's great let's go to reports we'll start with the superintendent uh just a reminder on March 26th we'll be celebrating the top 15% of the class and what time will

109that be o' five o'cl uh uh Tori did ask about uh ice and if we had a plan and actually we discussed it pretty in depth at our um administrative meeting so everybody who should have access to what our plan is has access to our plan our plan actually was built off of uh information that came from our legal people so we have these for all the different desks and uh thank you for we're on it we're doing the best we can here to roll with what's going on the only other thing I had for tonight is uh Rick rroy gave me an update from bosis it's pretty short uh two CT students on the second quarter honor rooll um we are going to be offering here inhouse Marine mechanics which is a new CTE

110program at Josh Marlo it's a onee uh program so the flyer I think has gone out or is going out to try to get some information on that so although it's a CT program it will be like education with New Vision education it will be housed here in the district so uh one of the things things they mentioned here is that the health Consortium rates are rising pretty dramatically um 12 as a matter of fact for us that's just about a million dollars for just health insurance increases I didn't put that in my list by the way that's another thing on my on my list um and always my favorite thing because it's time for the bosies budget to come out on Friday this will have a major impact on the forthcoming Bose's administrative budget

111yes it will yes it will uh just talking a little bit about the's instructional calendar calendar for next year it is hard Tupper Lake is going back to having a February break and an E and A in a spring break Tupper Lake and Sak Lake do the two weeks it's never good for our kids Lake I'm sorry that is correct sorry Lake PL and Sak Lake do the two weeks and that leaves our kids either at one end or the other without instruction so we we did uh in the past when that happened regularly every other year so one year bosies would be open for the February break one year they would not so my guess is will be going back to something of that similar project it's too bad that was nice when tuer

112Lake joined us and was good for our kids well they did it this year too so yes right yeah and long way so yes listen you know I just I don't know what happened to that but I get it it actually is better for kids in my in my humble opinion so anyways the only other thing he mentioned uh staff development Day is coming up in March and they are working on uh their own staff development day and I'm actually going to do a state of the district for employees uh at one o'clock on that Friday I don't have the date in front of me the 21st I believe off the top of my head so if anybody is available I would love to have you join us for um state of the district at

1131:00 can you send that and I'm gonna charge $20,000 like all the other promoters do and I'll come for slight feel I'll you for dinner and are you gonna want only green no you can mix it no I'm all good but um little opportunity to meet with the staff um before the end of the school year and sort of give an update I've been here for 12 years and there's been a lot of changes over time some really positive things I'd like to celebrate some things that we're still working on I'd like to have an opportunity to bring them back to the Forefront and an opportunity by the 21st talk a little bit about budget Staffing um and whatever's going on at the federal level so fun and exciting so don't miss it that's it

114thank you uh admin Josh good right just have two quick things just wanted to um give a shout out to our Multicultural night um to meet and Jesse Jobe put on I think this was seventh year um just a great event root the food um I walked out of there pretty full um but just a great event and a lot of really positive feedback from families how much they enjoy it and then just a reminder uh we start our parent teacher conferences tomorrow evening 4 to 7 and then again um early dismissal on Friday we'll run conferences 11 11:30 to 2:30 on Friday so time's fly thank you rth anything you want to add I would just say with the Multicultural night it was really nice to see our um the Bosnian montenegrin Community really

115feeling like they were part of it and they asked to change the music and they all danced and it just for me because they're so part of my world it was really nice to see that that little added addition of them really starts to feel part of part of our community that we're wel welcoming them in the district so I appla the dist student reports do you know where that's at Saturday thank you start interrupt and then the boys hockey soon and the musical a man of no importance is happening March I'm not sure on the date and the tech classes helped with the set to design those and we already talked about it last week but we had yoga in so that was really good okay thank you uh Joe um I don't have

116anything from Amy she said she'd be at the next meeting in the Middle School multic call from I just wanted third that fourth that whatever um it was it's a really awesome event I know there's a lot of hard work that goes into that and it's just like I just think that's one of the best things we do for a community it's really it's really powerful um also just I just want to shout out Keith Kut my daughter has been on the cross country ski team and they have so much fun he's he's like I watched him work really really hard over a period of a couple of weeks just nonstop the snow has been incredible this year well he wants to get it in when he has snow because a lot of years he

117doesn't have much snow yeah you can see them just like totally thriving this year and and I I know it's just been fun to watch bunch of them went up to the it and he did two 50ks in a row yeah Sawk skate 50k classic in a snowstorm it's no joke it's impressive yeah I was at the lobby that was fun but yeah I mean just it's an amazing program and I I'm I'm aware of in that program how lucky we are because you see the schools that are coming really really far up here Shen competes up here it's just awesome we ski circles around that anyway that's it thank you n uh I also went to Multicultural right and love it and have not been to it as a board member or public it's

118wonderful wonderful and uh also went to with multiple people board members of the legislative breakfast and uh had good conversations with our with our Representatives it's always um it's always valuable to to hear what's going on and get a feeling you know what nisba is doing so when they when nisba comes to us it's a little easier as opposed to going to Albany or New York or Washington you know and um and then just a question maybe next uh meeting we can review the Board of Ed onboarding stuff I don't know if anybody made any comments on the um put that on the agenda yeah I put I did I mean I can move it again but I moved the word doc last me I had a m because of my family but um you

119know I'll move it along so that the word doc is there if you want anybody has any comments anything to add I mean there might not be much more I think it's fairly thorough but there could be missing some and because we might actually have new board members at some point so that's to that it'll be on the agenda the next one is that y okay Zach uh touch base with Erica she just wanted to let everybody know that the uh the work is is going well and they're busy uh they had 109 students and their families go to the White Face ski day which was super cool and I think the next thing she said is tubing at Titus I think is a week that is correct and uh touch base with Melissa uh

120she just wanted to give Kate Palumbo a shout out our independent curriculum consultant of four years uh this year Kate's expertly coached 16 of our 28 elementary teachers focusing especially on those new of the profession new to their grade levels or teaching during transitional years uh her guidance has led to increase differentiated Center workor standards aligned play based learning in the primary grades and New York State Ela aligned writing curriculum for grades one through five and overall heightened instructional rigor teachers working with Kate feel our immediate support and often secret Council above and beyond scheduled collaboration fortunate to have her and uh we appreciate the Knowledge and Skills she brings to the team so sounds like there's a lot of good work there which you know um I think we've talked about we talk a

121little bit about some of the stuff the beginning of the year lessons plans and things like that and I think Melissa and Kate sounds like they it's really been drilling down helping support and everything so it's good that's all I got thank you dor um two quick things I dropped the policy manual off with Jake at the library thank you for that thank you for Gina for getting all of that done and um he's excited to have it and uh Mr ul and Mr Dan who just fled the building um I delivered 16 cases of books from the library that have been called and after they get the sets done um for the spring musical they are going to be upcycling with old books and building kind of a cool um rather than go just

122to to do something different good hi uh no just that the legisl breakfast I thought was great I thought that it definitely is a thing that is important for us to go uh even just to get more information on our legislators that are fighting for us you know or not fighting for us one or the other so but but no that was really positive we also for you too um you're allowed to go to those so if you want to come to the legislative for future reference you can watch Nancy ask I told them they could not come that was we were at our limit and they were not to join us no matter what might be get out of the Tas by the way Josh only left because his wife's leaving for Albany in

12310 minutes and I told him that he should leave so he didn't bail line it's wait until the other administrators find out that he didn't even stay for the whole meeting well I just say I just wanted to note that uh as already been said our girls cross country finishing second is phenomenal and uh you know that program takes all comers and it really is a kind of a neat thing um do we have a need for an executive session we do not unless someone else does nope okay motion to adjourn second those in favor any oppos we are J thank you everyone this very interesting story I've never