001All right. This brings our meeting of Wednesday, May 21st, 2025, um, school board meeting to order. Lisa, can I get a roll call? Yes. Uh, Trusty Amecha, here. Trusty Crackler here. Trusty Amory here. Trusty Braxton. Trustee Bugamman. Trustee Colligan. Trustee Copans here. Trustee Lectia here. Trustee Wito. All right. And student representative Juan and Student Representative Prosstik here. Thank you. Please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. Can I please get a motion to accept tonight's agenda? Natalia and Matt, any discussion hearing? None. All in favor? That's unanimous. Thank you. Uh, may I get a motion to approve the minutes from May 8th, 2025 meeting? Deb and Natalia, any any discussion? All in favor? Matt, you good? Okay, that is unanimous again. Thank you. Um, there being nobody signed up for public comment period,
002um, we will move on to our, um, board committee reports. Do we have any board committee reports? Tony, finance and audit met on Monday. Um, we opened by talking about uh Bobby kind of outlined the highlights of the New York State budget and and what was uh uh in his mind gerine to finance and audit and and important developments uh there. And so he went through the Boseies aidable salary cap changes, retirey earning earnings cap. Uh we got a an update on thinking over zero emission buses. Uh the smart device ban is coming up. We discussed that. Um we didn't go through the the the we went through prior year aid claims and talked about uh UPK and and the developments there. There are about um 50 uh bullet points in the summary that NISSBA
003sent out about that. We didn't go through all of them, but Bobby just sort of gave us his 30,000 foot view of of some of the important developments. Um, we then moved on to discussing a credit rating call that S&P did for us uh uh uh pursuant to the June um sorry, let me get my let me get my notes here. The the um upcoming June uh bond issue that we're 1.7 million that we're going to issue for um school buses, there was a ratings call. S&P came in and had a list of questions that Bobby went through the answers to. Uh we found out today actually that we were issued a double A+ long-term rating in relation to that investigation. That's pretty remarkable for a uh school district outside of like Westchester County uh
004and their that kind of tax base. So it's testament to the stewardship of our our business office and among other things. But uh it's it's a very good rating for a school district in our area. Um we went through uh some potential upcoming changes in uh uh compensation for the athletic trainer uh separate agreement that we have with uh him. And then we finish by discussing uh timing for the external audit. This is the big audit that we have every year. And we always like to make sure we're on target for on-site work dates um and uh working backwards from October to meet our deadline uh with state ed. and we we're fully on on uh schedule to do that. So, it was a pretty short meeting. That's all. Sounds long, but okay. Any questions
005for finance? All right. Any other committee reports? All right, you're up, Matt. Student report. Thank you. Um at Lake A, Mrs. Terry organized an amazing art show and paired with Mrs. O's uh book fair. It was wonderful to see so many families celebrate the lake avartists. Bike to school day was f uh Friday May 16th and they had excellent participation. Students and families filled the streets to join the parade. Huge thanks to Mr. Zenetti for organizing the event. They're looking forward to chorus concerts and the PBIS assembly coming up at Division Street. The art show was tremendous success. The student artwork on display was truly incredible. A big thank you to Mrs. Spectre for her dedication and hard work to bring the show to life and to the families who generously volunteered their time to
006help hang the artwork. This Friday, division will be conducting an evacuation and relocation drill to the high school. At Dorothy Nolan, students got to bounce their way through the early evening at the spring carnival last week. A genuine thank you to all parent volunteers that help keep students safe and respectful throughout these events. Students and staff will be practicing the evacuation and relocation drill to Gavin Park this Thursday. The team looks forward to the lessons and learning at Maple A. Maple has been recognized for the third year as a no place for hate school. The no place for hate club did an amazing job of creating a warm welcoming environment for all students. Over the next two weeks, students will be completing their spring IR ready reading and math diagnostic assessments. The peer mentoring club
007and high school national honor society will be offering building tours and providing babysitting opportunities during the annual grade five and six family engagement night. Grade 5 parents, guardians, and students will learn about the transition to Maple and visit with the academic department chairs. And finally, at the high school last week, Duncan held its Duncan midday refresh refresh event for the entire school. Everyone was able to sample a Duncan refresher and receive a treat to use later. Uh the high school had a very successful prom last Saturday. Thank you to student council and to the senior class for putting on a great event. Congratulations to Caroline our who was uh recently recognized by the Aderondac area school board association for her community service. Thank you to the move dance to move dance for putting on a
008fantastic performance last week. This event showcased inclusion in our schools and this Friday, uh, the high school will hold its annual springfest and we're looking forward to an afternoon of fun and treats for the entire school. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Lots of things going on. Um, that brings us to administrative reports. Great. Uh I would like to just to start off by uh sharing our sincere thanks and appreciation to the entire community of Saratoga Springs for approving uh the annual school budget uh yesterday. uh as well as there were several propositions on the ballot uh including our legacy 2025 capital project uh a bus bond proposition and also the opportunity to establish a capital reserve for future uh projects uh for the school districts. So, uh, as a district, uh, the board of education,
009our entire faculty and staff are very grateful, uh, for the ongoing support, uh, uh, that our community provides to our students, uh, to be able to provide incredible programs, academic opportunities, extracurricular opportunities, as well as student support services uh, and also the ongoing investment that our community is making uh, through our long range capital project uh, planning process. Uh so we are very excited uh with about the future of the district uh continuing the outstanding work uh both in the classroom uh and through the investment in our facilities. Uh and again we very much appreciate the support uh that we receive from the community each year. Uh prior to tonight's uh board meeting uh we had a wonderful opportunity to recognize this year's retirees. So, we want to congratulate all the retirees who have retired
010from the school district uh since last year. So, at the end of the school year, we do have uh district employees who retired during the course of the year. So, this year we had 18 school district uh employees who uh have retired or will be retiring at the end of the school year. Uh so we held a reception uh prior to this meeting to recognize this year's retirees and we want to thank all of them for their tremendous service, their dedication to supporting all of our students. Uh and we wish all of our retirees a happy and healthy retirement. Um we did have some board trustee recognition tonight that we're going to hold off until our next board meeting. Uh two of our trustees uh who are going to be recognized were not able to
011be uh here with us tonight. Uh so we'll we'll we'll do that at our next meeting. I also want to congratulate our music department. Uh our music department has been highlighted here uh at our board meetings at all levels. Uh but for the second year in a row uh our music department uh was named by the National Association of Music B merchants as one of the best communities uh for music education in the country. Uh so a tremendous honor uh for our music teachers, our directors, our student musicians, as well as all of our parents and community members who support music throughout the district. So uh congratulations on that wonderful uh achievement. Um also want to recognize our seniors uh as they get ready for graduation. Our senior giveback day is scheduled for June 11th.
012Uh and that is an incredible tradition here in Saratoga Springs where our seniors have the opportunity to give back to the community through community service. Uh so uh for half a day uh you have hundreds of students out in the community uh helping provide their support uh and it's a great way for our seniors uh to give back. Uh finally, I want to congratulate um each of our new board trustees. So, congratulations to Natalyia as well as Lee Wilton and Ashley Fogerty who were voted by the board or by the community yesterday uh and elected to uh new three-year terms that'll be starting on July 1st. So, again, congratulations to Natalyia and we look forward to welcoming both Lee and Ashley to the board of education starting um on July 1st. So, congratulations [Applause] So,
013we have uh one formal presentation tonight and we always look forward to hearing from our district uh diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. Uh this group uh is very well represented by our students and parents and community members, our teachers and support staff and administrators throughout the district. uh and they work hard throughout the school year uh in providing opportunities for our students uh in creating safe and welcoming and affirming environments and always looking at how do we continuously improve the culture and the climate of our schools. So tonight we have several representatives as well as student leaders uh who are joining us uh to provide the board with an annual update on our DEI uh initiatives across the district. Uh, so I just welcome all the folks that are here to present to come on
014down. And then leading off the presentation tonight is Orisa Galani. Orisa has been a staunch supporter as a student committee member uh on our our district diversity, equity, inclusion committee. So, she's going to provide a uh an introduction of the committee's work and then she'll be introducing each of the subcommittees who will be uh providing um some some uh updates to the board. So, I'll turn it over to to Orisa. Hi everyone. My name is Orisa Galani. I'm currently a junior at Sarto Springs High School and I served on the culture and climate subcommittee this year. And um I can say on behalf of the entire committee that we are excited to present the work that we've been doing this far, but there is still a lot of work to be done regardless of what's
015going on at the federal level. So um without further ado, um I'd like to introduce our four principles of culturally responsive sustaining education. These are highlighted in our smarty goals at the beginning of each meeting. And these include a welcoming and affirming environment, high expectations and rigorous instruction, inclusive curriculum and assessment, and ongoing professional learning. Um, so our aim is to focus on actionable projects, including a welcoming and affirming environment in family community engagement, which you'll hear about later on in the presentation. Um so without further ado, I'd like to introduce um um Miss Jen Ducha who is on the preventing racist and discriminatory language subcommittee. It's actually Miss Cutting Dr. Hi, I'm Jen. No, I'm Lisa Cutting. Jen unfortunately could not make it. So um I wanted to speak on behalf of our committee
016to make sure that we could share some of the great work that uh has been happening. Um so our committee tried to focus on uh some actionable steps uh and focus on one school and then uh look at what we have done to and then replicate that in other schools. So the focus was on the high school. We met with the high school administration to find out what sorts of um actions were already happening uh working toward preventing racist and discriminatory language. So we met and um some of the works from different clubs, the bridge the gap club um was one of the ones that has been meeting monthly to address some of these um these situations. And so then we also decided then we would follow up on information that was shared in the
017culture and climate um survey where um students were not treating each other kindly um overall just we could be we could do a better job of that. So trying to find out why and then barriers um to reporting um when racist and discriminatory language were used. We created um an additional survey that was more focused and targeted um trying to get answers to those questions. And so, uh, we did another smaller survey in April and, um, analyzed that information and found, of course, um, more questions to ask, but, um, that we can concentrate on some areas, uh, common areas within the buildings and, um, providing, uh, additional PD for, uh, teachers and for students, teachers in terms of, you know, what kinds of things to say especially to students who you may not know but
018you hear these sorts of things. Um and then also for students so that they have a clear knowledge and process uh and know the process for reporting um that sort of language. And uh we also did some research and gathering of resources to promote that culture of kindness. And the sorts of things we were looking at were more like visual cues um trying to get at reducing bystander s syndrome whether on the part of adults or students. So they may seem like small steps but they are uh pieces to just try and uh work toward uh that greater culture of kindness. Um and another big thing that came out of that was future professional learning and followup to some of the things that were already being done um at the building level. So um great
019work by the committee and um more work to come. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Cutting. Um we will now hear from Miss Bennett on behalf of the culture and climate surveys. She is one of the administrators here at the high school and Miss Carol. Good evening. I'm Erin Bennett, assistant principal at the high school. I'm going to talk to you about the work of the climate and culture subcommittee, the survey subcommittee. So, the survey was administered last spring and then the response results were reviewed by this subcommittee and then also by district administration throughout the spring and the summer. And then the building level results were shared out with each building to help inform their work for the upcoming school year. And so then throughout the year we collected feedback from the buildings just on
020the questions themselves. You know, were the questions clear to the students? Did the students understand how to respond? Um and then also how each building was utilizing the student responses. So we're going to highlight a couple of examples of how the student response data was utilized. I'm going to talk about the high school and Liz has come up to talk about Lake A. So at the high school, we shared student response data at a faculty meeting and we asked the staff to reflect on the data like how does this data make you feel? Uh what could you do differently to help students feel a greater sense of belonging at school? And then we had the staff break out into small groups. It was great. We actually divided everybody up so people didn't huddle together by
021department or or specialty. We had really diverse small groups where everyone could share on their reflections and also share the strategies that they use in their classrooms or offices to help students feel more welcome to help them feel like they belong at school. The conversations were meaningful. They were thoughtful. It was very productive. Everyone walked away with something new that they could do with their students to help increase that sense of belonging. So it was a very effective tool for the high school. So I'm going to turn it over to Liz so she can talk about Lake. Yeah, thanks Aaron. So at Lake Avenue, very similarly, um we actually started with our belt team to take a look at the data to really try to highlight what are some of our strengths here at Lake
022and what are some areas of growth. So, uh, our whole committee took a look at all the the full data set and everyone had access to all of the qualitative data as well, which, uh, if you've ever done any type of survey analysis, that's really difficult to take a look at qualitative data and and find themes. I did use some AI tools to help just in case, uh, folks wanted a quick summary. Um, so they had the full data set and also a summary of some uh, key themes from from that data. We did take a long time really looking at the questions to analyze did our students understand these questions and we had great conversations as well as our our DEI committee as a whole when we were looking at district data um and
023had some notes for future iterations of of the the survey for our students. But after excuse me our belt team took a look at it, we then said what do we want to highlight with our full staff? So all of our staff had access to the full summary document looking at Lake Avenue and comparison uh comparing it to the district data um as well as the qualitative data set. But as a faculty at a meeting, we took a look at our real uh strengths and celebrated um our results and then said what are our growth? And really one um question we said we could do better here was a question about uh students feeling that staff and their peers knew about their traditions and beliefs. Um so we had again a great conversation at our
024faculty meeting and it was really great to see how that conversation then kind of trickled out into the building. our PBIS committee um which really focus uh focuses on positive be behaviors and trying to incentivize that behavior um decided that they wanted to kind of uh put their hand in it. So they said how could we highlight some more holidays in our building. So we just did a um assembly about the Asian Lunar New Year this year um so kids could understand why do we have that day off? What is that all about? what are the tra traditions around that? Our kids even learned a little bit of Mandarin at our assembly. We had a student voices group um that focused on all of their projects. So, uh No Place for Hate, formerly known as
025um we call it LA Voices at Lake. Uh all of their projects were focused on celebrating uh the culture, their culture in uh the building. And then also we look to our friends at Dorothy Nolan who um shared a really great calendar with their staff. We shared it with our staff at the building and we had a couple teachers at Dorothy Nolan actually find readalouds that paired with that calendar um that teachers could use in the classroom. So we met with them as well uh to see if we can collaborate in the future. So, um, it was great to see that it really kind of spread out all in our building. Thanks, Miss Carol. Um, does that go along with inclusive communication if you wanted to talk about that a little bit? Well, let me
026just stay up here. Um, so for inclus inclusive comm Thanks, Dory. Um for the inclusive communication committee uh we really focused on the fact that uh our words uh they mean something. They have a lot of weight and to best function as a school district. We need to communicate and we need to really take a good look at the communication that we have out to make sure that when our community is reading that communication that they feel seen, that they feel welcome, and they feel included. Um, so our first goal was to take a look and see if we could make something simple and concise for our staff here in Saratoga to to reflect on and try to engage um our buildings in communication um around the words that we put out in newsletters uh
027that we are putting in notes home to families, the language that we use on our website and uh the forms that we use. So we started with uh the Boseies inclusive guide as our first point. Um and we said okay where do we want to take this? How could we could make it more concise and we created some guidance around a few categories like identity, family formation, um holidays and traditions, um spirit week and theme days in the building. Um gender identity. I think I got most of them there. Um, and I have a copy if you guys want to to also take a look at it. And we paired it down and we also tried to provide examples that made sense for our uh staff that they would be able to easily kind of
028look at the communications that they send out and use some more inclusive language. Um, at the end of the guide, we tried to remind folks how they can use this guide. like take it to your PLT. Let's take a look at some of the um celebrations we have at school. Are we using inclusive language? Um look at some of the symbols in our school. Is that inclusive and representative of our our kids in our community? The second uh goal that we had was to take a look at all of the district level forms and paperwork regarding the language and um that we found some things that really did need to be updated. Um and we also did celebrate some of the the updated language that we were able to see. So, we had lots of
029folks share about their experience registering um their children in school and um the language not being updated at that point. But taking a look now, there was we were really happy that all of that language was updated. And there was a few things like a uh change in elementary school form that we just made some quick um changes to. The third thing that we wanted to do was to complete an audit of the district website. And that is not one that we were able to fully complete, but we started and we really focused on the family links uh portion of the website to take a look at the language there to see if we could be um add any updates. Um, and we felt really good about that section, but the website is a big
030project and it will continue to be something that we will have to take a look at um, and keep updated as we add to it. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Carol and Miss Dora Lee. Um, I would now like to turn it over to Miss Van Wheelie who will talk um, about the family and community engagement. You said my name right on the first go, which is very impressive. Um, also Andrea's come up. Um, we we didn't actually have a chance to go through this, so hopefully we sink or swim together. Um, but we are on the uh family and community engagement subcommittee. Um we love that our acronym is face um because you know we go out and and our our real um purpose is to connect with the community um which is a little
031bit different from all of the other subcommunities subcommittees which are more focused on working primarily with the students and have an education background. One of the interesting things that happened this uh term this year is that uh the four core members that initially decided to join the face group um none of us had been on the DEI before. Um none of us had education backgrounds and none of us um were connected to people that had previously been on this subcommittee. So, one of the really nice things about that challenge was that it helped us to really redefine what it means to engage with the community, not as from an education perspective, but from the other strengths that the community brings in. Um, and as we all know, children benefit greatly not just from having a
032safe, stable um community at school, but from the environment in which, you know, they go out and live in daily. So that's been more of our focus this year. Um the responsibilities that we came up with um were to have an educational component outreach um to work on our visibility. We have data gathering and system evaluation um transparency um through accountability through accessible documentation and synthesizing data and proposals for external public actors. So one of the ways that we did this was that although we inherited um some projects there wasn't really anything that was set historically for us to come into. So we set up, silly as this may sounds, but the administrative work of having every all the data compiled into one place so that when we have new members come in further down
033the line, those that come in with more of a community perspective that don't have the education perspective have access to what has happened, uh what progress we've made, what failures we've had, and they'll be able to kind of move move forward in in that regard. Um so some of the Oh, did you wanna Okay. Um some of the kind of larger goals in terms of the community outreach um was to develop networking and we did that through No, we've got a little member coming up. We did that um through working with the family mentorship program and the family welcome packets which were some beautiful documents established last year. Um the family welcome packet was made available in multiple languages and the family mentorship program links families who are new to the community to families who
034have volunteered to kind of act in a mentorship uh position. There were 12 families um this year that engaged with the program, but word hadn't really gotten out. So, one of our goals, one of our main goals was to go to the HSAs, PTAs, and spread the word about the program. Um, which was very effective, I think. Yeah, I think everyone is very receptive and we're still making our way through all of the different schools. I think we have a few more to hit. Yes. As well as different community organizations, the center, the YMCA and a number that you have already touched base with. Yes. So, um, so the mentorship program was something that was highlighted at the HSA and PTA meetings. There was, um, surprise and, um, you know, excitement surrounding the program that
035hadn't been there previously. So, um, that was very validating. Um, and by going out into the communities and distributing the welcome packets, one of the nice things about that is that you get the anecdotal data. It's not a phone call. It's not material that's been sent home from the school district. You're reaching out to members of the community who might not have students in the school, but have public faces that can make things available for those families who come into places such as pediatricians offices, the bus and train station, the library, um, uh, grocery stores. So, we've distributed the welcome packets there. Some of the feedback that we got was actually that there was a higher demand for the Spanish language packets than we could meet. Um so we are hoping that it would be
036possible to extend uh the print run um for the welcome packets and especially the the Spanish ones. Um any questions? I think yes. Yes. So those are those are the three that we have. Um I will say that I have been back to a number of the places where the welcome packets were distributed. They have been clearly leafed through and many of them needed replenishing. So that was very positive. Yeah. So we hope to continue to grow the work next year engagement and get more people involved. Yeah. Thank you from the ground up. Thanks Miss Ben Millie and Andrea. Um, last but certainly not least, you'll be hearing from our very own student leaders at Maple A. Um, Miss Jess Yelman has worked very hard with these students to coordinate our student voices event. So,
037we owe it to her and every other um member of this subcommittee for putting on such a successful event. So, I'll turn it over to them. Thank you. And good evening. I'm Jesse Alman. I'm a teacher at Maple Lab Middle School. Um, and I'm also a member of the student voices and support subcommittee for DEI. Uh, this year we continued to really promote welcoming and affirming schools. It's a big, you know, focus for us and with the students um to create positive school culture. And this year we really tried to get more student engagement and student leadership. Um, the students up here tonight have been absolutely incredible to Maple Lab and to a lot of our building goals and work to building positive school culture. And many of them here are even original No Place
038for Hate students from elementary. I think we've got Dorothy Nolan, Lake A, and Division Street represented back from when they were in fifth grade. So, I'm going to turn it right over to our students. Um, these are really just amazing people here tonight and they're going to tell you all about our student voices event and also a leadership opportunity that they got to experience this year. So, come on up. Hi, my name is Alexandria Suarez and I use he him as pronouns. Hi. Hi, my name is Ella Hair and I use they them pronouns. Hi, my name is Maas Mima. I use she her pronouns. Hi, my name is Laya McNav. I use she Hi, my name is Gabrianna Solar and I use she her pronouns. This year, Lake Avenue hosted the third annual student
039voice event. Yay. Students from all AB business came and displayed word for project done throughout this year with inclusion. I have gone to every single one student voice event and this one was definitely the best one yet. All these wonderful students and I have been to student voices at least once. Our student group helped the event by making the event programs, making a commercial, and posters. We worked with the adults in charge to make the event what we wanted it to be. At the event, uh we held a student panel which um Llaya, Alec, Maya, and I were all on. Uh the student panel consisted of three high school students, four middle school students, the four of us, and six high school students, elementary students, I'm sorry, six elementary students. We each talked about a
040positive school connection and then did some Q&A. Each school shared some of the work they were doing, whether it was in a student club, art and music classes, or in the library. The high school students even ran a circle in one of the classrooms. The student voices event also brought in several community organizations. These organizations came and set up displays in the cafeteria. The Franklin Community Center, Camp Stomping Ground, Saratoga Youth Space, Saratoga Children's Literacy League, Sustainable Saratoga, Wen Wildlife, and Create Community Studios were the organizations that attended. It was so fun to talk to the groups and participate in their activities. We also had an ice cream social while while interacting with the community groups. Earlier this year, six Maple A students, including the five of us, were invited to go to the Bose
041Student Leadership Summit. This was a conference to had students from 20 different schools in the area. At the conference, we were able to talk with these students. The speaker helped us think of ways us students can bring ideas to help promote a positive school culture. He also helped us realize that we have a lot in common and struggle with a lot of the same things no matter where we go to school. Since going to the conferences, we have um been working together as a student group and with administrators and we have brought some ideas to the Maple Lab team. We are planning our first bridge the gap meeting at Maple Avenue in June and we hope to help reboot the ally program and have more inclusion and improvements in our school. Thank you for having
042us here tonight. [Applause] Yay. Thank you so much for your support. I would now like to open the floor to any questions you may have and I will direct them accordingly. Board, do you have any questions for our wonderful panel? Matt and then Tony. Uh Trusty Bugerman is not here, so it falls to me to ask about some uh abbreviations that were used. Um Dr. kind of you said PD for teachers and students that professional development. Is that what you meant by that? Great. Uh and then we talked about we talked about bringing the inclusive communication packet to the PLT uh professional learning teams. Thank you. Uh and then we uh in the family and community engagement you talked about the HSA and the PTA. I know what a PTA is. Uh the HSA is
043similar but Right. Yeah. The they're essentially the same thing. the it's the home school association instead of the parent teacher association. Yeah. But um it's it's in collaboration as I understand it with some of the home schools as well. Um students that come in to take testing and that kind of thing. Thank you. Oh. Um, my question is, uh, I mean, I guess it could be for Lisa, um, because you presented on the the, uh, prevent racist and discriminatory language piece, but, I guess anyone on that committee, um, could weigh in. We've we've talked um on this board at the board table and and we've talked um, in past years on the DEIC uh, diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. um about uh I I'll I'll reuse the the word you use, but about barriers about
044barriers um whether whether through confusion or um uh fear or uh what have you. Barriers for um students, staff, anybody um when when it comes to reporting um things like racist and discriminatory language. Um, we've talked about that in in terms of DASA and reporting there, but I'm I'm thinking just more generally. Um, I love that that that was part of the survey that you put out to the high school students. just curious what were some of the um what were some of the key takeaways from the high school students because it it strikes me that that's getting at the that's really what the big barrier to progress in this area is is who do we go to where do we go how do we do it and what are the things that are stopping
045people from being able to do that great question um so those were the questions we wanted to know specifically so hence the additional survey and I would say um confusion about exactly who to go to uh a little bit, but then also um fear of um retribution, um fear of it getting worse. um and questions about what sorts of um results would happen if you reported it. Um and it was investigated. You know, the feedback was wanting it a very um stringent um reaction to that. Um and one of the things that also came up though was the whole um reporting things anonymously. So kids will report things but because of some of the reasons that um I've mentioned do it anonymously and so the investigation into things and follow up is much harder. And
046one of the big pieces um that we uh still need to go back to the high school uh with is a question about well what happens you know what sort of communication goes back to say the the student who reported something um even if it was anonymous. So still working through those things and that's where the ideas to um one of the things that was mentioned also from the students was to start this earlier so that by the time they do get into high school it's just much more part of our culture to to be kinder to each other. Um, and also even putting up visual cues to to help students know um in the hallways or things like that of who to go to or just reminders about, you know, being kinder to each
047other in our language and word choice um that we use. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the board? Yeah, Deb, Natalia, either one. Um, I just want to thank the student leaders who are here um from the the um the annual student voices event. It's great to hear from you and to see you all in person. Um, I my question was about the um community organizations that you invited. Was Saratoga Pride invited just because they've got some newer great programming um going on and it's out of like a great collection of community groups. Yep, they were. And Saratoga Pride was there last year. Um, I wasn't the one who coordinated directly, but I believe there was a scheduling conflict this year. Um, but they did attend last year's student voices. Um, I also
048wanted to congratulate the students and to say that the student voices event was truly phenomenal. Um, I was in the audience with um, Beth, who's not here tonight, and we were so impressed with the panel. I've been so impressed year after year, but this was really so phenomenal. I thought it was wonderful. and I brought my third grader and he wants to be up there. So, it was really great. Well, thank you so much. That was fantastic and thank you for your work all year long. So, yeah, I just would like to take the opportunity because there are 40 uh community members, so uh parents and community members, uh teachers and administrators, support staff, uh that participate in our district committee throughout the school year. Uh we do encourage all community members uh the meetings
049are open uh to be able to come and support and help and participate. Uh as was stated by many uh folks, the highlight of the year is obviously our student voices event. Um and so the the students uh continue to do an incredible job impressing everyone of uh of creating those um you know, welcoming environments and engaging environments for all of our kids. And I I want to give give a shout out to our Maple students uh and Mrs. Alman. Um, this was the first year that Boseies coordinated a regional event. Uh, so there was 20 school districts. Uh, and I was a very proud superintendent that day because the six leaders from Maple Avenue definitely uh stood out uh amongst their the crowd of their peers uh of just showing outstanding leadership. Uh, and
050then I know when they got back to the building, they were just so excited uh to share what they learned and got Mr. Singer I think engaged right away and have already put some great action plans into place. So uh so we have tremendous leadership at all levels elementary, middle school and high school. Uh but that's always been the goal is how do we keep our students being the ones that are leading the charge uh and again taking uh responsibility of their school environment and we have just tremendous students uh who are doing the work. So congratulations everybody and thanks for all your work throughout the year. [Applause] All right, this brings us to our consent agenda. Tony, do we have any modifications? We do. We have one addition uh financial item G1 which is
051um the uh adoption of the canvas of the vote um ratifying both the um election for uh board of education trustees and the four budget um propositions all of which passed. Um Lisa, we don't need to do a separate one right here. I I'm just adding this to the consent agenda. So, um, I move that, uh, we approve consent agenda items E, F, and G as modified. Can I get a second, Natalia? Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. That's unanimous. All right, that ends our business meeting. Is there anyone here wishing to speak to the board for our second public comment period? Oh. All right, seeing none, um we move on to agenda planning. Do we have any agenda planning items? Seeing none, do we have any board member comments? Matt, go ahead. Um
052uh so the arts are critical in creating a a a healthy community to creating individuals who uh understand their humanity and can participate in new ways. So the idea of competitive arts has always struck me as like bananas. But with that said, uh since our last meeting, uh I'd like to congratulate the cast of Legally Blonde, who won the competition at Proctors for uh the best um choreography execution against um an incredible field, I guess you would describe it. Um and sort of won that championship of art. Thanks, Matt. Yes, that is amazing. Other comments? Uh Tony? Uh I'd just like to uh echo uh something Matt brought up briefly uh earlier. Uh Angie and I were lucky enough to to go up to the ASBA uh community service recognition and sit with uh Caroline
053Orur and her family and um uh get got to hear not only about Caroline who is very impressive and and it was wonderful to to hear about her uh her work in the community and and see her get recognized for it but also to see the the um the contributions of just our very diverse uh wishes group and um tons of people coming in. It was the most well attended community service event um that anyone could remember. So uh congratulate Caroline and uh and all the other folks in our wish Boseies who received that award. Wonderful. That was a really fun evening. Um I want to I have a couple comments. I want to congratulate the retirees again and thank our HR department for putting on another really lovely um reception for them. Um that's
054always a really nice event. So that was wonderful. I I do also want to thank our community for coming out and supporting us um the district and um in their votes yesterday. Um it's really great to to have the support and all the things that the district is doing and um just appreciate everybody who came out and voted. I want to thank Mike and his leadership on the legacy 2025 project. It was an outstanding effort and um seeing the culmination of all of these um referendums and all the work that we're doing is truly a legacy and thank you for your leadership on that team effort. Team effort, good leadership. Um I want to thank Bobby Yesco and his office also for a really great budget season. I think this is one of our best
055budget seasons yet. um with the information that was given to the board and um shown in the community. Sometimes it becomes repetitive for our board to hear, but it's always such an effort to give our community the information why we're asking um for any increase that we're asking for. It was an outstanding effort again and so just um great culmination to a year of of work. So um many many thanks to all of that and I'm glad it's over. Um, all right. That being said, um, thank you. Um, can I please get a motion to go into executive session to discuss the employment of particular persons? Natalya and Tony. Any any discussion? All in favor? All right, that's unanimous. Thank you so much.