001all right this calls to order the regular meeting of the board of education for the Saratoga Springs City School District Bobby can I get a roll call trustee AA here truste crackler here truste Amory here trustee Braxton here trustee bugman here on time truste Cagan here trustey Copans here truste lakia here trusty waoic here student representative Juan here student representative prostate here please stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance States can I get a motion to approve the minutes from February 13th let's correct the agenda item to say 2025 Beth can I get a second Tony is there any discussion Matt I just wantan to had a correction to the minutes uh under discussion three at board member comments uh the end uh my concern is not with the removal of the current
002materials for the softball field my concern is that the school have a plan for the eventual disposal of the artificial turf that's going to be installed all right any other discussion all in favor of approving the amended minutes all right thank you that's unanimous can I get a motion to accept this evening's agenda Natalia second Deb thank you um any discussion all in favor thank you that's unanimous and that brings us to our first public comment period on behalf of the board thank you for being here we truly value input from our community and appreciate your engagement we ask speakers and the audience to conduct themselves in a civil and constructive manner modeling the same respectfulness we expect from the students of our district we do not allow comments about specific individual employees students or
003trustees and ask that you be succinct and try not to repeat previous speakers to allow more people the opportunity to address us this first public comment period is limited to 30 minutes um and then after we will open a second public comment period um our first few slots are um made available for students but seeing none I will call our first and only sign up and that is Amy Frappier thank you very much good evening everyone um thank you for the opportunity to speak to everyone this evening um so um I'm here um representing uh myself and also uh a few dozen other parents that I've been talking to who have children at the high school um so um going to talk again about the uh the bathrooms at the high school um the we're
004all very delighted with the curriculum and um kids are getting a great education um but the bathrooms are better but they are definitely still in need of some improvement to reach uh status that we can be uh comfortable with um so the school did a lot over break to fix some of the more pressing issues and the people of the district work really hard to to do this and so we really appreciate that ATT and the kids have noticed so that's really positive um but there are still some significant bathroom closure since the um the winter break and crowding um vaping remains a problem that is deterring some children from freely using the restroom facility some kids are um telling their parents uh that they are um getting dehydrated because they don't want to use
005the bathrooms and so they're um you know that's that's that's not a good sign right that's um certainly not a good coping strategy but um it it says something um um I hate to say it but kids frequently um not necessarily my kid but a bunch of the the kids of other parents have described the bathrooms as often gross and remark on how other schools they visit um have nice bathrooms um what what we're what I want to talk to you about this evening is that um we're starting to be concerned that there have been some kind of like Band-Aid fixes that don't address some of the underlying issues um for example there's a problematic sewer pipe that for years has resulted in like stenches sometimes that require people to close classrooms uh sewer backups
006that happen over and over again um you I think these maintenance issues need to be addressed uh kind of in a serious way as opposed to Band-Aid fixes that require emergency closures of all the bathrooms on an entire wing of the school for multiple days um you know it's uh it's time to get that done um so in in our business you know we wait months to get around to some of the m M and of course we want to show the kids that we care about them um if the maintenance staff don't have time to get to things um maybe they're not enough human resources or if they can't get the parts they need maybe the available funding is insufficient um clearly the high school needs uh more resources in terms of Maintenance operation
007and supervision um so that the bathrooms get better maintained and better supervised um along with that um the supervision is a definite concern especially as it allows um vaping to happen in bathrooms that are not being um overlooked um and the uh district has tried Vape detectors but it's clear that some more resources are needed um not just for supervision but also um to help kids get off addictive nicotine products starting in middle school thank you thank you all right that ends our first public comment period and um moves us to board committee reports do we have any reports tonight John um the policy uh committee met Monday and we wor we looked at a bunch of documents that are still being processed and uh the board will see uh action on those items down
008the road you'll see some stuff on the consent agenda from last time there's some significant policies that we'll be voting on tonight and um the policy committee also had a conversation about a guidance letter from the federal government which went to um educational institutions across the country and I believe Mike is going to comment on this I'll just add that the policy committee is paying attention we support the District administration as it um follows information surfacing from the federal government and the state government and um as it consults the district legal council and as it looks for guidance from nisba for now um Beyond such consultation uh the policy committee is of the mind that there's there's no action for the board to take just to to follow up on that uh so on February
00914th uh the acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the US Department of Education uh issued a guidance letter uh reaffirming that discrimination on the basis of race color or national origin is illegal in American Education institutions uh this letter stated that federal law prohibits education in institutions from using race and decisions pertaining to admissions hiring promotion compensation discipline or academic support uh as John John mentioned our policy committee uh on Monday night um had the opportunity to begin reviewing all of our existing policies and regulations that support creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive School environment where every student feels safe included welcomed and accepted here in Saratoga Springs uh this is a core belief uh that is fundamental to the Saratoga Springs City School District that extends to all students without exception racism
010discrimination and marginalization of any person or groups of people have no place in our school Community uh so this letter indicated that additional legal guidance would be followed up uh and so we are waiting on that guidance uh as well as uh again we'll be in uh uh learning and listening from the New York State education department uh to make sure that our district is in compliance uh with the law so as more information becomes available we'll be able to provide more details uh as uh updates are made available to school districts thanks Mike and thanks John are there any questions for policy Natalia um sorry go um first of all thank you Mike I really appreciate that um second is that um I had sent an email just asking about a couple things in
011the policies and regulations just like wording changes and so I'm wondering when do I when do I bring those up do I bring them up now or when we are approving the consent agenda I why don't you bring them up now okay so um I guess going through them in the this is the 4772 regulation in the second to last paragraph there's information about the student and his her parents Guardians um are notified etc etc etc and shall ensure his her participation is facilitated and so over the past six years we've just done work to switch those his hers over to their and so I'm hoping that we can do that in sorry and regulation 5453 um same thing so there's two lists and in the second list number three same thing so it has
012that his her and so I was hoping that could get switched over to there just to be more inclusive I think that's it let me double check my email I I think doesn't the board need to vote on changes to the consent agenda yes and so I think I misunderstood that you were talking about what's on the agenda for this for this evening yeah okay and you those are the ones that you emailed and John acknowledged yes okay and they have not been made on the copies that are tonight okay so let's just parking lot that I'm sorry for misunderstanding you're correct um and we will make that modification when we um do the agenda we will consider that as we will we have to vote on it yes thank you um any other questions
013for policy any other board committee reports okay that brings us to student reports thank you um at Geer Road Elementary uh they had their annual pasta dinner night on February 7th fifth grade students waited on patrons while the high school fiddle Club entertained they they had their inaugural quiz Bowl on February 12th where teacher and student teams completed competed against each other in front of a live audience folks from box out bullying came as part of PBIS and belt initiatives the drama club perform performance is one Wonderland the musical tonight Friday and Saturday at Greenfield Elementary students came back from break to see a newly decorated Cafe imagine your space added some artwork to the cafe and serving line they're looking forward to Opera Opera Saratoga coming to visit on March 6 this week fourth
014and fifth grade students who signed up will start a free six week after school creative writing club with a Skidmore professor and her students at Division Street kindergarten and special education teachers participated in a letters training on Wednesday letters which stands for language Essentials for teachers of reading and spelling equips Educators with the knowledge and strategies needed to re to teach reading and spelling skills grounded in the science of reading tomorrow promises to be a jam-packed day students will tune in the Dragon Day video to discover which classmates have earned the character education awards for demonstrating patience this month along with the lucky winners of the PBIS raffle prizes additionally students will participate in the student council Olympics where they will engage in exciting team building games in the gymnasium to top off the day
015the fifth graders will host the pasta dinner fundraiser to support their upcoming end of the year field trip at Dorothy Nolan it is great to have everyone back from winter break they extend a huge thank you to the custodial crew for helping clear our sidewalks and parking lots of all the ice from over break the beer team worked to prepare for our shelter and place drill taking place at the end of this week the students and staff will be ready for events such as weather that require them to move away from window doors or large Open Spaces they look forward to celebrating our February good citizens on Friday recognizing students in each class who have been safe respectful and responsible uh at Lake Avenue three second graders learned about change makers in class and decided
016to change to be change makers themselves they wrote letters with the idea to rename the lake have gyms currently called the boys gym and the girls gym the original gym names were um about 100 years old each students shared that the gym names are not welcoming to the student population or any others that may use them additionally they shared some possible names staff narrowed down the suggested names to six options and all Lake have students voted to rename the gyms the blue gym and the white gym Lake held an assembly celebrating the Asian Lunar New Year students learned about the holiday and even learned some Mandarin at Maple Avenue Maple is excited to announce the new and approved PBIS quarterly student Superstars program the superstars program celebrates students who have shown exemplary character traits for
017the second quarter Maple recognized several students who have demonstrated remarkable kindness empathy and flexibility as defined by the district selected students will have their photos taken and proudly proudly displayed in front in the front entrance display case uh finally at the high school congratulations to many of the winner Sports teams for their Championship wins include the Boys Alpine and girls Nordic skiing state champions and girls ice hockey Regional Champions congratulations to Ava agatti Carol Wang and Caitlin Monroe who were announced as National Merit finalists for Saratoga high school there are three of 15,000 students less than 1% of seniors in the country who have earned this High status through their outstanding academic performance counselors and students are presenting about programs like New Visions to stud to the students for program selections for next year come
018join us next weekend for the Musical Legally Blonde performances Thursday through Saturday and uh also I'd like to add regarding the bathrooms that um at least among boys it's common practice to completely avoid the beeing bathrooms at all times during the day uh for all the suspicious activity that goes on in there so thank you all right I got a few announcements as as well as some recognitions uh so just want to uh start off by um promoting uh this coming month uh March as attendance awar Awareness Month across the district and so Jen Warner uh who's one of our attendance officers has been working really closely with all of our building principes and the attendance clerks in each of the buildings uh so something new uh for this year uh that we're trying to
019promote um good attendance across the district District that there'll be inform informative messages uh being sent out to all parents on parents Square uh regarding the importance of daily attendance uh at the ele Elementary level there'll be some best class attendance and some pizza parties uh for uh classroom uh participation as well as uh coloring books for our youngest students that have been designed by our high school students uh at the middle level uh they're going to be creating attendance posters uh they have gotten some um donations from the community for prizes uh for a variety of events that are going to be taking place throughout the month uh first place a mountain bike gift cards pizza parties in the classrooms uh and even at the high school uh they're going to be having students
020work on a video competition uh again promoting attendance habits uh across uh the school district so uh just want to uh acknowledge uh the great work um that Jen uh and all of our our staff are doing in promoting uh student attendance throughout the year but we're going to really focus it in on it for the uh the month of uh month of March uh just to give you the the board update um uh for some of my own professional development and um part of our Le legislative acacy efforts uh this coming weekend is the New York State Council school superintendent midwinter conference which is held in Albany uh so I'll be there all day Sunday and Monday uh representing Coga Springs uh at the conference uh so obviously uh having opportunity to participate in
021some workshops uh and networking with the 700 School District superintendents across the state and then Tuesday is the legislative Lobby day uh where our Bose's advocacy team uh that works throughout the year to engage with our local elective officials uh that we have meetings scheduled on Tuesday uh with various offices uh in the Legislative Office Building uh again to continue our efforts in promoting the legisl legislative accuracy priorities for uh all of the schools in our region um so looking forward to uh Gathering as much information to be able to bring back to the district uh as well as continue to Advocate on behalf of all public schools uh as the state is developing the budget in Albany uh in the important uh weeks that are ahead um also want to congratulate uh and wish
022everybody in the High School drama club uh the best of luck uh as they get ready for the Legally Blond uh musical performance that's March 6 through 8th right here in the high school so tickets are on sale so get your tickets early uh and again looking forward to just another wonderful performance um by all of our talented performers uh and I just want to uh jump on what Matt was saying is also congratulations to uh many of our winter sports teams that are wrapping up their Seasons uh our girls uh hockey team is a repeat state champion so two years in a row uh and if the board remembers that's just a few years in existence and that's a combined team uh there are several Local Schools uh so we have a number of
023our student athletes who compete on that team representing Saratoga Springs our girls n Nordic uh Nordic ski team won their first ever state championship uh which is just an incredible accomplishment and our Boys Alpine ski team uh just earlier this week I believe it's like their fifth I think I've heard AOW and two in a row um State Championship uh Alpine ski team and we've got many uh more teams and individuals that'll be competing uh we're still wrapping up sectional competition but there's also state level competitions uh that are happening uh this coming weekend and the following week so uh good luck uh to again all of our student athletes uh and the wonderful job that our coaches do uh supporting our teams throughout throughout the season uh so next up uh we do have
024one formal presentation tonight and then we do have a budget update uh for the board uh so now it gives me great pleasure uh this is our F our last departmental or program presentation uh for the year so the board has heard from all the building level principles as well well as our directors uh so tonight this is the annual Office of Pupil Services Department um their program review so our director of people Services St Stacy Molton is here with our entire team uh they're all here tonight for to uh show their support and to help provide uh a District overview of the roles and the responsibilities that our people services department does just an incredible job uh supporting all of our students as well as their families uh and then we have guests with
025us tonight for Measurement Incorporated uh that the school district has been partnering with over the last several months uh that we've just completed a multi-tier systems of support as well as a special education uh program review uh that we want to share the recommendations and finding of that great work uh with the board in the community so I will turn it over to Stacy to kick things off thank you for having us tonight um and I wanted to give a special thank you to uh my good friend uh Mr Tiner and his team for switching with us uh so that we could have time to prepare the review you need me to make it a little higher turn it up all right thanks um for us for giving us some time to prepare uh for
026the educational review so that um we could make sure that we have all of the information for you so uh speed things up a little bit earlier for his team in January but I think he likes it so I think he wants to keep this time frame um so anyway thank you all right I always like to start off by showing you the work that comes out of our office uh every year um just as a reminder so the Office of Pupil Services as you can see we cover a lot of really important work um and my team works really hard uh and I know everyone in the school district really works hard but I really wanted to take a moment and just really emphasize the dedication and compassion and uh just focus that everyone
027in the department really has from the clerical to the coordinators the teachers to the teaching assistants AIDS nurses again we cover a wide variety of um supports and services for students across the district uh and it's a real honor to lead this group uh as we go through that so over the years over the last few years we have come to you and we've talked about uh the needs of our students and uh in particular over the last few years we've said that we've seen some increase needs in our students here in Saratoga Springs and I would say that the needs and of the students have changed not only in Saratoga Springs but also in uh New York State and nationally um we've seen an increase need and as you can see from the the
028chart up here here it really is focusing on certain areas to kind of highlight um that our office supports and as you can see through the years uh that increased need and again this year is also trending to um again be up uh as a department we really strive to be proactive and responsive to any concerns and questions from the various stakeholders that we uh have um and work with uh and we really focus on uh assessing the students needs um monitoring the emerging needs of our students and really adapting accordingly as we go through um so we really prioritize um looking at how to best meet each student's needs individually um again through all of these groups that you can see here um on the board and then throughout our school buildings as a
029group we continuously reflect on our work um particularly in the area of special education services and supports our goal is to effectively meet the needs of the students who are currently here with us in our buildings but then also preparing for those students who are going to be coming to us as well in the recent years there has been increased pressure uh on our department to meet the diverse needs of the students that we have within our buildings so this has um kept us busy it's had us engaged in uh critical discussions and um planning over the last few years um this reflection really has led us to ask uh an important question do we in Saratoga Springs really have that many more students with educational disabilities or do we as a district need to
030look at the diverse Learners that we have and perhaps change our approach so with that question uh it really led us to seek the expertise and advice from uh measurements Inc and having them come in and work with us uh in addition to as a district we are committed to continuously reviewing our programs uh the last time that the special education department uh had a review was back in 2018 199 um so it was a perfect time for us to really look at the um special education supports and services within our district as well as looking at uh our district as a whole and how we meet the needs of all students uh so with that I will turn it over to uh Mr job Thomas and His colleague Jennifer Elliot to um re go
031over the review greetings members of the board including student Representatives Mr Patton members of the district and the community we are grateful to have had the opportunity to partner with uh the school district here in the educational review um in our storied 40-year uh history and after conducting 25 200 studies we're always grateful to work in our backyard we hail from uh the capital region right here in Albany New York my name is job Thomas as Stacy mentioned this is my colleague Jennifer Elliot uh we are uh evaluators professional developers but we're also former Educators and former administrators so we have a good sense of the work that is happening here and we're grateful to highlight some of the great things and um point out a few things for continued Improvement our review has been
032codified into a comprehensive report which is going to be made available to you shortly the purpose of our time today is to uh provide you with a high level overview our presentation is organized into the following categories number one we're going to go over the process that we utilized number two we're going to highlight some strengths that were evident and number three we're going to share our findings we're going to break our findings up into two into the two specific areas that we investigated number one into special education and number two into multitiered systems of support and then finally we're going to share some recommendations so we are going to begin with uh the process that we utilized as you can see from the screen this was a three-phased process it started way back about
033six months ago a little over six months ago in September during the first few months what we did was uh listening and learning and we had if you can look over there I think the last part is a little cut off but that's okay we engaged with varying stakeholder groups we met with district and school teams by the way we met with every setting elementary middle and secondary we also met with parents and we also met with students and the purpose of these listening sessions were to hear from stakeholders without specific questions posed around their perspective on how things were going based on those initial stakeholder groups our team went back and we created a set of themes that emerged and then developed a survey which is phase two that survey was made available to
034every single member of the school Community to take and as you can see we had a participation rate about 200 about 26% which represents about 282 staff memb numbers at the conclusion of that survey we compiled our anecdotal data from phase one our quantitative data from phase two and then we went back and we met with every single building leadership team including principles the purpose of phase three was to have those teams confirm add to our findings so that we can have a comprehensive understanding of the practice that exist we feel very comfortable that these findings allowed us to have a good sense of how special education programs and multi-te systems of support were being implemented within the district based on that uh we were able to generate some findings but before we get to
035the findings I'd like to point out a few overall strength that emerged and let me offer for you where these uh uh strengths emerged from again we took the anecdotal data from phase one and the comments that came about and we did a a a an analysis and there were about five themes that emerged the top theme that emerged out of those two phases was the dedication of the staff um as you can see from those quotes that we have uh that first quote up there that you see that is from a parent that was something that was resounding in every single focus group that came up there was a genuine care for students uh the second quote from the middle school student is one of many most of the students that we talked to
036said if there was an issue that there was an adult that they could go to in their building number two Student Success was a another resounding theme we heard numerous accounts of successes wins from students parents and staff about the achievements of students these were wins from academics to positioning students for life in and out of school as evident by that quote over there teachers are great at getting you ready for the next level of Education another theme that surfac was relationships uh staff teachers and parents praise the level of relationship is being cultivated students reported I like my school because there are adults who care teaming and collaboration was another theme that uh surfaced and this was mostly among staff um staff reported that they relied on one another to regularly help meet the
037needs of all students and the final theme that arose was the availability of programming curriculum here the sentiment is that we here in Saratoga Springs City School District is a good District because because of the availability of offerings we'd like to now move into uh the primary purpose uh of our review which is to uh uh dig deeper into special education program and multier systems of support we're going to start with special education I'll have my colleague Jen Elliott who's an expert in this field Take the Lead thank you uh good evening to the Saratoga Community thank you members of the board superintendent Patton for having us here tonight uh I'm really honored to be able to share the special education findings from our review um and as you'll notice they start out strong Saratoga
038School District absolutely has a robust Continuum of services and programs for students with disabilities from everything ranging to in District supports for related Services occupational therapy speech counseling to name a few to fully inclusive programmatic models all the way to your more restrictive self-contained classrooms there is also a rich and robust active parent Community the focus groups demonstrated Rich conversation sharing of of feelings and sentiment there is support there is advocacy there is avenues for sharing concerns as needed alive and well within the parent community here at Saratoga throughout our review we also identified that within special education there is an ongoing annual process for reviewing the Continuum of services that continuously looks at the needs of students with disabilities so that students in Saratoga can receive a free appropriate public education in their absolute
039least restrictive environment but have a Continuum That Remains flexible and responsive as needed there was also demonstrated modalities of communication to stakeholders from your District website to emails to newsletter blasts to text messaging to student Support Services to the procedures and the forms that are all outlined for special education uh the mo modalities for communication are also Rich so there are many strengths in Saratoga related to special educ education two of the findings here we hope to continue to help Garner strength in this area including as you'll see on the slide transparency and process as well as honoring and recognizing that there are shortages of programs and supports for outof district opportunities for students something that is not just unique to Saratoga but something our New York state public schools are experiencing Statewide so a
040couple of recommendations as it relates to those last two bullets in terms of transparency and process as we said there is a robust Continuum of options for services and programs for students with disabilities in Saratoga multiple modalities for communication many procedures and many forms so many of those components are widespread our recommendation comes from the idea that if we can centralize those pieces into something that is an operational operations manual it will enhance the transparency within the special education process within that operations manual the suggestion is to also look at clearly articulating roles and responsibilities for those that work within special education as well as defining explicitly those processes and procedures for referral for identif ification in other areas within special education the goal would be to have a codified operations manual that is publicly
041available to all stakeholders and is looked at and reviewed annually and updated as needed to remain as current as possible think if your Special Education team was not here today and a newcomer group was to come in behind them could the newcomers come in and pick up where the team has left off lastly we want to honor and recognize that while many out of District placements remain stretched and unavailable for students there are some creative ways we can look at the Continuum within Saratoga to make sure that we are meeting the needs of all students with disabilities and two areas that came out within the review for further examination are is the co- te model as it currently exists and the 1511 model and settings what we offer in our comprehensive report is several considerations
042considerations that should revolve around some additional ongoing discussions some of our recommendations have to be made or looked at for what is in the best interest of Saratoga and the students that you serve one additional perspective I do want to mention as you continue these ongoing dialogues is the ashri next to co- te this is a very robust and best practice Continuum option for for it to be a truly effective model that meets the needs of students it does require the ongoing examination of scheduling so that co- te teams do have ample co-planning time as well as ongoing embedded professional development and coaching for those co- te teams to truly feel supported so I offer that as one final perspective as you consider your dialogues and cons continued conversations around special education supports programs and
043Services I thank you for your time and I'm going to turn it back to my colleague job for multi-tiered systems of support thank you Jen okay one of the things that we will share towards the end of our presentation is something that I want to start with any improvements in special education cannot be looked at in isolation special education Falls within a larger Continuum and that Continuum can be best described as the second Focus area of our uh uh review which is multi-tiered systems of support I want to take a moment before we jump into our findings and the reason for that is I'd like to provide a concept ual overview if you will for the PO for the purpose of our time together multi- systems of support is a very complex and misunderstood framework
044if you will so let me offer a a something that could help anchor us that will help in the next few slides multi- systems of support or mtss is not a program it can be a service however it's less about the program and the service but rather about the who can I say that one more time it's not about programs it's not about services but it's about how mtss is implemented how it's operationalized therefore it's about the who therefore the best way to conceptualize this is it's a framework that is about coordinating and deploying the Ser the the the assets the people that a school district or a building has versus those that they don't have it's warranted I'm going to say it one more time it's about organizing and coordinating and deploying the folks
045you have versus the folks you don't have so it becomes a human deployment framework with that understand common understanding let's move into our findings one of the things that was evident in our initial uh uh strengths that we shared a few slides ago is evident right here teamwork collaboration are a are part of the fabric of how schools function here check that's a that's a big deal in order to coordinate and deploy resources number two school-based staff have a comprehensive understanding of the needs of students every building that we went into every teacher that we talked to they talked about children not peripherally not just their academics not just their behaviors but they knew the whole child that is powerful check areas where Saratoga may consider steps for continuous Improvement is number one is our
046number third bullet but number one in terms of areas for improvement is understanding of mtss we found that there was inconsistent understanding around not just mtss as a framework but around implementation number two or the fourth Billet we found that there was organization and coordination but it wasn't strategic as it aligned to the spirit and the letter of mtss so what we find is that strategic coordination of staff and consistency in practice let me offer one example of consistency in practice it's what one building will call a service or a practice versus what another building will call a service or practice okay and the number three or the final bullet here is high level of social emotional needs stay alluded to it earlier in her presentation where she talked about the profile of the student
047is evolving in Saratoga but please rest assured this is something that we see Statewide and nationally as well the needs of students especially their social emotional needs are impacting their ability to learn and the ability of teachers to teach we don't want to get into what the reasons for that are uh we are just coming off the heels of a pandemic but one of the things I do want to not an expert in in post pandemic but one of the things we do want to just articulate here from our experience in working nationally is that the things that we are seeing in schools were evident before the pandemic the pandemic has accelerated where we would have been let's say a decade from now so to Stacy's point about the evolution of the learner profile that
048is something that will unfortunately continue in terms of the social emotional needs and that has significant impact on how a school district or a school building can be responsive to the needs of students based on these things we offer the the the following recommendations as you can see if you remember Jen's recommendation the first rep recommendation really is an operations manual and I want to just articulate this put a finer point on it it's not about what mtss is it's how Saratoga Spring City School District will operationalize it it's not a plug-and play it's what is it's it's a unique approach it's a unique approach to each School District therefore we encourage a vision and mission of what is mtss for us number two what does implementation look and sound like that is prescrip itive
049again consisten consistency is important and then an a a way to assess Fidelity we don't want this to be here's the plan we want to make sure that we're continuously looking at how we are implementing it and how we're coming back for continuous Improvement and that is part of the annual review process which is the third check under operations mtss is not a one-time uh a initiative or or a framework that you establish it's something that is fluid that happens on a year-to-year basis the next recommendation that we have is a process for identifying and responding to students needs as Stacey mentioned when students present with social emotional needs a lot of them there's some mental health components to it but a lot of it is not mental health and special education is not the
050answer to a lot of these things so the district must consider and have conversations about how do we position ourselves to respond respond to the varying levels of need that we are seeing in our schools and mind you these are uh the cross across race and socio economic status and finally one of the things we would encourage is professional development on mtss and implementation and coaching support what is mtss what is mtss here for us in Saratoga how do we implement it and then how do we provide supports to our building principles in our SCH schools to help achieve our goal so this concludes our portion of it and I'd like to tag uh Stacy back thank you all we appreciate your time and your attention right um that's a lot um and I it's
051affirming the need for change because job as you can see is very thoughtful in his delivery he frequently when we would meet and we would talk you would say I'm gonna pause right there Stacy and let you like think about this and get back to me right so it was it was a very thoughtful process and it has us you know really identifying the work that we're doing is good work um and um it affirms what we're doing in many ways so um even prior to getting some of these findings um Bethany and Caitlyn at the elementary level had um put together a task force uh for special education really looking at the needs of our students they received a lot of feedback from principals and teachers um and parents about the needs of our
052kindergarten students so they put this task force together and met for a series of um weeks and really looked at our needs and made some tweaks to our continu of services at the elementary level to best meet or hope to better meet those needs again it's ever changing um Rob and I have met with the scheduling department at the middle school to look at um special education supports and services in the scheduling and um how we can better um work together for those um students for next year and then again next year plan to do a similar Task Force at the middle school to focus on what does the Middle School need for supports um Mary Alice uh Lisa Quinn and myself have worked um with the high school to really look at additional uh
053graduation opportunities for some of our neediest uh students so again we're doing really good work you know I think about the changes and sometimes dayto day you feel a little beat down right because a lot of times people aren't calling my office for great conversations and things there you go guys right a lot of what we do is really heavy and it's serious and we all take it very seriously so when I say thank you at the start of this I mean it um for the people that work with me there are days where we're really trying to build each other up because there's long days of sitting and um talking and really trying to advocate for each individual student and understanding what the needs of each student is um so this has been a
054really great process um another thing that job said throughout um what's the appetite for Change and what's the capacity so I'm generally a pretty hungry person so um I feel like our department has the appetite and is continuously looking at making those changes um within the department to best meet the needs of the students um you know again it's spreading beyond the the PPS Department um to really look at and work with our colleagues in the mtss and how do we support all students um including those with special education needs so um it's really been a great process to look at uh looking forward to pulling some of our documents together and really kind of putting those into an operations manual um but thank you so much any questions thank you first of all so
055much all of you for your incredible work um I did have a sort of a a very basic question I think it's on your second or third slide where you had the the chart of numbers of students who are uh requiring Services um so it's sort of a two-part question the first is can you um I know I know what preschool is but I'm not really sure what all the other ones are and then if you could um like I was also sort of struck at how how rapidly those numbers are growing and and I know you said there's there's no way to know exactly why it's growing but do we have any theories and is there anything we as a a board or as a community can be doing to to help with some
056of these some of the these changes okay so first off I'll um go through the chart maybe I'll go back to it so we can all see it up oh sorry too far okay so preschool again is um our students prior to the age of five entering uh kindergarten so the CSE or the committee on special education is for all students who have an educational disability um and they have an IEP so that is um students aged five through 21 the state has made some changes so students can remain until 22 so those are the students that have uh individualized education plans um and you can see how those have changed over the years the referrals are referrals to the special education committee so the referrals um for general education students when there's a concern
057and they believe that there is an educational disability and they want the student to be referred to our committee for additional supports referral by by teachers or by anyone um so we have a process for a referral um generally those are referred by our um CST teams um generally students go through a process of um AIS supports and interventions to um get to that need um parents can make direct referrals but there really should be a a process for students going through um interventions um and then through that process determining if the interventions have stalled or they're not working I kind of sometimes use an analogy of the Northway and going up the Northway if we've broken down on the side of the Northway and we're not going we need to get something in there
058so we need to do something or if we've gotten off of Exit 11 and we're not progressing up to um Lake George where we're trying to get to we need to um do something so that would be where we would be looking to make those referrals so again you can see um those are the year-to date 24s is um where we are at this point in time when I um looked at that and then the 504 committee um so the 504 is for students so these are considered general education students but they have um a major life impact so these could be students that have um any sort of diagnosis that could um it could be an ADHD it could be um they may need access something that's interfering with their education um uh diabetes
059lot lots of different things that could be so um the 504 is a committee that um meets and puts a plan together to uh make accommodation plans to kind of level that playing field for those students um toh give them extended time or if there's a visual impairment give them um enlarged font different things like that um so again a big growing number of 504s have been for anxiety um and things like that over the past few years that's where the biggest um impact I would say probably I haven't really done but when they come through those are the impacts I think um over the last few years and then bhsn Behavioral Health servic north um that is our outside uh mental health uh agency that we contract with that is breaking down those barriers
060in the walls for families so that they're not having to pull their students out of school or you know commute to Queensberry or La them during the day to get their services that they can receive those Services here within our schools we have clinics in every one of our buildings um that meets the need so again those and we do have weight lists um like actually asked me to today how um we're doing um we have more clinicians than we have ever had and we do are still running weight list not like we were um prior to um getting bhsn but we are starting to um have weight lists again and then mckenny vinto and our unaccompanied youth mcken vento is students that are considered homeless and I just want to clarify there it's not
061homeless like these students are living on the street um could be um but most of the time there are students that may be in um um not stable housing so they may be either doubled up or living in a hotel or something of that nature um so these are again the numbers that we are seeing and again you know in January February when we pulled these numbers they're trending they they are not living with a parent um thank you for that I mean I just wanted to affirm that this is really valuable and um was helpful for us to hear it it sounds like you did amazing work and I just wanted to Echo the kudos to the Special Education team of our district um it's amazing work yes I will Echo that sentiment as
062well thank you for all that you do um with our special education students um I think these numbers pretty important to pay attention to given the the last column the 2425 is not the year end number and it's already trending up and given what we know about our overall enrollment I think this is a very important slide um and important information to keep in mind going into buly um I was wondering about the comment um I love the IDE is about implementation and um not like a a rubber stamp program that you just plug into um and I'm curious you me I can't remember if it was job or I can't remember who mentioned it but that there is a little bit of a variation among the schools and so I can see the benefit
063of having some standardization so that every student regardless of school that they're in is getting a similar experience with whatever Services you're plugging into but I also wonder with that is there some benefit to have some variation among the schools based on you know areas of expertise or um the Professional Services that are available in that school just I wonder if I mean are we thinking like a complete standardization for with and flexibility just wondering about them yeah I could respond to it from a best practice standpoint so the standardization is about common language use of common assessments uh and the expectation around that Joe Thomas if I'm in Caroline versus Geer Road do I get S the same level of services for either my academic or my behavioral needs regardless of what school that
064I'm in so the standardization ensures that regardless of which school that I'm in I am accounted for and there's a response from the system to meet my needs however each school will be unique because Geer Road and Caroline are very different schools so so so does that help a little bit that the standardization is about ensuring that every student's need is met and there's a infrastructure that is supported by the district to help achieve that me uh just two quick appreciations one uh first to job and Jennifer for well for your whole presentation but the thing I I I I mainly uh appreciate you opening my eyes to is despite the fact that um Stacy and everybody multiple presentations over the years on the over my years on the board have made me uh realize
065that mtss is not um specific to special education or pupil service Services it's not specific to uh a certain subgroup of students despite the fact that they do a great job of of of uh telling us that and tier one in particular is is you know is Broad is Broad and and schoolwide districtwide um I still think of mtss in the context sometimes of of special and different um programs and applications in students and I really liked the um the structure or the the defining of it as kind of a districtwide or strategic call to action rather than um rather than the way sometimes my mind puts uh it in a different box um the foundational outlook on Mission and goal for the district is it's really important for me to hear and and so
066thank you very much for for doing that um and then my other appreciation is to you and your your whole team I think there there's lots of types of um educational institutions and models in this country at all levels uh but very few commit to educating kids of every single background and every single ability and disability and public schools are the the the greatest examples of and most successful examples of uh the ones that do and I want to thank all of you for being the main drivers of that function um for this district and this community it's it's from my heart it's heartfelt completely serious and Earnest and one of the main reasons that I uh that I do this job thank you well no one can top that thank you so ditto um
067and thank you so much for being here tonight thank you all for coming out tonight too [Applause] just like to Echo a lot of the sentiments that you heard from the trustees uh first I want to thank Stacy for her outstanding leadership uh throughout the school year but especially you know when we task folks to open up their doors to do a a 360 degree comprehensive program review it takes a tremendous amount of time and coordination and effort uh but the entire team uh that that is here obviously to support our students uh including all of our teachers uh who are at the front line uh providing the support for our students and their families I also want to just um just thank all the stakeholders who volunteered to participate in the process uh job
068and Jen talked about parent participation student participation teachers who were willing to stay after school who came in early before school when we offered for volunteers we filled room 221 223 you know sometimes with 50 60 different people who on their own time came uh to provide feedback so want to thank everybody who participated in the process and then finally just to thank job and Jen for their partnership uh and then helping us navigate through this process uh of continuous Improvement uh and we look forward to um sharing back with you uh the progress that we make uh and again we we appreciate your expertise and and helping us out so thank you very much so we do have uh one other uh just a a brief uh budget presentation update uh as the board
069and the community knows for the last several months um both Bobby and Joe have been uh pretty much every meeting uh providing updates uh as to the process of where we are with budget development um update uh and development uh so tonight we just want to um have us utilized this uh regular board meeting uh and then just so for both the board and the community's awareness uh for the month of March uh we actually meet every week uh so between regular business meetings and then budget Workshop meetings on the alternate uh Thursday nights uh with the goal that by the end of March uh that we have a formalized recommendation to the board uh based on all the feedback that you have provided to us uh that in early April typically is when the
070state is adopting the state budget and we're getting our final school aid runs uh and I believe and they'll be able to correct me if I'm wrong uh we're scheduled to adopt the budget um April 10th April 10th uh so that's kind of our our targeted dat uh but obviously with a lot of information sharing back and forth uh between now and then so we know this is typically our busiest time of year when uh now that we've completed all the program reviews and Department presentations um all things kind of focus on budget between now and the and the 10th of April so turn over to Bobby and Joe so we'll we'll be brief um because I know this is pretty similar to what we saw in January and we're going to be seeing a
071lot of each other coming up um starting next next Thursday um so just real quick discussion items for tonight just the overview of budget process and drivers um 2526 six budget development so where we are in terms of the tax levy uh limit state aid updates the fund balance and reserves projection um as it stands uh today for uh assumed use for 2526 and then just uh a quick uh preview of the preliminary estimated budget Gap and an analysis of the Gap um and then just go over some touchstones of board governance and open items and important dates to remember as we move through the process so I know this is a familiar uh slide for most of you this is just an overview of the ongoing budget development process that really is just continuous
072um throughout the year um you'll note the uh red dotted line in between February and March to pretty much represent exactly where we are today in this process so briefly uh big budget drivers as we look forward to 2526 uh budget development first and foremost being state aid there was a great deal of uncertainty um last year at this time um if you recall the governor last year had proposed to uh kind of rightsize school districts uh to their um formula for foundation Aid whatever the formula was spitting out she was looking to right siiz school districts for us that would have meant a$2 and a half million dollar loss started out this budget process in a very different spot um there was actually a due minimum increase to the foundation Aid um that we
073see on an annual basis so that was a positive thing health insurance and ERS and TRS rates you know those employee benefits are always going to be a budget driver in any given year contractual negotiations of course uh being in uh such a human resourc driven business that's always a big ticket item uh Bose's and CTE uh you know the great Partnerships and program that we offer through our local bosies this is one of those things that we want to make sure we continue to maximize student opportunity um the special education and pupil Services realm I know you just heard a lot about that so I don't really need to get into detail on that utilities and commodities is obviously a big big driver on an annual basis um especially as as uh you know
074commodity prices fluctuate on an annual uh basis new mandates that's something that really I don't think is prevalent for this particular budget cycle but it's something that we are cognizant of on an annual uh basis and then retirements breakage opportunities and open positions like I said being in a human resourc driven business this is one of those things that really presents one of the greatest opportunities that we we can uh you know capitalize on um year to year through really uh capitalizing on attrition and realizing savings through through those uh means so briefly just to review the allowable Levy growth factor versus inflation which is a consideration in the tax cap calculation so just a reminder the annual tax cap calculation is due to New York state by March 1st of every single year I
075actually filed uh the 2526 calculation today um so this is just one of those items within the uh overall eight-step calculation where um we call out the inflation factor or the uh allowable Levy growth factor it's basically capped at 2% so you can see the Orange Line representing the uh annual rate of inflation year-to year um back you know from 2013 to essentially 2018 it was kind of right on where our allowable Levy growth factor was why because the inflation Factor was less than 2% so we were pretty much Limited to the lesser of the inflation factor or 2% and then recently from 2021 to today you'll see the uh inflation Factor well outpaces the allowable Levy growth factor which now is limited to 2% just as recently as 23 we were facing an 8%
076inflation Factor but we're limited to 2% growth on the tax levy so this is one of those things that you know advocacy groups for public schools Statewide have really been kind of pushing you know if if you modify the tax cap calculation at all maybe this is one of those areas to say instead of 2% or less maybe say 2% or greater which whichever those may be so just a brief rundown of the calculation uh you'll see to the left the items that are taken into account when we go through the uh the calculations start to finish the starting point in any given year's tax cap calculation is the prior year tax levy so that's where we start if you look over to the right our current year 2425 tax levy is 99.6 million the
077tax levy based growth factor truly represents economic activity within the district so this was a positive thing as I see it um essentially the local community had a 1.85% uh growth in the tax base which is positive especially as you compare it to uh many districts throughout the state and then we look at our Pilots received during the prior year we have to add that back we remove prior year exclusions which are really those um those Capital exclusions in any given year that when you're in the current year you get to add them back but because it's the prior year you subtract them out that gets you to your PR prior year adjusted Levy and then this is where the 2% or less figure gets baked into the calculation so basically this year like I
078just went through in the prior graph we're limited to that 2% um because that is the lesser of the CPI factor or that 2% we add back pilots for the coming year um so this is anticipated what we'll receive in pilots in Le of taxes um that provides our tax levy limit and then here is where we get to add back the coming school year exclusions which is essentially um the local share for Capital related debt so all told this brings us to our maximum allowable Levy of $1 103.5 million which is just under uh $4 million year-to-year increase um and that equates to a 3.97 uh percent increase year toe so this is just summarizing that giving the uh percentage and the dollar amount and this is just a brief history uh looking back
079over the last eight years of what the levy increases year-to year have been so you know I think this is pretty much right on par with where we've been over the historical term uh that 8-year average is 3.18% and just to briefly review the executive proposal as it relates to state aid so as I had mentioned this year we started off in a very different position than where we started off last year in terms of foundation Aid so you'll see the growth of foundation Aid year to year of $366,000 or 1.47% if you pulled up a state a run you'd actually see a growth of 2% state aid but as I reviewed in January there's always a deduct if you have a deduct for the local cost of educating certain students whether it be um
080your homeless or uh incarcerated youth that amount is pulled right off of the foundation Aid amount that we receive so because I like to employ more conservative budgeting practices as it relates to the revenue pieces I'm essentially taking the deduct out of that 2% that the governor has built in on on a year-to-year basis so that's that's really why that 1.47 is less than two for the foundation Aid category and then you'll also notice that building Aid is red uh in 1.8 million um and that really like we went through last time is because of the building Aid uh projections that we're looking at and the fact that we're in the middle of a capital project right now the state spits out a number that they know of things to be true today based on
081what's been filed with the offices we know that because of uh ongoing Capital Project work and outstanding filings that need to be made um in uh June of 25 and then June of 26 we actually will be receiving about $4.88 million in building Aid which then changes our our year-to-year uh state aid projections from having a loss on an annual basis to now looking at um essentially a 4.13% increase year toe or just over a million a half dollars this is probably a little bit different uh for most of you who've seen uh the historical slides about the use of fund balance and reserves in past budgets but what this represents is the uh budgetary allocations um for fund balance and Reserve usage on the revenue side of our budget so you can see 1920
082right up through the projected 25 26 and where we've been each of these categories are broken down more specifically so the beige or orange that you're looking at is the retirement Reserve so essentially on an annual basis what we do is we take a portion of the established uh ERS retirement reserve and we commit that to uh the revenue side of the budget and then the yellow bars is representative of the um unassigned fund balance that we will then utilized to um essentially plug the remainder of existing gaps in any given budget year and then this is used to balance that budget and what does the green represent well the green essentially represents the amount of fund balance that we then move over to the capital fund to help support the ongoing Capital Project work
083and the other key portion about the use of the fund balance and transferring it to Capital is over the long term it reduces the necessity to actually then Bond those dollar amounts which which would then uh generate interest and future Debt Service payments so this is really a way to put our fund balance to work in in the form of reducing um debt and capital expenditures that we would otherwise have to bring on if we didn't have the fund balance on hand so this is just a little bit different presentation that we've seen in the past and I'll also call your attention to the fact that there is from 2425 to the projection 2526 numbers a decrease from 800,000 to 600,000 for the retirement Reserve usage and a decrease from 8 8.4 million to 6.5
084million of the unassigned fund balance and that really is representative of our current fund balance and Reserve plan and the fact that the attempt right now is to step off of these amounts and uh the necessity to use those identical dollars to balance the budget whether or not we get there at the end of the process Still Remains to be seen but that's how things are represented today thanks Bob uh so Bobby talked a lot about the revenue SI so I'll talk a little bit about the expenditure piece here so we always start off with what is our current budget so the budget that went out to the voters last May was 148 .7 million man these numbers look small from this far away who thought it was a good idea to stand over here
085um so below that is so we always talk about the rollover budget and it's basically we take our current year budget and then what do we expect our expenses to be to offer the exact same program um so obviously we have contractual obligations so we have that 1.9 uh almost $2 million for salary uh benefits I know we've had this conversation quite a bit and we've talked about it this is a major budget driver but obviously benefits uh health insurance in particular uh has skyrocketed across the country so we're seeing this everywhere uh but this is a pretty significant increase of about 3.7 million and then you see some modest reductions in contractual and bosis so sometimes that can be uh confusing because typically we see everything year-over-year going up um Bobby and I have
086been working on looking specifically at our bosies and other contractual pieces in the budget to see are we budgeting year-over-year for certain services that we are no longer using um so we are able to make some reductions throughout um and we think we can comfortably make these reductions without impacting any existing programs at this point uh so you're seeing some of those reductions there obviously you have your debt Service uh whether it be for uh our our bus purchases but also capital Project work um the in fund transfer that was that green piece that Bobby was just talking about um on our uh our fund balance and then the materials supplies equipment again modest increases year-over-year when we compare this to the revenue side uh again this is kind of a rehashing of what Bobby
087just talked about but you have our original budget the 3.97 is the tax levy uh so that's 3.9 million increase the state aid increase is about 1.5 million you see some modest increases there with with pilots and also with our interest earnings and then that last section in there the fund balance and reserves all those pieces um again balance us out to about a preliminary budget gap of about $4 million so we've seen worse uh but we certainly have some work to do um I did want to just again kind of reiterate what Bobby had talked about with the fund balance and reserves plan piece so those last sections in there because originally when I looked at this I said kind of hard following the bounce and ball here um so that reduction of that
088200,000 like Bobby had indicated that's the retirement Reserve so again it's the step down from the 800 down to the 600,000 and then that reduction of that 1.9 million in uh unassigned fund balance again that's that's steep down on that orange bar there and then lastly that 400,000 or excuse me 4 million uh is going to be for the transfer to Capital so you look at this and go all right well the preliminary budget Gap is 4 million you got that four million for transfer to Capital so doesn't that solve it there well all my algebra students know that on both sides of the equation we have the four million as our revenue and four million as our expenditure which is going as a transfer to Capital so that cancels itself out so really that
0894 million is for other items that are up there so obviously we're talking salary benefits our major increases our debt service but then also don't forget on the revenue side you're seeing reductions to those reserves reduction to the unassigned fund balance so those things kind of counteract each other and now we're getting an actual gap of about million so we always talk about the board decision points so the tax levy as Bobby indicated that's already been filed at this point uh so we seem to be pretty steady there uh the use of fund balance and reserves again I highlight this as orange because I believe this is certainly something that's still in flux we're pretty confident um but again there's there's definitely movement that we could have there and then the one that we spend
090most of our time with over the next four to six weeks is going to be the managing programs and Staffing are there areas where we can make reductions that's going to have limited impact on our instructional programs so we've talked about this our plan reductions so uh we had mentioned about the social worker I believe the mckin vento social worker Grant expiring I've mentioned to the board The First Time March 30th 2023 so given you notice that this was going to be falling off um and again we've talked about this so mckin vento Grant is expiring so that there is one social work as part of that Grant so we have to be aware that that is coming off a behavioral specialist we had which was part of carryover money we believe that this may
091still be able to continue with some carryover money again not impacting the budget this is happening outside with with federal dollars um and then we had a math coach that we had originally cut from the budget and then we had a late uh after the budget was already passed we had a late resignation of a high school teacher we were able to then kind of move that back into extending that math coach out for another year but again we want to try to capture that position back so again that was a plan reduction for this budget cycle and then we also had a late addition of a kindergarten teacher one that was not originally in the budget but we added that after the budget had been adopted so again we have to keep our eye
092on that as well so we've had some long conversations over the past few months um and the whole Focus has been on prioritizing what are our budget goals so here are a couple of things that have come up as top items for us um the first one up there that 04 uh FTE for an enl English as a new language teacher um we currently in the budget have a 6 position that we've always budgeted through Bose uh bosis was not able to provide those services for us this year so we had to get a 0 teacher that we put through the general fund so the point six was there in the budget the point four was out of fund balance so we need to put that in the budget to have a whole position moving
093forward so again we want to maintain that's above that dotted line is our current reality uh the 1.0 FTE social worker that's the McKinny vento grant that I said was falling off so now we had to make a decision do we get rid of this position or do we continue it if we continue it has to be part of the general funds we have to incorporate that into the budget so if you're trying to keep score where this position is um it's kind of spread across the district but mathematically you're looking at the0 five that's at Caroline and the 0 five that's at Lake a so again we want to maintain what our current reality is so we' be putting that into the budget now just below that dotted line is a new ask so
094we would like to bring Caroline and Lake a up to a full-time social worker having kind of an even distribution across the district so again that has risen to the top priorities for us so again don't forget we're still dealing with a $4 million budget Gap so this doesn't help that um but again these are budget priorities so we want to make sure that we're keeping our focus on that and then making reductions on things that might not be our priority or no longer a priority so every single board meeting since the fall you've been seeing uh in in the uh the minutes all of the different R uh resignations or retirements for the upcoming year so we look critically at every single one of these and through lengthy discussions for all these positions listed
095here we've highlighted a few that we believe we can either uh because we've changed um some of our programming or the needs have changed for our students or simply based on enrollment decline we believe that we can capture these positions better so this is the reading teacher at darthy Nolan a 1.0 social studies teacher at Maple technology teacher at Maple and then there's two additional kindergarten sections so that first one I have it listed there as 21st section that was that late ad so that would naturally be coming off and because no surprise our enrollment continues to decline there really is no justification to continue to expand or have th that many uh sections of kindergarten so we'll be looking to make another reduction so for next year you'll be looking at 19 sections of
096kindergarten so if you look back at our budget Gap again we were talking four million if I bring in so you're looking on the left hand side there if I bring in that social worker from mckin vento uh bring in the new social worker to make Lake and Caroline whole and then that point4 enl teacher and then back out that social studies technology reading in those two kindergart position positions that brings us to the new grand total of 3.8 million so again we're trending in the right direction there's still a lot more work for us to do um and that's what the work's going to be over these next four to six weeks all right just uh to review our um overall budget piie by an object breakdown so it's no secret to all of
097us here that a majority of what the budget supports is people so just shy of 76% is salaries and benefits and then we have equipment contractual our tuition items textbooks bosis which is a bigger ticket item supplies and then Debt Service which is essentially something we're locked into so from equipment right through supplies you can see how small of a discretionary pie exists outside of just the human resources that we have um that really make up a bulk of what that budgetary Pi is so that's one of those things why um we focus so much on the the positions under review because any budgetary savings really that's where the bulk of it will live is within the position so what we've talked about in the past of you know trying to rightsize the budget figures
098more in line with with actual expenditures it becomes increasingly difficult knowing that so much of the actual spend is within such a small portion of the overall pie and similar to what we've done in past years um we're going to be putting out a bus Bond proposition to support uh the acquisition of 13 vehicles um you'll notice we have uh eight 70 passenger buses two 64 passenger buses with we wheelchair lifts and then uh we also have two suburbans to support uh the facilities Department to um really just uh dispose of some aging facility fleet vehicles that we've got and then an additional Suburban uh for student transportation purposes so total cost uh being just a little over $250,000 um and then looking at our estimated Transportation Aid and I added an additional caveat this
099year because with any debt and with any financing that you bring on you do have interest costs that are also associated with that so in you know in the name of transparency I want to put forth the fact that some of these estimates include interests so um we will be receiving uh approximately $864,000 back in transportation Aid and again this does support the interest expense that's associated with this as well leaving a total local share of about 1 .5 million so on an annual basis when we amortize this over a 5-year period it's just a little over 296,000 at 296 588 per year and then just some board governance items I know um you know for the board members whose terms are expiring you're well aware of this um we have three vacancies coming up
100terms beginning July 1st of 25 and here's some key campaign information and you can uh scan the QR code um which will bring you to more uh more information on nisa's website and some open items um you know as Joe had mentioned the staffing needs and projections are still a big one the bosei service requests really have just started to roll out I'm hoping that we'll be able to do a little bit more work uh roll up our sleeves on the Bose's budget and potentially reduce some line items in there um C curriculum renewal is another big ticket item that we have our eyes on as well as capital planning which I think we're all um you know well aware of and then just with the property tax levy um I just want to reiterate
101the fact that the deadline is March 1st but that does not mean that any changes cannot happen after March 1st so that's always one of those big ones where I don't want you to think that I filed it preemptively before notifying you all what the calculation was it's just I want to meet the statutory deadline um and we can always unsubmit and modify and then you know at the time the budget is approved whatever Levy is built in that budget approval is what the levy is that we'll be putting forth and then here's some important dates as we move forward on the calendar um like I had mentioned the tax cap was due to the state on March 1st that's done our budget workshops will start uh next Thursday and then as we move through
102March and into April ail um these are really when the deadlines start and then the publication of Public Notices are required to be provided uh our budget hearing on May 8th and then ultimately the budget and capital project vote for uh the Legacy 2025 project on May 20th any questions uh could you just go back to slide 18 which is the 2025 2026 budget Gap analysis post uh the the section that shows uh pre and post absorbing the positions under review the the the version here that I was looking at forward didn't have the this there yeah I want to see the bottom part yeah the bottom part wasn't on oh the bottom got cut off for you sorry about that so that the bottom part is the 3.81 two is after factoring in the
103absorption of the exactly slide before it yep so essentially it represents the elimination of five positions that are no longer necessary and bringing on um I guess 2.4 so 3.8 is what we're at now okay all right thanks you're welcome mat I have well guess one thought and one question the the thought is we're like 28 months away from having to present a budget that includes electric buses I noticed there were no e buses on this budget is that are you all thinking about maybe adding a test ebus to see how it goes at at any time before the deadline we're still deliberating it and analyzing you know the current situation um just the additional costs that will have to come with infrastructure needs um I know there's a lot of chatter at the state
104right now um so I think you know potentially waiting things out and seeing what the direction might be um is probably prudent at this point rather than jumping you know head first right in um and I've mentioned in the past you know should we start the transition to then purchasing and making these Investments with the EVS we're going to start small you know we're not going to start with our major buses um you know those probably Suburban type vehicles or Vans you know Transit Vans things like that so short answer no not for student Fleet Transportation purposes but it's definitely on the radar um and I think you know for appropriate planning and making sure that we meet the uh State mandate deadlines uh it it it's only prudent to start thinking about making the
105uh eventual transition and then my my other question was um the the reason we set the levy at 1.02 instead of the full I'm using the wrong term sorry the tax cap rate is two we set it at 1.2 I think the allowable Le growth factor thank you that that's what I meant to say y um so we have some wiggle room in terms of Revenue as well as like as you're looking to make these the the the cuts and absorptions like we do have some wiggle room in terms of Revenue is you mean related to the tax cap yeah um no yeah I mean the calculation it's pretty specific the item the variables that are within that calculation the one portion you're talking about when the tax cap was first enacted it was it
106was publicized as a 2% property tax cap I always like to present it that way because it's not a 2% property tax cap it's one factor of the calculation and after you do the calculation to get to your adjusted tax levy from the prior year that's the only place where the allowable Levy growth factor comes into play where it's 2% or less of the inflation Factor so it's inflation versus the allowable Levy growth factor which is always 2% and whichever of those things is less that's what we have to use for that portion of the calculation re but the allowable percentage is two at this point right because the the inflation rate is much higher the allowable is two and that's the ceiling it and that's where we are this year yeah we're at the
107ceiling because it look like because there was a slide that showed us at 1.02% at that when you had the the the O2 is the 2% thank you yeah and we'll go over that in detail at the board Workshop sorry that was just that was a math question I was having I didn't realize I was having a math question but I was thank you Tony a comment and a request uh I want to take issue with a technical point at one point it was the The Reserve uh Reserve history and you called the color of something beige and then you said orange and it was hardly orange it certainly wasn't beige I just sort of ratted my confidence in the whole thing but uh um as you all get serious as you get close to
108the sort of really tough budget gap which is a little down the road from now because you're going to do some good work um I think it's helpful if you come to us uh with some different scenarios that show us different ways we can get there and you you you'll recommend one of them I presume but but if if we're going to have real choice if those decision points are really ours we need to say multiple ways to get there before we're at the 11th Hour that we've done more of that some years and less of it other years and so we'd love to see uh different ways to to solve the budget Gap as as we work through this down the road that make sense thank you y um hello that was great uh
109thank you for all that information I have a question about the planned reductions um is is enrollment going way down at Maple and that's why that's where that's the school that seems to be getting hit the most there and then I did notice that one of them is in a core subject area um and with the whole seal of Civic Readiness I just wasn't sure if that was taken into consideration so just curious about enrollment at Maple is that a factor I it's it's always a factor um we're this is without any sort of transitions that we know could happen um you know there's still the window that needs to needs to go out um and there's definitely shifts that are going to occur um within you know the Staffing levels these are just things
110that we wanted to show based on you know content area where looking at all the positions that we have spread across the district we're comfortable knowing that there's appropriate FTE um to be able to plug any holes that may exist from stepping off of these positions just to give some perspective um the maple social studies position is a maple retirement but it would be reallocation of High School staff to the middle school so it's a FTE reduction overall but it's a middle school retirement we'd fill the Middle School position with reallocation staff from the high school and then the current technology teacher position is an open position uh that we filled late in the summer uh and we have a uncertified teacher that's helping us get through this year um so two two of those
111positions at Maple actually the social position would be replaced but it's going to come from a a high school social TI teacher okay so then I have a followup from that how does that affect like elective in programming and college level courses at the high school we we'll get into all that at the workshop to again we just wanted to give you a first blush look at of all the current resignations and retirements that we're aware of um these were the five FTE and then kindergarten is just strictly based on enrollment that we right now the capital region Planning Commission anticipates that we're going to have 367 kindergartens uh students entering into the district next year so again looking at sections uh that would be 19 sections required so from the current 21 it would
112be reduction of two um and then we can go through the specifics of the other positions and then again uh over the next several weeks we're just going to have to continue to look at all positions that we have available uh to see if there's any others to be considered any other questions just just a as a kind of an fii for not only the board but for the community uh who may be following along so as I mentioned earlier we're going to be meeting all four Thursdays for the month of March so March 6 and March 20th those are considered board workshops so those workshops will be hosted over the administration building in rooms 221 223 and we'll start those workshops at 6:30 um and again those are open to the public uh 6:30
113p.m. on the 6th and the 20th and then our regular business meetings will be here in the high school ta are on March 13th and March 27th uh and those are 7 o'clock starts for the regular business meetings here in the High School teaching Auditorium so uh pretty much uh again the agendas the themes will be all things budget development over the next four meetings all right all right um that brings us to our consent agenda Tony do we have any modifications no we do not so I move we approve tonight's consent agenda items e f and g in their entirety can I get a second and then we'll do a discussion right and then we'll add it in the discussion you're okay Natalia seconding now we can have our discussion and add um sorry
114I can't tell it's on um so I am just looking under the policies and regulations that are up for the the file names they first vote but I do believe that they adoption and so um I had emailed John as policy chair after the last meeting just to say um you know over the past few years we've worked hard to make sure that our policies are inclusive of all of our students and so I'm asking that for regulation 5453 R um that under number three so there's two sets of lists but in the second list number three that his SL her be changed to their and then for regulation 4772 are there in the second to last paragraph there are two incidences of that um and so for both of those his SL her to
115be replaced with there just to be in line with uh with the rest of our policies so I'm gonna take that as a motion yeah thank you um can I get a second Matt is there any discussion on that okay um all of those who approved for that modification thank you that's unanimous and now we'll move back to the agenda and approve our um amended agenda so any other discussion all in favor thank you that's unanimous again and Bobby you got all those details okay thank you one of the things that uh the board has approved is the 202 5 2026 school calendar which is always a hot item off the press uh so we'll make sure that we'll communicate that out uh not only to all staff uh but parents and community members who
116are all already looking ahead to next year's uh vacation schedule so um and that's in line uh with our Bose uh calendar as well all right that ends our business meeting and brings us to our our second public comment period is there anyone wishing to speak to the board all right seeing none we move into agenda planning are there any agenda planning items Deb here we go hi um I just wanted to report that Matt Natalia and I would like to propose um that the board consider at our next meeting a resolution that we've drafted affirming our support for every student in in our district um the resolution is in response to recent Federal Executive Orders and Communications targeting transgender students and immigrant youth as well as other important educational policies um the resolution reads
117as follows it's titled affirming our support for every student um the Saratoga Spring City School District Board of Education reaffirms its unwavering commitment to providing a safe inclusive and highquality education for every student recent Federal Executive Orders and Communications targeting transgender students immigrant Youth and important educational policies are antithetical to the principles of access and inclusion that Define our schools and our community New York State's Constitution guarantees a system of public schools quote wherein all the children of the state may be educated end quot this commitment was strengthened by Landmark Federal legislation such as the elementary and secondary Education Act the individuals with disabilities Education Act and the mckin vento homeless assistance act as well as New York State's dignity for all students act known as Dasa and our constitutional Equal Rights Amendment We Stand
118firmly against any actions that undermine this tradition or threaten the dignity and rights of our students to that end we affirm the following commitments first dignity and education our board will create and support policies that uphold the inherent Dignity of every student we reject intolerant rhetoric or actions that undermine each and every students's right to a free and fair education next is commitment to diversity equity and inclusion we reaffirm our support for this District's policy and regulation 0105 titled equity inclusivity and diversity in education we we will continue to support our Educators as they provide age appropriate accurate and Equitable education in our schools we will uphold New York state laws safeguarding vulnerable populations and will not comply with directives that violate civil rights protections support for immigrant students we affirm that every student has
119a right to an education regardless of immigration status as determined by Supreme Court ruling plier versus doe from 1982 We Stand by our superintendent's commitment to follow New York State guidance on these matters Law Enforcement Officers may not question students on school property except under very specific conditions support for transgender and gender expansive students our schools will continue to be environments where transgender and gender expansive students can safely Express their authentic selves without fear of discrimination or harassment we affirm the 2018 Dasa Amendment and will respect students chosen names and pronouns we will ensure their right to use facilities and participate in activities and sports consistent with their gender identity call to action the board calls on families Educators staff students and all members of our community to join us in affirming these commitments to
120provide a safe inclusive and highquality education for every student together we can ensure that each child in our feels valued respected and empowered to succeed finally be it resolved that this resolution be included in the official minutes of the Saratoga Springs City School District Board of Education meeting March 27th 2025 and then a copy be presented to Dr Michael Patton and all District employees and made visible on the district website so that's the the content of the uh resolution and we really see it as an expression of support for Educators staff and families and especially superintendent Patton as he leads the district in these challenging times um I'd also like to emphasize that this is not a political issue of Democrats versus Republicans but rather it's a statement of Bo values and commitment that seeks
121to affirm existing laws and policies intended to uphold the dignity and rights of our students the resolution actually draws on language and ideas found in recent press releases and official statements of the New York State education department the Office of the Attorney General and the New York State School Board Association and we've included the links to those relevant documents as well so we'd propos discussing the resolution of our next business meeting March 13th and then voting um on March 27 thank you thank you for reading it um aloud and also providing us with um a copy we will discuss it at our next meeting are there any other agenda planning items all right um any board member comments uh Natalya and then John um I have two the first is a thank you to Northshire
122um bookstore one of my favorite places in Saratoga that donated books to our District um that's really wonderful they are specifically um for promoting student attendance at the Saratoga Springs High School in line with what Dr patent outlined as our goal for March um the other one is to note that geyser Elementary um had submitted a proposal um Dean talked about this at the last meeting um that had submitted a proposal to the participatory budget committee um which is a city committee and they were one of the groups that was chosen to get a grant um and it's $1,933 which will be used to build a pavilion um for Outdoor Learning at geyser Elementary um and I just think that's really wonderful and a great collaboration between our city and our schools I was just
123going to say thank you to Matt um you offered a comment about the uh bathrooms and we don't ever want to put you on the spot and we don't ever want to ask you to speak for all students but anytime we hear a student perspective from the ground what it's like to be in the schools about anything it is most welcome so thank you any other board comments I just want to applaud uh superintendent uh Patton's leadership uh and frankly the board's support of the two week uh winter vacation next year well done making that happen and thank you all right um seeing no further B board comments um can I get a motion to adjourn Matt and Tony all in favor all right thank you