001Yeah, there's a tray of snacks back there. Somebody help. Can I get a different one? All right. Okay. Good evening everybody. Um we'll call to order um this regular meeting June 10th of the Sority Central School District School Board. Um couple of housekeeping things. Designation of exits are we have one on each side of the building room, one at the back. Uh Virginia, would you do roll call, please? Sure. William B here. Belosa here. Emerson Hall here. Michelle here. Tinai here. Carol Keller here. Michael Meyer here. Jeffrey here. Timothy Wells here. Okay. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. Where's the flag tonight? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, Dr.
002Ersk, our mission and vision statements, please. That one. Yeah, you can. So, here in Sories, we provide equitable, engaging, inspiring, and holistic experiences that support acade support success and empowerment for students, families, and community in a diverse and changing world. Our vision has become a beacon of educational excellence where every individual is inspired to achieve their fullest potential. Okay, first item on the agenda tonight is uh approval of minutes from our normal May 6 meeting and then the budget approval meeting of May 27th. Do I have a motion? By Mr. Wells, second by Miss Keller. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Um public recognition. So public recognition is um a recognition is a fancy term for public comment. So this is um when people in the audience um who are here are able to
003address the board. Um we have two public comment sections. I'm going to reverse them tonight. Typically the first one is for just what's on the agenda and then the second one is for general. I'm going to make the first one general. I don't think we need a motion for that or anything. Um, I'm not going to read the paragraph, but these are the same rules for anything. So, when you, anybody who wants to address the board, please come up. This is still a little a new scenario here with the table. You're able to either sit or grab the mic and stand. Most people stand. Please sign the sheet. Um, and then state your name, your address, and then your topic. So, Jane Doe, 123 Main Street, budget. Okay. There are um you already passed the
004budget. I think I know the topic that most people want to address and that's the SRO. Um you can comment on anything you want as long as it's respectful. There's going to be no attacks on anybody on community members, members of the town board, members of our administration. If your comments are around the support of our current SRO, go ahead and say what you want to say. Okay? because and this is these are the general rules anyway. One more thing, two more things. There are we allow three minutes. Nobody's going to stop you at 259 or 301. If you start to run long and there's a lot of people to talk, I may just kind of glance at my watch and kind of say wrap it up. The other important thing is is we are
005here to listen. We'll listen to everybody. And that's the important thing. It is a comment section. It is not a Q&A. The board is not going to answer questions. We're not going to get in a back and forth discussion. It's a comment section. We will take if there are questions that we capture that people really want answered, we'll capture them and then we'll figure out if it's something we can answer if it's not a personnel issue or things like that. Okay. So, I just want to set those expectations. Okay. Thank you. And I people were like, you're going to have people showing up at the board tonight. I wish we had the people at this many people at every board member. I think an issue in our school district in our town is apathy. And
006I like when people have passion about something and that's what we have here tonight. So, who would like to go first? First, right? I'm Barbara. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure. Yeah. Turn the You want to turn the mic? You can You can hold the mic. You can take it right out of that holder. Yeah. Slide it towards you. Yep. People online. Yeah. I would take it right out. Yeah. There you go. Online can hear you. That way online can hear you. So, this is a letter to all of you from me and 6 and I don't even know what we're up to. Over 650 concerned people that are in this district. Dear board members, I write to you on behalf of the Southern Central School District community and over 650 concerned petitioners to respectfully request that
007school resource resource officer Travis Winshell be reinstated in his current position at Soures High School. For the past eight years, Officer Winshell has earned the trust and respect of our students, the staff, and these families. He has consistently provided a sense of safety, guidance, and professionalism that has made a meaningful and lasting impact on the school community. His steady presence and relationships with students foster mutual respect and accountability, qualities that are increasingly rare and essential in our current school environment. Recently, the community became aware through informal channels of a disciplinary incident involving a student and officer Winshell. To date, there has been no clear or official communication from the district district regarding this matter. This absence of transparency is deeply concerning, especially giving the district's routine outreach on much less consequential topics. When a longstanding
008well- reggarded SRO is suddenly either removed or reassigned without public explanation, speculation inevitably grows and with it community distrust. While we recognize the need for confidentiality in student matters, what has surfaced suggests that officer Winshell was called upon by a staff member to help manage a student who was behaving in an unmanageable and disruptive way. By all accounts, he successfully deescalated the situation and the student was sent home for the remainder of the school day. Discipline remained in the hands of the district. The SRO's role was to support a safe resolution. Isn't that precisely what we ask of our SRO's to step in when situations escalate to ensure safety and to enable students and school administrators to do their job without further disruption or danger. It is troubling to think that exercising professional judgment in
009a moment in a moment of crisis, doing exactly what the position requires, would be met with disciplinary consequences, let alone the potential for removal. We are left to ask important questions. Has a student been held accountable under the district code of conduct? Are SRO's being undermined for doing the very job they were placed in our school to do? And what message does this send to the greater student body in our community? Beyond this incident, many many parents and staff have expressed concern over broader issues of discipline across the district. Reports of good students being reprimanded while while chronically disruptive individuals are allowed to act with impunity are growing. incidents of students physically confronting staff, using vulgar language directed at staff members, and even engaging in behavior that threatens the environment are the learning environment, excuse
010me, are alarming. In some cases, students are allegedly shielded from consequences due to fear of litigation. It has also been revealed disciplinary referrals are being combined or minimized to downplay the gravity of what is truly happening. We urge you, Superintendent Ersig, to and this board to take these concerns seriously. The breakdown of order and discipline coupled with the removal of a trusted safety officer places our school climate at much at a much greater risk. We respect re We respectfully request that officer Travis Winchell be reinstated and retained in his current capacity at the high school for the well-being of our students and the greater safety of our school community. The undersigned members of this community stand united in that request. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Hello everyone. Oh yeah, just push it up. There you
011go. Hello everyone. The goal of a school is to impart knowledge, foster skills, and support the overall development of individuals. preparing them for future educational pursuits and careers. A school should be a place where students feel safe and are supported. A school resource officer is a sworn law enforcement officer assigned to a school to enhance safety and security. They act as both a law enforcement presence and community resource, working to build relationships with students and staff and the wider community. Officer Travis Winchill goes above and beyond in every part of his duty. He makes sure that students are safe, supported, and prepared for their futures. He personally provides students with resources that Central School District could never provide. Before I continue, please let me tell you a little bit about who I am. My name
012is Jillian Lopez. I'm a Sovere High School alumni, class of 2023. I am currently going into my third year of college where I am in a 4 plus one program receiving both my bachelor's and mers in technology education. I am on track to graduate with my undergrad in the spring of 2027 and with my masters in the spring of 2028. Yet without Officer Winchill, I likely would not have graduated high school. I am a person who has always loved school and learning. But in 2020 when school shut down due to COVID during my freshman year, I was slipping. I was really struggling with school and mental health and I didn't know how to handle it. When we received the call after a few weeks that school would be online and we would not be returning
013for the year, my mom and I went to pick up my belongings and my Chromebook from the school. When Officer Winshell saw me, he immediately told my mom that he was worried and that I was away from school and from who I was. Officer Winchill offered for me to come and sit in the school lobby to do my work. I immediately took him up on this offer and I began going to school to do my schoolwork. I will never forget getting home from that first day, going to see my mom in her office and watching her cry. She looked at me and told me she was crying because this is clearly everything that I needed. I continued to go to the school every day to do my work right beside him. If there was a
014topic I was struggling with, he would go try and find my teacher and ask, and if they weren't there, he would personally take the time to understand the topic so that he could explain it to me. All he wanted was to just help us succeed. And I wasn't the only student there. Sometimes we had upwards of 15 or 20 kids there. He kept us fully safe and socially distanced and on track to graduate. And on Fridays, he even spent his own personal money to buy us lunch for whatever we as a group wanted to congratulate us on a week well done and also as a reminder that people cared about us. This is just one of many examples of how Officer Winchell has gone above and beyond what his duties require of him. Since I
015left the school only two years ago, there have been three principles. In just four semesters, there have been three principles. This poses a significant hardship to students trying to form supportive relationships. With all of this change and turnover happening in the building, taking away such a consistent and incredible person from the students does not seem to be in the best interests of the students or the school. Officer Winchell has kept so many students on track and has been an understanding person for youth when no one else would step up to help them. I personally know he has helped students stay on track to graduate, keep them off the streets, and help them in situations that they never thought they'd see themselves in. He helps our community so much beyond the four walls of this school
016building. I'm going to be a teacher teaching trades to students, showing them all of the options that this world has to offer. And without Officer Winchell, I would have never been able to walk the stage leaving this building. Thank you. [Applause] Anyone else? [Music] Really? Okay. All right. Moving on on the agenda. We have Meredith here on time. Meredith Milton, last student representative report. Hello. Okay. Can you hear me? Is it? Not yet. Not yet. A little closer. Takes a minute. Yeah. Oh, no. Still no. Yeah. There you go. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, this is the update for the board meeting today, June 10th. Um, in the elementary school buildings, kindergarten screenings are underway in each building. Elementary school building principles would like to thank the PTA for funding the end of the year
017field trips that their students have been currently enjoying. The fourth grade band and chorus concert took place last week. Congratulations to all of our performers for great show. The moving up ceremony dates for elementary schools are as followed. Morris is on June 18th. Kill is on June 23rd. Ricardi is on June 24th. All moving up ceremonies will be in the high school auditorium. In the junior high, we are looking forward to students presentations of learning on the 17th and 18th. I Ready diagnostics di I Ready diagnostic testing took place last week. Field days took place last week and the moving up ceremony for the eighth graders is Friday, June 13th at 1 p.m. In the senior high, we would like to thank everyone who helped make this year's prom such a special and memorable evening
018evening for our students. A special thanks to you. A special thank you to the junior senior high school PTA for hosting an amazing prom, an amazing postp prom. Students had a great time at the bowling alley and they received some amazing prizes and giveaways. On Monday, June 16th at 8 a.m. We will begin a new tradition called Sawyers on. We will recognize seniors who are entering the workforce, joining the military, entering a trade, participating in an apprenticeship, or college. Athletic and scholarship awards will be held on June 12th in the high school auditorium. Congratulations to all of the high school band and choir performers for a great performance. And finally, the third annual science research symposium was held on Thursday, May 29th. The symposium featured a guest speaker who shared the research currently happening concerning
019microplastics in the Hudson River. The symposium also showcase work that each student put together about their science research topics. Great job to all the students that participated. That's all I have for you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Meredith, for um fulfilling that goal all year. Good luck going forward. Thank you very much. On behalf of the board district, we have things for you [Applause] to Thank you. Okay. Presentation honoring retirees. All right. So, tonight we wanted to recognize our retirees who are leaving us at the end of the month. Um, so in attendance tonight, I believe we have Mr. Spearig. I saw Hello, Mr. Spear. Come on down. Thank you. Miss Kendall, I'm good. [Applause] Stand over here, please. Uh, Miss James. [Applause] Uh, we do have several other staff who are retiring
020and I do not believe that they're here tonight. Just let me know. Uh, Sue McKini is our elementary project coordinator. Pam Christanna network specialist too. Me Lisette, elementary teacher. Mary Garland, elementary teacher, county student or nurse, and Christine Wallace, one of our teachers. Thank you to everybody for your years of service. [Applause] You're still up. I'm still up. Still up. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're not gone yet. All right, Mr. Bull, it is your last meeting. Okay. Yes, it is. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. [Music] Superintendent report. There's still school board association awards. [Laughter] Amy, right? So, um, call you. As you can see by our retirees, there is a lot of, uh, experience, institutional knowledge that's being lost. So, very hard to replace. So, thank you to everybody for their what they've
021done for our students over the years. Um, we want to give some highlights for spring sports. Um, so golf, we had three athletes qualify for the sections. Tai Monroe finished fifth place for section 9 and 14th out of 99 golfers in New York State. So, congratulations to him. Awesome. Yeah, amazing. Uh, baseball qualified for sectional play. Girls lacrosse completed in the section 9 championship. Uh, Gabby Stabies scored her 100th lacrosse point. Helen Kerr was selected to the section 9 lacrosse all-star team. And a big congratulations to coach Ashley Werner who was chosen as the coach of the year for section 9. [Applause] Boys lacrosse competed in the section 9 championship on a rainy day. Landon McDougall Landon McDougall is now the all-time leading scorer for Sar Lacrosse, breaking a record from 2009 held by Tony
022Spot. Leo Daga scored his 100th lacrosse point and Zay Cahill reaches 500th career lacrosse save. I don't mean to interrupt you there, but to be fair, he is the all-time leading male scorer. I believe he hasn't caught his sister. Okay, that's right. Sister is the alltime leading score. Put an aster. Uh, softball completed the section 9 championship. Elena Conrad achieved her 100th career strikeout. So, congratulations to them. Uh, track and field sophomore Damian Riyazi and junior Robert Peterson completed at the state qualifier meet on June 5th. tennis. We had our doubles team make it to the state title or state sorry state tournament at the Billy Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens which was on June 6th. June 6th and 7th. So congratulations to be here. Last week we did have some sports signings.
023So you'll see that on social media pretty soon. I think it's coming out on Wednesday actually. So great season there. Uh other just general highlights as was mentioned our band concerts. I'm always impressed by our students from grades four all the way through 12 about uh what they can produce. So a big thank you to our students and and our staff for all that they do for them. Thank you. You are still up. All right. Now we have a special guest with us tonight, Chris Carlo uh from Bernie Donigan's office who is our financial advisor. All right. Thank you, Chris. Roco, you can pull up that presentation. Whatever you're most comfort most comfortable with, you just got to talk into the mics because the people online listening to the streaming can hear you. There we
024go. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, it's good to be in front of the board again. Um, my name is Chris Carlo. I'm from DC Finance. We're the district's municipal advisers. We advise the district on capital projects, the issuance of debt related to your capital project. So the objectives of this evening is to go through an overall summary of where your current debt service levels are and identify an opportunity for a potential future capital project and run through a couple different scenarios for you that you could consider for that future capital project. So if you want to jump ahead to the next slide. Oh, perfect. This is self-s serve here. You can control it yourself. All right. Well, so we'll start off going through some basic assumptions that we look at when we evaluate a capital
025project. Um, so the font is small on the screen. I apologize, but I'll try to explain through these assumptions that we look at. Uh, the first one when we look at a capital project is what is our building aid ratio. So what is the state going to reimburse us for our capital projects? Here in sovereignties, our building a ratio is 66%. So that means for every dollar that we spend on a voter approved capital project, the state will reimburse us 66 cents back on that dollar. So it's very important that we're mindful of that building aid and minimizing potentially the local share of the tax levy impact that any of these projects would come with uh by maximizing that building aid. Uh bond percentage is what percentage of the project qualifies for that 66% reimbursement.
026Um so we've run a couple different scenarios for you. uh one at 95% and one at 75 or 70%. So that assumes in that first scenario that 95% of the project is eligible for building aid and the second scenario assumes that the project would be 70%. Eligible building aid. So it's going to give you a little bit different of a flavor in terms of what size project you can accomplish depending on what scope is is chosen in the next project and howable the project is for for the district. I've laid out a series of dates here um in terms of when the vote potentially could be. So this revolving around a December 2027 vote. Um, we've assumed that you'd receive SCD approval in January 2029. There is a process that your architect would have to
027design and submit the project to the state. And then once you receive approval, that's when you can go forward and start doing that construction work uh that the voters approved in December of 27. Um, first borrowing in June of June of 29 with the first interest payment coming due in June of 30 and the first principal and the repayment in June of 31. So again, with this being a few years out and with projects not being just a a quick turnaround, there's a lot of years of planning that go into them. There's a lot of years throughout the process of a project. For interest rates, we're assuming 5% for notes, 6% for bonds. Our office had six sales today for notes and they range from 3.2 to about 3.6%. So we are building in some
028conservatives in terms of the rates that we're using just not knowing what could happen in the next few years. Um, each of the scenarios assumes the use of 4.7 million of the capital reserve. I believe as of June 30th of last year, there was a little bit over 4.7 million in that reserve. And again, to utilize those funds, those funds need to be in the account at the point of time in which the board takes action calling for the wording of the proposition and calling for that special election for the vote. Can I ask questions? Yes. Okay. Can I ask you just a couple questions? Absolutely. Okay, I think it's on. Not that. All right. Um, now you got to get a mic. Yeah. Is that working? Oh, there you go. Um, my name is
029Michelle Golia. Welcome. Thank you. Um, how does a 66% building aid rate compare to other districts in the state? Yeah. So the range is from 10% to 98%. Um so it really is based on the the property wealth of the district in comparison to other um districts around the state. Those ratios can in some situations or some districts change on a year-to-year basis. Um but we have some districts that are further downstate where they're more property wealthy that are 10%. So their projects are more funded by by the local taxes, but we also have some rural districts uh throughout the state or some high needs districts around the state that they receive 98% building it back on their project. So it ranges from 10% to 98% depending on what what your what your tax base
030is compared to your neighboring districts around the state. Okay. So between those were kind of in the middle. Yep. Okay. Um the assumption that you have here for the 5 and a half% on the approved assumed interest rate, has your firm considered the potential impacts of if the tax exempt debt legisl legislation at the federal level? Yeah. You know, if the if tax bonds go away, obviously that impacts this. It it potentially could impact the rate that you'd receive on on the bond issuance itself. The state assumed rate is the assumption that we're using there. I'm going to go back a slide here. The state assumed rate is the interest rate that the state reimburse. This is our building aid at. So the state knows that that you're paying debt service in more projects than
031than not. Most districts would borrow for their projects over the life of them. So the state will reimburse you your building at 66% but they amvertise it over the term of the life of the of the repayment of that aid. So that number again changes on an annual basis depending on which year you receive SD approval. Um in terms of the the bu the bond rate that we're using, we've used 6%. So we've built in a 50 basis point cushion between what you'd be paying out in debt service and what you are getting reimbured at from the state. So if that you know we continuously monitor the tax exempt kind of conversation that's happening around the country. Um if that were to go away an option that might be attractive would be issuing your bonds
032through DASE um to get that matching rate. what Dazney does and we've built in the assumption for that revenue source or for that for that um that budget line item is that DSNY if we're getting reimbursed from the state that let's say we're paying 7% for our bonds they'll effectively override that reimbursement rate and reimburse us at 7%. So if that changes the tax exempt status there I'm assuming that there'll be other programs that might be available but the DSNEY program might be a program that's available to to offset that. Okay, that was going to be my last question on this page was what who's the financing authority? So, it sounds like it's up in the air, but it could be Dazzy. So, the financing authority is either you issue your bonds on your own
033through Wall Street as a public market financing or we issue it through a poolled financing through DAS. And really, that's the decision that we make there. We just did previously for your $22 million project a couple years ago. It really depends on what interest rates are doing. And we do that that analysis for you prior to going into any bond issuance ever in terms of whether or not it makes more sense advantageous wise for the local share to issue the bonds on our own through Wall Street or if we go Dazzy and that poolled financing. Just to give you a little bit of context that pulled financing this June there's generally one every year. It was over a billion dollar transaction with you know almost a hundred school districts around the state that took part
034in that financing. And when in a year does that happen? Uh June. Every year. Yep. They used to do quarterly, but they do it just once a year now, just given the just based on the most recent demand for for that type of financing. And that poolled financing comes in at the same rate for everybody. Not necessarily. Um, it could be it's it's a poolled transaction, but it's each individual district might be put into a different series within the financing. Um, some of the criteria might be the the term of your bond, the parount of your bond, but also the credit rating that you have in terms of your underlying rating. Um, that could factor which of the series that you get into. So there could be potentially be some differential between our district here
035and another district around the state that's involved in that pool. So does school district have a credit rating? You do not have an underlying credit rating right now because your only bond that's outstanding is it's through that dazzy final conduit financing. So would we probably go for a credit rating? If you go public market, if you issue over a million dollars, we would always recommend the expectation of the market is that you would be issuing a credit rated bond. So we would go offer accrediting to either standard employers or booties would be the the typical ones that we we go through. Chris on schools that are on districts that are similar to us with the 66%. So forget the 10% and the 98 what is the typical capital investment project capital project? No like every
036three years, every five years. What's the generalities around the state is is to try to do one every five years. There's a lot of reasons for that. um you know it's you don't want to have too much construction fatigue going on that you that you're just constantly doing projects but also I have a slide in here for your maximum cost allowances that in terms of the construction incidental maximum amounts that the district or that the state will reimburse your building aid at those reset on a five-year basis. So if you can line the timing of your projects in terms of when those resets happen right put you in a position to maximize the amount of building a you're getting back on your project. Okay, that's the most questions I've ever gotten in the assumptions page.
037Fabulous. One or two questions. All great questions. You have two people with finance backgrounds. You actually have a kind of quiet over there. I'm surprised. Keep them coming. We We love questions. So, um, back to the assumptions that we ran for you. The two scenarios. Scenario one is that 95% scenario. So 95% aidable. Scenario two assumes that the project is 70% aidable. So you can really see how leveraging your building aid and maximizing that building aid can potentially grow the size of the project that you're able to accomplish. So in the 95% scenario and you'll see the we'll go through the slides here that show how these fit into uh your existing local chair levels and each of these project sizes do not result in any additional tax coming back to the community. These fit
038within a dropup that's upcoming. Next slide in the report is a look at your current debt service and your current building coming back in. Um, columns A and B are your principal and interest on your outstanding bonds, that DASY bond that I mentioned that's outstanding. Total debt service in column C. And the building aid coming back in in column D. So really the focus on this page is that blue shaded column to the right is what is the local share or what's hitting the tax levy. And so you can see for fiscal years 26 out through fiscal year 29, it's relatively flat at around $720,000. And then you can see in fiscal year 230 that there is a drop off in the local share. So in terms of looking into the future that's an opportunity
039when we look at it graphically you can see your local share your levy for your capital component. There's a drop off there. So from a financial advisor perspective, that's an opportunity if you have capital project needs that now is the time to start looking at a project that might be voted on in a couple of years in a year or two here. So that you're lining that project up with the opportunity that you have for that drop off in in the local share. And from a planning perspective, when if we say that the the um the drop off is going to be in 2030, when would we would go to vote in December of 29? Set me up nicely. Okay, great. You didn't even know that. Good. So the next slide in here, so with
040the drop in the 2930 year, that's really the year in which you can take on some debt service or take on absorb some local share, right? So we have the bond anticipation not open in the 2930 fiscal year. That's the year in which you'd be starting to do the construction and you may be starting to do a borrowing. So we would have debt service come due in the 2930 fiscal year. So backing up from there when I said that it's not a quick process to to get a capital project going, right? There's a timeline that needs to be established in terms of voting the project, getting it to fully designed by your architect, submitted to SED, and getting it approved going out to bid. So for a drop off in the 2930 year, a nice
041relaxed timeline would be voting in December 27th. But you really have up until December of of 28 would kind of be your your kind of drop dead window because you want to have that project voter approved prior to when you're establishing and setting up the 2930 budget. So you want to be able to build in that debt service that year because that's the year in which you might need to have that that impact of that project to come on board. Okay. Wait, I'm getting the mic again. Okay. Um, so you're indicating obviously we can see the drop off in debt service at 2030. Are there other factors that go into calculating or determining if we have debt capacity? Are there covenants or what do you primarily look at? Yeah. So we look at um the
042primary place we start with is is what is your is what I just went over that that slide there. Your overall existing debt service and your building. What is your local share? So what can you absorb without having additional impact? You also have a constitutional debt limit. Um, every central school district has a a constit constit constitutional debt limit. Um, I have the number in my file here that I can give to you. I don't have a note off the top of my head. Um, but you are limited to um, you know, there is a a threshold that's the maximum that you would have in terms of outstanding debt at one point in time based on the constitutional limit. Okay. So, that's your maximum principal outstanding. Yeah. Okay. And does that change or is it
043set by the school district? It changes on an annual basis based on your equalized values. Um you get a percentage of your equalized values that you um I believe it's 10% of your fully equalized values of the district. Um and it does account for any outstanding debt that you have. But as you make principal payowns each year, that number potentially could change. So, it is a little bit of a moving target in terms of what dollars impact that threshold and kind of what that initial threshold is. So, it can change on an annual basis, but we do monitor that. That's part of a the document that we do for the district every December, the continuing disclosure document. We do a debt statement summary in that document every year. Okay. So, it sounds like what we
044can absorb in the budget without violating any tax cap issues or creating problems budget-wise and then the constitutional debt limit, right? Those are the two primary things that correct to determine debt capacity. Yeah. And just to point out because you mentioned tax Yeah. Just with the local the local share in these scenarios wouldn't have any impact on your on your tax calculations. Just know that if you bring on a project that has debt service, there could be fluctuations in your in your principal and interest in your annual budgets that potentially you'd have to be mindful of in terms of what you're budgeting for those. That's the key component, right? that we can do a if you have 4.5 you could do a $20 million capital project with no impacts to the tax. Correct. Okay. Right.
045So, you know, often times if we see a district go off for impact, it's it's kind of a a two-pronged approach to getting the vote to vote to get the project going first. Right. Have to approve the maximum that you're spending. But then if that project carries an impact on the on the budgeting side, that potentially could be a situation where you might have to go off for a little bit larger of a percentage in your in your increase in your annual budget. to account for that. So it could be in certain scenarios, right? Kind of a double a double whammy. Okay. And just going back to the other the slide before, right? The idea being we want to try to keep the that local share flat, right? So if we missed if we did
046not go out for capital vote, it would drop down and then any additional thing would would you would feel it. Yeah. So if if you miss the drop off and we get out to 31 and you're at the lower level and you try to go back up to the black line, that project carries it carries a tax impact, right? It's no longer fitting into a drop off that you have, you lost the drop off, you have to then raise the levy back up. So that project would have to calculate for you what the average increase would be to the taxpayers in the community so you could so they can know what they're voting on. Important timing. Yeah, timing is the key. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Um, so we kind of went over the slide, but again,
047this analysis systems um those dates question Michelle. Michelle, you had a question. Yes, real quick. How many weeks or is it how many months is SCD approval time now? So, it's definitely come back a little bit with the implementation of the third party review. Um, we've seen some projects go through as little as two to three months. I mean, it depends on on what you're doing. Um, but that time fluctuates and so I'm just not, you know, we've we've built in six months or seven months here from the time that you submit to when you get approval, but it could be shorter that it could be longer than that depending on the timing that's happening at SED. And the third party Yeah. that costs the district extra money. It does. Correct. Yeah. So that was
048originally implemented back a few years ago and then they took it away. It it cleared up the the outstanding queue at SED. Um, but then they they took that program away for a little while and then I guess what happened? Got backlogged. Shocker, huh? A little bit more costly than the original time. But I think if you're going to consider the third party review, something to consider is if you can get approval faster and get out to bid, are you having any savings in terms of escalation of cost for your for your for your project? So there's a lot of things to evaluate with your full, you know, architect, construction manager, our firm um to make sure that you're timing things right, going with the correct approach. So I don't have to use third party
049but it will take longer. If I use the third party review it comes out of the district has to pay for that. Correct. It is it is building aid reimburseable. So you do get 66% on it but but it does tap into your budget. That tap taps into my budget. So I have I have to account for it. Right. Okay. That would be something that Jim and his team would would definitely be you know on the pulse in terms of what makes the most sense in terms of review times when we get to that point in time. Right. Okay. Um the next slide is a look at the 95% bond percentage or the 95% ADLable scenario. So again uh this page reads from left to right also. So we've got the capital reserve contribution in
050column B 4.7 million the principal payments in column C and the interest or the interest payments in column E. Your total debt service in column F building and coming back in in column G and then the net share over in column J. So that's what hits the the levy. So when we take the maturity schedule and layer it in with that blue bar chart from earlier on in the report, you go to the far right, you can see that we're staying building bringing this new project on with the timing of it. We're staying flat out at that 720,000 level. So this project fits into your existing drop off with no additional tax impact. So this is kind of the max size project with 4.7 million reserves and with the drop off that you have available
051that could be accomplished um assuming that 95% of that project is aid eligible. So the next couple of slides are the same concept again. The same thing here in terms of the maturity schedule focusing in on that local share over in column J. The local share stays the same. However, since it's only 70% aidable, the project size reduces to four about 14.2 million. So it's really if we're able to building a more then you can potentially get more of a project out of um out of your local chair drop off and out of the building that's getting reversed uh from the state. So again, 15 years of the aid payback. So the the debt service is very much purposely structured over 15 years because that's the repayment of the building aid. Um in this project
052is this assumes a renovation project. If you were doing a project that's more additions than alterations that could be made over 20 years. If you were doing a brand new build that could be over 30 years. So we purposely structure the repayment schedule to line up with the with the building. Um, and again this scenario when we blend in your existing local share chart and the local share for the 14.2 million, it does keep you at the same. So it's going to look very similar to that blue and green chart. Other than this project size is just smaller because it's less stable. We're getting less of that reimbursement. We're able to leverage back to the state. I did include also just some appendix pages to your your question about a question about the building a
053ratios. We're currently in the build four formula. Um so 66%. Um it can change slightly. So if you you know follow along that that chart at the bottom it it go up to 67.5 67%. So there can be some slight fluctuations in it but 66% is the lowest that this district can go based on the formula. And that's the number we should use. I mean it's not going to change. There's nothing in our district that's going to change it from down to 20% or up to 85. No, based on the formula, I mean, you might you might tick up a couple points here or there, but it's it's nothing that's we would recommend using 66% and that's what we've based our analysis off of. Okay. The most consistent over the life of that formula. Um
054I mean, if you get a year where it's a little bit better, then that's great. It's not material, though. Okay. So, the difference between scenario one and scenario two, I assume it's the underlying characteristics of the project determines if it's 95%able or 70%able. Yeah. What What makes something moreable? Guys, setting me up nice tonight. We didn't even practice. We didn't even practice. You guys go to dinner. So, the the primary factor is your maximum cost allowances. So for each student occupied building in New York State, the state sets a a rated capacity effectively for the amount of dollars that they'll aid us back at each of our buildings for both construction and incidental work. So for example, under column A under the Rardi school, your base maximum cost allowance for your construction at this building.
055So work done within the building is 8.9 million. That means we can spend $15 million on capital project at party, but the state's only going to reimburse us for that up to $8.9 million. So anything above and beyond that threshold is nonatable. And so that's one of the factors that leads into what percentage of the project is aid eligible. How much can we leverage our project with the building that we're getting back? We do need to be mindful that the state does what's called a five-year look back on all of our buildings. So you can see we've listed all of your projects that received approval over the last five years and also when those projects reset. So those projects fall out five years after you receive SC approval. So it's kind of like a a
056revolving aid ceiling calculation that as we reach the the reset dates, those will fall off. The other thing to be mindful is the bottom half of the page is incidentals. Incidental costs are architect fees, construction manager fees, fees from financing, bond council, attorneys, but unfortunately that also includes site work. So, anything that's 5t or further outside of the building, any parking lots, uh fields, tennis courts, sidewalks, all of that work unfortunately needs to be reported under those buckets down below. And those are either 20 or 25% of the above base values depending on the grade levels that are in those buildings. So for Ricardi, our base uh incidental aid ceiling is 1.7 million or 1.8 million. So again, if we spend $5 million in incidental costs there, the state's only going to reimburse us or
05766% up to the 1.8 million. The the analysis on the page here is is a look at your aid ceilings as of today. However, you know, we go back to the previous one of the previous slides, the timeline of when you're going to vote. I did also want to include what if we get approval from the state after November 29th, 2027. So that's not a random date. That's when your 22 million project $22 million capital project falls off. So you're going to get a lot of your aid ceilings back to work. So and that number I'm sorry that number that 1.8. So like we were talking before the meeting that's that's what we would need to take into account when we start talking about that easement and the new roadway in. Yeah. So I was
058going to mention that right. So we had asked to go the wide range of 70% adable because we anticipate spending a lot of money on site work for the egress right going into and out of Ricardi. Okay. All right. So I mean you have healthy eight ceilings for construction across the board. Um you know even at the high school a healthy incidental eight ceiling just by the nature of the formula and the way that the building works and the amount of capacity you have it at Ricardi it's just a smaller base number to work with. So something you always have to be mindful when you're looking at a project. So you know the 95% scenario you're perfectly placing those construction costs in those buckets. Um but again if you have work that needs to be
059done and it's a priority and you go over one of those a ceilings then that's when you maybe tick back into like the 70% scenario. So that's why we wanted to run those couple different models for you this evening. So you have a little bit of a range of what an Aable project accomplishes compared to a little lessable project. Are there like major categories of things that we think are going to go into this financing? I hear you talking about an easement for Ricardi school. Are there other major things we know we need to fit into this? So for that, we would look at our building condition study through the facilities plan and identify what elements we want to need to get done and if there's any, you know, wish list items as well. Okay.
060There's a lot of need. Yes. Yeah. Okay. That's for this evening. um questions if there are any additional questions. Sorry we didn't have any questions for you. Rolled right through it. Appreciate that. No, no, this was Yeah, we certainly appreciate I mean I can speak for myself and the other advisors in our office. It's nice to have an engaging conversation regarding this. Um one question that might be interesting to hear is how does like phases factor into this? Right? So instead of doing one project all at once, if we were to just for argument sake, right, do the Ricardi road first and then the next school year or something do the other one. how yeah so this analysis go back to the the timeline it assumes everything's done in in one phase um but what
061would happen in a in a phase scenario it's very common you know as project sizes have grown around the state more projects than not are phased so what we would do is we would work very closely with your architect and your construction manager to develop a cash flow and we'd want to make sure that they were separating out project numbers um if you had like two if you had a couple summers working on you at the high school maybe a good approach to that is that you do the two separate submissions to SED so we can start get building aid flowing on that first phase and we line the financings up to align with how the building aid's coming back in. So a cash monthly cash flow from your construction manager is critical to us
062structuring borrowings. But if it's a phased approach, these models work the same. It just the the everything just slides out for each of the phases. But we could all but we could go we could do a phased approach but only go with one vote. Correct. So it doesn't seem like we're always going back to the wall. So we could phase it out so that we hit those debt the thing where the debt is rolling off but only go to the public once. Correct. Okay. Go to the public once it establishes your maximum amount of expenditure and then you know if there's different models maybe need to be run of a two-phase three-phase approach where it makes the most sense we can run all those models and just confirm that they fit. But this those will
063work in those scenarios and this is typically how we run these numbers is with a single phase because that's the most conservative and then if things stretch out with a phase approach we can certainly adapt the financial plan as we go. Okay. So we avoid voter fatigue of like, wow, you guys keep coming back on the project, right? More. Okay. And to your point about the phased approach, that might be, you know, if you're in a situation where you're up against those maximum cost allowances, maybe you could get some project numbers into the state and then as some of those resets happen, if there was work at specific buildings that you needed to open up more eight ceiling at, that could be a situation where you use a phase approach as well too. Got it.
064Okay. I think it's also just good to know too that Chris or one of his colleagues is always at our facilities meeting kind of listening to what the conversation is and providing financial advice along the way. Yeah, good to know. It's helpful for us to be at those. No, it's very helpful. Are they every month? First Wednesday of the month. Yep. Forget all you. Yeah. One other thing I just did want to mention um and then I'll be all set is if the timing does not work for you, I know we've talked about when we met at the facilities meeting that you do have a debt service fund available. So if if waiting for that vote in December of 27 is too far out and you wanted to accelerate it, you do have some debt
065service fund that you could use in fiscal year 29 to bring that drop off a year sooner. Um, so if timing does not work with this model, you do have some options and some flexibility to work with to to change when that timing is to bring it up a little bit sooner and we could find options for you to push it out, but bringing it forward actually works a little bit easier just with the funds you have available in your debt service fund. Okay. All right. Thank anybody have any other questions for Chris? Thank you. Extremely helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Anybody has any questions, let us know. Happy to happy to get back to you. Okay. Okay. [Applause] Board member remarks. Start on this side of the table. Anything? Nothing.
066Miss Bellarosa. See if that one works. Hit and miss. Yes. Yes. Is this working? Thank you. Got to get right up closer. Got to get a little closer. Am I Can you hear me now? Y. Yes, I think I hear you out there. Yeah. Uh just quickly, I just wanted to um given that this is Bill's last meeting, I did want to thank him for his service for the last three years. I know for me personally, just having his perspective uh as an educator and um a lifelong community member in the Sardines school district, um I think his perspectives has been very helpful, um at least for me. So, I want to thank him for his uh three years of service. Um also, I believe this is Michelle's last possibly meeting as our interim business
067official. And I do want to thank you for the kind of stability that you've given the business office for the past year. I think it's been very helpful. Uh so I do want to thank you for um your year here as well or almost here. Um and then just lastly, uh summer break is almost coming up. So I want to wish all the teachers and students a safe and enjoyable summer. Thank you. You Oh, no. You want to go next? Go ahead. No, no. Just kill the best mic. I know. Okay. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. Um I would just like to say congratulations to all of those that are retiring um this evening. We wish you well. I know you're going to love retirement. It's wonderful. And thank you for your uh years
068of dedication to the school district. um you know, you've touched the lives of so many people, so many of our students, and um so we're grateful for that. Um and I'd also like to echo what Miss Bellarosa said. Thank you, Bill, um for your service to the board of education. Um and also thank you, Michelle, for your service as well. Thank you. I think I think that's it. Okay. Well, it's really only the second meeting since I've been sworn since we've been together, but I do wish you well perspective and I'll see you around town. Um I just want to reiterate my commitment publicly to um to the public and to enhancing communication, transparency. That's something that's going to be a big focus for me on this board. Um I think we can all benefit
069from that even if it takes us out of our comfort zone. And so you guys are warned. Wells. Um, well, I guess I'll start right with Bill. Uh, Mr. Ball, thank you very much. It's been a pleasure sitting next to you. I've uh had plenty of conversations with you and uh learned a lot honestly from you and I do appreciate that. U Michelle, thank you for your your past year as well. um you you know similar to what Christina said, you've definitely stabilized and kind of helped us see a lot of things in a better light and kind of see where where we're headed and it's been very helpful for the board because sometimes there's a lot of gray area in there and for us it's hard to kind of decipher all that and you've
070been very open and kind of helping us kind of see our way through that. So, we appreciate that very much. Um and as far as the uh the retirees, congratulation. I know there's three here tonight. Um, I wish you the best and and for all of you and then congratulations to all the sports. I mean, it seems like we had a pretty phenomenal uh spring sports season and it's it's pretty cool to see some of these, you know, Tai, you know, ending up 14th in the state and Ashley being recognized coach of the year. Uh, and then just the recognition throughout the the boys and girls lacrosse, softball, tennis. It's it was a pretty awesome uh spring season. So, I'm glad to hear that. That's all I got. Thanks. Thank you. These might be uh
071the the most brief remarks I've had since I've been on the board. So, and they say you only, you know, you only get applause when you finish. Um, so I I'd like to thank Meredith her her last meeting as well, but the amount of information that she shares in that report about, you know, what's going on and and what's happening with our youth, um, the the sports uh, achievements at the, pardon me, that Mr. Wells mentions. Um, it's tremendous and and it really is it's a tremendous uh, school district and I think, you know, every meeting we hear um, uh, more and more ways that it's continuing to uh, to to flourish. So, thank you um for that. Congratulations to all of the students that are moving up and the students that are graduating. Um
072this is an exciting po part of the year. Obviously, a lot of things that are going on. Uh I do uh typically remind people that they're also u months that we need to be exceptionally mindful of safety um for our youth. Uh these are really challenging months uh for high school students. Um, and we want everybody to to arrive safely uh wherever they're going. Um, so I wish all of our students a a fantastic end to the year and a safe end um to the school year. Um, when I decided to run for the board, really was just to give back to the school district that uh had done so much for uh myself, you know, our family. We had five children uh that have done very well. Um, for me, the biggest thing that
073I wanted to try to do is, and again, I'm joking, but I wanted to make sure that the business that I was at least conducting and sharing and commentary and things like that, uh, was always going to be very public. So, I haven't shied away uh, from speaking at at board meetings. And I think that um I think that you know that's that's an important an important part of of being on the board is at least making sure that people can hear uh you know what what your uh what your thoughts are and how you're choosing to engage and and participate. So I hope I've I've satisfied that end and again I tried to bring some of my experience you know the years that I've borne in public education um minimally as well as as
074other areas. So, I hope that that uh that has helped. Um I'm a one-termer. I realize that. Um and yet, it's amazing how long the three years have been. Um not necessarily just by virtue of this work, right? But, you know, lots a lot happens. A lot happens in three years. Um and I won't tick off all those things, but I'm looking forward to um so continuing to grow. I'm looking forward to this board uh exciting board uh and the board that's going to be in place July 1st continuing to maintain the the 30 40,000 foot view that they need to maintain. We need to maintain right um to make sure that our team Dr. Hersig his administrative team um have the best best opportunity to do what they do best um and that is
075uh work to educate our children. Um, so thank you to my board colleagues, thank you to the administrative team, thank you to all of our teachers, TAs, uh, uh, teaching assistants, aids, um, all of all of our CSEA folks, right? Everybody that I can't even, you know, think of, our custodial staff, our our cafeteria, uh, staff, everything. Um, thank you. It's been my pleasure. Dr. Um, thank you, Bill Wall. I voted for you when you ran and um I am so glad to have been able to serve uh one year with you and I really appreciate the comments about talking at the board meeting. Um I think it's something that we've been able to do more of and I'm really glad of that. Um, and sort of in the spirit of transparency and to just
076sort of echo what uh Michelle said, um, you know, I know it can be frustrating to come here and just feel like you've said something and that we're not engaged in conversation, but I also am really, uh, grateful for Jeffrey's leadership to sort of keep this space an open and responsive space uh, because we do hear what people say and bring to the table and we would love to have a room every month. Um, not because you're unhappy with us, but because you're engaged and want to know what's uh going on. And I want to congratulate I think Jillian has left. Um, but I really want to congratulate her on both her high school graduation and the things she's looking forward to in 27 and 28. And I'm just really glad to hear that she
077received what she needed from this school regardless of who supplied it. Um, and to remind all of us that keeping company is so critical for getting our work done. Um, sometimes it's not uh, you know, some fancy intervention or something expensive. It's just uh, agreeing to say, "Hey, I'll be with you." It's certainly what got me through high school. I had a teacher who if somebody said, "Who's your favorite teacher?" He would certainly be it. And he was like, "I will sit with you after school while you do your work. I've got plenty of work to do and I'll just keep you company." So, I think that that's sort of a powerful lesson because even in these times when money is tight and um you know, we're trying to think about how to do be
078the best stewards we can of the money and the vote and the confidence that we are provided. Um that to remember those things are things that really really matter. Um so I just want to thank the 1700 voters about who voted. um would love to see that number bigger. Um I thank of course the people who voted yes for the budget and I also thank the people who voted no for the budget for voting. Um and I invite them to come to the board meetings and to find out how we're spending the money, what we're doing, what kind of impact we're making on kids, teachers, um and you know how we are lighting the community really. So thank you all the retirees and everybody. I am sorry I will not be at the graduation this
079year. Um I have to travel for work and uh but I think it's a great thing and I encourage everybody to go because it is so joyous and it is the best view. Um so thank you. Um okay, thank you everybody. Um I'll be I'll be brief. Um so first off to the retirees um congratulations on everything. Um, you know, Mr. Spir was uh influential in my son Damian actually getting taking up an instrument and him falling in love with music. So, um, to be able to see him do his last band concert last week was phenomenal. Um, Mag Lette um, I I know personally and and have known for years and has done some exceptional things for my kids. Um, so seeing her go is uh is bittersweet. Um and then Miss Kendall, thank
080you. Um besides my my last remembrance of Miss Kendall will be last week um at the state qualifiers in 95 degree heat um trying to uh get uh Mr. Peters Robert ready for hurdles and u keeping Damian um on track um in the shade. So thank you um from Michelle. Thank you. um you definitely filled a void that we didn't anticipate. Um coming on and and you being here and your experience has been instrumental especially through a very difficult kind of budget season and things last year and and coming out of last year. So thank you um for everything. Um and then um Meredith, you definitely elevated and you set um I always look at how somebody does is did you leave it better than when you found it? Um, and I think people thought
081that think people think of the student rep um as you know a student's going to sit at the table and just listen and the information you provide and has been exceptional. So, thank you. Um, and we're ahead of the game and that's, you know, there's things, you know, the state just came out with something that is mandating that every every school district now has a student rep on the board and we've had one. So, um, I I like I like that Meredith is is setting trend setting. So, thank you and good luck. Um, real quick with Mr. Ball, um, we go back to, um, alumni at Mount Marian together. So, I go back further than anybody else with Mr. Ball. Um, and he is actually the re he's sitting in Sue one night. He's the
082reason I ran for the board. He convinced me to to run for the school board um, two years ago. So, his um, using his 30 years of experience and as a sounding board has been invaluable. So, good luck and enjoy the grandkids. Thank you. Thanks, Jeff. So, while la the last thing I want to say is it's we're this is our last meeting of our school year. Um, but you don't we're not taking the next two months off. Um, there's a couple of big things that we need people to pay attention to. Um, one is the cell phone policy. I'm I'm going to call it the cell phone policy. It's an electronic policy, but we are mandated by the state to have it implemented by August 1st. So, thank you to the state for only
083allowing us one meeting after your budget passes. Um, but it has to be in place by August 1st. So, feedback on that, you're going to see an item on the agenda tonight around it. Um, and even while we're, you know, the July meeting, it's going to be important, the policy meeting and the board meeting on kind of finalizing the wording and how that fits into our code of conduct. Um, and, you know, I I people want to talk about transparency. I think we've done a good job of increasing the transparency. Is it where it needs to be? No. We can always improve it. But I put some of the transparency on things like this out to our parents and our community. the the time for feedback on the electronic policy is not August 2nd, right?
084It's over the next two months. If you want if you have stuff to say, we want to hear it. Don't come on August 2nd and go, "This is ridiculous. Why'd you do this?" It's out there and it will be published consistently over the next 60 days. So get your feedback in and and that way the policy committee can craft something that can come to the board and we can approve something that people buy in. Is it go I'm going to tell everybody is it going to be perfect? No. Is it going to be a work in progress that through our policy meeting and through feedback coming in and and through experiences that our staff sees on dayto day come September and we have to change things. Absolutely. But with feedback from teachers and from parents,
085I would like to get something in place on August 1st that has a solid foundation um and only has to be massaged a little bit and not completely changed. Okay. There's a couple other things that you're going to hear over the next you're going to hear one on the board discussion tonight um but that are going to be big and and and that we need people to pay attention to and that's our enrollment and our instruction model. And what do I talk about instruction model? instead of as we talk about transparency that is getting sixth grade up here to the main campus. Is it going to happen in September? No. So, let's let's let's I'll go on record so anybody listening in or anybody who wants to go on social media and distort what I
086just said. It's not going to happen in September of 25. And it's not a redistricting. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about what almost every other district is going to of creating a true secondary campus where we have elementary that is kindergarten through five and our sixth graders are up here in a sixth through 8th model. Okay. Um I went longer than I thought so I apologize but thank you. Oh I got I'm still up. No I'm not. Thank you Dr. Roarback on our creating the Sawyer experience. Okay. Wow, there's still people here. Normally, by the time I'm on, nobody's left. So, this is super exciting. I'm so thrilled to share this collaborative work tonight. Um, talk about transcending. So is trend setting in many ways. Uh, in Olster County we are gaining
087a reputation of being a powerhouse team, administratives, principles, uh, with student driven work, student driven voice. Tonight is about the qualitative story. The next time I present the data will be finished. Right now 80% of our students have finished the I Ready Diagnostics. So I'd like to wait and then we'll show that. As we're going through our story, I think it's really important that we remember before the data changes. The research will say it takes five years with intense classroom instructional support before the quantitative data changes. We are on our way. Practice is changing and it's super exciting. Okay, I guess I need this. So this is our story of engagement, equity, and empowerment. Much of what I'm going to share today, Dr. Ersk and I shared at the Niscus, New York State School Council
088of Superintendent Cabinet Summit. We are also going to share this at the deeper learning conference which has become a northeast conference uh in partnership with olsterosis. So, it always begins with a vision of learning. For the past three years, our vision of learning has been the three E. This year, we began to lean into the Sawyer experience. You all have access to this slide deck, and there's probably over 40 hyperlinks, so have fun reading if you want to. Um, but it's driven by these questions. When it comes to engagement, a lot of people think we really understand what engagement is, but one of the pieces of our story this year is really getting clarity about what it is and not just are the students engaged, but also are the adults engaged. So, I'm going to
089ask Ginger, can you help me pass these out? Thank you. I guess I don't know. And equity is the instruction curriculum and environment equitable for all and empowerment. How are we empowering others? Okay. So in terms of investments, what are we invested with in terms of our values, our time and financially investments? There's a long list here. And how do we choose? This is driven by data. It's driven by feedback from the teachers. We give them surveys after every single superintendent's conference day. I personally ask folks, we also are constantly checking in with our administrative staff. The other investments that the other way in which we decide other than feedback and data is need and also what is SED requiring of us. So you can see that professional learning for all the adults is important.
090The blueprint has been priority this year. Standardsbased instruction. I just want to lean into this for two minutes. As a district, we need to focus on the science of reading and we need to focus on science. Today was the new regions for living environment. It was the toughest regions I've seen in a long time. It wasn't just a science regions, it was a literacy regions. Mhm. And it used to be if you could memorize the vocabulary and do your homework and do your labs, you would do pretty well on the regions. That's not how it is anymore. They're all new standards and it's a process that's steeped in phenomenon based learning. We are super fortunate to have Chelsea Defino in the district who is partnering with me in all of the PB for that. Special
091education has been a huge investment this year in terms of partnering with Dr. Kappler and Miss Churchill. That's probably one of my proudest moments this year is our collaborative work with the TSG being a targeted school district and creating some momentum for with the writing revolution academic vocabulary. The way we ended the year with special education teachers sharing out what they did throughout the year was super celebratory. So, thank you for that. We're continuing with restorative practices, MTSS, designing classrooms that promote mental health, and the list goes on. Uh we're continuing with PBL and the plan pilot. This is the science of reading. This slide I presented in January. It's there as a healthy reminder. This is a healthy reminder of where we were in 2021 to where we are today. 2021 I would not
092have been able to live in sovereities because my child required a reading specialist and in 2021 we didn't have any. Today we have a reading specialist in every single elementary building. We still need to continue to be vigilant about screening early. We are still missing students. We need to stay vigilant about what types of assessments we are doing that are aligning to the science of reading. That's our work in front of us this summer. That's not a choice. That's a need. So from 2021 to 2024, again I shared this in January, you can see the tremendous amount of collaborative work that the teachers have done. everything from no curriculum maps, no pacing guides to now we have a robust system. Um, our professional uh philosophy of literacy and our DEI statement, I'm pretty confident that's
093what got us the plan pilot out of 23 schools. Okay. So, we have all those achievements and Dr. Urs has shared those achievements going back to slide and this is amazing and it's really important to celebrate all of our achievements. But I think it's also really important for us to stay vigilant that according to the most recent Gallup poll, maybe it wasn't the most recent, but this year, stating that Gen Z is disengaged. They are not engaged in school. They're bored and they're not challenged. And according to this Gallup poll, it's stating that they are not challenged when they come to school. According to Amy Barry, who is a researcher who wrote the book that stemmed into this engagement continuum, she in her research, she'll state that 47% of only 47% of students are engaged
094in school. So this is part of our investment. Are we engaging our students? Are we engaging our adults? So how are we going to do this? So, one of the things that I learned while I was working at Sterosis and given a job I really hated. God, it was awful. Is getting super clear. Um, I'm a creative I'm a big picture person. One of the jobs I was given was you're going to do assessments for the entire county. and I turned white and I did it for three years. And I think actually I might have met the wall around that time too. And what I learned for working with 26,000 teachers in the county is you need to set goals so that everybody can rattle them off. So we've this was during the era of
095common scoring and we would say we're going to score these tests in a calm, accurate and consistent manner and most of the teachers can still rattle that off. So we had to get clear about our goals and our language so that we could do the blueprint for excellence and those are our four pillars underneath and I'm happy to report out that last week we finalized our portrait of a graduate. This process was not decided by Dr. or cigar or I it was a process of revision an iterative process uh I think like four revisions um and this is where we landed and it's super exciting globally aware and culturally competent literate across the content areas critical thinkers and problem solvers effective communicators empathetic and socially responsible citizens ethical leaders and community contributors resilient and adaptable.
096So this is what our graduates are going to be. And then what was really cool on June 3rd was we had a community circle and Dr. Ersk asked each of us are we going to be committed to us this and can we stand behind this? Another proud moment this year was creating the 3 micro credential. So, we are providing an opportunity for our teachers to earn 35 inservice credits. That's a lot. And Chelsea, myself, and Dr. Jen are leading series in the in engagement. I do the engagement. Chelsea does the equity, grading for equity, and Dr. Jen does the writing revolution. uh you're already tired of hearing from me. So in a few minutes you're going to hear from a teacher about her experience with that. So it's really pivotal that if you're going to
097build a culture of celebrating learning, moving the needle, having students be part of the learning and present that it begins with leadership and our team here is phenomenal. So you like that picture, Ginger? So, it always begins with training up and empowering our admin. We finalized portrait of a graduate. This picture right here is us working on it as an admin team back in the summer. That's where you begin. And then they began working on it. We also began working on the engagement continuum with our administrators. So, let's just take a look at this. You have this in front of you. This comes from Amy's Barry's word from disrupting to driving. And this goes back to my point earlier. Everybody thinks they know what engagement is. And I would challenge your thinking to think about
098most people think, oh, if a child's engaged, they're quiet. They're listening to the teacher. They're probably answering a few questions, right? Well, Amy Barry's going to challenge your thinking. We want our Sawyers to be invested in their learning. We want them asking questions, presenting their learning. We want our students to be driving their learning. Are they asking for feedback from their peers? Are they asking for feedback from their teachers? Are they asking for feedback from community ex experts and partners in sovereignties and beyond? So, this came about from a pilot our instructional coach did with teacher. I'm not even sure what teacher it was because that's confidential. She said, "Dr. G, can I please pilot this?" I said, "Go for it." She said, "This is really working." So, I took it. I turn keyed it
099with the principles. Principles did it on opening day. And basically that's been our pattern for last four years. And then they turn key some things as well. And we share our professional learning together. So, one of our commitments as an admin team is having common agendas, flipping the faculty meetings from an email, not just stand and deliver and going down the bullets like keep your door locked, da da da da, regents are coming up, active proctoring, get up, walk around. And yes, there are some business things you need to say, but also there should be a little slice of learning as well. And I'm really proud of the work the principles have done. One of the key things I learned this year with being a TSG school and Rory Griven taught me this and it
100was like, uh, oh my goodness, this is so obvious. Why haven't I done this my whole life? Tell teachers what you're expecting them. like don't make any surprises. Their day is so sometimes so crazy and so busy. Just let them know. So that's what we've been doing. On day one, the principal stood in front and we all said the same thing. Here's what you can expect. You can expect us to be in your classrooms this year. We're going to do learning lots. You can expect that we're I'm going to introduce the engagement continuum. that we're going to work on the blueprint and so forth. So the principles in addition to common agendas and this wouldn't have happened five years ago, four years ago, the principles are now facilitating data workshops on the New York State
101data 3 through eight. uh we're in our second year of that and we're also they are also facilitating uh analysis of student work. This has been super exciting. It's really important horizontally to get the teachers together in the district so that they can look at student work and it's really important to have a vertical perspective of looking at state data. Our learning walks, we've done many of them. You heard Miss Hershel talk about doing some for TSG. Uh Miss Veil led the charge uh courageously immediately in September uh with an engagement learning walk and ID was our partner with that. And then we also did one with fourth grade. Correct. The other thing I learned from being cited in a TSG is if you're going to do learning walks, immediately give some the teacher some
102piece of feedback. Don't leave them wondering. It induces anxiety. It's not worth it. So, we immediately left a postit of what we saw and how it aligned to the district goals. All right. So teacher practice. So we talked about the leadership practice. Now we're going to talk about the teacher practice in our story. So my husband always reminds me that people are never going to like me. He's a teacher. It's like gee, nobody ever likes the assistant or deputy deputy superendent. Whatever your title is, we don't like you. You come in, you stay for a few years, you make us do all this work. Superintendence conference days are awful and the reason why they're awful is they're not thoughtfully set up. So we have worked as a team to really dismantle that. And now what
103happens is I will send my husband pictures of all the incredible things so is doing. He's incredibly jealous. And so we've worked really hard at training and empowering our teachers. And the reason why is it is our dream to have through restorative practices through the engagement continuum and through the writing revolution, a K through 12 common language. The more we have a common language with students and teachers, the more folks really understand what we're doing. Three years ago, I thought, gosh, it would be really cool, and I said this to Steve Stellado in an ELA lead teacher, if we could do some form of K through 12 writing gallery walk. So, this May we did it. Some of my colleagues thought I was crazy and K through six did a really incredible job. So, kudos
104to the K through six teachers. Beautiful picture of Mrs. McKake. You want to share why you're smiling? [Laughter] Surprise. You're on camera. Um, can I share what you said to me? Maybe that it was a former student. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Just it was this beautiful moment I captured of Mrs. McC who's teaching uh kindergarten looking at sixth grade work. So, and to see her student now in the sixth grade, it was such a salient moment for her. [Music] So, just dispelling some myths about engagement. A lot of folks think engagement is school being compliant and we're really leaning into investing in driving. That's on the right. And it's really about the process of learning. not what so here's something before I turn it over to a teacher to share her story is so this
105was an invitation with the continuum like hey this might help you it was not an edict it wasn't um a mandate and then by December as I was walking around the district I'm noticing teachers have made it their own see the colors on the continuum and see them in the classroom Now, this one was pretty cool. So, this is a first grade classroom, and this teacher is still experimenting with it. These six-year-olds come in the classroom and then they place where their goal is for the day and they move it around. And in first grade, if student gets to driving, you know what they do for each other? They give each other a round of applause. So, what does driving look like for a six-year-old? That might be a really high level question. These are
106more. And then full circle in May. Uh here is a teacher who took uh is taking all three micro credentials and she is leading a professional development learning slice. And this was a really big deal for her. She had never done this. She was nervous and we were super proud of her for doing it. In our TSG session, we had over 10 roundts of special ed teachers teaching other teachers. So on May 20th, we had over 70 sessions and 40 led by our own Sawyer teachers. lot and God bless Jennifer Fellows because Frontline decided to do an update and of course the 70 sessions listing them. She got it done. It was amazing and uh we did a beautiful job. Here are just some of them. I'm not going to read them to you, but
107I was so impressed with the thoughtfulness our teachers put in to the subjects that they wanted to present. Everything from The Anxious Generation by John Height, which I highly recommend to grading philosophies, all of it. So, enough with me talking. I'm going to turn it over to one of our teachers who's going to share her experience. Craft. [Music] Good evening. My name is Home Craft. I'm the reading specialist at Ricardi Elementary School and I have gone through the micro credentials from the Sery School District. I am here tonight to discuss my journey through the professional development that the Sery Central School District has provided. First off, I would like to start off with this slide. So, I was observed in the beginning of the year and I scored a little bit lower in one component
108because my students did not have a goal. So, I took the continuum and then I created a slot for the goal. So, then my students were able to put a goal in and how they're going to use their skills from my class out in their classroom and in the real world. So, this student over here said that I will use sound tapping to read big words in the classroom and at home. So, we do teach sound tapping. I teach the Wilson program. So, we do a lot with sound tapping. So each one of my students has this goal card in my classroom on the wall. And so they have their goal. We discuss their goals. Then they also have a star. So for the day, they determine where they were for the day. So investing
109is pretty good in my class because I guide the instruction with the curriculum that I have to provide for them. So, they are very good about helping one another and providing information and feedback to one another and asking questions. Driving's a little bit harder for them in the situation that I'm in and teaching, but overall they do a really good job and it really gets them focused and involved in what they're doing. And what grades do you do you do that for? So, I'm doing that second through sixth grade currently. I do see a first grade or no sorry a kindergarten for MTSS also. So I take a couple of the Wilson ideas and apply it to the kindergartenner. Um but for the most part Wilson is geared for second to 12th grade and adults
110also. So these were the reading materials that we had for the micro credentials and the first one I would like or the next one I would like to discuss is which is not on here the curriculum mapping. For the past I would say three years I have been involved with curriculum mapping and for me this is my road mapap to education. It establishes the learning objectives and goals needed to be taught. It organizes content and skills in a specific order. It allows me to select appropriate ex instructional methods, materials, and resources to guide my instruction for students. It guides me with assessments in how to gauge students progress. It creates consistency across classrooms, grade levels, and schools, which also align with the standards. The first class I was involved with was the writing revolution which
111was wonderful. My takeaways from this course was how to teach students specifically how to write using a single paragraph outline, a multi multiple paragraph outline. And it actually outlines it for the students and you teach them how to create a paragraph, how to create a multiaragraph essay. also writing a topic sentence, a concluding sentence, and how to summarize. The sum summarization is what really connects to Wilson because in my lesson block three, students read a passage and they have to retell the story. So, what we do is teach them to make a movie picture and then retell or summarize what they read, which is very important. A little bit about the Wilson reading system. It's an explicit systematic approach to teaching reading and spelling specifically designed for individuals who struggle with language-based learning difficulties such
112as dyslexia. It focuses on reading words accurately, spelling words correctly, reading with speed and expression, and understanding what is read. And that's where that comprehension or summarizing comes in which is part of the writing revolution. The Wilson system is an amazing program. I did the training last year. Again, the district provided that training for me. It was very intense. It took a full year and you had to have a practicum student. So this year I dis administered a baseline assessment which was the wade in the beginning of the year and right now I'm wrapping up the weights. I think I have five more students that I need to finish up testing. So far every student has shown growth and that growth is demonstrated from steps one through 12. So the Wilson program is step one
113through 12. And when doing the assessments for growth, that's what we look at, how far they have grown within the 12 steps, even though we have not reached the 12 steps. Um, I think my most advanced group is at step five, 5 point something. So, we're not near step 12, but they still show that great amount of growth. The other thing that we test is the mastery, which is interesting to see who mastered the skills and then I'm able to go back and focus on the skills if a student did not make mastery in those areas. And then which brings us to writing for equality which Mrs. DeFino taught. It was a wonderful class. I really enjoyed that one. Also, my takeaway from this class was grades should solely reflect academic mastery, not behavior or
114external factors because we really want to assess what the student knows. Write their name on their paper. We don't want to take 10 points off. It's really looking at what the student knows. So I would like to thank the district for providing these wonderful opportunities for professional development. All of them are youth within my groups and I can take pieces but it really impacts the students and makes a difference in a positive way. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for great over Thank you for being great. Mrs. Cra is one of the teachers. When I need really honest feedback about what's going on, I go to her what's going on. I get it direct, concise, and it's super helpful in Okay, so we've talked about the leadership practices, we've talked about the teacher
115practices. Most importantly now as we're wrapping up two minutes. Here are the student outcomes. Come on. Oh, that was one of my favorite ones. Here we go. In November, we had a panel of students talk about equity. Enough with adults and experts talking about equity, but let's ask the tough questions to our students. They have opinions and voices and they know what it is. We need to provide the opportunity for them to share and we spent quite a bit of time thinking about who would facilitate it and the best person to facilitate it was Dr. Ersk. He's known many of them since they were very young and um pieces of those are very powerful. Project based learning uh and I launched this in the high school and uh seventh and eighth grade three years ago
116and then with the planned pilot it's just gained more and more momentum. We need to continue to do this. It's not that we're asking teachers to do this every single day, but project-based learning with authentic alternate assessments provides an opportunity for students to share what they're learning and ask for feedback and revise their learning. And there some of the board members are providing feedback in real time. uh we need to continue doing our science research which is our 12 credit uh course research course partnered with the University of Albany. Becky Lee here is giving sharing her research that she did which was better research than folks in some of my dissertation cohort at Manhattan was truly amazing. The structure in which they do the science research is very very similar to writing a dissertation. they
117will be well uh prepared. There's an IRB process for that too. We have internally there is an IRB process. I didn't particular student. No. So Dr. They came back. You're not allowed uh to do just like in any not allowed to any any human being to protect human rights. more success parade is coming up. But if you notice on the left side is our beautiful pictures of our students of what they're proud of. And then the following year, the teachers joined in of what they are proud of. So I'm looking forward to that. Teachers inviting other teachers. this is that this is the culture we're trying to create. So this was a very proud moment. Presentations of learning are happening in the junior high school on the 17th and 18th and I'm looking forward to
118this. Sorry. Uh it was uh launched with Mrs. Vil and Mrs. Stefino and not just the students are sharing their presentations but also the teachers and in one of your packets is the rubric that they used last year. I don't know if they're using it this year. The data chats is first grade looking at their own I Ready data. These are student outcomes. So giving our students opportunities to have these conversations. they will rise up and they will have them. So, as we're um coming to closure here, we're going to tie together how I invited this classroom, these two teachers to come and speak tonight. Um they couldn't come, but I have permission to show this very quick two-minute video. Okay. I gave you a peer rubric and the teacher explicitly taught the students how
119to give feedback. What you're going to see is an eight-year-old giving another eight-year-old feedback about the writing evolution. Okay, we're good. Get it. Can you rewind? that classroom. So, as we're wrapping up tonight, um you know, really, thanks, Roco. What's next like I opened with is yes we need to focus on the science of reading shared that yes we need to focus on all of these things right here but in summary our students we've learned from the learning walks are very participant we need for sovereign to move into investing in driving because they are capable as you just saw when students are given the opportunity, they will rise. So, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your support. I know I took a long time. Um, it's a year's worth of learning.
120It's okay. Can I ask a question? Absolutely. You can ask anything you want. So, I I and I've I've heard how intense the Wilson stuff is before. Um, and so it's a year long and so it comes out with this one through 12. How are how are our teachers who haven't gone through Wilson measuring success with their kids? Great question. So the Wilson program is for our most atrisisk students who need intensive reading support. So when I said that strong statement of why I couldn't live here. Yeah. Okay. Because my son needed that. Gotcha. Okay. Due to his IEP. Right. Right. So that is the reading specialist underneath your the IEP needs to state that you need to go to the reading specialist and then we ensured that each of them was trained in Wilson
121which is a multi-ensory approach okay it's very intensive the type of feedback hope all of them received super intensive from uh Wilson expert then underneath that we have MTSS and they do targeted in interventions and progress monitoring using everything from the literacy test of I ready to foundations to whatever the student needs. Okay. Then we have in tier one in the regular classroom we have our materials that we're using in our I Ready and the next step in full transparency is uh primary we need to change our assessments for literacy for tier one. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Helpful. Thank you very much. Okay. Does anybody else have any questions for Dr. G? I'm wondering about the use of video. Um it's so powerful for uh changing teacher practice. It's what we're doing all the
122time in early childhood. Tell me more. What do you mean by that? Um just the use of video. I'm sort of curious if um teachers are using video to reflect on their own practice. Oh, I would love to get there. I mean, we're at the point I just saw that lovely video. And of course, it's not teacher practice, but it's still child practice, but it's I'm just it's it's a super powerful. It is. It is. Um, we now So, one of my dreams is that we get to the point where we're not doing the learning walks, but the teachers are doing the learning walks of each other. And then Jamie took a really brave and courageous step inviting her lead teachers to join our learning walks on the TSG. But now we are hearing teachers
123saying, "Oh, I want to come to your classroom." That's super. So we just want to formalize it. Whether it's called Japanese lesson studies, instructional grounds, whatever we call it, it's just important to have a protocol and keep it tight and focused. Protocols matter. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Warbach. Okay, moving on. J we have um J one through three um which is resignations um leaves of absence um the resignations include some of our folks retiring and appointments which I'm not going to go through because it's everything from chaperones out to coaches for next spring. So, do I have a motion for J1 through three? So, moved. Moved by Rosa, seconded by Mr. Ball. Any discussion, questions? All those in favor? I I Okay. God, Virginia puts tabs. All right. Okay. Business office recommendations.
124Um we have K 1 through 16 uh which includes everything from our treasures report, the revenue appropriations um status report, our internal claims, um some key things around um summer transportation. Just go through a couple of these and the budget transfers that we need. Then at the end you'll see a couple of tax refunds for folks who um argued their assessment um and are owed tax refunds. So I have a motion for K1 through 16 by Miss Bellarosa. I seconded Mr. Ball. Any questions? All those in favor? Hi. I always have a good feeling when Miss Bel Rosa is my first on business recommendations. I know she's gone through it. Okay. Board action items. Uh we have L1 through Oh my god. There we go. L1 through 14. Um, and while it is all important,
125um, there are some things at the back. Um, which is a couple of things I mentioned. One thing I mentioned, this is the first reading of the, uh, cell phone and other electronic devices policy. Um, and again, that's first reading. Um, so people read it, provide feedback, it'll come back to the policy committee. Um, and then we'll have a second reading. Anything you want to say there, Dr. Hersy? Yes, if I could just add, today everybody who is has their cell phone and email listed with the district got an email from me outlining how to read the policy, provide feedback on the policy. It is a first read. We would anticipate doing a second read in July so that we can meet the August 1 deadline. Uh, a couple things just to point out for
126those listening at home, right? So, this prohibits during the instructional day. So when they walk into the building to 218 at the secondary level, um there cell phones, ear earbuds and smartwatches, anything electronic, right? So it's not just cell phones, it's also earbuds, smartwatches. Um there are exceptions for those who maybe have a 504, medical needs, um a health plan that outlines it. Uh we as a district are purchasing yonder pouches for our secondary students. Um at the elementary level, they just keep it in their book bags as they have done successfully for the most part. um for that and there is uh specific language as to how how parents can get a hold of their child right by calling the main office first and foremost. We can get a note to our child or
127that we can call the child down when they have a free time in their day to to make that phone call home. Um so please review it. You'll there's a link to review it and then there's a box underneath just to provide feedback so that we can take the feedback on the first Tuesday of of July to update the policy for the board meeting on the 8th. Okay. And again, I'll reiterate just so it's it's really clear, especially for anybody listening in or we are man we were working on this um because we felt it was important to do. It is been mandated by the state now. So um I had hoped to beat the state mandate. We didn't. Um and so by August 1st, every district in the state has to have this policy.
128Okay. Um all right. So motion to for L1 through 14 move Mr. Meer seconded Miss Kelder discussion questions yes well I just want to make uh that the that the law is that the law is that the um there needs to be a policy um but I didn't want people to think that there's no room in this policy for feedback and implementation right so um so it's not that it's mandated that schools have this policy but that schools have a policy right And so we welcome, you know, people's engagement in the conversation. Yeah. I think it's also kind of on that note, sorry, to point out that this particular policy really was generated from the committee, right? Often times we get policies from Erie 1 or from New York State School Board Association. This policy
129from beginning to bottom was really like generated from the committee and the feedback from it. So it is it is it should be unique to Socrates. Yeah. Yes. I have a question on I haven't been to a policy meeting yet, but does the committee involve people other than on this board? are their teachers and community members. Y we invite anybody first t first Tuesday of the month. Anybody is welcome. Super fun. We have a we have a couple parents. I mean people should know and where people have opinions. So I'm glad we open it up to them. It's opened up to everybody. It's public. It has to be a public meeting. Mhm. Thank you. Yep. You're welcome. Okay. Any other questions, discussion? All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. All right. Board discussion items. Number
130one, district safety plan. So, um, just wanted to highlight a couple things and also kind of point out that in the email that went today, there is also kind of public comment on our district safety plan. So, if when you open up the document, you will see that there are changes made to it in the document. So, you can just kind of scroll through and find those changes. Um, just wanted to call out a couple things particular. One is that we are for the first time specifying that doors should be closed and locked uh during throughout the day. Right? So every classroom particularly those with kids and with staff should be closed and locked throughout the day. Um we added language about earthquakes is we had an earthquake was it two years ago now. So
131we kind of addressed those concerns that came up about what to do. We incorporated the cell phone lang uh a kind of a subsection of the cell phone language into the district safety plan in particular that right during an emergency students should have their phones away right they should not be on their phone right if it's a if we're going to lock down the best thing to do for anybody is to leave your desk leave the front of the room go to a a a spot in the classroom that's out of sight that's the most important thing right being on your phone texting mom and dad cannot happen during an emergency makes things worse according to the the law enforcement officers that I speak to. Um, we also added language about the MAC maximum classroom
132temperature. Um, that that was that's also a new legislation this year. Uh, so that's also included in there. Dr. Ersk, on that one there, h how did you did it get discussed? Um, because we had a little bit of a conflict, right? Um, so the doors should be closed and locked, but then one of the remediation things for the hot rooms is to open the doors. Yes. So that was in the template. We took that out of the template and said that it is important for all of our doors to be closed and locked. Okay. All right. To protect everybody. Got it. Thank you. Uh just to address the maximum temperature since it has been up uh as shared during the budget presentations, we have been able to go ahead and purchase uh window AC
133units for those rooms that have been particularly hot over the years. So the 600 wing now has air conditioning and then elementary schools kind of the rooms that are still kind of are subject to get over that 88 degrees do have ACs in them now. So 88 is max is the max. You have to start remediating it when it hits 82. Okay. Measured at 3 ft above the floor in the middle of the room. Yes. And details are details are important and and just because a classroom is 88 degrees, right? So we can also move students throughout the building. Um it doesn't necessarily mean that we have to send kids home. It also talks about being where practicable, right? So if you think about a heat wave, right? Are we going to be sending students
134to a hotter location at home than they are in school? So, it's all going to kind of take into play, right? But we we think based on some of the things we've done in the budget and this we can address it, especially the 600 wing here. Yep. K Hill was already pretty well off with with the new windows and ACS from last year. We had that heat wave last year. Everything was was in fairly well. Okay, great. Anything else on the safety plan? All right. Um, so I'll go right into district code of conduct. So that was also sent out today with our code of conduct updates and as well as providing feedback for that. Um in that code of conduct we've we've adjusted the language about the possession of electronic devices. Um we have
135changed the appeals process. So right if somebody appeals it to me and then it ultimately appeals it to the board. There was previously no timeline for that. It would be the next scheduled board meeting. So theoretically if somebody had filed appeal tomorrow they'd have to wait a whole month before the appeal was was answered. So uh as the policy committee with feedback have changed that to be a 10 calendar day. We have to have a meeting within 10 calendar days. Um so that will speed up that appeal process. Um we adjust some infractions. So once again things have come up over over the course of the year right. So um if student was misbehaving in the cafeteria we didn't necessarily have a cafeteria code that corresponded to it. So we now have a building level
136code kind of for the for those things. Um we have we added specific language about sexually offensive conduct uh insubordination and then the electronic device insubordination as well as there uh once again if there there's there is a deadline through on July 8th on that. So if there's any feedback if we can have it by July 8th so that we can address it um hopefully at the meeting that night. So if you get in beforehand that would be appreciated um and we can go from there. You're breaking the mic. Yeah. Ah, yeah. I broke I broke all seven of them. That don't work. Um, okay. Anything uh any questions or any These are board discussion items. So, any feedback on either the safety plan or the code conduct by anybody? Feel like I'm at a
137press conference. Yeah. About this one, too. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Give me another one that doesn't work. I I just like to Yeah. I just like to say I was looking that way. Uh I I I we did discuss these changes in the policy committee meeting. So I mean these these are very practical changes. Um and I think everybody had a the opportunity to participate at least it was in that meeting. But this is one of these huge areas and and Mr. Yi mentioned it and Dr. Ersk mentioned it. This is one of these big areas where public participation and feedback um is is wanted. Hey, we desire that. So, um, again, everybody thinks parents, you know, kind of school ends, June's over and it's summer, right? But the work of getting your school ready for
138September begins literally July 1st, you know, if not a lot sooner. I think I mentioned last time something like this is a conversation you don't want to lose track of if you're a parent and it's something you want to participate in. That's it. Yes, Christine. Sorry. Sorry. Just a question I had in regards to the code of conduct last year. there was all that work done to reword the code of conduct, make it tier level. Um, how has that gone as a district? I guess is my you it's the first year that we've kind of gone through that code of conduct from that work and what you know what is the feedback that the district has. Is it working? Is it not working? Is you know interested to hear it. Sure, it's a great question.
139Um so some of the changes have come some of the changes have come out of conversations that we've had as administrators that individuals have have shared with us. So those tweaks in there kind of take that feedback. Um part of our work though is at the end of the school year to run the report to see how many infractions there were and what categories and kind of look for trends and see where we need to address those proactively. Um to do kind of a a full comparison between the old code of conduct and the new code of conduct may be a little misleading because categories have changed. So, and it's also us having the conversation about the code of conduct seem to have a really heightened awareness of the code of conduct this year. Um,
140so I think that that kind of awareness of it and the the actual, you know, interest in reading it and trying to follow through with what the tiers are, I think do have a change. So, we will share out in a future board meeting kind of a more complete answer of how we thought it went. Yeah. Great. Okay. The next one is um I had mentioned it earlier in my remarks um district enrollment and instructional model. Um so we've been having you know high level conversations about um how we would go and start to take um sixth grade and move them up here um to the main campus here. Right. And there is a myriad of things and I the the I wouldn't even say 40,000 ft. they're at 50,000 ft conversations, but um there
141it is it's something that's going to need to happen um based on elementary school population and where we are and being able to create additional space. Um and then also in off-hand conversations with some teachers that the sixth graders are ready to be up here. they are more they are closer to a seventh grader in their actions and kind of maturity than they are to a third and fourth grader and a fifth grader. So this is something that's not going to be on the agenda once. It's going to have to be on the agenda several times over the coming months. There's a discussion of you know do we reach out to and and engage a consulting group that does this uh type of things and making sure that right there's not only there is personnel
142involved um there is the students you know on how you would move them there is definitely you know building um changes and updates that are going to need to happen um to to corner them off. So, um, this is on here because I asked for it, because I wanted to start to get it out into the public, um, that we are talking about it, you know, transparency, that the word of the day, um, and getting people understanding that this is coming. Um, and and that it is not um, as it was mentioned a year ago, um, it is not we're not talking about redistricting, right? We're not that that word that happened, you know, that is not what we're talking about. We're talking about creating a true sixth through 8th grade up here. Um, and
143the things that are going to have to go in with that. Um, as with everything, I I like to go fast. Um, I not September 25. I'd like to have it done by September 26. Um, to me, if you're going to go do something, go do it. Um, and and but it's got to be done right. There are things, like I said, around the building, um, around safety and things like that that have to be taken into account. So, we're not going to go fast just to go fast. Um, but we're also going to make sure that we're doing this, you know, quickly and very efficiently and um, taking everything into account. So, I have a question about that. Surprise, surprise. Oh. Um, is there a task force or something? who's leading that and how
144is it getting organized to get that work done to move it forward? No, we have not. We we we like I said, we've had high level though there will be um you know, from a you know, a committee perspective. That's up to Dr. Ersig on how he structures how we're going to go do it. Um you know, I I tend to look at the people around this table as a task force. I should make sure teachers and the public and Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. That's what I'm talking about. There are so many different pillars that have to be evaluated and looked at. Um everything from the professional component to the student component to the environment component all those have to be looked at individually. Just um some other kind of bits of
145information just kind of put maybe some things in a little bit of context. So uh saying I just threw it out there. No, but maybe um so in 20 in 2004 the district had 3,425 students. This is all publicly available information. Okay. In 232 24 we had 2270 students and this year 2282 students. So this information is all publicly available for that. So I I specifically chose those numbers. What was the middle number? Uh 2324. So last school year was 2270 students. Okay. Okay. Yep. Back in 2004 in grades 7 through 12, we had 1,755 students in on this campus. Okay. Last year on this campus, we had 1,130 students. Okay. Um, if we look at K6, back in 2004, we had 1,670 students. And currently in K6, we've got one or sorry, last year
146in K6 was 1,140 students. Wow. Right. So, we have lost. right rough math like a third of our population um around so right hence the that the available space for those things um other kind of things to to think about just kind of timelinewise would be to do any kind of grade reconfiguration from the state we do have to apply to the state by March of the year prior that it would start so that's kind of a a deadline for when to kind of kind of keep things in mind as as we go through um the other thing to think about is a formal enrollment study So I have my spreadsheet where I look at birth rates and I project out and I'm pretty close. Knock on wood. Um but you know there is a
147lot of development in Sardis but it's we're not seeing a lot of kids come out of it right and right so it's one thing for me to say it based on you know the numbers that I have I have Heidi has pulled information from you know farmhouse commons uh the summit all those things we know those kids um but it's hard to sometimes to convince the public that while all this building is going on it's not producing students for us so perhaps having a kind of a formal enrollment study that would kind of dig into those things and kind publicly say, you know, the average, you know, occupants per household is now 2 point something, whereas in the past it was three plus, you know, maybe four. Um, to get that information out there as
148well to get the whole complete picture, right? So that we're not doing something and then kind of going walking it back a couple years down the road. Okay. All right. Yeah. Anybody else? Bill, anybody else? No, I that that actually was my question. I was going to ask if we were considering a a formal, you know, kind of a population enrollment kind of a study. And I think it's a great great way to go. Um to go fast, you need to go slow, right? Sometimes and and details. Yeah. So that's a a great approach. We have a we have we have a declining, you know, enrollment. I mean, it's it's been the case for a long time. So um to put it out there is commendable. Can I just go? Yeah. Go ahead. I don't
149know if it's working. I hear that one works. Tim's works. Three years. throw this one on the ground. So my question just is as we go forward with this in the next, you know, at the next board meeting or at August board meeting or September, will we get a more formal plan as to how we're going to um move forward with creating a committee or getting uh public input or you know are we going to like a high level project like say hey here's what we're Yeah. So, I mean, obviously if that's, you know, with the direction of the board, I'd be happy to put together what I would prefer, the kind of the path we'd like to take and get feedback on it. Okay. Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. Okay.
150Thank you. Christine, you had something. Yep. Just um I know you said we don't want to move that quick. You know, we don't want to move slowly, but we don't want to move quickly, but you know, we're saying now we're in June and this decision has to be made by March. That to me is a pretty quick timeline for such a dramatic change. So I mean what is the leeway? I know that's an SED of having the sort of decision in concept saying this is what we want to do but then take another year to officially you know do the plan and make sure it's done right because you know Jeff said it really needs to be done right um for it to be successful I think so just you know that's one of my
151feedback when we say go slow but here we are in June and with the decision to be done in March March that doesn't seem that slow in my opinion and so just one of my, you know, thoughts on it. Okay. Anything else? Anybody else? Okay. Committee reports. Audit committee, you're up first. Uh, nothing to report. Facilities. I think we you got any a couple updates? Yeah. Um, so for facilities, uh, they work at Morris Elementary School and the pavement, the site work is going to be starting as soon as students are out for the summer. Well, actually, I think after July 4th, if I stand corrected, um, that does mean that the playground will be closed off for the public over the summertime while that work get done safely. Um, so, you know, for those
152of you that frequent there often, make sure there's no fencing or anything around it and be safe. Um, we had hoped to perform a capital outlay project this summer to make more ADA compliant egresses at Ricardi Elementary School. One out of the back door by the kindergarten wing and then one out of uh by the cafeteria. Um, we did not have any successful bids or we have any bids when we went out to bid the first time. Um, we did contact or our architect contacted our site work um, Del Signor to see if they would be interested in it and the price that they gave for the site work component. not even the the reinstating the doors was well over the $100,000. Um so we are working with our architects to see if there's other
153means to go about to acquire somebody's to do maybe one of the entrances and a doorway to scale it back. Um hopefully maybe we reach out to some local contractors to see if they'd be willing to bid on it if we go out to to bid again uh for that. If we can't, what happens to that 100,000? Michelle, if you don't have the 100, we have 100,000. We have a 100,000 that we have to spend there, right? Yeah. And what if we don't get any bids or there's no other way to do it? What happens that we lose it? It would go to fund balance. It would go to fund balance and Yeah, you wouldn't get any aid. Okay, got it. That Yeah, that answers my question. Okay, thank you. Yeah. So moving forward, right,
154when the voters approve the budget, there were some options in there, right, in terms of AC units, additional flooring, flooring may be the way to go because we've been able to get it accomplished, but those those conversations will continue to happen in that facilities committee meeting. Okay, great. Policy, I think we Yeah, I think we covered it. Um, you know, it's uh we the next meeting, I think, is July 1st. Uh, it is open to anybody that would like to participate, certainly families, parents, uh, you know, teachers. uh we've oftentimes, you know, put out the call and and really tried to encourage people to to participate uh so that our policies aren't top down or feel like they're top down, right? We want to have that that level of engagement. And so even though some
155of these policies come uh to a certain degree can come to us in a uh you know pre-written format, the opportunity to customize them as Dr. Ersig pointed out is is is really there, you know. So um that next meeting will be July 1st. Uh obviously the big ticket items that we did discuss are on the agenda today. Um the maximum temperature for school buildings and the use of cell phones and other electronic devices. Those conversations are ongoing. Thank you. All right. Fantastic. Um All right. Um personnel will matter, right? To vote on nothing. Oh for session uh personnel and contract. Yes. Okay. Um, so I would propose a motion to uh recess into executive session for um a personnel matter discussion and contract negotiation update. We want to open public recognition. Oh, we skipped
156over that. Yes. Sorry. It's cuz you did it at the beginning, but now that's the first one at the end. Yes. So, sorry. I went right from policy to that. So, um, so our second public comment. So this now is um anything that is um in the agenda if anybody has any comments or questions on Okay. No. All right. Um so back to proposed um executive session. So moved by Miss Keller, second by Mr. Wells. Any question? No. Okay. In favor. Okay. Just a note when we do come back out there'll be nothing else that we be voting on to adjourn the to um reconvene open session. So I I motion to future board meetings. They have it wrong. It's July 10th. Not uh not meeting so moved by Mr. Ball seconded second no by
157Dr. doing. Thank you. Enjoy the grandkids. I can't get out of here quick. Good night. Thank you guys. All right, let's go, man. Holy moly. I'll bring her tomorrow. I wanted to, but I didn't.