3/10/26 - Regular Board of Ed

001Test Everyone's attention please. I'd like to welcome everyone here tonight's board meeting. Everyone please stand for the pledge by the flag stands nationice for all. Wonderful to see so many people here this evening announcement in the event of emergency exits and your exits to your left and to your right over presentation. We have a lot of exciting things that we're going to be talking about this evening. We're going to start off right now with our S community partnership and we're turn sit up front and we're turn it over to our student board member who's actually start the presentation for us to see All right. Thank you everyone for coming out tonight. Um, thanks to the board of education for being here, high school administration, parents, students, everyone. Means a lot for auditorium to get this

002packed we rarely see. So that's that's really nice. But um, I'd like to talk about an amazing opportunity tonight for high school age students at High School to get an associates degree as they graduate high school. Your future depends on a lot of things, but mostly on you. We'll talk more about what that means. College partnership, pathways to a high school diploma, and associate. Um, we have Edward T. Bonu and Dr. Dennis O'Hara that's going to help me out with this presentation that was so thoughtfully prepared. Next, I'd just like to talk about the uh agenda for tonight. What we're going to go over first, um just the welcoming introduction of special guests. We're going to talk about why education pays literally what we know and why we are here. High aspirations versus high costs

003and other barriers. A gem in our own backyard where ambition meets opportunity. how high school hustle will equal college muscle. And then at the end, we'll have time for some question and answers. And with that, I'd just like to introduce some people. Um, I'd like to introduce Dr. Edward Monagu, the president of Suffach County Community College. Dr. Irene Rios, vice president of academic affairs and Ammerman campus CEO. Lisa Kala, assistant dean for K through2 programs from Suffach County Community College. Mr. John Dolan, board of trustees for the Suffach County Community College. Mr. Samuel Gonzalez, Suffach County Legislator of District 9. Mr. Steven Flanin, Suffach County Legislator for District 11. Miss Trish Bergen, Suff County Legislator, also on the education committee chairs. Unfortunately, she couldn't make it out tonight, but she said she really wishes she

004could have been here. Miss Katherine Romano, Eastern Suffach Boseies Board of Ed, Mr. Robert Beckio, executive director of NASA SuffK School Boards Association. And with that, I'd like to introduce Dr. Dennis O'Hara, who's going to take it from here. Thank you, Brody. Thank you everyone for being here this evening. Um, Brody's just one example of the many fine young people we have in our schools. You guys know that there's about 2,700 more schools. So, um, but we started with this slide when you walked in. I was hoping that message would percolate people. And for any students in the room, I want you to know that your future does depend on a lot of things, but mostly it depends on how hard you work and how much effort you put in and and uh how much

005focus you have on your personal goals. So that'll be the theme throughout this presentation this evening because we're proposing something that's an extraordinary opportunity and we're also proposing something that will take an incredible amount of work to accomplish. We think it's possible for some of our students and we think there's another piece of this is possible for many more of our students. So Brody took us through an agenda and I'm going to take you through some of those steps now. So what do we know about postsecary education and why does it matter? We're in an era where tuition and fees are growing and growing and growing at a pace that's much faster than than income is growing and it's outpacing families ability to afford a college education. And because of that, some people think that

006there are healthier alternatives or maybe a faster alter. While that may be true, I'd like just to take a look at some of these data for a moment. As you can see, this chart shows what happens to your earnings potential as you advance your education beyond high school. You can also see what happens to your chances or possibility of finding yourself unemployed. So, in one case, it's a direct relationship. The further your education goes, the higher your income goes. In the other case, it's an inverse relationship. the uh less education, the more likely you may be to find yourself unemployed. College graduates live approximately 7 to 11 years longer than those with high school. Higher educational attainment associated better health behaviors, increased access to health care, lower rates of chronic illness. Each additional level of

007education is linked to greater uh employment stability and economic resilience. And the benefits of continue education don't stop with just the individual. They also enhance the community at large. So communities that have a higher percentage of people that have an education beyond their high school diploma are stronger communities, healthier communities, and more engaged communities. Bottom line is investing in education is an investment in your long-term economic security in public health and also in quality of not only your life that you live. Here's another quick way to look at that. Continue your education beyond high school. You have greater lifetime earnings, lower unemployment, increased economic resilience. Matter of fact, during the uh recession of 2008, 80% of the jobs that were lost were lost to those people that had a high school performance. People that education

008beyond high school were able to rebound, but those who stopped their education in high school really struggle to rebound in that great recession. It reduces stress because you have typically better health outcomes. You have typically access to health care earlier. You don't have to wait until it's so bad that you need to go to the emergency room, get early care, preventative care, and you have a longer life expectancy. As was mentioned earlier, it also sustains economic growth because there's more civic engagement, there's more community stability, and there's intergenerational benefits for families. This is a letter that was in news day back in January. It was written to the editor and it was written by the president of Army State College. I don't expect you to read it from the screen. I took the liberty of

009pulling out the sailing points from uh uh president. This one in particular was part of the reason we're here this evening because we hear in the news all the time how crushing student debt is and how it makes it difficult for young people to stay on for their home afford to buy a home etc. So um we're going to present the proposed plan tonight that we think can a lot. And so as I was thinking about um this work and this opportunity only about two and a half weeks after that there was this article on news that many of you probably know of or heard of Dr. Oz on TV in years past presently he's was appointed by President Trump to be the administrator for Medicare and Medicaid services and the headline in this article

010was Dr. Oz uh his pitch was to delay retirement. He was recommending that all Americans delay retirement for a year. There were several reasons for that recommendation. Among them is worrying about how long social security can pay and obviously we all delay our retirement by stay longer. This article was originally in the Washington Post and then reprinted in Tuesday. And again, it's I don't expect you to be able to read it, but I pulled out some points from related to why we're here this evening. Those with a college degree and higher income tend to retire later having more savings and live longer. Researchers have found they're more likely to be interested in their work and see it as part of their identity. People who didn't attend college or earn less have a vastly different experience.

011They're more likely to work in fiscal demand roles, retire early, have less savings, and even die soon. So you don't have to look far to find data and research that shows us what the benefit is of continuing your education beyond high school. And as you saw from the earlier slide, no matter how far you go in associate degree, even that enhances the quality of your life and the ability to earn more over your lifetime. So the question is if it were easy why doesn't everyone do it? If people aspire to go to college and you can clearly identify the benefits what gets in the way well some of the barriers are cost some of the barriers are advising some of the barriers of people just don't have the rights. So this is a fact. I

012I find this this statistic shocking because it's just not what people would think of. At least not what I think of. But nationally, if we took 100 high school students and started them in a four-year college in September, fewer than four of them would have their college degree four years later. And that contributes to the problem because people budget for a four-year college degree and then they find out that their child ends up spending five years or six years at college having spent 50% more for that college degree than anticipated. and uh not because of the efforts of the people that are this evening due to many factors but another statistical reality is that if those same 100 students started at a junior college the completion rate four years later is even lower. Now one

013of the reasons for that is because not everyone who begins at a junior college goes there with the intention of earning four years. There are many amazing programs at junior colleges in particular you'll hear about many of them tonight from Dr. you. People go to junior college because they're interested in becoming a certified nurse assistant or learning about medical doing or phabbotomy things that will help them earn a living and get into their workforce rather quickly. You don't necessarily need a four year degree. Part of the problem people who started the junior college and don't get to four degree is because they don't necessarily get the proper advis advisor. Sometimes there's remedial courses that are required and they don't get credit and then they get discouraged and then other times they just run out of

014money and they don't necessarily rising tuition fees, housing and textbooks have created significant debt burdens for their family and without careful planning students accumulate credits that don't apply to their degree increasing both time and cost. Here's another big reason people don't think a college education is important. The top of this list is five um private schools in New York and the next set of schools is five Sunni schools in New York. You can find this information on their websites or by simply googling it. This is the total cost of attendance for one year at these colleges or universities. Now, to be fair to them, that includes everything. That includes books. It includes tuition. It includes gas that it costs to to get there. It includes parking the car on campus. It includes your meal plan.

015It includes clothing. It's dentals. Regardless, you can see it's a hefty price tag. And that's that's daunting. And it forces many families to say college education may not be for us. But there's hope because we have guests here tonight who are going to tell us what's up. community college has to offer. While the tuition at Suff County Community College is presently approximately $6,50 for one year, this is what it may cost if you had to commute from Iceland, if you had to buy your books, if you had to pay college fees, etc. So trying to compare apples to apples, this is approximately the total cost of attendance for one year in South Carolina Community College. So that's the bad news. The good news is we think we have a plan that can really, really, really

016help with this. I'll say it again and I will say this several times later in the evening. It won't be easy, but it will be worth doing. And we think we can save families tens of thousands of dollars if they're willing to get on board with this and the children are willing to work hard and willing to partner with us. But before we get to the details of how we think we can work, it can work. Um, I'm going to ask Dr. Bonnie to come up and spend some time talking to you about U the college where he's the president and everything that has to offer our students. And with that thanks Dennis. Good evening everyone. So uh my name is Ed Bonu. I am the president of Suff County Community College, the best community

017college in the Sunni system. Thank you very much. And I'm here really for two purposes tonight. One, I'm here to refresh your memories about about Southern about everything that we do as a comprehensive community college. We're very proud of our entire mission. We serve over 30,000 students per year. Everything from students learning the English language or taking a high school equivalency diploma to students who are taking vocational education. They're earning a workforce certificate. And the largest portion of our of our student body tells us what I really want here is the first two years of university. What I really want is to be able to transfer to university. I want to ultimately earn a bachelor's degree. And there are many roads to that bachelor's degree and I'll talk about some of them tonight. Um, we

018were hit hard by CO. I started as president in 2021 and we, uh, at that time we were really hit hard. Uh, our families were more likely to be affected, but since 2021, our enrollment has grown by 15%. Um, and as I mentioned, we're back to the point where we're now serving uh, over 30,000 credit and nonredit students every year. about 15% of all Suffach County students graduating high school come to us at Suffach. And uh we have we have over 25,000 credit students. That includes both uh students on campus and it includes the credit students who are taking courses while they're currently in high school. Um and by our size, we are by far the largest community college in the city system. As I hope you know, we have three campuses. The closest one

019here is uh the closest one here to Iceland is our Brentwood campus up the road. Um but we also have uh a campus in Seldon campus out in Riverhead. All three campuses are fullervice campuses. We have all kinds of arts and sciences classes. They have slightly different lineups when it comes to their workforce programs. About threearters of our students, who's seen our commercial on TV? Who's seen our commercial? Good. I'm I'm glad some people have seen our commercial. About threequarters of our students tell us that their ultimate goal is to earn a bachelor's degree. And so, we're very proud. Even in our commercial, we feature these students many times. We talk about the path that they've taken. And again, they transfer from SuffK to some of the most selective universities in the country. We're very

020proud of these students. We also transfer more students to Stonybrook, obviously a destination of specific interest here in Suffach County. We transfer more students to Stonybrook, I think, than all the rest of the community colleges combined. And so we're very proud of that. We have joint admissions programs with many universities, I think Dennis may touch on that later, but um we're especially proud of Sea Wolves at Southern. Uh so Stony Brook's mascot is the Sea Wolves. And who here went to Stony Brook? Yes, plenty. Right. And um so Seaw Wolves at Suffet is a program whereby we can begin getting students oriented to Stonybrook even while they're on campus. Uh I mentioned that we're very proud of the articulation agreement. We transfer students all over the country uh including many selected universities. Here are just

021a few. Independent of this presentation uh about the our joint programming with Iceland. I always mention the fact that we have so many students in in high school who are already Suffach students including some here right here in Iceland high school. We partner with most of the school districts in Suffach County. We have uh we offer high school programming in two forms both uh taught by uh faculty who are in the high schools including many uh high school faculty and we offer early college programming. Early college means that the students come to us And students are actually taking courses while they're still in high school, but with our college faculty, they can do this online or they can take these classes on campus. And you can see there we partner with virtually uh I think

022there's 65 districts in in Suffach County. And obviously we partner with almost everyone that has a high school. About 25% of our students tell us, "What I really want is to get a job. I'm I'm less interested in getting a bachelor's degree right now. Maybe someday, but right now, what I really want to do is get a job. I want to enter the workforce. And we're really the regional training center for a lot of industries. Our I'm going to talk about some uh flagship programs in a minute. Everything ranging from automotive to nursing to welding, cyber security. Uh these are really large programs and again students come out of these programs with multiple job offers and many times there are certificates they can complete on the way. It can be a certificate and then a

023degree and then they can go on to a bachelor's degree as well. These programs the programs I'm going to talk about on the workforce side are possible destinations for students who are in the BKIP program. uh a student who already has some high school credits, uh some college credits that they earned in high school will be able to have an easier time accessing, for example, a degree in health care once they get to campus. But we do not offer these um these CTE programs through the media program. We are the largest provider of I I don't know if people know this. We put more nurses on the hospital floors in Suffach County than any other college or university. We're currently putting about 150 RNs on the floor of our local hospitals every year. We have

024a program to uh we have a plan in place to try to grow that number of RN students. We're now accepting students into the RN program twice a year as opposed to once a year. and we're trying to manage that a little bit differently so that we can increase our output. We also offer the complete ladder for folks who are interested in nursing, moving from um a one semester certificate or being a certified nursing assistant to the uh licensed practical nurse credential which is shorter than a degree but it takes takes a few semesters to get through it and then all the way to the uh RN program. Our enclelex rate uh our enclelex pass rate is the highest on Long Island. We're very proud of that. It's a credit to our faculty. Uh also

025in health sciences, we have a new degree program in surgical technology. These are the folks who assist with instruments in the operating room, physical therapy assistance, OT assistance, addiction counselings, um paramedic programs, uh EMT training. We are the largest trainer of allied health and nursing professions on Long Island. You guys, again, not every student wants to earn a degree right now. So, they may graduate from high school and maybe they say, "You know what? I really just want to get started quick. I have a sense of urgency." um guidance counselors, parents, teachers. If you have if you know students who they really have a sense of urgency, they want a shortterm certificate that they can immediately can convert to full-time work. We offer medical assistant, nursing assistant, EKG and phbotomy technician, medical coder biller, legislator,

026thank you for connecting us to a business uh nearby here uh for our students who are in the medical coder biller program. um up with the assistant pharmacy tech. Again, these are shorter than degree programs, but students come out of these programs usually with office for full-time employment. We're very excited about the status of our automotive tech training program. Uh and automotive technology historically has just been located at our Aberan campus off Nichols Road. With support from both the state and the county, we are doubling the size of that program. And by 2027, we will open a new automotive technology program at the Grant Campus in Brentwood. So a student won't have to go all the way up to Seldon. Students from here in Icelip. Students from Western Suffach County will be able to access

027the automotive program right here in Brentwood. Also in Brentwood is our HVAC degree. Again, uh HVAC folks are very in demand. Whether you want to do retail work, visiting visiting folks homes to do repairs or doing things like building engineering, working for hospitals, schools, businesses, doing um the kinds of engineering work in climate control that our students are trained to do. We're so grateful for that. We have corporate support from Johnson Controls, from Dyken, and from other companies that help be sure that our students are trained on the latest equipment. Uh cyber security has been much in the news in recent years and uh we're very proud again that we have a flagship cyber security program. Um it is also with the help of an earmark from it actually started out with congressman in Zelda

028when congressman when he was a congressman uh we we had some congressional support for program expansion that led us to expand the program from Zeldon to the Brford campus. Um uh and and again we offer a co-curricular student team that's had really extraordinary success competing against four-year universities. So we're very proud of that. For students who want to um there there are many things that students can do after high school. We talk to students many times and they want to they want to learn a trade. They want to work with their hands. Um many times that involves that that might involve one of our partners in labor. It might involve getting involved with an apprenticeship program or a journeyman program with one of our our labor partners. But also on campus, we offer certificates in

029welding and CNC machining. Both are very in demand. Uh we also have tremendous support from the US Navy. Um if you've ever seen the commercials for build submarines, builds, you see them at sometimes at like the football games, there's a commercial for build submarines. That's us. We have support from the US Navy in the form of scholarships to pay for students who want to learn to be a welder or be a machinist so long as they're willing to make a commitment to a certified defense contractor, certified defense manufacturing contractor. And we're actually going to be celebrating our manufacturing community on Thursday night at the at our annual foundation. We're proud of that. In terms of campus life, uh, you know, I I'm not positive that everybody knows that as a as a comprehensive college, we're

030a college. We're a college. We offer athletics and the student newspaper and a radio station and student clubs and uh, you know, social events and the art galleries and music and theater and so forth. And the research shows that when students get involved in these events on campus, they succeed. One of the one of the things we'll be talking about in a moment in terms of the joint programming with ISIF is is that we want to promote more onampus opportunities for students. Yes, there's always going to be credit that students can take while they're in high school, but we also want to promote students coming to campus because one of our goals is to be sure that they understand that they belong in Suffach, that they have a home at Suffach, and that um uh

031when they are involved on campus, they're far more likely to complete their degree program. Uh in terms of scholarships, Dennis, thank you for commenting on the affordability uh the affordability factor. Uh, one of our trustees is here, our board of trustees, is always committed to trying to keep our enrollment as low as possible. As you heard, right now $3,000 a semester, $6,000 a year compared to our colleagues in the university system who who have to charge a bit more. Um, we offer right now over $600,000 a year in scholarship support for students who metriculate to the college. So, if you come to the college as a college student, then we're able to uh again help with what we hope is already an affordable tuition uh with some scholarship opportunities as well. Now, we're going to

032I'm going to pivot. Let's talk about the accelerated pathway that that we're really here to talk about tonight. Um we're we always want to increase student access to college. That's one of our goals. We also want to increase um the yield that we get at Cath College from our our partner high schools. So, we're very excited with the idea that we can make our pathways to a degree program more visible, that we can um share information with students even while they're in high school about the possibility of coming to SUFFK and earning a degree right with us in SUFFK. Um I I do want to emphasize that this is a highly regulated area that we have um Sunni set standards for us, the state education set standards for us and Dennis, thank you for being

033so understanding. So far uh with Dennis and his leadership team and me and Dr. Rios and our leadership team. We've had one conversation really about the details of this program, but we're so excited that we're ready to bring the bring it to you as an as the outline of a plan. There are more conversations that need to happen. Uh we're we're going to answer questions. You're you're you may be giving us suggestions for things that we need to do, things that have not yet been done or not yet been addressed. Um but we're excited about it and so we're here to put it in front of you. Um I do want to mention that I I need to say that historically and under the state guidelines we are a college that is able to open

034beacon program to students who are juniors and seniors. What we have to what desk is going to talk about in a minute is a pathway that gives an additional pathway into the beacon program. Um, there are also eligibility requirements. There are eligibility requirements that students have to meet to be in uh the Beacon program. And again, we'll talk about those eligibility requirements. The way that we have envisioned this program requires cooperation that students will take a certain number of credits in the high school. and also an envision that they will take a certain number of credits in the college and you can see these you can see these uh parameters uh here on the screen uh and combining that with AP coursework we're excited that students will accumulate more credits they will be able to

035make more progress towards a degree and by offering more intentional information about college degrees we'll be able to uh we'll be able to put more students on the pathway to a degree uh that they can then finish it Suffach Community College. Um we have had one student in the last five years. During my tenure as president of Suffach, we've had one student who has succeeded in finishing an associates degree while they were still in high school. We're optimistic that there could be more. We have to figure out how to do it. So under this collaboration again we see this as a as joint program joint programming that will involve both beacon courses and college courses. I want to say that much and we'll be we'll be glad to questions at the end of the presentation.

036to demonstrate. Okay. So, we're going to transition a little bit to tell people what we believe is possible. And uh listening to Dr. Bonnie who I'm reminded of a quote that used to be on the wall in my wrestling room when I was in high school. It said uh the difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes just a little bit longer. So, we're we're here tonight to tell you that we think we can accomplish great things with our students and with Suff County Community College. So, high school hustle equals college muscle. Uh I just want to take a moment to share this letter. I don't expect you to read it. You may not be able to, but it comes from uh the uh Suff County Executive uh Mr. Edward. This was mailed um in September

037to all superintendents in Suffach County. And while Dr. Bonu and I were having conversations prior to that uh or met prior to that um I was very pleased to see this letter from Mr. Roma and this is these are the highlights from his letter. Suffach County's future depends on the success of our students. I'm reaching out to highlight affordable opportunities available through Sunny Suffets Beacon and Early College programs which allow high school students to earn college credit while completing their graduation requirements. These programs give students a head start on their college education at a fraction of the usual cost. By promoting programs like Beacon and Early College, we can make higher education more affordable, reduce student debt, and help our young people remain work and thrive here. That's directly from our county executive. So, um

038I don't expect you to read everything that's on here, but this is the requirements for an associate degree liberal arts and sciences general studies at S County Community College. that ranges between 65 and 67 credits dependent upon maybe some lab classes or you know the courses that you have. What we've been working on is a pathway that can change students life trajectories by combining rigorous coursework, strong support, and truly affordable credit. And I feel like I can't be here tonight and not talk about the places you will go with Dr. Seuss. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it. We're about to explain something that we think would be really, really challenging. So, we also

039think will be very worth it if our students and families step into this. So, we're working on a cohort style pathway that makes it possible for students to complete an AA degree in liberals and start in sciences while earning their high school diploma. And I say cohort style. Cohort typically means you walk into a room of people and you take every step together, go through everything together. This program will be kind of like a cohort hybrid if it plays out the way we think it's possible. So students would start together with some summer courses this coming summer and then they might go their separate ways depending on the courses they select during their high school years and then they might come back together again the following summer and so on. The emphasis is going to

040be on rigorous work because this is college level work. The college has its prerequisite requirements. It has its u course participation requirements, course attendance requirements. All the students have to do work that is satisfactory whether it be our faculty or the college's factory uh faculty all those requirements have to be there and it's focused on equity and access. So what that means is that this could be available to any student who's willing to put in the effort and do whatever it takes to earn college credits while they want. Um, but the trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work. So, I'm going to be a broken record and say to you that this is a tremendous opportunity, but this is also going to be a tremendous amount of work. And here's

041the beginning of how you start to make this happen. You don't have to memorize this. Um, this presentation will be online after the fact. So, if you're struggling to take pictures, don't worry. You can actually get it from our website. You're free to take the photos, of course, but you don't have to feel pressured to miss it. So, these are the advanced placement courses that we presently offer in our high school, and there may be one more coming soon. It's not only these are the dual enrollment courses or dual credit courses that we offer in our high school. And you'll notice almost entirely the first three columns of Suff County Community College. We've we've worked um over the beginning of the school year to transition from some of the other colleges that we used to

042participate with to Suffet courses so that it would be easier for our students to transition from their years at our high school directly to Suffach County Community College and thinking that if students worked really hard and they earned a year's worth of college credit, these suffer credits would transport them seamlessly right through subm college that would make things easier for students. Okay. So, what might it look like? These are the students that we're going to kind of focus on this evening. We have the summer of 26, the academic school year that starts in 26. Summer of 27, academic school year begins in September of 27, summer of 28, academic school year of 2829, another summer and 2020 uh 2029 2030 school year. So, we're kind of looking at our ninth graders as if they're cohort

043one for this proposal. Then what we'd like to try is to find a group of hearty, hardworking, committed, dedicated, and resilient students to begin after nth grade with a college seminar course, which is one credit, a PE class, which is one credit, and possibly a sociology course that would be taught by faculty at Suff County Community College. And on our end, we would try to figure out ways to help our students get to the campus for at least two of those classes. And we think possibly the college seminar course could be virtually. And our plan would include having our students meet together in one of our classrooms and take a class virtually as a group. Then once it ever rolls around, students would have to be enrolled in some assortment of advanced placement courses and

044dual enrollment courses. So they would have to begin making selections from those two pictures I showed you a moment ago, the AP courses on the top and college courses in the following summer there would be more college courses on the college campus andor virtually. The summer courses would be the early college courses and the courses during the school year would most likely be courses. Then during the academic year there would be more AP courses more summer more then we have summer and for the ninth graders we have their senior year. Now remember, to make this happen, you have to meet your high school graduation requirements and through a combination of advanced placement courses, weekend program, and early college courses, achieve 65 college credit. 10th grade would be the same beginning and you would follow suit.

045You just have a little bit less time. So you might be candidates to earn one year worth of credit and maybe continue at South County Community College for the second year still both have substantial savings over some of the numbers that we uh shown on the screen earlier. current 11th graders, if you're interested in trying to take advantage of some of this, then we would recommend you join us this summer. And then you would have to do an assessment of your transcript to look at the AP courses you may have already taken and college courses that you may also have already taken. Now, middle school students cannot participate in college courses, but it's the time of year where middle school students are beginning to select their high school courses. And what they can do is

046think ahead, look at the offerings we have in our high school and select these two advanced placement courses that are offered to nth graders. If your eighth grade students can take these courses and earn a three or above out of a fivepoint exam, an advanced placement exam, three is passed, maximum score is five. You could conceivably earn six college credits through these advanced placement opportunities and you will be kind of on your way and then the rest of it would follow suit with what we same slide just important information at the bottom to have the possib possibility of earning this associate degree. Students will have to enroll in summer session courses, possibly even winter session courses, find courses that are available to them, winter session, summer session one, summer session two. So it could mean

047you'd be in high school classes during the day and you'd be in college classes. It's a lot, but we think it's possible. We're going to show you how. So here is a timeline and a possible course uh possible course selections. What I'm going to share with you will not be for everyone. This is just one example of how it's possible and then every individual student will have to work through based on their abilities, their desire to do the work and their level of commitment. So, for example, if you're a current eighth grader, you could begin this timeline with bio AP environmental science. Currently, it's referred to as leaps. If you've seen that course, bring your children and AP human history and geography. Those would be six credits. We're working with Dr. Bonnie and his team

048to make it possible for students this summer to earn five credits through early college opportunities. Sophomore year would be more beacon opportunities and an AP business course. All of the things that are on here are examples. This is might not be everything your student tries, but these are examples. These are how we find and achieve the 65 to 67 credits while meeting our high school requirements. another summer session, possibly a physical education course, possibly an elective. Junior year, I want to emphasize that if you look at that, that is a heavy schedule. That's four advanced placement courses, college language course. It's not for the timid and it's not for the people who think they could just kind of go through the motions, right? Starting to see how it takes shape. summer session, two elective courses,

049six credits, and then senior year, bring it home. Okay. Uh there is a disclaimer at the bottom. Can you folks read that? Because with my eyes, I can't read the little print on the screen. Uh basically it says that uh this is uh um dependent upon students meeting prerequisites all attendance requirements and of course u successful completion of all assignments and requirements in the course and then after that on to even better things. Dr. Bonnie touched upon it in his presentation but this is why we think this opportunity is so valuable. Sun suffer maintains articulation and transfer agreements with many four-year institutions ensuring their associate degrees transfer smoothly into bachelor's degree programs. So what that means is let's say that you are one of the few who can complete a two-year degree while you're here.

050You could use that to transfer smoothly into one of the schools that Sun has articulation for. Let's say that you were one of the more likely cases where you earn a year's worth of credit and then you continue at Suffach in person for a year. You can still take advantage of these articulation agreements, have paid very little money for your first year of college, and then have paid that assuming suffic tuition rate that we talked about more than once and you can just start to add up how many tens of thousands of dollars it can save you. These agreements help student students avoid repeating course work and losing credits when they move to a four-year college. So, we're hoping this turns into a reliable course effective springboard to multiple bachelor pathways for our students. And

051I just want to give you some examples of the articulation agreements. So across the bottom of the screen, that's a list of the majors that are in the course catalog at Suffach County Community College. And so for example, the fourth one in is business administration. So if you were to be a student at Suff County Community College and mark your major in business, if you graduate with your associate degree and you have the necessary GPA, there are 31 or 32 colleges that you can seamlessly transfer to at a county community college. It doesn't mean you're limited to those 34 and 32, but those those are seamless transitions. And here's more examples. What might this cost? I can't predict what it will cost because that'll be variable. That will vary by every student. But if you

052go to a four-year college, don't do any college credits. I have up here that it's a a minimum of $100,000, but I don't even think that's accurate. I think it's probably more than if you start a four year college by the time you go. If you work with us and we continue to develop this program, you can earn your credits in high school. It's $75 per beacon credit, $100 per credit for the early college program. So, it could cost $5,000 or less to earn 60 some credits. And then you would add on the course of your two-year degree. You would remain to two years. But of course, the final course would vary by how many credits you earned, the course selections you made, financial aid, transfer of destination. But regardless, this is this is a

053great opportunity for families. Okay. Now, this looks like a repeat, but I just want to kind of explain to you where the savings could put in here. Um, many of you may be aware, but if you're not, let me just remind everybody that in this school district in particular, we pay the AP exam fees for every student that takes the test. So, in this first year, if you take those two AP exam fees, uh, excuse me, if you take those two AP courses, you have the potential to sock away six college credits, and it would cost you zero because we pay for the exam. So, you earn three and above, you have six credits. And it was uh thank you to the board of education, the taxpayers of the ASM school district. If you take

054these five credits over the summer, because they're $100 per credit, it's $500. And this uh the way this proposal works, that's three beacon courses. That's $75 a credit, $675. Coming back down here for a summer of four college credits, $400. Heavy load of AP classes and one college course, $225. Six credits with early college, $600, and some AP classes and some college courses, $450. I don't know if you can tell any, but that's what's reflected on the screen in terms of cost. Now um you can't hold me to that number because this number this number is based on 10 advanced placement courses which is a heavy heavy load. 10 advanced placement courses in four years. That's the maximum 30 credits that you can transfer from AP courses. So it's a heavy load. So if you're

055a student who's not ready for two AP classes in nth grade, it doesn't mean all is lost. We'll try to find more beacon and more summer college early college courses and the number would change because every time we take away an AP course you have to add roughly three more credits in pay so it's either $300 or 75* 3. So May West once said I never said it be easy. I only said it would be worth it. Teddy Roosevelt said, "Nothing worth having comes easy." Bob Parsons also said, "If it was easy, everyone will be doing it." And Art Williams said, "I'm not telling you it's going to be easy. I'm telling you it's going to be easy." So, just for some points of emphasis here, this is this is what we think we can

056provide for our students and families. A structure expert instruction whether that instruction come from our own faculty members or the faculty members on campus who are also outstanding we can provide expert instruction Dr. Ronnie, you can assure that on his end and I can assure that on my end. Um, our teachers that are here, we've been working with the college to get our teachers credentialed. So, that means we've sent um transcripts and resumes, whatever that may involve. So, we have a a whole host of teachers that have been credentialed and approved by the college and we also have um I don't know how many faculty members at Southern County Community College that would be happy to have our students in their classrooms. Uh so we expect more students on campus as a result of this.

057We'll provide academic counseling both with our counselors and in conjunction with people at the college so that we can continue to work together on this. And of course we're going to give you all the encouragement, support that you need. Going as far as to say that um if we have to take public transportation to the campus for the summer courses, I'll be on the bus with your guys and girls and we'll get them there. Make sure we do a good class and we'll ride the bus back together. What we need are students who are visionary, motivated, hardworking and resilient. Again, this is not for the faint of heart. This is not for somebody who just wants to go through the motions. This is for serious people who see this as a great opportunity. And we

058need families who want to partner with us and provide uh the necessary support. Okay. So, um, we'll try to answer your questions because, uh, not every detail of this partnership is hammered out yet. There are things to be determined. There will be hurdles along the way. Uh, it will be some bumps in the road that we didn't anticipate, but uh, we will figure it out and we will be with your children every step of the way if they decide to take this on. And, uh, with that, if you have a question, maybe please go to the mic. Mr. Okay. Press the mute button. Hold it down. >> Can you hear me now? >> Okay, here we are. First of all, thank you so much for bringing this conversation to the community. appreciate it. I was

059wondering, you were talking a little bit about funding and I was wondering um for those students who would go on to college and seek out like financial aid, how would that work for the students of Iceland? Is there an opportunity to apply for financial aid? >> You mean after this program? Is that >> do you put up um some costs associated with each semester? >> Yeah. Um, >> I'm not sure if there's direct financial aid through the traditional format during the high school years and I don't think it would have negative impact uh because full-time students. So, um, uh, parents might have to find a money to pay $225 per course, etc. Part of the beauty of it is if it were the cost would cost you, they don't you don't have to have it

060all at once, right? Pay it as you go, which makes it more manageable. Um and then the people in this school district are so generous that often times through some fact channels and quietly we find people who offer scholarships and assistance certainly opportunities. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> This is actually a question for Dr. Monu. Um so throughout the presentation there is a conversation about the beacon program and accelerated uh college courses. Can you just explain to me the difference between the two? >> I'll do my best. So the beacon program as Dennis has described it is when high school faculty are teaching college curricula here in the high school. Okay. We also have high school students who can come to the college and take early college what we call early college courses.

061Students are still in high school. They have not metriculated into a degree program but we can provide to qualified students access to many college courses if they'll come to campus. Those are the two flavors. >> Thank you. You're welcome. Hi, I have a few questions. I don't think everyone's lining up, so I'll just ask them. >> Um, how many kids are needed in a cohort to make this happen? Um well the the beacon courses that are in college uh you know we have I don't think that'll be an issue. We can't we can't run a course in high school for two students because we just can't afford it. But our college courses are not excuse me not under subscribe. So I don't think it'll be an issue. Um I'm not sure about the college. They

062can't run a class either with two students. So we need a number of people to join on board. Unless of course um our students might go to campus and join a course that's already scheduled and has room in it. So I can't directly answer your questions. We're going to do everything we can to make it work. If I could suggest there are ways in which this might work as a cohort program. There are ways in which it may work as an open enrollment program. That is to say, for a student who wants to come to the college to take part in classes, they may be able to do that on their own. Now, if there's a large number of students and the high school can support a cohort, we would love to we would love

063to have that, but it could work either way. >> So, it's not ironed out because I'm understanding we're a pilot, right? So, we're we're at the guinea pigs. So my question is it's not ironed out that if you have a group of students who have all different pathways in mind, what if those students aren't enough to fill these classes now that cohort now that pathway is kind of at a dead end unless they have the ability to branch off and go to the college or >> go somewhere else. >> Yeah. So um so you're partly correct. Um although I don't I don't think it'll that'll I don't think that'll be one of our bigger hurdles to clear because the college has courses. They have number x number of sections of sociology for example. So if

064we have five students that want to jump on board this summer we're going to ask them do you have a section of sociology and I'm going to take them to campus and we're going to get them in. If we have 30 students that get on board this summer, I'm gonna call the college and say, "Can you give us a professor because I have 30 students?" And so, we're going to solve it. I I can't predict that because I don't know what what the occasion >> How many beacon teachers do we have here in Islam? >> Oh my gosh. >> I don't know off the top of my head. Do you have any idea? somewhere between 15 and 20. >> Now, if we're looking at we have current partnerships with other with other colleges like City

065Farm and I noticed that with this partnership, SUFFK would be taking a lot of those partnerships. It would be kind of not having some of them. What about those students that are currently a part of those programs? >> It doesn't impact them. We didn't we didn't eliminate the courses. We just found uh we worked together to identify Suffach County Community College's equivalent and so the course that was there last year will be available next year. It just will be offered through Suff County Community College instead of instead of Farming State. >> But what about those students that have intentions of going to Farmingdale like that that they join that for those reasons? >> Well, they could still go to Farmington. It's not a problem. Now, if you could go back to timeline for me, the

066one with the prices on it. Now, which of these classes? Just because it's the most comprehensive, you know, same. >> Oh, wait. Sorry. >> Sorry. this one. >> So I just because I don't have a high schooler yet and I don't know the course catalog. >> What which of these are here on Iceland's campus and which of these have to be taken at SUV? >> Okay. So in this example this possibility right because hypothetical >> it will vary by student. The courses that are at the bottom that are identified as summer session are on campus and the classes that are at the top that are identified as freshman year, sophomore year, junior, senior year are in our building. >> Okay. And those are during the school day, >> correct? >> And that's not now those

067summer session classes are obviously classes offered during the day in the summer, four days a week, that kind of a deal for the >> or or virtually >> or virtually. And and look, you said it best. We're we're piloting this. We're we're trying. And so, um, what I think is best is for us to have opportunities to have students take courses virtually because they could experience that in college. I think it's best for them to have some experiences with them on campus because hopefully they're on campus after. And I think it's likely that the majority of people that take advantage of this will earn a year and maybe be on the campus for a year. And I think it's terrific if I go with them for a couple of class days here or there over

068the summer. And then when they end up there on their own, they're very comfortable and very familiar with the campus. So we think this could happen in multiple ways. >> And I just I I believe in education. I was an educator. I understand the importance of college. And I also believe wholeheartedly that college is not for everybody. And I know while we stand here and we talk about this, I just want to remind people that an electrician gets anywhere from $125 to $250 to walk in the door. An HVAC person gets $150, if not double that if it's an emergency. These are also things we want to keep talking to our students about. We have all these college tours and all of this stuff going on, but I think we're forgetting those programs as well.

069And none of these will partner those kids towards those programs. >> Mr. Mo, I'm just going to push back a bit because um two points or three points maybe. First of all, this is optional, >> right? Well, just let me finish please. Um >> so if a if a family and a student want to go this path, we're trying to create something that will save them all. Um secondly, um Dr. Barney, you emphasized the programs HBAC, uh auto, auto repair, etc. We're trying to help our students be able to access those programs. So, so my hope is that we have this partnership and they do some classes while they're with us and then they seamlessly go into the HBAC or the propel whatever other programs you may have. So, that's part of our thinking. And

070then I guess the third point is we're not reducing any OC's opportunities. So, we we have those programs still available to our students. So, how does it work that these classes help a student get into like the HVAC program and something like are some of these courses prerequisites to be you need AP business or not AP business >> AP bio to go to the HVAC or the automobile program >> for something like HVAC or automotive to my recollection I don't think there's any prerequisites for these programs uh it could help when a student is invol interested for example in the health sciences if a student has had during their high school years for example example um say they've come to the college to take a course like medical terminology or something like that then they

071already have that under their belt and that's one less prerequisite they have to do when they come to the college >> right no that makes sense to me for the health scientists I'm talking more of the the trades but that's fine um I think I think those are all of my my questions >> one more piece too um you know we I started the presentation with the data about you know what the quality of life may be like if you continue your education So even if a student wants to do a year's worth of credit here and go straight into Hback, that's fine, too. But they're better off, I think, education >> personal. >> Fair enough. >> Hi, Mr. How are you? >> I'm well. >> Um, so two things. Number one, I'm impressed. Um,

072as a person who sat on this board, um, work 12 years to improve program in this district and watching where you've come now. This is an excellent opportunity. I've had the opportunity seeing nationally early college high school programs across the country in different states. Some states have a centralized education system and this is offered through their uh regular articulations between college and high school. Um for Mrs. Moon the programming that's up here is a liberal arts programming which is the base two years that you would get in any college whether you take those two years over the four or the early two. So it really um these programs are are more establishing you ready to get into your career trajectory once you are in that four-year program. The last thing I'll say is um I'm

073a Boseis board trustee and I I work with my colleagues here. Um there is not an or students who go to Boseies and do HBAC, electrician, plumbing. Um our nursing students come out with an LPN. Um ready to get an LPN. They can't get an RN because that's a four-year degree. So our students get ready in the base programs and base certifications and then move on to following education even our students in HAC. I will tell you that in this room there is a student who was a BOSIE student who is an educator in this district. So this is not an or it's an and the and opportunity is economical. So I applaud you all. Um I will tell you that the arrangement with Boseies is that Boseies has a certain number of seats that

074are allocated to ISUP schools. ISIP schools chooses how they use them and that is a smooth threeear s three-year cost average. So they're being economical is economical. Kids have choices and it shouldn't be one or another. It can be both. Hi. Um, I have a question about so I guess like the logistics of the scheduling if it's h some of these classes are happening in school. I'm really looking at sophomore year like I see those c four classes but then there's not a math up there's not a global two like how does all that fit? >> Yeah. So, um, so that we have a nine period day, >> right? >> So, students will have to be very eager and they might have to decide, hey, everyone want to go for this, so I'm going to

075fill all nine periods. Or they may have to say, um, you know what, Dr. Harry, you proposed four credits, uh, you know, in the summer between sophomore and junior year, but I'm going to take seven. Uh, or Dr. Harry, you you listed only summer session two. Um, but the colleges have a winter session which is uh four or five weeks in January. The colleges have a summer session one. And I hope that I hope that I have a handful that come and say, "Dr. Heron, can you help me get a virtual class in January? I'm I'm cooking with gas and I want to keep going." So, it's it this is a sample and a possibility. This is not a how you do it. This is a we showed how it could work and then it'll

076be very individual. it. You know, did you say it's flexible? >> Yeah. That's a good starting word, but quite honestly, I don't even think flexible is the right word. It It's really going to be per Yeah, somebody just said personal, I think. >> Oh, thank you, Kathy. Um, yeah, it's going to be individualized. Thank you, Mr. Dean. And it's going to be like what what am I capable of? Listen, you know, I'm standing in front of you today. I'm a superintendent. I have a doctorate. But when I was in high school, I was not capable of multiple AP courses. I I've evolved uh but some students I can tell you in the class of 2026 70% of our students in this current graduating class 70% have taken one AP exam. I can tell you that

07721 students have taken 10 or more. So and I can tell you that 87 of them have taken four or more. So, if you're a student who's taken four AP courses, that's off the mark of of the 10, but maybe you can stretch and take six and then we can find other college credits along those different interessions and so on. So, when I stand in front of you this evening, I can't tell you how it would work for your child. Um, and I know that's not what you're asking me, but it's going to be very dependent. That's that's why I kept saying over and over again, your future depends on a lot of things, but mostly you. It it will depend on on how our students want to grab this bull by the horns and

078and how determined they are and how motivated. It'll depend on a lot of things, but that's a big part of it. >> And then my other question is some of these courses, right, like the bios class that's offered now. So, if students are doing the Beacon program, would they be potentially in classes with kids that are not doing the Beacon program or these are exclusive classes? >> Oh, that's such a great question. So, um in in some we have we have I think I'm going to say three possibilities here. Um one of them is you're in a straight AP course. One of them is you're in a beacon course. And in some cases through our partnership with the our guests that are here tonight, we have some situations next year, actually we have one case

079this year and we'll have more next year where um students are doing both AP and Beacon at the same time. So here's what that means. Right now we have 91 students and I always get mixed up. I think it's AP language or literatur language. Thank you Mel. AP language we have 91 students across four sections. 35 of them are also paying for the credit from the PEP program. So, um some of them might earn the three or above and be able to earn get college credit and some of them may get the college credit through enrolling in and getting the necessary grade and get the credits. So, we we have we will have those three possibilities. >> So, the dual enrollment courses that exist already are already beacon courses. there just not this whole program

080with the summers and the winters. >> That's another great question. So yeah, so we all those classes that were at the bottom, the first three columns in particular, >> they're already beacon, >> right? So they're here and our students have been availing themselves of those courses for quite a number of years. What's different is nobody's ever taken the time to map this out and say what's possible and we're trying to help the students. I I'm listen I sorted Dr. Bonnie to make his presentation a couple a month or so ago. I said, "I want to enroll. I'm ready to go back to college." And so, I'm going to get on a bus and go to college with these guys. If I have to, I'm enrolling in sociology to make it work for our students. And

081we're we're all in and we're going to figure out how to make it work. The only thing that's different on that list you saw before is all those first three columns that are now Suffach County Community College, they weren't all Suffach Community College this year. So, we've worked with the college. We we we gave um Miss Kala all the courses we offer here that are dual enrollment through other colleges. We said we want to SuffK's mission is to be the school of choice for Suffach County students. So we I felt you're our choice. We want to get in this relationship together. And so which of these other college courses can become, you know, do you have on your campus? And so we did that work to make it easier like I don't the word's not

082easier but more streamlined, you know, like to make it work. Thank you. That was >> You're welcome. >> Hello. >> Um I came here for information. So, thank you to everyone that has provided the information. Um I've had three girls go through the district. I have one remaining who's in 10th grade. Uh all of them have had wonderful educations here. They have taken advantage of what has been offered for schools. Um, I'm curious. I can't figure out the missing piece. So, my daughter's in 10th grade. You're calling this a pilot program, but all the AP courses have been offered. The Beacon program has been offered. The Farmingdale State College program has been offered. So, what piece is missing for this associates? What's new? >> Is it the summer sessions? >> Yeah, we've never had early

083college here to my knowledge. So, that's new. Okay. and and also um uh the college has made some very rare exceptions regarding letting the students try early college class and so that part might be >> if she's on a trajectory she's in her sophomore year junior and senior I anticipate her continuing with the AP courses so it would be the summer sessions >> three I assume right You said sophomore sophomore. >> Uh so she would have two opportunities for summer sessions and also if this is viable for her and and then depending on what kind of student she is and her desire to try to move this along uh she could try um uh the way that I propose this is summer session two which is July you can see the dates July 12th through

084August 18th but summer session one begins late May or something like that and goes into late June. I forget the exact date, but you know, we could we could try that too. Um, and that would give more opportunity for credits. I only propose summer session two for starters because I'm trying to get a first cohort to come with me, take the classes, get the ball rolling, and then as we find out, students are more motivated and some may be more capable than others. They might be able to handle their full high school load and for May and June taking a course in the evening. Not everybody can, but some may be able to resource them. >> The cohort can be a variety of different ages from 8 through >> Yeah. Well, so for example, I'm

085calling the ninth graders the first cohort because like they're the first people to start after grade nine between grade 10, but in that first cohort could be some current 10th graders, even current 11th grade. >> All right. Thanks for the information. >> Yeah, my pleasure. I have some questions. So, they had to get a three in every single AP class and so they don't have to take the class again or something like that. >> Well, no, they don't. They Well, okay. So, good question for the um >> Yeah, it just they don't have to take the course again, but it just won't it they can't use it for college credit. They have to earn that score. >> And say they don't finish, say 40 credits. >> Yeah. They don't have to see it out to

086the end. >> No, you I mean, if you have 40 credits, then we call up the college. We say, "Hey, we have a fantastic student who's earned 40 credits and we want to get on your campus for two semesters and be done." >> Thank you. >> Yeah, my pleasure. >> Any others? One more. question. Um, can a student who takes an AP class and evening classes who decides not to enroll in this program to earn an associates degree still take advantage of classes in summer and summer? >> Yes. >> And are they limited in terms of what so they could take it. >> The answer would The answer would be somewhat and it depends. >> Okay. I'm just wondering like my daughter is currently a sophomore. If she didn't necessarily want to take that course

087load junior year, but still wanted to take classes at SUFFK, she could. >> I'm going to say generally, yes. Our contract with the the school as it currently as it currently stands, I believe has provision for qualified students to come and to come as they're recommended by the school district to come and take courses at Southern. Now, it doesn't mean they can jump ahead in math, right? It doesn't mean they can jump into a nursing course, but if they're interested in the liberal arts courses that that Dr. Har laid out. Then we reviewed those cases on a case- by case basis and try to serve that student. Okay. >> Hi, I have a question. I'm just curious how you know you're selling it to the parents here. It's a great opportunity. I'm just curious how

088you're presenting this to the students themselves and how you get them to buy in especially at such a young age of, you know, the eighth grade and ninth grade when they're in the mindset isn't quite there yet because once they start putting these grades on a college transcript that sticks. >> Yeah. Uh that's a thank you for that question. So, um, with the, uh, regarding the eighth graders, we, this is, I forget if it's our third year already with these two AP classes in grade nine. We've had good results. Um, I don't remember how many sections of of each, we we've had, but um, the answer to your question is a couple of ways. Number one is, um, the middle school counselors have come to see this presentation in advance of tonight. um they already

089advise students in terms of course selection and um uh Mrs. Stern, the middle school principal, and the counselors uh are considering a town hall meeting to kind of explain some of these opportunities to the eighth graders and get them to understand what the opportunity is and also what the commitment is. And so we um I'm going to make up an example where we have let's say 200 students in eighth grade. A little more, could be a little less, but um and let's say that we have uh two sections of bio apes. I don't think we're going to have 10 of them. Maybe maybe this will turn into three. Uh I I I think when you do things like this, there's more people out there that are capable than they know they are. And so we

090present them with the opportunity, the encouragement, the support, and then um uh they surprise themselves. And I I can tell you that um today, just today, I was looking at AP data that goes back to 2022, looking where we've been between between then and now. And um uh I want to say that in 2022 we had 98 students take at least one AP exam when they uh by the time they graduated high school. And the passing rate among all those students was 81%. And a couple years ago we did some things to encourage more students to take AP exams. And um so that was 98 students. And this year's graduating class we have 155 students that have taken at least one AP exam. And while I don't know their passing rates yet because they're not

091done, they still have base exams, I can tell you that last year's graduating class had a passing rate of 80%. And and there was something likeund and uh I forget if it was at 116 or 119. So we had an uptick of 18 or 16 students and our passing rate didn't go down. So I think that's where the stretch comes in and that's where we give the support and we encourage more people capable. So just to to uh confirm so it's basically a conversation with the counselor and the student or is there any type of presentation like this that is being given to the student >> for the eighth graders? Yeah, Miss Stern is not nodding yes for me. So for the eighth graders, there'll be a presentation in a town hall format. And then

092for the high schoolers, you know, they already know about college selection and and their count our counselors are on top of what this is. And for them, we're kind of um we're trying to get it more structure, organize it. A lot of the course selection process won't change much here except for if they say, "Whoa, like I had an epiphany. I realized I have this many credits and if I make these course selections, I could do even a little more for myself." Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Hello. >> Um, I just wanted to say I thought Miss Moon's question was wonderful actually and it really spoke to me. Um, especially as someone who's been on the census board for 10 years. Um, I spoke with Dr. Dr. O'Hara at length the other day about

093this. So I was hoping you could just answer a question maybe for anyone who was interested. Um my own son is in special education going to Boseies next year in 11th grade and we had just assumed he would go to Boseies and that would be that would be kind of his track and what he wanted to do. um in speaking with you about my the same questions that Miss Moon brought up, you had um gone through actually you took time with me to look through the suffic programs and found that the programs going to Boseies for they actually offer at SUFFK a variation of that >> that type. >> Yes, >> you folks have have that thing. >> Yeah, >> they do. >> Yes. We had talked about how um maybe he could take one

094or two classes and try it. And so to kind of echo what Mr. Romano said, I after speaking with you, I do feel like it offers it definitely gives you opportunities that we've never considered before. Um but just from the special ed lens, could you just speak to like 504 accommodations or someone with an IEP or 504 accommodations and how that would work with these classes? So again, I'm not an expert on 504s and IEPs, right? Especially for the secondary level. Um what we do have at SUV is um right we're given eligibility requirements, right? the state state ed lays out that we partnered with high school on those eligibility for participation requirements. Um you mentioned vet tech and I just want to emphasize um the map that that Dennis presented is is a map

095into the general liberal arts program. So it's it's it does not represent an opportunity for instance to get started with dent tech while a student is staying at the school. >> Could it if a student took English or any other kind of liberal arts course they could apply to any program? >> Yes. I think I think that was the point that um we could try a plan that we've weren't even considered before. >> Um I I believe so. >> Yeah. But I do want to say um Dr. Harris spent so much time with me the other day answering questions. So if anybody has questions, I'm just going to put it out there. He gives out his phone number all the time. So it's true. I've never been pranked, so don't start. Good evening. >> Good

096evening. >> So my question is um regarding the rising juniors given the limited amount of time that there is for this possibility for them. What kind of adisement is going to take place over the next couple of months? >> Yeah, thank you for that really good question. So, what our counselors are working on is almost making um you know, they have a I'll just call it a checklist for lack of a better word, but um they have a checklist that says, you know, you have to take four years of English. We're in high school, you're a rising junior, do you have two years done, so we need to take a year of English, right? And um they're in the process of creating a similar document that we have the college requirements on it. And so,

097the advisement will happen between the student and the counselor. As parents, you should call the counselor, ask maybe to join the meeting or ask these questions. And and what I recommend you do is ask your child's counselor to to can you point out to me my my child's AP courses and any college courses she uh or dual enrollment she may have already taken. How close are we? That's why in that one slide I put join us in the summer and then really do an assessment of your transcript and see how you know what you may have. And you might find that you have a semester and you can be at Suff County Community College for three more semesters. You may find that if you really work hard and and and stick to it that you

098can somehow between now and then get the second semester and have to be on campus for one year. Thank you for that question. Well, I thank you for your time. Mr. Den is if uh did you want to say anything? No, I just wanted to thank here. Again, we all want to see students succeed. It's just another opportunity. It's another pathway and really curious to see, you know, how students this participate with this. So, thank you. We're going to move to our budget presentation, but if it's okay with you, we'll take a five minute break. Allow anybody. There's some students here probably at homework. We're going to start up again presentation. Thank you. >> Um, good evening and welcome to our first 2627 budget workshop. originally was um prepared for February 24th, but unfortunately the

099weather did not cooperate. So, uh tonight we did two presentations um with a lot of information. Um so, we'll get started tonight. Um we're going to talk a little bit about the state aid and tax levy which is the way um the majority of the funding that uh supports our budget and then in part two of the presentation we'll talk about some programs initiatives and how that plays into our expenditures. So, we always are mindful of the mission statement of the board of education. Um, and that's to really help all of our students achieve their full potential. Um, we saw that tonight. Um, we're looking for innovative ways to make that happen. So, this presentation really is going to talk a little bit about ways to make all of these things happen. Not. I need

100some control support. There we go. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, so again, um we always are mindful of why we're here. We have some really great photos here of our students doing great things and making differences. Um, and we're delighted that we give these students the opportunities that we can. So, let's talk a little bit about the budget development process, which it's an annual budget cycle. Um, but our work never ends. The budgeting cycle never ends. Um, we start in July and August with programs and financial audits and implementation of our new budgets. Then in September and October um we are required to do our state reporting and budget evaluations. November and December bring us into preliminary budget reviews and we begin building our budget. We move into January and February. We're provided with

101some stating projections um and it's a preliminary build of our revenue budget. We gather um data and information from department and building leadership um to prepare a proposed or a draft expenditure budget and examine all the needs of the district. Um in February, March and April, we continue to work on the budget. Um it's not just a oneandone. We continue to work on it. We build it um and we refine it and refine it even more. Um the state and local allocations then are are released early April which helps us to um fund our budget. We finalized the spending plan. Um we present it um to the board and then the board will present it to the public for approval. In May, we have our budget hearings. We talk about um the finalized draft of

102our budget and what we are coming to the public for. We send out six state notices to the public to give them more information. And then it's time for the public to come out and vote. In June, we're at year end um and we close out our current budget and we prepare to open up our new budget and then we're back to July and the whole process begins again. So, it's an everending cycle. So components of a balanced budget. Um we want to be mindful of being fiscally responsible and make sure that we are able to sustain these um this budget um in the long term. So we there's a lot of indicators and things that we look at, but we want to be able to continue to strengthen all of our educational opportunities. We

103have sound fiscal management. We operate with transparency and accountability. We do routine analysis of our budget flows um for efficiency. We continuing uh we continue to monitor uh New York state and federal funding and we access innovative um costsaving solutions. We also try to research and identify new um revenue streams in order to support that revenue budget. We will establish reserves for the district to use during emergencies and unforeseen circumstances. And our goal is to maintain uh clean uh external audits. And I know that a lot of you have come here before when we've had our external auditor present and um the audits have always been clean within the district which is exactly what we strive for. We have budget goals. We have to commit to providing um high quality of education for all our

104students at all time. We have to create a budget that is always in line with the district's mission and goals and we have to always carefully review expenditures and identify areas that we really need um realignment in. We try to develop a long um a long-term plan for the educational programs and um try to identify new initiatives while continuing to work on the ones that we proposed earlier. So we have to understand the needs of the district when we create the budget. There's a lot of pieces that go into it. There's our instructional programming, our general support, um our infrastructure maintenance, transportation, employee benefits, and our debt service. All of these things. Um and then we need to find a way to fund them. And we do that primarily through um our property tax levy,

105our state aid funding. We have some local revenues. We use fund balance. We use some reserves and that can equal our spending plan. So this slide uh demonstrates what our current estimated revenue um stream looks like. And the reason that it says estimated on here is because when this budget was created and the governor's executive budget was presented back in January of 25, um that was the initial allocation for state aid for the district. We've just received the new uh budget runs and our our aid is slightly higher about $200,000 um higher than what was initially created. So that's why this says estimate. We also look um at our local revenues. There could be uh returns. There could be additional interest income. So this is is constantly changing. The constant here is the tax levy

106um and the fund balance that we look to use to bring the levy down. Um depending upon the revenue stream, we may or may not need to use the full amount of the $975,000 that was originally um destined for this budget. So we talk about the revenue tax levy is what comes from the community. It is um property owners that will be it's based on the assessed value of your homes and each year um we get calculations um that are provided to us by the local municipality. we utilize the amount that we propose in our levy and that's how the tax bills are created. Um once that revenue comes in over the course of the year um it's used obviously to support the budget. The star reimbursement um will come in. It's a school relief

107for those properties that do not generate um tax revenue for the district. So that's a way to help us. So the amount of the store reimbursement that we get will be a component of whatever the tax that we we have and that final figure will equal the levy that we ask the community for. So in order to get the tax levy we have to go through a very uh complex formula to um calculate our tax cap calculation. As you can see here there's many components in involved in it. It uses a lot of the prior year um figures including the tax levy. It also includes pilots that we receive and it takes into effect any capital um expenses that we may have. Once this is all calculated, it'll provide us with the allowable limit that

108we can go to and that's where our major source of revenue will be generated from. This is on this slide. This is just um a picture of what our tax levy calculation looks like this year. And as I mentioned, this is where our uh previous levy placed into place here. Then we have a tax b uh based growth factor that is identified by the state and provided to us that's based upon um construction and revisions or updates to properties in the area and pilots which are payments and move taxes from our previous year. you'll see it represented in both places um because we have an estimate from the town as what we'll have for next year. At the bottom you'll see the total calculation which is um the $70 million and that is reflective of

109the um 2% tax cap. Now while it's it will show as 2.22 to two that is well within the allowable levy limit based on the calculation that you see here. Just a little history over the years um you can see in the purple that was the levy limit that was allowed and you can see what the actual levy was. So we have been consistent in the past five years with going to our levy limit which helps continue to fund programs. Now, I just want to draw your attention to 21 and then 22 where you'll see that the district went below the levy limit in 21 and then the next year they wound up having to pierce the cap. So to maintain consistency as we have the past several years um is seems to be in

110the best district the best interest of the district. The other big piece of our revenue stream of state aid. Um obviously there are multiple areas of aid. There's foundation aid, there is expense based aid. um and that is re we've received um notification from the state in January and they will provide an estimate and then once the legislative budget comes out in April that is the final uh funding. So some of the governor's executive budget highlights this year um was an increase in foundation aid of uh $779 million. However, 461 districts in the state will only receive the 1% minimum. Unfortunately, we are one of those districts. Um there's no proposal to change the formula at this time for which that foundation aid was calculated. Um but the expense-based aids, they provided $112 million this

111year. Um, so there should be full funding for all of the expense-based aids. You'll notice on our next slide, we're going to talk a little bit about UPK because there was a huge increase in the governor's um allocation for UPK funding and um in the tune of $431 million and our district was able to receive um a significant increase in UPK. But I just um want to point out that money can only be used for UPK. So it does not get included um even though it'll be shown on the next slide in the formal calculation. We usually will subtract that out to get a accurate um rate of what our aid will be. So, while we were one of the 1% um districts in New York State, our state aid increase according to the executive

112budget is only $136,535 right now. I don't know if this is hard to see, but um you'll see in the left column that is the 2526 state aid that is proposed. I draw your attention to the line where it says total item uh total aid and that is actually less what our UPK amount is included. So you'll see we're about 29 million 946726. The majority of our increase you'll see is over the $500,000 where you'll see the UPK funding. That was the largest increase. So when we talk about the increase to our state aid at this point, it's about $136,000. So continuing in the process, um we have other revenues. We have local revenues. Those are charges for tuition from other districts. Uh use of our property um expenditures, um interest income, uh scrap metal,

113our Medicaid reimbursement, and some miscellaneous um items that will eventually come to our way. Um we have pilots, which I explained are payments in lie of taxes. This year it's estimated at $457,000 and um somewhat of a budget surplus. We would be able to utilize um depending upon the end of the year our fund balance of $1.5 million. We also have reserves. Um these are um accounts that are designated for specific expenditures. The first reserve is uh for our ERS or employee retirement system. The second one is for our teachers retirement system. We also have a workers comp reserve. We also have an employees benefit approved liability reserve. We have a repair reserve, a capital reserve, and an insurance reserve. They are all have designated uses that they can be utilized for. So when you

114put all those things together, our tax levy of $70 million, the state aid, we got the 29, a calculation of estimates for our local revenues, the use of some fund balance, the use of some reserves. That gives us a preliminary um revenue budget of about 103 million849108. But we face many challenges. Um inflation is a huge um factor. Our state aid increase of only 1%. The rising district insurance premiums which are anticipated to be between 14 and uh 16%. We have increasing health insurance premiums, pension system uh rate increases, and rising transportation costs. And all of those provide a huge challenge to help us balance this budget. So, you'll notice that the um the scale is tipped and that's where we're working right now to make sure that we can balance that budget. So our

115next steps are to be to continue to evaluate our revenues and try to identify new revenue streams. Any way that we can bring more funding to the district. We develop our expenditure budget and we um we have to analyze our contractual obligations. We have multiple bargaining units. We also have increasing health insurance. Um, so there are quite a a few things. Our debt service plays into that as well. We have to examine our staffing needs. Uh, we have to take into account any new initiatives that we'd like to do and we have to make sure that this is a collaborative process and that we're hearing what the needs are the of the district. So, we will continue to monitor um and wait for uh New York State funding um to be finalized and identify ways

116that we can have our general fund expenditures possibly reduce or offset. So, that is the end of part one. Um I'd like to thank everybody for listening. Um, and I will welcome any questions that anybody may have on this portion of the budget workshop. Maybe this should clarify this. So, under our code, you just clarify we don't utilize that funding the district. Correct. >> That is correct. And the allocations went up to $10,000 per student. Currently we have 135 students. So it it jumped up to $1.3 million uh $3.5 million which can only be utilized for UPK services. >> Sure. um in the fact that >> um that will be part of our conversation. Um we are talking sorry said something we are going to be talking with them and trying to see what changes

117and what things can be done differently with our students. Um, as you know, we housed five of those classes within our buildings at this time. So, we definitely will be having conversations to see how it either can be enhanced and what other additional items may be able to be provided to all of our students. >> Sure. I'm sorry again. Not every year has access. >> There's there's no waiting list here. >> There's no waiting list. >> Every since we've started in this district every year >> very first year. So we won't be taken off guard now that in the year 207 every foury old will have access to they already do is that what I'm hearing >> we've had less than 135 children that's the amount of fun >> right now it's the family saving

118money coming here. So this change >> No, I I understand that. I just maybe I'm not asking question right those that are registered for up came down got in but there may be those that didn't register not thinking they was a limit. So I was just kind of wondering if the universal pre now everybody will be will catch us off guard with additional votes. >> Our registration is open to anyone. So thank you. >> Sorry. >> Okay. If there's no more questions, I'll move on to the second part. Okay, so here we are with part two again. Um, unfortunately the snow the snow uh made us unable to have the 24th, but we are um we are here this evening and now we're going to talk a little bit about programs and initiatives and expenditures.

119Okay. So again, um our vision here is always to put our students first, have pure intentions, and provide all of our best efforts. As you can see, this is another exciting um photo of our students with an opportunity to go on a college trip. And I believe this was um American University if I am correct. Again, we'd like to share other photos of our students, not only in the arts, athletics, um, and again on a field trip down to Washington DC. So, we'll talk a little bit about programs and initiatives. So, with our programs and initiatives, um, as you can see, we'd like to maintain our strong elementary foundations, which we have built up over the past couple of years. We're always looking to expand on our social and emotional learning um while strengthening our

120literacy through the science of reading. Um we like to provide additional professional development to all of our staff and prepare them for our students. We've been expanding our steam programs um and innovative um opportunities technology for all students. Um we have we will continue with our onetoone devices. We want to expand academic opportunities in secondary schools um which we talked a little bit about this evening. Um our college and career readiness program um we keep moving forward with that. We want to expand on our career and technical education programs and our fine arts program is growing um at a at an astonishing rate and we're really proud of that. We want to keep building our um excuse me our connections across the district and within our community by having our students involved in as many

121opportunities that they can be. So you re you may remember this slide. These are uh programs and opportunities that we are proud of that are ongoing and we continue to keep striving and working for. Um there's quite a lot up there. Um I will be putting this all on the district website so that if you'd like to go through it, you certainly can. Um but these are all wonderful things that we keep um moving forward with. Our life skills programs are uh being increased. We are looking to help virtually every student in this district with all of these different initiatives. Okay, so let's get to the expenditure part of the evening. Um, as I mentioned, our revenue has to equal our expenses. The components that go into that, as a reminder, are tax levy, our

122state aid, our local revenues, our fund balance, um, and use of reserves. And in our expense budget, we have general support. We have instruction, transportation, benefits, and our debt service. So, as previously shared with you, this is what our expenditure budget looks like this year. As you can see, about 54% of that is is spent on our instruction. And then the next largest is on our benefits. Um, we have general support as 12% and our transportation which is almost 6%. our debt services factors in there at close to 5% and then we had some transfer to our special aid fund which is about.17 and I don't know why it's not showing here but that's what makes up the entire expenditure budget for this year so what falls under general support the way the budget is

123developed there's certain codes um and these are all actually in order So when I move to my next slide, you'll be able to actually see um this in actual figures. The general support includes our board of education and district clerk, central office, our finance office, which includes our auditing, our treasurer, purchasing, legal, district insurance, and OC's administration fees. It includes our personnel department, our public information, operation of maintenance of our plant, our security, our central printing, mailing and data processing. And those are reflected in our 1,000 codes. In our 2,00 codes, we'll see curriculum development, supervision, staff development, teaching, our special education program, our occupational education program, our school library and audiovisisual component, our computer aided instruction area, guidance, health services, um psychological services, social workers, our co-curricular activities and our intercolastic um athletics. In

124our 5,000 codes, that's our transportation. You'll see our contractual obligations that we have with offenders. Um and these are all our home to school routes inclusive of special education and out of district placement. It's our athletic trips, our field trips, our summer transportation, and our a lot of our student competitions and our fine and performing arts transportation. It also includes um transportation supervision and coordination. In our 9,000 codes, those are our benefits. We'll see our health insurance, our social security, our retirement contributions both to ERS and TRS, our workers compensation and other uh employee benefits which include contractual incentives and unemployment insurance. Also in the 9,000 codes are our debt service. Um this includes our bond principles, our bond interest, our tax anticipation notes, um our installment debt for any lease purchases that we have,

125our ban principle, ban interest, and our interf transfers. As I said before, we're always striving when we're creating the budget to maintain our goals. We want to constantly improve our services to students but maintain our our environment where it's warm, it's welcoming, and all students feel happy to be here and that they want to be here. Um, we have to focus on not only their academic but their mental and social well-being and we have to improve our instructional programs always. Um, we try to expand our extracurricular activities through clubs and athletics. Um, we also want to provide high quality instruction for all of our students while enhancing our technology that is ever changing. And again, we're going to continue on that long-term plan for the district um working with our programs and those initiatives. So,

126the process uh what we do are district and building and uh departmental leadership get budget request forms uh sent out to them in December. They fill them out with all of their requests. they get sent back to our office and they're itemized and then we will be entering them into the budget. We work on all of the contractual obligations. We look at historical expenses. Um, we look at what we have up and coming as new initiatives and mandates have to play into here because sometimes there's things that come up that we haven't um been prepared for, but we're required to act upon. Um, we have to do some general forecasts and we have to look at our budget allocations to make sure they're in alignment. So what we identified during this process was we need

127to increase our student support services um lines to meet the needs of our students. We need to access um assess and enhance our district-wide security because we are always looking to maintain a safe environment for our students. We need to provide enriched professional development to all our staff and we need to upgrade our technology. Technology changes so often. We have to maintain um that process and make sure that our students have all the um tools necessary to be successful. Um we also want to provide support to our staff and students um in all other areas um including um supplies and initiatives as we do with the AP program when we're paying for them to have the ability to take those exams. um we have to look at our infrastructure and we have to make sure

128that we're maintaining that and completely um assessing that on a regular basis. And then our con uh transportation right now we are in need of a transportation contract. We currently are out for an RFP where we are requesting um proposals from vendors for the upcoming school year. We also want to make sure that we're doing uh facility enhancements. As you know, last year the voters uh approved to use capital expenditure uh capital reserve money to fund um enhancements and uh upgrades at Wing in way of a new playground, which we are happy to report that now that the weather is cooperating, we are going to be able to start moving forward on that playground. Um so we're delighted about that. We are also um in this budget looking to include a transfer to capital to

129pay for the replacement of the greenhouse. Last year, as you recall, at my school, Dr. Hara mentioned how we uh were advised that we were unable to utilize the funding from the capital reserve to pay for the greenhouse as it was not um included on the original um creation of the uh reserve. So, we're looking for other ways to make sure that this can happen. And we are looking to put a transfer to capital in the amount of $275,000 into the budget line so that we can appropriately um prepare this greenhouse in an ultimately new learning um area for our students. So, there's some budget challenges that we face. Um there are contractual obligations, the state aid allocation that was uh presented earlier, our rising transportation costs, um the district uh premiums for our liability

130and casualty insurance increase and our pension system rate increases. Those all factor into trying to make this budget balance. So when I got all the uh requests back, I plugged them in. You're looking at what is the first draft of the re u the expenditure budget. And you'll notice that it's total is $108 million up from our budget this year, which is 102 million. It's about a 5.53% increase. You'll notice across the categories of where those increases are lying. And now we have to get to work and try to figure out how we can balance this budget. Up on the screen now, you'll see all of the codes. uh their summary of the codes up there. So, you'll be able to see the differences in the change in dollar amounts as well as the percentage

131changes. I draw your attention to the district meetings. Um you'll see that that went up about 29 uh 239%. That is actually due to the new voting machine um that we will be needing to get and provide. support and assistance on the day of election. And I believe that we allocated in there for two different types of votes. The one for the budget vote and one for a possible um bond referendum vote. As you go through, you'll see um some increases again as I mentioned in our health insurance. That's probably a larger one as well as our insurance premiums. And we can't forget transportation. So, I'll leave that up there for a few minutes for everyone to take a look at. And again, I just want to reiterate that this is a draft of the

132expenditures. I will be posted this will all be posted on the website so you can get a much a much better look at it. So now taking all of that into account we put together our revenue and our expenditures. We have our tax levy, our state aid that's estimated at this point, the use of some fund balance, our local reserves, and you'll see there's an increase to use of reserves to bring our budget up to 105349 108. Now, that still leaves a budget gap of 200 uh $2.7 million. I just want to put up here um a little bit of history of Iceland in the past um couple of years and where the budget was and what the tax levies represent. You notice that the 2627 doesn't have a budget because that has not been

133determined as of yet. So, we will continue to work on refining and trying to um offset costs that have been presented in the budget that was presented. So next steps will work closely with the board of education, the superintendent and departmental and building leaderships to prioritize this expenditure budget. Um we'll we'll create a plan to phase in these identified needs of the district and we will be able to present something um to the community shortly. We'll also monitor the New York State um executive budget um update which will come when the legislature provides their budget and um then we will continue our budget process. So I thank you again for listening to me. Um I will welcome any questions um that the board of education may have or question. >> Sure. >> On the transportation.

134Yes. >> You referenced the RF. How do we know if the police just went out? We didn't see that. How do we know there's a 6% increase? >> Uh we don't. Um, we actually had um conversations about what this could look like um with other uh districts. I've spoken to other business officials. Um, some of them have seen doubledigit increases in their transportation. Um, so in this presentation, I believe it was budgeted for 10%. And that can change by the time our RFP comes in. We should know better where our costs may lie with that once. >> So, is it possible it might be lower? >> It's possible, but it's also possible it could be higher. So, I I don't have that answer just yet. >> Do they give us any reason why it goes

135up? >> So, right now with the um the mandates of the electric buses plus the insurance premiums um bus companies are are really getting hit very hard. So they we don't we don't have any electric buses in our district. Be sure does other districts do. So they what they do is they spread that cost over all the districts that they deal with. >> Um essentially >> we're paying for something that other districts are utilizing. >> Essentially all taxpayers will ultimately be paying the price for that um when they're mandated to be in service. Um we we'll be seeing that in in years to come that everyone will be sharing that cost. So we're increasing our revenue from our revenue from our reserves. What do our reserves look like after? >> Sure. That's a great question.

136Um last year uh when we ended the year we were about uh $10.8 million >> unallocated reserves >> in in designated reserves. Um and this year uh you'll recall that it was presented that uh the $975,000 would be utilized from that reserve to support the expenditure budget. Um, in addition, there was a $50,000 um insurance reserve that was used and um the Ebore um reserve was also utilized for compensated absences. Um as of right now, um with those that's about $1.2 million off of the 10.8. Um the balance should bring us down to probably around somewhere around 9.6 assuming that no more reserves are used during the year for ebook. Um estimated for next year would be approximately 2 million or if there's directive to utilize more um then we will talk about that. That

137ultimately would bring us down to about 7.6 six million and that's just an estimate. >> Okay. So, um so if we continue to utilize our reserves in funding our revenue budget, is there a plan moving forward to either stabilize that or we're not spending any money reserves or is there a plan to at least down the road I guess pay that money back so our reserves aren't dwindling kind of increase the money that's in reserves? >> Sure. So, if we don't utilize the reserves um that we allocate, as I mentioned this year, if we have more revenue than we had originally anticipated, um we could ultimately fund those reserves and not use all of the amount that was needed. Um but in the long term, um to to your answer, the use of the reserves

138is helping keep the the tax levy down. The other alternative option would be to pierce to pierce the cap and go out to uh the voters. >> One question. >> Sure. >> When we always do the initial budget development, it's always been a budget gap. I don't know this information. Where do we compare to like last year? This right now was 2.8 gap. Where were we last year at this time? >> I do have so last year at this time uh at this budget presentation it was about $2.7 million. The year prior um in 24 it was $3.8 million and in 2023 it was 1.15. at this exact presentation budget presentation. >> Great. >> Sure. That's a great question. >> I think it's very important to stress to everybody that things are much tighter this

139time than they have been years. >> Okay. We use >> $975,000 plus um additional contrib. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing everybody on the 31st when we'll be talking about our enrollment and staffing. >> Thank you. Come on. Okay. U it's getting a little late. We're moving along. We only have about eight more items on the presentations this evening. So, but the presentation's been great. The uh the Southern County Community Health Partnership looking forward to this. Thank you Dr. Har for spearheading that. Um Mr. Brown, thank you for the first budget presentation and looking forward to the new ones. And the next thing on our presentation will be our first policy reading. Mr. K. Thank you, Mr. Dean. On the agenda this evening is the first reading of policy number

1405151 entitled homeless children. In addition to the updated amended policy, there's also a recommendation to adopt an accompanying regulation. The regulation goes into detail about the admissions procedures, transportation protocols, and other important factors that go into ensuring our homeless children receive the education which they are entitled to under state law. The policy updates and reflects current state law and regulations from the department of education and has been thoroughly vetted by our district student support services department. It is anticipated that the second reading and an adoption recommendation will take place at our board meeting on Tuesday, March 31st. Thank you, Mr. D. Thank you, Mr. Okay, folks. That concludes our private presentations. We're now going to move on to our agenda items. At this time, I'll entertain any questions from the board. Any voting on this

141evening? Not any questions from the public on the items we'll be voting on this evening. Okay. I'd like to get a motion for consent items 5A through 5W. Can I get a motion? The vote. This was agreed. Second by Mr. Leia. All those in favor? I opposed abstain. And they will be carried. Um, we do have one item that we're voting on this evening that is separate from consent and that is item 5 Y, the approval of the CPSC schedules. Can I get a motion? So, that's Mr. Marine. Can I make a second? Mr. Boston. All those in favor? I >> opposed. For the same reason stated at the August 26th, 2025 and that will carry as well. Okay. Uh, moving along now. This is going to bring us to our public questions. I do

142have two public comment cards and one from college I think was already answered at the regards to college. So that was already answered. Okay. Um, and we do have a second one, Christina Lane. Um, I'm a social work grad student. I just wanted to take um ask a few questions regarding school safety for a project I'm working on. Um do you think armed security guards will make students and teachers feel safer in schools? Um do you think there's a strong evidence that armed security guards prevent school shootings or other acts of violence? And could spending money for armed security guards affect funding for school counselors, social workers, etc.? >> Sure. Um, Christina, thank you for coming this evening. Thank you for your questions. Um, you and I have talked about your project and I know

143you've shared with me communication you've had with your professor. So, if it's okay with you, I'll follow up with you and um, uh, we'll arrange a meeting time that works for you and we can speak at length about those questions and I think I can help you. >> Thank you. Thank you investment project. >> Okay, that that's it on our public uh question for reports and respondents. Go to George. >> Thank you. Good evening. I'd like to take a moment to highlight some of the upcoming events and opportunities happening across the district. First, the ISV High School Post Prom is hosting an Easter egg fundraiser. Community members in the ISIS area can order candy filled eggs that will be hidden on their lawn for a fun Easter surprise. Orders must be placed by March 29th

144and a Google form is available on parents square to place your order. All proceeds help support the postp prom event for our seniors including myself. Next, Sherwood Elementary School will be hosting a talent show on Friday, March 13th at 6:30 p.m. Tickets will be available at the door. Come out and support our talented Sherwood students as they take the stage and showcase their many talents. Next, the ISIS High School Business, Leadership, and Commerce Club will be hosting breakfast with the Easter Bunny on Saturday, March 21st from 9 to 11:00 a.m. at the American Legion Post 411 in Iceland. The event will include Easter Bunny pictures, breakfast, and activities. Tickets are required and must be purchased by March 18th using the link on the flyer posted on Parent Square. Next, the ISO middle school will be

145hosting the second annual IMS Spring Fling on March 24th from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. All middle school students are invited to attend this free event sponsored by the ISO middle school PTA in collaboration with IMS clubs and advisors. The afternoon will include free food, games, and activities. A parental RSVP is required, and families can complete the Google form by March 20th to re to reserve their student spot. And finally, the district in invites you to attend ISOB's annual multicultural night on March 25th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the ISO middle school auditorium. This event celebrates the many cultures within our community and will feature food and cultural experiences from around the world. Thank you. >> Thank you. Of course. >> All right. Um, next would be National Southern School Board Executive Committee. >> Thank

146you. Thank you, Mr. Duty. On Thursday, February 26th, I attended the executive committee meeting of the National Suffic School Boards Association. During the meeting, a member of the board of education from Beayshore had shared that their district recently hosted a legislative breakfast with our state legislators, Assemblyman Jared Gandalfo and Senator Monica Martinez. The focus of their conversation during this legislative breakfast was related to a proposed bill related to the New York State Liquidation Bureau. Uh this proposed bill would authorize the creation of a program to evaluate and reimburse eligible local educational agencies such as school districts for specific monetary liabilities specifically as it relates to the financial impact of the recently adopted child victims act cases that are impacting school districts across the state. Um, if inclined, I would recommend that our legislative committee uh

147could review and prot perhaps support the passage of this bill as it is related to a number of cases that are impacting school districts here on Long Island. Uh there's also a discussion about the legislative priorities of the local superintendent associations, a review of the recent February meeting of the board of regions and a recent meeting that took place with the regional director Governor Hokll in addition to the opposition to the project labor agreement bill. Thank you, Mr. Great. Thank you, Mr. Korean. And uh just what are there reports correspondent is not on here. Um every board member is elected to a three-year term and this year myself and Miss Baki's term will be ending on June 30th. Uh Miss Baki has made clear she will be running again for another term. And I've given

148a long consideration and a long thought. I I've been on the board for the last 12 years. Nine of those years as president of the board of education. It's been an honor serving on the board of education. I've worked with so many wonderful people. I've learned so much. Um I've embraced your growth mindset. Thank you, Dr. Har, for bringing that to the to the board and to the ISO community. Um, to put things into perspective, um, our student board member, Mr. Deutsch, uh, when he entered kindergarten, I was elected to the board of education. So, um, I guess you could say, um, Mr. will be graduating from Isab High School I think um after 12 years and again I've given a lot of consideration sort of bittersweet um that I will not be seeking uh

149reelection uh this year again it's been a privilege working with um so many great people so many smart people um and again the wealth of knowledge that I've g gained over these 12 years um I'm not going to forget everything um but I just will say To anyone that has aspirations for running for school board, there should really be one reason. Well, the main reason why you should be doing it is is to see students succeed collaboratively as a board collectively. That has been the common denominator. I said this so many times before in the past. That's why we all do it. We want to see students succeed. Um, so come in with that growth mindset. come in with students wanting to see succeed and please anyone who's planning on running I stress don't run

150on an agenda because that's not why you want to be on the board you want to be here to see students succeed do the right thing for the school district and always make the place better than you left it look for all the good things there's so many exciting things that are going on here and again it's been an honor these past 12 years and I'm looking forward to meeting with these board members and again the privilege to work with so many great people. >> Thank you very much. And I'd also, and I was remiss not bringing this out earlier, I'd like to thank my right-hand man, Mr. busted, you know, um these past few years, especially last year when I was a little bit under the weather and I couldn't make it in surgery

151and I'm okay with that. Um he really stepped up to the plate and uh filled in and um it was great knowing that I, you know, strong leadership and strong board that can support things. So um and I'm hoping next year that you are the president of the board of education, Mr. Rostman, um you uh privacy, you have all my support. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Okay, so that uh concludes our reports and correspondence. Uh that's going to bring us to our dates to remember. Our next board event meeting will be oh shoot March 20. School's going to be closed for our students. It will be a superintendent conference day. Our next board event meeting will be on March 31st. Uh we'll have executive session at 5:30 p.m. for public starting at 7

152p.m. There'll be another uh work budget workshop uh here in high school starting at 700 p.m. So folks, that's all we have um this evening. Can I get a motion for a journal? >> Second, I guess. All those in favor? I thank you for attending folks. Stay safe and we'll see you at the next board meeting.