001All right just get a motion to come out of executive session at 6 52 from Melissa second from Jeff all in favor aye motion carries interesting motion to reconvene the public session at 652. Stephanie and I'll second that all in favor aye motion carries we will stand for the pledge of the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under heaven indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right was there anyone that wished to speak to the board and I think we'll be voting on tonight so there's two public comment periods the first one's on items we're voting on the second one is for the good of the district all right not seeing any we can jump right into
002our presentations and our first one is from our music department is there any of you want to go first. We can show Mr. Lumina Smith. So my name is Sarah Roberts I teach band at the middle school and March is music in our schools month and this year the NAFME which is the Niagara or the National Association for Music Education their motto for the this month is united through music and I know that music unites every single one of us and we're really trying as a department to help that with the impaired district so some of you may know this some may not but we're actually this week to kick off the month doing a spirit week so today was red carpet day so we're all going to the Grammys today but we have different
003things happening this week and then we have four secondary concerts happening March 18th 19th and then the 24th and the 25th so we just put together some short videos of the students and I hope you enjoy. Thank you. I like band because I get to play with the rest of the group and when I'm playing I get to play harmony with everyone so I like about the trumpet in the grass it's grassy timber and so add character to the tree when it was of the different sounds and losing pieces with the bank and then I think because of the diversity of things we're playing the trumpet because it's the perfect size for me and I like playing the flute because of the timbre and it really brings out my personality and I love playing it
004in here because it sounds like just my language that others love is I can play with the other instruments having a beautiful sound color for you. Did you want the other? Yeah the other one's like everybody. Okay the warning gets going very slowly. I played perfect for Jeff and that's where I think for Jeff. Normally I have to follow students so it's a little different this time. I think music is important because you learn different songs and it could be a stressful because it helps students make friends because it's always singing class and they can sing in chorus so they stop singing in class. All the different outlets it gives me I love being able to express myself in different forms of music especially since when I'm having a rough day I don't feel like
005singing I can practice my instrument or if I'm not feeling like practicing my instruments I can practice my dances for the musical it just gives me a bunch of cool ways to but work on my skills and build them while also expressing myself and practicing the whole community. Thank you so much. Thank you for being a statement and also I'd be thankful for the opportunity to give me a safe place to come to after a long day of hard classes or looking past like come to where I feel safe and could be with a lot of other people doing that that I love. I like the concerts they're really fun. I love singing and it lets me do so many more opportunities such as doing all county or all state. It's helping people who are
006better than me and we learn how to play better music. Music in my school has helped me maintain a tight knit group of friends over the entire four years that I've been in high school and all through my journey through elementary and middle school as well. I've been able to keep the same friends over many years some over a decade even and I've been able to experiment with them musically and socially and then my creative experiences grow and expand along with them. You have to listen to other people and cooperate that in order to make the music sound good. It shows my expression of I can actually create what I do with my class. To start and cooperate with students we have individual lessons for a section and we put that all together and makes
007a big band of different music in different sections. Cooperation and teamwork and it helps me in other classes with group projects. By teaching myself I just started being in band this year and I used to be a really shy person but it showed me that I could just be myself. It improves my confidence because when I know I'm wrong and I stay wronged up that makes me feel more confident the next thing I play. What's the most important value of being with a student? Being my best friend. Is that same thing for your people? What's my message to life? How much work do you want to contribute to me? Probably doing the musicals that I do. What's my biggest place? Teacher, elbow and son? Of course all space. I found a more wide community of
008people who have to pay me visit me and it allows me to become more comfortable about myself and find friends I have the same interest in with and be comfortable. I do feel a lot different in the sense that I would choose my chances to really express myself and that I would feel that you have done a lot through the different settings. I'm majoring in music education because I want to give the education that I know different generations do. What do you think about majoring in music because I love doing the difference to me and to other people and the community of creatives? I'm majoring in music because it allows me to express myself and show my true authentic self to people. I'm choosing to major in music because of the incredibly tight-knit community that
009the music suite at MTHS has provided me and I want to give that community to the future. Being in the music program at school has allowed any students and teachers that will never forget. Thank you very much. Yes, you, Sarah. Welcome. All right, next up we have a presentation on a proposed capital project. So I just wanted to introduce Tory Brandon and Justin. They are from Young and Wright and Buffalo Construction. They are currently with us in our current 2024 capital improvement project and in the proposed 2026 capital improvement project as long as they were with their firms, they were working with us, working with them. It's a wonderful partnership and relationship we have with them. So we wanted you guys to take a moment to hear from them regarding some finer details. You're in
010the scope and we'll be talking about the last couple of ones. Well, thank you everyone for having us tonight. My name is Tory Walczak and with me is Brandon Small. We're your architects from Young and Wright Architectural and Justin Myers is from BCC. He's your construction manager. All right, so these are the same objectives that you've been seeing from Jack and Josh. So hopefully you'll see how this has been implemented during the planning process of this upcoming CRP. So tonight we're going to give you an update on the proposed capital improvement project, talk about the scope, go over the next steps in the schedule, and then talk about the budget as well. And then just for reference, these are the previous presentations. All right, so starting with scope. As the district was developing the scope,
011there were three main categories that they had in mind. So we talked about safety and security, infrastructure, and educational experiences. So you'll see those common themes as we talk about each of these buildings. So starting with Drake Elementary to hit on safety and security, we're looking to replace the classroom doors and also address security fobs, access wipes for each of those, and then replacing cameras. For infrastructure, that would include things like sidewalk repair, cafeteria, air conditioning, those type of things. And then for educational experiences, those scope items would include general music room and art room renovations. So similar to the scope at Ohio, same thing with those security items. So that's the door replacements at the classroom and access controls and security cameras. And then some of the infrastructure items would be the gym wallpads
012and backboards, roofing at Ohio, sidewalk repair, and then a similar item, the music room and art rooms for those instructional improvements. At Spruce Elementary, same kind of thing. So safety and security, another roof replacement to hit on the infrastructure and general classroom improvements, such as the music and art room renovations. At the intermediate school, we're going to be renovating the pool area. So that'll be a new pool liner, new pool drains, a pool deck, bleachers, and a pool heater. We have the new gap conditioning system at the former Atlanta Boces Learning Center, a new secure vestibule at Boces Wing, gym renovations, which included wallpads and wallpanes, and then some new speakers in the main office, as well as door replacements and hardware and file access throughout the building. And then we also had some air
013conditioning at the cafeteria, as well as the parking lot replacement in the baseball fields. At the middle school, high school, we had the generator replacements for both buildings, similar thing with this one, the door replacements and file access and security cameras. We have the high school air conditioning being replaced, some parking lot replacements at both the middle school and high school sides. We have the remaining third floor classrooms and bathroom renovations. We have the current third floor and the current capital project now, so this is kind of finishing up that third floor piece. We have a little bit more of a parking lot placement and a bus parking lot expansion near tennis courts. And then we have a new baseball and softball field, and the next slide kind of shows a layout of that. So
014we have the baseball field on the left there, softball field on the right, and then there is a soccer field that kind of merges in the middle there with an empty logo. Each field would have a dugout and batting cages area. There's sidewalks kind of around the entire facility to connect it back to the parking lot area there. There is a shared scoreboard and lighting route. All right, the next piece is schedule. So these are the key milestone steps that need to happen in order to get to a May vote this year. So previously, you've been working with the district to figure out the scope and how that aligns with your budget to get us to this point. And then there's certain things like the seeker and shippo process that need to happen that have
015certain durations that you guys will be seeing in the upcoming board meetings. And then really the next piece of the puzzle is public meetings and public advertising. So we just started working with the district to develop these marketing materials that you can use to distribute to the community, to let them know about the project, get the word out there, and just educate them on what the goals are for the projects. I'm going to hand it over to Justin. He's going to talk about what happens after you have a positive vote in May. Yep, so schedule. Currently, I just want to touch everyone up to speed on the current capital project. So we completed phase 1A this past summer, and we're getting ready to kick off 1B. So the first two lines here in gray are
016going to be the 2024 project. So we'll be working on phase 1B for the next basically two years now, and then getting into the final phase of the current capital project for through 27 and 28. Then tying back to the potential project schedule for the 26 project, the first blue line there would be 2026 where your vote matters. That would be May of 26. Getting into the design phase after the vote, getting into SED to get the project approved, and then we'd be bidding the phase 1 of that project in the fall of 27. And then you can see phase 2 would follow the same path with the following year, and then phase 3 the year after. So the timeline would essentially be May of 26 for the vote all the way through the end
017of construction to the end of 2030. So we would be here again for quite some time doing a lot of work for the awesome spaces. All right, hop into the budget if you want to start with this piece, and we'll go into the overall. Yeah, so big picture when we're talking about the budget and how much Nortanawanda could afford to go out for a project. There's a couple of key factors that the business office and your financial advisor take into consideration to figure that out. So those key factors are your building aid from New York State, your maximum cost allowance, which is per building, and your capital reserve. So once all those are factored together, it's looking like approximately a 59.9 million dollar project with no tax impact. So Justin's going to break down what
018that 59.9 million dollars includes. Yep, so based on the initial scope that we just reviewed and the locations in the building, and then the phasing, what we have is a referendum total here of the 59.9, and then per building we'd be looking at spending three million dollars, and I'll go into this in further detail in further slides. We'll break that down further as we go. With 3,500,000 in Drake, 11,549,000 in Ohio, 7,225,000 at Spruce, 10,719,000 at the Intermediate, and the middle school, high school complex would have 26 million of the 59 spend there. Slide. And then the totals for those phases previously shown, it would be a little over 19 million for the first phase, 33,528,000 for the second phase, and 7,147,000 for the third phase. And this is the breakout per phase per building,
019so the first phase, the majority of the work would be taking place at Drake, Ohio, Spruce, and the middle school, high school, and those dollar amounts for that total. The second phase would be at Ohio, Spruce, Intermediate, and the middle school, high school, and then the third phase, similar to this phase, would be all high school work. Okay, so next steps. We'll continue to work towards that seeker, which you guys should have that resolution at the next board meeting. Public outreach, so like I said, we'll make those marketing materials like mailers, posters, whatever you guys need, finalize the budget with your financial advisor and business office, and then that all leads to the vote in May. You guys got any questions for us? Yeah, if we can go back to the timeline. So I guess
020I'm just curious about what the resources will look like in sort of like 2028, right? Like we'll have two construction phases going on at the same time. I'm just concerned that that should slow us down, like how would that work? Yeah, so currently we have the projects allocated timing based on falling off dollars per building, but the work locations have also been arranged as far as concurrently being efficient in both areas or a couple areas at that juncture. Okay. So we can have all that work coincide, but to your point, there will be a lot of action, so yeah, which will work with the district on to make sure just like we normally do to kind of monitor any of the buildings and make sure whatever we're doing in the buildings that we have everyone,
021you know, off the speed on the process and what needs to happen there. Okay, and will this construction be happening while school is in session? Is it mostly like over summer's breaks? What's that look like? So right now we have a tentative timeline of summers and light construction, possibly a second shift, but the full scope has not been locked in as far as the construction schedule. We have just earmarked it, but you know, once that develops, obviously we would, you know, to refer to everyone as far as if it's second shift or if it's summers or if there's areas of the building that we can get in during the school year, I don't know, whatever. We're good. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we just want to welcome Rick Yancey from
022Capital Markets. He's worked with districts now for many years as the district's fiscal advisor just to go over the affordability of the project and some of the elements as Justin, Corey, and Brandon mentioned, the items, incidentals and construction dollars. He really helps the district look at that from a historical lens as well as future work as well. Thank you. So yeah, welcome Rick Yancey, Capital Markets advisor. We serve as the financial advisor to the district on our capital projects going back a number of years, so I'm excited to work on another project. You know, just to summary, you know, where we are as far as local share goes, local share is the concept we use to talk about debt service going out to pay, you know, bondholders, and then the state building aid that comes
023in to service that with obligations. So one of the processes that we look through with Josh and the district is not only looking at what the next fiscal year looks like, but the next 15 budget, what the next 15 or 20 years look like. So it helps with the planning process to make sure that we know when there are drop-offs in local share so that we can bring on new projects and not have an incremental increase in the taxes. So state building aid, the district's age ratio is 79.7%, roughly 80 cents of every dollar that's spent on a project is covered by the state. The lowest a district could get in New York is 10%. Mostly it's Westchester, Suffolk County, you know, more high wealth areas. The highest you get is 98%, so you're still
024pretty healthy as far as the state aid resources that come into paper projects. So we look at the plan, the project. It's important to note that there's a concept called maximum cost allowance. I think Tori kind of hit on that a little bit. What that talks about is the upper limit that the state's going to aid you on a project for both construction and incidental. Incidental being anything outside the building, you know, turf fields, parking lots, professional service fees all kind of get under that incidental expense. So the state's not going to give you unlimited resources at 80 cents on a dollar. There are limitations by building that are important part of the puzzle as far as what we're looking to structure. Next slide. So just a little history on the district. So over the
025past 18 years, the districts only had three capital project votes. One was an energy performance contract that wasn't authorized by the voters. So within the last 18 years, there's been three capital project votes totaling 122 million. Traditionally, what we see with our district clients is you try to get into that every four or five years sort of cycle. So you're not in a position where it's, you know, the last project in May of 24, you're talking about almost, you know, nine years between votes. There's a lot of time that kind of sits with, you know, even in the structure that has to get done. And what ends up happening is you let things, you know, not necessarily in this case, let it go. But you get to a point where things become more expensive and
026then you're having to do projects every three or four years to make sure that the upkeep of the buildings is in order. So yeah, three projects, 122 million over the last 18 years. So that kind of sets the framework to where we're kind of headed, you know, going forward. So just quickly on the district debt limit. So when we think about a $59 million project, you know, folks in the community may ask, well, how does that compare to, you know, what our debt limit is, what you're able to borrow for? So there was a legislative change statewide vote that occurred a couple of years ago that allowed small city school districts to increase their debt limit from prior used to be 5% of your average five year full valuation. The statewide referendum, which passed a
027couple years ago, brought the city school district back to what union free and central school districts are, which is 10% of your most recent full valuation. So as you can see the debt margin, what you can potentially borrow for is 280 million. You're never going to get to that point, but the votes of 59 million and others that we'll talk about are nowhere near the capacity that you otherwise would have based on your legislative authority. So the concept of maximum cost allowance that Tori kind of talked about it briefly is the state sets, you know, for each building, separately, a cost allowance for construction as well as incidental. So we've got to make sure that when we're working with the architects in the district to size these projects, whatever is being contemplated by way of
028work is within the allowances for both construction incidental. So it's important to say we're not doing all $59 million of the work at one building. It has to be spread out based upon what the state's going to allow for each building. So here's an example of where we are with the maximum cost allowance by building after the 24 capital projects. So once all those costs are allocated to the buildings, for example, at Meadow, the high school, middle school complex, the construction allowance is 64.9 million and incidental is 17 million. So I think when Tori's slide talked about the high school work, middle school was about $24 million. So certainly within the allowance that we're seeing, where you have challenges obviously is the elementary schools where you have like Spruce, for example, has 10.5 million of
029construction and 2.2 of incidental. So if there's large site work packages, you know, parking lots, you know, turf fields, things outside the building, those tend to eat away at those allowances pretty quickly, especially parking lots because it gets pretty, you know, pretty expensive. But I think what we've kind of talked about with Josh in the district is whatever's being contemplated in the next vote, we expect to be, you know, within the allowances by building because any dollar above the cost allowance is 100% local share. So you want to take advantage of that 80 cents and a dollar to get the state aid to come in and pay for the majority of the project. So what we've done here is kind of structured. We talked about where the history was last 18 years of the votes.
030We talked about the local share falling off, meaning older projects are starting to roll off that were done, you know, several years ago. We had what kind of structured sort of the, you know, kind of what we're looking at going forward is the $59 million project, which would be voted on in May of this year using the district capital reserves, which is the savings account that the districts kind of built up over the years to pay cash for a percentage of the project without having to go out to the bond market to borrow. It would be $59.9 million, no incremental increase to the taxpayer because of that use of the cash to pay for a portion of the project. Because the state will still aid that project as if you borrowed. So the good part
031is you're kind of using your own cash to leverage the state aid that you're not otherwise paying debt service on. So that's sort of the leveraging concept of using your your capital reserve to leverage a larger project. And then we've kind of taken that further and obviously the next two votes time-wise, you know, are set in stone now, but this is kind of a thought process to say, you know, what you could potentially think about doing with the local share dropping off in 2033 and 2036. We've estimated the next the vote after the $59 million could be potentially about $35 million to take advantage of that drop off and local share in those particular years. So we have a vote in 2930 and the reason why it's three years earlier than the drop off is,
032you know, once the vote occurs, it's a year plus for the design. It's, you know, six months at SED, but it's maybe it shovels the ground. It could be two to three years before you before you bring that local share on. So I think that's the process. We typically say wherever the local shares falling off, you know, maybe look to vote, you know, a few years before that. And then take a step further, you have another potential vote in 2032-33 of additional $20 million. So I think all in total you look at about $114 million of potential capital project work over an eight-year period. You remember from the earlier slide, it was 18 years we got about the same amount of money. So I think if you consolidate that into a seven or eight-year sort
033of cycle, you know, $100 million over seven or eight years, you're gonna get back to a position where you're not trying to, you know, chase work that could potentially be done. You're not going to end up with some large project that may or may not go through the voter authorization. So just in some in summer, we talked about, you know, the smaller project, you know, four or five years, kind of get the district caught up to speed as opposed to, you know, having to do it over an 18 or 19-year period. The long-range planning, which we talked about, you know, obviously knowing what the next 10, 15, 20 years look like could help, you know, the architect team, the district to plan what, you know, needs the district going forward to coincide with their building
034condition survey, which is done by state law every five years. And then the healthy reserves the district has, which makes the next project feasible from no impact to the taxpayers is the thought process of, you know, over the years to build up those reserves and make sure that you're in a position to do a capital project with no increase for taxes to the local taxpayers. I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody might have. I know it's certainly a lot to digest, but what we will say is the district from a manager perspective, they've done a great job to kind of think about planning. Not every district's like that, but, you know, kudos to your team that you've kind of thought about the need to the district, thought about long-range planning, and this certainly shows
035with some of the thoughts that we had before. Any questions? No, I just really appreciate the president. This is very good. Yeah, very good. Thank you. We're happy to answer any questions that come up along the way and happy to work with the district on the next project. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Rich. Last piece we want to highlight and share on is a potential playground that we are looking to put on at Ohio in partnership with Mason's Mission. So you guys know me, Josh. Hi, my name is Jason. I'm also better known as Mason's dad. I started the Mason's Mission Foundation 10 years ago this year. I'm from Pendleton, grew up in this area from around here, and when we started this foundation August of 2016, we had a daughter, our son Mason, and
036our son Matthew. Mason and Matthew are Irish twins, born within the same calendar year and unfortunately also born with the same leucodystrophy that prohibited them from walking, talking, moving around. They were both in wheelchairs and we lost Matthew in 2009 to the leucodystrophy, 2019 to the leucodystrophy, and Mason turns 13 this year. But what I found is when we started this, we would go to our local park in Pendleton, and I would sit under what's now lovingly called the Mason trees, this massive maple tree in the fountain of Pendleton, right in the middle of the park, because there was really nothing for him to do. And I had Mason in one arm, Matthew in another arm, and then my wife would be playing with our daughter on the current existing structure that was there. Ten
037years ago, to be honest with you, not everyone really knew what the definition of inclusion was, okay, or accessibility, in my opinion. And the reason I know this is because back then in 2016, I just got really sick and tired of my boys not doing anything, and they started to realize as they got older they weren't doing anything. So I went to my wife and I said, look, I'm going to build something in my backyard, plain and simple. I don't care if I have to get a sidewalk from the street to our backyard. We had land in the backyard just for something for our boys to talk and hang out with other boys and girls. And on our street coincidentally we had seven children with some form of physical or intellectual disability on our street.
038So Mesa's mission began. I started to realize though that I wasn't an architect or a landscape engineer, okay, so I did a lot of work. I figured I'm going to have to need, I'm going to need someone else to help me put what's in here on paper and make my designs fun. So I did that. I partnered up with a local group. His name was Ben. I said, Ben, this is what I want. I've gone to this community and in my opinion what I thought was a definition of inclusion and a definition of accessibility wasn't what I believed it was. It wasn't jiving with me. So I kind of created my own, you know, my own truth. What really is inclusion? And it's not thinking you know what it is. It's asking the parents who
039care for these children what it is. And that's what I did. I mean it's simple. What do you want in your park? This is going to be for you, okay? And that's how I learned what inclusion and accessibility was. And you'll be shocked from playground one, which is in Pendleton, to now we built seven of them, okay, over the course of 10 years in municipalities, in school districts, private entities. And if you would have told me 10 years ago that I'd be standing here talking to you fine folks about building an eighth project, I would have told you guys we're drinking too much. You're nuts. But here I am. And as time went on, I looked at myself and I'm like, look, these, like, there's a need here. There's a massive, massive need here. And
040people aren't getting that. People are being told, oh, this is accessible. Go here. Okay, why? Because it's got a rubber floor. That's not what inclusion is. We bring play. We introduce inclusion into the play world, but we also introduce it into the interactive world. For instance, kids can play. Kids play all the time. They play everywhere. And Josh, this is the part where you've heard some of the stuff already. And you too, Jeff. So adults. I feel like you're, can I go real quick? I don't want to get in your way. Okay. So in general, we talk about some of our objectives. Everyone wants to make fun of Josh with the roofs and the boilers, but we talk about the student instructional experiences. It's okay. And really we've heard about the no impact of the
041taxes and how we want to make sure future work and past work complements. And we talk, it was the district, how we got here, you know, our special education department, you know, a really important, dedicated effort for bringing students back from agencies or BOCES placements that didn't exist. Kids were on hour long bus rides. Plus their program needs weren't necessarily meeting them. They had to bounce back and forth from one county to another. And we found that if we do things in district, we can make more robust, reliable or optimal programming for our kids. And, you know, whether it was our current staff at the time, or as we brought back more and more students, we had to add to some of our staff with support staff, like a high level of instructor passion and
042professionalism. But with that, we learned slowly over time, little things, big things, things we had to improve on, get better. We needed to add. And honestly, this playground piece is something we need to add. That's a big thing, which is, you know, how we got here. And I'm gonna get out of the way. Yeah, there it is. Okay. Has anyone heard of us before? You have? Anyone's heard of us? Has anyone been to any of our sites, whether it's Pendleton or Holland or Explore More Museum? Right. Okay. Well, I guess, like with my son, when I designed these play spaces, and I hope you guys have all had a chance to see the design, and I hope you like it. I mean, I chose the heart, because when I took the tour of Ohio Street,
043it was, it just, the staff cares, the therapists care. One of them was actually Matthew's therapist. He was his PT when he was here, and I couldn't believe it. And it just seemed like a very close knit community over there at that school. So I went with the heart design. And it's basically just something different. It's something new. And when I talk about inclusion, and when I talk about accessibility, like my son Mason, I know in my heart, my son, and I try my best, he'll never be able to play on every piece of equipment at any one of the playgrounds that we design this foundation. But he will be able to interact with everybody at every piece of space and every playground, because that's more important to me than the play. Like children play,
044adults, they overcomplicate things that aren't complicated. Play and interaction are two of those things. I'm not going to leave you with two stories, but I'm going to tell you two stories that taught me that I need to like take a step back and continue to learn and evolve as the president of this foundation as I continue to design these things. You got any help? You good? Oh, that's all you know. Okay. Let me know, Jason, when you're up forward if there's more. Did you get forward? Yeah, there you go. Okay, that's good. The best part of this is, and I told Jeff and Josh, this is even going to be more comprehensive than even our main one in Pendleton, just because it's been 10 years. And we've updated Pendleton, but you're going to see such
045an amazing, and it's really not the kids that you're, I mean, the kids, they're great. And they're awesome. They're going to play together, but it's the caregivers. It's the moms, the dads, the teachers, the therapists, grandma, grandpa, that are going to be like, thank you. Thank you for finally, I can come somewhere and I can do something and know when I get there, I can do it with my kid or my grandkid. And you have no idea the amount of stress that takes off of those caregivers. And when those caregivers, even if it's for half an hour, if they have less of that stress, that filters down to their family, it filters down to their kids. And then you have an evolved better family unit just for spending a half an hour in a place
046that they feel safe at and comfortable at and their kids are playing. So that is why that's as our foundation has evolved, that's the most common trend that I get from emails, texts, phone calls, and they're from caregivers saying, thank you. Thank you for actually listening to us and doing something that we can do, which is what we provide. As this project moves on, we will go into the community. We'll meet with the families. We'll meet with whatever, and we go through that and we look at geography. We look at incomes. We look at disability rates in this area of $20 radius, because they'll come, which is why we continue to do this. We've got people coming from the South House to go to Pendleton. We've got people coming from Canada to go to Pendleton.
047Like, well, we need to like, and that's how we, and then they would call and then we would partner up and we would build these amazing things. So just in closing, it's late and I thank you for giving me some time. I just have two quick stories to tell you that I've learned through this whole process. One is you're not just really, like I brought up the caregivers. You're not just really, it is about the kids, but again, it's about the family as a whole, whether it's a single mother and their kid, or whether it's a unit with mom and dad, doesn't matter. It's the family as a whole. I took a call from a father, and he was from Newfoundland and he went to Pendleton and he basically was like, you know, Mr. Riefchick,
048thank you. I can finally do something at a park. I've gone here. I've gone there. I've looked it up. I've researched it. Everywhere I've gone, I've gotten there and it's not what it's advertised. It's a piece of something surrounded by wood chips and I can't get to it. And he goes on and he talks. He goes, I can finally go on this. Where is it here? You can slide through it if you want. I can finally go on the Wego round. I can finally go on the zip cruise with him. The zip cruise is amazing. It's basically like you're flying in the air. It's a dual zip cruise. And on one side, you can have an able-bodied child and on the other side, like my daughter and my son can swing together. And it's like
049a glider. It's really cool. It really is. So he's talking to me. 30 minutes into the conversation he's a disabled vet who lost his legs in Iraq and it was him who was disabled and his son was able-bodied. So it's him who's going on these larger things that he can do with his son. And I had to take a step back because I didn't even think of that at first. Then the best part of this is the nucleus that you get when you create relationships with these things. And I say, look, this is great. This is a beautiful design. It's metal. It's plastic. It's rubber. It's amazing. It's not really about this. It's about the journey to get here. It's about when you start and when you finish what you've learned in the process and
050who you've met. That is what this is about. It's fancy. It's great. The swing is amazing. I don't know if you get to the swing. The swing is phenomenal. It's going to be one of the first. I mean, you're going to have a Wego round. You're going to have this dual zip cruise and the first WeSwing in a park in Western New York, the first one, even above us. And when you get that nucleus, you're going to have families meet here. You're going to have families meet here and you're going to get teary-eyed like I do all the time. When we had an event at Pendleton, we had two families. And this is what I believe inclusion is and what I believe accessibility is. You've got a family with an able-bodied child and you've got
051a family with a child like Mason. And we call them limited editions, by the way. That's what we call Mason. Why do we call them that? What's limited edition? Unique, special, one-of-a-kind, expensive. That is what Mason is. That's what Matthew was. We are a limited edition family. They come around once in a while and they're beautiful and they're special and they're expensive. So that's what we don't like the terms disabled, hand-capped, mentally retarded, or whatever term that they use now. We like limited edition. It's fun. And guess what? You got to smile when I said it. You're not like, oh, I'm really sorry that your son's sick. Well, he's not sick. He's just limited. It's okay. We're all limited in some facet, right? We're all perfect. So I was sitting, just to go back to
052my story, I was sitting at Pendleton and I was waiting. We have an area and we tailor to the, we have a lot of children with intellectual disabilities, autism, ADHD, ADD, and we have areas similar here, too, that it's kind of a quieter area that we tailor. We put it out. We have cozy domes, just a softer area where there isn't as much yelling, screaming, that kind of thing. We have that in Pendleton. It's called the Miller Rose Garden, named after one of our board members. You're very familiar. Okay. And it's tailored after one of our board members' daughters who died of Miller Vicar Syndrome. And in that area, we have a garden, flowers, trees, and I'm out there weeding. And in that area, there's a mother that's sitting there with her son. Her son
053was about six, I'll say at the time, this was three years ago now, six at the time. And then under the mason tree, like I mentioned earlier, we put these extra large anorondic rocking chairs, because that's what I like with Mason. I can sit with him in it. He's big. It's a nice chair. So we put four or five of those chairs under this tree for shade, because I love my trees. Trees are cool. I love trees. So there's grandma and there's mom, I'm assuming, sitting under there. And they had a little boy, too, who had muscular dystrophy or something. He had a walker with AFOs. So they go to like an ADD area or like a sensory area that I had done that was high-end back then. Now it's like older. And these two
054kids started playing on the board. Earlier I said adults tend to complicate things that are complicated. Play is one of them. I'm not watching the kids, because I know they're going to play. Who am I watching? I'm watching the parents. I'm watching mom over here that's by herself with her son. And I'm watching, I'm assuming it was mom and grandma over here. They're all on the edge of their seats. They're watching. So what's going to happen here is society would tell you that that mother is going to come over, take her son and go, okay, okay son, we have to go somewhere else. We don't want to hurt the boy. We don't know what's going on. So that's usually what happens, what I've seen, and what mostly happens. So the mother, after about five minutes
055of petering, patterning up and down, grandma and mom over here are starting to get teary-eyed. Because why? Because the kid's playing with someone. They're talking. They're interacting. So mom gets up and she bypasses the kids, pats them on the head, and walks over and introduces herself to grandma and mom. Okay, now this is what inclusion is, folks. It's not metal. It's not rubber. It's not plastic. Okay, this is a tool to get where I'm getting at. They start talking. So now mom and grandma really start crying. And the other mother was like, okay, I just met you. What's going on? And then they, after about an hour, now I couldn't leave. I have to see this through. I have to see what's going on. So they start talking. The mother pulls up a chair. They
056sat there for another hour and just talked while their two kids played. A year later, I get a, I don't do Facebook a lot, but for the foundation we do, I get a message from, I forgot. I'm like, hey, Mr. Evecheck, I just want to let you know that we love what you do. And last year, my son met Jordan at the park and they sent me pictures and I remembered it right away. And they said, we just want to let you know that the boys have the same birthday and we decided to celebrate their birthdays together at the park one year later. That is exactly what Mesa's mission does. If I can do one of those a year, I consider what I do a complete success. Okay. And that's what this is going to
057ultimately do in time. Get people here. We're here to help in any way we can. Awareness. That's usually what we do. And that is what I feel in my heart, what true inclusion is and true accessibility is and true acceptances. And thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. I know everyone's tired. Any questions? I'm sorry. So in terms of why we do this and, you know, some of the reasons why we do capital projects is being able to put on a playground like this and create one really is only possible with long-term planning and through capital projects. It's not really something you just decide to do annually, but it's necessary to support our students and our families like Jason was mentioning with some of these resources and the infrastructure that capital projects
058can really provide. And it's definitely an asset, not only to the district, but our community and something our community is going to hopefully be very proud of going forward. Selfishly, I want to brag and say I can't wait to have all these other school districts come and ask us like, Hey, can we do a field trip to, you know, your playground? Because it was wonderful, but it hurt last year when I was reading through some of our field trips and seeing like some of our special education classes going to Mason's Mission Playground and Pendleton saying like, that's a field trip where, you know, for many of our students, that's just every day going outside and playing, you know, trying to provide those opportunities for all of our students. So it's going to be hard to
059come now to the next piece of budget because usually it's after kids, but thank you guys for letting us show you that. Actually, I do have a question about like the, was, is this part of the capital project? So like it's already budgeted in? So this is in the first phase of the project. Okay. Included in this would also be an expansion of a parking lot. As Jason's certainly told us, you're going to see a lot of people coming to visit. So we also have the expansion of an additional parking lot to try to alleviate some of the off-street parking for the residents as well. So this is in the first phase explicitly in the capital project. Okay. Jason. All right. You can sit right there. You're good. It's always hard to follow. It's always
060a good presentation, then budget. Lead with that next time. Yeah. Since Josh is up here, probably won't open. But the, some of the planning, the location being between for, and we want to visualize in between the two large trees at Ohio and back. And hopefully we'd have a connection between like where the building is to the location. Also where the other playground is as well. So, as always, we want to strategically utilize the districts resources. And again, for budget, we're talking about the general fund budget. This is the budget that the community votes on. There's lots of different types of bonds, like school cafeteria bond or capital project bond or federal grant fund. This is our community educational general fund budget. And doing so in a manner that allows for, they have the same sort
061of educational experiences next year as last year as 10 years from now. And that's sustainability. So going through, we have a couple of key areas, some recent fiscal headlines from our comptroller, the historical and projected enrollment for our K-8 buildings anticipated both scenes budget. We're about 95 to 97% of the way there with our renewal votes and some of the updated budgetary expenses. In terms of our comptroller, there's been three recent press releases and reports that they have. So it is a similar theme to what we experienced last year with the rhetoric. I believe in my heart truly that we are slightly ahead of the curve compared to where other districts are at and some of the actions that the district has done compared to now we're seeing the statistics bear out in some of
062these reports. So on January 20th press release, the comptroller indicated that a consistent trend of unsustainable spending rates and that spending statewide in many areas remains above inflation. Two days later in January 2022, the comptroller indicated that a 41% increase in school districts across New York state are now experiencing fiscal stress more compared to the previous school year. So you already had a group of school districts, now they're saying 41% more experiencing fiscal stress. There's lots of different metrics that are indications of fiscal stress. So we're getting just almost to 10% of school districts now are meeting these metrics. Then February 18th, the comptroller warned of continuing fiscal uncertainty with the federal aid and policy and some of the key quotes that they had were the trajectory of state spending is estimated to increase faster
063than revenue. The cumulative budget deficit is $27.5 billion through 2030 on the state level. Federal actions create more risk and uncertainty and the general fund revenues are expected to grow 9.8% statewide but the expenses are projected to grow almost twice as fast at 18.5%. And that rapid growth in Medicaid spending are going to crowd out other areas such as education, public safety, and infrastructure, which really is defer cost to communities or delay projects. So these are some of the comptroller's comments and certainly been something we've been forecasting and warning about hoping that it wasn't going to come true but trying to prepare for it. Josh, I put it in a PDF. The PowerPoint's not hitting on a hole. Well, now that we're on the superintendents, please, I suppose we're on a good time. As my
064turn is now on the screen, so we're all set. Thank you, Josh. So we'll get the historical trends for class sizes. As we did last March, looking at where we're at with our class sizes, we're showing the same graph right here that we did last year in terms of our comparison with other local districts, including Lockport, Niagara-Ballantyre, Wheatfield, and Start Point. For the K-2 average, we are little over 18, and for those school districts close to 16. And if you go to the next slide, this is what we're looking at for next year with our class sizes K-3. Really the class sizes are remaining very similar. You'll notice Ohio first grade this year very close to 25 students, also Drake kindergarten close to 22. Those are two areas that are higher than we would like,
065and so we're keeping a very close eye on those areas for next year as that Drake class goes to first grade and that Ohio first grade obviously will be in second grade. So keeping an eye on those numbers. We're looking at also smaller numbers at Spruce next year. So we will continue to monitor the numbers throughout the rest of the school year into the summer and if necessary reallocate staff to the areas where they are needed most based on needs and the numbers. So once again we have no, we will not be losing any teachers, but there would be an opportunity to possibly reallocate some teachers based on where the needs are. So looking at those building-wide averages, those classes kindergarten through third grade, at Drake right around 20, Iowa closer to two, Spruce right
066at 19. And those kindergarten numbers are something that we absolutely have to take a look at because those numbers are based on live birth data from a few years ago. So it really does depend on registrations and right now registrations for kindergarten are fairly low, but they always pick up throughout the rest of this school year and in the summer, but we will continue to monitor that as we move forward. So looking at our three through eight class sizes, this is the area where North Carolina is actually a little bit lower in our gen ed classes, about 16 students versus the regional or the local average of 19 and moving on. And that's a slide that we looked at last year. As we look at next year's class sizes this year, we hired an extra
067teacher at fourth grade at NTI as that class size got very large at the beginning of this whole year, but the entering class into fourth grade next year is much smaller. So we anticipate only having nine sections at fourth grade next year. With that 11 going up to fifth grade and continuing with 10th and sixth grade, the average class size would remain virtually the same. It's 22.9 this year, 22.6 next year based on those numbers that we currently have. But once again, it's early, it's March. We will continue to monitor those numbers because things change. People leave, come in. So we'll continue looking at those. When we look at the middle school for next year, the class size coming in is slightly smaller coming into seventh grade next year, making that class size about 22.4.
068And the current class size of 24 with the 11 teachers or the 11 sections we have in eighth grade would make that class size about 22 with the average at the middle school also being 22.4 half core classes there. So when you look at it across the board, really the numbers are virtually the same K-8 in all grade levels. The challenge that we do have is especially in smaller schools like Drake, when you only have three sections, add a few kids, it makes a big difference. Take away a few kids, it makes a big difference. But it's generally not a place that we would add another teacher or take another teacher away. So those numbers can be skewed a little bit by numbers here and there. But really our goal is to keep those numbers
069level across the district and if necessary, reallocate some of the class to keep those class sizes appropriate in all of our buildings. So when we look at our BOCES budget, our BOCES budget is probably 10% of our overall budget. Just wanted to highlight some of the very large expense areas where the rate increases are greater than the rate of inflation. Our CTE, the tuition rate is going up 4% while the student enrollment rate is increasing 9%. On the effect of that on our budget, which we'll see on the right side, is about $200,000. Our special education placements and related services, it's a blend, it's about up 7%. But with that, we've also had some students moving in. So we have about three or four more students at placements currently than we did have at this
070point last year. So we're looking at a total impact. We'll see later about $400,000. And the general administration of rental facilities, those are fees that are imposed on us by BOCES that some of those expenses, the equivalent is about $100,000 increase on the budget. But you can see like rental facilities up 53%. The general administration of the BOCES budget itself and BOCES is almost up to 11%. Those are areas we have no control over, they're dictated towards us. And then on the flip side to highlight small areas of the BOCES budget, but with some significant rate increases, it's the regulations that's almost 27%. And that's an all or nothing sort of service. And it is physically advantageous to use BOCES labor relations rather than your own private attorneys, but it's still a 27% increase. So
071we look over and I want to be specific, last year what we had showed was just a 24, 25 and just said BOCES, about $8 million. And it didn't really have a breakout and effort of greater transparency. We broke it up into larger bucket areas. This is the first year we're able to show a year over year increase or a decrease in some of the areas. You can see some of the district wide supports, special education, and our CTE really driving home almost the entire amount of the BOCES budget increase. There are some areas where the BOCES budget increased, that's because there are new programs where generalized supports that normally we would pay for as a district without receiving aid back. We've been able to look and research throughout the state to say, can we
072shift some of those expenses to BOCES, lower non-aided parts of our budget to increase aid as well. And then also there have been some reductions in terms of the professional development or some of the specialists that the district has used in the past that we're looking for going forward. So we were looking from a March to March budget perspective of about a $700,000 increase in BOCES. But again, the overwhelming majority of that is mandatory fees imposed to you by BOCES, the CTE enrollment, which is a three-year lagging enrollment, which is dictated to you, and then special education expenses and placements going on. When you strip out the almost mandated pieces, the entire BOCES budget is flat year over year with what we have. When we look at some of our updated budget, we did do
073some expense adjustments and revenue adjustments. So we've been withholding a small amount of our grant revenue because there was a lot of rhetoric last year that title funds or 611 funds would be reduced by almost up to 20%. So at this point, we're really put in a position to force to recognize that we hope that doesn't come true. We're assuming the executive budget funding proposal for the UPK grant is adopted, which would expand more access to funding and recognize some of our salary and retirement benefits regarding the staff members who retired last year. From a revenue standpoint, we continue to adjust some of our earnings interest, earnings up and Medicaid reimbursements up. We talked about that at our last board meeting, some of those positive adjustments towards access cost aid. That is a current internal
074audit topic that we've been working on. We've seen some slight increases in terms of that. Positive adjustments for our school lunch program and some of what's called an indirect cost towards the general fund due to the high participation rates. And then we did add due to the way that we structured some of our retirement incentives, some additional revenue from what's called an Evelar reserve as well. So when we look at on the expense side from a net change, we are at this point, this figure was much higher at our last meeting, about 1,448,000. And you can see that the large majority of that is tied towards the fixed cost of employee benefits, whether it is the fixed rate like the social security and TRS and ERS or health insurance. While our health insurance rate is
075going up, it is considerably lower the anticipated percentage compared to the region. Our anticipated increases in the single digits where many districts are at 15 or 20% increases. And that is I think a testament to just all the staff and the way our self-insured program is running. It really is a collective effort from anyone who participates in health insurance and our health insurance plan is performing very well compared to the regional average. Even though you see that dollar amount increase, some of those other districts, the district our size, we're talking about a million and a half, the $2 million increase on health insurance alone. And then when we talk about some of the reserves, we've still at this point held most of the reserves. We don't add those back until the very end. We did
076throw in the reserve funds from the ABLAR due to the way that we structured the retirement incentive. So we're still showing a million dollars less in our different reserves than we had last year, but we don't add reserves until the very, very end. So with that, the submitted state tax cap, this is based on every, all the information we have truly at this moment. It can change and we can still revise. We are looking at a local tax cap of about 2.51% based on where we're at this year, which is a slightly lower percent compared to where we were last year as well. Where were we last year? The max was approximately 2.77% last year. Okay. It is important because in terms of when we talk about long-term planning, you can do certain actions as
077a district or a municipality to manipulate your tax cap one year, but it would have a dramatic, negative effect in future years. So it's really important to have that long-term thinking that we're not just simply pressing a certain lever this year that will dramatically hurt the district in the future. And really we want a level tax cap levy or cap for our community because it's something you can count on. We probably can recall personally just stories of other districts or regions where maybe it's a negative 5% or it's an 8% and that's just a yo-yo going up and down and that's not helpful for anyone. So we look at our total revenues at this point. This is again without a lot of reserves potentially being added in. We're at 82,845,000. That is still holding the
078foundation aid increase at 1%. We are hearing rumblings and whisperings that it could go up. There are certain numbers I hope we're going to be at, but we are just reporting what we currently know right now, what we're going to speculate. And then we look at some of our working budgets in terms of the total expenses, which is currently at 84,448,000. We're at about a $1.6 million cap at this point. Compared to last year, that was about 1.3 to 1.4 at this point. So in terms of where we are right now compared to last year, a very similar spot. So some of our next steps is the presentation we hope for the finalized BOCES expenses. Really with how far and wide we look for some of our BOCES expenses and our supports, some of our
079renewals rates, they may not be finalized by March 18th, but we're hoping. We probably work with about 11 different BOCES for various programs and then hopefully presenting the finalized academic program, really that high school piece. And then by March 25th, just finalizing the B budget for the gas. So with that, it's not as exciting as a play down. Are there any questions you may have? Does our deficit, or I guess the budget gap, does that take into account teacher retirements yet? So that has taken in this year's, we have five instructional retirements. Okay. It is important to note that next fiscal year, last year we had 41 teacher retirements. Right. That of the payment, the retirement and signed up due to contractual language would be done next year would be the last year that the
080district would be paying that retirement incentive. So it is kind of, we will have an early return fall off and there will be that fall off as well next year. Okay. I hope I answered your question. Did you want us to talk comfortability as far as percentages go? Sure. So you have it for some ideas for next go around? Absolutely. The question on 2.51, is that, do we need a super majority to get that number or is it if we go above that number or is it 2%, I guess, what's the? So that number, if we are at that number, that is a simple majority, 50%. If you wanted to go above that number, you would need a super majority, which for us, that would be a 60%. Question to follow up on that one,
081would that be the equivalent of a tax override, like a tax cap override? Essentially, that would be. That's what it is. It would be considered like a tax cap override for that. Anyone have any strong opinion on the starting point? The health insurance, that's impressive. Cost avoidance, not savings, right? I think it goes to every member of the district who participates in health insurance. There's a lot of little actions they do. We have strong participation in wellness events, preventative screenings, all those actions really do help in the long run and I really think it's a commitment. And you know, our HR office has been great at trying to be proactive and we do see it in comparison to the performance of others. Do you know where we were in the increased last year, by chance?
082Where we also went 2.749. I guess I'll say that I, for a couple of reasons, I think I would be looking at going right up to the cap, the 2.5, 2.51 area. Really my big things here are the fact that if we did that, we still have a budget gap. So going lower than that, like we're just, we're continuing to make up more money, taking it from the future, taking it from fund balance, like whatever it is, like we would have to take it from somewhere. So that's one reason. And the other reason is that, this was probably a year and a half ago now, two years, that the four of us went to the presentation from, was it the guy at the Rockefellers? Rick Tim, that's the guy. And he was talking about how
083if districts don't go to their full tax cap, that as the state starts to look at budgets, that they'll say, oh well then you clearly don't need two and a half percent increase. You know, well here's your one percent continued. So that's, it's wordy, but that's like, those are my thought processes. So I know in the past we've like looked at the options and the ranges. What are the thoughts of, if we look at four different scenarios from one percent, 1.5, two percent, and then 2.51 of the cap. And thoughts on having that as a range. We'll look at it, what's the, you know, what's the pros, cons, how much does it raise, how much is the deficit. That might be visually helpful. What's the impact on the household like we've seen in the past?
084I think we can see that breakdown. Yeah, the farther you train reserves, so if you don't, you know, your borrowing becomes more expensive. But I think it's helpful too when we do it this way, that you can see like for an extra two dollars, it's 1.5. For an extra four dollars, it's, I think that just from the terms of folks to see it, I think that's been helpful in the past. If we're good with that. So give them at least a direction for. Could we also throw in a higher above of 2.5? Cover the gap? Yeah, like a, yeah, I guess like what would be, what would we have to raise it to to cover the gap? So I guess that would be. Yes, yeah, I guess I would go the other direction rather than
085say it's 2.5 and this is our budget gap. What would the tax rate have to be to get rid of that 1.6? And we can absolutely provide any number you want. Something that we have had a lot of discussion about too is as we have a, you know, a proposition for a capital project vote as well, you know, it's, you know, we would want to consider exactly that whenever you go over the cap, it will definitely bring out more people for a negative, for a noble. Yeah, so I mean, but we will provide. I'm not suggesting that we do that. I just, I get the curious. Yeah, just for numbers, for everything. So you said if the 2.51 is a 50? Is a exactly 50%. 50%. And then if we go higher? That's 60%. 60%.
086Okay, everyone good with that approach? Right. Is that good from us? Yes, last year we presented also with different assessed values as well. We can do that as well. Yeah, that'd be super helpful. Yes. All right. Thank you everyone. All right, so let's roll this agenda so we can get all these fine people in our audience on before we're doing. All right, so we're going to roll right to 8.1 to recommend the Board of Education approves the agenda orders presented or are there any additions, deletions, or changes? Not hearing, just seeing a motion. Opposed? Second. From Jeff, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We will roll to 9.24 to recommend the Board of Education approves the consent agenda as recommended by the Superintendent of Schools. I'll make the motion to see a second.
087Second. From Dennis, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 10.1 is recommended the Board of Education approves the personnel agenda as presented or are there any additions, deletions, or changes? Not hearing, just seeing a motion. So moved. From Chloe, in a second? Second. From Stephanie, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. 11.18, it's recommended the Board of Education approves all personnel in section 11 as presented, just seeing a motion. So moved. From Jeff, in a second? Aye. From Chloe, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. And then next up, we had our second read. I don't think we had any questions. So we didn't have any questions or changes on that one. So we'll roll right into that one, 12.1. It's recommended the Board of Education approves the adoption of the new
088policy of 50-850 as presented. I will make the motion, just seeing a second. Second. From Melissa, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, we have time for the public to address the Board on any school issue. We just ask that you state your name and address. Keep your comments to five minutes. This period will not to exceed 45 minutes. So come on up. I saw your name on that list. You got this. Good evening. My name is Danica Murray. You're a student? I'm a student at NTMS, 8th grade. And you're here to talk about? And I'm here to talk about the music teachers and music teachers. I have Okay, I apologize. No worries. I think I said technology. Yeah, technology is not a good thing. Good evening. My name is Danica Murray.
089I have anxiety disorder, OCD, and ADD. I have gone from struggling in school and home due to bullying and my disabilities to being an honorable student playing Miss Honey in the middle school musical. Attending all county music in both junior high chorus and band due in part to the help that the music teachers have provided me. They provided a safe environment where I can be myself without judgment. Without the music department for me to go to, I am not sure where I would be. We have lost out on some opportunities due to not being able to have lessons that serve for vocals. I'm afraid that if we do not have enough music teachers to support us, then we will lose the programs. I'm not sure where I would fit in. Music is where I fit
090in and where I feel like I am myself. I have had great teachers and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to work with Mr. and Mrs. Valas, but I don't want to stop at 13. I want to keep going and don't want to lose out on the opportunity to continue to grow as a musician. I would like to just leave you with this bit of information according to the California Learning Resource Network. Playing music can significantly help students with anxiety by providing a safe outlet for emotional expression, enhancing mindfulness and focus, fostering social bonding, boosting self-esteem, and reducing stress. Music education in schools can take various forms such as daily musical breaks, rhythm exercises, songwriting sessions, and instrument learning, all of which contribute to creating a supportive, anxiety-reducing environment for students. Thank you
091for your time and I appreciate it for you. I appreciate you listening to me. Thank you. All right, anyone else? All right, not hearing me, we will go around the room. We'll start off with our quality student, Mr. Ichenera. Thank you. I know it's become a habit for me to take this time to acknowledge some of the great stuff that's going on in our schools, and I feel like this time of year more than any is some of the biggest and most important time for students with all the events going on. So starting off, the student council at the high school is working with Connect Life, planning our third and final blood drive on April 21st. That's open to all high school middle school students, staff, and administrators. Last night was equality students dinner. I
092know Stephanie, Dr. J, Melissa, you were all there. I feel it was a good time. I heard all the students that were there. I talked to a bit of them today. They loved it, and I'd like to see continuing support for that because that's amazing. Our boys' varsity basketball team plays tomorrow for the section six championship at eight o'clock. Our girls' basketball varsity basketball team won the section six championship today, beating Willie 73 to 52, so congrats to them. Tomorrow is the literacy night at Ohio for Ohio students, families, parents. Spring sports are starting up. The high school musical Freaky Friday is at the high school auditorium next Thursday, Friday, Saturday. I've heard a bit of the music, and it is going to be fabulous, so everyone come out and support, and I just saw
093our agenda. I'd like to congratulate Ms. Eckstein on her retirement after 30 years of dedication to the school. Thanks, sir. I just want to thank again, Mr. Echak. That was an extremely captivating presentation on that one. I was kind of wowed by that, and then also for the administration staff because the way the project is presented, and all the different thought processes are like moving money around from, you know, having it be state aid reimbursed and like the different processes. It's just impressive, so that's a short sweep for this long night. Dennis? Yeah, I agree with Jeff about Mr. Echak and the inclusive playground plans for that, and kudos to the district for including that in your plans. Music presentation, thank you very much. It clearly means a lot to students, and thank you for
094your bravery and your patience for coming to the event. That's your compelling story. Just appreciate you. I got to go to the Quality Student Awards dinner last night. It's probably the fourth time I've gone since being on the board. It's also one of my favorite events, so I'm glad to see it continue. I'm proud of all the NT students and also the Cardinal O'Hara and the City of Tonawanda students, but I was there for North Tonawanda, obviously. I was in music. I didn't grow up in North Tonawanda, but I was in music in high school, and I know I wouldn't have been the same without it, so appreciate the passion from everybody here that supported music tonight, and I hope everybody goes out and sees both the musical next weekend and the student art show
095that starts this week. I appreciate everything that you've already mentioned. Stephanie just said the district art show tomorrow opens at the Carnegie Art Center at 6 p.m. It's always an amazing event, so stop by that if you can. Thank you to our Remember Ryan Foundation that continually supports our schools and especially our visual and performing arts. We also got a grant for unified flag football for next year from the Buffalo Bills, which is another wonderful opportunity for our students, and finally we are excited about the extension of our Carousel Academy contract with them to do UPK. It's going to be at NTI starting next year, and we really, with this contract, are going to have the ability to offer universal pre-K for all the four-year-olds, so we don't anticipate needing a lottery. We don't anticipate
096waiting for spots. We believe we're going to be able to cover any four-year-old in North Tonawanda that wants to be there, so we're super excited to be able to provide that opportunity for families in North Tonawanda. Just I'll keep it quick. The music department, thank you guys for coming out. I know my daughter plays the saxophone and it has completely changed her. I didn't play an instrument, so when she tries to tell me what she's doing, I have no idea, but it sounds good from what I hear, so thank you for coming out and making the presentations. Thank you for speaking. I know sometimes it's hard, especially with anxiety, so I do appreciate that, and just want to echo what everybody else had said, especially about the donations and the Mason's mission. I love what
097we're doing with the district. Awesome. It's all been covered, so we didn't accept Danica. Thank you. Your voice means a lot. Thank you very much. I also want to thank you for coming so prepared to these meetings. I'm so serious because I was impressed tonight because you were talking about Ohio. You're at the high school, but thank you for thinking about all of the students. I appreciate it. For sure. Yes, thank you everyone for coming. We're sorry we kept you so late tonight, but everyone said everything, so I will keep going. Just seeing the motion to adjourn at 818 from Stephanie and I'll second it. All in favor? I motion to cast you. Thank you everyone.