Board of Education, Regular Meeting transcript: FUTURE HUDSON

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0:00City of Hudson, New York public meeting. [… repeated text trimmed] Thank you. [… repeated text trimmed] The fiber was here prior to that as well consulting and then had a little stint before Bill Mearhead started and now Bill Mearhead. So between like 2021 and 2024 was when it was the responsibility of the school business official. And wanted to just quickly pull the board on opinions about receiving stuff printed out like this or if we want to receive our documents digitally, if it's helpful to have things printed out. Just wanted to hear some opinions so that we can not be wasteful, mindful of our resources, what's useful to everybody. Digital is fine with me. I mean, I, you know, originally when we went to computers, you
10:55know, way back when, 20, 15 years ago, that was the intent that it was going to cut down on paper, you know, and I'm talking about broadly in the school district, but so yeah, I, I'd be all for that. Anybody else? I like the paper, but I also understand the purpose of digital. Okay. So maybe on an as needed or upon. Well, the issue that I brought up was the color and some of the pages were printed up and just color with a title. So my suggestion was that we go to black and white or try to reduce the pages that are just a title. Gotcha. I understand the paper. Some people like to write notes on that, but it just seems like
11:33a lot of ink. Digital is good for me. I think just really making sure that the updated versions are in board docs, like we're still waiting on the ones from last week's meeting, I believe. I'm with Amanda. Digital is fine for me. If we have a limited number of folks on the board who typically look for paper, is it possible for us to print half as many and still cut back on our use of paper and just say, look, there's going to be three available at every, at every meeting? Yeah, that makes sense to me. Any preference? Digital is fine. Okay. And just in color versus digital, like for instance, the one we have today has a
12:14lot of charts, which sort of rely on color to help tell the story. So that would be the only thing. But if we're cutting down and just printing three, then hopefully that mitigates some of those issues. Of course. Other things, we are still in the process of our mid-year evaluation for Dr. Bailey, as well as the board's mid-year evaluation. We're going to go into it right now. All the things that we still sort of need to get done to achieve all of our goals. And I would love some volunteers from the board to take on some of these tasks and ensure that they get done before the end of our school year. So the first goal still to be completed is
13:09awesome. You can, there you go, is to complete the search for our superintendent. Still gunning for July 1st, which is aggressive, but we've been working very hard to make sure that is transparent and inclusive. We'll have further updates about the search later today. Board onboarding and operations. We have a board member communication handbook, which is almost complete. Hope to have that to share with everybody for their feedback by the next board meeting in the process of completing our mid-year review, which we clearly did not do in January, but are doing right now. There was the goal of data-driven improvement reviewing academic and climate survey data quarterly with district administrators. I don't think we're obviously haven't achieved that as well. Last week was a big step in
14:08that direction. But Amanda, I think you had some ideas for at least how we could set ourselves up for success next year. Yeah, I'm happy to take on thinking through sort of the template and the formatting for that around like what goals we get reported back to us on and with what frequency. So that's a task that I can assign to myself. Okay, great. Next slide. So curriculum review, we wanted to identify priority areas for improvement and define core responsibilities of a new executive director of curriculum instruction. We did approve the title has not been posted yet, but I would maybe suggest that we revisit this either later on in April or early May and can get some input from Dr. Bailey on
15:03this item. Celebrating success, celebrate student and teacher achievement by involving them in board presentations about building initiatives. I'll be honest, we have not found an effective way to do this. If anybody has specific ideas to give it a trial run before the end of the school year, be open to any of those. Doesn't have to be right now, but shoot me any ideas or notes that you have. We can do that. Participation and visibility, each board member will attend at least eight community events during the school year. I know I see you guys all over the place, so we just need to do the second part of it, which is create a engagement log to sort of track which events we've attended.
15:54I can do that because I like making spreadsheets. Communication and input, investigate ways to receive public comment and suggestions via digital communication. That's something I want to circle back to once we finish these other goals. And then track in-person and virtual attendance at meetings and report trends annually. We have not done this to date, but we can work with Leslie and the IT department to try and do it at our remaining meetings throughout the year.
16:35And then the last one on slide four is invite three local businesses, nonprofits, or higher education institutions to present at a board meeting and to hold at least one board meeting off-site or not on district property to increase community engagement. So I would love some of the other board members to maybe take the lead on this and to suggest some businesses or partner organizations and potentially a site for a board meeting not on district property. We don't have to do that right now, but once you have a chance to think about it, get in touch with me and Matt.
17:25So the next slide, slide five, this is about, so in regards to finding ways to receive public comment and suggestions via digital communication, looking through the policies, policy 1400 is really the only one that sort of speaks to that. And, you know, it basically says that if the complaints or suggestions refer to other specific policies, then we, you know, see what it says specifically in those policies. And otherwise it does sort of suggest following the traditional communication flow that we've outlined in our board handbook and on the district website where, you know, it starts with either a teacher or building principal and then goes to the superintendent and then onto the board.
18:22You know, I think there's, so I just want to put it out there and have everybody think about like, is this policy sufficient? Is there another process we want to have in place? I think we've seen over the past few months that, you know, when community members do email the board with lots of issues that they're expecting us to feedback on directly, it doesn't always lead to, you know, conversations that we can really, you know, deliver on or resolve ourselves. So I think, you know, maybe in addition to this, it's just some written guidelines. You know, we've talked about responding to emails from staff or community members very quickly, letting them know what to expect or when they might expect to hear an answer and when they should follow back up with us if they don't hear anything. If we put together just some guidelines that cover that, would everybody think that that is sufficient for covering off on that goal or is there still a desire to see some other mechanism in place?
19:38I think what matters most is it's really clear to people who they should contact about what to, right, like who's the right person who is the like decider or the, right, like the person in charge of whatever. And then, so I think like a clearer, we had talked in the fall, I thought about sort of like a clear
20:00Or like, you know, yes, thank you. I sometimes don't have words by 6 p.m.
20:06Yeah, what is like, if this is your issue, this is who you contact first. So that we can make sure actually that people like hear resolution to their things faster, I think. And then like what, then the communication directly to the board is either if it's something directly related to us, right, obviously feedback on something like the superintendent search, feedback around like a specific like board policy. But like if it's, then the board gets looped in if there's like additional resolution needed just to be able to actually streamline and I think strengthen people getting the information that they need.
20:38Sometimes people don't hear anything from other people, though, and that's why they reach out to us.
20:43And then I think that that's the appropriate time to reach out is to say like, here's my communication to so-and-so, I didn't hear back, now I'm elevating it to this level. I think that's like absolutely inappropriate.
20:53So when they reach out to us, they should say, I reached out to blah, blah, blah, and they didn't respond to me, so now I'm reaching out to you.
20:59Well, I think there's a flow there. So everybody's gotta talk to the superintendent before they contact the board. Teacher to principal, principal to, right, like depending on what the issue is. And if they don't hear anything, then they contact us and say we spoke, we tried to reach out to the superintendent, we tried to reach out to the teacher, whatever.
21:18Okay, that's all great feedback. I mean, I think since it's not drastically different than what's in this policy, I don't think we would need to change it, but I'll add something into our communication handbook that addresses this specifically and gets us all on the same page then.
21:41And then just lastly, Dr. Bailey will probably speak about it too, but we need to look at some dates for more special meetings before we vote on a budget April 21st, so some of the dates are next Tuesday, the 24th. And then after that, looks like the next available date would be sometime either April 15th or 16th. So check all your calendars. We've got a number of dates that we need to get on the schedule for the superintendent search as well, which we'll discuss later in the meeting. But please let me know as quickly as you can which date you'd be available and would prefer.
22:26Are we doing that? We're doing that now, right? Sure.
22:29I can do next Tuesday.
22:30Next Tuesday?
22:32I cannot do next Tuesday. I will be in Texas for work. So a different time zone means even remote isn't gonna work, unfortunately. I think we should actually, let's do our budget presentation. Let's see how we feel after that and what the board would like as its next steps.
22:52And then I think it's also gonna be a question for Dr. Bailey and Ms. Ferry, how long do they need to pull together that information? And if getting it together by next Tuesday seems like a extremely tall order, then we would look at dates a little bit later in April.
23:15Oh, I have a comment. So I know for communication input, I went to a town hall meeting and the way they did public comment anyway is they'd have a Zoom meeting. So if you needed to record the Zoom meeting and livestream it to YouTube, but when there was a section for the public comment, people would physically also say something, but then on the Zoom meeting, people would unmute and say their comment as well. Just a suggestion.
23:43Yes, we've discussed that in the past and that is I think mostly an IT thing that we would just need to think through about how we would get people to participate virtually because right now it's just streamed through YouTube, not Zoom. So we could talk about that and see what's possible.
24:09Would these special meetings be meetings or workshops? Would you think there'd be other business?
24:17Maybe.
24:18Okay.
24:19There wouldn't be, actually I'll be able to tell you before the end of the night.
24:23Okay. Yeah.
24:29Okay, that is all that I have. That brings us to budget presentation number four.
24:42Thank you. And I did just realize that since Leslie's not here, we don't have a sign-in sheet for public comment. So we're making a very unofficial one right now, which we will pass down and place next to LaBona if anybody would like to speak during public comment.
25:22Oh, does someone have an extra pen?
25:26Yes, I'm sorry. You can take this one. There we go.
25:36Oh, you got one?
25:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least I've got it. Get up there.
25:39Okay. Thank you.
25:55This is all just an elaborate plan, so you never ask me to be the clerk again. It's going great.
26:01Thank you. We've went our way through many other departments and areas of our budget. And at the end of this presentation, the recommendation of one of the board members, I included agenda for each of the prior board budget presentations with a hyperlink to them. As Mike said, when I handed them out, they're getting thicker. I was picturing like the one that had every page of all the presentations would be 100, more than 100 pages.
26:37So there's hyperlinks at the end of this presentation. When it's posted, they'll be active so members of the public can also click on them to see, like to look at transportation and look at IT and facilities. So we'll be able to look back. Because it is hard when you're trying to encompass the sum total of things to ensure that you understand the larger picture of that.
26:58Tonight, we're gonna take a look at special education, McKinney-Vento, which are homeless students, instructional programming by building, which is obviously the greatest expense in our entire budget, central office, and our three part budget. I'm gonna hand it off to Ms. Deanna James-Hughes.
27:28Good evening. Greetings and salutations to the board, cabinet, families, students, and school community. Happy St. Patrick's Day. So when we talk about student services, I'd like to say that we are a diverse group, a collaborative group, and we represent multiple stakeholders throughout our district.
28:02So we're a group of administrative assistants, special education teachers, psychologists, speech language pathologists, social workers, school counselors, occupational therapists, teacher aides, teaching assistants, nurses, health service staff, and physical therapists who is hired contractually.
28:35I'd like to share some of the highlights that have processed through student services. First, I'd like to welcome formally to the district our physical therapist, Mr. Wright. I'm also sharing that as of this year, we obtained the reinstatement as an opioid prevention site, and this includes both a clinical and program director.
29:08This allowed our nurse and health staff to be equipped with Narcan-associated materials and trainings in the event that they should need them, and that's a distinction that we had previously, but it was lapsed, but that's now reinstated. We also obtained a partnership with Just Write Reader at no cost to the district for our special class classrooms within the elementary school.
29:42It is an eight-week program that is supported by Just Write Reader, and it allows our classrooms to have more an acclimation with the program, and when they complete their eight weeks, they will be able to utilize the. Materials that were already present within the building.
30:06This year, we also have an inaugural class. This is through Arbor and Pryligh. If you're unfamiliar, that stands for the Regional Bilingual Educational Resource Network. It is a program specific for our upperclassmen that allows them to get involved in the state legislative process.
30:29The summative event is, they get to be in the halls of Albany, and again, this is a program that is fully founded at no cost to the district, and our scholars are having a wonderful time.
30:43And I really want to give praise and thanks to both Ms. Vera and Ms. Fisher, who have either helped with the application process, went with our students to the site, and so those two individuals are part of student services staff, and I wanted to praise them in regards to their support.
31:07This year, we also have taken advantage of a learning platform that is regulated through the state. It's called the New York State Center for School Health Trainings. It's an online platform with a plethora of trainings available. Once you finish the training, you're given a certificate, and it's logged. There's various trainings that different staff members have partaken, including the opioid training, glucagon, which has to do with sugar and diabetes, de-escalation strategies, adverse childhood experiences, and trauma-informed practices.
31:56This year, we also had our school physician contract reinstated, and I'm also sharing with you tonight some other items that we have in progress.
32:10Deanna, can I just interrupt you real quick?
32:12Yes.
32:13This Just Write Reader eight-week program, what is the program?
32:17So what it entails is our special class students were given the opportunity to, they get kits that are specific to their learning needs in terms of reading, and they get books that are specific to the learning profiles that their teachers have identified in terms of they requested more support in, and so they have cycles in which the teachers will work to use the program, and then they come and they check back to see where they are, and then the second cycle starts off.
32:59There were quite a few books that were in existence with the district, so it's really a nice space to have that kind of one-to-one support if you had any lingering questions of, I have these materials, but how do I use them? And our students within those special classes get that support.
33:20Thank you.
33:21Can I ask another question about that? So the special classes are self-contained classes? So they're special education students, but?
33:31Yes.
33:32When you say special class, you're talking about self-contained?
33:34That's correct.
33:35And it's for the whole class, for all the self-contained classes that are doing it?
33:39For the three that are in the elementary school building.
33:42Yeah, okay, very nice.
33:45I'm just pausing to see if there was any.
33:51No, that was it, thank you.
33:52Okay, all right.
33:54Other things that we have in progress are, we are in the progress process of becoming a CPSC evaluator site that is in contract with Columbia County. That way, we will be able to act as an evaluator for our little ones when they're coming in. Oh, I'm sorry. So whereas the CSE is the Committee on Special Education that works with our older students, the CPSC are our pre-K students who are coming into the kindergarten.
34:35So in order to transition, you have to have someone who is evaluating students of that age, right? So currently, Hudson did not have that distinction. So if you were receiving students between that age group, they would have to get evaluated within another district. That was a little problematic because it would delay in terms of evaluation time. And there is a deficit within the county.
35:13And so that would solve quite a bit for our families in terms of facilitating that process. And it would also put Hudson in a position where if other school sites who do not have that distinction, they would have those students come to us and then we would benefit fiscally as well.
35:44Other things in progress are mental health supports, research-based intervention and progress monitoring tools, a preschool screener, functional life skills equipment. All of those things that are aforementioned have been isolated and targeted based on evaluations of the needs of the district, right?
36:11We also have a partnership with the regional RPC, also known as the Regional Partnership Center, where they offer a plethora of trainings and they have offered support in terms of looking at our ICT models and ways that they can help in terms of development of our ICT models in use. Which you have one general education teacher and one special education teacher. And purposeful professional development for our staff.
36:57So, continuum of services. Continuum of services refers to the types of programs that we offer for our special education students. Currently what you see is what is offered. And I have them listed in turn, the district has them outlined in terms of what's technically referred to as least and most restrictive. As you move down, the idea is that more support is needed.
37:33So we have consultant teaching where a support comes directly to the student where a teacher would go into a classroom. We have integrated co-teaching, as mentioned, where two teachers teach class together. We have resource room where the student would leave the general education classroom for support within a classroom with a special education teacher to conduct that work.
38:00And then we have quite a few different program ratios for the special class, as was mentioned, otherwise known as self-contained. And in those classrooms, they're designed to support both the individualized academic instruction as well as behavioral support. We also have our life skills program, which is specialized, specific to activities of daily living. And then we also have students who, while they are within our district, they receive their instruction in another site, off-site, at a district placement.
38:47Those ratios that are up there, 8-1-4, as an example, is eight students, one teacher, four support in the classroom. So we understand what that formula is as you go down the list. New York State, overarchingly, wants us to place our students in the least restrictive environment. This is basically a boomerang effect of those years when we really were not teaching, I mean, schools in New York State were not treating students with disabilities fairly. They did not have access to the same education as their peers.
39:21They were not expected to graduate at the same rate or with the same skills. But New York State wants us to be all the way up at the top, or even better, just in general education. So not only are they looking at our identification rates, but they're also looking at what continuum of services are we offering and where exactly are the majority of our students placed. So this is a very in-depth and serious conversation as the CSE meets and CPSE meets to have discussions around where's the best and most appropriate place to put our children.
39:54And even in some of these situations, you wouldn't think it. We think it because you think, well, it's a great idea. We could put another adult, we have another adult available. We could put another adult in the room to work with students in a specific class, which inadvertently makes it more restrictive. So it's a hard thing to think, right? Because you think give everyone as much help as they can get. But what we want to do is we want to create students who thrive beyond their graduation. And that's why they say we want to give them independence to the greatest extent possible.
40:27Diana?
40:28Do we have a DASA coordinator? Who is that this year?
40:31That's Lynn and Alyssa right now, I believe.
40:33So there's two people that are the DASA coordinator? Or it's Lynn or Alyssa.
40:39The board actually appointed them in one of our meetings in the fall. I have to check for you.
40:44In the fall?
40:45Yeah.
40:48Well, I have a question. Are all those ratios being used in the district today? Or like, is it specific school by school?
40:56They are being used within the district. We do have these offerings. Everything that you see is what we currently offer.
41:03Wait, but not in the, there's different types of classes in the high school, different from the elementary, depending on the student's needs.
41:11The next few slides go into that.
41:13Yeah, it goes into more detail.
41:15Thank you.
41:16Thank you.
41:17The other thing that I want to lift here is that in looking at our current offerings, these programs are being carefully looked at because we are evaluating for sustaining positive cultural shift, supports, and outcomes. We're also evaluating in terms of being very cognizant of movement that is happening within our county in terms of presentations and in terms of the needs, right? We want to make sure that what we are providing is both in support of our students and as well as our staff.
41:58And so really being very cognizant of what is the formulation that is going to work for positive outcomes, right? And so although this is what we are offering, I do want to lift that it is being evaluated for those three pieces in mind.
42:16Are there services that a local district could provide that aren't provided here or aren't reflected here? I could...
42:31Could you repeat that again?
42:32So I guess in terms of, is this a comprehensive look at the services any local district might provide or is there something that we're not doing that either could be or, you know?
42:44So there is quite a healthy gamut when you talk about a continuum of services, right? It is not inclusive of just what you see behind you, right? There's lots of offerings. The point is is that you want to make the offerings that are feeding the students that you have before you, right? So I will say that Hudson does offer classes, programs that other districts do not. I will also say that there is shifts in terms of what out-of-district sites are saying they are holding within their programs.
43:32So there's a lot of movement in terms of programs that are documented as shifting within the county, right? We could absolutely have a healthy conversation, you know, to kind of just, you know, if the board wanted to kind of explore that further, I'd be happy to lend an ear. But there, to answer your question, there's plenty of things. It's just a matter of how are you informing your organization of your offering?
44:03So what I was gonna say before Mark asked this question is that this is Deanna's anniversary of being in the district. And just like I'll say about budget development, it takes a full year or more to fully understand the richness of program and the students that are in it and the staff that are able to offer it. And what she's saying through this veil description, the county is shifting to less restrictive environment. It's harder and harder to find placements for students with significant needs because the BOCES and other schools are shifting away from very restrictive environments. So we have to be creative sometimes.
44:44We have students who are here in one of our classes. We may have students who are waiting for placement and are in tutoring. And as you'll see in the slides, that we have students who are currently placed out of district in various programs. But you wanna go to the next slide?
44:59Sure.
45:00And you just triggered a piece. The last thing I wanna say is that when we're talking about the continuum, it's not just about the program. We wanna make sure that our students from the little all the way up are provided for effectively, which is why some pieces in my previous screen are things that are in progress because we are looking very carefully in terms of having things in place from the time they walk into our door to the time that they exit.
45:38So when we're talking about the continuum of services, what you have before you is a breakdown in terms of the type of classroom and the number of sections that are offered. They're organized on the left-hand side in terms of program ratio. So as Dr. Bailey explained before, the first number would be the student number. The second number after the colon would be the teacher. And the last number would be the support, right? You know, the aids specific to that classroom.
46:19On the right-hand side, you will see that the information is organized by grade. And adjacent to that is the number of students. That distinction is made in terms of the two just so that you can get a healthy understanding with our total population of student with disabilities measured at 109. And so that's not to say, again, this is not accounting for students who are currently in process for evaluation. This is just the number, as in in terms of students served currently.
46:56And may I ask the difference between the 54 who are students in special classes versus the total students with disabilities? Not all of the students with disabilities are in special classes. Is that where that difference comes from? The ICT classes, gotcha.
47:09I was just gonna say integrated co-teaching classes, roughly, they say those classes should have no more than 12 students with disabilities in them. And as we schedule, we try and schedule with balance. We actually want a well-diverse class with gen ed and special ed students, but that accounts for the other 55 there in those integrated co-teaching classes.
47:30That makes sense, thank you.
47:32And difference is just, there's a million numbers in this, but the classes listed on the first slide were an eight to one to four and an eight to one to two. But then when we go to this slide, we actually see an eight to one to one.
47:45We have other buildings. They're in the other buildings. So there's another slide.
47:50Yes, but eight to one to one isn't listed as a type of class offer, what I'm saying. I just wanna make sure, and again, I'm not faulting anyone in this, but that we have a clear understanding of what the program needs are in terms of, as we're thinking about staffing in tough budgetary moments, how are we using all the adults there?
48:11Yes, I see that. And the 15 to one to one also appears to be like a slightly different model.
48:19Does the state offer more aid when we have students with disabilities to help offset the expense of the classroom?
48:27Yes, students with disabilities do come with more aid because it's an anticipation that they're gonna require more supports.
48:36Thank you.
48:37Amanda, that was probably me. It's all good, yeah. Cheated that first slide. There's so many numbers, I'm not worried about it, just like when we finalize everything. In my head, in all of my existence, they were 1211, 811, and not the numbers that we had there. So that was definitely me, I apologize.
48:56So now we are moving into the junior high school space similarly to the previous slide in terms of type of class, grade, and average in terms of the students.
49:19How, there are 23 sections of co-integrated in the junior high school. I have the breakdown in terms of the specifications of the class. Integrated co-teaching. Yeah. Oh, it's up there. Our number's missing. Oh.
49:35Yeah, there is quite a, there are quite a few sections of integrated co-teaching. That was a result of existing programming. Again, this goes back to a couple slides when I was indicating that we are evaluating the programs in terms of
50:00But there's only ELA and math that's mandated, and there's only four co-teachers.
50:15There's quite a few sections, but again, I'd be happy to go back and review the numbers. We asked the same question today, so we checked the source three times, because when you see the high school, you'll see the juxtaposition as well.
50:31Even if we did all four core subjects and all three grades, that's still not 23. So it's hard to tell how it's being coded. I think maybe it's an e-school error, rather than a, yeah.
50:46And there are some things that are not accurate in the chart, because there are three 15-1. There are three 15-1 classes in the junior high, six, seven, and eight. Just saying. So there should be three sections.
51:06Sorry, there's other things, like the 15-1s, there should be three sections of it.
51:13There's sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade. Is it possible one of them is the 12-1, or one of them? Looking at the one on the right, it looks like sixth grade could just be classified as a 12-1 one, because there's only 10 students.
51:30Because it's the elementary.
51:32Oh, could be.
51:33The sixth grade is considered part of the junior high, because it's, yes, yep, that's it. That's what it is, then.
51:41Yep.
51:43Okay.
51:46And this is the chart for the high school. Very different in terms of sections and total number of students.
52:09Could you explain how'd you get to 92 from 45 again? Like the total students with disabilities is 92, but in your special class students is 45. Can you explain how it adds up again? I know you explained it before, but.
52:27Yeah, that's attributed to the integrated co-teaching classes, in terms of a ratio, in terms of how many students are attributed to that space. And that's how it comes up with that.
52:42Does that make sense to you? So there's 42 kids that are in the self-contained smaller classes, and then the other 47 are mixed into the integrated co-teaching classes, where there's special ed students and general ed students together, with two teachers in the room.
52:55Yeah.
53:01And so these are our students who, their day-to-day is not within the confines of our buildings within district, but they do receive their educational services within other locations, within other schools to service them. And so these are the out-of-district students that we have from K through five. We don't have that many with our younger scholars, but as we turn to our upperclassmen, you could see that the numbers drastically change, with the core, the large concentration of our out-of-district students being in the upper grades.
53:57Happy to go back to the previous slide, if you just wanna see the comparative analysis. And the costs associated with both their instruction and behavioral support is noted on the bottom, where we have a total amount of out-of-district students currently at 31.
54:24And again, this is attributed to students who we receive tuition, that we pay tuition for, right? And so these are current students that we pay for to receive their instruction. This does not include any students who are currently being evaluated for these types of programs. And in 24, 25, you can see the projected amount in terms of expense attributed to that, at $2,250,719 for the 24, 25 year.
55:08In addition to tuition, which would constitute the supports that they receive within their respective buildings, there is also a transportation cost, right? And it is printed there in terms of cost. Some students receive what is known as, they're in a day program, which means they would go onsite to these locations to receive their instruction, and then they would report back home. And then some students are there full-time. That's known as a residential placement, right? So they're there full-time. And so there's costs associated with both, with residential being more costly than a day program.
55:58So we're paying almost $4.5 million to send the students out?
56:02Yep, currently, yes.
56:04With the, does the county pay for a portion of students who were placed residentially?
56:12In order for the county to pay for students to be placed residentially, that looks a little bit differently. They would have to kind of initiate the process, if you will, and that tends to not happen in mass. If it is something that is facilitated within district, if our staff, the recommendation at the CSE meeting is an out-of-district placement, then Hudson would be paying for that.
56:45The whole thing, residential, yeah.
56:49When we get to a later slide, you'll see that the transportation was included in the transportation presentation. So that is part of our overall transportation budget. So when Christy shows the line-by-line, you'll see that it's in other funding when we get to that portion, just so you know why it's there.
57:10Just what, I have a quick question. Just wondering why you wouldn't have the transportation cost for 24-25 to connect it with the same year?
57:20So we did 24-25 for the tuition because it was finite. We knew what it was. As Deanna said, there might still be students who are in process, and there might be students who are coming back. So the numbers could change for this year. We did last year because the books are closed.
57:36And for transportation, those are our current commitments, our current contracts with the transportation companies. So that also, as we obviously could change if we have a student who gets another placement. But those do take us through the end of the year. That's not like to date in March. Those are the contracts through June in there.
57:55That's correct.
57:55Cool.
57:59This is about 2% of our student population is sent out of the district. Is that something that is, does that number seem on par with other districts? Is that high? Is that?
58:17I know what I want to say. You have more experience though in this area. So it's not really fair for me to speak for other districts, but I will say this. We don't want to see our students leave us. We want to retain them here. And in order to retain them here, we need to really look at the full scope in terms of our offerings for both our students and our staff.
59:02And we also, as you astutely pointed out, we need to be cognizant of what is happening around us with other districts within the county. What are the trends? What are the noticings? And craft a plan that is going to be supportive of all of our students. Because this is not what we want to see, right? And it is, you know, we want our students here. And a part of our community.
59:36I will say it is high, but I will also say, as I've said in every other board meeting, we're not the same as our neighboring districts. We have a lot of reasons why, you know, we're unique. So some of them could lend themselves to higher numbers, but I'm with Deanna. Every time one of our children leaves the district, they're not with their peers. They're not close by their families. We would always strive to have them be a part of this community that they live in.
1:00:12So this is a snapshot in terms of staffing, organized according to building, elementary school as identified in blue, junior high school as identified in red, and high school as identified in yellow. It is organized in terms of special education teachers, teaching assistants, teacher aides, school psychologists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, and social workers. So that's what it looks like throughout our district on a large scale.
1:00:48From the speech therapist, occupational therapist, and the social worker, it is possible that they work with students who are not in the program. They might work with gen ed students. I don't know if the school psychologists do. They may help with evaluations, behavior evaluations, but they are not just unique to special education. They probably work with general education students too. About the three on the left, those teaching assistants and teacher aides and teachers are just for the students with disabilities.
1:01:21I'm pretty sure speech therapy is a special education service.
1:01:26That is correct.
1:01:29For speech. The question was for speech.
1:01:33So what Dr. Bailey was lifting in terms of the school psychologists is, say for example you may have a student that you might want to evaluate for RTI or something of that capacity. So that would lend itself to the full population.
1:01:55I have a question. Can you explain the numbers on the top? How does the junior high and the high school have 0.5?
1:02:04That's a position that's shared between two buildings.
1:02:08For the graph on the Y axis, it goes up to 20. Okay, wait. I think I got it. I got it. I got it. Sorry. Thank you. I got confused.
1:02:19On the plus side, you're going to see it in the chart form too, which will really help.
1:02:26And this is, this graphing represents the total student services staff in conjunction with our special education students. So the far left is indicative of our elementary school, the middle being our junior high school, and the last our high school. Students identified in yellow and staff identified in blue.
1:02:53Are there any staff that do both?
1:02:57Both in terms...
1:03:00Special education and regular education or is it one or the other?
1:03:04At the high school they do.
1:03:07In terms of the certification process, you can carry certification in both, but this is specific to staff that are servicing our special education students.
1:03:25In an ICT classroom, the special education teacher in the room is obviously also helping the whole classroom, right?
1:03:33So when we see those ICT models, you are seeing two teachers in the room supporting the students. But at the high school, there are certified teachers that are certified in a subject area and in special education. So they're dually certified, so they can teach a smaller class of special ed students.
1:03:56And so, I think this is the last piece that I wanted to, before I depart here, is I wanted to leave the community with a quote because it pretty much brings together all these pieces in terms of student services. So this quote is by the late Martin Luther King, and it says, We are caught in a incapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly. And I lift that in praise of all of our staff who work with our students with disabilities and come in day in and day out. And I just wanted to lift that because together we are many. And I thank you for your time.
1:05:05Thank you.
1:05:06Thank you very much.
1:05:23So this evening I'll be walking through the preliminary, that didn't start well. I'm going to slow down. So this evening I'm going to be walking through the preliminary expenditure budget. So this is just a starting point across several key areas, including special education, which I'll start with here, elementary, junior high school, high school, central office, and employee benefits. I'll highlight key areas driving changes in the budget as well as where we are seeing stability and shifts in resources across the district.
1:05:59So here we're going to start with 2250, which is the program for students with disabilities. And this budget area reflects our mandated services to support students with disabilities, including specialized instruction, related services, and required staffing that is aligned with IEPs. Costs in this area are largely driven by student needs and compliance requirements.
1:06:28So making it one of the less flexible parts of the budget and while remaining essential to ensuring equitable access to our education services here. I did want to point out the column on the right. So this is a little bit different column because I did want to explain the total expenditures for 2250, our program for students with disabilities. We do receive special aid funding and grant sourcing in addition to our general fund expenses. So I did add this extra column just to have a full understanding of the expenditures related to the services.
1:07:13So in total, this again is preliminary numbers. This is a starting point. This reflects a $234,592 increase to salaries in this category or a 4.83% increase. And also note there is a support of $515,028 in special aid grants, which help offset our district costs.
1:07:54Did we have that grant funding this year when we think about our budget or is this something that is a net help to us?
1:08:01No, this will continue to help us. This is from IDEA, 611 and 619 grants that we receive every year.
1:08:09Yeah, so it's not a new offset. It's a repeating offset.
1:08:16It's a repeated offset every year, yes. And typically I put in the categories I tried to like where. So you'll see instructional salaries, TA, there's $32,000 in that line. So that's in addition to what we spend in the general fund. There's also $32,000 worth of grant funding that supports that line as well.
1:08:38But we're looking at $234,000 more than last year, considering the grant is similar to last year.
1:08:46Correct.
1:08:56So these codes include contractual services, materials, and tuition for specialized and out-of-district placements supporting student needs. There's no projected change in these lines at this time with the 0% increase reflecting consistent service delivery from year to year. So these numbers reflect basically what our expenditures are. They're very close to our expenditures. But there is a little bit of room here in case we have new students, new designations as the year progresses.
1:09:34Oh, I have a question. Yeah. For travel, the budget, is the current appropriation like how much we've spent so far?
1:09:45It's not. So we have our initial appropriation. So that is what, when we passed the budget last year, what was projected as the expense. Well, we've had to make some adjustments based on expenses, but it doesn't necessarily mean that's exactly what we've expensed at this time. So does that help? Does that explain it?
1:10:13Yeah. But we have had to increase based on our expenses.
1:10:19Is travel like for like, let's say a psychologist who needs to go to a site to evaluate a kid, why would they need that additional travel expenses for?
1:10:32I was just gonna say, along those lines, we have students who are placed off site. If any of our staff go to visit or do site visits or do evaluations, that would be for that, for our director to travel to do those things.
1:10:45Okay. I can't, but I can look into the details.
1:10:49No, no, no. I just, I figured that that's what it was for, but I just wanted to.
1:10:55Clarify. Yes, clarify.
1:11:06So the total funding allocated for special education, including grant funds and transportation, is the $11,679,496. So this is reflecting a 3.04% increase and or approximately $41,417 allocation estimated per student allocation.
1:11:31On the BOCES services line, it looks like the current budget appropriation is like 400,000 and change. Is that a place, if that is where our estimate is for this year, is that a place where we might be able to shave some spending off and not bump that back up to the 1.2 million?
1:11:51So this is going to be directly related to CSE outcomes. And so that's why this budget is a little bit more inflexible, because we just don't know yet. But we would wanna be able to provide those services and pay for them if the CSE determines that that's what they need. So it's possible.
1:12:12But potentially, if this year looked like last year, that is a space where we have some surplus at the moment. If next year, sorry, next year looked like this year, we would have some surplus.
1:12:21Right, if nothing changes.
1:12:28I think one of the deceptive issues of looking at the expenses for this department in particular, we get high cost aid for students we provide services to in district. We get private excess cost aid for students who provide services out of district. And we get transportation aid. So the actual cost to the district is not necessarily these numbers, but we always have to wait till next year to get the money back from the state in our state aid. So there are offsets to this that are not necessarily apparent when looking at some of these costs in a gross sense.
1:13:10The out of district placements, $4.5 million, we're going to get back a million dollars for transportation roughly, I think. And then it looks like we're getting about a million dollars of private excess cost aid a year. So there's $2 million offsetting that cost. So there are things that don't necessarily show up in the expenditure side, but that do mitigate some of the costs here. So, and that's represented in the revenue act.
1:13:40Exactly. Thank you for explaining that and adding to that. As I mentioned, Hudson is unique among some of our peers. As we go to the next slide, you will see that. About 10%, we have 10% English language learners or English as new learners. New York state uses both words in a very confusing manner.
1:14:0567% economically disadvantaged, 51% are homeless or have been homeless during 24, 25. And again, I chose a year that was done because as you'll see in the next slide, it's in flux. It's frequently in flux, but you can see as it compares to some of the other districts, we have more in each category, not just more students, but also, you know, percentages of those students.
1:14:33And of course, when we're talking about the cost to educate a child, the cost is higher when you have to hire additional staff to help with disabilities, to help with ENL or ELL services and transportation and other services related to homelessness.
1:14:52And we had this year so far 56 students who are or have been homeless during the school year, nine of whom lived outside of the district at some point. Every time we have a student lives in district who is homeless, we just add them to an existing route. It's not as difficult as if they live in Hunter or they live in Clifton Park or they live in, we transport up to 50 miles for students who are homeless. And there's very prescribed method of determining if a family is homeless.
1:15:28But along with that is the cost related to transportation. And this is the part that's hard to grapple with. The cost per day can range between 122 and 550. And we have to bid those. So a student arrives at our doorstep and they say, you know, or family says, we've lost our home or we're not in our existing home or somewhere else temporarily. We need to react quickly. It's not a just give us two weeks and figure things out. And we get this done in short order, 24, 72 hours.
1:16:07And we're subjected to, because we don't own our own transportation, we are subjected to whatever happens to us when we do go out to bid. And talking to Bill a couple of days ago around this, he goes, we have had no one willing to respond. We paid 550 a day until we finally found a contractor who was willing to bid 122. So that is probably one of the more volatile areas related to having to deal with homelessness.
1:16:36And as you know, clearly housing shortage, affordable housing shortage in Hudson itself. So when we have families that lose their home for some reason, it's not uncommon for them to have to go outside the boundary.
1:16:49What do you actually classify as homeless? It's not kids living on the street, it's they're not in a permanent address or they're living with their grandparents. What's the clarification of a homeless student?
1:17:01Basically, figure a family on top of a family. So in other words, it's not consistent. I'm gonna get the words wrong, but the nature of it is, do you know the words? Darn. Consistent, they have their own bedrooms, they have a place to bathe, they are not living on top of another family. I'll remember the words before the night's out, okay?
1:17:24But there is a barometer by which that is, and in other words, they're not paying rent. They don't talk about the circumstances by which they had to leave their home, but it does talk about where they are living, and I will get you better information.
1:17:39So it's basically, they don't have a permanent address.
1:17:42They may have a permanent address, but it's temporary. There is a clear definition for it. Dr. Billy just doesn't know. And I got two of the words. It has to be fixed, permanent, and something else, and that's how you establish that they are fixed, regular, adequate.
1:17:56Google to the rescue here. New York State defines it as any child or youth lacking a fixed, regular, or adequate nighttime residence. This includes students doubled up with others due to economic hardship, living in motels, shelters, cars, parks, or substandard housing. So that's the New York State definition.
1:18:14And I think the important point is, the state definition for who qualifies, it's a federal law that requires we provide transportation if they're placed outside of the district so that they can continue to attend school in their home district. And we understand how relevant that is to students.
1:18:33And the extent goes on. If it happens in 11th grade, the district is responsible to continue to transport through their 12th grade year to their terminal year. There are some boundaries around timeline. They not necessarily be homeless for 10 years, but there are some boundaries.
1:18:52And we work with our families to ensure, because sometimes it's, along with the definition Amanda read, it's what's in the best interest of the child. So like if they lived in Clifton Park, who would wanna be on a bus an hour and 15 minutes each way every day, at minimum, right? So in collaboration with the family and the school of residence, we may agree that it is better for the student to go to the school where they're residing at the time.
1:19:20Okay. And I think this information, as well as the special education transportation, gives a lot of important context for our transportation numbers, because we can't control this number. We can't necessarily control the out of district placements if our students have those needs. So when we see a large transportation number, which we already did, there's context for it through these numbers. And it adds to our total per pupil allocation as well.
1:19:53These are class size numbers that you've already seen. The only difference is, I have placed the special program students on the bottom of the slide. slide. So in other words, those 54 students are in self-contained classrooms, which Deanna talked about tonight.
1:20:05And this pie chart has a very small rating on it. This pie chart is a graphical example of who is doing what work in general education at the elementary school. I'm going to go to the next slide and have you see the chart first. The number of human beings there. So 96 staff and then 54 additional staff who are working on behalf of students with disabilities. With a handful, as we said, like social workers and psychologists who might be helping some general education students as well.
1:20:51I'll go back to the pie chart. Big areas I want to point out, and it's not as easy to see in secondary because it's broken out by discipline, math, science, English, social studies, etc. But this, you have the generalist in the dark blue on the right hand side. You have teacher aides on the left hand side. Both of those larger ones in the whole chart excludes the staff that are paid for under students with disabilities. So I just want to clarify that. That's why on this chart you have a left side and a right side.
1:21:22So I will say that we had a discussion today with building leaders and over time I talk about the staff inventory of where people are. You know, people work here, they are paid here. What we discovered today is like as an example in E&L, that they may not all be in the elementary school. They are here and they are coded as a staff member who is paid under E&L, but they are not all at the elementary school. Mark promised he does not have six E&L teachers.
1:21:59Yeah, when I was going through I found a few of those myself.
1:22:06But these numbers that we have on the screen were established through payroll. So we know these human beings are being paid in the district, it's just they are not yet coded to the right building. That's something that, the finesse that we are still working on.
1:22:17Can you talk about the difference between the roles and responsibilities of a teacher aide and a teaching assistant and where the space is where we have aides versus teaching assistants?
1:22:29I'm going to ruin this too. Can we talk about McKinney-Vento because I think I'm pretty caught up on that. Teaching assistants are allowed to teach at the direction of a teacher in their presence, not in their presence, at the direction of a teacher. And they are certificated in New York State. They have to have a certain level of schooling and professional development.
1:22:46The aides require none of that. So you may have, we have aides that do a spectrum of work. We have aides that do one-on-one work to assist with our behavioral students or our students who have regulatory issues. We have aides who work in the cafeteria and the playground. We have aides that help at the front desks when you see, when people come into the buildings. They are probably the most versatile group of people that are really spread across. They monitor the halls and I probably missed some other things as well. But there's no certification requirement to be an aide.
1:23:21I can just add that TAs are almost exclusively in self-contained classes.
1:23:26But these are the gen ed. These are TAs that are classified as general ed. So these are the TAs. So there's also in our K and 1 classes, we have aides in each classroom at least three hours per day. And at grade 3, oh, did I miss a grade? Okay, 1, 2, darn. Fine, I'm going to get it wrong. Grade 2, they're in the classroom at least an hour and a half a day. I don't think there's any requirement in 3-5.
1:23:59That does help explain why. So you have some, you may be having some help with logistical things for teachers, those that are at the front entrance, those may monitor in the hall, those that are helping in our general education classrooms. Thank you for asking that question. I didn't hear all of it the first time.
1:24:21The only thing I wanted to point out here is we do have some designations for grants and that is not an addition to, that just specifies how many positions from that category are funded through a grant. So that's not an additional amount.
1:24:33So this is the preliminary budget for the elementary school and these lines here represent elementary instructional and support services including leadership, building leadership, classroom instruction, library media guidance, and student support services. So all together they reflect the core staffing and programs that support day-to-day operations and student learning at the elementary level. I did want to note that there is a 25% reduction to the administrative line at the top. So there is a 25% reduction and this is due to the movement of an assistant principal to the junior high school.
1:25:43So these codes that you see on the slide are the ones that capture the non-personnel components of the elementary programs such as contractual services, instructional materials, and operational supplies. Overall the projected elementary budget totals $6,063,174 with an increase of $145,855 or 2.53%.
1:26:04Do we know why with even moving an assistant principal to the high school we are ending up with an increase of $145,000?
1:26:25So there are some contractual increases that will happen every year and let me see if I can get that. Can I just make a point that we didn't really move the person, we eliminated that position at the elementary. There were two assistant principals. That is exactly the terminology we should use Maureen. One position was eliminated. There was one at the high school that was eliminated. I don't know if that is true. I don't know if that is true. I don't know if that [… repeated text trimmed] is true. I don't know if that is true. [… repeated text trimmed] I just wanted to point out that there was a reduction of $100,000 from this budget line
1:27:49just because they used to have two assistant principals and now they have one this year. So if I am summarizing it correctly for folks on the screen too, we did eliminate the position of one assistant principal in the elementary school which was a budget saving measure. However, because of just the contractual increase in year over year salary and because salary is the biggest piece of any school budget, we are still coming out with $140,000 over where we were last year because of the percent increase in the contract for salary year over year. It is not like we are adding something new and fancy. It is just salary. Again, a slide you have seen before. The only difference I added 37 students who are in
1:28:40special programs. Another pie chart with bigger font on it. And as I said this is broken down by subject matter so it looks a little different than the elementary pie chart. What is PLTW? Project Lead the Way. It is a Cornell University nationwide program that is around STEM instruction. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Are these pie charts indicating the number of titles or the percentage of the budget? Okay. It is really trying to do this. The pie chart looks really good but this is a little bit more clear to understand. It means the percentage of the general education staff in the building. Okay. So reflecting the number of titles. Yeah. Percentage of the staff period. Thank you.
1:29:38Before I put the chart in, the chart is really nice too I know. But it was very hard to understand based on the wheel. That is fine. I just wanted to clarify. No. It is a good clarification. So for the speech language pathologist, why is it 1.5? because the other person works between two schools? Correct. Yeah. And, I mean, I don't know if it makes a difference, but it is what we talked about before in terms of the numbers and what eSchool is spitting out. Because, in actuality, the guidance counselor is, one of the guidance counselors is only a .5 because she's shared with the high school. So, it's 1.5. And, also, same thing with the social worker. She's shared. So, there's 1.5 social workers in the junior high.
1:30:36Right. And, again, this is, you're right, this is where they're coded or how these people have been coded. Again, these people are being paid. They're real human beings. Yes. No, I'm just saying I want to assure everyone that they're real human beings and we haven't misplaced anyone. But, yes, you're right, Maureen, there are more shared personnel between the junior and senior high. And, why that happened, and we were talking with the leaders today around that, is there may not have necessarily been a process or an expectation or a form by which to say, yeah, I'm the high school principal, she's the junior high principal, hey, I'm going to need a science teacher. Can you give me someone .4?
1:31:13She says, sure, I'll give that person to you, periods one and two. Nobody else knows. Payroll is still paying, the budget is still saying they're at the senior high school, and that's just not been updated. So, we are getting perilously closer every day. I see you have on there a full-time substitute. What's the difference between full-time substitute and just making them up? There was one at the elementary school, or three at the elementary school. Now, I will say a couple things. So, full-time substitutes means that that person comes to work every day, and when there's an absence in the building, they're the first one to fill it. So, instead of having to call someone from outside of the district, they're there every day.
1:32:00That being said, it is increasingly difficult to find substitutes in this world. You have teachers crawling into work for two reasons. It's really hard to write lesson plans and deliver the way that you would, and there's frequently no really necessarily good, willing people there to do the work. And this is something, Mike, that actually was frequently adopted during the COVID era. When we came back from COVID, we had all that extra money, not an all-in-common for a school to hire two, three, four, five daily subs, because we knew people would be out. They had to be quarantined. They couldn't come to work. They were forced not to come. So, we used grant money to hire daily subs, or excuse me, full-time substitutes, and they're usually certified teachers.
1:32:53We hope they are. They come to work every day. They're paid on a salary, just like every other teacher.
1:32:59And when someone's absent, they step in. And I would hazard a guess. I don't have the hard data. There is no day that they don't have somewhere to go. I guarantee that. But we have three at the elementary, one at the junior high, and none at the high school at this time, I don't think.
1:33:15No.
1:33:16That was a look of confidence I saw on her face. We'll see on the next slide.
1:33:20We'll see on the next slide, she says.
1:33:23Any other questions about the junior high? So, the junior high school preliminary budget reflects, again, instructional leadership, and these code student support services, and some adjustments due to staff alignment across buildings. So, as some things were seen, there might be some subtractions or additions here that were basically staff was either coded here instead of the elementary school, or they were moved. And so, we're trying to crack some of this in this current budget.
1:34:06Yeah. I have one more thing that I want to mention about the junior high, because I'm a little bit confused. Last year, we had Cooper in there, too.
1:34:14Cooper was there for not a full year. She left somewhere May.
1:34:18October.
1:34:19And then Bear took. Go ahead.
1:34:23Bear took over as the principal, and then we had a sub, that was, Megan came in. But we had Platt, Brenneman, and Hanley at the other building, and then Platt came over to ours.
1:34:36Oh, Carrie Patch.
1:34:37Patch.
1:34:38And then there was Zucker. Sorry. So, we had Platt, Patch, Zucker, and Cooper, and Bear. There were quite a few people last year. So, our final expenditures for that line was $335,000. This year, the budgeted amount was $283,781.
1:34:58Just for the juniors?
1:35:00Okay. So, there is a subtraction. The year difference, I'm sorry, should be in parentheses there. For that $47,000, that should be a subtraction. So, we did decrease that budget line.
1:35:16Oh, it should have parentheses.
1:35:18Yeah, it should have parentheses there. It has the negative in the percentage, but not. If you see the difference between $283,000 and $236,000, it's $47,000, almost a $50,000 difference in subtraction. But there's no parentheses around it. But it's showing the negative 16% for the year-over-year difference.
1:35:38Oh, I have a question. I know you had salaries 3 to 6 on the MCS. So, is this like, for this one, is it only the 6th grade teachers?
1:35:50That is the intention of that line, absolutely. So, this is how these descriptions are what are in our accounting systems called WINCAP. And these are how these positions are defined. They were pre-populated.
1:36:05Thank you.
1:36:11So, the junior high budget is just under $3.3 million with a very slight decrease of about $4,600, or 14%.
1:36:28One more question.
1:36:40Again, a recognizable slide. I added students with special programs, which brings us to $484,000. So, I mean, as we talked about last time, even though I spoke the students in special programs, they weren't on the slide. When people were reporting it out in the public at a later date, I don't know that they were accurate reporting. We are just under 1,500 students here at Hudson.
1:37:07It was easier to describe class size. I used the other slide last time, and I added this slide this time. The other one is students in social studies in grades 9, 10, 11, 12. That makes sense because everybody has to take social studies in high school through grade 12. And the second slide, I wanted to break down for you what it looks like in, like, reality. These are very frequently tested subjects. You heard Derek talk about them at the presentation last week.
1:37:41And you can see the variances. So, it doesn't include physics or chemistry. It doesn't include maybe some of our special English classes. But it gives you a general idea of where we are. And there's the earth and space science, the new earth science curriculum. You see a little bit smaller group of students taking that. And it is pretty normal.
1:38:05ELA in all grades is usually one of the larger classes. That and the social studies are usually two of the larger classes because they're predictable, 9, 10, 11, and then the electives in grade 12.
1:38:18Pie chart. Again, this is just our general education staffing at the high school level. There are even more subjects. So, the pie pieces get even smaller. It is neat to see by discipline. So, you can see some of the larger disciplines there. The four core, math, science, English, social studies. And then as you go around.
1:38:47It's not uncommon for one of the higher ratios to be at the senior high school. It's because scheduling at the senior high school is very dynamic. You'd think, boy, it'd be so much easier at a junior high where it's mostly just grade 6, 7, 8, English, science, math, social studies, and the electives. But I mentioned before the complexities of us being just wrong sized. A very difficult size at 1,500 students to have rich offerings while maintaining larger class size. It's complex. Especially at that middle level where there's only the three grades. So, just a little better explanation of why you wonder why we can't just get our ratios up to 1 to 10 or something like that. It's complex in a middle size school.
1:39:54I have a question. For music and band, that doesn't include choir? Because I know we have a high school choir and we share the staff member with the junior high but it should be reflected on there as a 0.5.
1:40:04Where the grant column is for each of the four line items on there are they fully funded by grants those positions and is it a revolving grant?
1:40:15I can speak to a few of them. I think at least well at least one of them is coming from the stronger connections grant which is ending this year. That's the federal grant and I don't know. Kristi do you know?
1:40:39Yes so we have two of them are grants that we expect to continue and two of them will be two of the positions are in grants that will not be continuing next year.
1:40:53So what will happen there?
1:40:57We've included them in the in our estimation of projected budget we've included them in the general fund. So we're going to continue with our high school instructional program with our salaries and here also you'll see a decrease in the administrative line at the top of fifteen point two nine percent and it again represents the staffing and resources that support the daily operations.
1:41:47Now what's the difference between two like two one one zero one six zero like non-instructional salaries and then there's another non-instructional salaries like how is it classified like what's the difference?
1:41:59Yes so you're going to want to look at the beginning number so 2020 are administrators or other support staff that support administration then 2110 is instructional salaries like our teachers. We also have guidance counselors or social workers and potentially like health services so nursing or LPNs.
1:42:28Thank you.
1:42:33And the twenty eight one fives? Did you say that one and I missed it?
1:42:33I think one of those is guidance and one of them is psychologists.
1:42:43What happened with the top line 2425 is it possible there is a miscoding?
1:42:54Right so I'm gonna have to get back to you on details on that so I wouldn't be able to speak that to that off the top of my head.
1:43:13Based on the previous conversation we might have been paying three administrators I guess between Blue Hawk, AP.
1:43:16Yes.
1:43:16Matt what was your question?
1:43:16The top line just okay actual 2425 versus 2526 budget versus 2627 budgets.
1:43:25Yeah I would imagine that's the reduction in Blue Hawk. This is the way back machine. I would say that there was principal and associate principal and then and another associate principal for Blue Hawk and as I mentioned the program has evolved over the last three years and this latest iteration does not have a administrator assigned to it.
1:43:53I don't think we had all those for Blue Hawk Academy.
1:43:58No in the whole high school. You're talking about Reardon, Phil, and Zucker was there.
1:43:58Yeah which is why this year's budget was left.
1:44:10So Zucker's gone.
1:44:10Not in the budget.
1:44:17In looking at 2110 130 it looks like our 2526 budget was just off. We spent $200,000 more the year before and then we've adjusted the budget to 3-2 for this year and then next year 3-3 but it that 18% increase isn't necessarily an actual increase it's just an increase in the budget.
1:44:37Correct. The comparisons for the increase are from the initial appropriation because you know it's possible we're still not done with some adjustments adjustments for the current appropriation but that's that's a I would say those numbers were pulled around February.
1:44:53Yeah.
1:44:53February or January.
1:45:07So the high school preliminary budget is four million seven hundred ninety nine thousand four hundred seventy nine dollars so an increase of three hundred ninety two thousand nine hundred twenty four dollars or nine point two eight percent. The contractual material supplies they're all saying the same for the next year as you can see with the zero percent increase.
1:45:31Chrissy does the textbook line come from state aid appropriate allocation?
1:45:31Yes that is a that is a line that we want to keep stable because we will receive our revenue back for for a certain allotment and that's the number where we need to be for textbooks.
1:45:55It will help our revenue to spend that that funding at that level.
1:45:55Where are the two lines for books and magazines for the high school?
1:46:03So it's my understanding that's allocated towards library.
1:46:09Yeah but there's two it's two of the same it's same code and it's just there twice I guess.
1:46:15Yeah let me look into it. Yeah let me see why it could be yeah it could be a typo but let me check into it for you that was.
1:46:25Take every $3,000 back we can get.
1:46:38Central office is made up of these people. The board approved the creation of the director of curriculum and instruction title back in the fall and what we agreed to is to wait until such a time as the new superintendent could have a voice in selecting that person.
1:46:58So we haven't posted it instead that is the position that Lynn and Alyssa have shared time creating one full-time person and supported us in that respect. You can see the makeup of each of the departments human resources business and finance.
1:47:23As you probably remember also in the fall we contracted with MAG MAG and that who is providing our treasurer services but we included that in the budget sensible and we will decide what we want to do moving forward in the next year.
1:47:54So this is a budget preliminary budget for the chief school administrator superintendent and for next year we have total of three hundred and three thousand seven hundred forty dollars. It's actually a little decrease to two percent two point seven seven percent.
1:48:32So this area reflects the the business office including staffing and operational expenses needed to support the district's financial management and day-to-day business functions. So there is an increase in the BOCES services and this really reflects a more accurate coding of expenditures rather than new or additional costs. There are some things coded to other places like our claims auditor that needs to be has a better fit obviously in the BOCES services for the business office line and so you'll see that increase there. But overall there's an increase of seventy three thousand twenty dollars or thirteen point six five percent. There was also a one of the support staff was coded to a different line and so that was brought back to the business office as well.
1:49:29So these lines represent the human resources department including administrative and clerical staffing as well as contractual services supplies and other operational expenses that support personnel management across the district. There's also an increase in BOCES services here but this also really reflects more accurately.
1:50:00where the services are provided for, instead of where they were coded. You'll also note there's the reduction in the non-instructional line, but that was also because of a coding that was in the wrong place. So total is $334,034, and reflecting a slight decrease of $2,771.82.
1:50:29Sorry, I missed asking a question on the last slide.
1:50:33Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
1:50:35Why is the materials and supplies so much for central office?
1:50:42Yeah, so we buy a lot of things out of our business office account. Copy paper, things like that, so that comes out of that line.
1:50:50Copy paper that's for like teachers to do their photo copies.
1:50:54Yeah, so sometimes when we do our bids and stuff, it will come out of our line here in the business office.
1:51:00Okay.
1:51:12So these lines are for the curriculum development and supervision, and they represent and support the development, implementation, and oversight of the curriculum and instruction, including leadership, staff training, and resources that ensure consistent and high-quality teaching practices across the district. And this preliminary curriculum budget totals $386,500, and it reflects a decrease of $71,582, or 15.63%. And you'll see most of that decrease in the instructional salary line. So this line was more of this.
1:52:08The employee benefits was more difficult to project. Some of them I've received justification from ERS or TRS in terms of percentages or estimations at this time. So you'll see the increase there is numbers that have been sent to the district as preliminary numbers.
1:52:31In terms of health insurance, so I wanted to talk about this line. This is a large increase, almost $2 million. But as you can see, our initial appropriation was not efficient, or it's deficient for the amount of our current appropriation. So we're right now at $10,322,000. We've also received something, which is our prescription drug true-up, which we are expected to maintain a two-month reserve, and that has been unable to be controlled. And I did talk to our representative at Benetech about this, asking for a clear, defined number for next year.
1:53:21And this is also something that's just in flux, and it's very difficult to predict. So the number there is still fluid. It's not an exact number at this time, and my hope would be that it wouldn't be higher than that. But that would be a good, solid starting place to make sure that we have enough in the budget.
1:53:50A true-up is an adjustment in our bill. They send us a bill for escalating costs or escalating usage, and as with most places, the GL-1s have significantly contributed to that. And the other thing, a new line for this year, I want to point out, is 9089. At the bottom, this was not in the budget previously, but it is a contractual item that we do expense, which is for 403B contracts, contributions that is in some contracts, either retirement incentives or sick time payouts that we do also expense. So that is an addition.
1:54:47So this brings us to our three-part budget, and I am using the term preliminary because this is a starting point. What we have found over the course of this year is that there were many things that came through the business office that when looking for justification in terms of budget lines, they weren't there. So this year is really part of the escalation or the increase is really due to really putting everything in the budget that we actually expense.
1:55:18And with the reduction of grant funding, so here you'll see we are preliminary looking at a $63,100,000 budget for next year potentially. And this is made up of our admin, our program, and our capital percentages.
1:55:48What does capital mean?
1:55:50Yeah, so I'll define the three of them for you. So the administrative costs are $8.77 million or roughly 13.9%, and this supports overall district operations and management. And so the programmatic piece makes up our largest portion, and this directly supports instruction and student services. And our capital at $10.9 million, it covers facilities, transportation, and maintaining our buildings and grounds.
1:56:23Did you catch that? Thank you. I mentioned last time a quick anecdotal list of the things off the top of my head. We knew we're causing some of the large increase in the overall budget. Christy talked about the increase in insurance. Employee benefits is almost $600,000.
1:56:54Electricity costs are also constantly in flux. Any of us who own a home, we know how bad they have gotten. We do expect an increase in transportation costs because of increased fuel prices. Just in the last two weeks, you've seen the cost of diesel go up almost $1.50, if you care about diesel. I care about diesel. Or other gas. I think that other gas is too.
1:57:18We moved three professional and three support positions from a grant that was required into our general fund. And we also know we want to definitively provide extended school year programming for our students with disabilities. I've been in many districts where we get to July, our students are sent off somewhere to do those programs. We're very fortunate to want to be able to do that here.
1:57:44And, of course, there will be an expense that was not included in this year's budget. We want to add that to next year's budget. And these are just the largest things. Obviously there were a lot of things that we talked about that also contributed. Mike?
1:57:58On the utilities cost, are the solar panels offsetting any of that expense? Do we have those numbers to coincide? Because if we didn't have those, that number would be higher.
1:58:09That's true. And I can get the numbers for you.
1:58:11Okay.
1:58:16So our budget is almost half state aid funded, half tax funded. The other income is a relatively small piece. State aid is stagnant. We're the beneficiary of the hold harmless provisions that keep our state aid from going down. If the formula was allowed to move freely, we would have, I think, last year this time there was a reduction put on a slide of $3 million.
1:58:49The only number that effectively can pay for any increases is our tax levy. Being half our budget, if there's a 7% increase in our expenses, would require a 14% increase in taxes to pay for that. I know there's a little more to the presentation, but I don't think that's going to happen.
1:59:15So I think this is a good slide to look at what's going on here, what is the problem we need to solve, and just understand where our money is coming from and how we get it. As I said last week, this is every school district, the insurance costs and the benefits, retirement benefits. It's becoming the focus of every budgetary conversation and something that's untenable for us and obviously probably for any business that offers benefits to their employees, which for some of our employees, it's probably the primary reason that they come here.
2:00:00And as we, you know, we look at escalating costs, just 15 years ago, you could be having, you could have an individual plan for $7,000, two person for 11 and a family plan for 15. And now we're talking about numbers in the high teens for an individual up to the mid 30s for a family plan double what it was a little more than a decade ago and multiplied by hundreds and hundreds of people.
2:00:25It is exceeding at a rate that obviously at our taxpayers, Matt said it really well. I always just say like, okay, your household budget is half out of your bank account. It's a fixed amount and half out of your salary, which goes up 2%. You can't possibly generate 15% more to do the work to pay for what you need. So as you know, in the last few slides, we'll talk about, so what do we do around that? What do we possibly do?
2:00:59Well, just, I mean, the other half of, I think what Matt was saying is the reason that our foundation aid isn't going up is because the state is looking at our tax base, which keeps getting wealthier and wealthier, even though our student population doesn't and is saying, well, you guys can afford to pay more taxes. So that's what their formula is essentially saying is raise the taxes. So they're not really giving us a whole lot of options.
2:01:35Can we go back one to this bottom thing where it says summer programming unaccounted for on the 25, 26 budget?
2:01:42Also wasn't budgeted for.
2:01:44All of them. How did we pay for summer school?
2:01:46Out of the general fund.
2:01:48How did we miss that? How do you miss summer school?
2:01:51That's a great question. Also a couple lines up. The unaccounted staffing for half a million.
2:01:57Well, that's a grant that's rolling off.
2:02:00Oh, that one.
2:02:01The third one up is, yeah, what I had said, Mike, is, you know, we've been, we've tried to be conscientious. We've created an abolished jobs here at the board this year. That's the trigger. It creates a job control number. That's a job until the board eliminates it. And that's how it's accounted for in our data management system.
2:02:25That is not how things were done. We just said, boy, I could really use a, name a person or a job title, and posted it, hired the person, board appointed, ta-da, without an accounting.
2:02:40And then if you roll over your budget, they're not in it. They're not, they're simply not in it. So could some of those positions have been grant-generated jobs, and a grant ran out?
2:02:54Well, no, so what, I guess, what happened last year was we said there's, I can't remember what the number was. There's five or six people leaving. We're not going to replace those positions, so they were never included in the budget. And what appears to have happened is those people got hired back anyways.
2:03:14So, yeah, into those positions. Those positions were filled.
2:03:18Those positions were filled.
2:03:19Okay.
2:03:21And this budget season, we've been given a lot more information and a cohesive narrative about what's going on than we had last year. Last year, we were kind of under the gun, had to make a lot of very last-minute choices, and we're kind of in the dark on a lot of information. So we're making progress. I think the next piece of this puzzle is like, how do we get through April 21st and the budget vote, and then come up with a plan that's a plan for the next three to five years so that every single March we're not sitting up here and banging our heads against the wall and trying to figure out how to solve this problem.
2:04:06Okay.
2:04:07I want to make one comment, too, about the whole tax thing. People do get scared when they see these numbers, 7% taxes, but I also want to remind you guys that are here and those of you that don't live here that our assessments were all changed last year because of the amount of money that people are willing to pay for our houses. So all of a sudden, poof, my house is worth 10 times more than it is, and then I have to pay the tax on $10 million house because my neighbors bought their $10 million house. So my school tax is doubled this year. So if you double my school tax and then tell me, I mean, I'm already sitting here panicking myself.
2:04:47That was also New York State. New York State.
2:04:50Yes, you're right, you're right. I just want to put that out there because in my head I'm freaking out as for other people are, too.
2:04:58I think where we're at right now is we've now seen the whole picture of what our anticipated costs are, rolling them over. Now, because we can see the preview of this slide, is what are some mitigation strategies? Where can we shave some off of this? Because this, to Matt's point, to your point, we can't put this budget as is up for a vote. We do not have, we would need an override on that tax gap. That is a, right? So now it's where do we have some flexibility to work here?
2:05:30I think, because I skipped ahead, we'll probably have a few more slides to go through before we have that conversation because I think it spells out a few more of the macro issues.
2:05:44I don't want to be glib, Mike, when I say we just went out and hired people. When someone went out and hired someone, they had a purposeful reason, they needed something, they wanted something that was best for kids. I'm just saying that the accounting practice wasn't great. And as we've, as Christy came in at the end of last year, and now there's a full year of seeing the entire process, being able to see where those things are, and with the help of HR, has been very eye-opening and important. And as I said over and over again, this will be invaluable for next year and every year after because you'll have an actual number and you'll know this is what we can and can't do, this is who does or doesn't work here, this is why we've chosen to highlight this particular program or not. It's just getting a balance on what are all the wonderful things that we do and what do they cost?
2:06:40Yeah, and I think as we've heard in the most recent audit committee meeting, that things that wouldn't fly with your own wallet may have been going on. And there's been turnover in the business office in a number of roles over the years. So I think the fact that we're going through all of this right now is progress. I think to Mark's point, there's more to be done and at budget time it would be great if we could look at multiple years of projections and see what's what. But I think at this point, the point I'm taking is we're getting a look at where people really reside in the accounting and where the costs really are in a way that it doesn't look like existed in prior years.
2:07:30Okay.
2:07:37So this has been touched on already, but this is our historical budget expense totals. And really what you can see is there was relatively modest growth previously. But recently, and it was ranging anywhere from .7% to about 3.6%, but really recently, the last couple of years, we've seen an increase of 5.29%. And this year, this preliminary presentation has just projected a 7.78% in expenses. So the number on the right is increase in the budget, not increase in the tax levy, just to be clear.
2:08:28Okay. So I did wanna talk a little bit about the tax levy adjustment. I know when I was here last time and I talked about this, we were over 7%. But I did wanna explain that there's a possibility of a reduction in the tax cap. And due to, so let me start from the beginning. So there's the estimated levy limit that we have, which is 3.44%. And that is what allows us to go to that number as a cap without any exemptions. But we are able to take exemptions based on some other items. And so when you have exemptions, it allows you to raise your tax cap. And the initial presentation really had the $401,000 EPC interest payment that is potentially going to happen next year. And we have some choices around that. And that would allow us to go to that 7.33% max allowable levy increase and generates at $1.931,359. But it also means that we'd have to allocate $401,000 into next year's budget. Which is not currently in.
2:10:00So, you know, that is an option, but, or we could go just, you know, looking at this next year's exemptions without that would give us the amount of the reduction of $623,823 and leave us at a max levy increase of 5.8%, which is the one point around $1.5 million. And then our maximum levy would be $27,892,359. So those are a couple options. So remember we could extend that debt with no penalties for another year and then also be receiving the savings back. We won't be receiving that next year. So when I was talking to our financial advisors about this, this was, this is an option to kind of delay that interest payment for the following year when we're actually going to be seeing some savings. We won't be seeing savings while we're starting the project. So it would be a much more revenue neutral event in 27-28.
2:11:09Just again, these are slides that you've seen in previous presentations, a list of our existing reserves, and I think it's just, it's stuck in time. The balance is stuck in time, 2025. And a reminder of where unassigned is $6.1 million. And what we've, we talked about cursorily is the board, the district potentially want to have funded capital reserve. That's what allows the district with voter approval to go out and help pay for future construction projects. We talked about the debt roll off here, which is very late, 30-38, I think was the next major debt roll off, meaning that your Carly sends in 30-38, you can get a new car. Obviously the district cannot wait that long. So having money in a capital reserve is very helpful as we are aided about 70%. So we would get quite a bit of money back if we had a reserve in the tax certiorari helps to protect the district in the event of challenges to assessments.
2:12:30Diana just talked about reassessment that's gone on in the community. People frequently do challenge them. And sometimes those challenges are quite large. We see in the news like Gilderland's with the Crossgate Mall. Thankfully, I don't think we have anything of that magnitude, but the consequences were very complex for that school district that had come up with millions and millions of dollars. Not proposing that you have a reserve of millions and millions in there, but it is very productive to have 30-40,000 in the event that somebody challenges and then you're not having to take it out of your general fund. As far as the unassigned, New York State says we're only about 4%. We're well over that. Where did all that money come from? And can that extra unassigned be used for something else? Yes, it can. Without creating issues.
2:13:25So where does it come from to get to that 4 million? At the end of every fiscal year. You saw the appropriation lines in there. So for instance, you might have a contractual line and you have appropriation that meets the contract, $25,000. And the vendor does their work, does their work, does their work, submits their last bill for $10,000. That's $15,000 that goes into unassigned fund balance in the following year. So it's basically underspending a budget. So can we use that to offset some of the other expenditures? And we're going to talk about that.
2:14:03Without penalties? Yeah, there's no penalty. The board at any time can use unassigned fund balance. And we'll talk about it, Mike. So 2.34 is that 4%. So I'm glad you brought us back to this slide. And I said before, about 1% on the tax levy is about $300,000. A little shy of that, I think. So when we're talking about raising a million dollars, it's 3.33%. And that brings me to this slide.
2:14:34So as Mike pointed out, this is the this is us using all but 4% to help generate this amount of revenue next year. So just some hypotheticals. If we went out at 2%, and that would generate $26,888,000. And the state aid is fixed, as Matt talked about. And we could use up to we could use actually the entire thing. We could use all 6.7 million. The hazard of it is the district in this current year used about 2 million of it to balance their budget. So the unassigned fund balance was higher, but they use the money to help balance the budget to help deal with insurance costs to help deal with escalating contractual obligation. It's not uncommon for a district to do that.
2:15:31It is uncommon to use 2 million. That's a lot. Because that shows that you are spending more than you're earning. It's a credit card bill, basically. And we're paying for it from our savings, which is finite, as you pointed out, eventually goes away. So we just made a presumption of going and using all but that $2.3 million. So it was 6.1, right? So we used all but 4%. So it brings it back down to the level. And I don't think I know a school. I've never heard of a school with only 4%. I just want to say that. They have all they have more than 4%. And where we are today is one of those reasons. They it's just that for the escalating costs, it is a safety precaution.
2:16:18And other revenues is a is not necessarily a fixed amount right there. There are some things that we might have found today that might help us, that we can add to our revenue. But it gives you a good estimation. If we use this awesome $3.7 million out of our unassigned, this is how much we would be able to generate using going out these different percentages.
2:16:48I think, Mike, to your point, if you if you take the all but 4% line out of there, that's the revenue we have from external sources. Okay, we get money from tax, we get money from the state, we get other revenue, which is interesting. There's a propane tax that we collect. To Dr. Bailey's point, the 3.7 is spending or savings. Going to school board conferences, every district has more than 4%. The you know, the state has allowed it. So it's not necessarily something we are compelled to spend. If, for example, we were to get a capital reserve in place, the capital reserve just allows us to save money for capital projects. It comes from unassigned fund balance. So if we wanted to do that, at some point, that's money we could allocate to that.
2:17:43I think if you do subtract that line out, and just look at those other three external lines, for this school year, we budgeted $55.5 million of external revenue on a $58.5 million budget. So we budgeted to spend $3 million of our savings. $900,000 of it was from reserves. $2.1 million was this unassigned fund balance. If we go with these numbers, and spend that $3.7 million down, then next year, we're going to have just our 4%, which is $2.3 million. So we're going to have to cut a million forward just to be able to afford spending all of our savings at that point. So I think at some point, we need our external funding sources and our expenses to converge.
2:18:37I think the other thing I would add is these other factors, like increasing health insurance, increasing transportation, decrease in federal grants. None of those things are changing. It's not like we think this is a particularly hard single year, and all of those will be better in a year. We need to figure out a way to balance this better, given these additional things that are not great, but they are the reality.
2:19:04If we weren't already so over-obligated, the insurance and the retirement is impactful. But if we weren't so over-obligated, it wouldn't be doubly as impactful. I like this 3.44 as an example. It's the easiest one to see, because if you take out the unassigned fund balance, it's $56 million. We just presented that approximately. Our proposed spending is $63 million, and we'd be bringing in $56 million. That's not okay. No organization and no home would be able to operate under those circumstances. Also, I should mention, all those numbers across the top, those are just examples. The board can set zero all the way up to 7.33. Any number in between zero and this, the board can do. We just use these as benchmarks and examples.
2:20:00If we decided to push the EPC money into 27-28, 5.8 would be the maximum, so 0 to 5.8. We just wanted to let you be able to see some finite examples of what different percentages look like.
2:20:16Just to be clear, and I'm not suggesting this, but the maximum cap is what we can have passed with a 50% vote. We can go above that with an override of 60% if we so chose. So that's what the cap is. It's simply what we can put at different thresholds for the vote.
2:20:38I think – I know there's a few more slides here, but I think with this one up here is very useful. We talked at the beginning of the show about scheduling another meeting between now and April 21st. I think we need to do that. I think we need to see not just tax rate scenarios but also expenditure scenarios. I think, to your point a second ago, if projected expenditures were only everything over is $63 million, it's simply not attainable. I mean these numbers here tell us the most we could effectively raise is $60,600,000. So that would imply $2.5 million of cuts to get to that point. I don't know that that's even sustainable both because of the high tax rate and spending so much of the unassigned fund balance. So I think what we need to plan for as a board for the next conversation is what are the decision-making units that we can make to fit in our programming around these financial constraints.
2:22:01This is by no means expansive. A list of possible things that we could look at. The first one I'll say that isn't on there is look for potential revenue sources. Just hearing Deanna present tonight, the numbers in some of our special classes are small. There's a potential we could tuition students in. That could drive revenue for the district. That's a good thing.
2:22:29We could rent out to BOCES. That drives revenue. That's a good thing. It's a little complicated, but those are things that we can certainly do. Capitalizing on retirements or resignations, that is the easiest, no-brainer thing to do unless it's like the only one you have and you can't do something at all because that person is missing. But when you have someone who's voluntarily leaving, it's a good and thoughtful way to say, is there any way for us to do without that position?
2:23:04And obviously staff reductions, which has an impact on salary, insurance, and retirement contributions, which is a very emotional and difficult one. We send about 62 students to that group of different programs. That generates aid for us in the following year. So that is a tough decision because we're probably returning about 36 percent. If we spend $100, we get 36 back.
2:23:36And we also have students who are juniors going to their senior year, ninth graders going to their tenth grade year. And the thought of pulling someone back from a program is powerful, right? Granted, there would be new students going into the program, but we could consider reducing some of those slots as students consider to go in.
2:23:59It's worth mentioning that BOCES, as a benefit and as a problem, five-year averages. Meaning that if we had one student go in the first year and two students go in the second and three students go in the third, in the third year you'd pay for two students. If you had four go in the fourth and five go in the fifth, you'd be at two and a half to three student tuitions. If you stayed at five, it would eventually get to five. The problem is if you have five and you go to four, it goes down just as slow. So the savings of reducing those tuition students would be yielded, but it's slow. So it is by no means a perfect solution.
2:24:42Making sure our systems are more efficient, how we're scheduling. We have a lot of staff for many reasons, for missing staff. In other words, we were unable to find people in positions or we wanted to have programs that we didn't ordinarily have. They're teaching extra classes, which is an extra expense. When they're doing that and they're replacing someone who's not there, it's a win for the district because you're not paying additional insurance costs. And if they're doing it on top of their regular salary and it's just an augment program, it's an impact. So there's a balance there, too.
2:25:17Our transportation, obviously. We're going to really look at efficiencies. We went to the meeting at BOCES, Questar 3, last week with Bill to look at more possibilities of how to consortiumize all of the buses that are going all over this region. And one bus run, $75,000. You know, like a bus run up to Albany, $75,000. Do that five times. That's a lot of money. Do it one time. It's a lot of money.
2:25:51Not a lot of money, but we know equipment and materials, allocations for field trips and conferences, reduced club and athletic offerings, which, again, what's best for our kids? You know, those things that pull at our hearts. Some kids come to school just for their clubs and athletics.
2:26:05And thinking about how to utilize our grant money more efficiently. Grant money is very prescribed about how we can spend it. We can't say, like, we have a $500,000 grant for technology. Well, let's use that money and pay for a reading teacher. Doesn't work that way. We have to be very clear about how the money will be spent. And most of them say that you should be augmenting program, not supplanting it. Just paying for salaries that are people that are already there. And there are more. But I just wanted to give you an idea.
2:26:38Again, what we want to do is we want to start compartmentalizing this in a way that you can see value for these things, like what this means. We showed you all the staffing and all the budget lines that include all of these things, but it's a lot. It's hundreds of pages of budget. To see it more in a way to say, like, if we reduced five, name a position, this is what the result would be financially. We have to be able to see it in monetary amounts.
2:27:12Just take retirements. Like I said, that's an easy one. It will have no effect on people who will be here July 1st. We can give you that value, and you'll know if we think we can sustain without replacing something, that's a great way to modulize it and say, here's what this is worth. That's unfortunate. Oh, thank you. But it's essentially giving you some choices and options.
2:27:38We know reducing staffing at elementary school increases class sizes. It's sacred ground. Decreasing class size at the senior high school might limit special opportunities for our children.
2:27:53Eliminating program at the junior high might make it so a student never finds their pathway into the sciences because they don't have access to whatever advanced. There's a lot of difficult choices, so we're going to boil it down and try and prioritize and give you something to choose from. The other thing that we promised our unions that is if we're going to have a discussion around anything that sounds like one or more of their members that we would speak to them first before we came and said anything at a board meeting.
2:28:31This is a catch-22 in that we are expected to have these discussions in public, but these are about people's lives. So we will seek to be fair with folks. If we're ever talking about someone that's identifiable, we will speak to that person before we have the discussion here. We will also let them know that every discussion here does not mean that it's over or it's done. It just means that it's a discussion.
2:29:07As I mentioned, I finished the presentation with the former budget presentations with a hyperlink so people can just go access if they had a question about the fund balance, if they had questions about state aid or transportation, et cetera, they could just go and find those presentations.
2:29:34In terms of mitigation here, I think these are very short-term, you know, what can we do today for next year situation. I think we also as a board need to be cognizant of what are the trends and what can we do to impact things in the long term. Just looking back at numbers, three years ago our transportation was $4 million, and next year it's projected to be $6 million. I think we need to, and we can do it in finance committee, and we can have other ways that we can have conversations about it.
2:30:10I think we've got to look at transportation as a big issue for the district. It's not sustainable, the growth that that's seeing. Anything we can do, whether it's sharing with other districts, or just rethinking how we're doing it, and asking all the questions. We can't do it the way we did it 10 or 15 years ago. I think that's a big one that we need to do that's not next year's budget, but it's a process to really look at where we're going to be in five years and 10 years.
2:30:44Yeah.
2:30:45Or even just, could we go out to get a bigger company to give us a more competitive bid? Or just making sure all those routes are as efficient as possible. How many students are actually getting off the bus every morning for each one of them? Because it doesn't feel like many of the buses are full when they roll up here.
2:31:10And then retirement and resignations is definitely the first place that I would look at and know what those numbers are, how many people are we talking about, and how many people have resigned within the past school year that we haven't replaced, and what do those numbers add up to?
2:31:35I would actually like to suggest that we look at job titles, job descriptions, and maybe do desk audit to make sure that we don't have two people assigned to the same position. And if we're cutting positions, maybe shift somebody from one position to another if they happen to be doing the same job, according to a job description, like who does what, and stay within that lane.
2:32:00Is it a civil service desk audit? Is that what I'm trying to get at? Or job descriptions?
2:32:03Sure. It's tough only because civil service is that, is a blend of a lot of different positions. But it, like in any office, it may not cover all of them. So it's, it could be helpful. There are some things that they wouldn't be able to do because they don't cover all positions.
2:32:34Yeah, I think we'll basically just see if there's any jobs that overlap the job duties according to their descriptions.
2:32:43Say it again, Mike?
2:32:45Just to make sure there's no jobs that are overlapping. So we have multiple people somehow doing the same job at different times.
2:32:52Okay.
2:32:53I guess the only other thing, just as a final summary, if we are going to meet again between now and the 21st, which I think is necessary, we're going to be able to see, I guess, some numbers around the mitigations, these ones, whether there's other ones, okay.
2:33:26I think the only other thing I would say is like, because it sounds like we've, you know, we know that like the sections and these models are built on this year, also having like real clear conversations with building leaders around like what, what are anticipated needs for next year? I don't want there to like, to be a surprise, right? Like I'm looking, for example, at, we've got to go way up here. The current fourth grade has four sections, but the current fifth has fifth sections. If someone has it in their head right now that they're adding a section there, that's $100,000 in this budget that we didn't account for to like add a new position, plus their retirement, plus their benefits, plus, right. So I think also just making sure that there's not, we have to like make sure this doesn't balloon before we figure out how to get it under control, if that makes sense.
2:34:21Yeah. The budget that was presented, the 63 million, that's everyone that is currently paid for currently. That doesn't, that doesn't, right, exactly. It doesn't call for expectations of any additions. And if there was an addition that was needed, then there would have to be a decision and a discussion around that. Like you're saying, like, so if there was an expectation, like we can't net add to this.
2:34:47Correct.
2:34:48Mm-hmm.
2:34:49This is a crazy idea, but there's, there's no way that we can take the bond or any money from the bond for the capital project to fund part of our budget?
2:35:04No.
2:35:06Okay. District credit cards?
2:35:10Absolutely not.
2:35:11Okay. And you did mention debt rolling off. When we sell JLE, that debt will roll off, right? So we'll have some that's a little bit sooner. And some additional revenue, but it doesn't sound like that'll be for probably another year at this point.
2:35:29The tough thing about that is it takes about three years to navigate through a construction plan.
2:35:36Right.
2:35:37JLE's roll off will probably occur in a way that causes a precipitous dip in debt obligation, which will cause your tax levy limit to plummet. So it's a trade-off. We could end up with a negative tax levy because it's concerned it would be unexpected revenue. It's, I don't know all the nuances of it, but I, and we don't know when it will. You know, we're waiting to find out when they'll close a while to make that final decision, but it would be very helpful to know so that the district could pre-plan and say, let's do a $5 million project to fix the clock tower, I don't know, name a thing. And know that we would be generating revenue from the state and keeping our debt obligation for our taxpayers level.
2:36:30The only other thing I have, being new to this process, what should we expect now? Because we have, what, a month and a half?
2:36:42Yeah.
2:36:43So are we going to get another presentation from this? When do we talk about it? Do we talk about it as a board, or is it always in open meetings?
2:36:52Yeah, no, it has to be in open meetings. You know, I think right now what we're trying to communicate is, you know, what, when you guys come back to us with a sort of list of solutions for decreasing our budget number, what should be the things that we're comfortable looking at?
2:37:11So that may generate special meetings between now and when we actually come back?
2:37:14Yeah, we definitely need at least one, I mean, right now we need, I feel like we need two or three.
2:37:20I'm with you on that.
2:37:21That's what I'm saying. This is a lot to take in.
2:37:23I have a question for Christy, maybe. What about the building leaders and getting their input on where they can?
2:37:37You did say that already. I mean, sort of, but you're saying it more directly.
2:37:41Yeah. I mean.
2:37:43Yeah, so I've met with the building leaders.
2:37:44I know, you meet with them.
2:37:45Yeah, a couple times.
2:37:46Yeah, absolutely. So when I met with them initially, it was for, just to review their previous expenditures and then also, you know, to ask if there was anything additional that they had planned on increasing. The most recent conversations have been around on, you know, if letting them know about the $63 million budget, they saw the numbers from last week, which have increased after really looking at what everything is, all the expenses, and then having, you know, they have a realization of the work that needs to be done, absolutely. So yes, there's been communication.
2:38:26And to have that feedback for us.
2:38:29Yes. And, you know, that will be coming from, you know, everybody working collaboratively as a team, and that includes central office and, you know, administrators. Every department is going to be asked to look at their budget and see ways in which we can create efficiencies.
2:38:45There's no way to do it without them, Maureen. Not intelligently.
2:38:51Yeah. Yeah.
2:38:53But for us to have, you know, just to have that input is crucial, right?
2:39:01Right.
2:39:02And we haven't really talked about, I mean, you mentioned it, but I feel like one of the areas we haven't really been able to dive very deeply into this year is curriculum. You know, sort of all the programs from K through 12, and you mentioned some of the, you know, BOCES programs or things that we spend in secondary school, but what other pieces of the curriculum cost us money, and where is that all going? Again, I'd be hesitant to really look too deeply at that, because I feel like we know so little about it and really need a larger plan before determining what works and what doesn't, but it'd be useful to know what costs are associated with all the different programs going on.
2:39:51And there's a difference sometimes, too, between, like, core programs, right? Like, CKLA that's used every day.
2:39:53Oh, yeah.
2:39:54And are there, like, supplemental ed tech programs?
2:39:55Yeah.
2:40:00...that are used sporadically. And again, that's not making a $3 million difference, but like, I think we're at a place where every $20,000 we can get matters. And if we, you know, obviously we want to start from the place of like, hey, we noticed we have this, like, program that, I'm making this up, but like, that kids use to read books on the computer, but when we look at the metrics of it, only 17 kids used it last year. Like, great, let's direct those kids to the library and then let's, like, or whatever it is.
2:40:32Like, I think it's like, can we, first, let's get rid of the things that don't impact the day-to-day life of our students and our staff, right? And then from there, and I know that's not going to cover $3 million, but like, what are the little things we do first and then we look from there? Yeah, so we did start that process actually in January. Cheryl provided with us with all the software that we used, and we met with all the administrators and the leaders, and we looked at usage. And we had, we've continued to have those discussions and ways in which we can reduce things that we're not using. So that's a, you know, a great point, and that is the work that has already, we've had at least two discussions about items such as, just like that.
2:41:14Yeah, and then now maybe we're at a place where we need to sort of more forcefully say, what's the must-have and what's the nice-to-have so that we can, you know, maintain these other things for our students. Any other questions, comments? I just have one thing that is nagging me that I am sorry I missed, but I second-guessed it and triple-guessed it. On slide 21, are we missing K-2 salaries? No. We're missing what? We couldn't hear you. K-2. The MC Smith budget just says salaries 3-6, but I checked the budget status report, and that's what we're spending in MC Smith this year. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, that's the description that's in WNCAP. That's the way it's described. So, you know, some...
2:42:20It was set up before they closed John L., must be. Yeah, so I don't know if there was... That's probably why. Yeah, so I don't know if that initially they were described as K-2 teachers, and then if there was a, you know, a primary school, but that's how they're currently described. The descriptions are not accurate, but that's what they are. Okay. Not helpful. They're accurate, but not helpful. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, everybody. I just, I wanted to end on a good note, if that is at all possible. Daniella Carillo and I, our new communications person, sat down and put our heads together around what is, what does the story want to tell around Hudson, and did a little bit of work and handed it over to Lance, who drove it home.
2:43:15And I wanted to take an opportunity to share with you a less-than-two-minute video that he recorded, directed, and produced, because it's fabulous. And we need to be reminded of why we're here. So, Austin, can you help? Good way to end it. Dr. Bailey. Live, grow, thrive. We've got mountains, lakes, skiing, hiking, biking, outdoor adventures. Can't forget the Hudson River and our old castle. It's a breath of fresh air, literally. Craft breweries, great restaurants, theaters, galleries, and halls. We're an easy reach to New York, Boston. Fly in or fly out, drive another parkway. Take a train. Life is easier here. We farm, we manufacture, we service. We're a welcoming and diverse community with an ecumenical spirit. It's a safe and comfortable lifestyle.
2:44:14You love D&B. We're friendly, and we're here to help. Yeah! We're welcoming. There's such a creative spirit here. And resilient. And together. We're in love. We're the Hudson City School District. The City of Hudson, Greenport, Clawford, Gett, Livingston, Stockport, and Tacoma. Great kids, committed parents, exceptional teachers. Teachers who love to teach. Yeah! We just love our kids. We've got neighborhoods. Everybody's crazy here. I just love Hudson. We are a destination for the world. Visit, live, grow, thrive. Welcome the Hudson City School District. We are Blooms. Nice job, Lance. Bonus points for anyone who recognized the voiceover actor. Is that you? No. I grew up with him watching the news. Walter Cronkite. Jack Arneke. He used to do Melodies of Christmas, too, with Liz Bishop, right?
2:45:25Yeah. Great job, Lance. Yes, thank you. We'll put that out with all of our superintendent search information as well. Okay. Well, thank you, Dr. Bailey and Ms. Ferry. It was a long time to be up there. This time we do have a need for an early executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment history of a particular person or persons. Make a motion to enter executive session at 846 p.m. Second. All in favor? We'll be back as quickly as we can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. City of Hudson, New York public meeting. [… repeated text trimmed] We assume we're going to be doing activities
2:56:58and games all about their ruler curriculum there and it's paid for by a grant. Okay. Thank you. Yeah of course. Nobody signed up to speak. Superintendents report. Our boys basketball team is going to win the class A championship. We want to report that. We want to report that. Just an amazing amazing journey to watch and they're headed to Binghamton on Thursday and they're going to be great. They're going to be great. Excuse me Brian. Yeah. Can you pull your mic a little closer? Sure thing. So I talked a little bit about our work with communications. We've been meeting with our communications committee and we did do a survey over the late winter time, late December into January and
2:58:02as I am fond of saying people aren't as weary from surveys as they are from results.
2:58:08So we're putting together a slide deck of the actual results from people's responses to that survey but we've met the communications committee. We did miss one meeting but we met once between then and now and it's going to allow us to send out a list of the things that and exemplars of what we've been working on. And it fits right into some of the commentary we've talked about who to contact when people need to know what their direction to go in when we have questions or comments and one of those things is a beautiful who to contact when sheet which will look fantastic in our new wall calendar next year so it will go home to everybody and as well as some updates to the website and some of the things that we've been doing on Facebook and through parent square.
2:59:00There were a lot of questions in that survey around the types of communications people were getting so we'll share some diagnostics on that as well but we figured being able to tell the story to people in a relatable way and then they can start to see some of those things that we've actually been trying to work on will be extremely helpful to us.
2:59:24In light of what we've been talking about around the budget process I think we're short on time and there is absolutely no way that we want the board to absorb the enormity of this work and expect you to make a decision at the next meeting so I did want to ask the board's favor around adding some opportunities to have these conversations we really do the board has to adopt by April 24th at the latest. Our meeting is April 21st of that week, the 24th is a Friday.
3:00:04On the books right now, we have April 14th as a budget meeting, April 21st as a regular board meeting, and at that meeting we are slated to adopt the BOCES budget and our own budget. So I wanted to ask, although it may not be all of the information and the richness that you need because of time, and the only time that we have, I wanted to ask the board's favor to meet next week. I know that at least one of you said that you would not be able to. It could be the board doesn't necessarily have to take action. It could be a workshop again where the board is not voting on any particular item.
3:00:49So that brings us to March 24 as a workshop, if you're willing to do that. And I wanted to ask, because I love marathon meetings, perhaps on April 14th, which is the day we come back, or the Tuesday we come back from the break, if after the policy meeting, which concludes at 7, the board could workshop again.
3:01:13The 14th or the 15th?
3:01:15The 15th is a Wednesday.
3:01:17Yeah, I was suggesting the 15th, but I like this idea.
3:01:19Oh, okay.
3:01:2014th.
3:01:21Starting at 7?
3:01:23Starting at 7. And, again, it will not be ñ I mean, you absorbed a lot of content, almost every single budget line in the district over these past three meetings. That's not what these will be. These will be, as I said, here are some ideas and where we might generate revenue or savings, and where does the board want these things to be prioritized. So that would be on the 14th.
3:01:50What time for the 24th, 7 p.m. also?
3:01:53And then the 21st, Mike.
3:01:54I'm sorry.
3:01:55I was just saying that we needed to adopt by the 24th.
3:01:57March 24th.
3:01:58The meeting is actually on the 21st.
3:02:00No.
3:02:01He's saying March.
3:02:02March 24th.
3:02:03March 24th.
3:02:04My apologies.
3:02:05Is that 7 o'clock also, or will that be?
3:02:07No, we did that one earlier.
3:02:08We did 530 last time.
3:02:10530.
3:02:11Okay.
3:02:12Amanda, when are you back from Texas?
3:02:14I'm gone that whole week.
3:02:16Okay.
3:02:18So 530 on March 24th and 7 p.m. on April 14th. Does that work for everybody?
3:02:27Yes.
3:02:28Yeah.
3:02:29Yes.
3:02:30And the 21st is a regular meeting for us. And what we would hope is that we have put together a proposal that the board would find acceptable. The consequence for not doing so on the 21st means that we must do so before the 24th because we are required to file our tax report card.
3:02:56Yes.
3:02:57By the 24th.
3:02:58So I appreciate that. So that will give us two additional opportunities to have discussion before we get to the 21st. We'll get together as much as we can for next week.
3:03:16And for those of you who weren't on the board last year, I don't remember the date. It might have been April 21st, too, but we decided not to adopt a budget at the April 21st meeting and ended up having a special meeting two days later or something like that. So it can be done. That's not what we want, but it certainly can be done. But we have a lot more information at this point.
3:03:40Oh, absolutely.
3:03:42Absolutely.
3:03:43Just since we're talking about all the options.
3:03:46Sure.
3:03:49Mark will probably mention it, but as you probably know, this Friday is the recognition of Eid, the end of Ramadan, and it's a recess day for all of our students and some of our staff.
3:04:04So be aware of that. Two people had to remind me today. Thank you for those of you who reminded me of where I'm supposed to be. And I think that is it.
3:04:16I have a question for you. Maybe you can shed some light on this. So with the success of the basketball team, this week there's been some postings on social media to generate some revenue or some income, like fundraising, to help offset the cost of the kids going to the tournament. There's no issues with school funding the students going to the game, correct?
3:04:48The district is funding the hotel rooms and the transportation, and from what I understand, the section will actually reimburse us for a portion of the cost of transportation out there, which is a win. I don't know what other expenses they need to incur. I've not been informed of them, so I'm not sure what fundraising they're doing. I just happened to see it on social media.
3:05:12I was just wondering if there was any issues that we needed to take care of, because the way it was worded was to help offset the expense.
3:05:19Yeah, so I know if they win on Thursday, they'll be there Friday night as well for the final. I didn't say – what did I just say that for? They'll be there on Friday for the final.
3:05:27So are they going to have tutors for the schoolwork?
3:05:30Oh, I'm pretty sure – actually, I'm not going to make any jokes, because someone's going to replay that. Nope, everyone's going to be in school that day. They're going to get home at midnight and be in school by 8 o'clock.
3:05:42There's no school Friday, right?
3:05:45No, I mean the Thursday night game. They're coming back at midnight. It's not worth getting into.
3:05:52So when they win on Thursday night, the finals will be on Friday?
3:05:57From what I understand.
3:05:59I thought it was Saturday. Is it Friday?
3:06:01It could be.
3:06:02I think it's Friday.
3:06:05One of us should find out.
3:06:07And is there any support van bus going out this trip?
3:06:12I think there's going to be a spectator bus, but I don't know if there's – yeah. I won't say the name of the bus company, but one of our bus companies has been very generous offering to help to pay for the cost of the bus for the prior events and for a spectator bus for these next events. But it has to be recognized by a donation of the board. So if they do do that, that's how it will be recognized.
3:06:43I'm very excited. That's very generous of them. Thank you.
3:06:47Yeah. It could be for meals and stuff too.
3:06:50Okay. I think he just wanted to make sure that we all said publicly that we are paying for it.
3:06:55Okay. Yeah.
3:06:57Yes. Yeah. I just – it's because I didn't know if they could have come back at the school at all.
3:07:02All of us who have brand recognition should capitalize on it as soon as possible. Okay. That's my thought.
3:07:10Okay. Consent agenda. No issues with consent agenda. We'll make a motion to accept consent agenda items A through Q.
3:07:24Second.
3:07:25All in favor? Thank you, Whole Foods Market Foundation for a grant for our garden program.
3:07:36Policy.
3:07:38All right. Inventory policies is a policy that was recommended that we add for grant compliance. Christy vetted it and added things to make it match our current way of being. The policy 0150 HIV AIDS policy just has some mandated additional language around – mostly around privacy within it.
3:08:04The 0105, our DEI regulation and exhibit, is an overdue update of updating our reporting structures without Dr. Pressy's position. And it also removes a DEI committee as an oversight committee. And I just want to be clear that that doesn't mean that that work is not hugely important, but instead that that work needs to live within everything that we do, right? Like in the attendance conversations, in the academic conversations, in hiring, right? Like the work within this policy lives in all of those places.
3:08:41And then sexual harassment. Sexual harassment in the workplace exhibit. These are required NSBA updates. There previously were two separate policies, a sexual harassment of employees and sexual harassment student policy. And this is the recommended update from NSBA just to have like one comprehensive policy. It also just sort of solidifies and gives a more clear reporting process that we talked through in policy.
3:09:08And then student wellness is on its third reading. There was no changes between last time and this time there.
3:09:14Yeah, does any of the board have, last time we spoke about wellness, there was some language in there which was being debated in policy committee.
3:09:26Yeah, I can give you the exact line.
3:09:30Well, I can talk on that if you want me to because I'm the one that had the problem with that.
3:09:34Yeah, let me give people the line first so that then people know what the context is. So there was a recommendation from one of the things that the lawyer who vets our policies does is checks them for compliance, all the legalese that we need to have, but she also looks at other districts' policies that she's seen come through and like commonalities in language.
3:09:57So she recommended a line that said cultivate a school environment that promotes a healthy body image, shape and size among students and personnel to our wellness policy. We had a conversation in policy committee around that. Some people were more or less comfortable with that idea of like, is it the district's job to promote a healthy body image? Where we landed was the line that says, foster a school culture that supports students and personnel's overall wellbeing and positive relationship with their bodies, was the language that we edited to. And Diana, if you wanna speak to where your concern was.
3:10:30I just felt very uncomfortable having the idea that somebody is gonna have a conversation with my kid about their body. If it's not a gym teacher or a nurse or some other medical person, a biology teacher. I just didn't, so that's where I brought the issue up. I didn't want anybody talking about. Then there was a conversation about what kids had at lunch. If my kid came home and said, oh, my child, this kid had macaroni and cheese for lunch. They'd have a conversation and say, well, maybe they can only afford that. That made me feel uncomfortable because I don't think my child's school lunch should be a conversation in somebody else's house.
3:11:09I think my perspective on it was that when we were talking about a wellness policy, we wanna make sure that we're not conflating wellness with like diet culture. And so to have some explicit language that talks about like positive body image or positive relationship is helping to counter that. So those were kind of the two perspectives. We were pretty evenly split in policy, so then we figured we would punt it to this group to make final decisions.
3:11:35And I actually think that this language prevents what you're talking about, Diana, because it's saying don't talk about decisions, healthy decisions in relationship to somebody's body. So this is indicating to somebody, don't say you shouldn't eat that because it will make you fat. You should say you shouldn't, don't eat that because it's got too much sugar. Don't eat that because it's got, try and make choices based on these other factors, not what it will do to your body. That's how I interpret it.
3:12:12Yeah, the way I interpreted it was, the crossed out text, I think where Island may be somewhere actually in between, discussions about bodies come up sometimes at the, students spark those. So I agree that it should not be something that our staff is simply approaching our students about. Hey, your body needs to be adjusted. But students may bring that up over the course of discussion. Well, she doesn't like me because I'm fat, or things of that nature. So I think thinking about this as generating a culture that supports, your body does not determine who you are, and those sorts of discussions, I think for me the goal would be to promote that sort of mindset as opposed to you should change the way your body is. I think that's the goal of what I would like to see. Does that make sense?
3:13:24Yeah. Also, Christy asked what was the philosophy behind this lawyer deciding that that line should be in there? And it was, I think, that was you that asked that question. Well, why did they put this in here? Because we didn't have it in there. The lawyer decided to put it in there. So this wasn't even something that we had decided that we were in need of. It was somebody else that chose, this is what we need for our district.
3:13:47Though a frequent, what we do as a consistent practice is get the recommendations from the lawyers. So frequently we are bringing this language back and then deciding if we want to adopt it ourselves.
3:13:59Yeah, I mean it makes sense, especially if it's being addressed in a number of parallel policies in other locations. It's a prevalent issue in popular culture, in daily life, and particularly experienced by our junior high and high school students of all genders. Any other thoughts?
3:14:33Well, we should bring it back to policy because we said we would, and we didn't just because we postponed that meeting. So we can try and finalize the conversation there, and then bring it back here for a vote.
3:14:48I think that we, I thought where we left it in policy is that we were wanting to know what the board consensus was. So I think, I don't feel like we heard that. We're gonna go back to policy and have the same conversation. So I would like just like a, I think this is a moment where we need to sort of get a sense of what every member of the board, do they want this language in or not?
3:15:08Well look, Amanda, I prefer your language over what was in there before. So if you've, I'm happy to concede with your language. I don't like the way that the whole thing, yeah. So we've got that.
3:15:21No, don't ever worry about that. Okay, so do people feel good about that? So then the language says foster a school culture that supports students and personnel's overall well-being and a positive relationship with their bodies.
3:15:34I just want to remind you that I've been in education like my whole life in middle school, and I'm very familiar with how kids talk to each other.
3:15:45But the way that that was written before hit a hot button for me, and I'm more comfortable with your language, but I want to make sure that my voice is out there as well. So that's why I brought an issue with that particular line.
3:16:03We need to vote on it or?
3:16:04No, no, no, not voting, because it was gonna come back. But I just would be curious to know, because I do think what we said is we were gonna bring back to policy what the opinion of the board was.
3:16:13Yeah.
3:16:14It's on page five, if people want to pull it up there. But you can see the line that's crossed out and then the line that's left.
3:16:21I looked at it. It looks good.
3:16:23Yeah, it's a little bit more general, which I think is favorable. Your revised version.
3:16:30Yep.
3:16:32Cool, all right, got what you need, Amanda?
3:16:39That's all we need, yeah.
3:16:40Cool.
3:16:42Superintendent search update, just putting some stuff up here quickly to share where we are at. HYA facilitated seven in-person sessions and eight virtual sessions for a total of 15 sessions and 82 participants for our focus groups, which is great turnout. A draft report will be submitted to the board by 327 and a final report with summaries and our leadership profile will be presented at the April 21st board meeting.
3:17:22And then HYA also facilitated an online survey that concluded this past Sunday, the 15th, and there were 301 survey participants. So I think those numbers are really encouraging and we thank everybody who participated both in the focus groups and the survey. Applicants today, I actually heard after I put this together, there were actually 17 interested applicants.
3:17:50Can I interrupt you real quick? I asked Dr. Adams if we could have the list of names. So she said she wasn't gonna do that because of didn't want people to worry about confidentiality or people hearing. I think we're pretty confidential here.
3:18:05But yeah, when you asked for that, that was the response that she gave and that I communicated was that she would take a head count of the people involved and said.
3:18:15So yeah, 17 interested applicants. And here's the sort of current proposed timeline. The first meeting that we need to have is April 4th or April 11th to review applicants and determine interview questions is right around the spring break. So it's on a Saturday or the Sunday is, I think they're Saturdays because Easter's Sunday the 5th.
3:18:50I'm not gonna be here.
3:18:51Yeah, I won't be here either because it's spring break.
3:18:53Okay, so the first weekend of Friday, April 3rd through April 12th.
3:19:01Okay, so I'll put some new dates out there. Our application deadline is March 31st. So we'll have it shortly thereafter.
3:19:10We could attend. Is there a world where we, well, we have a lot of meetings, but like where we can tag things to, just trying to think of how to like pile up. Is there a way to, I don't wanna go till 1 a.m., but is there a way that we can do things on similar days where possible just because maybe one of the workshops or something?
3:19:35I mean, I hate to say this, but what if we just did at-home stuff for policy again this next meeting?
3:19:40Yeah, that's a possibility.
3:19:44Yeah, I have code of conduct too. So many meetings.
3:19:51Well, let me wrap my head around that and I'll do a little form for availability. But after that Dr. Adams will be here on April 21st to present the leadership profile. And then the suggested dates for first round interviews that she had were May 3rd or May 9th.
3:20:16May 9th I am out of the state.
3:20:19May 9th Kirsten's out. And these are. Do these have to be. Do they have to be weekends. Like why.
3:20:31Well I think the worry for interviews is that if somebody is working in another district they're confidential.
3:20:38Yeah they're not going to be able to get here.
3:20:40And you know if we have you know six people that we want to interview for the position that's like six hours of interviews. So it's kind of hard to do it on a weeknight.
3:20:57Break it up like do half and half.
3:21:00We could suggest that.
3:21:05So if we don't know the names are we just relying on her to pick the six say six candidates for.
3:21:15No so that would that's what the first day the suggested April 4th or 11th would be would be for us to review all of the applicants with her. You know say we have 17 applicants. You know she would certainly tell us like I think these eight or nine are the strongest. Like what do you want to do. Do you want to interview all of them. Do you want to pick five or six like that. We sort of determine what happens.
3:21:43Meeting of the candidates will be on those one of those dates. The names. Yeah. Physically meeting. Yes. That's the first. Yeah. First. Yeah. Seeing the resumes.
3:21:53We'll know all of them right. We'll have all of the names. Not just. Yep. Yep.
3:21:57OK.
3:21:58And she'll also say like this person applied but they're not qualified for X Y and Z reasons. They don't have the proper certifications or you know so she'll give us all of that.
3:22:07The context that goes along with it. Hopefully they're not talking about certifications. You won't even give them to us. But I wouldn't want to know anyway.
3:22:14Yeah it's useful to see.
3:22:15Yeah.
3:22:21Yeah. All both all of both of which is still a lot. The searches that we did in the past involved interviewing candidates on the weekend. So I think that is just what is most common. And is that.
3:22:42Sorry maybe I'm asking like obvious questions but like is that does the whole board interview or is this a subset that's an interview committee.
3:22:50Nope the whole board interviews. There's a little bit more information on the next slide. So she would help us prepare questions in advance so that first meeting when we go through the slate of candidates we would also be doing that work of preparing and coordinating the questions that we're going to ask each candidate.
3:23:12The goal is to ask each candidate the same questions so that we are comparing comparable information. Of course there can be follow ups and you know time for some questions on the fly. But you know we want to be buttoned up and also make sure that all of the questions that we're asking are also legally permissible because you can ask people things in an interview that you're not allowed to ask.
3:23:41So that's what that first meeting is again selecting which candidates we want to interview preparing getting on the same page and and then.
3:23:50So the first one is is all of us in the room together. Are we going to see the surveys.
3:23:58Yes. So she's preparing those reports ahead of time.
3:24:01Oh yeah.
3:24:01OK.
3:24:02Yeah. So she will have a report on the focus groups and the surveys she said by March 27th.
3:24:07OK.
3:24:07And that'll be sort of more raw data. And then on April 21st she'll present the leadership report which is sort of like taking all of that and putting that into a profile of the type of candidate that would meet the needs of the community or the needs of the community listed as most important. And we'll have that in advance of the 21st so we can give feedback or ask questions but she'll present it publicly to the community that.
3:24:38Oh OK I'm sorry I didn't see that. My computer died.
3:24:42All right so I'm going to do another round of dates and I'll do like I did with other things and just like provide a little checklist and people can check off when works for them. I will ask Dr. Adams if doing interviews during the week is a possibility.
3:24:58And then if we go to slide 6 there's we have to think about the confidential stakeholder groups that we want to have for the semifinalist interviews. So there's two options. One is a smaller group of 10 to 12 stakeholders and they give them a little bit more time with each of the semifinalists.
3:25:18You know we'd probably pick 2 or 2 to 4 to come back. They'd get you know 7 to 10 questions prepared in advance again plus some questions from the floor. Dr. Adams would moderate it.
3:25:32The second option is to have three different groups and have the candidates do sort of like a round robin. So have 7 to 9 people in the room for each of them and give them a little bit less time. They'd have about 40 minutes with each candidate and maybe get to ask 4 to 6 questions and need to bring in some additional H.Y.A. personnel to execute that so that there's a moderator in each room. So we get to choose curious which which option is more attractive.
3:26:067 to 10 questions per board member or or.
3:26:10No so this is just for this. This is for the confidential stakeholder group.
3:26:14Yeah so.
3:26:19When do we need to make this decision by.
3:26:22I think we should make it tonight if possible because the next thing we need to figure out is who is on these these stakeholder groups and that's going to take some time to coordinate and either elicit interest or point when we did the first time around the board we had a sub search committee.
3:26:42So there were three of us that you know basically looked at all the different stakeholder groups within our community and you know identified who should be represented obviously with the different bargaining units we went to them and said hey you have two seats on the stakeholder committee who are you selecting. But outside of that with community members and other people we just tried to pick from as diverse a group as possible.
3:27:14To me the number of stakeholders is the key factor and talking about who those folks might be is the determining piece.
3:27:26So you would you be in favor of more a more compact stakeholder group or a larger.
3:27:33I'm actually more interested in who we think those those stakeholder groups would be. You know if if selecting 10 to 12 means we're not going to invite you know representative from the blue group to go completely vague. You know maybe we don't want to eliminate the blue group and maybe that means we need to look at more stakeholders. So to me talking about what those those stakeholder groups might be is more important.
3:28:04Right. I agree. I think it's relevant. But I also think we're kind of under the gun and the fewer people that need to be coordinated with is going to be easier to schedule. We've got a consultant we've got interviewees we've got seven board members. We've got. I think 21 or 27 people. If 20 people to figure out. And you know we're we're limited on what kind of timetable we have.
3:28:33Board members considered stakeholders too or no.
3:28:35No not for that. I'm just saying in terms of getting everything. Yeah all of this it's it's we're going to be stacking things up. I think we should choose a smaller amount. That's just my opinion.
3:28:46I mean it sounds. Get 27. Yeah like maintaining confidentiality with 27 people also feels complicated. And we had really great engagement with our focus groups and our survey.
3:28:58So we need a third group from 13 to 20. I think the first I think we had 13 in the last one. So if that's where we end up that that's pretty good. But I remember we had we had two representatives from the teachers union. We suggested one from each campus which I think makes a lot of sense. We had I think two building administrators.
3:29:32Would it be worth having the union reps for each of the different unions.
3:29:38Yeah. So what we did was was we went to the union reps and said OK you guys you guys get to. And obviously the left it up to them. And inherently they selected themselves as one of the positions. And so and. I could probably find it. I should have looked this up earlier. We had representation from buildings and grounds, clerical, teachers, aides.
3:30:18Did you have families?
3:30:19Yep, there were families and then a few community at large. So that was two, four, seven. Yes, that was the rough, the rough makeup of it.
3:30:55Do you want us to come up with these stakeholder groups now or is this something we can think about and regroup?
3:31:18Yeah, so I think what I'll do is I'll take this and come up with a spreadsheet that's got these different...
3:31:31So should we just pick the option now?
3:31:33Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we can have folks, you know, recommend people and start doing some outreach based on that.
3:31:49Cool.
3:31:51And then the other thing that we need to think about is on the last slide, the interview format for our finalist candidates. So I've seen in the past, sort of like people do a 30, 60, 90 entry day plan type of proposal. Dr. Adams also suggested potentially having them give feedback on our DSEP plan. You know, I think it's up to us, you know, what type of prompt we want to give them so that we can see them prepare something and present it to us. And then obviously we ask follow-up questions. We ask any other questions that are sort of outstanding and, you know, try and get the most out of that meeting as possible. I'm curious if you have any thoughts about...
3:32:59Well, I think if we do a 30, 60, 90 and then they reflect on the DSEP plan, we don't have to ask for that separately. You know, like if we ask a 30, 60, 90 day entry plan and they're actually reflecting on what's in our plan, then they've read the plan, understand it and include that in their entry plan. Does that make sense? Like, I don't want to make it ridiculous for somebody to interview.
3:33:31No, these are just options. Like, you know, I think we could make it anything that we want. Those are just sort of the first two things that we can add to it.
3:33:45Yeah, we can make it something completely different and say, sing us a song. My priorities when I hire instructional staff is I want to see them teach. My priorities when I hire leaders is I want to see them conduct professional development or teach adults. What is it you want to see? I think it's crucially important that you see something from this person because I can create any document with AI, but I need someone who can... I would like someone who could tell a story and relate to people on the topic that you're interested in because that's an important component of this job.
3:34:25I do a lot of role play when I interview, like a scenario where you're talking to a building leader about how would you approach this conversation? How would you set it up? What would you do and actually like...
3:34:38A word problem.
3:34:40But then you actually like role play it because then you get a sense of how the person approaches the conversation. What do they start with? What do they write? That's an interesting idea.
3:34:56Yeah.
3:34:59Okay, so let's continue to think about it. And next meeting we have, if anybody's got any other ideas, bring them to the table and I'll make sure we know from Dr. Adams when we need to formalize that plan.
3:35:18So are we picking the option tonight or no?
3:35:21Yeah, it sounds like we're doing it tonight. Yeah, so I'll follow up just with like a skeleton of what those different staple groups would be and we can go from there.
3:35:38Old business, we have the board activity calendar. It's not perfect. I think we're all realizing now that we need to, prior to July 1st, take a real serious look at our board calendar, make as much sense as possible and be as effective as possible. And we're ideally approving this board activity calendar in March as something to get us in the habit of doing things like this. But again, it should happen in, you know, July or August. So I'd like to make a motion to approve the board activity calendar.
3:36:30Second.
3:36:31All in favor. Okay. Diana. That's one of our goals.
3:36:37Questar 3 annual meeting is April 1st, 2026. RSVPs are due this Friday. I know Maureen's interested. Anybody else interested in attending? Okay. Well, thank you for going, Maureen.
3:36:58I do know, you know, that we've had Questar come and, you know, present in the past. Obviously, we nominated Mary Daly to be our district representative on the board there. Any ways that we can try to understand the workings of what happens at Questar and how it can benefit our district, I think, are beneficial to us as a board and as a community.
3:37:27Nobody else signed up to speak. Anything else for board discussion?
3:37:35No.
3:37:37Okay. We have three information items to our environmental remediation reports and contracts that we needed to get out the door. Did not require full board approval and another pilot just for us to track within our board library.
3:38:00Upcoming meeting dates. Monday, April 13th, 2026. Code of conduct subcommittee meeting number 4, 330 to 5 p.m. in the high school library. Thank you, Amanda, for leading those meetings.
3:38:13Tuesday, April 14th, 2026. Policy committee meeting 5 to 7 p.m. in the high school library. We will also be adding a special board meeting after that and adding a special board meeting on Tuesday, March 24th.
3:38:31Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. Facility committees meeting 5 to 545 p.m. in the district conference room. Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. Board of education meeting 6 p.m. in the high school auditorium.
3:38:44Thursday, April 23rd, 2026. Voter registration day 4 to 8 p.m. Event entrance of the junior high school cafeteria. Wednesday, April 29th, 2026. Nominating petitions due by 5 p.m. in the district office. For those of you who are interested in running for two open seats on the board of education.
3:39:05Tuesday, May 5th, 2026. Is a budget hearing at 6 p.m. in the high school auditorium.
3:39:12Facilities committee eliminated the April 21st meeting today based on you know holding off until we have more information about our EPC and additional contract.
3:39:26Understood.
3:39:30Make a motion to enter executive session at 9 39 p.m. for the purposes of pending litigation collective bargaining negotiations and the employment history of a particular person or persons.
3:39:42Second.
3:39:43All in favor. Be no further public business after this executive session. Thank you all for being here. Thank you all for watching. Thank you to our administrators and see you all soon.
3:39:56Thank you.

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