Board of Education, Regular Meeting

1. 1:59Mhm. >> Hello, thank you all for being here. I'd like to call the meeting to order and ask everybody please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
2. 3:02republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Leslie, roll call, please. Mark Pace. Here. Amanda Grubler. Here. Kiersten Gustafson. Matthew Macar. Here. Diana Howard. Here. Maureen Sheridan. Here. Michael Zabala. Here. Lebona Prova. Here. I make a motion to accept the agenda as presented. Second. All in favor? Lebona, you're up. On June 11th, the high school junior high um band and choir will host their spring concert. Everyone is welcome to see um them perform. Last week Envirothon went to regionals and they won best in the county and best overall out of 22 teams. They're going
3. 4:06to states on the 27th and 20 um 27th and 28th. On May 25th, the high school band will perform at the Memorial Parade. On May 13th, there will be a Meet the Board Candidates Night hosted by the student council. Next week multi- the multicultural festival will happen. The class of 2027 is hosting a golf tournament and it's posted on the community Facebook page and also on the class of 2027's page as well. Class of 2026 celebrated Decisions Day and all our seniors were so proud about getting accepted to all these prestigious colleges and universities. The NHS induction is this Thursday. Please come and celebrate the high school's brightest as they embody as they all embody scholarship, service, leadership, and character. AP testing has begun. In the high school, we sent three kids
4. 5:10to the Puerto Rican Hispanic Youth Leadership Institute and two were awarded with scholarships. LeBron, can I ask you a real quick question? Um the Meet the Candidates Night, can you tell us what time that is and that was the 13th, right? >> Yes, I believe it starts at 6:00. We're going to send out a flyer, but that's Yeah, I think it's at 6:00 p.m. >> folks what that is? >> Of course. So, this year there's going to be two seats up for election um for the Board of Ed and um to let the community know more about these candidates, the student council will host Meet the board where we ask questions. Um and the you can learn more about the candidates and their opinions. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much, Lubana. Uh next we have board reports. Audit Committee? Uh Audit Committee has not met, but we'll be having a meeting in the near future. >> [clears throat] >> Uh Facilities? Our next meeting coming
5. 6:13up is May 18th at 5:00. Sorry, I had to double-check that time. Uh Policy? Uh Policy has also not met since Was it a week ago that we last updated this? Um we are meeting though. There's two meetings next week. There is both the Code of Conduct meeting on Monday and then regular Policy Committee on Tuesday. So, there'll be lots of updates for the next one. Yes. Sorry. Uh Finance? Uh >> [clears throat] >> Finance has not met, but we will be having regularly scheduled meetings uh after the budget process is complete. Um and Board President's uh report um Uh recently I had the opportunity to meet with Mayor Ferris from the City of Hudson and State Representative Didi Barrett um to discuss our current budget situation. Um Didi expressed her support and uh that she will advocate for us at the state level. Um overall, they were
6. 7:16productive conversations that hopefully um at least gave the district the opportunity to share some nuance and context around our budget situation. Hopefully, that makes its way out into the community. Um in recognition of Teacher Appreciation Week, uh on behalf of the board, also wanted to acknowledge all of our teachers. And despite the challenges we're currently facing, always impressed by the way that our teachers show up for our students and community. Um whether it's traveling to support teams at games in Binghamton or helping create memorable student events and dances or attending board meetings to share ideas and demonstrate their commitment. Your presence is felt in every corner of our district. We're deeply grateful for everything you do every day. Thank you. Um next we have a few exciting presentations. We have our trap team here to present. Good evening everyone. Um
7. 8:22if for those of you who don't know me, my name is Joe Miszone. Um I started the uh Hudson Blue Hawk Clay Target Club uh last fall. This is uh some of our team right here. The rest of us couldn't make The rest of the team couldn't make it because they're on sports teams, but uh these guys have something they'd like to give everyone at the board. So, boys, go ahead. Are we getting a cool t-shirt like you guys? I'll take a sticker. So, this year's been very busy for the Hudson Blue Hawk Clay Target Club. Uh getting our new team up and running um and ready um for the spring season. Um that picture there, that's on the back of our hoodies. Um we have a lot of sponsors. We actually have a total of 50 sponsors, local businesses, sportsmen's clubs that have uh helped us get started. Um so those are just Those are some of the local businesses that are um that have sponsored our our club.
8. 9:24Impressive. Um and this is a picture from the fall when we had our open house at the Hudson Fish and Game Club. Um so, that's the beginning right there. Uh members and family just took a photo together. Um At this at this um open house, the Maple Hill trap team and the Taconic Hills trap team showed up, did a trap demonstration. We signed up a a few kids. Uh then um throughout the fall and into the winter, the very cold winter that we had, in 20° weather, these guys came out on a Friday night. Friday night Hudson Fish and Game Club has an open trap night that's open to the public. Um they were very these young uh men and women were very dedicated in making this club uh happen. And they honed their skills and practiced it even in very cold weather in the middle of January and February. All right. Um in March,
9. 10:29as we are gearing up, we uh visited some of the local sportsmen's club. We uh went to the uh the Columbia County Sportsmen's Federation March meeting at the Polish Sportsmen's Club. Um I introduced the team to all the members of uh of the of the federation. Um some the club the federation also gave us a a sponsorship as well. We had a popcorn fundraiser in March as well. Uh that helped raise a lot of money for our club. And then this past weekend uh we were at Ducks Ducks Unlimited event in Ghent. Uh it was at the Locust Hill barn uh from 12:00 to 4:00. Uh there were a lot of raffles. Our team was helping Our team was helping the Columbia County Sportsmen's Association sell raffles. We collaborated with the Taconic Hills team, the Greenville team, the Ichabod Crane team. Um trying to think who are the other
10. 11:32teams were. Do you guys remember? Taconic, Ichabod, Greenville, Coxsackie-Athens. Uh, Maple Hill didn't make it, but yeah, um, we it was five teams. We collaborated together for this event. We sold raffle tickets. Um, we had these table prizes. We raffled off a cooler, optics, binoculars, rangefinder, scope, um, a Turtle Box speaker, really nice outdoor speaker was raffled off. Um, we we we sold about $3,000 worth of raffle tickets that was divided up amongst the five teams to help us with, uh, whatever supplies we need. Um, we did very well with our sponsorships. We, you know, because of the sponsorships, the generosity of all the local businesses that you saw on the slide, you know, it was possible for us to have, you know, the the shirts that we have, the hats, we have hoodies. Um, the shirts and hats, uh, the stickers, they were generously donated by, uh, Hodges Apparel. Um, the hoodies were paid for by sponsorship money.
11. 12:33Um, the supplies that we need for for practices, and right now we're shooting for scores. So, what that means is every week we get together to Hudson Fish and Game Club, um, and we shoot 50 rounds, and our scores are up are are written down and uploaded into the USA uh, high school clay target league site, and you know, the our team is in a conference with a few other teams, um, that are similar in size. We have 12 kids. So, we're in a conference. We are according to the, uh, New York State, um, high school clay target league, we are in conference one, and we're in class one, conference six. So, our scores are compared to Johnsburg, uh, Minisink Valley, North Collins, uh, Norwood-Norfolk, Ogdensburg, Warsaw. So, those are the schools we're competing against virtually. So, you know, every week we can check our scores, see how we do, see how we improve. Um all our scores as a team, everyone
12. 13:37scores, it's added up and it's a team score. So, uh we're doing pretty good. We're actually in third place in our in our conference. So, it's not bad for for a first time. Um I'd say half the kids on our team never even touched a firearm before this club. Um everybody did the hunter safety course first or did the um safe certification through the USA Clay uh USA High School Clay Target League. Um the the safe certification is an it's partly online and then they have to go in person to the range and then either myself or or Coach John would work Coach John Sheldon would work with uh the kids and and do the 1-hour safe hands-on firearm safety. Um so, John Sheldon, he's a coach. Um Mike Madison, he's a coach as well. He is um he's our range safety officer. He has military training. Uh Coach John, he's in charge of scorekeeping. He's also range safety
13. 14:39officer. I'm a range safety officer and head head coach of the team. So, we have in our school psychologist, uh Catherine Vera, she's also a coach and helping out with scorekeeping. Um so, we have four coaches, four adults, as well as parents that are out there helping us um with events, fundraisers, and just out in a field, you know, doing whatever they can to support us. Uh whoops, wrong direction. All right. So, this is coming up this weekend. We're going to be at Homequest Farms in Greenhouse. Hopefully, the weather holds out. I'm seeing that it's going to be a 50% chance of rain. So, we're going to have a little concession stand where to sell hot dogs, hamburgers, uh baked goods, uh tea, lemonade. Uh we're going to you know try to be there for two days to do this so that Mother's Day weekend we'll we'll be there. Um and This These are some photos from our first practice of the spring season. Um so this was at the Hudson Fish and Game Club.
14. 15:41As you can see we have three adults on the line standing behind the kids while they're while they're shooting and while they're practicing. And um two of our members got a 25 straight. Um Anthony Malchow who's an eighth grader and Colton Bloomer who's a 10th grader. >> [applause] >> They achieved a 25 straight. They're ahead of the game. It took me until I was 40 years old before I could get a 25. These guys did it as teenagers in just like less than a year. Um so when you get a 25, you get a league patch like that. Now if you can do 50 straight, then you get the 50 straight patch. And not only will you get a league patch but you also get a a fish and game patch as well from from the local club. But that's what our our our patches look like and you can glue it on to your vest or or shell pouch or wherever you want to put them on you know wherever. Um All right. That's Anthony.
15. 16:47He He's our first 25 of the year. And that's Colton right there. And Colton's with us. Nice job, buddy. Yeah. And this is a video that Lance Wheeler did for us. So this is what trap shooting looks like. >> Reading rule two.
16. 18:02Three, Jason. Two or four. All right, rule five. We read the rules before every competition. All right, Easton, six. Seven, Amelia. All right, Amelia, rule what? Rule what, Anthony? Rule what, Jonah? Rule what, Colton? Okay. Uh this is uh called trap shooting and it's one of the oldest sports in in America. It's over 200 years old and it's
17. 19:06a sport that's enjoyed has been enjoyed since colonial times. Is it New Hartford High School? It is New Hartford the Hudson High School where I started the team last fall. I sought out the students who might be interested in this and it gives kids, you know, another chance to be in the school club. What do you think the kids get out of it? I think they learn to be safe individuals first and foremost. I think it gives them a sense of discipline, it gives them a chance to be involved in a school activity, it gives them a friendship and it gives them a camaraderie and memories. It gives them a chance to uh compete for awards and um you know, it's just a lot of fun as well. What do you enjoy about this sport and
18. 20:11what do you like? I like the like getting new scores and seeing myself improve. And how did you How did you start doing this to begin with? It started off with my mom finding out about Hudson trying to start a new trap team and she told me about it and I thought it was really interesting because I like guns. And what was it like being a girl on the team? I mean, you you there are two girls on the team. What's it like being a girl? Um it's basically like any other sport. Everyone's very supportive. They help each other like improve and tell each other how to professionally shoot classes and we coach each other, help out each other. >> So, um just some other things about the
19. 23:06club. Um recently, we received a $3,000 grant from the Columbia County uh Sportsman's Association. The other trap teams received one as well. Um we're going to states uh June 5th, Friday, June 5th. That's the day that Hudson and our our conference will uh get to compete uh in person out in um Bridgeport, New York. So, these guys won't be in school. It's a Friday. All the smaller teams will compete on Friday. Uh the medium-sized teams will be out on Saturday, and the larger teams will be out on a Sunday. Um and and pretty much after June 5th, the the trap the the high school trap season's over for the spring. Um June 14th, we're going to have a luncheon at uh the Hudson Fish and Game Club, and we'll we're going to do our own little awards where our, you know, team members will be recognized. Um everyone here at the board, you're welcome to come. It's 12:00 to 3:00 uh June 14th. Um the kids, they shoot for scores on
20. 24:09Sundays at the Hudson Fish and Game Club at at 12:00. We're usually there from 12:00 to 3:00, 12:00 to 2:00, whenever we get done. So, you guys are always welcome to come out and and um sorry, and and see see the kids perform. Um I feel that this has been a pretty successful year. Uh we have the support of the of a lot of local businesses. The Sportsman's Clubs have been very um supportive of the Hudson Blue Hawk Clay Target Club. Um members from the other clubs have come out and talked to the kids, maybe give gave them some advice. Um we're under, as you guys know, we're we're under a memo of agreement for for this year. Um we would like the board, and we'd like the HTA to work together to extend that memo of agreement uh for a full scholastic year. The fall season begins. It starts in September. I got to you know to to keep the team going. I've got to kind of start you know in June and I I'd like the team to
21. 25:13grow. Right now we're 12. I'd like to get to maybe 15 to 20 20 students. That way we have a a nice good size competitive team. We have supplies. The club has has guns that the kids could borrow if they don't have their own. Some of our team members have their own equipment as well. So I thank you guys for you know allowing me to come out here allowing us to come out here and present for three times this year. You've been great. You've been supportive and I hope we can keep this team going. I think it's got a future here at Hudson. I think once I I think it'll catch on. Amazing. Thank This much free time [clears throat] here. Congratulations on a good season. I would just like to add that our club the Hudson Fish and Game Club I'm a board member. We initiated a scholarship fund through the school for the high school kids for when they graduate to go on to law enforcement military
22. 26:14whatever it is. We're part of that. And I don't know if you guys heard of heard of anything yet but Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. Thank you. Next we have a presentation from Parents for a Healthy Hudson. >> Hi everyone. My name's My name's Christie Ashby and I'm joined with by Hannah Black and Susan Cabral. Um we are parents that have we're sort of voices tonight for the parents of Healthy Hudson. It's a
23. 27:16grassroots grassroots group that is very invested in getting the kids in Hudson outdoors more um having less reliance on technology, having more connection with the local growers of food and local food on their plates and learning how to understand uh nutrition as part of their their daily lives and also generally imple- what we want to see is implementing sustainable practices that the kids are first and foremost moving towards in the school district. We are predominantly parents that have children in the middle or in the elementary school and we intend to uh [clears throat] do most of our advocacy right now in the elementary school because right now that is where we need to see that we would like to see some
24. 28:18growth and development in terms of our outdoor learning spaces. And in to move this forward uh we prepared a survey of um of the teachers and the and some faculty at the elementary school and we surveyed 34 teachers. We opened the survey to all. We had 34 responses. This survey asked questions such as, "Do you think outdoor learning is helpful? What kind of things would you like to see for your classroom? What kind of tools do you need for a more outdoor learning opportunities? And what we found in these survey results, we put together a comprehensive report for the district, which we shared I believe with all of the board or definitely um President DePace and hopefully that got shared with you if I didn't already if we didn't already share it with you individually. The survey concluded that 100%
25. 29:24of the teachers supported more outdoor learning spaces and more outdoor learning opportunities in the elementary school. And almost half of the survey respondents wanted to be directly involved in the planning and implementing and carrying through of more outdoor learning opportunities. Features that were really um desired by the the people the respondents were picnic tables, seating areas, writing utensils, places to keep things to make the transition from the indoor classroom to the outdoor learning spaces more accessible and quicker because we all know that time is truly of the essence for these teachers. A lot of pressure is put on them to do a lot of different things and to juggle a lot of different competing interests and outdoor learning spaces. What were what we saw in our report is that teachers want the time and they want the ability to implement more outdoor
26. 30:28learning opportunities for their students. So, what we also did in the report was we synthesized some of the data so that we could present a um an idea for the school district to consider and the location that we uh, focused on was the north end of the original school building. And that is a long paddock place in between the two entrances to the building. So, the front entrance uh, parking lot and the back entrance bus area. And it's it's the area that's kind of shaded by the um, by the building shadows. That's the area that we designed out and we'll get to that to the design shortly. Here's the space in real life. Um, this is the part of the north end. Um, these are children that recently spent some time outside and uh, their teacher brought them out just to do some
27. 31:32some, I don't know, drawing or reading or writing, whatever it is they that the teachers may need to do. You can see on in the left photo, there's a classroom that's gathered at the existing picnic tables. Right now, there's two I believe it's two um, older blue picnic tables that facilities has brought out for the season and the kids use those on a regular regularly when their when their teacher is able to bring them out. Um, here is an idea of what we shared with the within the survey and these are these We shared photos in the survey and the ones that I'm going to show you now are the the sort of highest ranked photos. So, what we asked teachers is do you think this space is it would be usable and useful for your classroom? And they answered yes, no, or maybe and and I'm going to show you the photos that got the highest yes answers. This space was by far the highest. I
28. 32:36think it was about 93% of the respondents said yes. And this incorporates a lot of different elements, which you will see we incorporated in our proposal. Here's another space. You can see that there's seating areas along with shade areas, and then also importantly, there's space for growing. And these are spaces that also ranked very high, and they are predominantly that amphitheater style to give us inspiration on how we can create an actual classroom for the teachers to use so they can to they can do lectures or the kids can present to each other outside. We provided um shade maps to highlight when there is there will be shade in that area. The intention of our report is that we build that we get the school to to be interested in building out
29. 33:39a year-round usable space. So even in the colder months, even in the freezing cold winter, when the kids can be outside learning, they have a space that's ready for them to learn in. The other important aspect that we wanted to highlight is that we we want to um we want to make sure that it's easy to maintain. That's a key element for this. We don't want it to be a burden on the facilities. So I I will turn it over to Susan, and she'll continue the presentation. Thank you, and thank you so much for having us. Um so yeah, the next step after we kind of established the area and what people were interested in was we did some measurements, and I asked a couple of the first graders um the kid in the purple shirt is my son and his friend Boaz, both in Ms. Konigsberg's class, and they were so eager to help, which just shows how much
30. 34:41kids love being involved in outdoor spaces, especially in this planning phase. Like they're just so excited to help build something. So, I think we could have a lot of volunteer um resources as a result of something like that. Um these are This is a little bit more information just from the uh teachers about, you know, the specifications of what they needed for their particular classroom. Um I'm not necessarily going to read all of these just for the sake of time, but you can see them there, like ADA accessible ramps, uh water spigots, places to store stuff, etc. And then we combined all that information into [clears throat] a design. So, Piper Olfen and I got together, and she's here. Um this is the one that I drew, just kind of like a quick sketch of what the space could potentially look like, um utilizing an outdoor classroom, that's that square kind of in the middle, and then there's a little like 3D drawing of it down in the bottom so you can see what it looks like from the side. Um an area with protected um teaching space where potentially like
31. 35:46vines could grow over the top, where there's like slotted space for sun. I know a lot of our kiddos just spend so much time inside, so getting some vitamin D would be really helpful. Um some pathways with uh accessible picnic tables, growing garden garden beds, planter boxes, um and then also some storage containers. So, you see like at the very top of that square, all-weather low storage cabinets doubling as work surfaces, so that would help reduce the amount of time like going in and out of the classroom. Um so, just really taking all of that into consideration. And then on the next little rectangle, there's um a natural kind of native plant habitat that could be a little bit more wild rather than so much like manicured um landscaping. And then um a little bit more of like an amphitheater um seating arrangement where the stone blocks or whatever material they will be um could either be a seat if you're looking forward or you could turn it turn around and use the
32. 36:48one behind you as a table. >> [clears throat] >> Um so yeah, just thinking about everything that could happen in this space. And then also fencing all around so that um we have the safety as well. Okay. My next slide and these are Piper's beautiful 3D renderings to help bring it to life a little bit more. Um so you can see how that would look in a three-dimensional layout of the space. Okay, so these are the next steps that we recommend. Um immediately um to place benches and tables at the north end of um MC Smith, which is already happening. I I drove by on Earth Day and saw a lot of kids outside, which was really inspiring and exciting to know that we can do it. Um inform all the teachers that that that space is available for them to use and look into a scheduling tool cuz eventually I'd imagine as this gets more popular um making sure that classes can that they don't overlap. In 3 to 6 months, we want to begin to engage with an architect to design the
33. 37:51space more formally incorporating the survey features um and connecting with community partners and businesses for support. We've already been doing that and there's a lot of people who are really excited to support this project. Um you know, seeking out donations and and money and repairing anything, you know, that's been in disrepair. [clears throat] Um we've already reached out for some grant funding, so that's also in the works. In 6 to 12 months, we would like to uh secure the funding and then uh review our partnership with teachers and faculty and community volunteers. Um it's really important to us that we don't put all of the pressure on the teachers to maintain the garden cuz we know, you know, the problem with school gardens is that summer time um is a big growing season and teachers aren't going to be there. And so we want to create a a group of parents and families who can take a week and steward the garden, which will bring more families to connect with the school and and hopefully create more sense of community around it. Um and then 1 to 2 years, hopefully as soon as possible, we can build phase one of our outdoor classroom and garden,
34. 38:56um provide professional development and lesson plan support, um create a more formal scheduling system for the teachers, establish all our partnerships, and hopefully build on from there cuz there's a lot of beautiful sites on the ground at MC Smith that we could continue to expand this kind of education space. Um so I know that the school doesn't have very much money to do this. So we have been doing the work to seek out funding so that it wouldn't require any money from the school at all. Um Didi Barrett's uh representative reached out to us actually again today to follow up. So we're going to meet with him in the next couple of days to talk about the plan and where we're at. Um as well as Michelle Hinchey. They've uh been very interested. Uh Utopia Foundation is related spark. I think they'll give us money. Slow Food Hudson Valley is a big one that uh just did a big fundraiser this two weekends ago and they made an announcement saying that the funds were going to go to the Hudson Elementary School garden. Um so we got to we need to take advantage of that. Um
35. 39:58and then there's several other um organizations, Berkshire Taconic, um and I think some private donors who would be really excited to invest in this space. Um and I just I think I just wanted to add that I know, you know, I think this would be an amazing PR opportunity for the school, especially putting it in the location that we have. I know several people who or you know, Facebook is crazy and they they read this stuff and they aren't not sure if the school is the right school for them or they're going to pay for Red Hook to send their kids there even though they live in Hudson. I think that if we can create this kind of visual impact as people drive by that says Hudson cares about its kids and they want them to get outside and touch grass and be in nature and we're growing food and teaching them you know, how to be healthy and be in nature. I think that'll that could change create a wave of change. And my final thought that is I have no idea how to change the test scores or make kids better at reading or math, but I think that if we have a school that teaches our kids fundamentally from an
36. 40:59early age to care about their bodies and the earth around them, that's all that matters. And I just think that we need to get more progressive in that thinking and just, you know, really get kids to think about it. Thank you. So, to close the thought, if you're interested in learning more from us, from our group, um we are a very grassroots and growing group of people. We primarily communicate using WhatsApp and then we meet every Friday most every Friday. Uh in usually it's at the Roastery just because they have seating options. We're always open to different coffee shops. We drop the kids off and then we go meet for coffee on Friday between 8:00 and 9:00. And so, if any of you ever want to join, we would really welcome that. And also to the community members out there who might be interested in learning more about us, please join us uh in person or um you know, we can we are certainly open to
37. 42:03chatting um virtually as well. And we also really want to take this time to give a big thank you to Dr. Bailey and to uh principal Brenneman and to all of you and the faculty who are really listening and hearing what we're wanting and and believing that this can happen for Hudson. So, we're not going to stop. We're looking forward to helping however we can and we will we're here to answer any questions if you have any. I have a couple suggestions for you. Um Cornell Cooperative Extension [clears throat] and every other school district in Columbia County. Also in Catskill, we had a group called School Partners in Gardening. So, I would suggest you that you speak to Cornell to see if anybody's left over from that group. Um there was Pat Bianchi, Ichabod was involved, Germantown was involved. Uh Hawthorne Valley was involved. So, there might even be a mailing list of
38. 43:06people still left behind. Email list. We've spoken with Cornell Cooperative but not about that project. >> School Partners in Gardening. We'll look that up. But they they have offered a volunteer to >> Oh, for sure. You're going to find all sorts of people involved. Yeah. Uh but if you ask about that particular project you'll get school school people from all the different schools. I just want to say that it's that was an incredibly impressive um presentation. You guys have put a lot into it and it looks wonderful and um I'll support you in any way. Maybe show up at one of your meetings on Friday mornings. Yeah, so um appreciate all the work that you put into this and continue to put into it. Every time I've been fortunate enough to be in a room with this group of people, it feels like you're in the boardroom at Google. >> [laughter] >> There's just there's no boundary to the creativity to just get it done.
39. 44:10Uh and I was I was saying to one of the community partners when we finished a attendance meeting today at the elementary school, Hudson is really blessed with these organizations and community groups that generally care about the outcomes for the students in the district. And uh I've never experienced anything like that in a long career. So, I'm so happy for you. I might drive back down for the meetings >> [laughter] >> next year just so I can see how that follows through. Any other questions? No, I appreciate thinking through the financing cuz I think obviously we are in a in a tough moment. And so I was holding my breath a teeny bit and then was appreciative to see >> just have $500,000 to do that? >> [laughter] >> Um but no, I we I think one of my greatest skills is just talking to people and wherever I go, if you talk to me, I'll be talking about this. And I've because of that, I've met some people who get really excited about it and some of them have money and they want to support us and our schools. So, I don't think the money is going to be an issue
40. 45:11at all for us. We just need buy-in in like spiritual buy-in from the teachers and the administration. So, that's what we're hoping to get. Well, it sounds like >> will be a problem at all. You've So, you've met with Dr. Bailey, you've met with Dr. Brenneman. And have uh facilities been involved in any of the conversations? Yeah, yeah, we we actually are going to um meet with Tyler soon when he can catch his breath. Uh and then last week or 2 weeks ago, um we met with Questar and with Cheryl and we actually submitted a grant for to to fund the to part to fund part of this project, the gardening part of this project. And which is why we created sort of a a grand phase one, even though I don't think it's all that grand, but um but the phase one can be sort of like bifurcated into the different mini parts
41. 46:14of the project based on what the grant fund funds specifically, but we did submit a grant. It's a very very competitive grant, not sure if we'll get it, but it would be really amazing if we did. But we don't have to like sit and wait for that grant, because we when when you know, it we can't underestimate the I don't want to under sort of undervalue the amount of enthusiasm and the pocketbooks that are literally open where people are contacting us to give us money for this program. It's it's kind of shocking and I feel like it's a carpe diem kind of moment. We need to just like all hands on deck, get with the program, and just get it together in this in at least you know, bits of the first phase or all of the first phase and it's possible and I think right really the next conversation that we need to have is with Tyler and facilities. So, Kirsten, if if you're a part of that, you know, I would we would we can it would be great to have a more in-depth conversation about that as
42. 47:17well, because there are some remaining questions about the need for an architect and whether or not we can sort of reconfigure the thoughts around um what we want to to avoid architecture needs and to and to sort of have a more lower profile um non-infrastructure based um layout. So, any ideas are welcome and we are always available. We're a bit obsessed with this and anyone in the community who who also wants to join our obsession, you're welcome to. Well, great. Thank you. Um you know, I would just say that >> [clears throat] >> watching your presentation and the presentation by Trap Club, you know, for everybody out there who's worried about the opportunities for our students and what's going to happen as we look at our fiscal situation, like these are great ways to do it and it takes people like you to make it happen and, you know, join the
43. 48:19your club, join the booster club, join the PTO because these are organizations that can really have a huge impact on the experience of our students. Um so, thank you for uh being here and presenting and, you know, setting a good example. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. Okay. Um >> [clears throat] >> Next we have Dr. Adams uh from HYA to provide updates on our superintendent search. Good evening and thank you so very much for having me here. Uh first, um President DePace, thank you so very much. DePace, I always say that um that's the New Orleans in me. Um but uh thank you, President DePace and members of the board and Interim Superintendent Bailey. Uh thank you for this opportunity to be able to share with you the presentation that we have thus far. Um it has been an honor to work alongside you thus far uh in this process and it is a strong process only because of the strength and the support and the commitment that you
44. 49:22have for our students here in the city school the city, I'm sorry, the Hudson City School District. So, I just want to acknowledge that um you have been very supportive, you have been transparent, and it is evident in not only this process, but just in the communication that has been afforded to the applicants. And so, with that, I'm going to go ahead and start with our presentation. Tonight, we will talk about the progress of the search. We'll look at the leadership profile. We will talk about the community survey results, the interview protocol, and then the search timeline that is left in this process. Uh one of the things that is very important as we go through this, the detailed information has been provided, and it will be posted for the public. This presentation will hit the high-level points, and if there are any questions um toward the end, we can go ahead and you can ask those questions, and I'll be happy to respond.
45. 50:25So, the leadership profile that we completed was done based on the focus groups that we had, both in-person and virtual. And from the from the feedback from those in-person and virtual focus groups, we looked at stakeholder engagement, the highest priorities, high priorities, and then emerging priorities. For stakeholder engagement, we had eight individual board members that were interviewed. 14 focus groups were established, 12 focus groups were conducted. We had 83 participants in the focus groups, and 301 survey respondents. The highest priorities that came from those focus groups dealt with communication and transparency, rebuilding trust and morale, academic improvement, instructional focus, and accountability systems. The high priority items, leadership
46. 51:28visibility and engagement, organizational coherence and system alignment, staff retention and HR reform, school culture and climate. The emerging priorities were career readiness and post secondary pathways, equity and cultural responsiveness, fiscal transparency and resource alignment, and program coherence. The leadership characteristics that came forward, the essential traits, were a transparent communicator, visible and accessible leader, a trust builder with integrity, accountability driven, and student centered decision maker. The high priority traits, experienced leader, relationship builder and unifier, collaborative and inclusive, culturally responsive and consistent and
47. 52:33stable. The critical success traits, were instructionally knowledgeable, strategic and data driven, emotionally intelligent and resilient, courageous, willing to make difficult decisions, community embedded, preferably local or deeply engaged. What you see here are from all of the focus groups combined and looking at the different categories, you see how the priority areas were looked at through each of those lenses. The ones that are highlighted are the ones in which each focus group consistently stated that. So, for communication, it came up in every single focus group. Trust and morale, every single focus group spoke to that. Accountability, visibility, culture and climate, every single group brought up those particular priority areas. The
48. 53:39other areas, not that they weren't important, they may have had one or one group that did not mention it as often or emphasized it, but they are still important priority areas. From the community survey summary, you'll see that regarding the state of the district, the following statements were perceived to be district strengths. The letters in parentheses represent M is for management, C is for community engagement, TL teaching and learning, and you'll see VV, which means vision and values. So, the district strengths were related to facilities, engaging in diverse racial, cultural, and social economic groups, uh employing effective teachers, administrators, and support staff in the schools, teachers personalize instructional strategies to address individual
49. 54:42learning needs, and that the district schools are safe. The top related leadership profile characteristics that the constituents desire in a new superintendent are foster a positive, professional climate of mutual trust and respect among faculty, staff, and administrators. Establish a culture of high expectations for all students and personnel. Recruit, employ, and retain effective personnel through the district and its schools. Be visible throughout the district and actively engaged in community life. And be an effective manager of district's finances and operations. As we shift to the interview protocol, the processes that you have engaged in, and we'll move forward. Um the interview is basically an opportunity for the board to get to know the applicants more
50. 55:46than just what you see on paper. And when you are looking at, for example, the first round of interviews, which were conducted um Sunday, as a matter of fact. >> ago. Um you were able to go through a rigorous selection process, identify the candidates whose experiences most closely aligned with your priorities based on what you saw through their applications, letters of recommendations, um and their resumes. The key areas that were evaluated when we looked at the paper copies and the paper packets for each applicant, we looked for financial acumen and resource management, systems and operations, uh academic improvement strategies, leadership visibility and community engagement, equity and ethical leadership, staff culture and morale, and commitment and longevity. The second round of interviews, I need
51. 56:50to say I need to go back for a minute. In the first round of interviews, the board was able to review 29 applicants for this position. Of those 29, once those particular areas were evaluated, the board was able to identify nine applicants that closely aligned with what the expectations are for the district. As we move into the second round, this round will be a little more in-depth. Candidates will now engage in a stakeholder community interview, as well as a board presentation a night a narrative writing sample will be presented and the the candidate will also present information to the board based on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that they see within the board within the district and how they would address that.
52. 57:52The key benefits to your second round is it will enable you to have a deep dive into the evaluation of what this person would bring to the table. You will be able to look at the skill assessment. Are they an effective communicator? How would they present to the board? What do they bring in terms of analysis and persuasive skills? The issue of resolution, opportunities to discuss concerns that you may have from the first interview and then things that come up in the presentations. You'll be able to ask questions directly related to their presentation. And then the district relevant relevance. It allows the board to raise specific relevant topics and observe the candidates responses and that would be based on the questions that you have developed that you would ask to the applicant or the candidate. Finally, as a board listening to the candidate and the things that you would be listening for, deep thoughtfulness of their answers, relevance and insight of questions, level of engagement, what
53. 58:57they bring to the table in terms of being engaged in the community and the schools. The reaction when probed for specifics, composure, confidence and comfort, creativity in their previous positions and how their previous experiences would relate to being in the superintendent's position here, problem-solving abilities, the capacity to simplify complex issues, acknowledging team efforts, evidence of steady career progress, and ambitions expressed. >> [clears throat] >> When conducting the candidate interviews, but board members should also conduct themselves according to the following guidelines, being brief and attentive, ensuring a discreet environment, being open-minded, and ensuring that we are listening to all of the information prior to forming a decision, and strict confidentiality in that confidentiality is maintained in all matters relating to the selection
54. 1:00:02process per the state statutes. Our timeline May and June, we're looking at the approval of the leadership profile that was just shared, and the community survey results. Conducting round two interviews, the selection of the superintendent, negotiating the superintendent's contract, establish and confirm the start dates, in June, have the meet and greet with the community, board approves the selection, and then the candidate is hired July and August within that time frame. At this time, I will open the floor for questions. No, all sounds very familiar. Yeah. Is this the same process we used previously? >> [clears throat] >> Is this the same process that was used previously? Um not for not for our last uh search, but it's most similar to the one
55. 1:01:06that we did 4 years ago. Okay. See you. Any other questions? Thank you so very much, and that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Uh next we have our budget hearing. Um we'll do our budget review first and then open the budget hearing for public comment. Mark, we do have a sign-up sheet for the budget. Yeah, so after Dr. Bailey presents, anybody can speak similarly uh to public comment. And yeah, we'd just ask that you do sign up so that if there's any follow-up, uh we have your contact information. Good evening.
56. 1:02:17I feel like every time I have to start a little bit at the beginning. Primarily because we've had excellent news coverage. Pretty broadly, uh Times Union, the news stations, the Columbia County news sources. And I would argue that they are at least 90% accurate. And I think what happens sometimes they run out of print space and then they compile a whole bunch of stuff together. So, I just wanted to frame before we go through these slides to remind the board and the community how we are here right now. Because I I do need to clean up some of the last paragraph maybe slightly inaccurate commentary. And even most interestingly, a really good quality news source and it happens made a comment that wasn't quite accurate. And then all the rest of them referred to that news source subsequently over the last few weeks.
57. 1:03:19So, although it is true that the district moved to a data management system called WinCap more than 10 years ago, that is not the cause of how we are here. There was some things that didn't get done when it was onboarded and that's not uncommon. In other words, longevity or seniority may not have been loaded. It's so complicated. There's so many data points. Really what has brought us here is a culmination of a few things. One very important one, which is affecting every school and many businesses in the state, health insurance costs. The difference between 1 year and the next. Almost $1.3 million difference projected us going into next year. That is a tremendous amount of money in a budget of 58 and a half million dollars. Compound that by the district will have very fortunate $1.2 million grant that we've had for years
58. 1:04:20discontinue. It's just a grant that's ending. It's not anything that we did. This particular one is just a federal grant that's ending. That means the district has to make a choice between whether we maintain program that we've been paying through grant monies or do we say it's not sustainable. We have to do something different. The last thing I'll say is the district unquestionably has been faced with that for a long time. Before COVID money, but definitively around COVID money, where every district received millions of dollars, where they invested in human resource and technology resource and different resources. And when it ended districts had to choose, do we continue to do these things, to have these staff members, to run these programs? Hudson has continuously chosen to try and do that. So, a lot of these fabulous people that have worked for us, we've chosen to keep them. And the only flaw that I described is as
59. 1:05:24we were keeping them, we weren't necessarily accounting for them as a person, an individual, person A, person B, person C. What we were doing is we were saying, "Aha, this was our salaries for this year. Let's roll it over at a percentage and hope that that'll be okay." But, we all know that we you know, there's so many different bargaining units and there's so many other different factors that just over time it's created this gap where we are. The last piece is state aid, which remained relatively flat. It represents about 26 and 1/2 million dollars of our budget. And they're giving us just under 90,000 additional dollars this year. 90,000 on top of the 26 million is 0.03% As you would imagine, everything is going up more than 0.03%. Which brings me to this. Oh, and the last thing I'll say, the we've had so many
60. 1:06:26leadership turnovers in the last five, seven years, it is difficult to maintain continuity in practices and protocol. So, I I would say we definitely have to give grace to people who are here now. There isn't an individual here now I can turn and point to and said, "Aha, you did this." But, I think there are some people in our midst who are getting some unfortunately attention or heat because they think that they caused it. There isn't anybody here that caused, you know, this uh this deficit right now. On the menu, the challenges, um the reductions we've talked about before, and uh revenue and expenses and a little bit about tax levy and contingent budget. This is my analogy. And this is the reality of what happens when state aid stays flat. Last year our budget was almost 50/50 state aid and taxpayer dollars. There were some other expenses that were were
61. 1:07:30in there and you'll see that um when we uh Excuse me, other revenues that are in there and you'll see that when we get to that slide and you've seen them before. Um some uh incomes that we get. But essentially what taxpayers were paying and what the state was paying about 25 and a half or 26 and a half to 26.9 million each. When something happens like $1.3 million in healthcare increases, I'll call it 4%. I'm probably wildly inaccurate. But if the state doesn't move at all, that 4% becomes an 8% obligation for the taxpayers. That is why when we first started discussing the potentiality of a $63 million budget, that that with a gap of 5 and a half million dollars, there is no way for the taxpayers to cover that gap. That's why the board tasked us with reductions.
62. 1:08:34So, if the taxpayers were to try and absorb all of those expenses that we projected in the next year, the pie would start to look more like this. And we're talking much higher than 5.8% uh levy. You'd see higher percentages, which is not even a possibility for us. So, the whole purpose of all of these brave and difficult hard conversations that we've have about how to reduce our expenses is because of this. It's just not sustainable to ask taxpayers to pay such a large portion. And I included these because Christie and I had the opportunity to go and and speak last night at the Greenport Is that right? Gosh darn it. Yeah, Greenport. Sorry. The a lot of the names of the towns here are like if you just switch the front and the back and that's the name of the other town. It's very confusing for me sometimes. Uh the Greenport Fire Department. Um and what we wanted to do because we're going out to other places in the community is
63. 1:09:36try and explain this in a way that anyone who, you know, lives in a house or has a job would understand. When expenses go up, you have to figure out a way to generate revenue or you have to figure out a way to eliminate the expenses. And that's how we came up with the hard decision of trying to lower expenses by almost $4 million. And just another quick review. This is the fourth time I've explained this slide. But it is worth explaining one last time. So, a few things that are important about this slide. First of all, recognize that all of the salaries include people's benefits. That means there's social security the district contributes to and their health benefits. So, if you're doing the math on some of them, it might seem sensational in size, but benefits are a big part of that. For instance, a starting Someone who's starting as a teacher might be paid in the low to mid 50s, but if a family insurance plan is
64. 1:10:38$36,000 and we have to contribute to social security, they're close to $100,000. That's the level of investment we we make in our people. We did the best to preserve classrooms. In other words, a teacher standing in front of students in a classroom. What that meant is trying to work around the edges of that precious and sacred thing that we all know is very, very important. What it does mean is that some of those other things, ancillary services that benefit our students, have to make decisions and reduce some of them. And I will tell you that as we go into next year, there is no program being cut at this time. There's no proposal to cut any programs. We're going to deliver the same services, same programs that we've been delivering to our students. Class sizes will be a little larger in
65. 1:11:41the elementary school, but you saw them. I think the largest at the grade level was 22, and they're between 17 and 22. Still very reasonable. So, we did this very hard work by trying not to affect the teacher standing in front of the students. The other important thing to recognize is that, and you heard some people talk in hearings and petitions, there were vacant positions when we developed this budget. It was the first thing that we took out. If there was a job opening here that no one was sitting in, it did not go in next year's budget. We absolutely wanted to eliminate positions that would not affect a human being before we ever started looking at any of our colleagues and what we would do if they couldn't be here next year. And in this top box, I finally added a little bit more language, so it's clear to understand. So, one executive position was eliminated from central office.
66. 1:12:44One was also eliminated from technology. We took action on that as a board at the last meeting. It's just that the the one that's in technology is reflected in the program budget, not in the administrative budget. So, that's why that maybe has always been confusing to folks. And and you can see um the other areas that we were focusing on reductions. The numbers in the middle may seem a little disproportionate to the rest of the slides. Those two groups are our by far largest groups in the district. So, just one more glance at this. When we started July 1 of 2025, there were five what were essentially assistant superintendents or executive uh level positions. Going into next year, there are two. Okay? That alone, the board took action in the fall to eliminate one, and the elimination of the other two was just over $400,000.
67. 1:13:50And we talked about consolidation of the junior and senior high, which allowed us to consolidate leadership and other services, which was a savings of about $186,000. So, we're almost to $600,000 with just those areas. And I shared this summary before. We didn't talk about all the other nuances of where we found efficiencies, our partnerships with BOCES, our reduction of software charges or costs, um but we were able to come up with the nearly $4 million the board had asked for. Which brings us to the budget. So, here are the sources of revenue, which is where the money comes from to pay for Hudson City Schools. So, at the top we're going to see if I can find the pointer. Oh, there we go. So, we're going to start right here in the 26-27 proposed column. And we have our tax levy, which is an
68. 1:14:54increase at the cap of 5.8%. And you'll notice that our projected state aid stays roughly flat, so there's not much of an increase in that space. The other items listed for sources of revenue are local sources, our utility tax reimbursement and miscellaneous items, also potential rents, tuition, or payments in lieu of taxes. And we also have utilized as a source of revenue our savings. So, you'll see there's 1.8 million dollars of our assigned fund balance, and that is money that is taken directly out of our savings um to balance this budget as a source of revenue. And in addition, half a million for our planned use of reserve, and our reserves are also a um re- resource or a source of revenue that is a savings with specific designations to be used for.
69. 1:15:59And totaling, this brings us to the $59 million budget for all of our um revenue sources. For the summary, you can see that our local tax levy does produce the majority of the revenue source here for our summary, followed by our state aid, CTA, and federal aid. And our local sources, use of our reserves, and our savings gener- is part of that as well. So, when looking at our three-part budget, the budget is broken up into three categories, administrative or the planning and
70. 1:17:01orchestration of the of all of the programs here in the district. The program is actually the part of our budget that looks at instructional costs of our student-related funding, and capital is our operations, facilities, debt service. And there's been a slight adjustment here from year to year in comparison from 25-26 to 26-27 budget in the administrative. But, the majority of our funding still is going towards our program. Our tax levy history, so you can see from previous years, um there are the allowable levy amounts, and then the actual tax levy increases that have happened over the course of several years. Um just recently we have gone um and asked for the tax cap.
71. 1:18:06Um but pre- previously there's been a significant um difference between the allowable levy and the amount of the increase for those years. And this has been compounded in in terms of the sources of the source of revenue over the past several 5 years. So, the estimated tax impact for each of the towns in the Hudson City School District is listed here. These numbers are from um last week Um um in terms of annual tax potential. And the rates have been um just placed here in terms of a $200,000 home value. And we've talked about that before. So, if you're looking at the town of Greenport, knowing that it's about an annual difference of $100, if your home was valued at $400,000, you would double that in order to get
72. 1:19:08the annual difference. I'm going to go back in for a quick second. Imagine that you were going to get a 2% raise next year, and you instead opted to take a 0% raise. You recognize that 2 years from now, you'd be starting from zero. You'd have the same salary. You wouldn't have that 2% increased salary. And subsequently, every year after that, you would be basing it on that zero that happened in '26, '27. When schools do that, it's the same thing. The tax cap calculation is based on your prior year's tax levy revenue. So, each time And there are lots of reasons why districts do this, by the way. There are good years and bad. There are years where things are great. There's For some reason there's a a drop in expenses. Something else happens in
73. 1:20:10the community to help. But um when the district goes out at less than the tax cap, it has a compounding effect over subsequent years. Just a quick reminder about the contingency budget. Uh the If by chance the budget is not voted successfully on the 19th, that's 50% plus one voter, the board could choose to go out with the exact same budget again. I think it's almost exactly a month after that. Or the board could choose to go out with a budget that's adjusted in some way. Or the board at that moment could say, "We're just going to do a contingency budget." The other alternative if voted down, well, no, sorry. You can vote it down, revote on the 19th or go to contingency after either one of those votes. So, what New York State expects of districts on a contingency budget is to focus basically on buildings, property, and
74. 1:21:12the health and safety of students. Trying to maintain program to the greatest extent possible. And we've looked at this list before. The one thing I added because you asked some great questions last time, what would it mean for extracurriculars, what would it mean for building usage? Any type of building usage that causes an expense. And I in reflecting, I thought about the pool. The pool is an excellent example. We have lifeguards, that's an expense. We have an aquatics director, required by New York State. We have people who test the pool water. We pay for chlorine. We pay for, name a thing. Uh and our fields, our cafeterias, and our gyms, anything that would incur an expense means that we would not be allowed to do it. So, some areas and some ways our buildings would be shut down to the public if we were to be in a contingency budget. Equipment purchases are right out. That doesn't just mean lawn mowers, that also means technology. That's important to note. And we talked about projects before. We would need to potentially reduce the budget by another $902,000.
75. 1:22:18We recognize the hurt to reduce what we had to do now. We would have to potentially reduce by another $902. The board could choose to take more out of reserves or out of our unassigned fund balance, but we showed the projections in the last meeting that if even we continued at this rate in 3 years there would be none. So, it's not advisable. We know we're trying to be sensible. We made reductions and we monitored how much we were using unassigned and reserves. Athletics and extracurriculars have been preserved in this budget proposal. We know that that's the reason some of our kids even come to school. So, we preserve that. But, they are unquestionably when you see there's only been a handful of schools in the area that have gone to a contingency budget in the last 5 years, but the things that they go after are things on these lists because it's the only way to protect the teacher in front of the
76. 1:23:20students in a classroom. And, of course this 57 million contingency budget would be our baseline for the following year's budget. So, we would be starting at even a greater We'd be starting $900,000 less in trying to establish a tax levy going into the subsequent year. So, you can see at the top the tax levy would be the exact same number as the prior year and $57.5 million. Basically, a million dollars less than this year's budget. A negative 1.71%. Do you have any questions about the budget? Um I think on slide 11 you said local local resources. What does that mean? Um local sources? So, we receive funding from our utility tax. So, that's money that we've
77. 1:24:22received from local sources. Tuition is another local something we can consider a local source, which is when a student will come here from another school district and then they are charged tuition to attend here and then the other district pays us for that. And so, we also have payments in lieu of taxes, which is another local something else we consider a local source. Thank you. I have one more question. Um looking at this plan, we're we're going to continue to use reserve and possibly next year use reserves again to meet our balance. Is there going to be like a long-term plan to set up to slowly balance back? Cuz I know prices aren't going to go down. >> [laughter] >> So, Yeah, so ideally at the end of the year budget year, you should be replenishing your reserves, absolutely. So, when there's an excess, your budget should have space in it to replenish your reserves and a plan on how to do that. So, that is exactly what is
78. 1:25:24expected if there's money left at the end of the year and you don't spend every every dollar. Thank you. I think one of the things, Brian, right, that you mentioned before was like a recommendation of starting next year with a freeze on expenses, right? Like really being just incredibly tight with everything moving forward proactively so that anywhere where there's like the littlest money saves, we can kind of like start to in a multi-year process build that back. What I was going to add is the way that you yield a savings at the end of the year is let's say you you had budgeted $20,000 for field trips, you only used 15. You were able to consolidate a bus run in February that you discovered you didn't need, then you've saved $40,000. You um discovered that uh you had a student that was an out of district special education placement that came back in district. That saved us $50,000. Those things are things that can go into either unassigned fund balance or the
79. 1:26:26board can move them into purposeful reserves. And I said so Lebon and I were kind of rehearsing before we had the meeting tonight because the last thing I was going to say and she projected it very, very wisely is next year will continue to be a tough year. This isn't we did it. We accomplished the task. What we did is we accomplished this year and we trimmed the edges and we did the work the hard work and we're going to be able to deliver on a promise that we've had with the children of the district. The things to hope for is that the state moves and gives us genuine increase in state aid. And we'll have to hope for other sources of revenue. We could have more tuition students come in. We talked about that last time. We have a very rich special education program. There's a possibility that we could have more students come into district and provide tuitions for us.
80. 1:27:29So there are ways to generate revenue. We could continue where also we're going to continue to look for efficiencies in our transportation. This year alone we we before we're going into next year, we discovered that $900,000 of savings by just going to K-12 bussing. So those are the types of things that are going to help us close the margin next year when we're faced with some of these same challenges. Any other questions? Um as two a few things to point out. Um we we should recognize that that transportation savings are great, um but that does also impact jobs uh for other people in our community. So, um just want to acknowledge that that along with all the other people that um are feeling pain and hurt that those people are included and they're not included in those numbers on the sheet um where we saw the the cuts to the staff that are
81. 1:28:31already here. Um the other thing um Uh I've also heard heard talk where you know, I think they're people are thinking that the cuts have um specifically targeted the elementary school. Um and that some of those classroom teachers are from the elementary school, but everybody else uh that's being cut there is just a by factor of the way that the union agreements are written and the seniority of their positions. Thank you for reminding me of that. I someone had asked the hard question. What will you do now that these reductions have happened? How will you deliver the program that you said you would do? And I think my answer at the time is everything goes into the center of the table. And you take what you need. Not what you already have. And Mark is exactly right. There were a great many of staff members who were
82. 1:29:33spoken to who are currently placed at the elementary school. This is not an elementary school reduction. This is a district reduction. And those services they were providing will be distributed, have to be distributed amongst every building. So, it it is a good point. I mean, it um it was a an unfortunate the way things were just because of seniority in a lot of the areas of the folks that we talked to. Um and then just the is the utility tax the same thing as the propane tax? >> Yes. Sorry. Yes. Yes. Okay. >> Thank you. And And how do we have Do we have any control over those numbers or No. Okay. No, that comes in based on what is spent and what we receive back. Got you. But that is our our projection was increased this year because looking at the previous years and what we actually received. And so, we were able to
83. 1:30:35increase that comfortably. Felt like that would be a good number that we would definitely be receiving that next year. Similarly, if you look at reimbursements and miscellaneous by looking at the accurate number from this year, you see it was adjusted down to 880. So, it works in both directions, unfortunately. We want it to be accurate to what is real, not to just rolling over from year to year thinking that that's, you know, where we might be. Any other questions, comments from the board? It's good. Um I'll thank you for those updates and the presentation. I make a motion to open Oh. I don't know if I have to mention I was just going to mention about the board board members and one or two >> Oh, yeah. Go for it. Sorry, there are three board members up for election for two seats on the board. And you see their names up there. Uh, Mike, who is an incumbent, he joined in the middle of a term. So, this is a little unusual, but during this election
84. 1:31:39process, the first highest vote getter of the two winners will immediately be appointed for a May 20th start. And then, and after June 30, they will serve their 3 years. So, that's a little unusual, but I just wanted to explain that. We tried to explain that on the ballot and Liz and I went back and forth 30 times. I'm I'm "If I didn't know what that was, I wouldn't know what that meant. So, we hope we're close on the ballot to help people understand what that is. But, three people running for two seats. And this was just a quick summary that the vote is on Tuesday, May 19th from 11:00 to 8:00 in our three precincts there. And Christine and I were fortunate, as I said, to go to Greenport last night and present to the fire people there. We are going to be at the Hudson Library presenting to the seniors for their luncheon at 11:15 on the 8th of May. The Meet the Candidates Night is at 6:00 p.m. on May 16th here in the auditorium sponsored by the student government.
85. 1:32:43>> or May 13th? May 13th cuz wait, wait for it. May 13th. Thank you. May 16th is a Friday. No. >> Saturday. It's not the day that it is. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I Thank you, Mike. Thank you. What time? Wednesday, May 13th at 6:00 p.m. And we'll be at Livingston Town Hall next Thursday. 7:00 p.m. Whatever the date is. I'm afraid to commit. I'm going to say it's the 14th. Yes. We're going to be at Livingston Town Hall presenting uh on uh May 14th at 7:00 p.m. And we will encapsulate a recording of this presentation and put it on the homepage of our website in addition to our budget page. So, anybody who has a question about what does all of this mean, they'll be able to watch the video of this presentation. Thank you. Um and also wanted to just mention for the vote, we are
86. 1:33:46uh going to be putting an exit poll out as well about the renovation of the tennis courts um and gauging community interest in uh pickleball in addition to tennis. So, you'll see that as well. Um and make a motion to open uh the budget hearing for public comment and discussion at 7:31 p.m. Second. All in favor? Um announcements? Anybody like to make a comment? Now is a opportunity. There'll also be uh public forum later on for other items. Good evening, everybody. Um I think Dr. Bailey did a great job highlighting our situation um in regards to state aid. And I want to reiterate, I
87. 1:34:51know Shannon Sullivan has come up several times to discuss this as well. But I want to reiterate that um especially to the public, it's exceptionally unfair that school districts have to and are expected to create a budget and put forth a budget to the voters when our state hasn't even passed a budget of their own yet. So, I would very much encourage any member of the public um our union has been up knocking on doors in Albany. NYSUT has been up knocking on doors in Albany. Please encourage your representatives to fully fund state aid, and please please advocate for our students. And ask them why they can't pass a budget yet, and we are still expected to make these hard choices for our students. Um we're doing the work. Please please please go to your legislators and ask them to do the work, too. Thank you. And thank you for Thank you for adding that to the many things that you do after school hours. Any other comments?
88. 1:36:02Um I was just going to say that uh with the cuts to aids, we spent like a week in the cafeteria doing a composting demo and I just hope that we can like rely on parents. Like other schools do it. I think there could be an opportunity to get more parents into the school and connected into the community. Um I think kids behave better when they're there's other parents around. Um so I think that's one way to kind of solve some of the chaos in the cafeteria cuz you need adults in the room. Um so just relying on parents, we're here for that. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, thank you for the comments. Uh so make a motion to close the budget hearing at 7:34 p.m. Second. All in favor? Um at this time we do have the need for a very brief early executive session uh for the purposes of discussing the employment history of a particular person or persons. Uh make a motion to enter executive session at 7:34 p.m.
89. 1:37:08Second. All in favor? All right, we will be back very very quickly. >> Mhm.
90. 1:41:39>> Mhm. >> That's what I was talking about earlier.
91. 1:43:17Uh, make a motion to exit executive session at 7:40 p.m. Second. All in favor? Thank you all for your patience. Uh, personnel agenda. Um, make a motion to accept personnel agenda items B1. Second. All in favor? Uh we have our first public forum. Leslie, did anybody sign up? Our superintendent's report. We uh we just wrapped up 3-8 testing for ELA and math last week. They weren't all in the same week, but we've done that in the last few weeks. And of course, there were some glitches statewide, but it was finally ironed out as it needed to be. They uh science test will be coming up shortly. And of course, we know Regents testing at the end of June.
92. 1:44:22We had a a chance >> you? I think it was science and ELA that happened and math is still coming up. Just want to make sure. Oh. This is a >> [laughter] >> Junior high has not done science. We did science. Junior high did math. We haven't done that. Elementary's, yeah. That's what it is. Okay. Junior high is doing math Thursday and Friday. Everything else else I said except for the other date was true. >> [laughter] >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I will be sending a letter home to all families again this week. I sent one in September, which talked about families please speaking to their children about using the word gun in conversation, in anger, name a thing. We've had a few instances all the way down to pre-K where students have used that word, and we know the power of that word in our school setting. So, I will be sending a general communication urging everyone to
93. 1:45:24please just sit down with your child and have the conversation and never use threats, never use weapons, never use the word gun because it it cause a cascading effect on everyone around them. And it's unfortunate we have to do that. Something about spring always has a change effect in in the process of children. But hopefully they settle down a little bit. We had an attendance task force committee meeting at the elementary school led by principal Brenneman. And great community partners there as well as building leaders and other staff. Basically a summary of the work that each of the buildings has been doing all year to try and increase student attendance at school. It is the number one indicator of success if a child is in the seat in the classroom ready to learn. And we've shown some growth this year in our buildings.
94. 1:46:25What what we spent the most of the time today was really brainstorming on how do we get the word out that attendance is important. That families feel as though they're partners in this work. And that it is just essential. And we had talked about kickoffs for the beginning of the year. We talked about ongoing things like open houses and different kinds of partnerships. But you will see as we begin next year and throughout next year ideally the fruit of some of the ideas that people came up with today. And just really each rotation of the dial if it just moves attendance 1%. We're talking potentially about hundreds of days of school. That's a huge huge positive for us. It's not just something the state holds us accountable for. Obviously it has a great effect on children's learning. So it was it was neat and I really give a lot of credit. I I talked about our community partnerships here. The people who have shown up just have a conversation about getting our kids into
95. 1:47:28school is just amazing here. Our budget newsletter is ready to go to press. And if everything goes as planned, should be in the mail because the budget hearing is the trigger that allows us to send out the budget newsletter. But it is a four-pager. Um and has couple brief articles. It has the uh three-part budget that we're required to put out there. It has information where to go on our website to see the candidates. But uh ideally it will get into homes uh over the weekend and the beginning of next week. We The uh the problem with all budget newsletters in every school is that it's bulk mail. And um we must have some hand carry mail carriers here, too. But for all mail carriers, every morning they have the mail that has a stamp on it that's going to a specific address. And every morning, they have piles of other things that are supposed to go in people's mailboxes. Sometimes those other things don't get priority cuz you can only carry so much stuff. So, we're
96. 1:48:32hoping to uh lean on the goodwill of our postal carriers and we get it into homes in a timely manner. The good thing is we're looking at 2 weeks before um the actual vote. And that's all I have. Thank you very much. Um brings us to our consent agenda. Um make a motion to approve consent agenda items A through H. Second. All in favor? Um I just wanted to point out this includes the uh application for the adoption of a small animal science and care course, which is very exciting uh addition to our curriculum. Um superintendent search, we heard from uh from Dr. Adams. Um and the only thing to add is that the uh invitations for um interview committee members have been
97. 1:49:35extended. Um should be finalized this week. Um the goal for this interview committee was to include representatives from uh all of the major bargaining units within our district, um staff and faculty, and as uh students and as wide of uh um swath of our community as possible. Uh it'll end up being around 14 or 15 people. Um and we uh do need to formally adopt the uh survey report and leadership profile. Um so I make a motion to approve the HYA superintendent survey report. Second. All in favor? And I make a motion to uh approve the HYA superintendent leadership profile. Second. All in favor? Um brings us to public forum. And board discussion. Anybody have
98. 1:50:41anything else I'd like to add or discuss? Book festival was a big success. >> Oh, nice. >> Yeah. It was um a lot of fun, good attendance. Very cool. Yeah, just shout out to all the teachers and all the work that goes into those author visits and everything as well. I know that happens sort of outside of official school. But the author visits that come into the school are really really incredible. Um my daughter has declared it the best day of the year. Oh, wow. You know, birthdays, Christmas comes second to Folk Festival [laughter] Day. Awesome. Um, I had a my son attended the um junior high dance. I had a chance to go early and blow up some balloons and you know, it was great to see uh teachers there helping and um getting it all set up and making it look amazing um as well as the uh members of the junior high school PTO. And I know I
99. 1:51:43said it earlier, but you know, these organizations are really, really important and I know specifically the junior high school PTO is looking for as much help as it can get. So, um hopefully uh next school year there can be more folks that are interested in uh showing up and helping out. Um, okay, important meeting dates. Uh, Wednesday, May 6th, uh we are not having this executive session only. Um, that was just uh in case we didn't get through everything we needed to get through on Sunday. So, there's no meeting tomorrow, May 6th. Uh, Tuesday, May 12th is policy committee meeting from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. in the high school library. Monday, May 18th is facility committee's meeting at 5:00 p.m. in the district office conference room. Tuesday, May 19th, 2026 is the budget vote and board member election, 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Please go out and vote. Uh, followed by a board meeting uh
100. 1:52:46which will be uh either 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. in the high school auditorium. Uh, Tuesday, May 26th um is going to be uh a board meeting where we will uh have our semi-finalist interviews for superintendent. Um, so, while it is a public board meeting, Executive session is the only item that will be on the agenda. Uh and May 27th is being held as well in case we need an additional date. May 26th? What time? Did I say that right? You're good. Okay. I'm just question. So, is May May 26th at 5:30? Uh we'll we will probably have a later call time um because there will be some of the uh inner review committee earlier, but yeah, we'll get those details ironed out and make sure it's posted properly. >> was that on the 27th? That's just a standby date in case yeah, there's any any need to reschedule anything. Um
101. 1:53:53Uh at this time we have a need for a second executive session for the purposes of discussing uh the proposed acquisition, sale, or lease of real property and the employment history of a particular persons or person or persons. Um and to we will appoint Mark DePace as clerk pro tem. Second. Uh all in favor? Um thank you all for being here. There will be no further business after executive session. Um and again, please go out and vote in 2 weeks. Thank you. Have a nice day. You too. Bye.

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