School Board, Regular Meeting

1. 0:00City of Hudson, New York public meeting. I'd like to call the meeting into order and ask everybody to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Leslie, roll call, please. Mark DePace. Here. [Unidentified Person]. Here. Diana Howard. Matthew Mackerer. Here. Maureen Sheridan. Lou Zab. And Mike Zavella. Here. I'd like to make a motion to accept the agenda as presented.
2. 7:20Second. All in favor? We have no student board member until the school year starts and brings us to our presentations. Cheryl is up. Good evening, everyone. Just make sure everyone can hear me. So tonight I'm going to speak to you about an update for the smart schools and also the investment plan, the cybersecurity grant. And when I speak to you, it's going to be from really a 10,000-foot view. You've heard me speak before to you about different things with the smart schools and the cybersecurity grants.
3. 7:56So that would be the reference for information, but this will give you a place where we are right now. So the first piece is we're very excited because we were notified that we have received the smart schools. So it's been a lot of work for a lot of people, and it's a long time coming, so we're very happy about that. And to remind everyone, this will help the district with access points and security cameras and a phone system and a PA system and cabling, which is much needed.
4. 8:30When we applied, we applied for $1,719,000, and $4 kind of, and some cents, but that's the main amount that we applied for. Now, you may remember that our allotment was $1,771,000. We didn't go all the way because when we applied a year and a half ago, we knew for pricing that prices would increase for labor, for parts and things like that. So we're very excited that we got awarded that amount, and we still have an allocation left. So what we've done so far is we conducted a smart schools meeting
5. 9:08with the vendors. We had them come in. We spoke to them. They are now giving us updated price quotes, and then we plan on coming back to the board so that we can submit an amendment. So we don't have to go through the whole process, but we do have to submit an amendment to State Ed to access the $52,000. So once we know what the quotes are, what the actual price is, we'll come back to you. If we need to make some cuts because maybe the money is over the $52,000,
6. 9:39then the district will talk and, you know, the team will talk and see where we have to decrease it. Our next meeting with the team is on August 20th, so we're excited about that. And then once everything is approved and we've approved with you and approved with State Ed for the amendment, then the business office gets involved. Because there are submissions through the business office so the district can be reimbursed. So that's really the whole final process. And we're working with Tyler and we'll be scheduling so that when this work is done
7. 10:12it's not going to be done during the school day, it'll be done after school and evenings and so forth, not to impact instruction. So that's what we're looking to do. And we'll have a clearer timeline as to when the actual work will start once everything gets approved and then I can come back and speak with you. Another thing we're very excited about, getting great news all month, is the district applied last year for a cyber security grant. Now you may recall that we do a lot of work with our staff and we're starting to do work
8. 10:45with our students for cyber security around phishing and different scams that are going on and we have Cyber Nut and in the fall we'll have Cyber IQ and those are the programs that help our staff and students learn more about cyber security. So this was a grant that was offered by the governor's office and it was from Homeland Security and if we secured the grant it would give us, it's called a token, so every staff member would get access to this token. We don't have it yet so I can't really show it to you but it will be helping us with multi
9. 11:24factor authentication. And we're very excited about that and we're getting 450 of them and it's worth $35,000. So another good thing for the district and to help us strengthen our network security. And these are just some resources at your leisure or the community's leisure if they wanted to look more in depth. It's our smart schools, the whole process on our website, the plan, all the information from state ed and also the cyber security grant and the resources. So that's what those links are. Okay. Now we're going to go into the school improvement plan and Mr. Hilduroff and I will speak about
10. 12:02this together and again it's another 10,000 foot view. I'll turn it to him first. Thanks Cheryl. So just a little kind of foundational information, Cheryl's going to speak kind of overview of what we refer to as the set plans but just to kind of set the foundation, New York State accountability system identifies schools for a host of different factors. So for Hudson, there are two identifications, one at the elementary school and one at the junior high school for concerns about our data. So what that means is we get identified as a targeted school in need of improvement or
11. 12:36TSI and then it also triggers the creation of a district comprehensive improvement plan which was previously done in the spring and submitted to the state and approved. And then at the building level, you have to create a school comprehensive education plan or the SEP, so educational alphabet soup, all the different acronyms. So the SEP plans or the building level plans for the elementary school and the junior high are on the agenda tonight for the board to approve. The work that goes into them is done throughout the year.
12. 13:09That's really at the at the building level and certainly throughout the year, we can have other members of the administrative team come and share that work and give updates on it. And again, tonight, Cheryl's going to kind of give the big overview from a 30,000 foot view. I like 30,000. More than 10. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So at the top, just so that everyone sees that, those are just more resources. I like to provide resources. And it's really about the accountability, what our district's comprehensive plan is.
13. 13:39So those are all the links for more information. Okay. So the school comprehensive education plans, as indicated, we have two of them, right? One is junior high. One is the elementary. Okay. It was definitely a collaborative design. And it's important. We want to thank a few people because it was Dr. Bailey, Dr. Pampel, Ms. Ferry, Ms. Sabatino was involved working with teachers, Mr. Brenneman, Ms. Hanley, Mr. Bayer, Mrs. Patch, Mr. Reardon, Mr. Campbell, and also the design team, which consisted of teachers. And there was also a community component as well, where they sent out surveys to the staff
14. 14:21as well as the community at large and families. So a lot of information went into this. Again, very collaborative. And what has been done so far is, this has been a busy month. And Mr. Hilgenoff and I, we met with the building leaders and we went over their plans. So they gave us like a base of where they are. And this plan, when written, was written last year. And things may have been a little different. So you may see things in the plan, I'll just give an example, like Achieve 3000, and we
15. 14:53don't have that program anymore. So at the time when they were writing it, they were writing it for what we had, what positions we had, what things we had. But as Mr. Hilgenoff said, as we go through the year, the principals will be able to update you on where we are exactly. So when you see things and you're reading the plan, you go, we don't have that anymore. Just know that that was a snapshot in time. The plan, the core structure of both plans, they have a shared vision.
16. 15:21There's key strategies when you read through it. And it talks about school-wide instruction, what each building is going to do to help improve the instruction. And then resource allocation. So the district is given money through the district comprehensive plan. And the buildings decided to use the monies that will be coming in, and that may change slightly, but for planning and collaboration. Dedicated time with their teachers, with the department heads, with the grade level meetings. And professional development, which would be targeted on specific aspects of what they're
17. 15:54looking to do in the plan. And then also funding for curriculum writing for staff. So it's a really, again, comprehensive program. It gives you an idea. And then when they come back, they'll be able to update you. So we just wanted to give you an overview, give you a lot of resources, give you the plans to digest. And then, you know, you can ask any questions that we might be able to answer for you. And as we go through, you know, our role, and I also neglected to say Ms. James Hughes
18. 16:24was in the meetings as well with the principal leaders. Our role, three of us, and the new business official when she comes, is really to help and support the principals in the buildings and monitor it. So we're looking forward to doing that as well. As always, acknowledgments, you know, from everything you saw, again, comprehensive process, whether it was the technology, smart schools, the cyber plan, or the SEP, different people, takes a village, why that word, but it does, really were involved in it. So that's, I just want to thank everyone for all their support.
19. 17:00And without further ado, I don't know if you guys have any questions for us. Has anything changed with the combination of junior, senior high, as opposed to last year was separate, where now Mr. Reardon is overseeing? So just to clarify, do you mean like the accountability piece, or? The whole process. So it's too soon in the process to say, because it's just starting, you know, when they submitted it, it was still when the high school was the high school and the junior high was the junior high.
20. 17:32Correct. You know, but as we go through the year, things will, could most likely change. For example, the principal who's the principal now wasn't the principal of both buildings then. So as they're working together, they may come up with additional ideas, but everybody will be working together. So there's going to be a big collaboration? Yes, definitely. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I guess I'm curious. I think there are, like you mentioned, there are things that have changed since last spring when this was worked on.
21. 17:56So I would be curious to like, see kind of an updated version with more, you know, I think in particular, like looking through the junior high one with the shifts that have happened, I think. I'd be curious to see like some additional stuff layered on, and then as the principals come. And I know that that is all like, the work that is actively happening right now. Yes. So I'm just curious. Okay. Thank you. It is not met since our last meeting, but on the consent agenda tonight are the reports that were presented by the internal auditor at our last meeting.
22. 20:01Thank you. The corrective action plans? Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry, yeah, the corrective action plans for those reports. Thank you. Yeah, perfect. Facilities? Yeah, we have not met. Our next meeting is going to be on 8-24, but a few notes that we do have. Summer deep cleans are moving along. The boilers in the high school are on site, and they're being ready to be installed. We're going to be talking about the greenhouse. The contract is on the agenda for tonight. M.C. Smith, the roof is set to start removal this week.
23. 20:50The modular buildings are set to be removed this month. Those are the two out in the field and over by the Fireman's Home property. And that's all I have as of right now. Thank you. Policy? Policy committee has not met, but the work on code of conduct has continued. We are working on the polished, color-coded, fancy version of the code of conduct, as well as a simpler student one-pager to be ready for the first day of school. And then the code of conduct subcommittee is going to meet next week.
24. 21:26I can't do the math in my head. 17th. Yeah, 17th, to be able to just talk about implementation, kind of share that process, think about next steps, hear the updates that have happened through the summer. And then we are going to kick our first policy committee meeting of this school year into September so that we can really make sure that the policy that we are doing is driving towards actually being implemented in our school buildings. Thank you. And sorry, Matt, I skipped finance. Finance has not met and is in the process of scheduling a meeting in the coming weeks.
25. 21:58Awesome. And board president's report, we have a few board members on vacation this week and have a board member who resigned, Maureen Sheridan, submitted her resignation. We plan to talk through the process of replacing her seat, refilling her seat later on in the agenda. Did a very fun disc training with Todd and the rest of the administrative staff and have another board retreat scheduled for 826. Do you want to explain a little, maybe it's in yours, like what that training was? Yes. Yeah, I didn't want to steal his thunder.
26. 22:47This time we have need for an early executive session. I make a motion to enter executive session at 6.16 p.m. for the purposes of discussing the employment history of a particular person or persons. Second. All in favor? We will be back as quickly as possible. Thank you. City of Hudson, New York public meeting. Yeah. Make a motion to exit executive session at 627 p.m. Second. All in favor. Thank you all for your patience. Brings us to our personnel agenda. Make a motion to approve personnel agenda items A1 through 11 and B1 through 9.
27. 34:18Second. All in favor. And now we have new staff to welcome. Great. Thank you. So I'd like to welcome Jules Picuri who is here with us tonight. Welcome to Hudson. So Jules is excited to start her New York teaching career at Hudson High School. She studied at Hobart and William Smith Colleges for her undergraduate degree with a double major in chemistry and African studies. She then moved to Kentucky to earn her Masters of Arts in Education from the University of Louisville while teaching chemistry at Atherton High School.
28. 34:52She moved back to New York to be closer to her family after six years and is happy to be back in the Hudson Valley region. In her free time she likes to garden and grow plants. I will agree with you on that. As well as walk her and her girlfriend's three dogs. So I want to welcome her to Hudson and also thanks for coming out tonight and allowing us to welcome you. Welcome. All right. Todd your superintendent report. All right. So the items I'm going to share most have been mentioned already from others but I'll give a little bit more context to some of them.
29. 35:30So on the facility side summer is always a very busy time and things happen in schools that people don't necessarily see. Just getting things ready for the school year and there's always different improvements that happen over the summer. So I just want to mention a couple of them. One is at the elementary school in the kitchen Tyler and his crew did a lot of work to repurpose what was an old refrigerator area. And there is now a new walk in freezer and fridge. If you talk to Lisa who is our food service manager you'd never think you'd see somebody get so excited about a refrigerator.
30. 36:02But she is because it really allows them to do better things in the kitchen. Just how it's organized and a better use of space. So that's been a great addition there. Part of the energy performance contract work that is going on. Some of that work has been completed over the summer especially in this building the junior and senior high with replacing lighting with more energy efficient lighting. And then another piece of the EPC energy performance contract is actually what Mike mentioned. The boiler room was completely kind of gutted everything taken out of it a couple of weeks ago.
31. 36:36And the new boilers were delivered last week and they are in the process of installing them. So exciting stuff that people don't necessarily see but good things for our school district. Also on the facility side I want to mention that on July 29th when we got that crazy storm with torrential downpours and there was flooding in the area. We actually did have some flooding particularly in this building around our courtyards. Many of the hallways around them are tile flooring. So Tyler's crew was able to kind of soak water up and push water out and did a great job.
32. 37:10Unfortunately one area that does not have tile flooring around a courtyard is central office. So there was a decent amount of water that got into central office. Central office has some older carpeting. So again they've done a tremendous amount of work and a great job of trying to clean that up and get that out. But we are also in the process of filing an insurance claim to see what we can do to most likely remove a lot of that carpeting and replace it with tile. Really just want to give a tremendous shout out to Tyler and his crew.
33. 37:40On that day I got a phone call driving in and he's like I think we need to close. And at my house it was like sprinkling and I'm like why what's going on? It is crazy here in Hudson and just torrential, torrential rain. There's some pictures if you haven't seen them. Trying to keep the water from coming in the front of the building. They were actually using the snow plows to constantly just keep pushing the water away from the building and around so it would travel down to the river and not come into the building.
34. 38:06So because of those efforts it really stopped more damage from happening to the building. So again just a significant thanks to that crew. One last item on facilities, the greenhouse. As Mike mentioned there are agreements on tonight's board agenda to be approved. The goal is that it will be delivered and hopefully installed sometime in the month of October. So by the end of the month of October we should have a functioning greenhouse here on campus which will be tremendous. My understanding is there's been a lot of conversation and work around that in recent years.
35. 38:40So to actually have it all come together will be a really great thing. I was also going to mention code of conduct but Amanda kind of stole my thunder on that one. Sorry. No, it's all good. So the work of code of conduct that was done last year, certainly thank the team that came together to do that work. Over the summer here we've had conversations as an administrative team. And Cheryl and I actually have a meeting tomorrow with the principals and our communication specialist Daniella to talk about putting information together to send out to staff internally
36. 39:12and then also communication out to families and students to learn more about the changes and the process that went into creating what is now the new code of conduct. So stay tuned for more information coming out about that. And the last item, August 5th, as Mark mentioned, we had a retreat that was for the administrative team as well as the Board of Education. So I want to thank both of those groups for coming together. Also want to thank the folks at Olana. So they allowed us to use their community space to the left of their visitor center,
37. 39:46which if you have not been there you should definitely go check it out. It's a beautiful space. They allowed us to use that space for the purpose of this workshop. It was facilitated by Dr. Jen Beauchamp, who walked us through what's called a disk. So, DISC is a Workplace Profile Assessment. The goal of that is for each individual who participates to learn about their style, meaning their strengths, their priorities, their motivation, their communication style, but then also learn all those things about the people that they
38. 40:17work with. So, we were able to learn more about ourselves, but also each other as individuals and as a team. And the goal being, how do you leverage all those different strengths on a team so that what you do as a team is that much better and that much stronger. So, I think it was a great morning spent together building that team of administrators and also the team of the board and how we all come together as leaders in the district for the work that we do. And that was everything on my list.
39. 40:48Amazing. Thank you. Next, we have public forum. Leslie, did anybody sign up? Oh, your sheet's over there. Did anybody here sign up? I was looking at both of you. All right. Well, thank you for being here, no matter what. We have our consent agenda. We do have a hand carry, which is the MF multi-factor authentication. Yes, it's the grant that I just spoke about from the cybersecurity in order to accept the tokens we need to have it signed. Okay, perfect. So, I'll make a motion to add agenda item
40. 41:34U. Second. All in favor? And make a motion to accept consent agenda items A through U. Second. All in favor? Thank you. Thank you. And old business attendance for NISBA convention, we had I know Lou is going and Mike and Diana and Todd. Awesome. Well, I hope you guys have a great time in Buffalo. And new business, we have Maureen Sheridan's official resignation. So, make a motion to accept the resignation of Maureen Sheridan as of July 22, 2026. Second. All in favor? And I would propose in the past we've solicited letters of interest from the community for
41. 42:38people interested in filling the board seat. It's a precedent we've followed as far as I can remember. So, if everybody is in agreement, we can ask Leslie and the communications team to put out a call for letters to review and based on the letters that we receive, the board can discuss and take nominations to appoint any interested parties. I think last time one of the things we did was give a couple prompts so that the letters all had sort of a similar cadence to the amount of information so that we can look at them sort of across
42. 43:22people. That makes sense. I think we just had three questions last time and we can use those again. Yeah, I think the format that it was last year was very fair and opened everybody without going into a separate vote and all that we've discussed. Yep. Okay, so let's do that and then we have... Should we put a deadline on it like September 30th? I think September 30th is maybe a little bit too long. It'd be great to fill it in September but we have a meeting on August 25th. I don't think it's fair to ask for it to be done by
43. 44:05then, but if we want to be prepared for our September 15th meeting, we could ask for submissions by September 11th, which is the Friday before that meeting. Perfect. Sounds good. All right. So Friday, September 11th, letter deadline will be due. Yep. And we'll deliberate at the September 15th meeting. Will we choose at that meeting? Ideally, yes. Okay. So all interested parties should attend. Yes. If they can. Okay. Board discussion. Anybody have anything else they'd like to share? I did attend a very fun junior high school art club fundraiser that featured a number of local bands performing. So thank
44. 45:11you to... Katie Rogers was there as was... I'm forgetting her name. Samantha Anderson, hanging art on the walls and soliciting donations for the junior high school art club. Yeah, I guess I would just second the comments about the retreat with the administrative team. I thought it was a very valuable time to work with the board and with the team as well to build relationships. Thank you. One thing I noticed I saw online earlier today was a parent was asking about supply lists. Any idea when a supply list would be generated for parents
45. 45:57or their students? I can certainly check. Do you know what level they were asking about? They don't. They just put it out there. Okay. I believe elementary, they already went out. Yeah, I got mine as a parent. Yeah, elementary is also on... I think all the supply lists... Elementary and junior high are both on the website. If you go to our schools and you go down to the supply list, those are there. And I guess for high school students, they assume that they know what to bring. I don't remember ever getting a supply list when I
46. 46:29was a high school student. Okay, great. We have our second public forum. And did not see anybody else sign up. So brings us to important dates. Upcoming meetings Monday, August 24th, 2026, Facilities Committee meeting at 5.30 p.m. in the district conference room. Tuesday, August 25th, 2026, Board of Education meeting 6 p.m. in the auditorium. Monday, September 14th, Facilities Committee meeting at 5.30 p.m. in the district conference room. Tuesday, September 15th, 2026, Board of Education meeting 6 p.m. in the auditorium. Monday, October 19th, 2026, Facilities Committee meeting at 5.30 p.m. in the district conference
47. 47:25room. And Tuesday, October 20th, 2026, regular Board of Education meeting 6 p.m. in the high school library. Make a motion to enter executive session at 6.41 p.m. for the purposes of reviewing the employment history of a particular person or persons. Second. All in favor? There will be no further business after this executive session. Thank you all for being here.

Timestamps link to the corresponding moment on YouTube. Auto-transcribed, contains speech-recognition errors. Not an official record.