Ready in 3 2 1 action. Good evening everyone. I'd like to call to order the January 8th, 2026 meeting of the Croton-Harmon Union Free School District Board of Education. Our first item is the opening of the meeting and call to order. Second is the presentation by Lisa 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. Morning on point. Item 2.3 is approval of the agenda. Recommended action that the Board of Education approves the agenda presented. So moved. Second. Call the question. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Moving into item 2.1, which is the president's report. I'm going to keep this brief as we have a packed agenda and gala gala I don't know how to say it. so, good evening everyone. Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a replenishing winter break as we are about to dive back into so much important work in this district including budget season, which we will be hearing about in many of our next several meetings culminating in a school district budget vote on May the 19th. At CET, there's an upcoming coaches chat in the new year on January 19th that will focus on exposing the faculty to the new math improvement materials programs. The next CET literacy committee meeting will take place on January 26th where we will begin finalizing our philosophy on literacy and will begin developing a comprehensive framework for teaching literacy aligned by pillars of literacy. Splash musical rehearsals are also underway for the March 4th performance. For CET PTA, the CET variety show is scheduled for February 6th at 6:00 p.m. at CET HS and the next CET PTA meeting after that is scheduled for March 19th. CET PTA will have a band show and membership meeting on January 12th. The student-organized student dance is scheduled for January 23rd with a snow date of January 30th. And the following general membership meeting after that is February 9th if needed. Also highlighting the second round of electives will take place PBC on February 4th which was a half day. at the high school, last day was the 9th and 10th grade parent night which was virtual. If families weren't able to attend, they can access that they will be posting on the counseling website next week. Next week there is an incoming 9th grade orientation on Wednesday, January 28th. Parents are welcome to bring their children with them to this and our rising 9th graders will also be coming to the high school on Friday, January 23rd for a presentation from the admin team, school counselors and the guidance counselors to go over the course offerings and how to make your selection with the many of all of the elective classes students can choose from. Rachel Axelrod, do you want to add what's going on? I know there's a Yes. Yes, thank you. Good evening. This actually next Wednesday, January 14th, the Family Resource Center will be hosting a second family learning night which is understanding your child's IEP and the annual review process. There was a Parent Square message that went out I believe Friday just as a reminder. There is a QR code. We hope that you'll register beforehand but you're more than welcome to just pop in for the evening and you can get to see our new Family Resource Center space at CET which is in the Lions Tiger Den.
• [laughter] And Neil, I think you had something you wanted to add. Yeah, I [clears throat] just wanted to bring to everyone's attention to something that I wanted to inform that our esteemed Assistant Superintendent for Business, Denise Sullivan, has recently been elected selected to be a member of the Board of the New York State Insurance Reciprocal. and the brochure that is right here and everyone wants to see it, describes Denise's vast experience and says Now, I'm going to speak the last paragraph. I'm going to embarrass her by reading her own quote. but said she says that her main goals are to help maintain strong, affordable, and reliable coverage and ensure responsive service permitting district staff to focus on their schools rather than other administrative tasks. And I just want to add that [clears throat] as a board So, the first day I know as board, we are proud and pleased when our staff and when our administrators become leaders in their respective areas in their respective areas of expertise and we are pleased and proud that Denise has [clears throat] been appointed to represent all of the districts on the Board of Directors of Nassau. [applause]
• Denise, I just I just want to reiterate how you know how proud we are of you and obviously of course you're being recognized by everyone [clears throat] for the pleasure of working with you. You know how much we admire how professional you are. well deserved and they're very lucky to have you on their team. and with that, I will conclude my presentation. we were going to move into item 2.2 which is hearing of the public. I do just want to take an opportunity and thank you all for being here but I want to remind you that the meeting is being live streamed and later recorded and if we can hear whispering up here and in the microphones even from the back row. So, if you could just refrain from talking for purposes of maintaining the integrity of the sound, we'd appreciate that. So, you can approach the podium, you have 3 minutes and we ask that you refrain from speaking about any of I think it is the Sorry. staff or students by name directly and take it away.
• good evening. My name is Mike Rubiak. I live at 48 Furnace Dock Road in Croton and I'm here tonight to talk about UPK. I first just wanted to thank the board and thank the superintendent and administration for meeting with us, for listening with us. specifically wanted to thank you for working on a board resolution that would ask for more funding from the state to per pupil funding for UPK. I also wanted to give a quick update about our local community efforts. We have started our lobbying efforts. they have been going extremely well. We do have a lot of support from our local elected officials. We're going to be doing tours for our local elected officials starting next week and I believe some of you will be attending so thank you for that support and thank you for joining us. I also wanted to announce some news that we heard today that it looks like the governor is going to be supporting fully funding UPK statewide up to an amount of $10,000 per pupil. so, what I like to say in politics all the time is you take credit when those things happen so we should all take credit. Thank you, governor, but you probably did it because of us. but obviously there's a long road ahead of us, right? Because the governor announced this but we still need the support of the legislature. We still need this to be in the one-house budget bill. We need the budget bill to pass. And from the meager information we received from the governor's office, it looks like this wouldn't even start until 2028. And I'm not sure if that means 2028 school year, 2028 calendar year. So, I want to end by again asking for any sort of way to bridge that gap funding gap with Children's Space Montessori as a UPK provider. as we heard last board meeting, they will not be able to continue because of the financial constraints. I asked last meeting that there be consideration made for a one-year commitment to bridge that gap. It does seem like now the state up in Albany is willing to do something and have real money backing UPK in our communities. So, I'm hoping that we can meet them halfway, keep Children's Space North as a UPK provider, and keep what's really important to me, keep that continuity of learning for the students who are already in Children's Space North, who are going through those grades, and who will continue through UPK and then eventually K. thank you.
• Hi. My name's Michaela Renzin. I live at 229 Grand Street. I was born in Croton and raised in this community, and it's been a huge part in the deciding factor on returning when my husband and I created a family of our own. My son, Liam, who's with me here tonight, is a second-grader now at CET, and I'm here to share on his experience in Croton's UPK program. Prior to UPK, Liam was never for an extended period of time in daycare. His confidence in the academic setting, socially, emotionally, I attribute all of this to his UPK teacher and his classmates. Watching him walk through the doors into CET amongst all the new kindergarteners had me in awe. Not the slightest hesitation, hand in hand with the best friend that he met in UPK class, and almost without even a kiss goodbye. It's every parent's dream transition for their child. UPK was not just his success there. It started with receiving the call, which came moments after returning home from the hospital with his newborn sister, to let me know that he received a spot in UPK for the coming school year. The sense of relief it brought to my family, as I'm sure it does for so many others, for that it lifts the additional financial burden families with young children often have. UPK allows for the opportunity for a parent to transition back to the careers they might have left while raising their babies. Early childhood passes by so quickly, but the educational foundation set for our children will have a lasting effect on them. I believe all children deserve a transition into school with emotional and confidence, and to feel ready. UPK provides this and so much more. My intention is not to see a precedent set with the financial assistance from the district. I simply want to see this coming class not have the same opportunity to transition to CET as their peer classes have. Thank you.
• [clears throat] hi, my name is Jacob Fiss Howard. I'll be very brief. I live at 17 Thompson Avenue here in Croton, and two young school-age children. and I just wanted to speak to the quality of education at Children's Space North. Both my kids have been at Children's Space North, as well as several other facilities in Croton and in New York City, and by far Children's Space North has been, the best [clears throat] the best that we've we've seen. just the quality of the teachers, as well as the administration, has just been really exceptional. And I feel like it would [clears throat] really be a missed opportunity to let that, slip away if if they were if they were not able to continue to provide UPK. So, I just feel that this is an exceptional opportunity. I I I also want to say that the the quality and reputation of the Croton School District is, I would say, probably the primary reason that we moved to this town 6 years ago, and I, I I hate hate to say it, but I feel I do feel that it would be somewhat of an embarrassment if we could not continue UPK in this town the way that so many other towns have been able to figure out how to do. I just Yeah, hopefully hopefully we can figure this out. Thank you.
• hi, my name is Ian Porschner. I live at Arlington Drive. I unfortunately wasn't available during the meeting last month to discuss the issue on regarding UPK, but I'm here now and wanted to reiterate several points that other parents have made. Honestly, to me it's a bit shocking that we're even having this conversation, notwithstanding the fact that the UPK program has only been available to Croton residents for 5 years. I believe that everyone here, the board, the school district, and parents believes that UPK is essential. studies show that UPK has direct social and educational benefits for our for our youngest residents. In addition, by serving as an early method of child care, it provides indirect economic advantages to families. So, from my perspective, it's incredibly perplexing that the response here by the board and district has been to provide kind of vague responses that fail to address the primary problem. there are numerous districts that decide to supplement state funding with local funds when there's a recognition that the state aid won't suffice. in fact, I spoke with the state's office of early learning concerning this issue, and they specifically told me, quote, "A school district is expected to use local funds to supplement the UPK program." from my perspective, this is clearly an emergency. if the heating at CET broke or staff suddenly resigned or a bus had unexpected mechanical issue, the necessary funds, regardless of the cost, would be discovered. and I think you need to treat this as the same kind of emergency. since the UPK program started in in Croton in 2021, I think approximately 200 Croton students have been enrolled. Most parents I've spoken with have an extremely positive view of UPK, especially with respect to the service provided by Children's Space North. The program as is, in my opinion, needs to remain. However, based upon some correspondence with the board and the district, it appears as though there's a plan to issue an RFP next month, and reading between the lines, it sounds like you may not provide the requested funds, although I hope I'm wrong. First off, if that's the plan, I request that you guys let us know. Parents are currently making decisions regarding schooling and child care, and we really can't wait months to make and find out what's going on. Secondly, by failing to address this issue, in my opinion, you're sending a clear sign to all parents of Croton, many of whom moved here specifically because of the school district's good reputation, that their voices may be ignored, not just now, but, for issues in the future. So, let's find a way to get this done. Thank you.
• Hi. My name is John Ford O'Malley. I live on I live in Croton. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My family moved to Croton in 2023. My oldest of two boys benefited from UPK in Brooklyn in 2022, preparing him for kindergarten here at CET. we hope our youngest son will benefit from UPK in September this year. When house hunting in Westchester, UPK was a priority for our family, and during that time when we were house hunting, visiting messaging boards, parenting groups, realty websites, it was clear that a UPK is a priority for many young families house hunting here in Westchester. UPK prepared our youngest son academically and socially for kindergarten, and he arrived at CET ready and confident to start school. As an immigrant and now proud citizen who has built a life here in the US, I want to see Croton embrace fairness and access. UPK provides all families with equal opportunities for early learning, and prevents achievement gaps later on. UPK supports working families, strengthens communities, and saves money long-term by reducing the need for remediation later. Preserving universal pre-K is an investment in our students, in our families, and in the future of Croton. Thank you.
• [clears throat] Hi, good evening. My name is William Mac Shear. First, I'd like to thank you all for your efforts. I understand that the board is, by and large, a labor of love, notwithstanding the fact you have to get elected. It's volunteer, not compensated, and I understand that there's a little bit of an adversarial atmosphere, and I don't want to contribute to that. We're grateful for your work here. That in mind, I have to echo the sentiments of, many of my neighbors here as a Croton resident, the UPK program was a critical feature of our decision to move here. It is critical to not just the development of our kids, but the fabric of the entire community. Our community is based geographically and metaphorically around its school system, and the thought of potentially losing the UPK program is disastrous. from what I understand, it would be extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming to reenter the program. I [clears throat] have been doing a fair amount of legal research, and I'm a practicing attorney, for the record, not just a volunteer lawyer, but I play one, too. I From what I understand, there's a fair amount of discretion and ability within this room to actually fund this shortfall. So, I understand that the shortfall is predicted to be somewhere around $260,000. There's a million dollars in discretionary funds within the budget. I also understand that this board would have the ability to raise a tax levy on the town, which by my math, which please correct me if I'm wrong, would amount to somewhere between 80 and 120 dollars of additional tax per year per household to fund the shortfall. So, to me, the critical thing is to make sure that there's continuity of service and we can fill a budgetary shortfall later with any number of potential tactics or maneuvers, whether it be additional funds from the state, tax levies, what have you, rather than risk the disastrous impacts of having an entire class of children not have access to UPK, potential depression of home values, and potentially having parents have to leave the community. My projected child care costs for my three children, one of whom is in CET kindergarten, for next year betw- this year, excuse me, between aftercare, daycare, and summer care is about $72,000. The Federal Department of Health and Human Services recommends that a household budget not exceed 7% of gross household income for child care. I'm not making a million dollars a year. So, [snorts] one pre-K spot is 24 grand, which roughly equates to 350 in household income.
• [cough] That's a huge amount of money. So, this has a disastrous impact on families who may not be able to afford yet another year of of preschool for their children. So, in closing, I just like to offer whatever help of the community. I know we're all uniting around this. There are a lot of lawyers that are really willing to help and roll up our sleeves. Please take advantage of us. I know it's incumbent on us to coordinate with you. And again, thank you for your efforts and I really look forward to hearing the plan.
• Hi, good evening. my name is Ludmilla Shatskin. I live at 132 Old Post Road North in Croton. I am the recently reelected town clerk for the town of Croton, which includes the village of Croton. I have never stood at a podium of a official meeting, although I have watched the town have watched it people speak. I'm a little embarrassed that like many people who I've seen come before the town board that I'm here because there's something that's going to negatively affect me. because I have a child who is ready to enter pre-K and I have another child currently in kindergarten and CET. I have lived in Croton for generations. but I went to CET myself. Kindergarten was a half a day. We learned our colors and we hatched chicks. and half of the school year, if we were in the morning, we switched to afternoon and if we were in the afternoon, we switched to morning. It was a very different world. And the curriculum, my son is in kindergarten and he's learning to read. He's doing math. it's it's a intense curriculum and long day for little children. And the idea that my son who's ready to enter pre-K and that I was so excited to have go to Children's Space Montessori. I know so many parents in Croton are so thrilled with what a group that brings a play-based philosophy, but really is producing incredibly well-prepared children for kindergarten. I was so excited to have my children attend that program and it's very scary to think that that might not be the case. I'm also a little embarrassed to admit that I don't know the intricacies of how this board functions. I've only just recently become aware of the severity of this issue. if if what is needed is a half a percent increase tax levy, the town of Croton recently made a decision to go above and beyond the tax cap because the increased cost of functioning to these world was putting such a significant pressure on the town. and so, I'm not familiar as familiar with discretionary spending, but I would certainly ask this board if the school tax that we pay is the most significant tax that we pay across towns, villages, to county. I think that the it seems very clear that the people who are paying those taxes are asking you as a group to make a very specific decision. thank you so much for your time. I'm appreciative.
• [snorts] Good evening, everyone. It's good to see some familiar faces. my name is Kathy Long. Went to school with Neil's son, Alex. He's doing well. I'm here today as a parent. I have a daughter who's seven and I have a son who's four. But since many parents are here this evening, I'm going to speak from another perspective. that is of a special education teacher with nearly two decades of experience and an Orville H. A. associate. I understand that school districts are facing significant budget challenges. My own superintendent addressed this reality with our staff meeting on Wednesday. I know that boards of education and superintendents are being asked to make extremely difficult decisions in the year ahead. Decisions that will require your creativity, problem solving, and courage. I'll get straight to the point. UPK is not a nice to have. From an educational standpoint, it is a non-negotiable. Without it, students will feel the impact for years to come. The research is very clear. And I know that Mr. Paul knows that. when early intervention is removed, the consequences do not disappear. They are simply delayed. Those consequences become the responsibility of classroom teachers, your MTSS teams, and the special education staff. The cost is shifted and not eliminated at all. I urge you to find the funding. Look elsewhere. Be creative. Be problem solvers. We ask that of our kids every day. That's what we're preparing them for. Thank you for your time and for the difficult decisions that you're going to have to make.
• Ed Riley from Tree Dale Drive [clears throat] on a series of different topics. the village historian Mark Cheshire put out a publication dedicated to the gigantic teachers of the past in Croton-on-Hudson. If you've been around here any time for the last 30 years, you'll recognize some of these teachers who were monumental in their accomplishments and their relationship to their students and to the board.
• Item two is an announcement. There'll be a [clears throat] March for Life bus protesting abortion and euthanasia leaving from Briarcliff on Friday the 23rd 5:00 in the morning. Everyone here present is welcome to attend, as well as the students of these schools. And it just just to piggyback on the events of last Saturday, all the schools [clears throat] of Croton, especially the middle school and the high school need clubs like pro-life clubs, Republican clubs, Turning Point clubs to offset the political and progressive environment of Croton, which not only is a progressive capital unto itself, but is now a regional progressive capital as witnessed by the demonstration of last Saturday. Item [clears throat] two, just to give you an update, the veterans of Croton-on-Hudson have been pushing for recognition for a Revolutionary War hero, a truly exceptional soldier, black guy. His name is John Peterson. Unfortunately, he's Nobody's ever used his right name before. He says in all his applications, "And my name is really John Patterson, so quit calling me the wrong name." And we keep finding out more and more stuff about him. we want a historical plaque over on Cleveland Drive and I believe the history department of the high school and the middle school have made commitments to do investigations on this gentleman. We have at least four original documents documenting his service and what happened to him after the war. but every time we touch on something new, pops up. And then every time we investigate, more bodies show up. So, we found a second Revolutionary War soldier, nowhere near like Peterson Patterson's service, guy named Sylvanus Tompkins. He only served in the militia. His name is recognizable in the area. And that goes along with two people who were who risked [clears throat] everything in the war. That's Philip and Pierre Van Cortlandt. Also, Mark Cheshire, the village historian, thinks he's uncovered [laughter] a tailor who died in a [cough] British prison and a Quaker who we believe were buried in the old Quaker cemetery and then moved somewhere. Thank you. Thank you.
• [clears throat]
• My name is Sarah Ruder at 77 North Street. Thanks for your Could you say your name again? Sarah Ruder. 77 North Street. My family and I have been part of the Children's Space North community for about 2 and 1/2 years. And it has been a really wonderful experience for our 3-year-old and our entire family as a whole. Sarah, Stacy, and the entire staff at Children's Space North create an environment where my daughter is loved, supported, and challenged. Her days are filled with joy, connection, and learning. And it shows on her face every day when I pick her up, and in her play, and in her conversation, and the stories she tells throughout the week. We felt so fortunate, like so many people, when we moved to Croton and found Children's Space North. We knew immediately when we first visited that it was an incredibly special place. It's a program that builds community not just for our kids, but for our parents. And I think that is so evident in the the show of force that we've had coming out to these meetings. the I want to emphasize that community building aspect of what Children's Space community has created. Because I think it's also well established that a strong community of parents and caregivers is an important ingredient in a highly thriving school system and school districts to drive great outcomes for everybody. Because we show up and we advocate and we make the system stronger, just as we're trying to do with our words and our our presence here at these meetings. And that's just one of the many reasons our community here is so lucky to have Children's Space North running the UPK program. As I'm sure you're aware, I don't know if it's been mentioned by others, but today Governor Hochul announced a plan that includes expanding access to UPK throughout New York State by the 2028-2029 school year. And given the governor's commitment, I think it would be an even greater shame and loss to let the program fail and lapse during the intervening years. At the last meeting, I believe the board talked about finding creative solutions to fill what increasingly looks to be what we hope will be a temporary and finite funding gap. And we really urge you to continue to develop those solutions. From what I hear and what I experience, Croton's educational values are truly aligned with what Governor Hochul and Mayor Mondanias espoused today. And we're all here asking you not to renege on those values, but really to instead let Croton be a leader in achieving that vision of universal early childhood education for all children [snorts] in New York. One one more point about the value of educating parents and families that I understand is really strongly supported by the academic literature, which is that UPK serves to increase parental income and economic stability over time. And it means even more for working moms like myself who are often cutting back on work when child care is either unavailable or unaffordable. There are many good child care options in Croton, but they're not always affordable for everybody as we know. So, the investment in UPK will really improve the economic well-being and the overall health not just of Croton's kids, but of our families and our community. So, as others have said, I think the question of funding this program goes right to the heart of what we want our community to be and to create. The Children's [cough] Space program exemplifies what I and my family want it to be, a community that creates opportunities for every child and family to thrive, that views learning holistically, seeks to build resilient, creative, and empathetic kids who are ultimately prepared to meet the future and shape our community and our and the lives for the good. Thank you very much.
• Hello. My name is Natalie Christian. I live at 27 Old Croton. I have three kids, all of them at Children's Space North currently. We are the first family to have three kids enrolled at the same time. It is literally almost 70K annually. And with all three in daycare once, many parents have joked they should name a wing after us. It [clears throat] is an extreme financial challenge, and we were very hopeful that UPK could lighten that financial burden for my husband and I who are two full-time working parents. When I first met Stacy and Sarah at Children's Space, their philosophy is not a daycare. They actually said, "We don't call it daycare." In the first tour that I went, they said to refer to it as school, and it is education. They have an amazing play-based philosophy that yields incredibly positive results. And I think it would be a great loss to this education pipeline if not only UPK lost, but also UPK at Children's Space North. My eldest son who is eligible for UPK this coming year currently receives occupational therapy and extra support because of how well the teachers know him and advocate for him. They advocate for all their students. They are hands-on, and their approach has been a true game-changer for our family and my son's development. Watching him become an independent, confident, almost 4-year-old who is learning to read and sound out letters could not make me prouder as a mother or more confident in his continued success because of his current education. I think if we pause the program, reviving it will be extremely difficult and challenging, and it will put the whole program at risk. And furthermore, we would lose Children's Space as the provider of the program, and I think that would be a huge loss for Croton. I pay a great respect to all of you for dedicating your time to this. I think we can all agree that the program is critical. I wish the conversation was not whether the program can continue, but rather how to improve its administration. If we get so lucky to have that conversation, I hope that we can seek feedback from the community to optimize, to fill all the seats, to address any of the challenges that exist. Thank you so much for your time.
• [clears throat] Hi everyone. My name is Dan MacNamee. I live at 22 Young Avenue. I just moved to Croton a few months ago. around September. And I have a 3-year-old who would obviously stand to benefit from this. A big part of the reason why we chose Croton outside of proximity to family. I grew up in Yorktown. But we left the city. We walked away from pre-K and sacrificed that for a year to hopefully have the forthcoming universal pre-K. You know, it's obviously that there is, as a lot of people have said, early education is really important. It's obviously very, very good investment to the town, to everyone living in our future and all that kind of stuff. in addition, I have a 5-week-old baby. That's why I wasn't at the last board meeting because we were at the hospital. So, that future is also very important to me. And as I'm sitting here listening to everyone, I'm thinking about Obviously, we have a good supportive group of people here that feel strongly about this, but there are, I'm sure, many, many other parents who are not here not because they don't want to be here, because it's hard. I mean, my wife said, "I'll try to put a 3-year-old to bed with a 5-week-old." I promise you she's not having fun right now. And I'm sure a lot of the other parents that aren't here right now are probably have similar stories about why they can't be here, and the financial impacts, and the time impacts. You know, it makes a big difference. And programs like this will make people's lives better and help a lot of families out financially and educationally, and just keep that in mind when you're making your decisions. I know that this is not easy. I get it. I am, a progressive person. It's not free. None of it's free. We can keep saying it's free, universal, that's great. I know these are not easy decisions, but they should not be taken lightly, and these impact people's lives. So, thank you for your time.
• Is there anyone else?
• Hi everyone. My name is Jody Epstein Holger, and I live at 1 Sunset Drive in Croton. Thank you, Superintendent Walker and board trustees, for again addressing UPK in Croton. I have a 4 and 1/2-year-old and a 19-month-old. I chose not to put my son in UPK not because of the UPK provider, because he needs structure and time to process transitions. I couldn't risk the lottery or any structural inconsistency. My 19-month-old is starting at Children's Space North next month. I'm excited. I hope she has a chance to go to Children's Space North for UPK. I'm confident that the continuation of schooling would make me feel secure in choosing UPK for my daughter when the time comes. We all make tough decisions to do what's best for our family and our community. We are raising our children in a challenging America. Our local leaders matter. We need protection and innovation in safeguarding our kids and communities. Please do your part to do so. Also, I wanted to add that I and others would organize around voting to raise the tax cap if needed. And universal child care seems to be top of mind for many of our elected state leaders. If there's ever a chance to write a wrong and if the issue has positive outcomes, I think it would be now. Thank you.
• Hi. My name is Jill Onorato. I live at 8 Fenwick Street. I spoke last time when I had laryngitis, but I'm much better now. I didn't write anything down because I just came right from work to here. My husband is putting my two children to bed. My son went through UPK when it was at Happy Hearts. I have a 3-year-old who will hopefully get to remain at Children's Space. she has thrived there as I'm sure we've already, heard. Every year Croton, I think, asks parents to waste a lot of time and resources checking out other preschool programs. We go and we tour them. The people running them have to walk us around. They talk us through it. And every year we sweat it out as we put down deposits and we hold places, which then when we do get into UPK we withdraw and programs close. I think the Asbury Methodist Church had a program that is no more because at the last minute UPK came through. I would love for there, I'm done having children, that's it. But I would love for future and I worry for the kids who come after even if if for some reason we can't get it together this year. Every year going through this is mentally, the mental load is exhausting. And you help take care of us if we know what's coming, if we know what is available. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here. I know your spouses are all putting your children to bed as well. So, thank you spouses and and partners. Thank you.
• Anyone else? Thank you all for coming. [laughter] There's the next one. I'm sorry. Hi, I'm Jamie at 50 Hastings Ave. I just want to quickly say Would you just repeat that? I'm sorry. Jamie Lado, I live at 50 Hastings Ave. Quickly want to say thank you to everybody for listening to us. It's really exciting to see everybody here. I know that this is a tough decision, but I just want to quickly express my strong support for the program, for the people who run it, and pledge our support to help in any way we can. So, thank you all so much. [clears throat] Hi, my name is Jacob Day. I live at 91 Road. I just want to thank Superintendent Walker for listening to us tonight and giving us an update on UPK. We really look forward to what he has to say and for the transparency that you've given us in having these conversations. Everyone on the board has been willing to speak with us. Got a lot of great feedback from parents tonight. We do want to give you guys credit. [clears throat] we are looking forward to seeing the plans. Pretty clear this program has to continue. There's clearly a demand. There's clearly a need. So, I just want to reiterate everything that's been said tonight. And I really want to thank all the parents that are here tonight representing our kids, representing our community so that we can make Croton a pre-K through 12 district. Thank you.
• [clears throat] Thank you all. That will conclude conclude our first round of public comment. We'll move into item 2.3, our superintendent's report. Thank you, Anna. Good evening. Thank you to everyone who's here tonight. We promised you we will talk about UPK and we will. I do ask though just to beg your indulgence, let us talk about a couple of other things first. beginning with we've over the past couple of business meetings provided updates and information to the community relative to student achievement on standardized metrics beginning with CET back in November, PVC in December, and tonight the high school. and so wanted to thank Dr. Laura Dubac, high school principal, for being here with us tonight. We will certainly share English Regents data because that's been kind of the trend or the theme that we've been looking at 3 through 12. We also want to share some global Regents data because those two Regents are the two Regents that all Croton-Harmon High School students take as part of their experience with us. And since you're here and we have your attention, we're also going to share some AP exam data as well. but I wanted to begin just by saying how proud I am to be part of a system where our students achieve at this level on such a regular and consistent and truly growing basis. I'm so proud of the team, the faculty, the staff, the students, the families, and and the leaders who are part of creating a system that both innovates, allows for thoughtful risk-taking, allows for the idea that there's a better model of school than the one that we all experienced while at the same time providing students with opportunities for learning that allow them to elevate their performance on these standardized metrics of success. So, wanted to begin just by again mentioning our why, right, some of the foundational principles of this system beginning with that idea of an innovative [clears throat] professional culture, genuine interdisciplinary learning both inside and out of the classroom for students K through 12, and uplifting and inspiring faculty to faculty collaboration. and it's our true and firm belief that when you create a system that is founded in those sorts of beliefs that one of the results of that will be outstanding student performance on traditional metrics. And I think again tonight the the board, the community will see significant examples of that.
• [clears throat] one quick note, these are all of the this data is publicly available. It's not easy to put together. And so, while we will link to the S New York State Education Department SED data dashboard when we share this with the community, it would take you a significant amount of time as it did Ellen Moscowitz, our data team, Laura, to put this together. So, if anyone wants some help in accessing this and thinking through how they put this together and collated it, contact me or even better contact Ellen. and she will will talk you through that. But to to be fair, Laura and I will be happy to talk you talk you through that as well. so let's begin by taking a look at English passing rates in our district going back to 2018-19 compared to the state average. so obviously see first and foremost an outstanding, trajectory there, of outstanding performance from our students and our faculty following a trend generally of where the state is cohort year over cohort year except for last year where our scores continued to go up while the state's went down. one of the things that we like to do whenever possible is to compare to provide some context to help [clears throat] you know how we're performing relative to the region. And so this next slide shows you that. in a region where we have any number of districts that pride themselves on their outstanding resource allocation to schools and their outstanding student performance, we are second in that region last year in terms of English Regents performance. So, again an outstanding place for us to be and so that the entire faculty and staff at the high school should feel proud. Taking a look again at global Regents passing percentages, again very similar to the state trajectory, higher than the state of course every year significantly. And last year when the state average went down slightly, ours continued to improve. And as compared to the region again, you see that we're really solidly positioned within the top third of the region in terms of its [clears throat and cough] Okay. Keep going, okay. And one more, sir. At this point I'm going to ask Laura to to chime in and talk a little bit about AP exam offerings and performance of our students over the past few years. So, as as Steve said, since we have this opportunity, we're we're going to go a little outside just English and social. I think you can go over there just so we can make sure everybody can see the mic. So, as Steve said, since we have this opportunity, we want to take some take the opportunity to talk a little bit about English and social studies in terms of APs, but also branch out a little beyond those two subjects, too. so on this slide you can see the number of different AP exams that are offered at CHHS. So, last year we hit our highest number of different exams at 26. And just to note, all of these exams are tied to a class or a virtual high school classes. This is a true representation of classes that our students are in and the number that are offered. And then if we go to the next slide, in addition to our total number of exams offered steadily increasing, so is our AP course enrollment. And that's something that we're really proud of. You can see a steady trend upwards with a pretty significant increase even from 2024 to 2025. And we'll talk more about this as we get deeper into the budgeting season, but I think this is a good time to mention that we're actually adding two new AP courses next year, AP Personal Finance with Business and AP Psychology. and you'll you'll also hear a lot more from us about the college board's new offerings that have started this year that are more interdisciplinary and career-based in nature, which aligns really nicely with the work that we're doing outside of the AP program at the high school. So then going into our English AP scores, you this data is going to look a little bit different than the Regents data in that in this data we're looking at average scores at our school and looking at growth and changes over time. There is not actually public access to this kind of data for regional school districts, so we're not able to make the direct comparisons by average scores to other school districts. The only publicly available AP data is around participation and average and percentage of students who earn three and above on exams. And that percentage of three and above information is nice to have, but it's not particularly helpful in looking at a granular level because that percentage of three and above doesn't typically change year to year and it doesn't really tell you what the average score is. So I just wanted to share that so you understood what the difference in data presentation was about. So starting with our English scores, I think it's worth I'm sorry, taking a moment to just note how high our average English scores for both AP language and AP literature are. We have an incredibly strong team of teachers for these courses and we've actually recently started allowing students to select which course they want to take in 11th and and 12th grade versus previously you could only take English language in 11th [clears throat] grade or English literature in 12th grade. So we have more options and still pretty incredible results. And that will align pretty I think pretty well to the results that you saw in the English regions. So then shifting gears to our math and science AP exams, just wanted to start here with calculus AB and BC, both of which remain incredibly strong over time. Average scores above fours across the board in those subjects is something I think to be very proud of district. And then let's take a quick look at AP stats, also consistently strong over time while noting that as I mentioned previously AP enrollment continues to increase and our scores remain consistent and growing even with that increase in enrollment. [clears throat] As we're looking at this year [clears throat] and Carol, I think one thing that might be useful if the slide be tweaked a little bit is to know the number of students who have taken each [clears throat] course. So like if we have for stats right, average of four, that's one student. It's one student that got four. If it's 15 students, we know that presents something else. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think the other thing that would go along with that and maybe this is elsewhere is if the average is four and the number of students who have a four or five and a three, four or five is 90% we know, you know, that kind of tells us something else. It's It's just more information to show and I'm hoping and presuming it's going to show that it's not that it's a lot of students. Yes. No, that's a really that are participating and a lot of students are showing competency at three or above competency. We actually selected all the Yes, definitely. And we selected data of some of our larger exams in particular. So none of these exams are the exams that, one student might take like AP music theory for example. We'd have a great graph on that.
• [laughter] I don't [clears throat] know if I have this for you guys right now, but to just take a step back and even looking at these AP scores regionally to differentiate our school district in terms of who we allow to take AP exams versus other school districts, I think that's so key to to the approach that you have at CHS. Yeah, thank you. The AP enrollment numbers, if you go back and take a look at that number of 700 and I think it was 719 [clears throat] AP enrollments last year. So our approach to AP enrollment is open essentially open enrollment. So many schools have pretty significant barriers to entry into AP courses. So having to have a very specific GPA, testing in certain certain teacher recommendations. We certainly have guidelines and expectations, but we don't stop students who want to pursue AP courses or we actually encourage students to take challenging courses when they are ready to do so. And I think that that is something that research shows does not have a negative impact on AP exam outcomes. And I think we're living that at CHS. So the example most of these examples actually show that with increased enrollment there's either consistent high performance and in many cases even growth in performance as AP enrollment continues to open. And that's something that we're we've been actually doing for many years here at CHS and it's something that other schools in the area slowly but surely catching up to and joining in on.
• Laura, the all APs score one to five, right? Yes. Okay. If I could recommend the scale just be uniform. Okay. So that they're all cuz you you look at them differently when you start with four versus five. Visually it can look Yeah, that makes sense. When the charts are generated they go by the highest number. Yeah, we've been thinking about if we can change that. So then AP chemistry and AP environmental science, we wanted to shift into science now. So you've all heard in previous presentations about our future planning for science and math and STEM is definitely an area that we've been concentrating on at CHS. So for example, we are rolling out our new biology course for all freshmen next year and we will also, again getting into our budgeting season but hiring dependent, be offering an engineering and robotics course for next year. And that's all in addition to AP psychology that I previously mentioned. So looking at chemistry, that's been [cough] for us and [clears throat] you can see a steady increase over time up to a pretty significant increase that we saw last year in chemistry scores and we expect that that's going to continue this year as well. I really want to point out the AP environmental science here as well. So last year was our first year piloting the new project-based AP environmental curriculum through the college board. So as schools you can continue to teach the traditional AP environmental curriculum or you can get trained and engaged in the project-based curriculum which we chose to do and you can see that our scores actually went up pretty significantly while employing the project-based curriculum with increased enrollment. And just note it's the same exam whether a school choose to do the project-based or the traditional curriculum. So I think that's some pretty confirming evidence about the approach. Okay. And then shifting to here's a slide of AP biology and AP computer science scores. So you can see for biology we had a dip a few years ago and are now trending upward again. Another area we anticipate continued growth in and computer science and variability but consistent strength in those scores. And then finally in science we have our AP physics one scores which have made a pretty steady growth pattern there as well. No, finally actually. Finally now, the social studies AP results. So thinking back to our very strong global regions results, our AP social studies results are quite similar. So first you can see US history on the left. And again as most of you were aware, we now do the dual enrollment course which is a 200 level history course at Croton-Harmon High School. And our very talented social studies teachers made that thoughtful decision to choose that course based on the quality of the curriculum. And [clears throat] the same kind of students in that class are still able to take the US history AP exam and I think we're very proud as you can see that the 2025 scores that with the dual enrollment course our scores on the AP exam actually ended up going up. So I wanted to point out and also with AP world, AP world our scores are very consistent and strong and I wanted to note that AP world is a 10th grade course and it actually creates a lot of hesitation for schools to offer AP world as a 10th grade course because students are young, it's the first AP and it's very challenging. So we're very proud of these strong results. Recently met with another school district in the area that's thinking about pursuing AP world in 10th grade and they were incredibly surprised by how strong our scores were. Just wanted to note that. And then finally this all comes together. We get national recognition for our performance on our APs. We last year were awarded the AP Honor Roll Platinum Award which is the highest level award that you can get in terms of scores and participation. And we were also awarded the AP Access Award which honors schools that have that barrier-free enrollment and try to enroll traditionally underrepresented students that would normally be in these high level courses. So we're very proud of that national recognition. And just to get a sense of how few schools earn that recognition, we're one of only three high schools in the region to earn that highest level platinum award and we're part of a small group of 7% of schools across the nation and Canada that have earned that award. So this is a small group that we're really proud to be a part of. Okay. So So, full overall takeaways. As you heard, English Regents proficiency is the second highest in the region. We're one of three schools to receive that platinum award, 7% nationwide. We have a general trend of consistently strong performance on many of our AP exams and increasing average performance on many other AP exams. So, we're on a strong upward trend. And again, we're very proud of our AP enrollment that's consistently strong and growing. So, going to And then you can all look at the [clears throat] far right. You can see the district-wide average proficiency. So, we added our English proficiency onto that data that you have previously seen to kind of round out kind of how students end in our district with really strong English proficiency. So, how do we get here? You've seen similar versions of this slide from CET and PVC, but I think for us at high school, I want to start down on the bottom with teacher empowerment because as that's kind of the foundation of how this all happens. We have incredibly talented content specialists that do this work and are not settling and saying, "We're just going to do the same thing that we've always done." We want to get better. We want to try the project-based curriculum. We want to find the better US history course for our students. and so, they're really the the core to this. And we know that there's always that background concern when we're making broad changes, especially at the high school level, wondering, "What will the impact be? How can we guarantee that this is going to work? What does the data show? What do the numbers show?" And obviously, in the first year, we know all of the research behind it, but in the first year, you don't know what those outcomes are going to be. So, we're really proud of what those outcomes are. And we know that, anytime you try to make a systemic change in a more in an institution like public education, that concern about the test score is always going to be there. and as I mentioned, we knew going in that the research showed us that that would not be the case, but we needed to do it in our own system and gather our own data to know. And now we do know that And this is very confirming, this growth trajectory. Obviously, we're not done that, but it's certainly a growth trajectory. And hopefully, this can be one piece of evidence that we can make these shifts in student and teacher experience and still advance student success, including on these kinds of metrics that our general population is most well versed in. and so, like I said, the teacher empowerment, that's the foundation. Teachers are the experts in all of this. but we also have coaching, professional learning. We have consistent launching pads for group work that's supported by our district and supported by CET and PVC as well. And we're looking forward to staying focused on that.
• I want to offer just some kudos again to Laura, to the leadership of the high school, to the outstanding faculty and staff, to the students, and to their families. Right? This sort of result doesn't happen by accident. This sort of continual [clears throat] trend doesn't happen by accident. I also want to thank and give kudos to the board and to the community who for the past several years have supported staffing increases at the high school in all of the content core content areas as well as in counseling as well as in interventionists [clears throat] as you have at CET and PVC. and again, when we talk about kind of the fruits of that labor, of that decision-making, of that support, we're seeing it again tonight. And part of our commitment is to regularly be in front of this board and the community sharing student achievement, student success metrics of various kinds, including the more standardized metrics, and to continue to have some really great and robust conversations about what's happening in our classrooms and how it's impacting our students. But Laura, great job. Thank you. congratulations on these results. Very impressive. so, I just wanted to throw one thing out there. so, this the results that we're seeing is based on last year's schedule. And this current year, we have a new schedule that's underway. I just want to put out there that my understanding, because my daughter was a senior in her last year at the high school, is the helping period was there pretty much every day for any student. And I think that's also one of the things that [clears throat] has been great and allowed, you know, that why we why we have this platinum level award. So, I would just say like as we move forward, because there has been some shifts in terms of how, students choosing between going to helping or to a club at times is, you know, if there are some shifts in the result to like maybe look a little bit about how the timing is to make sure that students are getting the access to the extra support they need. just to something to keep in the back of my mind. Give the Dutch treat. Thank you. So, I just want to add our early attendance data. Our what we'll now now call collab, overall, our total attendance was astronomically higher than it was in our previous schedule, which is something that we're tracking very closely. It was one of the main goals of shifting the time, particularly of our collab period. Right. Just to to clarify what you mean is because the collab period now is within the school day, whereas previously, helping was at the end of the school day. So, people could kind of look out if they wanted to, but now it's It's like it's incorporated I mean, it's not like at 2:35. It's earlier in the day. It's at 1:00. So, it's between classes. So, there's more of an incentive for students to stay here and be here and use it versus leaving at the end of the school day, which you understand high school students. They're excited about the change, but I think they would agree that they're using it more. Despite that. I just want to say as a parent of student athletes, moving it to the middle of the day significantly impacted access because many times you're catching a bus. That's the first thing that you're you're letting fall off your schedule is actually that end of day helping period. So, I'm grateful for the new schedule. And I'm thankful they brought that up also, too, because our helping period, and I know that a lot of CET families here, it's not something that a lot of high schools in the area have, that it's open access to every teacher every day for students to get whatever additional support they need, one-on-one attention. I I I just want to jump in cuz I'm a college professor, and I think this is one of the great things we get to do as a district because our students graduate like being more comfortable to advocate and approach teachers for help. And I think it's a special thing we do.
• Oh, I just like to add I'm [clears throat] I'm really grateful that you've given us this presentation and shared all this information with us. And I especially appreciate hearing today the fact that we're connecting sort of like this performance with our values within the system. I think that's a really important thing to highlight for the community and also for us as a board. If we talk about every year as part of our budgeting process, how we are putting dollars against the vision. And to be able to sort of see here again, we can't necessarily make a one-to-one like, positive statement, but I think what you can definitely and I think what we as a community and as a district can definitely feel is that the choices that we're making in terms of where we're allocating the dollars, how we're funding instruction, how we're funding professional development, how we are looking at our hiring practices, how we are taking consideration into the schedule, how we're developing interdisciplinary classes, and asking our educators and our students to engage in learning in a different way, we are seeing the impact in measurable ways. So, I really appreciate because I, I think this is something that this board has been advocating for fairly strongly in the last couple of years is to to have gone on this journey with the district and made the commitment to reinvision learning and look at our vision map in a different way, to actually be able to put some of this information against it and see see the outcomes and understand that this has always been a yes and conversation for us in this school district. Yes, we can do these great things, and we can also look at this information. It doesn't get in the way of our being able to feel good about the work that we're doing. In fact, for me, it really bolsters that the the the perception that I've had that these are great decisions for our students and are creating a lot of really, really positive learning environment and a positive environment for our teachers. So, I'm really grateful that we had the time to have this conversation. Thank you. I would just like to add that the one thing that I find to keep very important is the the [clears throat] access award. The fact that we do not restrict entrance, we do and we have great participation. And when we tie that in with some of the other things that we we [clears throat] are doing, the collab, the Tiger Tuesday, where students get to stretch themselves in other ways in terms of their, their interests, that I'm sure ties back in some way, although it's probably difficult to quantify, to what happens academically and in AP scores and in Regents scores. I think it It's It's a holistic approach, and I think it is a disservice to say, "Well, we're not doing so well in this one area." We really have to look at whether you know, how our students leave us and they have met all of those attributes of a graduate that we believe they should have and that includes the ability to think, create and it's all part of it's all part of the mix and it's all together.
• Bravo. [applause]
• Thank you and thanks again Laura for being here and for your leadership. Shifting gears if we could to let's talk about technology for a little bit. So one of the other ongoing conversations in the district for the better part of a year or so now has been I think what we are all experiencing as a society and in our classrooms and our lives which is the saturation of screen time and technology use broadly. I mean we're starting to see more and more of that discussion happening at a at a national level. And certainly that discussion is happening and has been happening here in our community and in our in our classrooms. A part of that conversation as we think about how we kind of get the pendulum back to a balanced place in terms of screen time and interconnectedness in our classrooms is about the implementation of the state's cell phone [clears throat] legislation. And so I wanted to just share some of my perceptions having been in our classrooms of course extensively spoken with our faculty with our our building leaders and district leaders and parents and and students and of course we want to hear hear Phil from from you in terms of your perception as well in terms of how the rollout of that restriction is happening at our building starting with CET and this is a fairly easy aspect of the rollout in that there's really been no change for CET students cell phones were never a part of the CET students experiences leading up to this year and aren't again this year. At PVC we had this conversation with our Croton Teachers Association leadership team earlier in the week. Broadly the the feedback from the faculty is that it's going very very well. The number of distractions related to cell phone use in the building have decreased significantly from last year not that they were ever a regular part of the classroom instruction but students now I think understand more than ever that it's simply not an acceptable aspect of the the 5-8 student experience. One of the things I want to make this note to to grade five parents one of the things we did here was that coming back from winter break we see a number of fifth grade students now sporting Apple watches underneath their long sleeve shirts. So fifth grade students and parents were aware of it and so the faculty will be taking some steps to address that distraction. But the fact that we're having that level granular conversation about the implementation of it at PVC I think we would take as very good news. At the high school certainly this was the conversation as we began the year in terms of how the students were going to respond to what was a change certainly in terms of their ability to access phones and most notably during class. And I think one of the things I wanted I know I shared earlier in the year was the first day I think Laura the first day you and and the team had the entire building together for a school wide assembly and to see 500 teenagers fully engaged in the speaker no one looking down at their phone [clears throat] was a a beautiful thing. And to walk through classrooms at the high school now you continue to see that. The level of engagement from our students without these distractions is as high as it's ever been. And the feedback from the faculty continues to be that it's not a distraction for them in terms of having to police student activity around it. And that was our goal was to create to not create environment to continue to have an environment at the high school where students feel respected valued understood by the adults in their school lives so that we didn't have to deal with some of the the behaviors that perhaps other schools are seeing where students will try to work around the restrictions. We'd love to hear from Phil and and from Laura if you would on your perceptions of it. But our main metric at this point our feedback from the students from the faculty and from the administration all of whom are saying it just simply isn't a conversation. Right Laura this is not a regular distraction in our buildings and that's exactly what we wanted to to have it be. Phil would yes. Share a student perspective. Absolutely. So I'm a senior obviously this is the first year that it's been implemented here. so in my experience we don't have our phones at all during class or anything like that. I haven't seen any students on it during class or anything like that and not during passing periods. the only time that really I've seen anyone on it is during our off campus lunch where we're paying with Apple Pay at pre-show or something like that just I think everyone thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was coming into it. I think especially probably the senior class was like oh we've had it all these this one entire time like why is it being taken now but it's really not bad at all. If anything I think it's increased engagement in the classrooms and I think [snorts] everyone at this point is completely used to it like there's no teachers that really have to coax you to put your cell phones in the box anymore it's just kind of become part of the daily routine. And I think it will continue to do so as time passes but yeah I think mostly students like pretty understanding with that obviously it's the law and I think our school has adapted well to it. I think in a good way it's not hasn't become like a war between the students and the teachers like I think it's like sort of respect thing especially like in the high school like a lot of us are 18 about to be well we are adults and we're going into the real world so I think there's a good sense of respect between ourselves the cell phones and policy so it's pretty good. Thank you. Laura do you want to add anything? Yeah and I think Phil said very well and I would just add that from an administrative perspective we are not seeing significant issues with students not complying. I can count on one hand the number of cell phones that I've had to take this year so far and in those situations they've been very respectful conversations. But I think from like a more regional perspective this is the topic of all of our principals meetings regionally and the vibe and the feedback from our school is significantly different than the experiences that my colleagues across the region are having. I was sharing with Phil earlier that one of my colleagues at another high school shared how this the way that their district is approaching the ban at the high school has significantly changed his relationships with students and teachers and I think that's something that I'm so happy is not happening in our school and we recently had a student panel around media literacy and digital fluency. It wasn't directly just about the cell phone ban topic but it came up naturally. And one of the students said that they really appreciated the respectful approach that we're using in our district. And so I hope that it's something that we'll continue to be able to strike that really good balance with. Questions for Phil or Laura on that topic?
• Now I I just like to reiterate how thoughtful the administration was in considering especially the high school students feelings and the relationships that teachers have with students and the nature of implementing the ban and how kindly and graciously I think it was handled from a place of respect and I think I see students benefit from that to be treated that way and to step into those places of responsibility on their own treating them like adults I think was a very compassionate way to handle that. Thank you for doing that. I also want to chime in that Neil and I had the opportunity and I know Neil may want also to say something about this to attend that panel that Dr. Tubbs was referencing and that Phil had a chance to speak at. And I think what really it was a it was a panel of current juniors and seniors at the high school who were talking about not just their experiences with cell phones specifically but technology in general in the schools. And I think [clears throat] that for me the biggest takeaway was that students who volunteer to do these panels are obviously leaders right? And they are people who are sort of engaged in a certain way but I think that this group is really reflective of the student body as a whole and what they were able to really communicate to us the people who were in the audience which included board trustees and this was done for CET parents actually. So what I think the takeaway that many of us felt was that these are folks who are really thinking very seriously about their relationship with technology and have been doing so even before the state mandate on the cell phone thing sort of came down. I think that that they're exhibiting an awareness and many of them actually evidence like the sense of freedom that they have to not really be actually tethered to their cell phone during the school day in a way that maybe there was a feeling one had to be before. This idea of sort of being able to engage and really focus it seems to have really energized people and for me at least Phil hearing what you and your colleagues were saying or your your classmates were saying at that panel really gave me the sense that it's like it it it's not something that you all are thinking about and it's actually opened up time for you to think about yourselves and what you want to be doing and to me what I heard was really, really positive. And I think it's just I I hope that we continue to have more conversations actually like that, where we are hearing directly from students about the impact of some of the changes and programs that we have here at the district, because it's very persuasive. We're not doing any of this stuff for us, actually. It's really entirely for you all. So, I think to be able to hear directly from you about sort of what your experiences are has really great really great value as we, again, do the work of the board, but also for like our community and for our parents. I know for the CET parents that I spoke to after this panel, it was for a lot of people it was really heartening to think about like this is what we have to look forward to in terms of where our students are going to be, 11 years from now. So, thank you again for doing that. I don't know if you want to add anything, Neil. Yeah, there are a couple of things that I think this probably is something that we might be discussing in polling, but I'm glad we're discussing it now. my takeaway from what we heard is here. And also what we heard with the panel that was like it's right before the Christmas the holiday break at CET was a couple of things, which I guess if people have not seen it or if that video has of the discussion has been put up, I think I may at some point [clears throat] the first thing is that the students who were not only the, kind of the most high achieving, they were a cross-section of students who were willing to come in front of administrators and parents and and school board members and talk with, they were one of the things that they said many of them said was we learned from our parents as we were growing up the limits and the appropriate use of these technological and devices like cell phones. And so, really what I was hearing from that is as much as we could put a proscription, a prohibition on the use [clears throat] of this particular form of technology, it really comes back to the parents and the community are to kind of develop norms that are reasonable, appropriate. the second thing that I note with regards specifically to personal electronic devices is that and I think Annamika said this in the panel, is that having a ban with a punitive way doesn't show respect to students, particularly at the high school age, who are realizing, you know, how to navigate the world. That's part of what we try to have students have that confidence to be respectful for themselves and respectful for others, and to then be able to model that behavior, including in the classroom. And so, it's much more natural much more appropriate for our students at that level as they become just become young adults to be able to model to, model positive ways of of dealing with these kind of fraught issues. I will also add, and it's not really on cell phone, is I found that there was a very, should I say, mature and reflective discussion about artificial intelligence, [cough and clears throat] how students will use AI, how they will use it as a tool instead of a crutch. And I thought that was one of those discussions that was really heartening for us to think. I know, there was we as a board will be considering and we need to be working on this and an AI policy and then guidelines on how AI will be used in the school setting, both for learning, for teaching, for curriculum development, and for operations but I didn't feel from what we heard, and Phil, you can, you can add it chime in if it's something that you have from your perspective, I didn't feel that folks were saying, this is a way to get to get over on the system, and this is what I'm going to use when I get to college, and this is what I'm going to use elsewhere, I think I was impressed with that, and I think all in all, we are in, we're we're in a place that we're working with our students not against our students. Thank you, Neil. I just again wanted to thank the board, the thoughtful way that this has been administered by the leadership and by the faculty at the high school derives from a board's policy committee and a full board that approached this from a a nuanced, thoughtful place. And with great respect to other districts' boards, that doesn't happen everywhere. So, I want to thank the board for your thinking. It was a significant investment of time and thought and talent late this spring and this summer in in putting together that policy. And obviously we'll continue to evaluate it and report back on it. We're still in the early stages, but so far so good in terms of how it's going to be implemented. So, thank you, everybody. Thank you, policy committee. Okay, let's talk about UPK. So, again, I want to thank everybody who's here tonight and who spoke. I want to thank Mike and Jacob for your time, as well as the other folks that I had the opportunity to interact with between meetings. Many of us were in this space back in in December, where we had some initial conversation publicly about this topic, and I want to reiterate a couple things, and then Rachel's going to share an update on our actions and process, but first and foremost, for everyone who spoke tonight, I think the only thing I would gently push back on is the assertion that somehow it feels adversary. I think I can speak for everyone who's seated at this table in that we don't feel an adversarial dynamic here. This is something that we agree on and that is urgent and that is important. All right, there is no intent from anyone who's seated at this table to allow UPK to flounder, to fail, or to be paused in the system. That simply will not happen. We will not allow it to happen. So, I just want to start with that as the foundational part of the conversation. we view UPK as vitally and as importantly as all of you do. I want to thank again Rachel and Lauren Carroll for your work behind the scenes all the time, year round, on developing these programs, working with our community-based organizations. one of the ways that we continue to think about this is how do we contribute to the success of this program in a way that is sustainable over the course of time. And we're thrilled to hear the governor's news and the mayor's news today, understanding [clears throat] that that's the beginning of a process and not the end of it. We hope that it ends at that place. If it does, that's great. We need to be prepared for any eventuality in a way that applies resource from the district that we can regularly rely on being able to apply, [snorts] knowing that the financial aspect of it is a zero-sum game. All right, there it is. so, there are other ways to think about resource application from the school district to a program like this, and one of them that we've seen other districts use successfully is using [clears throat] space within our buildings for UPK to operate. and so, we've had conversations with Carrie and Craig, who are the administration at CET, looking at what I think is a really viable possibility in terms of being able to allocate space at CET for a community-based organization to potentially operate a UPK site out of CET. I think there are a number of reasons why that could make great sense for the families, for the students, for CET, for the community-based organization in terms of limiting or decreasing overhead costs related to several aspects of operating the program. the final details of that have not been fully worked out. Obviously, there's a lot to to consider there. But when we talk about impact on the student experience, that's something that potentially we could look at doing at CET. You over here.
• [snorts] And so, I want to mention that as a really, I think, viable possibility and a way to make this, again, not just a program that can operate successfully in 2026-2027, but beyond that, an advantage scores [snorts] and scores of students over the course of time. We think of UPK as a program and not necessarily as a specific provider. Right, our goal is to make sure that all students within what is what is feasible have an outstanding and high-quality pre-K experience. And to the point that was made earlier, our goal is for it to be a pre-K-12 system as well. And we've got work from our end, work from the advocacy end, work from the state funding end to get there, but we share that goal the same way that you do as well. now, Rachel's going to share some updates on some of the other work that we've been doing in this area to get us to what I very confidently believe will be a very satisfactory conclusion. Hi, everyone. some of you I know, so I am the face of UPK. [laughter] we host an annual preschool tea which is an event that we invite local preschools to to have conversations with them about kindergarten readiness skills. You know, expectations for students as they enter into kindergarten to help them refine their program and ensure that the students are being taught, specific skills that we expect as the students enter kindergarten in September. It's a very collaborative event which a lot of the preschools during COVID were like really like, yearning to have that connection with CET. At that event, we have providers there, sharing some behavioral strategies, some techniques to support fine motor skills, sensory integration skills, as well as what the curricular and the student expectations are as they enter into kindergarten. So, that particular event is a perfect venue for us to start having those conversations with our local preschools and really have conversations about the feasibility of them potentially hosting a UPK class and or spots within their program but sponsored through the grants that we received as a the school district. So, some of the efforts and these efforts really were, due to the hard work of Lauren Carroll and, our team to since our last meeting when we, we really heard you and as Steve had mentioned, we value the relationship with, our UPK providers and we do have another provider in the village as well which wasn't necessarily noted, you know, when you guys were speaking but Rising Star also has a very, a very high quality program and they've been able to sustain seats for us for the past 2 years. So, with that being said, we have reached out to current providers. We have conversations, ongoing conversations with Sarah and Stacy as well as Gloria over at Rising Star about their current program needs and the feasibility of them continuing with us, as a partner in the 26-27 school year. We've had a lot of conversations with some potential partners, community-based organizations that would be able to supervise, oversee, and support our UPK needs here in Croton. We've scheduled some on-site visits to some other districts that have in-house UPK programs so that we could get kind of just a a feel for it because it is new to Croton and if we do proceed with housing a particular classroom and or housing the UPK program in CET, we want to just ensure that we have all the, logistics ironed out to help us best serve our UPK students. As Steve had mentioned, we are, considering allocating classroom at CET to support this program and to ensure that there are seats available in the upcoming school year. We're also considering and having conversations with adjacent neighboring districts about possible shared services. So, there [clears throat] are programs that may not necessarily have all of their seats filled and that is an available, spot for us. It's just an option that we're looking at, we're just investigating and having some conversations with. And then as, you guys here, your voices, your presence, our advocacy as far as the board and the district leaders and our providers, we are advocating for more funding to ensure that, you know, that partners can run quality programs at a rate that, allows them to sustain both their business and the UPK program itself. So, just some tidbits of information. You guys, have mentioned this. Additionally, there were some guidance documents that we were kind of, looking through but the priority fund the some of the priorities, the legislative priorities for our our state as well as our Board of Regents is that, by 2030 all 4-year-olds will have access to pre-kindergarten programs and then by 2035 all 3-year-olds will have access to programs. And then and something that I found interesting and I'm not even sure how many people actually, you know, how much of the public knew this but by the end of what they at the fiscal year 2025, so essentially last month, NYSED was scheduled to complete an analysis of the per pupil expenditures and really gauging the partners and the local educational agencies to see if the funding was essentially adequate to sustain these these quality UPK programs and then looking to increase those those allocations based on the feedback and the input that they get through that survey in order to either expand, preserve in some cases because some districts do have a a different their allocations are based on a different per pupil rate but looking to see if these rates were enough to sustain quality programs and ensure that they could expand those services to all eligible students. So, that's something hopefully, before summer time or maybe before this time next year we'll we'll have the results of that survey and maybe some actions taken on the part of the state ed department. So, just for clarification Yeah. from your understanding at the end of 2025 fiscal year, which would be June 30th or March 31st or or maybe the state's fiscal year which is March 31st. Yeah, we're in the 26 fiscal year. Yeah, so right. So, I guess really Maybe they did this already so maybe it would not but we don't know. is whether that feasibility study is done to the point that in the 26 budget or the budget that will be adopted for April, starting April 1st, whether there will be some recommendation either in the governor's budget or here next week or in the one house budget or, whether they're going to say, yes, let's increase it from 50 hours 5400 to some other number. It's possible we'll be there in March 2026. And obviously there'll be advocacy that we can all engage in with the legislature to, Thank you for the clarity. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. So, as far as, the information that was released by Governor Hochul as well, expanding access to universal pre-kindergarten. This is just a snippet from a UPK consolidation report that NYSED had published in the early or mid fall. Just stating that districts, eligible for that funding there's going to be some additional allocations, recommend a recommendation for $20 of additional allocations across the state to ensure that all students are, it is a universal access to all within this next I guess maybe in the next two fiscal years they'll plan for that information and release it. Can I just ask you a question? I've been reading this and it says eligible districts will be awarded a number of seats needed to achieve the statutory proxy defined as 85% of the combined public and non-public kindergarten enrollment. So, are they still talking about not 100% funding? It's still a formula. It's still It's still a formula. So, it's still okay. Yes, still a formula. So, it's still not universal pre-K. It's still a lottery. It's available to but everyone can enter into the lottery. That's how they always explain it. The lottery is open to all. That's the universal part of it. There's no criteria or restrictions. No. No. It's just labeled pre-K as it is in New York City. It's just labeled that here.
• Correct. Correct. And that is stated. I just relay the information that Right.
• [clears throat] So, this timeline has remained the same for the past 2 years. This is the timeline that we have followed since the 23-24 school year. So, in January we host our pre preschool team and information session. The years where we do not have an option to extend a contract with a UPK provider, we go back out to bid and request for proposals. So, that's what we are doing this month. Our RFP is going to be due on or about the 28th or 29th of this month, which is similar to years past. In [clears throat] February, based on the results and the bid proposals, we will be making a recommendation for contracts with providers at the February board meeting. March. But so, really between the end of February and March, depending on when we get the contracts to the board, we'll open the lottery and we post that on social media, our website, Parent Square. We put flyers in the local preschools. So, we do a lot of marketing of the drawing and the lottery. So, end of February into March we'll have the interest survey open which is a QR code with a Google form. In lit Yes. Sorry, just to dumb it down for me. So, when because a lot of the concern that we hear and I remember being in your shoes is like the timing of the thing. So, when can we have a sense of approximately how many seats so people can get a sense of the landscape? Like like approximately. So, the actual number of seats that would be funded through the state that are allocated to us is not released until the summer. And that's been that's been That has been historically the way that it is. So, what we base the lottery on is the number of seats we had the preceding year. So, if we said we had 66, let's just say, and without the release of the new funding and the allocation, we would open the lottery to approximately 50 to 60 seats because in the historically we have not received less in our preschool allocation annually. It seems to increase each year. And we would, correct me if I'm wrong, we would also have an indication of that amount from the from the state aid Yes. Yes, but the actual allocation and the lottery assigned to us is then till July. And the state aid runs we don't have information about until the budget.
• Until the budget. So, that is usually I mean again, it can be whenever they decide [clears throat] to do it, right? But that would be usually April. And and again, just just for clarity because I think there is so much confusion about this. This is the process annually Yes. And and so, it's not something that's unique unfortunately to us. To us. Not fortunately. Right. Last Well, I mean the budget was later than we thought it was going to be last year, but it was very late last year. It was really late last year. So, we'll know next week what the governor's state aid runs No, we won't. It's constitutionally required by February 1st. Okay, February July 3rd January 13th will be her state of the state So, February 1st It's just that's like her that's her press release on what she wants us to do. Just to be clear. Like when the governor states her budget, that it that's not how Right? No, that I mean that's still just the governor's budget. And then it goes to the department. And that's the starting point for the discussion from each of the houses in the legislature and then they And the floor for customer advocacy to like move the needle on this too. Yeah, to move needles as I said before. So, but we don't know the final until the budget is passed. And then we all have to And and signed by the governor. Like April. In April or later. Or whenever it happens, hopefully in April, but before April. And then, It's it's never before April. It's been [laughter] One of the concerns that I would have if I were in their shoes is like right now for at least one of our providers, the current funding level is sounds like it's most likely not sustainable for them. So, it sounds like by February we should have a sense to the extent that we there are might be other providers who might be interested. So, that at least we'll have some sense of can there be another [laughter] provider and then later on we'll have a sense of the actual funding and seats. Yes. Okay, thanks. So, last year the number of seats last year was influenced by our current providers. I'm sorry, one second. No, I you might actually be getting into this, but I think it it it is worth taking a second just to also explain about the RFP process because you'd mentioned that like in the years where we've had an opportunity to not renew a contract an RFP's been required. Is that what you're about to go into right now? No, I will circle back to that in January. But yes, so to Anamika's point, we enter into a contract with a provider for a term of 1 year and we have an option to extend. Both they can opt to extend and us and or after the 12-month period we could say, "Thank you, but we want to go back out to bid and see what other options there are." In this particular case, as Children's Space North had mentioned publicly, they're not looking to continue with us. So, we need to seek out other providers that may be interested in partnering with us. Hence, the request for proposals. So, we are going to go out to bid publicly where providers can submit a proposal to partner with us to house some or all of our UPK program. And we have done that in the years past. And as is required As is required. For any change in the contract. Correct. So, so if if even if the current provider said yes, they would like to continue with a change in contract funds, it would require an RFP. An RFP or an Yes, that's correct. So, we just wanted to be clear on that. To connect the dots between the RFP and the potential changes, maybe the space whatever other assistance that would those decisions would be made in time to make those clear in the RFP or would the RFP be more general in nature and then like at what point in the process is that information become clearer so that providers can make their decisions based on that information? So, the RFP has specs or specifications that align both with what our needs are as well as what New York State requires of a pre-K provider. So, we worked very hard, Denise's department and our our representatives that supervise the UPK program to really align the proposal, the request for proposals with what we are looking for in the upcoming school year. Which we're being, we want people to take an opportunity in the event that they can house, let's just say for example, five seats at, at little little Suzy's preschool for them to submit a proposal and we will consider that in the bid select in the selection process of all submitted proposals. Is that what you were asking, Daniel? If I can jump in, I think what we're going with was Well, physical space is a significant cost, right? If we're opening up CET, I'm assuming it's not going to be at a the same cost as running another private facility. Is that What is that going to When is that decision going to be solidified? And cuz that will happen on the portability program. Yes. [clears throat] So, I get that was I what I understood your question So, we're going to go Our plan is to go out to bid with a bid closing date. All bid proposals due by the 28th or 29th of January. The business office reviews those proposals. Spreadsheets it. Says, let's say they come up with a total of five providers that can only offer 30 seats, for example. We still are heavily considering opening that class at CET. So, those seats are still in the mix if that helps, you know. Go ahead. I guess what I'm asking is like or So, if I were a provider, I would want to know whether or not I could have access to that classroom space or not because that might change whether or not I would pursue the RFP. So, I think that's what I think we're trying to understand is like will this RFP include this potential offer or is that coming later on in the process? So, within the RFP there is a opening There's like a window of questions, a time where they can reach out to me and ask those types of questions. That specificity we do not list in the RFP. But there is both my email, phone number for them to any potential provider to contact for clarifying questions. So, in the past we have had providers that will supervise a program that have allocated that have a I guess to me like why wouldn't we include it? Is it their legal Because it it's it requires an extra step and or at least to have that there is a possibility for it that will be decided. But to me this is just adding If if this is something that is a requirement, to me it's adding like it's an obstacles to making this go. I agree.
• if it's feasible, if we determine that there is space available and if it is feasible, we will put language in the in the RFP to say that we are if you have space within your program offsite or that we will have X many seats available in our in one of our classrooms that you can either run that program outside of our classroom or at a private facility if you have already a preschool operating. So, I I might be I know I this email not be able to answer this, but I guess it's like what is and maybe you can't say this, but what information do you need to be able to ensure that you can or cannot offer because it seems like it would be optimal the earlier that we can let people know. The RFP Yeah, the RFP we're just right now looking at our enrollment projections, pre-K existing pre-K students to kind of shore up those numbers to ensure that we can in fact dedicate a space. So, it's just really looking at our demographic projections, our current enrollment in pre-K now and just some other factors. So, in terms of the actual propo- on request for a proposal. It sounds to me like what each of the bidders may be asked is how many seats would do we will basically provide you a per seat for your rate rate for utilizing your own facility. We will also provide assuming we have the space in CTE a per seat rate for operating supervising a program at CTE which would be a lower rate because they don't So it's the same rate. So what we'll really be saying there is okay will will you accept how will you know how many will you do with it? How many seats are you How many seats you willing to do in bid on in one or the other location? I mean private or in at CTE and then based on those bids we will then be able to ascertain how many seats can be made available up to the maximum that we receive funding from from the state [clears throat] and where they will be. So what I hear you saying is that we may end up having two or three or four providers some of whom [clears throat] only one of whom will be in CTE because we're only going to have one provider that can use that facility and supervise it but there may be two three however many bidders there are for those other location locations and if depending on what happens with the shared services that was mentioned at the beginning of this section or which I think you mentioned we may have the ability to offer let us say something certain number of seats at All Board in Ossining because they are willing to they have the space and are willing to bid. That's an example. Yeah we don't know. I I'm just saying it because it's on line and it's nearby and they could bid and we would have that I will note that during the pandemic when we were dealing with having to provide the UPK spaces for for pre-kindergarten as I actually spaces for our staff there was a place out in Yorktown off of 134 that we had an arrangement with. I'm just saying that there's a lot of different folk out there that may be interested well after This is yeah thank you for the information. Yes.
• [laughter] So on or about the mid to end of March into April we'll be hosting a lottery drawing families are notified waitlisted families will be notified of their status on the waitlist and or if someone rejects an accepted seat that would move people up in the waitlist. What we will plan to do this year which is different from last year we gave about a week of I guess decision making time to families. So I will call Mrs. Jones say your your son's been awarded a seat can you let us know by next Friday. That was a bit of a challenge as far as getting through the waitlist so we're going to limit the amount of time that people have to make that decision or at least shorten it to allow for the next person to be called from the waitlist which if that was a suggestion from our current providers they said that would have helped a little bit with trying to place the students and fill the seats there. And then as you mentioned sometime in the summer NYSED releases the NYSED releases the exact allocation and funding to their districts for the UPK program. And just correct me if I'm wrong but in that July what usually has happened is if we've ever had [clears throat] people that haven't been selected in the lottery it's after that July allocation is made we we've been able to fill. We've been able to seat everyone. I've seated everyone that's usually what happens. Yeah we exhaust the waitlist so everyone has been seated since 2021 2022. When did when did this program begin? Thank you. Thank you Asia. I mean I I I think it had part of the reason it's confusing is because there are a lot of moving and I think because we've had sort of like the luck of having a couple of consistent providers over the last couple of years it feels like this is vastly different but this is not super vastly different from the conversation we had two years ago when we actually when God first contracted with Children's Space North to become our provider or even before that when we contracted with our first provider right? For that historical context it needs to be I think we should sort of understand that this is not a place that we we've been in this place before and unfortunately because of the way the system works the system forces us to be in this position basically like every year or every other year which is horrifying and again like I mean I wish Kathy Hochul was like listening to our board meeting. Honestly I do because this is one of the frustrations is that we we we're trying to sort of like make something work and institutionally governmentally in terms of how things are funded they're not funded to make it easy for districts to do this and the people who are who are sort of like left hanging were the people who are in the audience right now coming to talk to us about this. So it's it's incredibly incredibly frustrating. I'm wondering if just because I think there's been a lot of information here we don't have necessarily everyone in our community who's invested in this issue listening [clears throat] in and even if you did listen to this meeting I'm not sure you'd totally get like what you [laughter] I'm sorry just to be clear that's not intended as criticism I think we've had a really good discussion and we've raised a lot of good questions and some of these questions come up as you're hearing stuff. I have to imagine that there are people who are in the audience right now and we will have another hearing of the public later but this is not a back and forth sort of conversation tonight. So I think it would behoove us to sort of also figure out how to summarize this in a way that we can send out as a communication to families and then also interested families because it is such a topic of interest and I think the reality is it's like this is a watch this space conversation because there's so many factors beyond like I don't I I don't know that anyone was expecting to like get the New York Times notification like I did today saying by the way this is what we're doing now in New York [clears throat] state great news but it's like things are changing very very rapidly so I think we have to all sort of figure out how to stay on top of it. Let's also fill the waitlist. No I understand that I understand. I mean we we go through this budgeting process literally every single year to fund these schools right? So this this is just like another piece of that and it's every year. I guess I I would I would just say that given that it it is such a big priority of the governor this year and a lot of it is focused in the city but obviously a lot of state wide changes that I mean usually the way that the process works is as we all know is that the houses each try to throw in as much as they can from their like community needs assessments right? And so I expect that probably what will happen is that the governor will probably put a lot of this out in the out years to try and fund later as opposed to this year right? and the assembly and senate might push for a faster timeline maybe and maybe that's part of the advocacy that also then makes potentially this year more complicated if they do decide to put in some stuff this year that might complicate the timeline and so I think being in touch with NYSED and the assembly and the senate as much as possible so that we understand like what the mechanics might how they might differ this year if we are to get something in the one houses and then in the final budget cuz I mean we've seen a lot of big stuff scrunched into a a very short time I understand which is good but then causes a lot of administrative chaos and confusion on top of the stuff that we're already used to experiencing so And in terms of our advocacy meetings Sarah because I know this is something that like the advocacy committee is on top of. Our timeline in terms of our like school board representation meetings with our local legislators those are all happening over like the next six weeks right? So it's like this is the time this conversation has to be happening in our So I guess before the board it's Yeah when we head into the You'll tell us all about what we have to go to with our legislators. When we get there That's it for my report. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you Steve. Thank you Rachel and thank you Denise I know it's a lot of I think we all agree [clears throat] it's a lot of work and you're really on top of it so we appreciate it. Why don't we take a five minute break? [clears throat]
• Mhm.
• one action We will begin the meeting of the January 8th meeting of the Croton-Harmon Union Free School District Board of Education. We are at the conclusion of item 2.3, which is the superintendent's report. Is that correct? Yes. next agenda item is item 2.4, our student ex-officio trustee report. Our student ex-officio trustee exercise their invitation to go home given the hour to not be here. So, we will move into item 2.5, which is the board reports. traditionally we kind of like What is that? You like the condensed combine combine and when we get to here, we combine board reports and employment work at the end of our meetings. This is I'm speaking my philosophy. This is strictly board reports. So, the board committees so, we will start with advocacy. Is that right? All right. So, as I mentioned earlier, the advocacy committee will be meeting next week on January 12th at 5:00 p.m. we will be discussing during that meeting a resolution in support of expanded UPK funding as we as mentioned earlier, I think we also want to discuss some of the other legislative priorities that have been put forth by both our partners at WestPAC and at LGRC as well as discuss the potential for participation at this year's NYSSBA Lobby Day in Albany. it is not something we have traditionally always participated in. It's been I I know we have in the past, but it's been many years. so, but given that we have we we we have this the UPK issue that we really want to advocate strongly for discussing whether it makes sense to just have a first participate this year. That would be on February 11th. and that I will have more to report back after we actually meet. Question on that. Are you thinking in terms of participating in see on February 11th? And speak carefully it would be members of the advocacy committee or are you participating in that as many board members that are available might want to? So, I think we will have a discussion at our advocacy meeting and determine what we think would be the the best way forward. I will say aside from the NYSSBA Lobby Day, we will also have the opportunities to speak with our representatives during the WestPAC virtual virtual meetings with each of our representatives. My question on that and I will ask Neil and Sarah because you're senior members on the board is there a rule against the entire board going because wouldn't that violate the open meeting law?
• There there is not. There is not a law against that. Right. We're we're not conducting business. No, I understand that, but my understanding has historically been that like if three or more of us are in a room potentially, right? Like then we're talking about this stuff, but there's But we are not we're not discussing district operations and we're not taking any action, so it would not be so, it's it it's fine for us for multiple people. Okay. [cough and clears throat] If that makes sense. that said, it's it's a weekday and that's maybe not feasible for everyone, so. yeah, that's all I have for advocacy. Thank you. Audit? Audit is looking to find time to meet in February. We're starting to schedule the next meeting. Thank you. Board development? Board development, our next meeting is currently scheduled Our next meeting is currently scheduled for February 5th. please be on the lookout for now that we're sort of back after the break some scheduling and other sort of like calendar opportunities that will be shared [clears throat] with the board to come over email. I'm not going to go into it tonight because it's already late. What are the times on that? Is that on that? Oh, for for what? For board development? Yeah, the 5th. Okay. it will probably be Well, I don't know actually [cough] do you guys? [clears throat] I'm sorry. The next the next board development meeting is February 5th. February 5th, but we usually do it after the building planning council is before. So, it'll either be Oh, this is your I see. This is our meeting. I thought that was your advocacy now. No, the communications will be coming over to you guys. No, no, no. Email communications about our winter learning walks will be coming over email. A [snorts] reminder of like our shared calendar, which includes some WestPAC programming, community conversations and round tables, etc. That will all be coming over email. and so, I'm not going to get into the details about that since it's just the full committee report right now. Thanks. Yeah, absolutely. So, that's it for board development. Thank you. Communications?
• Yes. So, communications met on Monday January 5th and we had a robust discussion at the beginning and presentation from Mr. Cavalieri about our social media and website engagement. I will share that presentation and those resources in the board resources folder so, everyone can take a look at those. but what showed that we have, significant engagement overall that we are that it is all organic engagement, which is great to see and that our Instagram numbers are are Yeah. considerably higher than our other social our Facebook social media. next time we discussed when we look at this next quarter so, at the end of March, we would also look at some of our video and live stream engagement numbers and metrics as well and and take a look at those for our meetings. we also then discussed we discussed a little bit about our meeting videos noting that we do live stream our videos and that the the recording of that live stream is available on YouTube immediately following the conclusion of that meeting and it does some auto captioning but the true sort of ADA compliant captioning is does take some time when that final video is done. Greg posts that up to our website and that is available on the website. So, yeah. Cool. this may not be appropriate for now, but I I'm curious I've been seeing that there's a summation of our meetings that goes out. And so I would be curious to know who is doing that. So, the the we started last year we started doing a recap of our work sessions. So, the recap of the work sessions is put together by our communications personnel shared with the communications committee for review and approval and then that is published out following the work session. So, that is only a work session recap. We did in this meeting actually discuss the not we would not be doing a recap per se for our business meetings because there is a lot of information that's included in our business meetings, but when that final video has been published we would send out a parent square reminding the community that the video is available, the business meeting was held, here's the agenda. We would link back to the agenda and have a link to that video so people can view it. so that was part of our our conversations and then we also started our discussions about putting together a board and district survey for the community regarding communications. So, we'll be working on that and continuing to work on that and hopefully finalize that survey at our next meeting in February and then move forward from there. We are continuing our work on updating the website. We will get to a point where we will be able to start putting some additional information about the the the board section of the website into a production site that isn't live that people would be able to take a look at and review so that we will be able to share that with the board prior to its publication as well. And after that we we took review of some of the upcoming communications from the district noting that we are heading into budget season. So, budget communications will be big theme. We will also see the continuing tiger success tails and information about tiger Tuesdays and the work over at PBC. There will be forthcoming superintendent videos and there will be an upcoming communication about the math and science program at CHS. That will be an upcoming article as well. yeah. Did I miss anything? I think we covered the bases on that. So, we will continue to update you as we move forward with our communications goals for the year. Thank you. Policy committee met on December 16th. We approved for consideration by the board a number of policies first reading which we'll discuss in a moment and we also took comments that we approved previously with regard to policies that had been already done for first reading and we with some changes made them ready to be provided for second reading which we'll also discuss a little bit later. Our next meeting is January 20th 1:00 p.m. at the district office where we will continue going through our list of items that have been brought to us for our February meeting for first reading and we'll continue forward. Thank you. You guys have been quite busy. I think communications and policy have gotten a lot done this year. Yeah. That's right. [snorts] If anyone has any liaison reports and that's specifically if you are a liaison aboard a board appointed liaison to anything. Okay, then we will move into item 2.6 the assistant superintendent for business report. Good evening. Thank you, Greg. The things always do Yes, it It's on. Yeah, okay. So, good evening. So, tonight we're going to review the give you a budget development update for 2026-27. We'll review the current timeline, preliminary revenue and expenditure projections and then the schedule for the upcoming months. Oops, too fast. I like that pace.
• [laughter] So, as budget is a year-round process where we look at historical data, develop forecasts and look at the fiscal [clears throat] environment and political landscape to make some of our projections and decisions. September and October we look at preliminary assumptions, create our budget development calendar and also begin to look at our debt and state aid projections. November is really about enhancing our partnerships with our building leaders, the administrative cabinet and clarifying understanding about budget priorities etc. Essentially our like our instructional leadership, the administrative cabinet and our administrative council we look at the effectiveness of our programs, where they are headed to determine if they're working, if they should be continued and then we use that as a starting point. December is continued dialogue in prioritization which is where we are at the beginning it's December. January, so we're currently in the thick of things. We will await the governor's executive budget which is expected to be discussed and potentially released on January 13th which is the state of the state address. It's always I know. [laughter] I actually looked back we did get our preliminary state aid runs they around the 20th of January last year which is helpful. So, and then moving into February yes. Moving into February we'll we'll get our teachers retirement rate so that's the employer contribution rate what we need to pay on our current salaries for our teaching staff and then we will implement a spending moratorium to kind of assess where we where our projections from last year lie, any unforeseen circumstances and are what we expect our fund balance projections to be. That will start in actually December but there it's so early on in the process it's not really a good gauge of where we stand.
• [clears throat] So, March through May this is a very compliance oriented quarter for us. March we'll submit our allowable tax levy to the state controller's office and then propose our budget and bus propositions to the board for review. In April we hope to get our state aid numbers secured and we'll ask the board to adopt the final budget and property tax report card on the 21st of April and then leading up to the public budget hearing on the 7th and our budget vote on the 19th.
• So, revenue outlook. So, at this time we're expecting the majority of our revenue to remain largely flat with the exception of the allowable tax levy which is projected to generate approximately a million dollars. There are a lot of components to that formula as you know. So, these are of course preliminary projections. there's lot going on at the state and federal level which is going to potentially impact grant funding and Medicaid reimbursement. Right now I feel that we are pretty comfortable with our we've submitted our federal aid reports and none of our predominant funding sources federally seem to be on the chopping block. So, we feel fairly confident confident about that. So, as far as state aid we have our foundation aid which is expected to remain stable. There are talks about removing state harmless which basically protects it allows us to have our existing aid numbers regardless of wealth or pupil changes as far as enrollment. So, we are considered right now a state harmless district. We expect that that will continue. So, our foundation aid there are there's no in there's no mandated increase to save harmless districts. They can provide percentage increase, but they don't have to do it by law. So, we expect that to remain fairly stable as well as our expense driven aids, which are BOCES aid, building aid, and transportation aid. We are expecting fairly flat there. Interest income, we're anticipating a dip in interest income earnings as interest rates decline and the Federal Reserve cuts the rates a little bit. Tax levy and other revenue. So, our estimated allowable tax levy factor is we're expecting based on inflation to to be 2%. The tax base growth factor, which was reviewed this morning, so we have rates from December, and that rate remains the same, which is 1.004%. So, that's what we're using in our allowable tax levy projections. That number can change as late as March or April. I don't expect it will with the federal shutdown. A lot of these metrics are not being calculated because the depart- the departments aren't generating them. So, I I don't know. We could see a change. I don't expect that we'll see a great change there. So, that's providing an estimated revenue growth of approximately $1 million. Sales tax, Westchester County sales tax pays us a portion of the sales tax that they collect. We expect that to remain stable. That's been just an incredible source of income to the district since that was implemented probably eight or so years ago.
• [clears throat] Out of district tuition income, so we have tuition income from students and families that are outside of our district, whether they are paying to come to our schools from a regular education standpoint, or whether they are interested in one of our fantastic special education programs. So, we are expecting that to remain fairly consistent. The we do have a graduating student that we need to reduce that that revenue from. let's see. Expenditure assumptions. So, on the expenditure side, our early projections are exceeding our revenue projections. So, leaving us a potential budgetary gap, and it's still very early on in the process. But, as our personnel cost is our largest expenditure driver. So, we have currently we have all of our negotiated contracts settled with the exception of two. We have our ATU contract that we're going to negotiations with in March. [clears throat] And then we have our administrator's contract, contract. So, those are the only two open contracts right now. We are preparing our salary projections based on the existing contracts. Health and dental insurance increase. So, unlike some of our other local plans, whether it's Empire or Switcher, we have a very well-managed health plan through Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES, which is a consortium of districts in the Putnam Westchester area. It is a highly conservative group of individuals that manage that that plan. I actually sit on the board there. We [snorts] are looking at a projected increase of about 5%, which is incredible considering everything that's going on absolutely with GLP-1 and all other issues that are facing the health care system right now. So, we have just signed off and voted on that 5%, which is 10 years ago or 7 years ago, 5% would seem like a lot. Now, other other plans are looking at the double digits. Yeah. So, then we have a pension contribution. So, we contribute a portion to the salaries of all of our staff to TRS and ERS. So, that's Teachers' Retirement System. The projected rates are down. This is really good news. So, it was 9.59 this year, and it's looking to be between 8.25 and 8.75. So, no reduction because as salaries go up, even though the portion [clears throat] the percentage is down, salaries have increased. So, we'll see some increases there, but not as impactful as if we if the rates had maintained themselves. Also, ERS, the New York State Employee Retirement System, so rates are up up to the average rate is going to be approximately 17.6%, which is high on salaries. We won't get the final TRS rates until January, like late January, but they are pretty accurate in their projections over the years. Then we have payroll taxes, so we we pay FICA on all of our employees, 7.65% on all of their salaries, and that is expected to remain stable. Expenditure assumptions. So, the inflationary growth in costs of goods and services is evident to all of us as taxpayers and moms, dads, et cetera. So, that is impacting our our costs. Insurance costs, comprehensive insurance costs is increasing considerably due to catastrophic weather events, the Child Victims Act, which schools are getting hit very hard with. They're like there's this level of social inflation and these nuclear awards that they're giving out for different predominantly weather events and child victims acts that where it's like $14 trillion award, and they're they're calling them nuclear awards, and they're hitting insurance companies very hard and reinsurance companies very hard. So, that we are looking at approximately 20% increase for different components of our insurance. So, we have property, casualty, commercial liability, et cetera. Utility costs, we're projecting between 3 and 7%. Thank goodness for all of our solar, which is really generating a lot of savings to the district. BOCES, we have our administrative capital and service costs, so we just received our preliminary rates. We know our rates for admin and capital, modest increases, but still it's a big chunk of our budget. And then we just got our RFS for LHRIC and Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES this week, so we're just evaluating that, but we're expecting between 2 and 5% increases there. Debt service will remain stable this year, approximately 5.2 million. That's the cost of borrowing for the district. Other programs, our special education placements are expected to remain stable, and then we are also anticipating to continue enhancing our instructional spaces with furniture and and other positive supports. I know this is like a a side step, but when we were projecting how long it would take us to the investment in our energy contract. If you ever wanted to go back and calculate that, I'm sure now with the foresight of doing that then and if the the you wouldn't have projected that they would have gone up so much. You probably have recouped our investment in half the time.
• Right. Right. And we're actually, now that we have new roofs on a lot of our buildings, are considering looking into that further because we couldn't because of the age of our of our roofs. So, we have tremendous amount of square footage that we could now implement a new EPC program to get additional solar. So, we'll be reporting to the board many years do we have left on the current EPC? Well, we have one just fell off, and then we have the other one, which is about Three years, I think. No, no, like the the last one that we did it was probably have 16 years. Okay. Yeah. And what we might do is if we if we do proceed which I would really like to, what we could do is we could consolidate them and refinance the old one depending upon the rates. So we could just combine them. Okay. So strategic next steps. so our next steps are really refining our numbers as we get more information. Analyze and update our state aid projections, refine our salaries projections. Finish negotiating those two open contracts, review our enrollment projections. We have a demographic study that was done a little over a year and a half ago looking at that, looking at our kindergarten enrollment numbers. watching, developments within community as far as residential housing and so forth. prioritizing our school building and departmental budget requests. Determining our transportation vehicle replacement needs. That's You know, we're we're assessing, we're we're well into we're probably the most advanced district in the area of electrification. In the state. In the state and now we're going to take a look and see the effectiveness of what we've done so far and make some decisions about how we want to proceed at this point. and then again assessing our current year budget performance and preparing our fund balance projections. but while it's still early, the lack of adequate revenue growth compared to our projections is going to require a very thoughtful budget process and a focus on prioritization in order to keep our budget aligned with our revenues for for this year. Could be tight year.
• Presentation schedule. So here's a road map of our upcoming meetings. [clears throat] for these presentations we will break the budget down by category. We'll start with revenues in February followed by operations and then we'll lead into our school budgets and specific programs and departments in March. And then the superintendent's final budget will be presented on April 9th with the adoption and property tax report card and the vote season admin budget vote on the 21st followed by the May 2nd budget budget hearing. And the voting day so it's Tuesday, May 19th at Croton-Harmon High School. On the ballot we'll have the budget vote. We'll have three seats for the trustee elections and then we'll have the bus propositions and the budget propositions. That evening we also have our tenure celebration at 7:00 p.m. And this is our stay connected page. So if there are any budget questions you can email us at budget.questions@chufsd.org. also follow us on Instagram, Facebook and reach out [clears throat] to me at any time. Here we go. Any questions? thank you. This is really like a very helpful overview. this is more like thinking to the future. so like looking at slide two in terms of the budget development timeline. it seems like at this point we're hearing the revenues but like everybody's already thinking about what they're going to be possibly doing who's developing a budget and I just thinking back to a few meetings ago when we had I think some of the teachers that were doing collab teaching together and Omar you asked the question like, okay, wave a magic wand like what what what would you want? What could you have? And I and I know what I'm about to say is problematic in the fact that we actually don't have a lot of discretionary income at all. But I was thinking like maybe if this has not been done in the past it might be nice when we do our fall retreat or something to have like that like dialogue as a as a board with administration like that magic wand understanding that it may not be able to come pass but some sort of discussion about you know, what would we like to see if we could have this magic wand earlier in the year before [clears throat] everything's fully set.
• Just quickly speaking from a governance perspective that's not something we could that we should we should determine whether we want to speak about that at a public meeting because that is the work of the board. Oh, that's a good point. So it it it would actually have to be discussed in an open session which I think it's like again figuring out sort of like how to incorporate that. I I would I would say it's like that conversation that we did have when the teachers came in and presented that is exactly the first step because I think we were we sort of started to engage in that conversation but it wouldn't be able to be a retreat topic because it's it's an active Thank you for for making that clear. But yeah, but I think that that would be nice sorry, like nice to just because there is such good collaboration. I don't know what I'm doing with this slide. you know, that I think we're trying to have a collaborative culture that to have like some dialogue about that understanding the there's limitations to what can possibly happen from it but in in the fall. Thank you. [clears throat] Absolutely. Couple of things very quickly. You mentioned propositions and before you mentioned bus proposition and I mean are are there are there things that may be considered and hear that such as under capital reserve fund to start putting money away for what comes in the future, perhaps an increase or something in the repair reserve. And the vote of the public in order to establish or or to replenish the repair reserve. So I just wanted to put out there that I hope those were also part of the discussion as as we finished our major project. You know that we can't just sit around and wait for the next one. We have to start putting money away for whatever we we needed to. and the other thing about Especially if I could just speak to that for a moment. Especially since because of the volume of work that we did in this capital project that we are hitting the maximum cost allowance so a lot of things that could be funded through state aid through building aid would not be funded because we've already hit that maximum cost allowance in certain areas. So those are precisely things that you would want to allocate to the capital reserve fund because the money is already set aside. It you're most likely not going to get aid on it anyway. So [clears throat] so yes, we will absolutely have those discussions. And we are currently looking at the balance of our of our future facility project funds and determining it's a it's a crazy time where to where we're trying to assess where we are maximum cost allowance wise and state aid wise and balancing what is within scope of the bond referendum that we can proceed with now. Also the maximum cost allowance has is based on commissioner approval dates. So depending upon what we decided and when it went to the commissioner for approval, we could have some of that MCA money drop off which would make it potentially eligible. so we're just trying to gather all of that information now to project predictions as far as our building aid and I will come to the board with a recommendation. Can you remind us Lisa, is there is there a timeline for which we have to make a determination about that any of that future facilities I mean we I within the next this budget couple of years I would say tops maybe this year. Okay. I would say we would not go beyond this year.
• Okay. No, that I think that's just good to know. So it's like it's so we can be thoughtful about it. It's not like there's an imperative to to make a decision and it doesn't necessarily tie in with this budget vote either specifically. No and it would any work that we would do under the 2020 bond referendum would not require any board action whatsoever. Right. It would just Any board action or or any any voting. Anyone vote because the money the proposal is already approved train, how are you spending that money? Under under the specific parameters. Under the specific parameters of what was in in the bond resolution. Exactly. However, the capital reserve Right. Is it is different. Right. So, I I just think it's great that we are not forgetting that part of where our list comes from. The other thing I wanted to mention, which is totally off topic, but it's unfortunate. Last month I just Can I start with that and can we get a nurse's question cuz it is on topic? Oh, did you have a question? Yes. You asked a question last On on the topic of propositions, can we legally and monetarily put a proposition together for to establish a pre-K reserve in case state funding doesn't come through? It's not a an allowable reserve. Not allowable, okay. It's a good question and it's good to know that that's Yeah, that's not an option. Not an option. Yeah. You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, don't answer. Totally off topic. The other day or last month, I ran into a former colleague of yours. Of mine? Yes, Rochelle. Rochelle? I asked her to bake a risotto cake. [laughter] Not unless we're here on a Saturday. Well, I I thought we could get it on a Thursday. She didn't really say she was going to, but she is doing well. Oh, that's [clears throat] great to hear that. Glad to hear that. Rochelle. Is that the only question? Thank you, Denise. This is always a good kickoff to the process that you manage so well and it's always so clear. I love it. And I love that you give us baby steps, an overview. [laughter] Thank you so much.
• Thanks, you. So, moving into new business, item 3.1, policies for first reading. I will hand the mic back over to Neil. Thank you. So, we have a number of policies for first reading that were considered and approved for board consideration at our meeting on September 20th. I realize that I had forgotten to mention one other thing about during polling. I'm sorry, during board reports, which is that at our next meeting, one of the items that will be on the agenda will be discussion of changes to the ex officio student trustee policy with regard to selections, perhaps having more than one student trustee, etc., as which is one of the board's goals. And then we have some received some feedback from student faculty members and we'll get more feedback as we go through that process. But Is that how you said you'd be discussing that in your next policy meeting? We will be discussing it at the next policy meeting and we'll be discussing SFC next week on the 15th and so I'll be there to see if anybody else has any other comments that come along with what we've already received. So, we have five policies for first reading. And they are mainly, I guess, internal administrative things, which I will mention. First is annual district meeting and budget vote, which is basically conducts that budget vote on May 19th or whenever it is each year. And there are certain changes that are required or allowed by law, recent adoption by the state legislature of a provision that if there is a disaster that occurs on the day of the vote and fewer than 8% of people show up, the commissioner can direct a vote on our request or the commissioner's own volition to be conducted on another or additional day. So, we just added that to the policy. The other thing that is in here are just certain informations or conditions that relate to the to the timing of the copies of the budget being available to the public, consistent with state law, that which is currently 7 days prior to the public budget hearing, which as Denise said will be on May 7th this year. And that certain provisions about how propositions may be brought forth and what if members of the public Sorry. Members of the public decide that they wish to propose a proposition. and if they do, there are certain things that cannot be done [clears throat] and there are certain time limits that are added to this policy to make that clear. All of that is set forth in state law, but it's now going to be part of policy as well. The next policy is public comment at board meetings, hearing of the public. And there are some changes that have been made or just a couple to [clears throat] make things clarified as consistent with our practice. 3-minute limit and comments on any matter related to district business or any agenda item. and some other wording changes. The one thing to note is that part of the reason we looked at this policy is because a member of the public came to us a number of months ago and said, "There is a reference There are references in many board policies to the word citizens. And one cannot limit anything to citizens." This policy has the word citizens, but it is in the the reference to a certain decision of the commissioner where the commissioner said back in 1992 used the word citizens. So, that is not changed because that is the word used by the commissioner. I want to make it clear to members of the public, particularly those who, you know, who brought that issue to us, that with regard to all of our policies where we have a substantive statement, we are working through removing the word citizens and replacing it with resident or community member. So, that's why this is even, you know, that's why it's there. I just have a question for you. On [clears throat] on this one? Yes. why don't you do that? Let's Let's ask her. So, just in keeping with my ever consistency regarding, creating these tunnels by which we have to like navigate some of this policy, it says and then not enforcing them, right? Like so, speakers may comment on any matter related to district business or any agenda item. You You've certainly had people get up and speak about things that are not related to district business. in the strict sense of something that could impact the district, but rather in the global perspective of things. So, I mean, that's I just I think it's interesting it's an interesting perspective to think that any sitting president of the board is going to stop somebody and and make a subjective decision regarding whether or not what they're saying at the podium is actually related to district business or not. So, to the extent that I don't I don't know that you want to put any sitting president in that position. I don't know that you need to delineate that. Well, that is what you'll note from the document is that is in our policy now.
• Yes. And then again, I'm saying since It's just been added to it. I didn't even notice that. But I'm saying since you're considering Right. Well, and you're reviewing it for other reasons, while you're there, you could fix that. I I agree, but I think that really is something that the committee would appreciate Okay, that's my note. I know. No, guidance from others as to because we're going to go back over and discuss this and then it's going to come back in at the board. So, I'm just kind of like a sense from others on the board how they feel about what I'm raising. So, the way I look at it in terms of that is that it it that adding that in there or having that in there broadens it from agenda items to any school district business. and and such a broad and vague term as that it wouldn't wouldn't restrict someone on their statement. So, so I I wouldn't remove it and leave just agenda items cuz I think that makes it a very narrow space for for public comment. So, that that would be my point. Yeah, that's I agree. I I support what Anna says about that. I would I remove it cuz I mean, it's also 3 minutes. You know, and we're not And there's limitations on naming people and things like that. So, I I think to minimize putting a BEA president up cuz also people have different ideas. Public might have different ideas of is what is business of the district. It's, it's kind of like beauty is in the eye of the beholder to a certain extent. So, I I think just simplifying it. So, I I would support removing that. I feel like I'm missing what sentence you all are talking about. Okay, if you reference it to us in the second paragraph, fifth line says comments should be as brief as possible. Then it says no speaker should be more than and speakers may comment seventh line Right. on any matter related to district business or to any agenda item. So, the proposal is to Okay, and that was moved up. That was moved up from a That's possible, but the proposal is to delete That entire sentence. That entire sentence speakers may comment on through item period. Okay, so So, is this the Is this where we we should be You're saying what feedback from the full board for them to make to us or do you want committee participant committee I just had a need to do that note and just Yeah, well I just I guess we can take it back. Yeah, I mean it just if anybody else has anything to say.
• giving you my opinion then which is like I I do think it's I I do think it would be a mistake to open it. I don't think we want to necessarily use this as a forum for for people to necessarily be invited to speak about anything in the entire world that they want to talk about. I think giving that sort of parameter helps bring the feedback they're inviting from the community in line with the purpose of our meetings. Am I not understanding Yeah, yeah. I think it was when we discussed it Like when we discussed it with people like in in any preambles in the past it's been we we've said like school related matters. It's So, it's it's guidance. And and we're not we don't Sorry, just just so that I understand what the concern is or like what what's being queried. Like the intention of the guidance is to sort of is to state what topics one might be invited to cover in a situation like this because it's a meeting of the school board and what we can act on as trustees, as people who are conducting our business at this meeting, are things that relate to the school board. So, if for example someone came in and brought something that related to another aspect of village life, there's no mandate for us to have to legislate that. They the the public community member has their opportunity to speak. They're not restricted from speaking. It's really I mean, I guess I'm receiving this guidance in terms of like what the purpose what our designated purpose is, but that but So, I guess that's what I'm not getting is like what But by removing it, you're sort of removing that guidance and the preference is to just sort of Well, then I mean, if you're offering guidance, I would suggest that you change that instead of saying may comment or speakers are encouraged to comment on or something like that because Because the may makes it sound restrictive. It makes it sound restrictive and I think it puts the president in a position to then say when people get up and they speak passionately about matters which are not like impact the the national landscape more, not per se the the immediate school district. I think it puts the onus on the president I I'm not going to report that portion of it. And I also just want to say that I understand the evolution of this because other school boards only allow agenda items at first reading and they allow, or it's only related to that. So, I just think it's since you're in there cleaning it up, I have that one note. I think we will discuss that and I understand the sentiment and then we'll I think we needed to understand what you meant because I didn't understand that. Right. Thank you. So, I have I have one comment [clears throat] and Yes, sure. this is just a an empathy thing, but I I kind of felt like, this is the moment for the public to comment. Like I've been on that there. It's It's nerve-wracking as is. You only have 3 minutes. You know you don't have a lot of time. I don't feel like it's particularly collegial to say comments should be as brief as possible. I mean, that's just my two cents. I I'd prefer to remove that end. If people have 3 minutes. Okay, take that note. Yeah, yeah, but I think that's a good note, too. Okay, so we'll put it on the list. We will put that on the list and So, then voting procedures? Voting procedures. Voting procedures policy has two things that are added or three things. The first is adding a provision on the second page on the subject of poll watchers. Okay. One of the things that we observed at the last election, the last vote in May, is that there were individuals who self-identified as a poll watcher, not necessarily even for a particular candidate, to say I'm a poll watcher. Okay, in review of this in terms of what other districts do and what the provisions of the education law is and the are and the provisions of the election law. The education There are a number of districts that do have a process by which a candidate may designate someone or more than one person to serve as a poll watcher to basically be there for the role of observing what's going on during the vote when when polls are open having the right to challenge a voter who the poll watcher believes is not a legitimate voter. For example, somebody who may be on the rolls, but who has moved out of the district and still wants to vote. And to observe the counting of the ballots. under election law, that is the role of a poll watcher. That is specifically set forth in I think it's section 8107 of the election law. That law does not apply to school districts, but as I said, some school districts have provisions for poll watchers to be appointed by the candidates and have the rights as I just described. And or the candidates or the district clerk will provide the poll watcher with a poll watcher certificate so that that person is known that they can be there. some districts and this policy is written is that the poll watcher should be a resident of the district.
• [clears throat] So, to and that's part of what's in this policy as proposed. different as I said, I know I've seen about half dozen different districts who have these provisions and have poll watcher certificates as part of their policies or their procedures for elections. And this is proposed to basically make sure that those who are going to be coming into the building and are going to be hanging around in the building for a long time as a poll watcher or ostensibly a poll watcher is somebody who has a legitimate reason to be there. Particularly significant because our buildings are open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and anybody can walk in. And we don't have any way to, we have we should have some way to know who's going to be there. So, that's why that is proposed. as I said, there are different districts deal with it some slightly different ways such as New Rochelle says there can be two poll watchers at any election district. They have different districts for their votes and I think probably have different board members who are elected by the wards or districts. And if one person goes out, the next person has to come in with a certificate. Can I just ask just for purposes of keeping this brief given the time instead of offering verbal cues to stick to the policy. Sure. So, that I'm just saying that's there. That's why it's there. Anybody have a comment, beyond this or any more codifications that some other districts do it, we can talk about that. Secondly, [clears throat] Yeah. Actually, it's okay to give comment. Sure. Okay. so, having been in this position most recently, I at first I was very much opposed to this. because to me it feels like it's bottlenecking the democratic process to a certain extent. However, I do appreciate the concern like the safety concerns about that. I think that I understand why from an administrative the position that the why there's the language about at least 72 hours. However, I think that there should not that should not be mandated because there might be a situation that unfolds closer to the election when somebody finds that they can't be there. I mean, I know I had a work event. I wasn't there when there was a counting of the ballots. so, I would request remove the the the timing of the filing and also that I mean, I think somebody should be able to hire a lawyer if they want. Like, I don't I think the person should be identified, you know, who the person is and affiliated with the candidate from a safety perspective. I 100% understand that, but adding these other stipulations, I'm I'm against. Are these Are these Are these [clears throat] stipulations that are listed here though in alignment with with election law generally? Yeah. state election law. Yeah, the state election law. So, you're you're suggesting that the school district should should be that we should consider having our policy not derive from state election law. Cuz all I know is that I haven't like when I was running it was never communicated that this was something that we needed to follow as an as Well, it's not in the policy at the That's what we're trying to actually address. So, to to I mean, I'm just saying like this is my feeling that I understand your point, but to me this feels a little bit onerous the way it is for a like a school board election. Right. I think the intention though was to clarify because because our policy hadn't addressed it and because state election law does address it, it's sort of the I think that the thought behind it was to bring it in alignment so that people don't have questions, whether it's candidates or community members or prospective poll watchers. So, I think that's that's the intention behind it. I don't know that the intention is to make anything more difficult, but to sort of to clarify because I think there's a lack of understanding in the community of in the community and then in terms of election law generally, how these things work. But I think Neil's got So, I appreciate if that it is something that we are should be following, I think having a sentence that's saying that we are doing have this policy in alignment with the law, just to originate it so it doesn't sound like most people running, they're not going to become like education law experts and looking at every single thing, so I think just adding a sentence to say why this is here just like we've had I feel like in other places there's references to the ordinance or something. I'll let Neil speak to it. Yeah, I mean, I just reference it. I I guess the question in terms of cross-references that you will see in the references at the bottom are to election law provisions. But as I said at the beginning of this discussion, there is nothing in education law that addresses this subject at all. If we as a board are taking our cue, if you want to call it from as from an analogous or or a provision of election law and saying that's what we think we should use an explanatory statement, this is consistent with the provisions of section 8500, I think it is, of the election law. the the processes cuz we don't it doesn't cover us. So, no one has a right to say we have violated the election law. Okay, that's one of the things. We say that then we are saying, you know what, the election law applies to us and that's not correct and that is also specifically decided in the in some of the commissioner appeals that you'll see. But we can talk about it. So, I just want to say quickly like I remember at the Nisbet conference there was one panel discussion or workshop that was about like policies and making it like a usable resource for the community and that's why I am making this suggestion because I understand that technically there that might be within this, but I think for somebody [clears throat] who's new to this, it's not accessible like as accessible as it might be. Well, I think to the point the point is it's not currently in policy. If it were something that were in policy that would relate to someone running for my presumption would be that that would be added into the materials [clears throat] that we would provide to the prospective candidates. Right. What New What New Rochelle does is in the packet of the campaign packet, it provides the information about your candidate. You can be You can designate poll watchers. There are the rules that I just described a few minutes ago and here is a copy of the certificate that you can go, sign and submit it to the district clerk. So, there are other ways to deal with that for the community member who is going to be a candidate or looks at that to understand what what the rules are. So, it it would go through and that would be, Dr. Bisaccio over there will have to deal with it if that's what we're doing. The one thing I want to point out with regard to this policy is that because it would apply in May 2025, tax rather, we need to do it quickly so that and that's why it's here.
• It's here. So, the last thing up here which is also an issue that two of us one absentee ballot and I know there was a question that came and you'll see on page three and and page four is a reference to absentee ballots and early mail ballots. Absentee ballots you are you can get if you have a particular reason that you cannot be at the polls. Early mail ballots you can get and you don't have to state a reason. But you it doesn't matter because the provision when you apply for it, when you get it, how you how you submit your ballot or cast your ballot is exactly the same. The state legislature when they did this for both these as regular elections and school board elections didn't say, well, let's get rid of absentee ballots cuz we don't even need them. Right. So, we have two provisions. They are duplicative in some sense, but we are following the law. Mhm. Lastly, one of the issues that came up at the last election was there were 12 ballots cast or attempted to be cast by individuals who were not on the rolls. There is a process that is set forth in the education law about how those ballots are supposed to be reviewed and then voted if that person really was registered. We did not have any provision that tells the public and tells the district clerk how to do that. And so, we last spring kind of went through it. This codifies, consistent with the law, the process used to count those ballots or look at those ballots, count them if they are legit, and provide the appropriate notice to the candidates, the appropriate notice to the voters whose ballots were not cast because they are not registered and give them the opportunity to register in the future and so, that's why it's here. Okay. Our next policy, the board organizational meeting, which we all love in July. We love it. The state legislature passed a bill that says instead of having to do it on the day after the first Tuesday after the first Monday or another day before the 15th, they said the board can designate a day any day That's 20th. no later than the Monday after July 20th. And so, this policy is changed to just reflect state law. We obviously will hope to meet earlier in July so that we can start our work, but we don't have that same constraint that we've had in the past years.
• just want to go to the Adirondacks. She wants to. Yeah, but then with this policy That's in August. And the last thing is concussion management. The athletic director and athletic trainer came to the committee and said there have been changes in the concussion management protocol and we would think you should look at this policy. Our Our concussion management policy 5420.1, adopted in 2013 when the law first came into effect, set forth a specific timeline for what happens when a student most cases a student athlete is seeking to come back to student athlete coming back to competition. Those guidelines have been changed. And as a consequence, our policy is out of date. As I But what I have recommended and they are in agreement as instead of putting in the new guidelines cuz they could change again, this policy be written that you will manage concussion with the concussion protocol in accordance with what the state Department of Health and the state Education Department says. Okay. And the other point that is in here is some some kind of more details and descriptions about when concussions might occur. Maybe they will be delayed after after the event and you have to be aware of that. And to provide how the school district will interact with the physician, the child's physician, and will be guided by the child's physician with regard to any restrictions that the child's physician states with regard to clear and our out of school physician, will also review that. to to to work to see you don't want a situation where the child's physician says, "Oh, this kid's pretty ready to go back." Because they get pressured to have the kid get back before the the student athlete is ready. And our physician says, "You know what? I'm not comfortable because I don't see that the the student has been So we have That's what was dealt with in this policy and it has been reviewed by the athletic director and athletic trainer and they are on board with I just want to go on the record with respect to I'm sorry to do this to go back to Mr. I just want to go back on the record with respect to the voting procedures. Mhm. with respect to the 72-hour requirement, the district clerk certify any any one candidate? I know Allison was saying Which candidate you mean? No, I'm saying poll watcher. I'm sorry, poll watcher. I know Allison was saying she thought that would be restrictive. I actually feel like it might to not have that in place would leave room for for error on the part of the district clerk who is dealing with so much in the lead-up to any election. That 72-hour is just my opinion and I'll leave it to the committee to discuss, but the lead-up to any election is balanced with so many different elements to then have to deal with a last-minute poll watcher or certification of a poll watcher. I feel like the 72-hour requirement is very reasonable and also in line with the election laws. So I just want to As we're conducting the business of the board in public outlet, we're going to allow my feeling on that for you to consider with the committee. Thank you. I I just have one other issue. 72 hours beforehand is a Saturday. I think probably it makes sense to say by 4:00 p.m. before Yeah, close of business on 4:00 p.m. on the Friday preceding the vote. Yeah, but like somebody walking in there a day before or two days before and having the district clerk having to deal with that. You know, the other thing that I think the athletic trainer I believe we reviewed that. I I believe that the New York State election law does not allow for candidates to be poll watchers and our this policy does. And so that's a Yeah. That's a a discrepancy that we should address.
• I I mean it's a discrepancy, but I the thing about a candidate for a mayoralty in a small town or whatever it is, it's it's a much larger pool of people. So I don't have a problem with the candidate serving as a poll watcher. So But but but they're campaigning for themselves. But we we talk I mean I don't have a problem because but we can talk about it. No, but I think but I think I think what what Theo is reminding us is I don't know that we we had so much to go through last time is that this is this is we didn't actually get to that piece of it. And so just to clarify for the purposes of this board because it is this would be a divergence from things that people have perhaps practiced here in this school district and other school districts. What that would mean is that that that the after the polls close, that room would be closed to candidates as well, right? And if that is not an abnormal that's actually pretty normal like in terms of how elections are carried out in the world. Right, but it is not normal in our district. Historically, we've said candidates and their families. So we will need to talk about that. There may be that given our community we will leave it as is, but Okay, I'm going to I'm just going to say on the record Neil that like if that with that and again because the work of the board does have to be done in public that there's a strong feeling that that when we're bringing we can't [snorts] sort of pick and choose what we're bringing into alignment with election law, county election law, state election law. If we're looking at it, we do actually have to look at it as a whole and make sure it's equitable. And historical practices or what we've done historically that you know, that's as I've stated many times is one of my least favorite words and I don't mean that personally, but I I I it's it's just to use that as sort of like a basis I think is can can sort of like compromise the integrity of the process. So I I would advocate that we really would have to look at it very seriously and I think Theo for reminding us that we didn't get to that in committee. Okay, I I just say part of that we can look to see what other districts that have poll watcher provision in their policies or or guidelines for poll watchers how they deal with it. And also what the NYSSBA recommended. Well, NYSSBA doesn't really talk about it. NYSSBA has not taken a position. Okay. We're doing this we feel we're doing it. Yeah. That's what we got. Thank you so much. Thank you. Moving into item 3.2, the grant of New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal NYSIR second sound theater. Recommended action be it resolved the board of education gratefully accepts grant funding of $1,000 for New York Schools Insurance Reciprocal as a contribution to support the trustee transportation department for professional development and team-building event at the site next sound theater. So moved. Second. On the question. Can Can I just add that this is a benefit for all NYSIR subscribers. So this has no relevance to anything other than all [laughter] All NYSIR subscribers can apply for a $1,000 grant to support professional development or team-building within their district. So we applied for that and we were awarded it. That's wonderful. Yeah, and I I was going to mention also that it's great that we're taking advantage of opportunities like that that are available to all school districts. So thank you for your diligence in following up and submitting the grant proposal because it's great that we got it and it's great that you were able to make that happen. Thank you. And I would add one other thing, the fact that it's for our transportation department. You know, we think about quote professional development and team-building in teachers and our professionals or aides, but the fact that we're talking about team-building and professional development with a group that is not necessarily thought of is really great. It shows that we are a system that cares about all folk. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carried. Item 3.3, the CTEA side letter of agreement. Recommended action be it resolved the board of education hereby approves the side letter of agreement between Croton-Harmon Unified I'm sorry, Unified School District and the Croton Teachers Association as presented. So moved. Second. On the question. I need to just pull one second because my Yeah, I don't know I'm just getting confused with the side letter of agreement. Do you want us to email it to you to see it? Okay. Yeah, I just What do you want I just want to see the Just remind me. Okay. I just need to see the beginning just a reminder. Yeah, go ahead. So that was on the question. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carried. Moving on to our donations. Item 4.1, donation of Kenneth and Kimberly Purdy Class of 1985 Scholarship Fund. Recommended action be it resolved the board of education gratefully accepts a donation of $960 from the Kenneth and Kimberly Purdy from Kenneth and Kimberly Purdy as a contribution to the Class of 1985 Scholarship Fund at Croton-Harmon High School. So moved. Second. On the question. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carried. Item 4.2, donation from Gretchen Green, the Class of 1985 Scholarship Fund. Recommended action be it resolved the board of education gratefully accepts a donation of $25 from Gretchen Green as contribution to the Class of 1985 Scholarship Fund at Croton-Harmon High School. So moved. Second. On the question. I have one question. I'm sorry. It's okay. just because we've come up against this and I I like I missed it so I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it on the previous one, but donations should be should be directed to people who are current students, right? Not to graduates. And is the is that wording like problematic based off of like our earlier discussions this fall about how the district is able to award scholarships. Mhm. Am I incorrect about that? And again, I apologize for not catching it until we were just now. And I'm going back to the previous one that we just approved to see if the wording is the same. Yeah, so both of the the wording on both of these says for graduate. The the implication would be then that the it seems to provide the district latitude to be able to award a scholarship to someone who is no longer a student because once you're a graduate, you're no longer a student. So how do we address that?
• I think it is a matter of how they drafted it and I think we can before we complete this process and I think we probably just get a clarification from each of the donors. Whether they intended a graduating Whether they intended that to be a graduating senior and that's just how it was it a typo written. or something? But it doesn't have to get It doesn't have to get These things do have to really get flagged before they get on the agenda and I know that's part of all of our jobs, so apologies for not catching it sooner. So that's really I guess a question that the high school principal can reach out and say, "You meant graduating senior, right?" And if they say, "No, we meant somebody from the class of 1985," then we can rescind hopefully. So can we go back and rescind the last one? No, I I think at this point What what would be the urgency of of like waiting 2 weeks to have the documents corrected so that we approve the corrected document? There is no urgency. Right. But but the donation is to the class of 1985 scholarship fund. So I guess the question would go to the business office. Is there a class of 1985 scholarship fund established that we are taking the money and administering so that this is just a wording mistake or is it something that we don't have that fund and so maybe And you may not know. I I I do not know off the top of my head. Okay. So can we go back and rescind item 4.1? Let me finish. Can we go back and rescind item 4.1 and Sure. Do we need a motion to Yes, there is There is class of 1985 scholarship fund. Okay. I think that we need clarification. I don't want to like pass something. We We I think we go back and we rescind accepting donation and item 4.1. So I'm going to amend the agenda. Can we go back to my agenda or can I just go back? We're going to rescind our approval of item 4.1. I can make a motion to table item 4.1 and item 4.2 to our next meeting. I'll second the motion. On the question? Well, I guess we are So your motion is rescind approval of 4.1, table 4.2. No, table 4.1 and 4.2. Well, no, but we've rescinded 4.1. Okay, rescind and table 4.1, table 4.2. Correct. So I make a motion, Sarah seconds it. On the question, you clarified. All in favor? I. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. So we will look at those donations and make those clarifications and publish it on the agenda and everybody can consider it not in haste and not in rush and not wrong. Okay? Thank you. moving into item 5.1, instructional personnel resignation. Recommended action. Be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby accepts the instructional personnel resignation of Kristen Noel Show Weaver, I am a English teacher coordinator at Cortland Middle School effective July 1st, 2026. Sadly. Second. On the question, I just wanted to add further question of the community. It doesn't matter. Show Weaver is a beloved teacher who is set to retire, so we are very excited for her to start her next chapter of her life, but we are very sad that she will no longer be here and that future students in the district will not have her as a teacher. we are very happy for her. So all in favor? I. I. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. Item 5.2, instructional personnel leave replacement. Recommended action. Be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves Molly Foley as a 1.0 leave replacement position for Catherine Alexson as an ENL teacher at Cortland Middle School effective January 9th, 2026 through June 30th, 2026 to be compensated at an annual salary of $61,792 the AIDS at 1 appropriate. So Second. On the question? All in favor? I. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. We need to go on to business. Item 6.1, our policies for second reading.
• So here we are again with some more policies. We've looked at these before and we considered comments from the board and from the public with regard to these policies and they're back for second reading. Unfortunately, I You have the policies. I do not recollect each of the changes that were made after our discussion. but should have brought that with me or not, but what you will note is that policy 1130 basically deals with both students who may be shown or displayed or or their images or work may be shown in district media releases including social media releases like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And our relationship with the media members of the media that may come to the district and may desire to visit our schools and make do interviews, take pictures, etc. The main One of the main concerns and you'll see this when we get to 4.1.3.0 D, next item, is that the media which is not specifically defined, but the term publish is defined because there was some question on what does it mean to publish when you are doing something on social media. That's not really publishing the way the our policy originally contemplated many years ago, so that change has been made. the but this policy in general deals with the in I should say in a large part with regard to students and student withholding of consent. We made a couple of changes after our discussion that I know of. The first is that with regard to the student whose parent has said, "I do not want my child to be shown in media district media. Rather than having a withholding of consent filed annually, which is our current policy, once this policy is adopted, we'll say once you have provided that to the district, that will remain in effect as long as the student is here or until the student reaches age 18. Because at age 18, the student becomes an adult and considered an adult for various different rights of privacy including FERPA. And so then it should be the student's determination whether the student desires to withhold the student's consent. So other than that, that's one change that I know was called called for and also as you will see and I see a typo in the second to last line of page one. for some reason and maybe it was spell check or auto correct, it says anticipated minor. That is supposed to be emancipated minor.
• My copy says emancipated minor. The copy in BoardDocs says emancipated. Okay. Well, I will make sure that it says that because Well, I don't know if it's anticipated minor. the other item to keep in mind is that we talked about some uncertainty as to what the policy reads as it at present about the obligation of the PTAs and PTSAs and educational foundation and booster club etc. to know and [snorts] to follow what we are saying as to not showing the photos or information about those who want consent withheld consent and so in the middle of the second page it says superintendent Destiny will take appropriate measures to ensure that the PTAs etc. will are informed of this policy and that they take measures as determined by the district to make sure that this policy is followed by those organizations. And those organizations because they are established and operate pursuant to board policies 1222 they we can have that control because we do view them as partners. So the other question that we talked about and this is just something to keep in mind [cough and clears throat] is that this in the draft we looked at for first reading there was a question about whether we should exclude from the withholding from photos in which a student for whom a with withholding of consent has been provided would be shown if they are like group photos where that student is not identified. And we talked about that in the policy committee meeting and said you know what it's really going to be very difficult if we do a group photo to have the building administrator or somebody going through all those 150 pictures and all of faces and find the one person in that group. The concern about withholding of consent is the concern about someone being identified in our media or by the media in a way that they can their name their their image it can be identified you know that with AI and so on but I know that facial facial recognition and all that stuff there is something that when we have to committee discussed and said we have to in the end be reasonable to think about what burden we are going to put on our administrators because otherwise we're just going to have any photos at all because you never know who might be identified even from a little bit of the side of their face or whatever. So that's that is a discussion we had and change that we we we considered and harmonized at the various places within this policy. lastly we should note that the policy does say that if a member of the media publishes a photograph or information about a student or an activity that's not open to the public we will have the right to basically deny them the opportunity to come into the district to make it clear to members of the media hey you want to come in you've got to follow the rules or else. one last item and you'll see this in the policy and also in policy 1130E is that we discussed the idea that has is done in Lakewood that a parent may withhold consent for having a student in the media but may not want to withhold consent to have a student appear in a yearbook or the the the memory book at CET because that's you know that's something that they want to allow their child. Lakewood gives the opportunity for student for parents students 18 years of age and above to say check one box or check the other box or check both boxes. And we thought based on our discussion and here I think and also in our committee that that was a fair thing to do so parents can have a choice and that is incorporated in the policy and it is incorporated in the document in the exhibit.
• [snorts] So that is I will move policy 1130 for adoption by motion. They were motions together for 9645. no we're going to do I'm going to do one by one. That's not how it is on the agenda. not how it is on the agenda. Fine so that's fine. So we'll talk about policy 1130E which is a consent form and as far as the consent form is concerned it basically tracks what we've talked about and does provide the specific two options for parents. And for policy 9645 okay disclosure of wrongful conduct we discussed the comments that came that were made at our December meeting and I'm not sure sorry which specific changes were incorporated into the policy. I mean I just want to say for purposes of brevity like we've reviewed these at first reading and we've had comment period and they're on the agenda so I guess to the extent that To the extent that no nobody has anything to say I think that's fine. I I just want to make sure we're not rushing it for whatever. I think it's fine because the I think the bad news is is that we did if you if you aren't able to there were some things that we didn't we did raise at our committee meeting that I think I'm I'm just not 100% sure that they're in here now. Go ahead. So and partly my fault because there's a lot so again on this agenda so I didn't get to this last one but we had made a note about [clears throat] if there if if we needed a mechanism by which there'd be reporting by the superintendent to the board if a report of wrongful conduct was made to the superintendent. And right did this piece get introduced here? Can you just confirm it's in the third third to last line. policy?
• Yeah I obviously did not get to this one. third to last line page one. If the superintendent receives a report of alleged wrongful conduct notification of the report will be provided to the board of education. If the board of education receives such a report the president of the board of education must inform the superintendent inform superintendent unless the superintendent is subject to that report. Because we had talked about that language at the meeting but then we hadn't seen but maybe everybody else thought it was in place but I didn't get to this one so Can I ask one point of clarification just looking at this again. So it if the BWE president or officers receive a report are they man like do they have to let everybody on the board know? No. Now that we can talk about that quickly but that is not in what is written here and the question really is if that is a revision that the board wants to make before we approve this we can Board officers must inform the rest of the board if they're If if a whistleblowing complaint It it just seems to me like this the spirit of this I could be wrong is making sure that there's transparency when something happen everybody's kind of getting equal information and but wouldn't that happen indirectly anyway because once the superintendent so if if a board officer specifically receives the notification it then goes to the superintendent the superintendent then has to notify the full board. That's just a mechanism am I is that what we talked about So at that point it's vetted by the superintendent as opposed to being internally handled somehow by like board leadership or the So it goes so that it would either go to the superintendent and the board or if it comes into a board officer it would then it would go to the superintendent and with that said it would So that's the superintendent communicating because it refers to versus board officer yeah coming from like a person a staff person who reports into the superintendent So, it's putting the onus of that responsibility of reporting to the board not on a trustee of the board, but rather on the administrator.
• Okay, that makes sense. I mean, yeah, I just wanted to make sure that Yeah, no, no, that's a good question. I'm just closing the loop on all these things because that's what it seems like it's this is about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, is there anything else there? No, that that that was the that was one of the things that was on my cross-check that I hadn't put people to cross-check, so thank you. The this was all like right before the break, so I'm very sorry that I usually look at the things before we're here. Any other questions? So, then I will move to adopt No, I have to move the adoption of all three policies cuz I tried to do one and now I'm like they said, "Don't do it." So, I move the adoption of all three. We moved them, but they were seconded. Right. So, I'm on the question. Oh, all in favor? I. No, wait a minute. I don't have a a move and a second on this. I don't either. Okay. All right. So, I have a move and a second, so I move Sarah seconds. Sarah moved it and Sarah seconded it. Let's let Sarah speak. I second. Sarah seconds. On the question, I. Alison, you had a question? I just wanted to say one one thing quickly. Like I appreciate all the effort that's gone into tightening up, the the media policies and data privacy and I think the reality is just like it's impossible to to do this and like I think what we were talking about the technology actually is pretty easy with facial recognition technology to do these image searches and so it's just a little bit of like a whack-a-mole, it's hard, but I think that hopefully this is airing on the side of protecting privacy or making us as a district aware of it and I would just hope that as we look to the future next year, I know we're going to be hearing from the presentations on the technology committee, but it seems to me there as a district, we need to really understand that these data privacy rules and to make sure that everybody really understands the update of these policies, but also the reality of these technologies. Thank you. Absolutely. All in favor? I. Opposed? Abstain? The motion carries. Moving into the consent agenda, I have 7.1, approval of the consent agenda. Recommended action, be it resolved the Board of Education conducts No, I'm still stuck on that. Catch up, computer. Recommended action, approves Be it resolved that the board approves It's it's on board on the big screen. the consent agenda as presented. What? I was like, "It's on the big screen." [laughter] No, I know, but So, It's in favor of the consent agenda.
• Second. That's what tripped me up. Say it again. [laughter] Second the approval of the consent Yeah, Omar and Alison. All in favor? No, I'm on the I have a question. [laughter] All in favor? I. I. Opposed? Abstain? The motion carries. Moving into our closing of the meeting and our second hearing of the public, item 8.1, if you would like to be heard, please approach the podium. You'll have a few minutes. State your name and address. [clears throat]
• I wish to ask questions that [clears throat and cough] were not on the agenda, including the progress of the lunches, mandatory lunches, more on phones, renewable diesel, if we're going to follow the village, portable classrooms for mandatory pre-K, who's going to see to the junking of bad ideas that teachers carry around in their head from when they were educated about climate alarmism, women are always second best in science and have to be given preferences. Who's going to deal with those things? You're not going to do that because one of your members brought up a change in your policy, your public speaking policy 12:30. This is a direct assault on the First Amendment. It is a a person with a very thin ego and very thin values that cannot hear opposing views, especially in a group, many of whom think exactly alike and have only recently been forced to open to outside ideas, which come from the more conservative and religious people in this community. And and men in [laughter] the past have excluded taxpayers who make up the majority of the people who vote in this district. And so, the idea that you can only address agenda First thing, you're cutting off yourself my ideas. By having an open agenda, you're only giving a lousy person 3 minutes, for God's sake. Times two, so you got to stay for 2 hours to get a second 3 minutes per month. And you meet five or six times a month, including all your committees. I propose that you democratize the process. If you don't like to hear it up front, you could do what the village does. Agenda items, the first 3 minutes, wait until the end, address any damn thing you want because that's where you hear the ideas you're supposed to be hearing from and you will not hear from your club. But this is a direct assault on the First Amendment. It's engineered because you hear things you don't like to hear. And I'm sorry, I'm worried that that happens in your school here, too. I'm very worried about that. Now, as far as access through the chairman, it'll be like your committee meetings down at the Black Cow. Certain people, certain radical groups, certain types of parents will get closed meetings downstairs, meetings at the Black Cow, and other people will get no special meetings. Let me say this again, you should democratize your process. You should do what some of the village committees do. They now require an agenda and if a member of the public's present, God forbid your committee's never had members of the public until I came along, you actually let somebody say something if they took the time to go to one of your lousy committee meetings. This policy is a direct assault on the First Amendment and you're cutting yourself off from new ideas and you are a group because of your group think needs to new ideas. Thank you. Given that there's no one back in the library to continue the hearing of the public, I'll close hearing of the public and move into item 8.2, polling of the board. Does anyone have anything that they would like to say at polling of the board? Nope. I have a couple of things. The first thing [clears throat] that I wanted to say has to do with something that I did last last Sunday. I went I Last Sunday, I went to the Jacob Burns and I saw a very interesting documentary called The Librarians, which was about actions at in various districts or schools around the country and some public libraries to force those libraries to remove books that some community members or groups did not like and felt were harmful to children. I just want to note for the public that this documentary, which was shown at the Burns with a talkback by the director and producer of the film, will be virtually screened the Croton Free Library Okay, for the dates of January 18th through 24th. You can get information on the library website and basically anytime during that 7-day period, if you want to see the film, you The first [snorts] 100 Croton card holders, you have to be a Croton card holder, to watch the film at home. and you must have a valid Croton Free Library card and an email address and register and then they'll I guess send you a link and you'll be able to watch it. And I just suggest that people may want to view it so that they can see what's going on in various parts of the country. I don't think I have anything else. Thank you for that. I'm continually impressed by how the library is like innovating their access to things like that in the community. Anyone else? And just a a real brief reminder to everyone that the LEGC Legislative Forum will be held on January 29th at 6:30 p.m. That is a a Zoom forum and I would highly recommend that anyone who is able to attend that do so. we get really good representation from most of the the representatives from the five counties that LEGC represents, so please try to make that if you can. Thank you, Sarah. Anyone else? I just want to say I will try to sign up for that. As will I.
• Go ahead. There There's one thing that came up during one of the first policy meetings. I just wanted to bring up. so the first reading of the policy meeting about the public comment, I brought this up with Melanie pointed it out that technically somebody is not required to give their name their name and their address when they stand up there. I understand why that's a practice to make sure that we only have members of our community here speaking. You know, that that's logical to me. I am I would propose that moving forward that people perhaps give their address if that's needed to Denise or privately not put that on record because if you think about it's everybody's personal address is being publicized everywhere. I think it does disincentivize people from coming up and speaking. Sometimes people are talking about personal issues. There's been increase of hate crimes. There's ICE. There's different things like that. So, I would just wanted to bring this up as something that to make maybe make our meet meetings more inclusive to still make sure that we have community members here, but to kind of safeguard the public's privacy a little bit more. So, I think there's there's a lot around that, but I don't know that I don't think we're allowed to restrict people who are speaking at these meetings based off of where they are residents. Am I Well, [laughter] That's We invite That's a a question as to whether that's law. It's the Committee on Open Government who says that there's at least [clears throat] one court case from a long time ago that says you can restrict because people from the community are the ones who are our quote constituents and should be speaking to us. But, in any event, the policy as drafted and as policy that we adopted does not state that the individual must provide that their address. if people do it because they want to, that they can do that. We can't stop them. And if someone feel Well, one of the things that we I think we say as a matter of protocol, not in the policy, if you want to give your email address or contact information, don't ask for it. But, I think we've said that and sometimes we've said, We have in the past, I think. Yes, we have. We've said tell tell Denise so that [clears throat] we can get back to them. But, as a practical standpoint, there is always a list for people to write that down, but no one ever does. It's always blank.
• people may not know that. You know, so a list that says name and address But, I think at least what I found is like usually when you get up to speak, somebody says, "Can you please state your name and and your your res like address?" Like that that is what I typically have heard. So, I I like it doesn't have to be for tonight, but I it did occur to me because we're talking about public meetings that maybe there's a way to revisit this. I think I think here I'm I just want to make sure it's like because I think we have gotten into this habit, but even in the preamble, it there's no requirement, right? That Oh, no, it does. So, it's like So, the preamble actually then has to be brought into alignment with the policy because people are operating off of this pre preamble language which still includes the guidance that speakers should state their name and quote Harmon School District address. And while we should, but it's like but but if it's not in the policy, that line shouldn't be included. It should be actually be struck from the preamble, I think. And that's something that we did talk about at policy. We haven't adopted a new version of this policy yet. This one's just up for first reading, [clears throat] right? That's what we talked about. And in our in just in terms just to clarify our discussion about the Committee on Open Government, I thought that their recommendation was I mean I may have misunderstood or have it written down in my notes incorrectly, but I thought my understanding was that the Committee on Open Government does not make a recommendation on on whether people have to reside within the locality that they're speaking. The Committee on Open Government specifically says you don't cannot restrict.
• Correct, because anyone who comes to a meeting But, it's not law as well. It's law. The distinction was I I I didn't mean to overstate that it that that like I mean it's like the law if you're talking about like the First Amendment, that is the law and that's what I was sort of like referring to in the big picture. but but the Committee on Open Open Government says that you can Can you just remind us what it says? Cuz it's so confusing. The Committee on Open Government provides advisory opinions on open meetings law and and FOIL. And And with regard to open meetings law, it recommend it says, "We do not believe," say Robert Freeman and his successors, "that municipalities or public entities can restrict those who speak at hearing of the public to members of the community." Correct. Okay. The advisory opinion or opinions have never, to my knowledge, been tested in any court of law. There was a decision a number of years ago, and I believe it was the Levittown Board of Education that said you can restrict. Mhm. Okay? But, that's where it is. Okay, let's do this. To I'm just wanted to add just to to to Allison's point, the that we discussed at our last communications meeting and noted I think in in the minutes of that and shared at the last reporting that once the board has finalized policy 1230, the communications committee is going to revisit the preamble for that and and work on bringing that in alignment with the policy and and updating that language. And the Policy Committee discussed the exact same thing. So, again, we just have to make sure that we're not overlapping each other. But, once we get the feedback from the community from the community, from the board on the revisions to this policy that we're stating for first reading, we are also tasked with going through all of this and bringing this into alignment. And this this preamble has not been changed for a very long time. It has not It does not even It doesn't reflect our current policy. That's one of the reasons why we came to this. I'm sorry. It's so late that it's like it's hard to remember what we're talking about. So, I'm sorry I missed that part. So, what I'm what I'm proposing right now is that both this this your point is referred to the committee. Okay. And we'll move on from there. Thank you. Thank you. So, moving into item 8.3, our next Board of Education meeting will be on Thursday, January 22nd at 7:30 here in the library. it is a work session and the topic of that work session is the results of the school climate survey. At this [clears throat] time, our next item is item 8.4, which is an executive session. So, I'm going to move to amend the agenda to just adjourn the meeting and to move the executive session to the end of our following meeting on January 22nd.
• Thank you. [laughter] So moved. Second. Well, but there On a move, please sorry. Right. Okay. All in favor. All in favor. Opposed. Same motion carries. The meeting is adjourned at 11:43 p.m. Thank you. That