August 6, 2026 Board of Education Meeting
It's before dark, so I'm gonna say good afternoon. Here I am calling to order the 08/06/2026 business meeting for Croton-Harmon board of education.
Item 1.3, approval of the agenda be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves the agenda as presented. So moved. Second. Any questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. Item 1.4, executive session. Be it resolved that the Board of Education enters into executive session to discuss matters, which will imperil the public safety if it is closed. So moved. Second? Final question? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. The board will exit this room and enter executive session for approximately, I'm say gonna ten to fifteen minutes. We'll return as promptly as we're able to. Thanks for your patience. Thank you. Okay. We're returning to a meeting with item 1.5. Returning from executive session. So it'd a result that the Board of Education leaves executive
hearings. Moving into the reports, we will open with hearing from public. As everyone who's attended before knows, we believe that effective dialogue can occur only in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Therefore, it's our policy to conduct our business at these meetings, but in an orderly manner that models respect and stability. We invite and accept members of public to share this commitment with us. Thank you. Please approach the invisible podium today, and state your name and residence generally, and then we'll invite you to speak to us for three minutes.
My name is Ed Riley from Truesdale Drive. I'd like to bring to the board's attention a couple of items because, hopefully, this will be a reform board. In the past twelve months, I've heard at least on two occasions, the chief executive of the Court of Education in private meetings talking about the relationship this Board of Education has to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a very evil organization. They've been cited multiple times for racism. The founder best quote is how to deal with human weeds and when she said that she was talking about a lot of different groups that are sitting around this table today. So much so that that two years ago the city of New York and Planned Parenthood had to change the name of their principal clinic in New York City from the Margaret Sanger Clinic and then close that place. In addition, they're also the lead agency for trans genderism in Westchester County including surgeries,
referring for surgeries and for drug treatment. And they have a training program which is going on right now during the summer of taking high school and college kids to their training centers in Greenberg and elsewhere and then sending them back into the schools. These teenagers who are as wonderful as they are have no life experience per se to give advice and counsel to other teenagers, which is an extreme tragedy, especially when you consider what they do, like killing children and selling baby courts. So I am seriously concerned about any relationship that this school board would have with an organization like Planned Parenthood. Secondly, I'm dealing with the new pot store that's going in. First of all, you may know that a place that can lease the forward to pot stores, Peekskill now has four pot stores. Ossining has two. They put in moratoriums which are meaningless because they are limited to a specific period of time when they try and do a rezone and Croton is trying to do the same thing.
The pot store that is going into Croton will be about 250 feet from a public basketball court. It's on private property, but every every kids are well, kids are allowed to use it. Both the neighborhood kids and kids that come up from other towns up through college age playing that basketball court. It's across the street from a school, preschool, which in the past has had at least 12 paid students from this school district. And it's around this around the corner from a church. Now the solution, the village says, oh, what we'll have cameras, blah blah blah blah blah. Well, I just had hosted four boys, just my grandson and four of his friends from Fairfax County, Virginia, which is a controversial county, who visited my other grandson in Brooklyn. And the first thing he said to grandpa, I can't understand. Understand. There is pot smoke on every freaking block in Brooklyn. Right? I have no doubt that the village cannot regulate what people do in commerce,
and they cannot do what people smoke in public. Thank you. Thank you.
President's report is gonna be is gonna cover a few areas that needs to complete reports on in the update on your future. I'm gonna open with a preview of some key items on the agenda for tonight's business meeting. In addition to our monthly hearing with the public, we're gonna be holding our annual public hearing on the district wide safety and emergency management plan. We will be receiving an update on our energy performance contract, vote on the approval of separate tax warrants for the school district and the prophy library, and discuss our board goals for twenty twenty six-twenty seven, along with other ongoing new business. Since our last board of education meeting, my fellow trustees and I have the opportunity to join our district and building administrators for a joint retreat focused on building relationships as a governance and leadership team. We had a chance to hear from every administrator and trustee in attendance that we reviewed the board's priorities for the twenty sixth, twenty seventh school year. As a board, we're really looking forward to hearing more about the district's work coming out of day two of the retreat, and I know we'll be hearing about that at a later meeting,
and to reviewing the district goals at our August 27 Board of Education meeting. The board held our own summer retreat the evening of July 30 here at the district office, where we also reviewed our governance role, board norms, and operating protocols. Shifting quickly to community updates. This past Tuesday, August 5, members of the board of education and families from across our district attended National Night Out, a community event hosted by the Croton Police Department with support from Croton's Volunteer Fire Department and EMS as well as the Village Department of Public Works. The duct tape fundraiser benefiting My Sister's Place, the Tent to Truck Station, and Police Boat Rides were hugely popular. It was wonderful to see so many of our students joining the fun at this community event. Next, on behalf principal and assistant principal Kelly, I just wanted to highlight a few upcoming events at PVC.
Tomorrow, Friday, August 7, families PVC families are invited to come by PVC from 8AM to 9AM to meet the PVC leadership team, and there's gonna be a second opportunity to meet them on Friday, August 14, from 1PM to 2PM. PVC is also hosting two wonderful ongoing conditions, the annual ice cream social for incoming fifth grade students, Tuesday, August 25 at 01:30, and a parent meet that same evening at 7PM. Please also stay tuned for updates from CET and CHHS on their upcoming events, and be sure to check Parent Square for additional communications in advance of the start of school on Tuesday, September 1. And now I'll turn it over to Assistant Superintendent for Community Personal Services, Regent DePal, for another update. Good evening.
Are excited to announce that the district will host its first annual family welcome event on Wednesday, August 26 from six to 8PM
at Carrie E. Tomkins Elementary CET. This event is designed to welcome families who are new to our district and introduce them to the Croton Orient School community
Families will have the opportunity to learn about the many supports and resources available to help them feel connected and prepared for the school year. So the event will include an overview of the district's academic, social, emotional, and family supports available. Information tables, those by some of our community partners. We have about 10 so far that are permitted to be present that evening so that they can highlight their programming and or any resources that are available to our families. And we will end the evening with a guided bus tour of the evening, which will be led by our district's transportation department to familiarize families with the apartment community. Invitations will be sent to newly registered new families within the district. So some families that may have students just enter kindergarten but have been present in the district will not get a formal invitation for the invite. So
those will be coming out via email in the next week through the Family Resource center. And we look forward to welcoming our newest Tigers and their families.
Thank you. Concludes the president's report for this week. We'd like to invite members of the public and also my fellow trustees here to definitely share your comments and suggestions on how the board can better use this report to share our work with the community.
Thank you. Just a quick question. Is that is that only new families or is it all kindergarten families also? So it's all new family. So let's say a family has existing students in the system, their incoming kindergartner,
they wouldn't be invited to that. But they will have a kindergarten orientation to help acclimate them to the school with Tiger.
Right? And I think I think through the through through both the newsletters and then through other community channels, the CETPTA generally puts together a couple of playground meetups, both for kindergarteners and for also families just in general, sometimes by grade. So there's gonna be a lot of information coming. And the best place to find out is in S. A. R. And to sign up for the CETP in today's mailing list, which you can do through our website as well as theirs. Right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. If there's nothing clear on that, we will transition over to board reports, item 2.3. So just to sort of preface this by saying, we are so excited that our board committees are already up and running just already in the first three weeks of school year. There are two that haven't met yet that you'll be hearing about, but we will start work reports with the audit committee.
Board governance, and I see it says here, board governance and communications. So one of the interesting things that we're looking into this year is sort of combining some of our previous committees to the room for new ad hoc committees that we've instituted through the early through the early part of twenty twenty six, twenty seven. We'll see how long these last. Board governance, I'm just gonna speak to that because we have not yet convened, but the three committee members will be meeting Wednesday of next week. Well, certainly, what our first orders of business will be to firm up our name, and and then we'll report back
dissemination policy, review policy review and evaluation. One of the things that we did discuss as a committee that I've also mentioned to at least, you know, some of the trustees is that we subscribe to the NYSSBA policy update. And one of the additional services that they offer is to do a one time audit of all of the existing policies. There is a fee associated with that. It's nominal as opposed to their kind of, like, all in, which is up to $10,000 every single year. So what we pay now is around $900 if we get necessary updates to do an audit with the price that was quoted to me was 3,500. So that's something that I think we need to discuss as a board if we feel like after twenty eight years of happening, you know, trustee former trustee's behavior really be the the anchor in terms of everything that's happening. It wouldn't be like a good, even just process to establish every couple of years to make an audit cycle of those policies. Now I know that we did have a recent audit in 2024,
and I'm still in the process of figuring out if what the recommendations were and whether or not they were implemented. We did discuss that as a committee. We also went over the list of legally required policies. We're going to be conducting a review of annual of the policies that are recommended by NYSUT comparing them to what we have on our global policies. One of the policies that might be of interest to our student ex officio trustees is we were looking at review of Policy 5,000, which is student policy goals. So we're also reviewing that and looking at some policies from other neighboring districts. One of the final things we did was we decided we set the cadence for the meetings. We felt like meeting once every month would not be sufficient, but we are aware of the limited time district has to do that. So we were thinking of maybe having a meeting every three weeks where we're just meeting members of the board that we're meeting. And then following
every three weeks, it would be on a Monday, a time that we discussed to send to send out for availability to the district. At that point, to kind of, like, bring district in, but then you're not staying through, you know, the the granular elements of developing the policy or something like that. And I think that was it. Is there anything else that we and the minutes are available. Available. We've We've already already published published them them to to the the district clerk. So we're just in the process of regrouping with the district to see if they're available to meet at the next meeting. There was a question regarding dissemination of existing policies. We have pending correspondence to the superintendent with a request for a public update at our next meeting, which we still haven't gotten to him. So he's watching this from home. He's hearing about this first. But we are just moving along.
And then there was the last final component of this was given the results of the audit. We might, at that point, want to break off into a separate ad hoc committee that would just be working on that so that the regular work of the policy committee and updating all of the necessary policies for this coming school year would not be taxed by having to go back and, like, review. But we won't be we won't know
that recommendation until after we have the results of that audit, if we move forward with that audit. Makes great sense. I have a question just because I think we had we so one of the things that we discussed at our organizational meeting a couple of weeks ago was folding in our our previous advocacy function into policy, which I know gives policy a very broad portfolio of things to be responsible for. And one question that I had is if you all could think about just because the the committee previously had a very busy fall preparing for the New York State School Boards Association business meeting and making recommendations to the full board on positions to take on various legislative priorities and resolutions. Do if you if maybe maybe after next meeting, you could determine whether it feels like that fits within the scope or whether maybe that work needs to come before the full board in a different way or how we sort of wanna manage that because I don't think any of us wanna delay the really
aggressive and forward thinking. I don't mean aggressive in a bad way. Mean, it's like you're planning to get things done, agenda that you all have already put together for the fall and for this year by asking you to then sidetrack yourselves with focusing on the the NYSSBA business meeting Right. And using your meeting time. So I think it would be helpful to hear if you feel like that would work or if it should be assigned to a different
committee or if we should just, you know, bring it here for a work session and go through it, which is what some boards do rather than assigning it to a committee. Yeah. So as to think about. So I think just in off the top of my head and and remember that there is a there is a small window by the time that the recommended resolutions come out, and then there's a review of all of that. I think that we've, as a committee, decided that a lot of this work, instead of having instead of being done, like, in the meeting, can be prepared in our downtime. In the past, in my work on both advocacy and policy, it's always been that, you know, it was easy to kind of go through that handbook and it was only a handful of policies that we were not in line with. Obviously that entire book is shared with the board. So it might be worth it to have that as an agenda item to discuss those few that stand out that we want to have conversations about because we're not like all in agreement with, which I think has been our practice in the past. But I don't think it would be too much to look at those policies and kind of highlight it and even just to have, like, a special meeting at some point Okay. To do that. I mean, it's it's a lot it's a lot, but I think that we're
we're all a little we're like policy geeks. Okay. Like geek out on that a little bit. Yeah. It sounds like we have the right people Yeah. We're kinda excited to do the work. So Yeah.
Don't think it will be. But if we get it and it turns out that it's off year and every single policy in the handbook, then we'll just bring it to the board's immediate attention, and we can maybe just appoint Yeah. Sure. Some people or ask for additional resources. Right. And just clarification, we're talking about the legislative
Yeah. The ad hoc committee met twice already last Friday and this past Monday. We had about 10 members of the public join us in person, and we have over a hundred hundred respondents to the survey. We will be sending out a reminder or two next week. The survey is closing at the end of the day on
August 17. Could I pinch up for one second? Just because there are some folks who may not be checking their Parent's Square daily during the summer. Could you give us just a quick update of what the survey was about? I know it was communicated by Parents Square, but just for the benefit of the public that might be listening today. Yeah. The survey was asking the parents
what concerns they had around use of technology, what success stories they have around technology, and help help guide the committee's recommendation on the next of the what the charge would be for the next committee that we're forming, community advisory committee, to get as many perspectives around the scope in charge of that with their experiences, if they have any sort of any concerns that they have with use of technology at this point. And where is it going? So, yeah, we're gonna be sending out a reminder or two next week before the survey closes on the seventeenth. Seventeenth is the next time the committee is meeting. We will compile the data, and we anticipate having a discussion with the district about the findings and that presented to the board at the August 27 meeting.
Can I ask quickly, was there an agenda to those meetings? Was there a separate meeting portion to it, or were they just listening sessions? They were listening sessions. Okay. So the the committee hasn't done that. Okay. I got it.
We had one meeting, the first meeting to kind of set the set the direction of what we wanted to do. Great.
So targeting August 27 to present to the board and just again, because I will just put out there depending on how full that agenda is. I think the charge of the committee was to definitely the request was to certainly present it by the September 3 meeting. I know we don't cut it quite that close, so I appreciate the forward thinking about August 27. But there is some latitude if if if needed just because I think we have a big agenda for that meeting as well. But we're all very much looking forward to hearing you all have been covered. Ad hoc committee on hiring, retention, and tenure. Can I turn it over to Theo just about the scheduling and what our plan is, Derek? Yes. So I think the
we have scheduled the first this is the first meeting of the head of committee on hiring, retention, and tenure. The as you remember in the title, this will be for us to kind of evaluate our current practices and potentially recommend adjustments to the practices. The meeting is on Tuesday, August 11, starting at 5PM, five to 06:30, August 11. And I think that this will be our first meeting. So I think we'll be identifying sort of the the scope within kind of the overall topic and sort of how and what role we wanna tackle the the different aspects. I think it's going to be sort of orienting ourselves with the current practices, policies, etcetera, around these, and then a process for evaluating and recommending adjustments. Yeah, I'll just let him reflect.
So typically, the the last part of our board reports is liaison updates. It's not listed on the agenda today because I don't think our liaison season has officially quite kicked off. But if anyone has something that they wanna report, this would be a great time. Otherwise, we'll probably pick that up. And for our student trustees who have joined us today, we have invited them to actually deliver their first report after the school year begins or maybe right before the school year begins. So this is a little bit of a warm up for them, but we appreciate you all being here today. There are no liaison reports. We'll turn to item 2.4, the energy performance contract update. Okay. Things like not quite popping up in the So Yes,
please. Okay. I'd like to introduce Terry Goure. He is the senior business consultant with Honeywell. Terry was involved in our last very successful EPC contract, and we're pleased to have him here tonight to share his perspective on our potential plan for the coming year. I'd also like to thank Brad Kennedy who's worked closely with him and our architects to kind of review the options and opportunities and do his due diligence as far as what we would ask for for the district for those for those key items. So with that, I'm gonna pass it to Terry. Thank you so much for joining us. Perfect. Thank you, Denise. Thank you, Brad.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'll keep it fairly brief here, probably fifteen to twenty minutes. I'll use this as a guide to slides. But if you have any questions, don't wait till the end. If you see something on the slide that you you wanna question, just, you know, shout it out. This is actually would be our third energy conservation project with Croton. The last one was executed in 2021. The one prior to that, I'm trying to remember,
Yeah. It feels about ten years ago. Both successful. So we kinda try to remember how we came to be three months ago. I think Denise or Brad had reached out to me knowing that you had put in new roofs. And when we did the last phase, we tried to maximize the solar, but a lot of the roof mounted areas were older. You're not gonna put solar on roofs that you're planning to replace. So when the roofs were done, I think Brad had reached out to me and said, hey. What do you think? Can we can we add more solar and what has changed? So a lot has changed in the last three years, which was like the perfect storm all in your favor. Utility rebates, federal monies, a different solar tariff by taking electricity direct to the grid. All that creates a good scenario, what we want to talk about today. It helps getting some of this mechanical work done with unit ventilator replacements that I think could not be funded through your recent capital project. You know, it did was stuff that
dropped out of that. So with that, if we wanna jump to a overview of the economics here. So and the contract was was developed and completed two days ago. It's been, I think, sent on to your attorney for review. So the goal is to answer all your questions tonight, go over the, you know, specifics of the scope. And, ideally, when I show you the timeline, there is a tight timeline in order to capture the federal monies that are available. It's close to a million dollars. Moneys that we are guaranteeing if we can get, you know, through the SED review process and get the district to finance by December so we have a full twelve months to complete the work. That solar work needs to be completed by December 2027. It was one of the elements of Trump's one big beautiful bill. He came in, and he modified a lot of the inflation reduction act, and and this was one of the elements where he he shortened and and sunset the dates on the solar incentives.
So it became a little bit more difficult. So we've got a lot of clients that are trying to act quickly to capture those free monies. So you can see, you know, the size of the the federal solar investment tax credit is just short of a million dollars. It's not a tax credit. You don't file federal taxes. The option that you would take is what they call direct pay. So you would actually get a check for $981,000 when the work is complete. And there's a tax form that you do you you need to file the treasury. We can assist you with the process. It's not a difficult process, but like any else there's forms, you've got to file to get get the appropriate money. The savings associated with the solar system is a little over 127,000 a year. And the other benefit here is this is aidable work in the eyes of SED. All elements of this job, the solar is building aidable, the unit ventilator work is building aidable.
The way they calculate it is they will reduce the size of the job, which is 3,170,000 by the federal rebate amount. You know, so call it about 2,100,000 of the job is aidable, and you have a reasonable aid ratio. So that is fairly I say it's an accurate estimate today because as you should probably aware, every year they look at the statewide average interest rate of all the debts for all the districts, and that drives the So this is based on the current state what average interest rate. So it's it's gonna be a very accurate estimate on an annual basis. And that aid gets paid out every year for fifteen years. So the whole essence of an EPC is the district borrows the money upfront to do the work, and it's then the work is treated like a a regular construction project. We bill on a monthly basis, review with with Brad and Denise. They approve. We get paid. Your debt payments start when the work is complete.
And when that work is complete, then you will see that money from the federal government, which we are guaranteeing. So if we do Who's guaranteeing? You're guaranteeing? Honeywell's guaranteeing. And I say that because there's very specific federal requirements you need to meet in order to secure those monies. Prevailing wage rates with Trump's one big beautiful bill. You put a lot of criteria around domestic content. So the equipment you use has to be of a certain percentage of domestic content. So when you file those forms to the federal government, which is the treasury, if they say, we didn't meet these requirements and you're not gonna get that money, contractually, then we step up. That's in the contract. That's what is reviewing right now. Our only requirement is that we need to have enough time to build the system, and that requires then we need to have the financing complete by December twenty fourth of this year. It gives us a full twelve months
in order to complete the solar because the solar has got to be done by December of twenty seventh. And done in the eyes of the federal government is PTO with utility, permission to operate with Con Edison. And you've gotta get them involved, and they do a whole whole sort of
process steps to get that. I'll just ask a follow-up really quickly. So what if the federal government doesn't pay that money? Like, right right now, it's it's supposed to be sunsetted out, but there have been challenges to payments of federal funding across the board for different reasons despite the fact that they're being promised. So, I mean, you're saying that Honeywell would back it if there was some kind contractual issue in terms of prevailing fair wages or something like that. Requirements issue, if we if we don't meet a specific requirement. The federal government simply does not pay that despite the fact that they're saying they're going to pay it, which is something that I wouldn't have said.
A long time ago, but it may be more realistic today. Yes. Good question. So if if we get SE approval and you coordinate with your fiscal adviser and you complete the financing by December of this year, we would take the legislative risk. So if they pass a new law, you know, Trump comes out with a one big beautiful bill number two and wipes it out altogether, That's on us. Your requirement is to our requirement is to get the approval. So we we're asking for and we need time for that. So we're asking for approval at your next board meeting because we don't have a whole lot of time. Then gotta submit to SED with your architect, and we're working with KG and D. The good news is their backlog at SED is not that great. Not not that big right now. So but it's my responsibility to get quick approval from them. When we get us the approval, I'll work with Denise and your fiscal adviser to release the financing RFP so you get the lowest cost of money.
And that's the piece I would need your help to get done quickly so that you close with the selected bang before Christmas. That gives me a full twelve months because I can do work through the winter, obviously, weather permitting. I will have material ready to go. So if we get warm periods, you'll see it's a combination of some roof mounted work and some parking lot canopy work. So it's a mix. The parking lot work, you know, needs certain temperatures to pour the footings, so maybe that's definitely spring work, but, you know, you get you get nice weather in January 5. We could be up on a roof. It's balanced at work. It's fairly straightforward. So
Can I just pass one thing? Is that also your understanding that regardless of whether or the federal funding comes through, we would you would still would have to be that would have to be more descript
You're saying regardless of whether you're concerned about it No. Whether or not the Oh. Federal funding comes to the It may be in there. But, again, we we we just finished it two days ago, so we have not had any discussions with Stephanie Burns, who I worked with last time from. So but good questions if, you know, when she gets a chance, you get a chance to review the guarantee language, you may have more questions, and we can tighten that up. Like I said, the client requirement is just giving us enough time to build it. So if you didn't finance till February, I'd say, I don't have enough time. The good news here is that everything up to that point, we're taking that risk. We haven't asked for any money. We're not. So, you know, there's a lot more work for us to get it to SED. There's been a ton of engineering work to date. We're confident we can produce a job, get it approved by the state with all these economics, and we're confident
this is gonna be a self funding deal. And because of the history with Croton, I know we've done two other deals. You know, Honeywell's was willing to take the risk on cost and do all this engineering work on our dime. So you could still you know, and the other caveat being, I don't know where the rates will come in. So when we do get the rate, you know, then I can produce a final cash flow for Denise to look at because I don't wanna I know now based on what the market is, whether it's four, four and a quarter, you know, depending on the term you use, it would be self funding. All I'm saying is if the markets go haywire and the rate's 10%, you can bail out because, man, we can't afford to work, and it doesn't cost you anything. So we're still taking that financial risk all the way through the end. So at the end, you'll know exactly what the rate is. You'll know what the cash flow looks like.
Yeah. My my concern is the uncertainty of the federal government. That's my concern. It's not your relationship. We've had standing relationship with you. It's not the district or anything like that. It's more of, like, a very high level concern regarding federal funding. That's all.
Got it. And making sure that at that point, it's guaranteed regardless of what the federal government does. Great. Because a lot were a million dollar deficit, and that's Yep. And I'm confident that'll be a nonissue contracture. So if you're not comfortable with how it reads today, we can get there. It's a good question. Yeah.
So you might be addressing this later on, but it seems like this is a multi phase phase and area project, different types of things. Is there a possibility to do some of this and not all of this? And then the other question, I I have two other questions. In terms of the carport canopy systems, have we, as a district, reached out and got any feedback from any of the neighbors?
No. Not yet. We had reached out to other districts to gain their experience with the harbor works and necessary implements prior to installation. Installation. But, no. We this is we just finished the engineering piece and the planning piece this week. So, this is a fresh presentation to the board and to the community about the about the options. It is I think it would be best for Terry to go through the proposal.
But I would say the the the only impact really would be at PVC because there's homes right around there. Yeah. Yeah.
my parents. Is this over here? Okay. Homeowner to get to on get their on the carports.
It wasn't like that. Well, I'm just It was. Full disclosure, it was a thumbs up. Yeah. Are are you detailing locations? Yep. We're going through it. I think for us, we we have many of us have lost access to our board. Yeah. We can't see. Yeah. I don't know the presentation that our system is down. So for us, I think it may and also just for the board, if we could could let them go through the full presentation just so that, you know, again, everyone may not have had a chance to preview this fully. And then then we'll be able to ask our questions with all that information would be helpful, I think, for all of us.
Next slide. You're around. This one? Go back. Go back. Yeah. Thank Say say you're perfect. And your question too around, you know, breaking it up into phases. The critical part to get the unit ventilator piece because those unit ventilators don't have a great payback. So you need the savings and the excess savings that the solar piece generates. So if you were to take some of the solar out, if you took out, say, some of the carport canopy systems, you would likely lose the univalent piece. The state of the department has very strict rules about payback requirements for an EPC that we are just under. So, again, yeah, if you reduce some of the solar, we would have to take out likely the unit ventilator work or a piece of it to stay under the required payback.
Thank you. And just just for those who are unfamiliar with this, talk a little bit about what that means, payback. So we have the high ticket items like solar, LEDs, and all of that. Could you just talk about that? Yeah.
I mean, the good news with SEB is payback for them by its its legislation, specific legislation in terms of getting approval. It's just a simple payback where they take sell price divided by savings. That's it. The sell price, they will reduce it by any rebates or in this case, say, federal monies. So you literally take your 3,200,000 less the million dollar federal rebate, so your sale price is net 2,200,000, divided by the savings that we're also guaranteeing, and as long as that is below an eighteen year payback, that means that element of SE's requirement. We're still bound by all the New York State building codes, and there's very specific codes for building solar, certain distance from the edge roof, from equipment on the roof. All that applies whether it's an EPC or a capital project. We're still bound by all the building codes. But an EPC has that payback requirement on top of it. And they also go into depth
reviewing our specific savings calculations. So it's another good checkpoint for you that if I just made up my savings accounts, I would never get it through their energy engineers. They review those accounts in detail as well.
Yeah. And just another point I was I wanted the community to understand those high payback items. Yeah. So
when I say the payback, it's the payback of the complete project. So they don't care if you've got solar may have a ten year payback or eight year payback. The unit ends may have a fifty year payback. They view the job or review the job as a whole, and that's what I'm saying. You've got with any EPC, you try to usually grab the better payback items like we did in phase two, like lighting
and other elements like that to pay for some of the longer why they are better paybacks. Just so people understand the concept behind that. Sure.
It's because their their cost is is low and their savings are high. I mean, lighting, you know, you can go through and we've already done it, but you can change an old fluorescent lamp. Maybe you've done it in your home and you put in LED LED lamp, the cost is low. The immediate savings is high. Those are the two components. I mean, changing a boiler plant, the cost is very high. Yes. You'll save fuel on a more efficient boiler. The savings are low. So that's but sometimes you get to the point where the equipment is just well beyond its useful life. So a lot of our EPCs are we're changing out and replacing equipment that is just well beyond its useful life. You have to replace it. Like an old boiler plant that's 50 years old. And we'll go to something more efficient, but it's gonna still have a very long payback. Or windows. We do a lot of projects, but windows have a
of a fifty year payback. If I could just jump in. So, like, when we did the last energy performance contract, we replaced the bulk of our lighting went to LED. So you get a big payback on that. But then it allows you within the project to, let's say, we have a boiler that needs replacement, which is an expensive thing to replace. The the big savings on the lights allows us to afford the boiler, which really doesn't give us much savings. So we're able to get that additional equipment through the contract even though it's not something that really is saving us that much. But we don't have to then out of pocket go and spend all this money at that time. And and the savings is generated
That's a good point because solar is not you're not saving energy. In the case of the solar here, then we'll talk about it. We're we're moving it directly to the grid. And the current solar that we put in four years ago was installed behind the meter, which means electricity went right into the building. So you were getting credit at what you pay today for your KWH, which is pretty low. You're under a NIFA rate structure. What changed after phase two is that the state now has what they call a a veater tariff rate, where you can take your electricity and go right into the grid. In doing so, they'll give you a monetary credit. And that monetary credit can be applied to any of the district's electric accounts. That's part of the process when we close out the system. We tell them where we want those credits to go. But the value of those credits is significantly higher, you know, than it would be if you went and put electricity into your building.
So that's why in this job, we're we're not only putting in new solar, we're taking the existing solar that was done four years ago, and we're moving it all to in front of the meter. Electricity. Yeah. So it's, you know, and that so it's really a new interconnect application. This is the other risk. We have to go to Con Ed and and in parallel, when we go to the state for approval of the job, we gotta go to Con Ed and see if they will allow us to do this. Unfortunately, they don't have good information online that would tell us in advance that that feeder circuit that we have to go into has spare capacity. I've argued, debated, screamed because I'm spending a lot of money. So literally, they could tell me in two months, that feeder circuit is saturated. Sorry. You can't do it. Also out of luck. Loss for us. No loss for the district. We'll we'll take that risk. There is info online. It's incredibly old, so at least I know
I mean, if if it told me the two year old maps told me it was no good, I probably wouldn't be here. Those maps and when we did the job four years ago, we had some discussions with. I think there's spare capacity, but that's
I'm rolling the dice on that. Right. And our experience to date with in terms of responsiveness just with regards to, like, our, you know, charging at the transportation office and just our charging generally for our EVs has not been great. Has not been great. Shock. Half a decade for one. Right? Right. In terms of that. So I think that that's a reality. We have to be cognizant of as well. Yep. I would say, Terry, you have pretty good experience
thus far with your last few contracts and relationship with Con Ed. Yeah. We got a a ton of work going on in this territory. So Con Ed is is ironically is and I would agree with what you said. No utility is easy to deal with. They're probably one of the better ones, if if I can say that. Like, PSEG Long Island is okay. You you get I shouldn't say this is where I love it. Sorry, I'm just saying They're fabulous. We they're all they're the best. No. But we know the process very well. We're doing work in Yonkers and the Maranac and and Peaks. You know? So we know the people there, which helps. We know the process, which helps. Like any utility, it's very process driven. You just gotta know the process. Don't deviate, and you'll get through it. Okay. There's regulated time that they do have to get back to you when you submit that interconnect application. That's why, you know, with success, you know, with an executed contract here, hopefully, at the next meeting,
that's my first move. Denise is giving you those interconnect applications just for you to sign. Again, it doesn't obligate the district to anything. The cost of the application is on us. If they say yes, you're not obligated to do the work, but it it has to be done to start the review process. And it's either they do a preliminary review and either approve it in thirty days, or for larger systems, they'll likely push it to what they call a a C CERT. It stands for comprehensive electrical system interconnect review, which can take up to three months. I don't think the size of these systems will go that far. If they do, though, that really comes very close to that December date. I still think it would work, that we'll line everything up as the approval, financing, kind of approval, but I don't think the size of these systems will go to that comprehensive review. So we should be able to get an answer from them
within, hopefully, thirty, sixty days. But it could be a no, and this could all go away. But at least, you know, it's not a financial risk for the district. We probably covered a lot of this. This gives you the specific sizes, though. So you can see the new systems we're installing. We're proposing a parking lot canopy system at the high school and middle school, and I've got drawings to show you locations. We've got new roof mounted systems at all three schools, predominantly the new roof areas. But even some of the new roof areas, you know, we have to do structural analysis to make sure that they can handle the weight of the panels. So just because because it's a new roof area doesn't mean that they were all eligible. We looked at everything to try to maximize it, but there were some areas just based on the structural, you know, makeup of the roof that couldn't handle the weight of the solar system. Because that all needs to be part
of the SE submission. Sealed and stamped structural drawings to the state that says it can handle the weight of the system. But that gives you the sizes. It's it's about five zero nine kw that's being added. We talked about that connecting the existing roof mounted systems that were done under the last phase. That totals about, real quick math, about 350 kw. So at the end of the day, you would have, call it, 850 kw, just shy of a megawatt district wide, which is pretty good given, you know, the size of your district that we would now go directly to the grid. And as we talked about, it's now compensated under the under the New York State feeder tariff, which is a much larger compensation than than going behind the meter if you were to send electricity right into the building. And with those good savings and payback, we're able to take on the unit ventilator replacements at PVC, the 4th Floor classrooms,
which old unit ventilators that are heating only, right, replaced with the new unit ventilators that have cooling, DX cooling. And there's some, you know, there's some asbestos abatement that's required to get that work in. We've got that as well. Completely turnkey, so there's no other expenses that you would need to take on for the completion of this work. Okay. Let's take a look at it. So next slide, I will show you just a pictures of
Air air air conditioning. Yeah. It's air conditioning. Yeah. Okay. You got it. It's a type of cooling, but it's built into the unit ventilator in the classroom. Okay. Yeah.
and these are the roofs. Correct? Yeah. So what you see is some of these are recent Google Earth shots, so you might see the existing solar that's there. What you see in blue is the new panels that we are proposing under this phase.
So for reference, it's auxiliary gym, the athletic hallway, locker rooms, and then on top of the social studies wing. And then our existing is the black area there is the main gym and then on top of the library.
And you might say that there's areas you might be able to fit some more panels in there. No. This is specifically designed with code requirements. You've got pieces of equipment up there that you need to be a certain distance.
So you've got shading where we might deem payback wise, it doesn't make any sense given if you've got elevation changes or equipment up there. So, I mean, our goal was certainly to maximize it, and that's what we did within, again, code and efficiency and all of that taken into account. Next slide. This is the proposed carport area at the high school. Shouldn't be any issues with neighbors.
You said it's not the backplot? What what It's the no. I said not the the The far The far backplot. Basement. Yes. The majority the backplot.
Terry has incorporated all of that into the existing proposed Managing rain, capturing I mean, because you can build these where there's gaps between the panels, so you get drips in between. We've incorporated gasketing, so that's not the case. We'll capture the water down to a gutter system on the lower edge there. Also helps manage snow melt. So, you know, you've got a little bit of loss of efficiency because why do you do it without it? Because with the gaps, you get a little bit better ventilation. The panels stay a little cooler, and they're a little more efficient, but it's minuscule. So benefit of this to better manage the water versus a little loss in savings is is well worth it. You know? So we've got that included here. That was something Brad and Denise were very specific.
So at their lowest point, probably look much lower than than than the roofline. I think the lowest point, fourteen, fifteen feet at its lowest point. So not an issue for buses, trucks, any of that. You know, that these are standard heights, you know, knowing the typical vehicles that we do, 95% of our work is public k through 12. So all of that is taken into account. At the highest point, sir? Depends on the length of the can opy. So it it varies. So, like, you've got those are five panel lengths. I'm not exactly sure. I don't wanna misspeak. I can give that to you. But, yeah, there's there's obviously a pitch there. They pitched appropriately to maximize efficiency, you know, pitching towards the Southwest, you know, to maximize exposure. But I can get you the the height of the you'll get, you know, copies of the SD submission, which would be detailed electrical drawings, structural drawings,
steel drawings. So it shows you exactly where the columns are. We don't we don't remove any parking spaces. You know, the steel is put strategically in areas where, you know, the lines between the spots are now and their size so that it doesn't eliminate any parking spots.
Yeah. You you know, you can lose spots if you choose different types of footings and columns, and sometimes that's done because that's a cheaper, quicker approach. I think the the scale of those are just so large. Yeah. That they're And that too. Yeah. Like I said, yeah, if you if you wanna go 10 panels deep, your your steel's gotta be wider. And in doing so, you lose spots. So these these are cantilevers. So the center line in between the two rows of spots,
they're yeah. The middle on that dividing line and then go out each way. So that was definitely a PVC. PVC. We we can't lose any more parking. So that was one of our, you know, requirements for considering it.
Yep. Here's the PVC new roof area. So, again, be able to pick up some additional panels with the new roofs. And moving forward, here is the canopy system and PVC.
not the back not the ones against the back? No. It's just that the two rows of parking in the center. Shading in that area, pushing it that way would be
The efficiencies were low. Big trees. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So my question is when is the con I know I'm jumping ahead. When is the construction for all of this going to happen? And is it disruptive to students and drop offs and games? Games. And
So, I mean, we have a 12 period Yeah. You know, to get the work done. We do everything in our power to do it at periods when there's no disruption. The key the roof work is simple. Right? Mhmm. This is the area where there's disruption. The key is getting in the footings and the steel at times when nobody's around. Because when we do that and so we'll definitely do that. You know, the footings and steel will be done whatever it's a it's a holiday week or or it'll be done when kids are not around. Because when we do that, we can work on very small sections of the panel and maybe block off two spots if we had to do it
when school is in session. But where are you storing all the materials? Are you bringing them in off-site? Like because that's a lot of times with construction, it's where you're storing all the materials. And then
Yeah. So we we can we'll likely be buying it and storing it off-site just because we don't have a whole lot of time. Or bring it to the site for the roof mat and stuff. We'll store it right on the roof. I'm hoping we can find, you know, for the canopy systems, a spot where we can store it. But, like, we're only storing the panels for a very short period of time, and they're all stacked up. So it's not a lot of footprint. Like, we're not storing the steel. You know, we when we bring the steel, it's it's being installed that that time period. So the panels don't take up a lot of footprint. We're not gonna store it in a spot that eliminates, again, parking. I'm I'm sure we can find that it's impossible. We'll just yeah. We rarely bring it today of the install. We usually like, the roof mat, we can store it up on the roof.
It'll definitely be summer, but we're we're gonna be utilizing spring for sure and summer as well. Even if we're done at the end of the summer, the issue is con Edison because there's many steps that need to be done when we're done. You've got to schedule a shutdown with con Edison. You've gotta tap into their polls. A separate crew comes back and does witness test, and a separate crew comes back and gives you the final PTO. Those are all easy steps, but it it takes two months to get them here. So I have to be done. When I say December 27, I know I have to be done probably by September. August September, you know, to account for the Con Ed steps that need to be done, you know, to get that detail. So for
So what did that look like the last So I was gonna say, so for past phases, it was second shift work. So, like, we changed during the school year every single almost every single light fixture in the entire district. Solar, we installed the solar that was happening during the regular day on the roofs.
I said the roof is not the the roof You know? My my concern is disruption to students and, like, after school activities, and it's not it's not it's it's solely Ideal. Students and and and teaching. Yeah. No. I'm not saying it's not ideal. I'm saying my concern is is disruption to students. And, like, doctor having lived through the construction at the high school, like, that's not an ideal teaching environment. Like, you're there's a lot of banging and things like that going on. I see what you're saying. Yeah. That that's my concern. Be the case. Yeah. Yeah. I think the loud sensory overload Mhmm. Know, already. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's That's my concern. Because I I know that we were committed to that, but I the feedback that we got from students was that it was very disruptive when a lot of that construction was going on. And No. Until you live through it, you don't know. I wouldn't want to knowingly repeat that.
No. I I think most of this is second shift, summer, and the of all the work that they would potentially be doing,
the largest disruption will be the footings and the steel structure going in. And then mounting panels, like, it's very minimal. It's quiet work too. Like I said, decibel level wise. Like, the you won't hear that. Mhmm. Brad's right. The the lab work is the Yeah. It's gonna be It's putting the footings in, you know, drilling, excavating, putting the steel up. That will be done when nobody's around. Yeah. Yeah.
And CET has a little bit of additional roof space that we can add. So I look like CET. So now I'm asking.
So CET is the largest of our existing. Existing. Correct. And the roof we did was on the kindergarten wing, which is where the additional panels are.
And you can see there's other roof areas that at CET that that don't have panels. And the reason they don't, it's structurally, those areas couldn't handle the weight. It's not that we Didn't they just change the requirements? And they changed yeah. Good point. So the building code changed specifically to roof conditions, whether you're building a new roof or you're putting equipment on a new roof, making it even more difficult to put equipment up there. Way too conservative in my opinion, but it is what it is. It's code. So we took all that into account knowing these designs will also meet the new code because SED will certainly check all of our structural calculations as well. That's why you might say, hey, wow. There's a big wide open area. Why are we not adding more solar equipment? It's just structurally, it doesn't meet it doesn't pass much. And, from a timeline perspective, as I said before, we delivered the contract just a couple of days ago. So, it is certainly being reviewed by counsel as we speak.
Brings us here today to present and answer questions. Timeline is tight, so looking for support and approval at the next board meeting. Just throwing it out there because timeline is tight. And you see the steps after that. We talked about we need to submit immediately to Con Edison for the solar interconnection review process. We'll work with KG and D, and we're targeting middle of September to submit to SED for their review and approval. Based on a mid September submission, we believe we can get approval beginning of November. You would go out for financing. Ideally, knowing that that takes about a six, seven week process beginning of November and and
we're meeting on the twenty seventh. Right. Oh, my date is wrong. I apologize. We have changed it. Yeah. We're about to change it. So your date I know you said that before. I'm like, oh, maybe I got the go on date. But does
I would say it it doesn't because, I mean, certainly, if you have questions and you think it's not gonna happen, let me know when we stop. But we'll still I'm gonna send you the contact form to get the interconnect process going. It doesn't obligate to this or anything. It just starts that clock. And I'll continue to work with KG and D on preparing the SEB drawings and specs. I do need the signed contract for that submission, but I'm not planning to be able to submit until after the twenty seventh anyway, so that it doesn't hurt me time wise. I'm gonna take it to move to the twenty seventh.
Okay. So I'm gonna just be blunt, okay, about this. Theoretically, I like this. You know? I like the idea of I like the idea of solar. A little nervous about the neighbors, but, okay, we're putting that aside. Wonder if he's okay with it. And, like, it seems like I I understand the financial upside as presented and the partnership and the risk that you're taking. So putting that aside, you're speaking to somebody who bought a hybrid car and was totally burned. Okay? Then also, you like, we had this electric school buses, which were sounded like they were gonna be really fantastic, but they proved to be very complicated in terms of how that rolled out and a lot more expensive. You know? And we have had a lot less it's been hard in terms of relationship with, and there's been a lot of additional cost to the district. So what I would like to have a better understanding of, okay. Let's say everybody here has done their job. Okay?
What happens high school parking lot? Somebody, no disrespect, some new driver plows into one of the the the the parking big carports. You know, it's destroyed. Like, how easy is it to get replacement parts to get somebody to come in to fix it again, to you know, like, so what are the worst case scenario? Like, what are the other hidden costs that come because it's a newer technology, infrastructure still being developed, and there's some gaps? So, like, I'd like to feel more confident that I have a I understand everybody's rules here, but it's a complicated project in, like, more of an ambiguous environment than because it's a newer technology. What kind of infrastructure is there? Sure. It does not No. Great question.
I can confidently tell you, it's not newer technology. Solar here is so mature. I mean, we've been doing what is newer is all the benefits of the new programs, the new tariff rates, the new federal monies. The solar technology, don't compare it to electric buses. That battery technology that's in electric buses, and and we we do battery storage systems as well, that's new technology. Technology. That's rapidly changing. Solar for us is like light bulbs.
It's also not a I would tell you the supply chain because of the one big beautiful bill, and there's very tight requirements on the domestic content. You know? So we have access to that because we have such a large breadth of projects globally. So we purchased a whole lot of equipment. So we have access to a lot of that. I would tell you, no one's gonna if they run into it, they're not gonna run into the panels. They're gonna run into steel. So they're not going to hurt the panels. The electric
the inverters aren't located in a in a spot where cars can hit it. You don't know how great of a driver is. No. Know. I'm so kidding. I get your point. Get get your your point. This is a
really good question because it is a actually, that's been the light pole of the high school has been hit Yeah. Like, four times. It's an iron I didn't even know that. I just Yeah. No. But it's And it very The steel has been hit. Like, the systems have been hit.
Not damaged. The car was damaged because, like I said, the panels are they're not gonna hit the panels. They're not gonna destroy the panels. The inverters are in a different location. Yeah. But you'll likely get somebody hitting a steel column. Without a doubt. So so so,
you're great guy. Not the student. No. No. No. It could be it could it could be me. I don't know. I cannot even pull into that.
Unfortunately, it's not good. Yeah. So I hear what you say about, like, Honeywell. Obviously, you have access to the supply chain. So after this is built and constructed, what who's then managing the contract for the maintenance of it? Would if we do need a replacement part, is that going to be going for you? Would we have to figure out how to procure the part?
I know I'm going into the No. No. Yeah. I'd love going through the weeks. Good question. So the panels themselves have a twenty five year warranty.
So there is no maintenance on the panels. The typical rain and snow you get cleans the panels. The inverters, which takes the electricity from the panels and converts it from DC to AC so it can go into the grid, Those have, I believe, a fifteen year warranty. So warranty wise, you're you're protected. There is no hidden cost. And that that, you know, it's a great question because a lot of what we do with EPCs might be oiler plants and other mechanical equipment. Well, who's gonna service them? And the district doesn't have the capability for that, we include those services in the contract, so it truly is a turnkey contract. There are no hidden costs. There are no service elements with these two measures. Like I said, there's no service component to cleaning the panels. I would tell you the panels up on the roof, you probably have someone that goes up to clean the roof drains then. Sometimes when you have panels up in the roof, you find it might
redirect leaves in a certain area, and you might have to go up in the fall and hit the roof drains a few extra times. That's it. You know? So something like that is a maintenance item that's done by in house
staff. So with with the existing solar system, since it was installed, we had one issue, which was the main breakers on the roof were the batch of them, I guess, was no good, and they came out and replaced them for us
at no no cost. Yeah. I'm I'm just, like, trying to ask all these questions because I wanna make sure there's no gaps. So we're going in with our eyes open on like, from a vegetarian risk perspective.
Yeah. Yeah. I get those questions all the time because a lot of our competitors in this in this market, you know, haven't been around for a long time. And that's I would think, hopefully, why you choose a company like Honeywell is that we're not gonna disappear. So if there is an issue, we're here, and there's a long term warranty, call us. We can come back. It's under warranty. We can replace it. Yeah. I mean, energy efficiency market is huge, and you got a lot of new players. And that's a great question because they might be gone in two years. And who do I call when a part breaks and it needs to be replaced? So, you know, things will break. Yeah. They do. They will. I'm just telling you, very long warranties here. I'm gonna say we're not hopefully going anywhere. So, I mean, certainly
My final question is on the maintenance of the canteens and, like, ice sheets of ice and ice shedding. Mhmm. Because I did just do a very quick
So Yeah. We I reached out to a couple school districts that have them installed. I spoke to the village about the train station, which is why we went back to Terry and said, under no circumstances will we consider anything without gutters, without snow guards or and the gasketing in between that from feedback from all the other districts. Nice. Thank you. Yeah.
They held me to that. They're very tough. Several rough conference hall calls. No. I was like I said, it's a little extra cost. The efficiency dips a tick, but well worth it if it's a it's a valid concern.
Other board questions for Carrie? Anything else from the district? I don't think so. Okay.
If anything does come up, do you have my email or Denise and Brad can reach out don't to if can get ahold of you. But I appreciate the time. Sorry I took more than probably fifteen, twenty minutes, but all good questions. So Thank you so much. Thank Appreciate all the answers. I'm very happy understand it. Brad. Thank
folks. We're moving on to item three. I think some of my promises about the end time of this meeting were premature. Yes. Hearing district wide safety plan item 3.1 on the agenda. Opening the public hearing of the district wide safety and emergency management plan. And I just keep losing my board docs, like, every thirty seconds. Like Oh, yeah. Prince and candy says I can't see anything in terms of motions or not. Oh, yeah. You are? Yes. You're still I'm doing it, but I don't know if it's gonna stick because it keeps saying I missed the first. Saved my No. I'm saying I moved Allison second in the first. Second in first. I had prior to now. Yeah. We're gonna have to go old school and actually write stuff down. Item 3.1, be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby opens the public hearing for the district wide safety and emergency plan. So moved. Second. The question That's the that's the move
the question? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. Oh, sorry. It's a little hard to do, just to change the paper. So this is our opportunity for, if anyone would like to speak or make a statement on, regarding the district wide safety plan in advance of the, I guess, the adjournment of this hearing. Anything from the public? Mister Ed?
It's just an experience I've had a couple of times in coming to your meetings, which you should be concerned about your security also because of controversial issues that come up in school boards. So in coming to your meetings in the past, I am being public. I have to go to the guard shack. There's an office there to the side as opposed to the two front doors to lead directly into the high school. When that guard has to address me or address somebody from the inside, which he does often, he cannot watch the doors at all. So his he's distracted, and he's in the printing process also. So if somebody opens a door, like, say, a student, and that student has other people with him, that one guard may not even see them. Probably won't see them because he's addressing me. So I think you have to take a better look at how the security is done for that front door in that maybe each individual has to show some type of what they do in the county the county office buildings.
You're not getting through there unless the individual has an ID card. If somebody bums rush it, there's there's usually a policeman or somebody stand standing behind the security person who's frisking people or checking the things they bring in. But the security operation at that front door or side door, whatever you're call it, of the high school does not work when there's a crowd, and it does not work when that guy is distracted from as many as three sides. Thank you.
Any additional comment from the public? Alright. Then I'll go to before we have sort of, like, our discussion, go to item 3.3, adjourning the public hearing on the the American management plan. Do you resolve that the Board of Education hereby adjourns the public hearing on which to regulate the emergency management plan? So moved. Second. On the question? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Seeing? The motion carries. Moving into item 3.4, the adoption of the district wide safety and emergency management plan and building level emergency response plans. Recommended action be it resolved after having given the public an opportunity to be heard at a public hearing. The Board of Education hereby adopts the district wide safety plan and building level emergency response plans. And be it further resolved that the district clerk is directed to file the district wide safety plan and building level emergency response plans for the Commissioner of Education within thirty days of the adoption as well as provide a copy to appropriate local law
enforcement agencies and state police. So moved. Second. On the question and board discussion or any comment from our security consultant, Pam from Alteris. So we had an opportunity, I think, to review this. And if we're if there are no additional questions or nothing for the benefit of the public, I will ask. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? The motion carries. Thank you for coming in, Pam. And thank you for your patience. And thank you as always for walking us through your excellent the rest of your evening. You're not gonna stay? Yeah. I did find my question for you, so I'll send an email either by Denise or or or to you directly. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. I think so. I might switch to it just to get I feel like Jay just pushed it. I know. We're all sort of, like, switch all on the website. We have many moving into discussions, so I would say this is great opportunity if you wanna shift around a little bit. But is it alright if I sort of keep talking? So
item number four, instructional personnel 4.1. Instructional personnel recommendation be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the instructional personnel appointment of Nancy, point eight AIS elementary teacher at Gary E. Tompkins Elementary School. MA plus 60, step 15.
On the question? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? The motion carries. Item 4.2, instructional personnel recommendation. Be it resolved that the Board of Education under the recommendation of the Assistant Attorney of Schools hereby appoints Jeffrey Costa as a 1.0 FTE mathematics teacher, mathematics tenure area at the Croton-Harmon High School at a salary of $76,868, MA step three. Mister Costa is appointed to a four year probationary term as a mathematics teacher commencing on 08/26/2026 and a probationary term ending on August twenty fifth twenty third in the ten year area of mathematics. Mister Costa has initial certification in mathematics seven through 12.
Second. On the question? Anything that we need to discuss or share? I don't think so. Okay. Nothing happened. Yep. And so this will will this position be this is our last open position at the high school? Interested enough? Yes. Okay. Not. Sure. And we're we still have a school position that we'll be hearing about. I'm sure soon. So I think you said it. On the question, nothing. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Same. Motion carries. Item 4.3, instructional personnel leave of absence. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the instructional personnel leave of absence of Catherine Ellington at PVC Middle School. So moved. Second. On the question? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Same? Motion carries. Moving into new business state So ahead do back? Not really. No. It's still in the late and I don't go know it's saving my emotions. Okay. Well, we'll we'll just keep trying. Be it resolved that the board of education hereby approves the twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven tax warrant for the Croton-Harmon Union Free School District as presented.
Do I need to be open more houses? I think there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them. So if we can see it on screen, or we will be able to see it on screen eventually, it's 5.1. It notes. It takes a second. It's just yeah. There we go.
Established their assessments and equalization rate by the Department of Taxation and Finance. So now that we've received those numbers from each of the jurisdictions, it's the Board's responsibility to issue this. And that basically gives the green light for the tax bills to go out by each jurisdiction. And we are also though we don't issue we issue the tax for the library, but we are basically a pass through. We just do it for them. We have no jurisdiction
over their tax rate or otherwise. And that'll be a separate separate resolution So and if there's nothing further, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? 15? Motion carries. Moving into item 5.2,
reading someone No. No. I you did Allison's second. I thought we could read it. That was instructional. I have to tell you, it's very hard when Portoix isn't working because I'm looking at two different screens a dozen times. So I apologize. So we'll redo this then just so that we actually do formally approve it. 5.1, be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves the twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven tax warrant for the Croton-Harmon Union Free School District as presented.
you. And just now that it has formally moved, we do need to actually vote on the action again. So all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? The motion carries. Thank you for catching that. Let's slow it down a little so we don't miss anything. Item 5.2. Just kidding. Item 5.2, the tax mark for the Croton Free Library for twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven. The recommended action be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves the twenty twenty six, twenty seven tax warrant for the Croton Free Library as presented. So moved. Second. On the question? I think Denise just explained that we are managing this process for the Croton Free Library, that it is a separate entity and it's a separate tax ID. All in favor?
Abstain? The motion carries. Moving into item 5.3, memorandum of agreement with the aids of Croton United, ACU. We'll get to the right page. Be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves the memorandum of agreement for the ACU as presented. So moved. Second. On the question? Aye. All in favor?
I abstain. The motion carries. Item 5.4, the Board of Education meeting's revised calendar for twenty twenty six to twenty twenty seven. Be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves the revised twenty twenty six to twenty twenty seven calendar meeting calendar as presented, just including for the benefit of the public, quickly the details. The meeting on 08/20/2026, it it the proposal is to move it to August 20 08/27/2020 set 2026 so that the vote the board can constitute a quorum. As well, we are proposing changing our start times from 07:30PM to 06:30PM, except where noted, both for the benefit of our administrative team and to ensure that the public is able to join us for meetings since they end at an earlier time.
Second? Final question? Does that just for the benefit of the public, will we then going to be moving meet the BOCES? That is our proposal. I know that that we the board governance committee hasn't had an opportunity to meet and sort of finalize the schedule and the protocols. But the idea would be to move that start time to 6PM, which we recognize I think is a little early for individuals who are commuting. And also, it does interfere, you know, with dinner for many people. So another proposal that we'll be discussing is whether we can expand our need to BOE to actually include occasional weekend times over the course of the school year. Also, in response to previous feedback that we've received from the community, we have discussed the idea of alternating locations around the community so that we're not we're not inviting our community necessarily to have to purchase, say, item at a particular business to participate in this and also to through the community because different people frequent different places. So that'll be something we'll be discussing, and we'll bring back to the full board
for consideration if we wanna make a change to that schedule.
Outlook for the year. Yeah. So and I appreciate it because I know for for many people, it does require having to get on an earlier train and and their workday sooner. And it means missing dinner as well for some of us. So thank you for the the change. And I know the administrative team appreciates having a slightly shorter day. So we'll move now into item 5.5, discussion of our board of education goals for 2026 to 2027. This is going to be a discussion by the board. I'm going to turn it actually over to Omar to introduce a little bit of what we'll be talking about here, the policy context, and if possible, we'll get up on the screen our draft priorities. And then after that introduction, we'll talk a little bit about how we'll sort of engage in discussions so that everyone has an opportunity to speak. Over to you. Thank you, Nalika. Yeah. So
right now, these are draft priorities. We have board officers that have put this together based on feedback we received from individual board members, feedback from the community, feedback from board evaluation process and superintendent evaluation process. And we'd like to open up for discussion. I think I'd like to structure it as maybe breaking down to two parts. One, are these the right first, are these the right priorities? Do we wanna then adopt those goals? And then maybe wordsmith as as the second part of the process.
the idea of the three goals are to tackle this through community engagement and trust, academic rigor and student achievement, and governance and accountability. Those are the three kind of overarching themes. If there are other perspectives, maybe we can go around the table and get some of that feedback.
However which way you wanna go. First, I think, Denise, are you able to bring that up on the screen, or should I just link you to a Google Doc quickly that you can put up just so that everybody's outraged on the same information? It's actually Yeah. No. We're we're really struggling with the with the absence of Word docs, and I'm gonna actually just put just everybody on it in case you'd like to be able to see it on your screen. It's also on the It's on the printer. It's on the printer's copy. I know. I have a hard time with print I like, I'm having a hard time seeing. At least for Denise, if she can share it out and so she can see it on the screen. And then we can just start I'll give you a second, Denise, to sort of have it come up while it's coming up. You can just you can just stay here. Yeah. You're sharing it. I just shared on I just shared it. Yeah. It's gonna take a second. I'm sorry. I can't control how fast it's
not very fast.
did mention I think we we briefly touched on these at our organizational meeting and also touched on them at our joint retreat with the administrative team. So as as articulated so far, just again, that everyone can hear and see, establish Establish proactive, consistent communications to restore the trust of the community. Or if we wanna turn down communications with the community. These are not these may not be. Some? No. Nope. Yep. They sure aren't. These are this is my version. So where's your version? We'll We'll just have to I don't I mean, I don't know. We don't have to, I guess, rely on what we have on a piece of paper here. Yeah. Because I don't know that we have that in a shared document for it. If we do, you might have an MR.
of the board, could we see that other version that you just have? Well, that's not the version that's even that wasn't that wasn't even a draft that was shared with anybody, to be honest. It was my personal file that has been shared with nobody. I think that's why it doesn't exist. Let's see if I can find a version that we actually put into the agenda today, though. I have an email right here. Like, I have it up in email right now. Do you want me to email it? Do you see it? Yes. Could you do that, please? Because there there's just no way to circumvent the fact that Cortex crashes every thirty seconds right now. It's from August 1. I think it's the same. Yeah. Let me I'll I'll We sent we did just send this to Denise yesterday, so it's just pulling up in that email. Yeah. I have to say this is, like, the first time in recent memory that four doctors actually failed during a meeting. Got a screenshot. There we go. I'm on FaceTime. I'm in a research. What's
we can just read this because this is actually this is this is sort of what was what we stated. Rebuild trust through timely, transparent, and oh. That's I
mean, I actually I have, like, copy and pasted into a doc from more docs if that would be helpful. Yes. I can Thank you. That's
great. Thank you. Yeah. We all have it. It's just a matter of Yeah. It's also just being able to put it on the screen so everyone can see. Rebuild trust through timely, transparent, and meaningful communication and engagement with the community is number one. Number two, continue to strengthen academic rigor, curriculum coherence, and measurable student achievement. Number three, strengthen governance and accountability through clearly stated expectations, measurable outcomes, and regular reporting. So these were our draft priorities that Omar stated. And I think in terms of in terms of discussions, one of our thoughts was to sort of actually ensure that everyone has an opportunity to speak and offer their commentary. I think just for the purposes of being able to just manage the conversation, I'm comfortable and would propose we just sort of go around the room. We've got one trustee on that side of the table. We've got a bunch on this side of the table. So, Ana, if you'd like to start, you're comfortable starting, you wanna go first, or we can have Theo go first because Omar and I think we'll reserve reserve the end of the conversation.
The first one. I think Theo Sure. Should go first.
think I mean, I'm largely comfortable with these goals, and I think they're, I think, responsive to, I think, you know, both, like, our duties as contractees of the board. And I guess I guess the one thing that I would add is not specific to the language, but I think to the the ways in which I think we would benefit most from carrying these out, which I think Anamika, you mentioned earlier the retreat that we were part of a couple weeks ago, last week. Last week. Last It was last week. Which I think was a really great way to kind of start off this conversation and really thinking about how our priorities as trustees also kind of intertwine with the goals of the administration because I really truly believe that the only way in which we successfully carry these out is if we're aligned, is if we're in constant conversation about them. And so I think it was a great way to start sort of that process, right, of
ensuring alignment, ensuring communication from the outset. And I think it's going to be extremely important for us to remain in communication about these in our board meetings and any opportunity that we have to understand where our progress is throughout the year, to give provide each other feedback. I I you know, and also, I think these are, while somewhat specific, also still kind of general. Right? And so that these these think these three goals, I think, will encompass many, many things, right, that I think we'll be able to tackle throughout the year. I think this is obviously meant to be sort of a vision, right, for what we wanna accomplish in the in the year. And then also, I think throughout the year, we'll sort of assess where we're at, and, really, this sort of feels like an ongoing medieval this year, but throughout throughout future years. Right? So, obviously, we're going to continue to assess where what our goals are for next year and beyond.
But I think these are a great start. And also, again, the success of the our achievement achieving the goals will depend on through the alignment and consistent communication between the board and administration.
Yeah. I I agree with what Theo said. I I guess what I would just add is, yeah, I'm I'm overall supportive of these. I and, you know, I also think about our role as a board is to be a liaison with the community. We're elected by the community and to hear what they have to say and what their priorities are and bring that in dialogue in with the administration to set the strategic direction of the district. And so to me, these reflect what I feel like I've heard from, you know, the community. And then, also, I think, you know, there's a lot of as a district, we've we have a new leadership. Well, you know, a lot of new leaders here. We also have had a lot of shifts in curriculum, like, a lot of changes. And then there's also the question of New York inspires coming. So I feel like this also dovetails nicely with a lot of the realities that we're facing as a district. I don't feel like it's in contradiction to,
you know, the work that's going. It is going to help us provide some focus and structure to, you know, have, like, pretty specific conversations about things so we can understand what's happening and then who who we wanna be how how we wanna move forward so we can best serve students.
I honestly don't have a lot more to add to what you and Allison said. I I like the goals. I also think that they're responsive to a lot of what I heard during the spring, the board verification campaign. And I think they're sufficiently specific without being too specific as Theo was mentioning. Right? I think that they're they're good goal level. Yeah.
Yeah. I I would agree. I'm generally supportive of the goals. I do think we need to, once they're adopted, really think about how we're gonna operationalize them, we're gonna track them, how we're gonna measure them because priorities without deadlines are really just kinda hopes and aspirations. So I think that's really important. I know we're gonna do that. I just wanna make sure we're thinking about that because there's really a lot there. There could be a lot. It could be short term, medium term, long term. So I think it's really important to think about what's the actionable here? What's the timeline for it? When's the check-in? When's the reporting? Things like that, so that we don't bite off too much, so district officials aren't, you know, overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that's in there to unpack because there's definitely a lot. We were in sort of breakout sessions at the retreat, which is great. We went through each one of these. The team I was on only got through the first one because it was such an important one to talk about communication.
And one of the big takeaways from that was we we said explaining the why and the how of the what that's driving change and explaining that to to the to the community. And the example we came up with, which was the the theme throughout the whole day, was the vision map in conjunction with New York Inspires. And I don't think the community at large knows a whole lot about New York Inspires and how big of a shift this is gonna be in New York State all across the whole state and how quickly that's coming and how many questions there still are about that and how the vision map is is dovetailing in a lot of ways with New York Inspires. So that was one example that we came up with for meaningful communication. Let's take one big major policy change at the state level that's going to directly impact all the schools in New York State and explain that to the community and say, this is where the vision map is being developed. This is how we're, you know, abiding by New York Inspires. This is what New York Inspires is.
So there aren't as many questions over curriculum changes and new scheduling and courses. So communication is key, and that's just sort of one example to operationalize. Alright. You know, by the end of this school year, we wanna make sure we've held a certain amount of of sessions or what have you about New York Inspire specifically. So I think the goals are great. I think it's just about, again, what do we really wanna see at the end of the year or at the end of the the next couple of years. But, overall, it was a great discussion at the retreat last week, even though it feels like many weeks ago. Appreciate the district's time and and board leadership for putting that together. And this is, you know, the result of some of those discussions. So looking forward to seeing how we can move forward with these.
I think some of us may have there may be some additional comments. We're gonna try to go all the way around, and then I think people can sort of use their their time to comment and have a second round. Before we go to Ana, just because we're going around the table, and I get told our student trustees once we get into the school year and we're talking about more student facing issues that we are going to ask them or invite them to offer their commentary first. But as you're reading these, Nikhil and Madeline, if either of you would like to address just sort of what you see in terms of just for context, because I know you both were not part of our Board of Education administrative retreat. These priorities, as Omar said, came out of conversations with the community and all the various other mechanisms that he talked about. And we sort of pulled them together to set as a framework for discussion of how the district might also come up with specific district goals for the school year.
Underneath the layer, underneath district goals is actually building goals for Croton- Herman High School, PVC, and CET. So as you look at these, if there's anything that sort of stands out to you or speaks to your experiences, high school students particularly, and you feel comfortable, we would love to hear from you on either of those. And if there's nothing right now, that's also okay.
Do have anything? Oh, I have a question about the way these are ordered. Is is this any particular order? Or No. Just okay. Cool. Again, they're designed around, like, three main buckets. Gotcha. Yeah. I do wanna add, I think, obviously, these are goals looking forward, but the things we have implemented, new courses, I think this fits in with curriculum coherence, continuing to measure, like, how that's prepared students for their classes afterwards. Afterwards, if that curriculum has set them up for AP level classes and things of that sort.
I would just like to add, I do strongly agree with Nadia. I think that's something that Maddie and I have a lot of experience with. And I think that second bullet point there is something that we can touch on a lot and provide a lot of insight for since we have been through the school system when there have been a lot of changes going on. And both of us have experienced firsthand, like, we have gone through them and how we have faced certain challenges within those classes. So yeah.
Over to you, Ana. So I've expressed at the board retreat, obviously, that I had some concern and reservation with how these priorities are kind of a wide gap, and that my experience, at least, was I had a single conversation with a member of board leadership. I'm also kind of a little taken aback to hear that now this is being represented as something that was arrived at in conjunction with community discussions, because I don't think that there was a widespread community outreach regarding what our goals or priorities should be. So what I'm piecing together is that this is, like, feedback that we've gotten when we don't always get feedback other than just, like, maybe improvements or something like that. So it's not a wider discussion. It's also somehow now being tied back to campaign elements of what people were hearing while they were campaigning. Having said all of that, I leave that as a note in terms of next year
if you are actually going to represent this as a board discussion or something like that. I think that we all benefit from having open conversations. I didn't get the benefit of hearing what anybody else said in their conversation or anything like that. We're doing the work of the board in the open. I think we should be doing the work of the board in the open. Even in seeing the board priorities that were your personal priorities, Anamika, you put up on the board inadvertently a couple minutes ago, I would have benefited. And there were things that I was interested in kind of hearing about even in those in that brief moment of hearing those. So I don't know if these are actually our board priorities given the process under which we went. Having said that, there's definitely something here that we could work with as a board. We wouldn't be, you know, ill advised to work on it. But I do hear even in just hearing what you said, Jake, that there is a huge element of the work that as a board and as a district we need to do in informing the community regarding New York Inspires.
In the past, we have taken on board goals of surrounding, like, a very specific issue when it's prominent. I don't know if anybody's open to actually doing something like that, making instead of having, like, a very general board priority, having a very specific board priority with related to New York Inspires. That's something I would be open to. Because a lot of these like, I will say in my community discussions, when I hear when people hear us talk about being transparent, that's something that's, like, kind of an intangible. People don't really understand how that can be actionable. It seems to be a buzzword that people use a lot of times, certainly surrounding campaigns and and the lack of communication that people feel when when we probe the district regarding some of that, a lot of times, the information is readily available. It's readily available by district channels. We've been readily available to provide it to people during our
Meet the BOE sessions. We've taken time at board meetings to, you know, do things for the benefit of the public. So I don't know I don't know if these are actually the priorities that we arrived at because I had one conversation with one member of board leadership and then was presented with these. I do think that there's a lot of interest in talk about New York Inspired. If somebody wanted to be more specific with a single board goal regarding New York Inspired, I think the community and the board would benefit from that. And then I do have a that I conveyed to board leadership. The language in this, I don't think is strong with respect to some of the nuances that that's my feedback.
Alright. We'll take a sec I'll take a second just to speak to the process just because if you if you jump in. Yeah. Of I'll talk the process for last year just because I think it's important context also because we have two two trustees who are serving this year who did not serve last year. So this board has actually selected different ways, and this board is, like, reconstitutes itself every year and has for the last several years. So it's not this board, but the Croton-Harmon Board of Education has had multiple ways of developing board goals. There have been occasions where the subcommittee of the board has been charged with drafting, meaning a subcommittee of three people, have been charged with drafting potential goals and bringing the those goals in terms of, like, actual draft goals kind of in the same format that you see here to a public meeting like we're doing now for discussion. In fact, that is what we did last year. That was our process where it was
a small committee that drafted language, brought it to the table for further discussion. Previous years, the the goals have been drafted and actually not really fully discussed in public meetings, but rather just presented for adoption without a tremendous amount of discussion. Last year, we spent an entire work session actually going through it, working through the language, and ensuring that the priorities sort of align. One of our imperatives this year, and this is part of, like this this, I will say, it's like this is coming out of a recalibration that that the previous board, twenty twenty five, twenty six, had at our spring retreat, which was a which was a sort of review of actually the governance responsibility of the board, where the previous iteration, meaning not the seven people who are here today, but the seven people who were here last term, came to the conclusion that it was it was a priority for this body to actually establish priorities
that would inform district priorities and subsequently building goals because that's actually our statutory responsibility. And according to the New York State Boards Association, it's one of our key governance functions. So that is the context against which we were operating. Because of the timeline of this very, very important retreat that was hap that that was actually scheduled for last week, I will I I think we can all acknowledge that our time line for discussion was compressed because we had an organizational meeting. And, essentially, two weeks after, we joined for the first time. And I wanna say this was sort of, like, for us, I think, historic kind of moment to be able to come together at the start of the the entire sort of planning process for the year. Not the entire. You guys are always planning. But the immediate sort of, like, kickoff of the school year, to be able to bring the board and the administrative team together at the start, I think, was really meaningful for us. We've heard from you that it was really meaningful for the district as well for us to sort of all be in the same room at the same time and to develop and confirm shared understandings.
So there was there was sort of a time imperative that made the process it it felt rushed, and I don't think necessarily it didn't reflect sort of the way that we've been able to do it before because we put our calendar up way further than we have in the past. Last year, the board goals were discussed at a public meeting in October. The previous year was sometime in December. The year before that, there were no board goals presented for adoption. So this has been part of a continuum of change, actually, that honestly last year's board leadership really pushed for trying to move this timeline earlier. So that I think that's my background on on what was a less than ideal process. But I think one of our learnings, and we discussed this at our individual individual retreat where outside of open meeting, while we can use retreat time to talk about our processes one of the things that we landed on as a board is that we determined that it's really important to actually have this conversation about priorities before the end of the previous term so that when we come in, we actually are able to say to the district, this is where we're at. The last thing I'll say before I turn it over to Omar is that just my own specific comment with regards to these three priorities that have been identified. These are evergreen priorities.
And I think what's really important about them is that these could be the priority any year. They could have been the priority last year. They would be the priority next year. There there is some value in identifying for the district constants. And I think that these these priorities reflect a view that is a constant view in terms of constant improvement, constant communication, constant accountability. And those are things that I I would argue are not the product of communications that came out during a finite period of time last spring. It's actually an ongoing conversation that we've been having with our community for a few years now, in fact, as as the makeup of our community has changed, as the modes of communication to the board have changed, the modes of communication from the board and district have also changed, we recognize that they are imperfect. That's why we're still having the conversation because regardless of the number of newsletters, the number of parent squares, the number of meet the BOEs,
somehow that connection is still not getting made. And I think speaking for myself, I will say that I'm excited that the district is close to embarking on a new sort of strategic communications plan with better resourcing that I think will really tackle some of these foundational issues that we have with communication and transparency, and that's gonna set us off on a good footing to be able to move some of this stuff forward. So I'll turn it over to Omar.
You said everything I was gonna say. Add something. I'm gonna add one thing, is that this is the opportunity for us to have that discussion. Right. Right? So everybody benefited from the same number of discussions around us. So no one board member or trustee had outweighed an you know, not a way to pay them compared to others. We all have the same number of touch points. But, again, we are having this discussion in public to to hopefully get get consensus on on the priorities, and we still have to kind of wordsmith this. But this is the time. So if anybody has any thoughts about it, we should, again, go around the room, make sure that these are, again, the right priorities. They wanna adopt this goal, and that this is the right language. And, yeah, we'll welcome the feedback and the discussion.
I guess I'd like to ask a question. Sorry. I don't mean to be pet, but because a couple of people have mentioned New York inspires I think you during our off-site conversation were able to articulate some of this. Could you give us a sense, again just to reconfirm for everyone here, what do we think the timeline is for the State Department of Education Board of Regents to actually adopt and finalize New York Inspires as a plan, like target?
So so far they have followed the timeline that they initially put out in terms of adoption. They put out a, like, a gradual implementation timeline where they said they would adopt the portrait of the graduate first. And then I think the next thing that is coming is the sunsetting of assessment requirements for the diploma. And so far, they're on target. So I don't see any indication that those pieces are not going to happen as scheduled. And then the some of the larger changes, like credit buckets, universal transcript, those are slated to again, I believe it's with the cohort the 2029 cohort. So current, you know, the middle school students, those are some of the bigger changes, like competency based learning, universal transcript, credit buckets. So it's hard to it's hard to predict, but so far, they have matched their timeline.
Can I just in terms of making it relevant and putting it on a timeline, So much of the work that the district is doing, especially at the high school, is to anticipate those changes? I don't know if you could just speak to that because I think the change to people not understanding the timeline looks like where this coming from, but it's really so that when that change hits, all of that work has been tested
and perfected and is ready to go. Yeah. I think from the outside of some of the work we've been doing, the vision map came before New York Inspires was fully fleshed out, but it was almost, like, dovetailing right after. And so when we learned about the tenants of New Inspires, we were kinda like, great. We'll we'll be done with that by the time New York Inspires actually comes out. So the foundations of New York Inspires are interdisciplinary learning, which interestingly, I'll send this to the board in the weekly this week, University of Pennsylvania just put out a big peer reviewed article and study around higher education and interdisciplinary and the value of the interdisciplinary learning and interdisciplinary majors. So, you know, we've been looking a lot at kind of, like, higher education trends, and they're there too kind of aligning with New York Inspire. So it's not it's not as brand new as it felt three or four years ago when we first started talking about it,
which I think is really confirming. There are going to be a lot of districts that are scrambling to try to create interdisciplinary learning, to try to create portfolio based assessment, to try to create alternative assessments that will be a relatively I won't say easy task, Easy, but it'll be something that we'll be well versed in and on board with as a district.
So, yeah, I think we'll be ahead of of the game, in other words, in terms of implementation.
And some of the bigger questions around, like, what does the universal transcript mean? That's the very last pieces of all of this. So if I were looking in, you know, the crystal ball, is that something that maybe could potentially be delayed? That feels like and, again, this is just a prediction. That feels like if there was anything in the plan that we've seen, that would probably be the same. And, you know, again, this is just my opinion. Prop that's probably the thing in the plan that's the least essential to changing the student learning experience. So a I state and of the
just wanna add one more thing. I'm so sorry. Just to to kind of piggyback on what Anamika was saying, it has been this is my sixth year on the board. It's the sixth way that we've done it in those six years. So it's not unique to we're not deviating from anything. It's it it is. What I'm expressing is my reservation with respect to the process and where the information was gathered even from the community. Now I will say that the communications committee did try and conduct a survey at the end of the winter through the spring, through the end of the school year, and the timing of it all just never came together. So that is something that I think that we should consider moving forward, actually doing a district wide survey so that you're not just getting incoming emails to the board where more often than not people are writing to us because they need something or they're bringing something to our attention.
It might come as a shock to the public, but we don't get large amounts of emails praising our work or anything we do. But, I mean, a wider district survey might do that. That's not to discount, you know,
the public discourse that happened in the spring regarding the elections, elections, but I do think that that's just one aspect of how the community felt. Just Yeah. Just to say I was just saying these resonate because of those conversations, not that my opinions on these necessarily only came from that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Would it make sense? I you know, just to make sure everybody gets equal every time.
Do you wanna go again? Go around the room one more time. Sure. Can I get back that way? Can I start to say? Only because it's completely relevant to what Lori said. So just going back to New Inspires for a second. So we just talked about the timeline of New York Inspires. We talked about some of the key components of it. We didn't talk about what it is, why it's happening, how significant it is. And I can tell you as someone who up until not even a month ago as a member of the general public trying to figure this out on my own, I still can't. Even after our retreat last week, I'm getting a better grasp on it. So I feel like there's already this insider conversation about here's what's what's in it, here's what's happening. But, like, what is it? And I think that's what the community needs to know and and how just how dramatic of the change is gonna be. So that would be, I think, the first step. It's really like, this is New York Inspires. Maybe we've thrown it around in a couple of meetings, but here's what it is. Here's what it means. And then talk about the vision map and how that relates to it. But I think that needs to be the conversation first is what is it just for the general public. I forgot to mention too the Blue Ribbon Commission is where this all really started, which was years
ago, an immense amount of longitudinal research and statewide surveys of student there's a task force made with students, board of education members, administrators, and it changed to be called New York Inspires Later, but this is we're getting we're getting close to a decade worth of work. This is not incredibly brand new. That's the terms of work change.
So if I can bring us back. So we're having discussion around the priorities for or what will become the goals that the board wants to adopt for 2627. So
any discussion? Again, just go around the room. We don't have to go anywhere this time. You don't wanna be able to stop. No. I can go. I I think I mean, I think that the reason we were hearing about New York and Surprises, I think, raised a a potential of having a goal related specifically to New York inspires, and I actually think that it could be a good idea. Like, the the I guess there's a couple ways to do it. One is we put a a a goal that is about New York inspires and information to the community, etcetera. It sort of touches on all of these. Right? So that so we could also think about it that way. Right? That, like, in all of our goals and discussions, like, York inspires will be part of those conversations. There's also a way in which it connects to all of our committee work. So maybe there's, like, a strategy there where we say that, you know, our committees will focus in their areas of focus on New York inspires as well. But I do think that, like, what we're hearing is there's a lot of importance to the issue.
And I think if we look at the things that impact our school system, it is that our administration, our school board, and the state, right, and what they're doing. Right? So to the extent that it is sort of like a big player with lots of impact on our school system, I feel like we should have some way of sort of like writing down somewhere that we're going to focus on it in a way that is collaborative across not just so it's on admin that just figure it out, but also on us to, like, figure it out, to articulate what it is, to communicate that out to the community, to get community feedback, and sort of have that as kind of a main priority. I don't feel, like, wedded to, like, it should be on this list or not, but I do think that we need to make sure that it's, like, sort of somewhere as, like, an important thing for us.
Can I offer a perspective? So if we say two opt two paths. Either we put it as a discrete priority or we don't, and we say it's embedded in one, two, or three. And then conversations with the superintendent of district say, okay. We can tease New York Aspire as a as a discrete thing that they have to kind of work on and and report back as it fits within these three. Those would be the two ways I would think about it.
So, I hear what everybody's saying about New York inspires. I to me, I would much prefer that it's embedded among the three because as the more that I heard about New York Inspires, it does sound like some things are probably going to happen like what Laura was talking about, but other things sound a little bit more amorphous, and they might get some delays. Like, think about school bus electric school bus mandate, how that's been, like, more because it's more complicated. And I see some of the steps later on as being incredibly complicated to have this unfunded mandate, you know, to to implement something. I I like these because to me, you know, like, Laura's were talking about, for example, the interdisciplinary classes and, like, there's a commitment to them and this idea of, like, how do we perfect whatever our students are encountering in our system. So to me, like, I I want to be cognizant and have an awareness of New York inspires, and I think it's important for the community to learn more about that. But that may or may not happen. You know, we're all parts of it. But we do know that she's gonna be in senior year next year, and we wanna make sure that she has the best year possible.
So I want this, like, this tension between how are we getting the as much data about what's happening now be based on what we're doing so that we can just keep making things better and better. I've said I've said this at the retreat in my institute. Where I work, we talk about having a cultural a culture of continuous assessment and improvement. So this idea is that you're always looking at whatever you're happening and what you're doing. You're you know, it's you're always looking at and trying to figure out what are your goals, what are these expectations, what are the measurable outcomes. So that way, have a better sense of, like, what's gonna working well, what's not working as well, and then how can you switch as quickly as possible, how can you make better decisions about your resources? So to me, like, I I do like these. It like like, these goals, I feel like they they do help help students and also
help support the administration to try to, like, fine tune their work. I mean, it's it was very clear from the retreat how much passion the administrative team and also, I I know our teachers have towards their work. And I think having this you know, digging deeper into this will only make things better, especially for our students.
Yeah. I I would say as much as I do think it's important to start exposing the community to New York Inspires, the challenge that I've been hearing or the challenge that I feel and experienced myself around rebuilding trust with time transparency and meaningful communication is not what my kid will be doing when they're in middle school for me personally with elementary school. It's what they're doing next week, what they're doing this year as a part of the curriculum. So to me, rebuilding trust is being super communicative. Like, your student will be on iPad once a week for fifteen minutes, and that's something a parent can come to expect or whatever. Right? That's maybe a bad example. Mean, we don't wanna do that at all. But but just having that super transparent communication with the parents about what is actually happening in their classrooms is, I think, deeply, deeply needed, and that's why I really love that first one.
For the second one, I actually really liked I assume the feedback that was shared with us came from you. I really liked the way you rephrased it to say examine student curriculum, including measurable student achievement to ensure continued academic rigor. I thought that reframe around curriculum was really strong. I thought that was great. And then I think I think strengthening governance and accountability through clearly stated expectations, measurable outcomes, and and regular reporting is super important. And what I like about the the language of both the first and the third is really that the way you operationalize it, maybe building trust with the community is saying, in the future, York Inspires will be coming, so we we need you guys to understand what that is. So front loading some of that trust building. But it's also about that governance and accountability through saying publicly, you know, these are the expectations we have with the school district
and where we're headed, and here's how we expect to report on them or how we expect the district to report on them. So that's yeah. I I like the reframe for number two, and I I like the the first and the third.
Said what I was gonna say, but thank you, Betsy, for reminding me that it's not just New York inspires. It's every building where my kids are. I've just been trying to wrap my head around New York inspires as much as I can lately. But, yes, obviously, making sure we're doing that in all the buildings. So for all the curriculum and all levels. Thanks for that reminder.
I mean, I don't think that we're limited to three priorities. And I think that you just said something, which is why I really appreciate having these open discussions. But you said if New York expires as an unfunded mandate. If it is an unfunded mandate, I mean, and we're having conversations about it and we're looking at things through the lens of that, then we should be advocating for change on the state level. So I do think it needs to be front and center. It's basically the reason why we're changing so much of what we're changing because we're moving in that direction. I don't think that we can do any of this without that in the background and, like, a very prominent background because it is why we're doing the moving towards, like, interdisciplinary learning. It is why we're doing a lot of the things that we're doing. It is why we're changing the way that we're examining grading. And
you're looking at me, and I feel like we need to all, like, really understand what you're thought that the because you had said that the vision map sorry. This is ignorance because I'm I'm new to the board. So I the vision map came before New York Inspires. So I guess my the the look of confusion on my face was I thought the direction we were heading in this group was because of the vision of the admin and that it it dovetails nicely with New York Inspires, but that that actually isn't the impetus behind I to, I think, to clarify sort of, like, history because it's like, as Laura said, it's a decade of history. Right. Yeah. Ribbon Commission first, which ultimately became New York Inspires.
We started the vision map journey while the Blue Ribbon Commission work was happening. So we didn't know exactly what New York Inspires was gonna look like, but the research behind the Blue Ribbon Commission It's the same. It's all about interdisciplinary
learning, assessment, and grading. So So you're doing it because of the research, not because of New York Inspires. But but it's the same research that nice. Understood.
Okay. And I think bottom line is the research behind the Blue Ribbon Commission, which is a national commission, not a New York State commission Right. Is all about what's best for kids in terms of curriculum and education. I I think that's a good point to delineate. Like, New York State turned it into New York Inspires, but this is all longitudinal peer reviewed research that's national. That's helpful.
Thanks. And then just just a quick just, again, I think for the benefit of those who haven't been following this conversation. So the Blue Ribbon Commission's findings and research also informed, like, the first iteration of the state reevaluating the portrait of a graduate, which led to our reevaluating our portrait of a graduate more than five years ago. So it is so it's like we're attaching a name to something that has been part of the ongoing work. That's why it's reflected in the vision map. Mhmm. It it's it I think it's just that there's a there's a name to it that's new. Right? And it's been sort of articulated against timelines and some clear deliverables that, like, as Laura said, are not clear. Like, I I don't really understand what a universal transcript means, and I don't think they do. So and if Laura doesn't, then I think we can say it's not clear. So so I think that that's that's part of the background that we're operating against is that we put a name to something. We see it in the future. I'm gonna just push back a little bit on the idea of, like, comping this to an unfunded mandate because it's not a it's it's like it's the direction
of the State Department of Education and what their expectation is for our curriculum. They're not going to be giving us dollars to do it. It is their expectation of where the educational system is headed. And I think the other thing that I would argue is, like, we also have to be careful about, like, the fact that, you know, there's a new year, there's a new governor, there's a new political situation, and all of a sudden, you're having a conversation about, like, no. This is the year that we're gonna only talk about the science of reading. That was two years ago. It, like, stopped a lot of things in its tracks. When we have the conversation about, like, what's going on with math, that's gonna be something that, again, stops that stops this train in its tracks because we get distracted by whatever the latest sort of educational conversation is. As we, in fact, have experienced in this district this past year with our technology reset and a reexamination
of how we're using devices and using, you know, ed tech essentially in instruction. Right? So it's like these are things that are gonna continue to sort of come come up against, you know, what the priorities are for the year. For me, I I'm gonna actually go back to a little bit of what Nancy said, which is I I think that one of the reasons we've articulated articulated this question about curriculum coherence and sort of looking at and I also I do appreciate Ana's rephrasing, which I'm gonna read out loud because I think if I can read it to whoever's screen this is, we could put it up there so that everybody can see it. The reframing that Ana proposed, which is examine student curriculum, including measurable student achievement to ensure continued academic rigor. That's a reordering, but I think it actually it does put the focus on looking at student curriculum. And that's one of the things that I think we as a board have been talking about for a couple of years now, which is really understanding what the what the expectations are. And this is part of Laura's mandate also, frankly, is to sort of let us know, like, what are we expecting year to year? Those that's really foundational information, I think, is something that the community is asking for, that we have been asking for as a board. And I don't want us to lose the focus on accomplishing that as, like, a year one priority for, like, right now while sort of anticipating,
I think, what New York Inspires is gonna bring. Because I see New York inspires as sort of like a framework against all of this work. It's going to have to be embedded because that's what the state is asking us to do. So to articulate it separately is a priority. I also will say it's like, yes. Of course, we can have four goals, but I think there's some value in in starting with a limited focus, again, for year one. And and and maybe maybe we do what we did last year where we did articulate three, you know, annual goals, and then we had we we expressed a multiyear goal. If that's, like, a mechanism for making sure that we're tapping into this ongoing conversation, I put that out there. It's it's really a processing, not like a, you know, content thing. That's that's what I will state. Right. So
maybe let me ask. Is everybody comfortable just to kind of whittle this down to what we need to kind of we need to fine tune. Is everybody comfortable with the first priority, the way it's currently working? I am not. Okay. K. Just, I guess, a show of hands. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Okay. Two, I think, is what we need to work on. Any questions feedback on three? Again, thumbs up, thumbs down. Okay. So the substantive is two.
But they're holding. Hi. I sent the new There you go. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I would just make my final plea with respect to the first goal there. Like, what we're saying to the public in terms of our communication. Like, this, again, seems like it's reactionary to rebuild Could you try this as opposed as opposed to just focusing on having meaningful communication? Do I just put it in there? Like, I don't know. I know that there is, like, trust that needs to be rebuilt. I don't know that that needs to be a goal, and I don't know that it's true of the whole district. And I also think that to come from that place as opposed to just focus on actually communicating effectively is is a very different thing. And I also am concerned about the negative tone to it that you're sending to the entire community. Like, now all of a sudden, we're saying as a board, we need to rebuild trust, saying that we broke trust.
As a board, we broke trust? My answer to that question would be yes. Yeah. I I don't think that we did. I don't think we had we don't even have effective communication. I don't I think that we can focus on communicating effectively.
read the and I thought about it a lot because I think it like, I was torn because I I I understand the the point that you're you're making with that. I did wind up landing different on this because to me, I think any and under any circumstances, there's there's oh, like, even if we had a very, very straightforward year, right, as a district, which last year was not. Right? There still would be some families or some situations where it didn't work out for somebody, and somebody had, like, a disappointing experience in this communication, and trust went backward for somebody in the community. And that, even if it's one family or one student, like, that is somebody you need to rebuild trust with. You know? So and I also think that it's to me, the the reason why the word rebuild is important is because it requires when I at least when I think about it, if I'm trying to rebuild trust with somebody,
that means that I really need to consciously try to get to on like, I be aware of the like, really learn the other person's perspective and then figure out how to like, maybe we disagree. Maybe we don't agree, but I like, how am I gonna bridge that? And to me, not having that, it it it's like
traditional polished way to or professional way to talk talk about something. Like and I understand why there's value in that, but I I do feel like last year was rough for a lot of different stakeholders in our community. I would go into meetings, district committees, and the people we talk about. I get questions. I think from a lot of people, it would be nice to kind of say, like, we're taking a pause, and we're really trying to get to know each other and and understand how to best, like, different perspectives, and then how do we effectively communicate. So I I like, the word rebuild, it can have, like, like, this harder, like, action towards it. But I I guess for me, I try to view it as it's it's a way to kinda just just say, like, I I wanna, like, I wanna hear from you. And and yeah. So
it was it was nice. So I guess for me now in thinking about this further, I think that the, like, the trust piece is an important part of what we're trying to achieve in number one. And there's also a way in which, like, meaningful and engagement with the community also achieves many more things, like like, sort of getting our direction, right, and understanding where we should be headed, where we should not be. Right? And so I would actually like if we wordsmith this a bit more to say, ensure timely, transparent, etcetera, etcetera, in order to and then say the things. Right? Like, develop trust, you know, get feedback, etcetera, etcetera. Like, I do think that there is something to us articulating sort of a forward looking goal that is sort of like and think Conn has said, but, like, to to that's sort of, like, based on what we want as opposed to, like like, reacting to a past year, which I think is, like, fine. It's a natural thing to wanna do, but I think we can sort of communicate that
a rewarding of number one that sort of makes clear that this goal is actually for that, but it's also for the other benefits that we get from actual.
So that would be, again, the this would be the board level goal, and the district would come back and say, here's how they would operationalize that. Which
I would respond to I don't mind the reframe of ensure timely, transparent, and meaningful communication. You can we need to rebuild trust. I don't mind the framing of putting that first. The reason why I'm gonna say the phrase rebuild trust matters and is important is that the prevailing research on trust is a twenty five year trust barometer that talks about how grievances must be addressed and how if you leave them, they fester. And so I think that there's a there is a humility and honesty to say, you know what? Things haven't been going great, and we really do want to take this pause to, like, figure out how to regrow this relationship. And I think that that's really important. But I but I agree on the forward looking reframe. That's not So
my proposed goal was prioritize effective communication with the community. And I hear what you're saying about the rebuilds, and I hear what you're saying about the aggrieved portions of the community. Community. But to say rebuild doesn't acknowledge portions of the work that we're actually working hard during all of that and communicating effectively during all of that. Everybody then gets encompassed into this. We need to do better and rebuild. And I I don't I don't think it's I don't think it's a place of strength to come from as a board. It's we need to prioritize effective communication with the community. Community. That's responsive to what many people heard. You can even add more words to be more specific about it the way that Theo said. But to start something with rebuild, like, when I think of other districts looking at that as, like, a board goal, like, it's just it's not it's not forward thinking. I don't think it comes from a place of strength, and I don't think it sends the right message to the community.
I don't. To the community as a whole. It might make some people feel like they're heard. But I think that when you say we're going to prioritize effective community, you are doing something to alleviate some of the agreement that you're saying you need to address.
Yeah. So, well, I'll go I hear what you're saying there, and I'm gonna say this to having acknowledged everything that's come before. But I'll go back to, I think that there's there's some value in talking about trust. Maybe it's not maybe it's not rebuild. Maybe it's build trust. Because the the they're they're still speaking to a relative absence in some quarters. And I think as a goal, one of the things we know as a as a board and the district knows as administrators is that the trust that families have when they're sending their kids into these buildings to know that their teachers are gonna be doing a thing, their administrators are gonna be doing a thing, their coaches are gonna be doing a thing, their nurses, their staff, their bus drivers, their bus monitors. That the the whole enterprise of education actually is based on trust. That that we're entrusting our children, our students, and our families to the public education system with the anticipation anticipation of an outcome that we haven't fully articulated. It's an ongoing conversation for the last hundred years, what we're expecting.
But fundamentally, it's a trust. And I think that think that there is value, and I don't think it's actually a defensive posture to talk about building trust. I think it's actually it's an expression of what we value in terms of our relationship with the community. And I think it's also an expression from the board's perspective about what we value in our educators, actually, because we trust them to do the work. It's like speaking to both sides of this. In some ways, to focus on trust is, like, the value. Prioritize to me, it's like that's action. That's an action. That's that's sort of like that. That's sort of for me, it's like a little bit more of a process and like an imperative. But I think the idea of focusing on some of these terms that really talk about what the the meaning is of the work and the meaning is of the relationship between the board, the community, and the school district, and then ultimately the educators. I think there's value in that. So what I would propose is if the rebuild
if the if the re in front of the build feels like it's more of a defensive posture than we want, could we look at building trust as as something that that districts do wanna do, the trust support that school systems do wanna do. We wanna have the confidence that parents have where they don't write us letters because what do we say? It's like the the people who trust the work that's going on in the schools, they're not writing to us. We want everybody to be in that place. Right? Or it's like they trust the work that's going on in the schools, and I think that there's value to thinking about keeping that language there. So what is the root cause words with you? Just to be clear. I was suggesting to ensure timely, transparent, and meaningful communication and engagement with the community to build trust.
Maybe strengthen trust. If if rebuild is too binary, it's broken, we rebuild it, maybe strengthen, you know, enhance something to say, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna bring it up. We're we're gonna increase, you know I think the problem with strengthen,
I like build because that that indicates that there is currently an absence of some trust, whereas strengthen structure. Right. Yeah.
timely, transparent, and meaningful communication and engaging with the community to build trust. I actually just emailed it to Omar.
Blessings. Blessings. Blessings. So number one now is reading, ensure timely, transparent, and meaningful communication, engagement with the community, and build trust.
Fantastic. And it's good to think that's gonna take a lot of, lots of time. Any any words to think for three?
So I would just because the public doesn't have the benefit of what the board has. I just want to share. So what I had proposed was identifying government's practices related to needed areas of regular reporting and student outcomes. Can
you explain how that's like I'm not fully understanding I'm not fully understanding what that's pointing to. At what point? Well, I'm I'm I guess I'm not understanding in terms of words, but I think it's like Strengthening governments and accountability
through clearly stated expectations, measurable outcomes, and regular reporting versus identify and implement governance practices related to needed areas of regular reporting and student outcomes. I think we start to talk first about strengthening our governance and accountability through expectations. We're talking about also identifying areas where we as a board have felt like we've been deficient in governance. So I'm saying you have to identify those areas first.
Okay. I think I understand what you're saying. For me, and I'm sorry if I'm jumping ahead of other people, but I think that that my thinking is is that identifying and and what was the other word? Identifying and implementing. So those things can be fall to the district to actually opt like, in terms of their operate operationalizing of this priority. Identifying it like governance practices? That's solely on the board. It's no. It's for our our governance strength is strengthened. Our governance of the system is strengthened when they implement those practices. So that was my thinking in terms of
We were talking as a board about implementing governance practices along like a scaffolding team of reporting. That's what we were talking about. About working with the district to say, we want reporting or we want presentations or we want work sessions on this. That was my understanding of what we talked about this spring. Right. But that's what I'm trying do. Tactics and not really as, like it's like the tactical ways. It's not like a broader goal for the for the So what to me how that's different then. What what how do you envision actually implementing number three the way that you have have suggested it? Strengthening governance and accountability for fairly stated expectations. You would have to then do what I just said, which is to lay out what fall under that. What you're expecting. You're expecting reporting at work sessions. You're expecting conversations about things, measurable outcomes, which I have, and the recommended reading which I have. Yes. I can
I might jump to it for anybody? The way you propose it on a kind of more like, my my immediate reaction is, oh, that sounds like policy. That that'd be a great goal for policy. That's fair. The top of the board. Right? Because identification and implementation of government governance practices,
that's actually the job policy. Okay. But then I, again, I ask you, how do you propose as a board to strengthen governance and accountability through fairly stated expectations?
So that is in going back to what Anamika shared with us as the NYSSBA role of the board where it says I'll just read the parts of it. Ensuring accountability. School boards monitor district activities to ensure the annual progress is being made. Right? I don't know.
But how is that not identified in the regular practices related to needed areas regular reporting? That's exactly what That's just not
Literally, exactly what you But what's that gonna do with Yeah. What's it identified for what purpose? Yeah. Like, to me, like, what this what this is, like, the higher upper level than this the the identified, like, the how to do that, the action of how you would you would do that.
How are you going to help the district? How are you going help the not our job. Our job here is to pass this, and then it's the the superintendent and the district administration's job to implement to recommend implementation plan to do that. So this is the these are the goals that the board are gonna adopt. Yeah. But then the district has to figure out how to operationalize.
But there are goals. There are goals for the district. But there are no. There are goals for. No. No.
But that's the now I understand what you're saying. No. These aren't our goals. Because you're right. We can't bring in these. There's no. We do. What we're doing here is we're setting the goals for the district so that they, again, can go back and use those about
that because goals have been board goals in the past have been, like, learn more about interdisciplinary courses.
That wasn't So we definitely had a big discussion about that in our spring retreat about how Well, I wasn't at the spring I I don't care. Oh, the spring retreat. Okay. Okay. Go Go ahead. Ahead. So as the the part of our conversation there was about the fact that we haven't as again, this current the last year's board, the board the year before that, the board the year before that, and going back a few years, has not been actually carrying out that function of developing goals for the system. The the the board goals have been board operational, annual goals in terms of, like, internal governance functions, in terms of, like you know, honestly, it's like they're in terms of, like, the hierarchy, it's like they're a little bit lower. It's like it's like you're it's like an employee goal rather than, like, a system wide goal. And our mandate is actually to be establishing priorities that inform the work of the district. That's actually our mandate from state. That's why there's a board of education
to provide this function in school districts. Governance.
If you're saying that you're giving that goal to the district, You're having the district strengthen their governance?
I think it's strengthening the overall governance system between the board and the admin. That's not what you're saying. To me, that's it it it does. That's what I mean. Because because it's it's like the governance is all the entities working together. So that means that, like, in order for us to effectively do our jobs, we need to get, like, yearly, like, reporting, like, of of information so we can help us inform us in our decision making. So yeah. So I I guess
Makes sense. And then the other part of it in terms of clearly stated expectations, it allows the district to understand also that portion clearly stated expectations of what needs the board also to be clear about what it is that we're looking for so that when the reporting comes, it's responsive to that. That's what actually also strengthens the overall governance team is because there's it's not it's not like what does the board want? What are they looking for? That will be stated, and then there's action put against that perspective. For us to articulate what those are at the highest level, like, right now is, I think, what we're trying to do in order to get to the next step of the district to determine these are the things that we can break it down into. And then at the building level, how we can actually operationalize those things in those in those three schools. So I think that's I mean, that's that's my explanation of it.
Let's see. Jake, any Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, our primary responsibility that Anamika has been been pointing to is establish goals for the school system. That's in twenty one ten school board hours of duty. I think that's what we're doing. Correct. Right. And the operational, I hear that a lot. That's operational. That's the district. Operational. That's the district. Think this is the goals. It's operationalized. We help and work with that, but that's the operational aspect of it. Yeah.
Not sure. Okay. Do you wanna head back to two so we can try to Well, just thumbs up comes down on on three. So the language as it stands on the Okay.
just to step back, do we have can we can we agree that we have a shared understanding at this point even if we didn't prior to this conversation that these are board goals for the for the district and for the system? So this is a shift then from how perhaps it's been articulated in previous years. But I don't know that I would I don't know that I would argue that. That's would agree. I can touch that. Right. But but do do we have a shared understanding that that's what we're operating on now? Yeah. Okay. Okay.
So then going to number two. We had some input before. Number two, it was examine student curriculum, including measurable student achievement to ensure continued academic rigor as compared to continuing to strengthen academic rigor for students achievement.
I was just gonna and then. Yep. I was gonna say if we're gonna continue on sort of the high level goal framing start, then I would I would flip what what the suggestion was for the reframe and just say, ensure the continued academic rigor or I still like continue to strengthen, but so continue to strengthen academic rigor by examining student curriculum, including measurable student achievement or something like that. Right? Like, I I like the I like the statement student curriculum because it is specific. But I actually yeah.
I get, like, persimmony about how do you work strength in two times or no, but Yeah. I do like it. I I I kinda like the way it was written, like, continue to strengthen academic rigor. Curriculum coherence to me through the process of, like, curriculum coherence, you have to examine the student curriculum to to figure that out. So to me, coherence is probably more important because than the examine part because Yeah. I think, like, to me, that also speaks to thinking about the New York inspired, the vision map, like like, to so I I like having that word coherence in it and the measurable. So I I kinda like the original way it was written.
Just like someone else has said, I think think that the phrase curriculum adherence is really, really important to what we're articulating as a goal because it's it's something that we have identified or educators have identified or building leaders have identified as something that the examination of that specific aspect of curriculum is something that that we've collectively identified as something that's important to all of us throughout the system. So I think it's important to making that commercial. So I see it, like, Madeline brought up earlier this idea of, like, looking at what is in classes and does that.
Jacob, you can take off. No. No. I I don't have any I mean, it it sounds fine. What is the main difference between the two? I see it. He's curriculum
coherence. If we're studying student curriculum versus talking about strength strengthening the coherence of the curriculum and and thinking to some degree, at least from my perspective, beyond the kind of term, The curriculum coherence was also one of the things that has been an ongoing conversation for the board as a body for the last few years, which is also the I don't know what the right term is to use, but it's like parity of educational experiences across classrooms as well as across teachers and subject areas, which our students have also identified, particularly at the high school, as a high priority in recent years. Mhmm. So that is the way to sort of articulate
That's a good unpacking of curriculum. That's all I think. Sure. A couple of comments. I don't think it's a good idea to say bye because that's that's really not our job. That'd be the administration's
In terms of comparing the two statements, it's examine student curriculum and examine as an action. Mhmm. True. Well, examine it. Okay. And and then what? Right? I think continue continue to strengthen goes back to board responsibility. And what I read before school board's monitoring activities to ensure that annual progress has been made. I think that how do we include that as, again, as the core board responsibility? How do we include that in the goal? I think we talked a bit about hearing feedback on how to wordsmith continue to strengthen, but I think the the meaning behind it, I think, needs to be there.
reason now. I don't know why. I just like You clearly never taught in middle school. Yeah. So the okay. According to AIs Enhance? Reinforce. Bolster, fortify Fortify. Support.
Would say increase. Increase. Well, I think so there there there had previously been pushback against using the word increase because it implied again and a different way than strengthen implied some kind of deficit. Mhmm. Increase meaning, like, it was, like, the the Wow. Somehow was, like, more numeric than strengthen. The buttress is on that house. I know it is. By the way. It's number three. So so another thing so another thing I'll say just in terms of, you know, it's like the wordsmithing. These are words that get established. The the goal of them is simply the primary goal is to prompt the district into developing their goals. K. We're not gonna be reading these every week, and it I hopefully won't annoy us that there's a word that's repeated. Yeah. People are getting annoyed by repeating words. Also think about, like, you know, again, if we can, just what we're trying to accomplish with that level of of detail. And I'm not saying a critically interesting,
let let's think about how we wanna use our time. Yeah. Because there may not be a better word to I was Like, the meaning of trying to work the way. Why are we trying to find cinema for something that's actually conveying the right If it's the right word. Words. Yeah.
We taking out what we see are we taking out what we see there the formerly then goes away? And that's what we're getting a thumbs up, thumbs down on for number two. If you could just hit I know his screen is up right now. To shrink. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Since you've been managing the thumbnail. Yeah. I I think think
are we comfortable moving on to the next having had a discussion about this, we comfortable moving on to the next agenda item to Sure. Forward on it? I guess, thumbs up, thumbs down.
Okay, so we're gonna close that. We're gonna move forward then, move out of discussion and move to item 5.6, adoption. Item 5.6, adoption of the Board of Education 20 six-twenty seven goals. Recommended action be it resolved that the Board of Education provide adopt the twenty twenty six twenty seven board goals as presented on the previous screen, and they'll be introduced into public content with the final language when this agenda recoasts. So moved. Second. I I I with your permission, I'm going to treat our previous conversation as on the question unless there's further comments, but I will still state on the question if there's anything anyone would like to add before I the vote.
So procedurally on the question. Otherwise, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Abstain.
Thank you to everyone for really robust discussion. And I think, again, you know, for the benefit of our public community members who are here and those who be watching when the video is posted, I hope that folks will see that this is a serious engagement on a topic that is really shifting the way that we're thinking about our role and also collaborating with the district to ensure that we're moving forward
Moving into item six, the consent agenda, item 6.1. Approval of the consent agenda. Be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby approves all the items under the consent agenda. So I'll move. Second. First. First. On the questions.
Is this an okay time to ask Laura? I found your your feedback on the professional development plan really helpful, and I'm free to restate some of that.
So I can can restate my question if that's helpful. Ashley, if you could restate your question just because as a matter of course, it's helpful for the public to understand what the question is, and then that sort of also will sort of set up for it in terms of how she can position her response. Thank you. Thanks. I was just noting that in reading the professional development plan,
there weren't any specifics around professional development for the tech reset that the district is undergoing. And I wasn't sure if that's because that's not the type of specifics this plan gets into or what the reason behind this might be. And so I I posed the question, and Lori had made it second.
the short answer is that the professional development plan is is a state mandated plan
have a mentor program and things like that. So that's the purpose of the statement of the plan.
It doesn't typically get into, like, specific topics for professional development.
That's our work that we started on day two of their tree, building off of the four priorities
Just wanna say that I was really excited about that particular comment. Like, to hear that that forethought has gone into making sure that the the teachers have alternatives is which is really special to hear about.
The teacher teacher would knew be able objectives. Jump in as Mhmm. Much as every that time it because is. There's a A lot lot of of research, a lot of vetting with us. So That's great. I think I think for us as a board, we there has been a great deal of interest to sort of, like, understand professional development in more real terms and also, honestly, to be able to hear about it from our educators in terms of how that translates into their practice. So I think this is a you know, just hearing such a robust plan. Again, not as part of the state plan, but it's just in terms of how you all have envisioned it, is going to be food for a lot of interesting discussion over the course of the next few years. So thank you for sharing that. Are there further questions on the consent agenda? It's pretty exhaustive.
I noticed some groups got a fee waiver for billing as that. Can you just quickly explain to me how that works? Right? They would get a one. That's all. So if they're five zero one three c, they get
a. Okay. So everyone on here is a nonprofit. Okay. Local community group that serves our. Thanks. Our students. Right. Right. And and I I will say it's like this. The board has sort of examined these practices. And I think we've now achieved a place where it's like we're between the board and the district and the entire application getting really thorough information to make sure that everyone is documenting their five zero one c three status as well as explaining what the purpose is and how it specifically impacts students. Because, you know, as as a as a proprietor of a lot of important real estate here in the village, our facilities get used for so many different things. So the equity of experience also you know, equity of experience access also. Fee waivers has really been an important discussion over the last few years, and I think we're really in a good place now about all of this. That's great. Thank you. Absolutely.
Anything further on the question? Okay. And if I can just ask what's that? Yes. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? The motion carries. So you should you get that note just because we've had that some attrition here. And I have when we dealt yeah. We have had some folks who had other
take this opportunity to do so. Do you wanna speak? Sure.
And I said she'd do this officially. Hi. My name is Tully McGowan. I live on Sunset Drive here. I'll keep it to, like, one minute, not two. First, having been to a lot of these meetings over the last few years, I love that there's actual goals and they're succinct. Build trust, strengthen, practice. It would be great if, to the point of them being evergreen and providing continuity. They're they're multiyear goals. They're limited. And then every year, perhaps in multiple meetings, if not every meeting, you will speak to what you're doing this year with respect to that goal. I would suggest, given the evident confusion in the room, that the communication to the public be board goals for the district for 2526.
'26. Because if this room's confused, the public will be confused. And then I really look forward to the administration's operationalizing and communicating around this. Thank you.
Riley, Truesdale Drive. It interesting in the comments by the gentleman proposing electrical panel work, he used the phrase domestic content. Domestic content, just to translate, means US content in the solar panels because the problem was is we're buying solar panels from a dictatorship in the worst part of the world with human problems, human exploitation problems, environmental problems, etcetera. But it's interesting, he said domestic content rather than US content. Item two is more than one of your members pointed out that when you hear a phrase like New York inspired from New York State Department of Education, the average person that's lived in this state for more than three decades or more says here we go again, another stupid state program that won't work, they'll push it for five years, the teachers will put it aside and then go into the next stupid idea. And that's what as soon as that phrase came out of somebody's mouth,
I think the idea is you set your own objectives, what you want your students to look like when they graduate from the school, the standards you have, and then you can put the icing on the steak cake form so you get their money. But they they stink and they always have. The reason you said rebuild trust, I'm here because trust need to be rebuilt in this board. I'm here because of that. Because there was a total lack of trust the way this board and educational institutions throughout this state handled COVID, the way they handled DEI, George Floyd, censorship, educational dissent. I'm here because trust needs rebuilt. Our institutions across The United States are distrusted by the populace. And the changeover in this board happened because of a lack of academic what they perceive as an act lack of academic rigor and an overuse of technology. So, yes, you do have to rebuild trust. One item which I really wanna talk to the most about is
union endorsements. Generally, the unions in this in this district have stayed out of politics, stayed out of elections, and so forth. And I I can't tell you this too. I was in the union more than one, and I can't tell them what to do. But union endorsements for school board are pathetic. But what you can tell them to do is you can tell the unions that they can't use school property to proselytize for candidates for assembly, New York Senate, US Congress by putting brochures and candidate paraphernalia on school property in school cubicles to other teachers. And lastly, maybe you should look outside the state of New York. Number one state for education. It's not New York. It's not these it's Florida. Florida. Can you believe that? At every level. So maybe you should look to be inspired by the state of Florida. Thank you, miss Annette.
Thanks to all our members of the public for their feedback. Hear you. Item 7.2 for the If any I failed. I really said I said 08:30. Did you? I did. 08:30 central. Yeah. The BS team. Yeah. The goal was starting the meeting earlier, but I think, again, it's been a robust discussion. I'll invite anybody who feels like who who who would like to mention anything during filling in before this is our opportunity to bring up any questions, issues. There are also other in terms of certain meetings for future meetings, but this is your opportunity. Anyone has anything? I'd like to give a history of Ed. Just kidding. Actually, I I will say that I I I just attended a webinar that was That's what was saying. That was just one this last week. So it's it's in the water, I guess. If that is all for the moment, I'll move on to item 7.3. Did
Do do I wanna talk about NYSSBA? Yes. I did. Thank you, Denise Bisaccia, who reminds me of the things that I forget about. No. No. No. Because there's so there is a so there is a deadline, and there is something approaching. And it's coming up before our board governance committee meets. Right? So the national the New York State's Boards Association annual convention, this is primarily for the benefit of folks who have not attended in the past. The convention is taking place in October. Denise probably has the dates in front of her, but I don't have them in the soul brain. This is a national convention of our of the Association of School Boards for the State. There is a annual conference that we've been fortunate enough to have take place in New York for the last couple of years, but this year it's taking place up in Buffalo. I don't know for you all on the district administration side if there are plans to attend. But for
our fellow trustees, if there's interest in participating, it's important to sort of get October '24. The Buffalo Convention Center in Buffalo. The main reason for bringing this up tonight is because for folks folks who are interested in attending conventions, conferences, etcetera, the board officers actually does need to review and we need to coordinate with the district to ensure that we have sufficient budget coverage for most of these things. Early in the year, we will, of course, have that. But it also important to make sure that there's equitable access and opportunity to go to things like this. I think we also have to think about it in terms of the larger picture of, like, what our professional development plans are for ourselves, noting that if you go to Buffalo, you're probably not driving back like you might do with Albany or the city. So so if you if you will have received directly from NYSSBA information about the conference, I believe that they have released a preliminary agenda. If there's interest, please write to board officers.
And Denise rightly has flagged the fact that if we need to make a hotel reservation, these are the types of things where we have to block it in kind of quickly. And we'll also connect with the admin team just to sort of see whether there is a plan. You know? Again, we are regular attendees, but we're not always regular attendees to Buffalo. Right? So am I am I speaking accurately there? Okay. So thank you for that reminder. There are a lot of other things coming out of board development, but I'm gonna let leave it to the committee to sort of prioritize for us what those items are. Quick thank you to everyone who filled in the board liaison requests. I am just gonna flag for the group that there are two glaring holes, and I wanna make sure that people who have children at PVC or have a special affinity to PVC could take a look at the PVC PTA liaison and the PVC building planning council liaison. I will say, speaking for myself, my kid is now out of PVC, but I had a good long four year run plus an additional two years. So I've been six years in that space. It's really been remarkable. There's an opportunity there because we have a leadership change for people to engage. Omar, I think you can also speak to having had
a meaningful experience as a trustee and parent member there. That was great. Yeah. We so we've had we've had our run. It's it's up to it's up to other folks who maybe who have who have students in that building. It's an opportunity. And if no one puts their name in, we'll have to sort of figure out because I think it is important to have someone at building planning council. PTA liaison, I think, you know, we can sort of figure that out. But, know, those are two slides that we need to sort of hear from from folks on. So if we could just express interest by the end of the day tomorrow, I would like to be able to communicate out to our community organizations who their partner is and also to lay out very explicitly what the time commitment is so that there's no confusion on the parts of PTA and then also on the parts of trustees. So that's my comment for polling. If helpful, I'm willing to split it with somebody.
Might be a little sweaty. I mean, I don't know. We again, we it's just we spent so much time there. It's like having enough to go to eighteen months. So Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, we'll we'll we'll Or we're splitting. We'll loop back to everybody. But please, if you have interest, please fill the form out by tomorrow so that we can so that we can move that part of our business along. I'm gonna shift into item 7.3, next board of education meeting. Per our new calendar, our next work session is actually going to be now that you see on in public content. It's actually now going to be 08/27/2026. It is going to begin at 06:30PM at the CHUFS library because now that we're moving to the library, 06:30 is our start time, and that's gonna be consistent from here on out so that we don't have to be confused about when the meetings start. Our next business meeting then will be September 3. It a week immediately after. That's two days after the opening of school. That will also be at 06:30PM
at the CHHS library, our new time. I'm gonna defer to the rest of the board. We have we we still have a quorum here, but we have not we have do not have all of our members. So I don't know if we want to amend the agenda and table this executive session since we don't have our full team here or whether we wanna proceed with it. I'm kinda looking at you, my fellow board officer. I say we have a quorum with me. Okay. Great. So then we're gonna move into item 7.4, executive session. Be it resolved that the Board of Education hereby enters into executive session to discuss the importance of a person a particular person for persons. Just need someone to move it. Thank you, mister Riley. Thank you. I second. The question? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. The board will enter executive session, after which we'll leave executive session and then adjourn the meeting. Thanks to everyone for sticking with us. Thank you for our student trustees and to our administrative
team and our fellow nonstudent trustees for our robust discussion.