Board of Education Meeting Recap
November 5, 2024
Athletics Program Update with Andy Guccione, Athletics Director
Suffern Central's vision is to create an inclusive, dynamic and competitive athletics program that fosters teamwork and sportsmanship and cultivates a lifelong love of physical activity. We envision a community where every student-athlete feels valued, respected, and empowered to reach their full potential while striving for victory.
Highlights:
- 22 District-sponsored Sports
- 83 Boys & Girls modified, freshman, JV and Varsity teams
- 32 Varsity teams earned the NYS Scholar-Athlete team award (academic honor roll, 90 avg or better across the team)
- Launched the 6th Grade Intramurals Program
- Participated in #OneSuffern Day to expose young students to Athletics program
- New this spring: Unified basketball initiative in conjunction with Special Education department
- Highlighted 2024-25 Suffern Sports Hall of Fame event
Budget Preview
Dr. William Castellane provided the Board of Education with a broad overview of the upcoming budget process and a few key points to consider as we dive into this work.
Highlights included:
- Budget development amongst administrators took place
- State aid projections have been provided
- Budget goals: protect staffing, ensure programs stay and we're providing the best for our students
- Budget variables:
- Last year's state aid numbers came in after our budget was voted on, and we didn't receive as much money as predicted, however we made it work
- There is uncertainty surrounding federal grant funding and although we expect it to come in, we'll prepare to pivot funds if needed
- Increase in foundation aid
- BOCES aid is less than last year, but we project it to increase (formula is done by NY state and all districts are different)
- Building Aid ratio - we see a decrease, but once our projects are completed, we will capture the aid back.
- Negotiating last bargaining unit contract, to help forcast salaries and benefits costs
- Increasing transportation costs
- Electric buses
- Current transportation contract will not renew - forcing the District to go out for a bidding process. Several other districts are also facing this.
- Looking at a 15-20% increase in transportation costs
- Continuing with our non public school bus contracts
- Steady increase in non public transportation requests
- Increases in BOCES costs and a BOCES Bond payment
Next steps:
- Budget presentations in March and April, with the vote on May 20.
Dr. Gundersen added, that they will be looking into any and all possibilities regarding transportation. Chestnut Ridge has been a long-standing partner of ours, but to come out of the blue with this increase that will hurt programs for our students and have a dramatic negative impact on the taxpayers in this District is ridiculous and we'll be looking for all alternatives.
Lee Weber Wins LHRIC TELL Award
Congratulations to Lee Weber on being this year's recipient of the Lower Hudson Valley TELL (Technology in Education through Leadership and Learning) Award, an award that goes out to leaders and teachers in the Hudson Valley. This is to honor all of the work she's done over the years in public education. She is innovative and always looking for ways technology can be used in the classrooms, and these past two years she's lead the conversation around Artificial Intelligence. More to come on this honor when they celebrate the winners in March.
Secondly, we are sad to say that Lee Weber will be retiring at the end of this school year. A force in the District, Lee has brought in many programs and offerings throughout her tenure, most recently spearheading the Science of Reading implementation and our District Artificial Intelligence study, protocols and programs. The impact she's had on students, staff, community members and our district has been outstanding. We look forward to celebrating her further, along with our other retirees at the June 3 board meeting.