So it's one o'clock.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Thank you for joining us in this is a education uh committee.

We're here to hear from our uh fellow participant people from the from the Syracuse City School District in the amendments of the budget.

Thank you, Pat Hogan, Marty Navy, Councillor Jones Rousser, Patrona, and thank you, Tony.

Uh, Superintendent and uh I'm gonna totally forget your last name.

Chief Potenko.

Thank you for joining us for the presentation.

You're welcome.

Thank you for having us.

Um we came to the Common Council uh a few months back with our budget subsequent to that uh additional funding was received from the state in terms of state aid.

Um, so we're coming back to you for a uh amended budget.

Um briefly go over some of the the highlights.

Um really what has occurred is yet state budget um released and the state aid, and then I'll talk about some of the revenue and the expense overview.

Um, if you look at the page three, there was three seven point six billion of education funding that the process updated the Foundation Aid formula.

This was an increase of one point seven billion dollars, four point nine percent over the twenty-four twenty-five budget.

It was 29% increase over the past four years, uh $8.3 billion overall.

And there was a $6.5 billion increase in foundation aid, which is $33% increase over the last four years.

So when we came to you uh previously, uh a few changes um had occurred with our budget.

Um there was a change to the foundation aid formula, and there was an increase in the uh the weighted average of how they uh calculate the English language learners.

So that went from 0.5 to 0.53.

Um there was also an increase in special services aid for CTE programs.

Um we would receive $3,900 per student.

Now it went up to $4,100 per student.

And they also included ninth grade students and the per pupil count for CTE services.

Um previously it was just 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, and they increased that to ninth graders as well.

So when we looked at the changes that had occurred, um the English language learner weight, even though it'll say 0.03% change, it actually added $1.1 million to the district's budget because of the large number, almost 20% of our students, our ELL.

Um the special services aid increased our our budget by about $4.5 million, and then there was about $8.4 million that was changed based upon the um February school aid database update.

So if you go to page five, so when you look at overall, um the final state budget highlights it was an increase of $50.2 million in state aid over the current year.

$38.8 is increased in foundation aid, $6.4 million was transportation aid, $4.4 is the special services aid that I talked about, and 0.6 million is the all other aid increases.

And if you have any questions on any of this, please just go ahead and ask me.

Um again, the transportation aid increase, uh, I haven't spoken to that, but that's really uh part of the CPI increase, also uh increase the McKinney Vento students, those are our homeless students when we get reimbursed for previous year transportation.

Um, those numbers have gone up over the last couple of years, and uh after school programming and and alternative sites um busting for students that we have in our alternative programs, and then the all other aid increases due to the charter school phase in at the citizenship and science academy um charter school.

So when we looked at that would be the point six million, yes.

Okay.

But the special services aid, can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, that's I want to know what is that aid.

Special services aid, that's the uh CTE funding that we received for students.

So there was a $200 per student uh increase and per pupil aid, but they're also now including ninth grade students.

So we went back and looked at all the ninth grade students, and we do do a lot of CTE programming with ninth grade.

We don't start at 10th, 11th, and 10th grade, we start at ninth grade.

Um, and that was something that we've uh lobbied the legislature um heavily over the last few years about um because we want to start those programs, and as you can see, it brought in an additional four and a half million dollars to the district to help support those CT programs.

Do you think that ninth grade is the best grade?

You don't think that like six or eighth grade is well we start foundation things at the middle school.

So we do start foundation foundation aid type foundation um work at the middle school level to prepare those students so when they decide to where they want to go in ninth grade, they have some foundational knowledge about some areas that they want to go into.

The exposures at middle school.

Yeah, I know I had it.

I just didn't know what was what was taken away since then and what's in the back.

So yeah.

Thank you.

So when we look at the revenue assumptions, we're looking at uh uh legislative state aid increase of 14 million dollars.

Um again, it was the 1.1, the 4.5, and the 8.4, and then there's a decrease of 0.6 million in miscellaneous revenue.

Um told, we also going to be um using our committed fund balance.

So um as I spoke to none of this has changed um from previously, but we're using eight million dollars of committed fund balance on the STEAM high school, uh, and two million dollars is going toward the Delaware Delaware Montessori phase in, and then there's 400,000 dollars that's going toward our workers' compensation um settlement.

In addition to the committed fund balance, we're using some unassigned fund balance, four million dollars for capital projects, which will include the ITC and the Roosevelt Stadium projects.

And then we're going to use $11 million to continue the district initiatives.

So previously, when we came to the common council, we're going to be using $15.5 million of the unassigned fund balance to balance our budget, but due to receiving this additional funding, we reduced that by $4.5 million.

So we're using less fund balance going into this coming school year.

So you're balancing it.

I mean your balancing in effect more because we got more funding, we could put more money in the fund balance and still do the projects that you would commit to, correct?

Yes.

Roosevelt Stadium, is that the park behind?

I know it's called Rossler, I think, but I know they're supposed to be building.

That's not that.

No, that's that's the one over in Brighton.

The old Roosevelt.

The old Rover field there.

So what's going to be happening there?

It's going to be a new stadium.

A stadium like a closed end club?

No, no.

No.

Like a rec like one of our fields.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

It was called Roosevelt Field in the 90s.

Okay.

I think it was home to actually three of the high schools, home football field, three of the high schools in those and a semi-quote football team.

Yeah, I believe.

Used to be the best field in the city.

Yeah.

Great field.

Games every Friday night.

Well, we're going to bring it back.

Can I bring you back one second?

When you see when you say increase 1.1 million in ENL.

That's students with second languages, right?

Yes.

So what would that look like?

That investment of 1.1 million.

What's going to be the difference?

Well, that's the that's what revenue was.

That's just the revenue that's coming back in.

That doesn't mean that that 1.1 million is directly going to ENL.

It means that they calculated the number of ENL students we have in the district, threw that into the formula.

The formula used to multiply it by 0.5.

Now it's multiplying it by 0.53, which gives us an additional 1.1 million in revenue.

Okay.

Okay.

And is the it does that impact, and I just don't know, not sure the charter students is that is that all included in there, or that's different.

Okay.

And even with the um transportation aid, um have we done any type of um analysis to find out how many of the students that are like living in hotels are um homeless through like I'll say like loss of housing in Syracuse or new residents to Syracuse, like the um asylum seekers.

I don't know what parts of that analysis have been done.

I know we know the difference, but with state law, we have to we have to transport up to 50 miles.

Yes.

So those students who are ours that are in other areas, we still have to go get them.

Yes, yeah.

No, I just was wondering because I know a lot of people, you know, are really frustrated with saying that uh the numbers that says like um the number of students that are homeless, but some of them never have been housed in Syracuse.

They're new to Syracuse and they've never had a resident here.

Um so that's I'm just trying to figure out if y'all know those numbers.

So we will look over the 25-26 amended state aid budget, foundation aids going from 404.9 million to 414.3, which is a nine four nine point four million dollar increase, two point three percent.

Transportation aids going to stay flat, building aid stayed flat, and the all other aids has gone up by 4.6 million dollars.

So there's our 14 million dollar change from when we came here to you uh a few months back and where we are today.

Um when you look at the uh amended revenue on page nine, um, you'll see that there's the 14 million dollars of the change in the state aid.

Um property taxes have stayed the same.

The committed assigned fund balance have stayed the same.

We're reducing our unassigned fund balance usage by 4.5 million dollars and all other revenue by 0.6.

So our total revenue increase is gonna go up $8.9 million dollars, um, which is a $1.5% increase change, and that's what we come to the common council for for our spending limit is the $619.9 um million dollars for uh revenue.

Um when we talk about what we're doing with some of these funding um since the time we put the budget together, um, we've had uh an increase in some of our health care expenditures and projections going forward.

So there's gonna be about another million dollars that we're gonna have to put into that.

Um it's probably about four and a half million over the prior year based upon plan changes and position shifting from grants and other position additions.

Um in terms of supplies and materials, we're gonna be doing a literacy campaign.

So we're gonna put $500,000 into a literacy campaign.

Um there's also gonna be about $500,000 that we're gonna put into building materials and supplies.

Um we've reduced some of our equipment expenses.

Um we're working on uh leasing our vehicles as opposed to purchasing our vehicles.

Um we have a number of vehicles that are 20 years old, and it's a lot better to be a little bit more efficient with a leasing plan, and then we can manage our budget over the next five years with uh a planned um lease program.

And then charter tuition is 1.7 million dollar increase over the adopted budget.

So you can see our charter's gone up since this time as well, when state ran some additional numbers for us.

Superintendent at some point, could you maybe send us some information about your district-wide literacy campaign?

So that's you know, I I think we would be very interested in seeing information regarding that or helping out in any way we possibly can.

I was gonna ask the same on the same level, but I guess not literacy for students.

Um, I know that uh as of last year, there was supposed to be a kickoff to um uh rethinking the um way that you teach reading.

Um is it what's the skill science of reading?

Science of reading, yes.

Um, how is that going as far as participation from teachers?

Good afternoon.

My name is Britt Britton.

I'm the chief academic officer of the district.

Um we actually have been ahead of the game in the state as focusing on science of reading.

We've made that shift.

We had fully made that shift about three years ago, um, if not prior to that, we were building towards that.

So it's it's just a matter of us.

We're now doing an attestation that all of the districts are doing across the state to speak to how we're aligning to the expectations that the state has put out officially, and we are meeting all of those expectations.

Again, we are we have been leading the way in terms of the science of reading, so it hasn't been a major shift for us in the district.

It's just been reinforcing, and then we have more support, more resources from the from the um the state level around that area.

May I also speak to the literacy campaign?

Absolutely.

Oh, I don't I'm not done yet.

So as far as um I mean, if if we're ahead of it, um, I think there was just a slight increase in our numbers reporting.

Um so as far as the teachers are I don't know, I know that there was a push for teachers like out-of-state teachers a few years back and stuff.

So um, how does that you know work together as far as like what they were taught versus?

Thank you for asking that question.

We have a and a very intense professional development that's called letters that is fully aligned with the science of reading.

It's L-E-T-R-S, all capital letters, and that is um an intense semester long is the first cohort or the first session that the teachers will go through, and then there's another one, the second uh second half of the year, or some teachers spread it out because there is a lot of application, so folks need more time to do that, then that can go into the second year.

But we are targeting early literacy, new teachers, um, you know, making sure that they first have the foundation of pedagogy before we get real into deep into content because it's very deep, very intense training.

Uh, and we're seeing the impact of that in our data.

We are can I speak to some of the data?

We have for the first time in at least 10 years.

We are at below 50 percent of our students at level one in English language arts.

Very happy about that.

And that speaks to us focusing on and equipping teachers with more skills around the science of reading.

What are the all the different components that make up reading and can help us improve in the areas of literacy so that we can really meet teachers' needs in terms of where they are with understanding that so that they can in turn diagnose where students are strong and move past that, and then also which skills do students need more focus on?

So we also over the years have worked on interventions, not just intervention now, but extension.

So students who are ready to move on, which we're also seeing that in in our data, in that our percentage of students who are scoring at 11-3 a level three proficiency and level four have all increased.

So not only have we decreased the students who are performing at level one, but we've increased levels two.

Are they the grades for first grade to is that first grade to sixth grade, or is that across the board?

It's across the board.

We're also seeing in our DIBLE data.

But the data that I was just quoting was for New York State assessment data three through eight.

So we're also seeing cohorts of students.

So for instance, third grade, the the percentage of students who are reading more on grade level has increased over the past five years at grade three to our highest levels now than what we've been.

But then when we also look at third graders who were third graders three years ago and we see how they move, their proficiency levels with literacy on the high-stakes assessment, New York State assessment, has also increased.

So the third grade with a lot more preparation too.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

So there are higher percentage of students at third grade who were proficient this past year than previous years.

But then also when we look at the third graders from three years ago, who are now fifth and sixth graders, rising six, they're a higher percentage of students who are proficient on those grade level skills.

So we're seeing our focus on science of reading and helping teachers understand the science behind reading that was started uh previously under Dr.

Kelly, that that has continued and we're deepening teacher skills.

So, what happened to the Dibbles?

Does that just go away?

No, we're still we're still administering Dibbles.

That's at K2, but also for students who are not proficient on our benchmark assessments in the upper grade levels because Dibbles is a lot more discrete skills, as you probably know.

So we still administer it as needed to help um help us define which interventions to use and also see if those interventions are working.

So we have the DIBLES data as well, but the data that I was quoting was around the New York State proficiency assessment.

And when it comes out officially, we're gonna do a full presentation on it.

So I was gonna say, let me let me clarify what Chief Britain is really talking about the trends that we're seeing and the the direction that the data is going is a positive direction.

We are not where we want to be.

So when you see those, you know, those percentages that of uh proficiency, they're not still not going to be where we want them.

Yeah, but the data she's speaking to is moving in the right direction.

It's a place to start.

Absolutely.

Yes.

And it shows we need to continue to build upon what we're doing, the science of reading that the research has shown has been working that we were doing before we got many resources and training and support around it.

We were building that internally.

Um now there's more support coming from the outside, which more opportunities, additional experiences like letters are being provided from the state that we can't have all of our teachers go through, but all around the same skill level.

One of the things I did wanted to mention to your question about uh the literacy campaign.

Literacy campaign is not just for the district, that's for that's citywide.

Right?

That's the whole idea is to start to um collaborate without throughout the city.

Anyone who's gonna be helping our students, we should be working around the same strategies.

So the idea is to make sure that everybody's on the same page as we go around trying to make sure that our kids have better literacy skills.

And does that literacy campaign also include any adult learning?

Yes.

Yes, we are building that out now.

Um we are at the very initial stages.

Uh, superintendent charged us, deputy superintendent charged us with focusing on a literacy campaign, which we're very excited about.

We have a new um ELA director, and one of the first charges is to collaborate with our partners.

So we're at the very beginning stages for this being a planning and kickoff year where we will engage community.

It's about working with families to help equip them, what partners do we have to focus on resources that support the community with literacy that we might not take the lead on, but so that we're all aligned.

So, what does literacy look like?

We've had everybody counts that's focused on early enumeracy.

This is going to be K pre-K-12 literacy and beyond, along with adult education, we're working with that with that department as well.

Are there any like additional supports for those kids that come to us with no English?

Absolutely no English.

So what do you what do we do differently?

There are a range of supports that I know Dr.

Kelly can speak to as well, but that's all part of our intervention system.

Right.

We have um increase the the teachers and the department at the department level, the district level for supports for our multilinguage learners.

Um this morning I was part of a symposium that was held at Seymour Do Language, where we uh we're all together looking at what our dual language programming looks like so that we can continue to make sure that we are providing real intensive strategic focused support, no matter what level the kids come in.

And one of the first um sessions that's provided to teachers is around language acquisition.

What skills do you do based on the students' incoming language acquisition levels so that they can engage and we can meet them where they are and their access point?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we get to page 12 and we look at our expenses options.

There's some non-staff goods and services.

Um 2.7 million dollars is going toward the those initiatives, which is about 0.7 um million is going toward their steam school building lease, and then there's $2 million in purchase services.

Um we talked about the literacy campaign.

We got about a million dollars that we're gonna put in toward the distance learning initiative and uh $625,000 because it's going toward our athletic field lighting and our gymnasium lightings, and we're gonna upgrade those in all of our high schools.

What is the distance learning?

So the distance learning um project is really about providing our students with even more opportunities to take higher level courses with certified teachers because we don't have those teachers on site.

We're working with some companies that might be able to bring those strategies to us, and we could take advantage of um certified teachers in front of our staff.

They'll have uh personnel in the classroom, but the expert will be actually um virtual and from a distance.

Okay, so when you say higher higher level, um what what grade level does that start at?

Is that every school or yeah?

Uh it'll be mostly like a combination of for our high school students that you know may want to take higher level courses or have an opportunity to take some college courses, but also it'll be for some of the areas where we do not have enough certified teachers for like middle school math and things like that.

So that's where we're looking to help them out with the distance learning.

Okay.

Thank you.

So most of this is done on online, virtually, most of it is spiritually.

Okay.

In case they have questions and things, yeah.

Okay.

So at the high school level for that, would it would it repres would it symbolize something like the IB program?

Um, but not necessarily saying it's IB program.

Okay.

So overall our amended um expense budget, it's going from $611 million to $619.9 million dollars, um, $2.3 million salary wage increases, $1.4 benefits, the 2.7 we just finished talking about in terms of professional services, and the 1.7 charter charter tuition and the splice and equipment 0.8.

So overall change of 1.5% to this budget.

So and that's that's where we are.

And I thank you for your time this morning, this afternoon.

I I only have one question, and only because I I had two people actually called me before this meeting.

I just didn't know how to how to respond to this.

So I I told them I'll bring it up.

I need some about the requirees and the changes in the plan.

Apparently, is there a change in the plan for the red the registeres?

Retirees?

Yes.

For the that's what they're asking about.

That they're uncertain about the final plan.

So I just didn't know what the plan I what the plan is to tell you the truth, and I was wondering if any of this will impact the health care plan for the retirees right now.

That's what they're asking.

We're not changing.

Nothing is changing for them.

I wanted to make a comment that that was a pleasure for me to go to the city schools last year.

I went up uh I went by at Wake School.

I went over at Smith, over at Franklin, Webster, I went to Le Moine last year, and a lot of these kids were very um energetic.

I read to them.

I read to these kids.

I had one student, I had to read four books, and I was well over the time limit.

And uh, and I was very pleased, really, to see what goes in in our schools today from what I was in school.

I think it's it's a very good program.

And I want you to know speaker for myself and any of us in government programs, and you know, social studies for myself, I'd be more than happy, or I'm sure other counselors would too to come in the schools, talk about government service, what it is to be an elected official, how city government works.

And it's an open invitation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Nope.

So we thank you.

Yes, that's a good thing.

So thank you for Superintendent Davies and CFO Francisco.

Thank you.

And my apologies because I forgot your name in the beginning.

The master, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.