Their meetings are not without technical issues, but local school boards have ventured into the world of virtual assemblies and live-streaming on various platforms.
The Springs School Board, in a budget workshop broadcast on YouTube Live Monday, awarded millions of dollars in contracts for the second half of its voter-approved expansion project. The Sag Harbor School Board used the Zoom app, holding a budget workshop and also making a few staffing changes. The Bridgehampton School Board used Google Meet on March 25, and among a number of other actions accepted a major donation from a resident of the community.
“The consensus among all the participants . . . was that it was very smooth,” said Robert Hauser, the Bridgehampton superintendent. “Conversations were allowed to happen freely. . . . The live feed had a little bit of a glitch for anyone who was trying to log in. Next time we think we’ll be able to rectify it.”
The East Hampton School Board was to meet remotely last night on Zoom. The board is considering adding a second proposition to the upcoming school budget vote, asking voters to approve spending $2.2 million of its reserve money to build a commercial kitchen at East Hampton High School.
“I think [streaming] is the safest option at the moment. It’s much better than nothing,” J.P. Foster, president of the school board, said yesterday. “We have to continue to function as a district, keep the district moving . . . I’d much rather meet in person — something’s lost in the translation.”
Under Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s ongoing state-of-emergency declaration, the state’s open meetings law allows municipal boards to meet electronically as long as the meetings are recorded and broadcast, and a transcript is made available soon after.
On Monday, the Springs School Board awarded about $17.22 million to the contractors working on its expansion and renovation project. Each contractor has volunteered give-backs to make the project fit into the overall budget.
“There are some allowances. . . . There is a small reserve for [the] unforeseen,” Derek Knatz, the vice president of Park East Construction, which is managing the project, said during the e-meeting.
Springs also began to tackle what state officials have said will be at least a 15-percent cut in financial aid to school districts, according to Michael Henery, the school’s business administrator. “I’m also sensitive to the fact that people are going to be hurting financially,” he said. “If we can cut back the tax levy, that would certainly help.”
The board initially proposed a budget with a 3.98-percent tax levy increase, but Mr. Henery scaled that down to 2.23 percent by cutting $455,924 from spending. Much of the savings was accomplished through the potential elimination of the district’s in-house prekindergarten program in anticipation of a decrease in enrollment; one teacher and two teaching assistants would lose their jobs. The school now has an in-house program in addition to offering pre-K at the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center. If the new arrangement is approved, Springs would work exclusively with the Whitmore Center for pre-K, which costs less than the in-house program, according to Mr. Henery.
The Springs Teachers Association balked at the idea. “We need to stick together as a community. We are asking that you do not take away our pre-K program,” the association said in a letter that Julie Bistrian, the district clerk, read into the record. “This [is] a program that we feel prepares our future students far better than any outside daycare program. Although it might cost more money to keep our students here, this will save us more in the future by not having to spend more money to catch them up. Students will come in more prepared and will need less services in their future.”
The board did not make a final decision on the in-house prekindergarten program, but agreed that it should still send an “excess letter” to the teachers whose jobs would be impacted, as is legally required by the teachers’ contract in a situation such as this.
In Bridgehampton, the board accepted a $41,000 donation from Michael Donovan, a resident who is a well-known computer software engineer, for the purchase of Chromebook laptops for students to use while school is out. Mr. Donovan also donated laptops last week to Organizacion Latino Americana, covered elsewhere in today’s Star.
The Bridgehampton board also reviewed a revised budget proposal, which, like the Springs proposal, has been trimmed from its initial version. The spending plan is now $74,482 over the state tax cap limit; it had been $344,000 over.
Sag Harbor board members also reviewed their budget; they face a similar state aid situation. “I just think we are a higher-wealth district . . . I think the [state] will probably make the wealthier districts feel more of it,” said Laurie Baum, the district’s business administrator. “Just because we passed a budget doesn’t mean we are spending the budget. I think the administration knows it is a volatile time.”
The board evaluated three scenarios: one with no cut in state aid, with a 2.71-percent increase in the tax levy; one with a 50-percent cut, with the same tax levy increase; and one with a 50-percent cut, with a 3-percent increase in the tax levy. In all three proposals, the overall budget figure was $44.33 million, but they varied in the amount of surplus money used to balance the budget.