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Yeah. At a regional school district. Correct. Director don't want. All right. So realize that I have her on my main. So what's the decision on that? So that would if what that would do then Mr. Chair is that would what appear appears to have been the case for sure is that you've then ruled out two. You ruled out Cutler and you've ruled out corner and she has assistance and corner, right? So you want to make a slightly different decision which is fine. You may still want to then potentially do a straw poll because you have quite a number of names. Can I say two names that I saw had votes of no confidence from previous districts or are we not allowed to do that? So I think the question will become do you want to move into deliberation or do you want to do a straw poll and see if that gets you anywhere without Let's see if we can eliminate some more names here.
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I'll take any questions from my office. Great. Any questions for Mr. Bishop? Thank you for that report. Very good. Okay, we get to the student reports. Who's covering today? Who's got two? Um, I'll do Maggie's, too. All right. Okay, Julian, you're up. I'll start with Cherry Brook. Um, so recently they've had a couple field trips. Um, the kindergartener students uh did a performance or attended a performance at the Warmer Theater. Additionally, uh, Roaring Brook Nature Center visited Churnburg kindergarteners to reinforce some other science topics they've been learning. And, uh, Mr. John Chico, who is a DE officer, also presented to the kindergarters in third grade. And he covered topics like hibernation and, uh, animal adaptations. On Friday, March 28th, Terry Brook PTO held their fun and free bingo event. Uh this event went to full capacity and was full of smiles and a lot of fun.
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Um Gabe, I can't remember, were you there, too? I was there. Y Yep. Yep. I thought so. Um, I'll just chime in regarding sort of the transition of the city over and um, one of the things I've already mentioned this to OSI staff um, and they're working on it, but I've heard you as we're in this sort of transition period where we believe there there's a new code, there's not necessarily um, for those uh, there's not clear guidance from the city about what that might mean. Um, and so we're kind of in this period of time where there's a lot of confusion about what the new regulations might mean. Um, and I've been approached by folks who are, you know, really small business owners, um, that, you know, their architects don't necessarily, um, know what this is going to look like. Um, and it's holding up potentially holds up the process.
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So that's one major change. I am not advocating that we raise taxes. Let me be clear that we raise taxes almost 40% to get that $44 million. I'm not I'm just saying it's my job to tell you that you you could go above two without a vote. I have to let you know that. That's my job to give you the facts. And here's the second thing that changed. And this one came out of nowhere. This was on the on Monday 3:31. This was Eid. School was closed and my phone starts blowing up. Danny, why is Clifton on this list? Why is Clifton on this list? And I said, "Oh, that says Clifton Township. That's not us, is it?" I thought maybe it was Clinton and I thought maybe it was a mistake. But Governor Mur Murphy releases a statement that says the Trump administration, federal government, doesn't matter who the president is, the federal government is trying to take back $85 million in federal funding that we were already promised.
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So, funded separately, no impact on your general fund in terms of uh expenses get assigned to that grant. They're not they're not uh assigned in your general fund. So the general fund budget, the presentations that we presented at February and March when we were discussing revenues, that funding is exclusive of PEA funding because that is accounted for separately and no impact on your general fund. I will say though in the first year in which we had that funding. So this year because at the time we were passing the budget last year, we did weren't aware we were going to be receiving that funding, those salaries of preschool teachers were accounted for in the general fund budget. So all of those salaries and the associated uh aids that are in the classroom shifted over our calculation. Uh and that was as of I want to say sometime in January when we ran that for some members of the the board.
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Hinge Health, the same thing with the digital pain management program with physical therapist. COBRA and your HIPPA administration is all built in. Maternity management, care management, your nurse's coaching disease is all in there. Let's see. Can we move it up just a tad? Um, you've got new this year. It doesn't show you here. Can we go up? Can we move it up just a tad? Just a tad. Um, another way. Yeah, just the end of it. So, um, Berta Health again, that's being utilized. It's reversing your type 2 diabetes. So, you do have memberships using that currently. And then new for the new plan year is Teldoc Primary 360. So, it's a virtual primary care. So, members can actually do a primary care visit through virtually through online and if there's anything needed or prescriptions again, they can just send those directly to the pharmacy.
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So, oh, uh, so, and you can see here, um, this just kind of goes over just, uh, um, back to 2017. Um, we have a very low to teacher to student student ratio. You can see right there, 14.1. We're still one of the lowest on the mountain. We have one of the highest teacher experiences as well at 18.5. Our turnover here is very low. Um, and you can see here, um, if you compare us to Snowflake and, um, Xolo, we're very high. We retain our teachers and and compared to the state of Arizona. All right. And you can, I talked about this earlier, but you can see that our student uh, to studenttoteer ratio is also very low um, here as well. So, that's a good thing. All right. Now, we're going to get into testing data. So, uh remember, um when it says peer group on these reports, that's that list that I showed you at the beginning of all those other school districts that are somewhat related to us.
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So, we're going to anticipate like a 3% pay increase and we're going to take the average salary and increase it by 3%. And then we actually do the analysis the following year and it's less than that. So, it'd be important to see both. What is our average salary versus our beginning teacher salary just as an example? Yeah. In terms of the data. Oh, no. I understand. And and that's the stuff I want to see, but I want to see it for everything. I want to be able to see all of that stuff. So, you're going to have to give us an idea of what everything is. Yeah. Like the big ones for me are the administration, the building, the uh empty classrooms, teacher salary for sure, amount spent per student, things like that. Those are kind of the major ones. Like what's in that pie chart, but yet expanded in in that sense of explain what's included in that.
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Perfect. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that. Yeah. So, the consensus of the board, I see we heard from two. Alex, you want to comment? I I just did. Oh, I'm sorry. I was asking I was asking if uh uh who what employees does this apply to? And and if it's everybody, that's a lot of people. Um, so I mean I don't know how the real estate market is. I don't know how easy it is to move into district. Um, but I mean I got here so Okay. It's not impossible. We all got here somehow. Okay. All right. Anybody else? Opportunity. All right. So, uh, we'll have to drop it. you get more information, but if you could, I don't know if we just want to drop it and just or just try to just kind of table it or just kind of have more information, get more information.
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Okay. Called me. That's usually not a good thing. That's usually not a good thing. And and he called me the computer. The computer. I thought that was a compliment. Smart like one. Yep. Absolutely. He said, "Nope. Had nothing to do with intelligence. I go to sleep if I'm left unattended for 15 minutes." Man, what do you think? That's good. The computer. The computer. I want that to be my nickname. Well, a little known fact about you is that you have a computer science minor. I didn't want to figure that out. Very few people watching the stream probably know that you have a computer science minor. I didn't want to bring that up. That'd be kind of Didn't want to brag. I didn't want to brag. 1985 Bethl College now. It's called Bethl University. I was the first class that had a computer science minor from there.
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I have two that I'd like to eliminate. All right, let's go. Let's go one one by one alphabetically again. [Music] So, Dwire would be the next. Yeah. So, Dwire, I like Dwire. Okay. Two. Two like no like next would be who's tracking is Tracy. Yes, I do have it. Yep. So, two for Dwire. I've got then Flarity since that's an executive director of a a collaborative. We I thought we voted on Flarity. All right. We'll do that again. I think we voted we decided to keep it right. Yeah. On the list for now. Yeah. All right. Next is Gam. That is five four five. Five in favor. Yeah. And one. Okay. Next is Gillson. I think we eliminated, right? No. Well, there was a question. Was that the She's an assistant superintendent. So, why don't we vote? That's why we had Tracy. So, why don't we vote both then vote Gilson?
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Um additionally, the children's fair fair will be coming up and that will be held on Friday, May 30th. Um this past March, all cheer book students had the opportunity to participate in um March Book Madness where basically they read books and then they put two books against each other and they pick the winner. uh they kind of do like a bracket like a March Madness bracket and after all rounds of voting the book called the book of no pictures pitchers was the winner. Um lastly uh Turbrook Unified Sports uh will have its last practice on Friday April 11th and coming up on Saturday May 3rd they will participate in the annual elementary unified sports skills day at Con High School. Great. So that's for cheer group. Um, and then I'll also read Maggie's report uh for CIS. Okay. Um, so, uh, on Pi Day, which was March 14th, uh, there was a bunch of pie activities and thank you to all the parents who provided pies as a sweet treat.
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Um, which when you think about it from a very small business owner perspective, that's it's a really big deal. It's a, you know, potential of difference between able being able to open a a new small business and and not um one on the time, but also just an unknown cost of things. So, um you know, there's these sort of um you know, particularly for the the smaller actors in our community, um this will be a little bit of a maybe a bigger learning curve, particularly in the transition period. Yeah, Commissioner Murky. Yeah, thanks. Um my first first of all to address uh uh council member Briggs's point um I understand exactly what she's saying it the relevance for what I think we're trying to focus on here um in terms of uh electrification the new the new codes will not require that so there's you know relation there's um issues um related to the envelope hope in terms of um ceiling, in terms of insulation and things like that.
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Of that $85 million, ladies and gentlemen, 11 million of it is ours. Here are the facts. Don't just read the headlines, read the facts. The facts are we have replaced windows in almost every school in the district. And these were the last five schools to get done. We had an architect do drawings two years ago to get these projects done. We were finally able to bid these projects in 2024. In June of 2024, we got approval from the state of New Jersey for what is known as late liquidation. Meaning there was a deadline, but every state got more time to spend the money. Because very simple reason, there's only so many things you could have going on at one time. There's only so much money you can spend. There's only so many window vendors. There's only so many things you could do. So, we got an extra year in writing from the state.
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Um at that time we were looking at over $640,000 in net positive to the general fund as a result of receiving the preschool funding. Okay. And then each year thereafter, those salaries are removed from the general fund. And no, they're permanently reduced from the general fund. And the money that was that is being used to outfit the bathrooms to bring them up to code that was accounted for in the $640,000 surplus. Right. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Could I stay with the preschool? So the 640,000 approximately, is that something we would expect to see every year? Would it change? Would it decrease increase? Do you have any idea? No, it wouldn't be that'd be a tough question to answer because any given year you could encounter any number of expenditures. I can tell you that the preschool funding, we don't just assign to it dollar for dollar.
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And then behavioral health. A lot of people don't want in-person behavior health visits. They would rather either pick up a phone virtually or do a texting situation and they can get some um behavioral health assistance through there as well. So, can you go back one? Oh, or is that with me? Okay. This is your current medical plan today. So, you have a 1,600 Banner Health high deductible health plan. You have a value gold and then you have a classic silver. Your plan is unique because it's actually has three networks. You'll see two of them here, but members have the chance to see go into the banner Etna network where they will see Banner Etna providers. So that's utili utilizing the banner Etna network and then just the Etna full point of service network is that if they see the banner Etna network they do tend to have a lower deductible and some lower co-pays than going and seeing the full Etna banner.
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Um you So, we are the gold. Um and you can see uh that on math we're above the state average, which is good. We're a little bit or sorry, we're above our peer average, but a little bit below the state average. Um, same with our ELA and same with our science. And we I can tell you that um this current school year that we're in, the principles have been working very hard on this um and making a concerted effort to see why we're not above the state average and they have just been working and working and working on this data and um doing what we need to do to be above the state average. Um, you can see here for math, here's just kind of our scores. Those ones that say not available, that was during COVID. Um, so that they uh they we didn't collect scores.
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Yeah. But like over, you know, look at it from 2018 to now. How are we doing back then over the trends? Look at it through COVID, you know, how are we coming out through CO now? That kind of a thing. I' I'd almost go back to 2015 or 2016 because that was when our district was in a very difficult financial situation. So, you could really see how much better off we are now if you go back that far 2018 and we had an override in place and and we had uh bonds and so that made us in a much better position. Um so, if you really want to see what a difference that makes, I'd go back to 2015 or 16. Yeah. Sure. So I can tell you that um even in my experience in Colorado, we did comparable analyses as this one and the the bogey or the goal generally is to try to get that dollars in the classroom at 60% or higher.
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I don't want to just if there's good opportunities there to take advantage, you know, with some of the concerns, have answers on funding, having answers on perception and PR relationships and things like that. I don't think we have those answers at this point to move forward with a vote. This is something that can always be brought up. Should we ever be in a better financial situation or things change or we trying to attract more teachers? Correct. Is this something that we could bring up at another point in time? This isn't like the end of it forever. That's why I want it to be the end, but I don't know if we ready to just move it to next week. I I I don't feel good. But I think it may end up failing as a vote and then that seemed like we just put that to the side.
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It was taught through our math department and uh we didn't have computer science. Well, that was probably the first class where they had a computer. Exactly. And it really was, you know, you heard stories about a computer taking up the uh uh big room. Yeah, I had that. And so we had to work with that, do the punch cards. And my project was to do a Monopoly board digital. And it took me the whole semester just to create the board and a moving piece around it. That was it was a lot to do back then. Back with the Cobalt Pascal. Pascal. Yeah, that's what I learned out of high school. There you go. There you go. Uh uh talk are we we supposed to be talking strategy now? Is that what we're supposed to do or you want to talk more about my computer science?
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