So, we're we're going to keep pushing forward. So, thank you for that. Um, thank you again board for a good national conference, good travel. I hope everyone had a good spring break. Um, finally, it is autism acceptance month. Um, I just wanted to point that out because we have so many wonderful, exceptional learners and educators and staff. And in a time where school choice is mentioned, school choice is not always a choice for every child. But the traditional public schools are here to meet that need. And so I thank you for the work you do, Dr. Smith. Thank you, Madame President, and members of the board. Um, Madame President always reminds us of board policies, and one of your policies, wellspoken, is that you're supposed to advocate for state funds, lobbying your legislators, and that's one of the main responsibilities of the board of education.
That's what this job is all about. So sometimes I make a mistake. It's only because I'm moving too fast sometimes. And that's one thing I have to get better at and work on that. And so if you ask me my weaknesses, my my intention is always good. I put my head in my pillow every night and say I did the very best I could do each and every day. But sometimes I have to say to people, you know what? So those are my strengths. Those are my weaknesses as well too. Thank you. Uh Beth, please. How will you handle the balance of respecting longtime employees of the district's experience and familiarity with how things have always been with new ideas, changes, and perspectives? Great question. We don't do as well as we should do in memorializing things. We have some great experienced teachers, John Campbell, experienced principal.
We don't bite. That's all I have. Thank you, Mr. Oliver. Anyone else? Mr. Nunes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh the elephant in the room, the the boy, which one do I start with? I'll try to be nice here. Uh the kindergarten fund, the $300,000, uh we put that aside a lot of years ago for uh just that. You know, never needed it. In my opinion, if we were going to use it, use it for something for like a one-time shot. Okay? Don't don't you know, if it it's almost like the school choice if we're we're plugging the operating budget with school choice funds, it's one time and you know, it's gone. Yep. Type of deal. So, you know, something one time that we would need it to do. That's I think that's that's what we needed to do. You know, as far as you know, I agree with you, Chris.
Any discussion? You didn't take the motion to recess into executive session for 10 minutes to discuss supplemental duty contracts pursuant to non-elected personnel exception under coma and to return to open session in this room at the end of that time. Second. Motion to second discussion. That's correct. Okay. I'm not just 17. So 27 27 27 discuss supplemental duty contracts present to non-elected personnel accept to return to open session in this room at the end of that time. Include trade marshall. Include tra Marshall. Second motion. Second discussion. Submit your vote. You guys tour the whole building now. Go upstairs and see the I got motion [Music] 15. We're going to go over. So, we move to 15. Motion to recess into executive session for 15 minutes to discuss supplemental duty contracts pursuant to Donald personnel exception of coma and to return to open session in this room at the end of that time.
So then, you know, you'd be looking sometime in spring. If we're going to push that back uh in order to do the addition, we're probably looking at construction start sometime late summer. So then it'd be sometime probably right after school gets out of 26 if we wait for the grant money. Correct. I'm just going to say the wording that's been used to say whether or not we're going to kick in money and saying it's the multi-purpose room and the tennis court bathrooms, it's going to piss people off. A follow up on the timeline. um they have already applied for the Patterson grant. They're in the process. They're in the process. Okay. So, I have some reservation with starting any construction because a lot of the grants stipulate that they will not fund projects that are already done. So if we're like either way, we may want to wait until Patterson comes through just to make sure that we don't null and void our ability to use the Patterson funds or at least to get clarification that having started it wasn't going to penalize awarded agreement.
If we could allocate our home funds, we would not hold back with this group. I think they would allocate every single dollar, but it's not that simple. We have to speak in front of the state government. And as well as this year, we made a travel to speak in front of the federal government to advocate for resources for the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township. That's always been a strength of this board and past board is to advocate for resources. We're going to continue to do that regardless of the final decisions that are made at the state legislatores. We will be back again. And that work starts the day that they finalize this session. Is that correct, ladies? And we will be back. And I think we've learned that that how important it is to speak to our legislators, respect the process because there's a process and we're going to continue to do that board.
We have directors that are experienced and been here a long time. It it's sort of a joke, but not really. say where where can I see that? Where is it memorialized? Right? And and we call it sort of the folklore because it's there. We just don't have it memorialized. What we're doing today is is tomorrow's history. Right? We need to memorialize what we're doing and put it somewhere. So we have policies and procedures. So I don't want anyone 5 years from now to say tell me what the interim superintendent how we how do we understand this? Because it's not memorialized for terms of hiring for payable. Like we, anyone that's been to the central office, we have cabinets go along. Cabinets go along, final cabinets, unbelievable, but no process and procedures. So, finally, we have an account payable system where Arnold and Patty are doing incredible work there.
No, we didn't hide school choice. We had free money from the government. Hello. If if it's free, it's for me. Let's use use that first. That's what it was meant to. We didn't we don't and we're not like a lot of other communities that didn't spend it and have to send it back. You know, we did an excellent job of doing what we did. And again, I know I've said it a bazillion times. We said from day one that we were going to watch September 30th of 24. We were going to walk that plank. Okay. We certainly did. Okay. So, that's what was going to happen and we knew it. But we had to take care of kids and we did and we did and that that's fine. I personally still would like to see the HR person. All right. I'll be honest with you, but I will swallow my pride and bite my tongue and I will vote for this budget.
I promise we're not trying to No discussion. Yeah. Like 7 hours. That's not what's happening. Oh, I'm sorry. I was sleeping because uh my Motion to accept retirement request that Tom Bur was regret at the end of the 2024 2025 school year. Second. Second. Uh discussion. Submit your vote. Just getting voting. I'm sorry. I think Tom's been a custodian and a substitute bus driver for USC 244 for 12 years. Thank you, John. Just to read that we missed. I'm going to have to vote verbally. I logged out cuz I was looking something up. I know that's what's up there though. Motion to accept request of Peggy CH as food service worker with your cat at the end of the 2024 2025 school year. Second motion second. discussion. Peggy's been a parttime coach for BMS for the last 3 years for your we will miss Peggy.
That would that would be a real shame to get awarded the funds for the project and then not be able to use them because we already started. So we definitely want look at So I think either way we need to wait. August. Is is that fair for most of the grant funds you guys see? Correct. Okay. So, does that buy us a little more time, Jeremy? It buy It buy uses time. If you guys know for a fact that you aren't going to contribute any funds towards it, if there's a possibility that we're going to contribute funds. Yeah, that buys us time. You're saying 250,000 is a lot to contribute for a multi-purpose room in the bathrooms with the way it's been worded. Who's that? Not that I don't I mean I like it. I like the idea. Just saying. a lot of we're we're just here to give you guys options.
On a positive note, your next meeting is coming up. We are going to celebrate Lawrence Township excellence at a high level. The students are coming. I want to warn you. I see that stack over there. That that's just part of the stack. and they're coming in large numbers because this year, Dr. Nesbath, from an athletic standpoint at the elementary, we've had a lot of success this year. So, I just prepare you to shake a lot of hands and celebrate our excellence this year. We're winners and we should be proud of that as a board and a community and we're going to celebrate all the students on the 28th of April. So, that's all I have today, Madam President. All right. Thank you, Dr. Smith. So, you just gave a segue into my closing. So that will be a Monday, April 28th, our next board of education meeting promptly at 6:30 p.m.
But we finally have a system where you got to have a requisition. You got to have a purchase on it. Here's how it's been paid. And guess what? We're putting it all electronic. So, we don't have to have all this cabinet, which really don't know what's in what cabinet, right? We have it all there. We still don't know where it is. We got to get procedures in place and that's where we're memorializing the the good work that happened with that. We brought and I can say this pretty confidently for the first time all our secretaries together brought them upstairs to central office Patty and I brought them in brought him Chinese food brought him lunch and said tell us what's working what you've done for year after year and what still needs to be done and that's the work we're doing now. And I would say to you they think the work that we're doing right now in memorializing it isn't important systems and processes in place and that's the work we need to do to memorialize the past and get a good future.
So, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Nunes. I think everyone uh said what I'm thinking um including our public uh the public that spoke. You know, this this budget doesn't fix, you know, the issue. Uh it's a compromise. Um you know, yes, a budget really reflects your values. Um, and in the spirit of compromise, we've we've we've done our due diligence and appreciative of all of the work that Mr. Kylie has done and um the town for really hearing us, our uh finance committee and and such. Uh, but it's still a compromise and one that says it's okay that we underfund education in this community. Um, and to me that says, uh, we don't want new families. We don't want young families, we don't want kids entering our schools. Um, that's what that says to me is that, um, if you, you know, putting money where your priorities are.
[Music] Is that not sure? I was actually thinking that. I do think that yes, I think it is. Motion carries second. Nothing for students. Nothing for students negotiations. I don't think we need to be because uh we haven't had our first meeting yet and uh we're hoping to schedule that very soon. Great briefing. Long night. Thanks for everybody's input. Anything else? Thank you for coming. Obvious motion is I mean we are we are we are got some you want
I mean, it really either either scenario doesn't necessarily make a huge difference for us. So, giving you guys options to make the best decisions. Okay. So, let's move forward with the um schematics for the 1.5 and the 1.2 like what she said. Okay. And we'll hammer out more of the timeline and stuff. Okay. Okay. I think there's a few more. Yeah. Okay. So, the other item I wanted to visit with you guys about Thank you guys very much. Thank you. guys, drive safe. Thanks for coming out today. Appreciate your guys' time. Okay, so the other item we've talked about a little bit um is the daycare executive director. Um we do have a lady that we now employ as one of our directors that does have a lot of experience with the daycare instead of taking on a new salary at this point late in the year.
and we will be in the PD room here in the middle to recognize all of our wonderful students. So at this point I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Properly moved Miss Dunn and seconded Dr. Mahalid. Have a good night.
Thank you. Uh Jess, would you please ask the next question? How could you create an environment where staff felt safe to approach you with problems? So that's something you got to figure out together. I think that's something that takes time, right? And I I would say to you, I try that each and every day, right? My principles and directors know they can text me day or night. They email me day and night. Um they also know that I I don't do a good job in terms of doing that as well too. Sometimes I'm emailing them, text them late at night, which is probably not really a good thing, but that's certainly something that evolved. Certainly something that if I'm in the role of the interim superintendent for next year, I'll be working on that as well too. That takes time, right, and trust and be able to have those organic conversations.
And so, um, I don't know. I don't feel I feel better about this version of the budget. I don't feel good about it. Um, yeah. And I don't need to go on every other people have said my thoughts in a more eloquent way. So fine that's all I have to say. Thank you. anything? Yeah, I I agree with uh Kathleen that I think that we've done our part uh this year and I think that um this is probably as good as we can do but I think we have to think immediately about the coming years and um and I do think and I don't know how it happens um to look how the whole override idea is introduced and how we talk with the community about that or who talks to the community about that. But I think um this this is as good as we can do.
Um, I wanted to gauge gauge some interest there with allowing um this lady to step over this summer and assist me in some of the licensing, additions, calendar advertising throughout the district daycare rather than hiring an executive director at this point. So, another way that this would kind of help not just the district but our teachers as well is our teachers have to hold a spot in the summertime at um at Holly Routt. So, if we were able to move down to one room and they didn't have to pay for their spots, it would help them funding wise. And if that happened, we would be able to go down to one room for the summertime. Um, if we did that, we would still encumber the expense salary for this lady. Um, maybe pay her a little bit more to be doing some of these same executive directors, but she has a lot of a lot of experience in the licensing side of it, in the childcare editions, calendar-wise, advertising helper.
Again, when I meet with my admin, when we meet, it's all we got to take care of this, this, this, and this, and this. I've been here a little over seven months and trying to get that district in place. So sure, I need to develop more spending more time in talking and getting those things done. But I also would say our officials and directors say we need this to be operating and working as well too. We need this to be taking place as well too. So will I work on that? Yes. Do I need to continue to work on that? Yes. Is it two ways? Absolutely. And do I need to get better at that? I But that will hopefully happen over time. And that takes time to build the trust and build relationships as well too. Uh, thank you. This is a a mega time question, so I'll ask it.