>> Everybody's an entrepreneur. Everybody's figured out some way to that that they can uh survive the system. >> Restaurants are plentiful and inexpensive and from every nationality. Full meals are available for under $8 US. Rob was coerced into trying some roasted crickets at $3 and he declared them excellent. Many restaurants and shops are operated by NOS's and offer training for young people in the restaurant business and sustainable crafts which offer a living wage to artisans and employment to disabled individuals. We have some things up here on display if you want to come up and look afterwards. Um some of the products that are made, the um hand hand dyed um cotton beautiful cotton clothing and my favorite cookbook. Thank you, Jan. >> Yep. >> Okay. Um lastly, um housing. Uh I mentioned no zoning. You can see it here. high-rise next door to shacks. We're out on the Meon River on a on a little uh boat cruise.
Um and you know there's you know that's a fairly nice house. Um nice houses like this strange thing. They all seem to add these little awnings. In some cases they have picnic tables under them. In some cases they become businesses. They all you know so many of them seem to have the these awnings. Of course, it's a hot country. Shade shade is helpful. Um, and you know, right next door, this house could be a couple hundred years old right next door. I mean, it's it's it's very u typical. Um, here's a a couple more examples. And I thought this was interesting. This is rice drying in the sun. They've done we were there just after the rice harvest. They put tops out and and um and they're drying it right there. So, um, so I just want to, um, leave you with a a couple more thoughts here.
Soler, floor is yours for three minutes, sir. Thank you. Welcome back, everybody, from spring recess. Uh, as we turn the corner into the final quarter of this school year, uh, I would like to say that I think there's a lot to celebrate about across the district. Um, I continue to see strong instructional focus in our classrooms and and positive student engagement at every level. I think tonight was a was a prime example of that. Hundreds of students here being recognized not just for what they do on the stage or on the field, but also recognizing what they do in the classroom, which I think is a good thing. Um we are preparing for the statewide NJSLS assessment. The window opens April 27th. I'm sure you're getting a lot of information from the buildings on that. We do look forward to the DRHS theater program production of The Life and Death of a Jackson musical, as well as uh continuing to cheer on our ongoing spring sports seasons uh here at the high school.
Um, this is, uh, again, Anchor Watt. This is an aerial view of the one square mile, uh, temple. Uh, for those of you familiar with the Ashen Town forest, it's about one square mile. So, if you've walked the forest, so here's a little something I wrote um as I was, you know, working tonight and I discovered a set of notes that I had and I and I this just came together. Houses on stilts, many with awnings, peculiar yet practical, like the people, pragmatic, their struggle so common it's mundane. Old houses, gray, weathered wood, hint of their history. Ubiquitous shrines and temples richly adorn in the midst of poverty. Their arches inviting, artistic and proud, more spiritual is the countryside similar to the US Midwest. What might be the connection? Young Muntz, children really wandering from door to door, begging a Darth Vader helmet with bright red lips smiling worn by a young lovely driving a moto.
Looking ahead to the summer, first time I've said that word publicly. Uh reminder to families, registration is open for the CBA summer program. Uh as we move forward, our focus as a district will continue to be on uh not only stronger structural practices and supporting the students, but continuing to try and find new and innovative ways to engage with our families and our community. Uh shameless plug, tomorrow night is our next CPAC meeting. Uh it is here in the library. Span will be here to present, so we're looking forward to that. Hopefully you can come out. And finally, uh as someone else said, today is Administrative Assistant or Administrative Professionals Day, and I would be remiss if I did not thank all of the administrative administrative assistants who work here in our district for all that they do for the students, for all that they do for the school, and for all that they do for our communities.
A baby strapped to her chest. The road through the town, any town, every town, a strip mall of convenience, lumber, furniture, cell phones, ATMs, and names that speak to the confluence of cultures. True Money, Chipmong, Shelter of Love Center, Lucky Express, Crud, Brand Soda, Gansburg Beer, Works with a Z, Freshly, Greet, idle, Sting, Total Energies, Gas Stations, People Smiling in the face of poverty. What is subsistence? Thank you. >> Thank you.
So, that'll be all, and that is my report. Sarah, is there any questions for Dr. Griffin? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to the agenda item L, curriculum, with 16 items. Let's put them in order. So And that's Lynn, and the second one is Isaac. Thank you.
Any questions regarding L1 through 16? Is Is there a reason why it takes so long for them to get tuition adjustments for families? Dennis, is this No, so I'm sorry, Excuse me. The uh we are continually reaching out to the out-of-district placements for their updated tuitions and for back billing. And it takes them this long to process that on their end. So, uh every every And I can just tell you, having been here for 10 years, every week we have a meeting where we are getting updates from the director of student services on where they are with that information. Cuz from budgeting perspective for Ms. Henry, it's important to know where we are in managing those accounts. So, we are consistently It does. We are consistent consistently reaching out to the out-of-district placements seeking quality updates, especially back billing, so that we can be uh diligent.
But we have no control over when they do or do not issue that to us. But we do prepare for it. Thanks, Ms. Henry. Thank you, Ms. Henry. Any questions on 501-316? No, I just want to say that I'm really I don't know if it's a new trip, but it's an additional field trip for the old baker girl trade site. I think that's all that they're like opening it up a little bit. Showing the girls the baking. Make that money. Mr. James? I just have a few notes on some of the earlier ones are from the same school. And maybe it's a problem with that school that they're in the education department of education. Yeah, it's like 50 It's like over 55. That's on that later in the agenda. It's not a nice to see. Any further questions on L 1-316? Ms. James? Yes. Ms.
Mack? Yes. Ms. Mack? Yes. Ms. McCarthy? Yes. Ms. Mosley? Yes. Ms. Staff? >> Yes. Ms. Ware? Yes. Ms. Solar? >> Ms. Shaw? Yes. Good. We're now on agenda item 10, personnel, 12 items. So moved. Thank you, Ms. Watts. Second. Ms. May will second. Thank you. Questions on personnel, 1 through 12. I guess number seven is it just a typo? It's Mr. McGuire. Yes. Okay. I mean, I know who it is. I just I saw the first name and I'm like, then he said McGuire, so I'm like, is it Is it Mr. McGuire? It's correct in mine, it's wrong in yours. Oh, this is But I'm sorry. We'll take full responsibility for the misspelling. And thank you for allowing us to put that on. That was an emergency situation. We did need coverage for the baseball team, otherwise we would not have had a full baseball team.
So, we apologize for it having to be retroactive, but we can't control when something like that happens on our personal time, so thank you. And he's feeling better? He gets to be on the team? Yes. So, if you have any further questions, Ms. Henry, please hold the vote. Mr. James? Yes. Ms. Marks? Yes. Ms. May? Yes. Ms. McCarthy? Yes. >> Ms. Mosley? Yes. Ms. Staff? Yes. Ms. Ware? Yes. Ms. Solar? Yes. Ms. Shaw? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. We're now on agenda item 11, business, finance, and operations, with 24 items. So, that's for approval. So moved. Okay. Second. And Ms. Solar will second. Thank you. Um Discussion on 11 1 through 24. Um I'm just going to say that I've gotten a lot of things on the swimming program. Um the community and the parents of our incoming high schoolers are very excited about it and it was a long time coming for them.
So, thanks for getting that done. And that's Northern Burlington program. July to park. Agreed. So, Northern Burlington has their board meeting tonight where this same motion will be on their agenda. So, I would like to thank uh you know, Mr. Zuckerman who I worked you know, worked with and thank the athletic directors and the parents for advocating for us. So, just so uh just so everybody knows uh we are going to attempt to co-op with Northern Burlington. Northern Burlington High School's swim teams actually practice and hold home meets at Team 85 which is right here. So, we don't have a pool and we don't have a swim uh team but we did have interest. So, we've applied to NJSIAA to allow us to co-op which they will allow us to do and then swimming is a winter sport. So, we will come into next year and we will survey our students to see who is interested in doing it and then we will pay a per pupil expenditure to Northern Burlington to allow them to swim but it gives our kids access.
Both boys and girls will be able to swim and they've never been able to do it before. So, we're excited about it and we uh we do thank Northern Burlington for for allowing us to co-op. Is this sort of like the the wrestling co-op but in reverse that you're the primary and So, then really the cost is the pupil and then the transportation. Correct. So, the Northern Burlington will be the primary. We are co-oping with them where it's the opposite with wrestling. We are the primary and Florence is very much yes, exactly. So, that's awesome this is this is gaining momentum of course since The next request was lacrosse. Just so that is out I was going to say that. lacrosse? Cuz that was when I brought this up to some parents when it was on agenda, they're like, "So, what about the frogs?" I'm like, Have those students expressed that >> But Northern has a program.
If I correct that, Miss Jen Martino was going to ask a question for that. She did a lot of the background. >> Yeah, so there was there were a couple of parents who had active very active youth swimmers that are not in high school yet that were to be honest with you, one of the things that were they they had indicated to me is that there are some kids who choose not to come to Bordentown High School because it does not have a swim program where other local potentially private schools do and and that would be a a defining factor or something like that. We can fix. It's just how do we get creative to do it because we can't build a pool and we certainly don't have enough students who want to participate where we could have our own our own team, so that's why we started to explore the idea of co-opting.
So, again, credit to Northern Burlington for being the willing to do it and I think that if we are successful with swimming and it is smooth, which I assume it will be, I do not see any reason why we couldn't try and continue to co-op with our local partners on and offer more a more extensive program to our students. Thank you. All right, let's go. Any other discussions 1 through 24? I just have one more question to ask. Sure. Um, can we just can we see the playground plans? Yep. Yes. When can we I have a question. Yeah, I want to take all the way. Uh, yes. Um, we had just gotten them back very recently for phase one of the playground plans and we can certainly show them to the board. We will not yet show them to the public until we are done with final design, but we do anticipate and look forward to if the budget is approved by the board.
Right. Comments so far? Right. When the budget is approved, we can do it. look forward to moving forward into phase one I just want to say you know thank you for the donation of the trailer for the from the band booster and booster association. I did not have a student that was a band person but a lot of friends that were and I understand how much equipment is involved with moving in. Uh it's really nice to see that you know that they were able to to fund raise and and donate to us a a trailer for using for transportation. So that thank you very much to the the booster association for getting that done. And and to the credit of both the boosters and the the the band director we were we had actually had a meeting to talk about the logistics of where the trailer will be stored and then how we will on mornings when the trailer has to be go so to make sure that our bus drivers will be able to drive one of our facilities trucks that can actually tow the trailer and all of that we've put in place already so that it won't be an issue when it starts and the trailer is here of how we're going to do it.
So we've already put in place when it will be loaded, how it will be loaded, who will be driving it, what truck will be used. It does have a trailer hitch. All of those pieces have been taken care of. So we thank we thank them for the donation and we have worked the logistics out to make sure that it's easier for our band students and band transport equipment efficiently and effectively actually on the first day. Thank you. Is there any further questions? Is there any public comment? Ms. James? Yes. Ms. Box? Yes. Ms. Mann? Yes. Ms. McCarty? Yes. Ms. Lawson? Yes. Ms. Bell? Yes. Mr. Bear? Yes. Ms. Zora? Yes. Ms. Shonkwiler? Yes. Mr. Peters? Thank you. We're now on the bottom of policy with the second reading on my list. I so move to open it. So moved. Thank you. It's been Second. Seconded.
Thank you. Um any questions about policy or number one? I I'm sorry. It's okay. I meant to turn a page. Sorry. I have a question going back. It's okay. We've already voted, but you're more than welcome to ask a question. >> that's not going to change anybody's vote, but I wanted to ask the superintendent um regarding uh the high schools meeting with Maschio's about the food and that type of stuff cuz I mean here we're voting to re-contract them, and I just wanted to get more information on how the high school kids were received. So, actually it was a great meeting. It was held in here, and we had not only did we have the head of uh Maschio's for the region, we actually had the new uh head of the head chef of Maschio's here. And we had multiple students who came down, and they brought samples of food, and we spent about an hour talking about what foods were offered versus what foods they would like to see.
Uh and I have to be honest, I was proud of the students cuz they weren't asking for more french fries and fried food. They were actually asking for better quality grilled chicken, things of that nature. So, to Maschio's credit, they took down all of the uh all of the information from the students. They've made changes to their menu. That's why we're sharing out now on on a monthly basis not only with the families, but we're sharing out directly with the students so that the monthly offerings so that they know what is available. One of the things that came up for here is sometimes the students because there's two access lines. There's the essentially the the the cold access lines, which is your sandwiches and things like that, and then there's the hot access line, two different places, and sometimes kids are not realizing what is actually in the hot offerings to go in.