Okay, good evening everyone. I'm Lee Bolman and I'm the proud principal of Burlington High School. It's truly an honor to stand here before you tonight as we celebrate an outstanding group of young people, the class of 2026. We gather to recognize not only the academic achievements, but it also represents the support of you, the families, teachers, mentors, friends, and anyone who has encouraged these students every step of the way. Thank you all for being here tonight to honor our seniors and for the vital role you have played in their journey. Before I turn it over to Mrs. Bolman, um I would just like to thank this senior class um welcoming in a our first year principal and the some of the changes that we've made this year to the building and even the ones for next year, the amount of feedback and responses that I've gotten from this group uh throughout the year on how to change So, that's all I have.
I'm officially calling the meeting to order. Welcome everybody. I'll start with New Jersey Open Public Meetings Law, which was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have an advanced notice of any such intended meetings of public bodies, at which time any business affecting their interest is discussed and acted upon. In accordance with the provisions of this act and Board of Education Policy 2162, the Board of Education of the Borough of Bound Brook has caused notice of this meeting to be posted in the Board Office and at Bound Brook High School, and mailed or faxed to the Courier News, Bound Brook Borough Clerk, South Bound Brook Board of Education, and any person who has requested individual notice and paid the required fee.
This meeting provided by the Board of Education in the March 5th, 2026 notice in the Asbury Park Press and the code are setting forth the date, time, and location of this meeting. Similar notice has been posted in the borough hall, the borough school website, and the borough clerk has been notified. Mrs. Boldina Here. Mr. Becker Present. Dr. D'Ambrosio Here. Mrs. Hutt Here. Mrs. McDevitt >> Here. Mrs. Reed Here. Mr. Vitali Mrs. Walsh >> Here. Mr. Walton Here.
Strike three. You're looking at highlights of the second game, played here at Tech. In the home game, the Hawks won 7-2. Andrew Pasley pitched seven innings and had 12 strikeouts. Owen Galvin had three hits, and John Morrison had two hits, including a double. Great work, Hawks. Strike three. yeah. I know. Oh, yeah. Come on.
Hello my friends. I'm so glad you're joining me today for our stories. Welcome to Calling All Kids. I'm your storyteller Jennifer Temple. I have a couple of fun stories to read with you today. Do you know about Memorial Day? Memorial Day is a special day when people in the United States remember and honor soldiers who died protecting our country. And it's always at the end of May and we have no school on that day and it's a day to say thank you to all the people who were brave enough and protected us and are keeping us safe. So I hope you will enjoy the story about Memorial Day. And it's called Memorial Day Surprise. I wonder what the surprise is. Let's read and find out. It's written by Teresa Martin Golding and it's illustrated by Alexandra Arteaga. Let's find out. Look at all the celebration going on.
Good evening. I'd call this meeting to order the April 29th select board meeting at 7:03. This meeting is being recorded and broadcast live by our friends at WACA TV cable TV and live stream on YouTube. Remote participation is available using the Zoom video conferencing platform. Any disruption with the video conferencing platform will result in the platform being shut down for the evening. In the event of a disruption, broadcasting will continue on WHCA TV and live stream on YouTube. Anyone that's in attendance physically in this audience, I ask uh to acknowledge if they are recording tonight's meeting personally on their own. No. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And let's proceed with tonight's agenda. Um, first on the agenda is citizens participation. Uh, anybody that's here in in person or on Zoom, please uh raise your hand on Zoom and those that are here, please step forward to the uh podium, identify yourself, address, name, and what you would like to discuss.
Um good afternoon everybody. Uh it is Wednesday. Let's see, today is the uh 29th. Um my name is Michael Herbert and uh I'm the town manager here. I'm here with our assistant town manager for administration and operations, uh Katherine Bird. Um and we're here today to cover the annual town meeting warrant that's going to be held next Wednesday on May 6th uh starting at 7:00 p.m. at Ashland High School. Um annual town meeting is something that happens, like again, as you can tell, annually. Um town meeting is the town of Ashland's legislative body. Uh meaning that uh it goes through parliamentary procedure and things such as the budget and things such as uh warrant articles and zoning bylaws and things like that are debated and voted on by uh registered voters. Um a- anybody can sh- any registered voter can come to town meeting and participate.
What is going on? What did you press? Yo, what did you It's really loud. You can hear everything out there. I don't hear nothing, Brad. All right. Well, we are here. And we are live with some sound problems as Brad maybe mutes me. Check it out. Check, check. Check one, two. Check, check, check. All right. Sorry, We had a little somebody mess with the controls. There's a little a little 3-year-old, if you will. And we got a really good game between Ursuline and the Dover-Sherborn Raiders. Agnes is wondering what this is. So, Ursuline is 6 and 2 on the season right now. Raiders 6 and 2, so it's going to be quite the match-up. All right, this is DS is taking it down field right now in the offensive zone. I just Is that Barrett Sachs, I think, running with the head steam? Put on the net for the Raiders.
We lost one of our I'm sorry, one of our senior students um and one of our teachers. um our student Christopher Alexander Gualpa Lima and Miss Linda Kimble. Um so before we get started, let's just take a moment of silence just to our condolences and prayers are with all of their families during this difficult time. Um, and with that, we'll start with the pledge. Kate >> here. >> Glattus >> here. >> Dr. Cone. Lauren >> here. >> Wanita >> here. >> Cindy >> here. >> Sherry >> here. >> Sean here. >> Minnie >> here. >> Louisa >> here. And I'm here. >> Thank you. Okay. So, good evening. Um, we had a wonderful kickoff to this evening's board of ed meeting um with some of the presentation through uh our students capstone civic action projects. And I'd like to call Heather Loren um to come up for just a moment along with her amazing students Juliana, Christina and Louisa, Gianna and Gabriella.
Thank you very much. Bring them up. The staff votes on these awards. The Kansas Masonic Lodge Citizenship students are Corinne Bolman and Alex Matz. >> [applause] [applause] >> Our gift scholarships are for some students who are going to attend Flint Hills Technical College next year, and Troy Hopperman will be here to present. First off, I'd like to congratulate you on pronouncing my name correctly. >> [laughter] >> That is That is stellar. Thank you so much. I am Troy Hopperman from Flint Hills Technical College, and I'm honored to be here. I want to congratulate all of you on what an accomplishment it is to finish your high school career, and I wish you the greatest success moving forward. I have three students who have chosen to continue their education with Flint Hills Technical College. I'd like to recognize them and present scholarships to them. Okay, so if we could bring up Laque- see I congratulate her on saying my name right and I just butchered that one.
Please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Miss Lee, roll call, please. Yeah. Here. Thank you, Miss Lee. At this point, I would like to recognize Miss Kathy Pollak, who is here from New Jersey School Boards Association, and is going to help us with some training tonight on ethics. So, for the board members, are we going to do slides, guys? Good. So, since we'll do slides, board members, we'll go down into the audience, and then we'll get started. >> Well, thank you for having me tonight. I haven't met you yet. My name's Kathy Fourier. I'm the field representative serving Hunterdon and Somerset counties. I started back in September, so I'm a bit newer to the organization, but I was a board member for about 9 years in Hunterdon County in a small K through 8 district. I was board president there for 6 years and actually was president of the Hunterdon County School Boards Association for 2 years.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Can I get an approval a motion for the approval of last week's meeting? I motion. Second. Mrs. Boldina Yes. Mr. Becker Yes. Dr. D'Ambrosio Abstain. Mrs. Hutt Yes. Mrs. McDevitt Yes. Mrs. Reed Abstain. Mrs. Walsh Yes to the 22nd but the 18th I have to abstain. Mr. Walton Yes. Motion passed. All right. And then that brings us to presentations. We have two presentations this evening, our HIB report and then our budget. Yes. So just regarding the HIB, this is really just a presentation of our report. We do a HIV self-assessment every year on a variety of components with how we are implementing the HIV law. As part of that, we do a self-assessment.
See the American flag. Usually around Memorial Day there's lots of American flags everywhere and sometimes people go into the cemetery and put American flags next to the soldiers' gravestones. Maybe that's something you could help do sometime. A lot of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts do that. And there's also usually a parade and I think this story has a parade in it. Are you ready to find out? Here we go. Memorial Day Surprise. I wonder what the surprise is. Memorial Day surprise. Here we go. "Is it a really big surprise, Mama?" asked Marco. "Oh, yes," said Mama. "It's a very big surprise, but we must hurry. The parade will start soon." So, he's heading off to a parade with his mom, and it's going to be a surprise. Let's see. Marco held Mama's hand tightly and walked faster. Many people were leaving the porches of their brick row houses.
Good evening. >> Mark Sony, 119 Main Street. Good evening. >> How are you? >> All right. so far as so this is what it looks like live huh [laughter] okay I'm here because I want the next town meeting next town meeting is next week and it's about the override is the main theme and I was so is it's about the override for the schools my question my question to that is um why wasn't Anything else considered on the override? >> When you say considered, what what are you referring to? [clears throat] >> Any other municipal departments? Most likely the uh citizens the community center and senior citizens. So Mark, I think um you know if you look at the budget document that's online and everything, you'll see increased appropriations across um several different municipal departments, including the the senior center. Um and those are not being paid for this year through override funds.
And that's why they call uh open town meeting one of the purest forms of democracy. Um so this year is a little bit different than current or than other years. Um and why is that? Well, this year is different because although we cover a budget every annual town meeting in May, this year is a little bit different in that we will be having an override related budget on the warrant article. And that is going to change a little bit on how we do town meeting. So, I want to explain that a little bit first. So, article four is actually the budget. And the budget, as you will see it in the article, um has the override baked in, so to speak. So, it's it's already got it in the numbers. Um and so, if it passes at town meeting, it needs to subsequently pass at the ballot, which is just a simple yes or no vote to raise taxes to meet those expenses.
And that's a goal. Who is that? NUMBER NINE? YEAH. >> [screaming] >> BARRETT SACHS. ALL RIGHT. SO, THAT IS one to nothing Dover-Sherborn Raiders. Yeah, nice goal there by Barrett Sachs. Better? All right, Raiders with the win off the draw here. Uh Agnes is getting frustrated over here. SORRY ABOUT THAT, FOLKS. HELLO. CHECK. CHECK. Oh my goodness. All right, well, we'll use his mic. Uh Hello? I can't even hear myself. Check. Check. One Check. One, two. Hear me now a little bit? And what a goal there by Sophia Motley. DS Raiders go up two nothing here early in the game. Um yeah, so Ursuline Academy is in Dedham and it is a private school and yeah, apparently they're pretty good since both teams are 6 and 2 right now. Raiders off to a hot start. All right. And here we go. Ursuline coming it down.
Come on up. >> Unfortunately, Gianna was unable to attend tonight. >> Gianna is not here tonight. Well, if you could just talk to us a little bit about the genesis of the capstone and what it really took to to bring tonight together. I know that the the that these young ladies um did their capstone in the last semester but um we were all very impressed with the poise the confidence the identity with themies and just this confidence that that you all exuded and I was I'm so proud of all of you but I'd love to hear from your teacher and maybe a little bit from you about your experience. >> Sure. So, the capstone project is um it's a civic action project, CAP. Get it? Capstone. But it's also supposed to capstone their high school experience and it involves the um the POG. They have to hit all of the attributes of the portrait of a graduate.
Laqueisha Johnson who has been awarded the Jones Success Scholarship for $1,000. Uh Bowlin McIntosh who is also receiving the Jones Success Scholarship for $1,000. And the Floyd Lewis Foundation Scholarship for another $1,000. And finally Jacqueline Smith the Jones Success Scholarship for $1,000 and the Non-Traditional Career Endowed Scholarship for $400. >> [applause] [applause] >> We're going to give away well over $100,000 in scholarships tonight and we want to thank all of the local scholarship sponsors for their generosity to our students. Our first scholarship will be presented by Michael and Julie Luthi, the FCS Manufacturing Scholarship. Yes, on behalf of FCS Manufacturing, we'd like to congratulate the class of 2026. And we are pleased to present Kaiser Lehman with a $1,000 scholarship. >> [applause] [applause] >> Next we have Mark and Carol Harris. They're going to give the Ducks Unlimited John Redmond Chapter Scholarship. They might not be here.
So, I have quite a bit of board experience and I'm hoping to share with you and answer any questions that you have. Tonight, we're talking about ethics and I really take ethics from an educational standpoint. We do not want you to get an ethics violation and sometimes really it can be easy to inadvertently violate the school ethics act maybe you're trying to be helpful, you're overstepping your role, but you don't realize you are. So, we're going to talk about some of those things tonight and feel free to stop me at any point in time, ask a question. We'll have more time for questions at the end, so take it for a learning experience and I know that sometimes I do these presentations and I feel like I'm telling everybody a bunch of things that they can't do, but just you can do a lot. It just has to be within what your role is as a board member.
We have to grade ourselves and in grading ourselves and looking at all that we have done around HIV, we scored a 75 out of 78 points, which obviously is a very high score because we are compliant and exceed the expectations in a lot of ways. It includes everything from what our programs are to how our staff is trained to our reporting procedures to the meetings of our school safety team. So I'm really proud of the work that everybody does with respect to HIV. This will also be posted on our school district website, so it is public information. When you submit that, do they give you any feedback? What is the note keeping process? We just look at the criteria in each of the areas and score ourselves to say that yes, we you know, do investigations including all of these steps. We meet with our school safety team this many times a year and here's the information that we review.