001Okay. Uh, good evening everybody. Uh, I'd like to call to order, uh, for the committee of a whole meeting of the board of education, April 8th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. in the boardroom of the administration building at 70 Connor Road, Colts, New Jersey. Uh, if I can get a roll call, Mr. Moresca. Yes, you. Mrs. Cameron, present. Mrs. Harowitz, present. Mr. here. Mrs. Ramirez here. Mr. Rignetta here. Mr. Scales here. Mr. Scarpa here. Mrs. Vulpi here. And Mr. Walsh here. You have a quorum. Great. Thank you. Uh pursuant to the open public meetings act chapter 231. This meeting has been duly advertised in the Asbury Park Press in a schedule of meetings dated January 16, 2025 and March 4th, 2025. notice of which has been filed with the deputy clerk for Colts neck township and
002the requirements of posting posting of notices have been met. Um can I get somebody to read the mission uh statement? Um Oh, yep. Sure. Thank you. Uh the mission of Coleneck Township Schools is to empower and inspire students to be confident, creative, self-sufficient learners who maximize their strengths and talents and contribute and as responsible participants in their everexpanding world. Great. Thank you, Mr. Ragna. Um if I could have uh Dr. Garbe proceed with the flag. Sure. It is um my honor uh tonight to present to the board and to the community at large. uh April is month of the military child and I know later on the board has a resolution uh that we're doing but we thought that our uh the board thought that in the best interest in working with our naval weapons
003station early on that a great way to sort of commemorate uh our um partnership and celebration of month of the military child would be to have uh uh commanding officer of naval weapons station Earl Captain Smith his wife Allison daughter Carara lead us this evening in the flag salute. So, if everyone would please rise and if the Smith family would join us up front and lead us in tonight's flag salute. And then after the flag salute, please remain standing for the singing of our national anthem. Yeah. Right there. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Oh my goodness. [Music] Thank you, Captain Smith. Thank you. You going to stay for the proclamation? What's
004that? The agenda. No, no, no. You know what? We will we will move it up right now just for you. Executive decision. Executive decision. I I will certainly not want you to miss that. Okay. Yes. Okay. Um I am going to ask uh Mr. Brian Scarpa. Um, since you're one of our liaison, Jessica will be speaking at the breakfast on Friday. So, I'd like to appoint you to read uh the proclamation this evening. Thank you. Absolutely. And and may I leave too with you afterwards because I love I too looked at the agenda. I'm like, please. But thank you very much. This is an absolute pleasure. Uh proclamations like this are what the board of ed stands for and we are most proud to uh uh speak about the April is month at the military
005child. So, thank you very much for your presence today and it's with great honor. Be it resolved that the Colts Board of Education hereby approves the following resolution. Whereas the month of April 25th, 2025 has been designated nationally as the month of the military child by the Department of Defense to underscore the important role military children play in the armed forces community. And whereas the New Jersey State Board of Education and the Department of Education aim to ensure through the policies established that all students are challenged to maximize their potential and to excel academically, socially, emotionally, and physically for college, career, and throughout life. And whereas the New Jersey Department of Education encourages school districts to provide support to children of service members as they transition between schools to address their distinct needs and prepare
006them to graduate as well-rounded citizens. And whereas the physical, social, and emotional well-being of children in military families is essential to their success and has a direct impact on the resiliency of military families serving our country. And whereas these efforts and supports can improve the lives of military children and help pave the way for future generations. And whereas is it is both fitting and proper that special recognition be given to ensure to ensuring military children feel safe and supported in our schools and communities so that their parents can focus on the challenges and missions they face in the line of duty. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Colts Township Board of Education recognizes April 2025 as the month of the military child in New Jersey. Great. Thank you, Mrs. Scar, uh, Captain Smith, and
007your lovely wife, uh, Allison, and your beautiful daughter, Carara. Um on behalf of this uh Coloss Board of Education, I'd like to thank you for your dedication and sacrifices that you have given on behalf of us and our country. Um we are forever grateful and blessed to have you and your family in our community. Okay, you may be dismissed now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Okay. All right. Okay. Now, let's move on. We are on the uh Yeah, we're going to approve the minutes. Okay. All right. Okay, folks. Moving on. Um I'd like to get a motion to approve uh the minutes. Uh if everybody wants to take a look, March 5th, executive regular and March 19th regular meetings. Um if anybody has any questions or comments, uh you could
008um do so now. Okay. Can I get a motion to move the minutes? Motion. Second. Can I get a roll call? I'm sorry. I'm still emotional from Captain Smith. Mrs. Cameron? Yes. Mrs. Horowitz? Yes. Mr. Rico? Yes. Mrs. Ramirez? I have to abstain on the March 5th uh both the committee of a whole and the executive sessions as I was not present but yes to the March 19th regular session. Thank you Mr. Rana. Yes. Mr. Scales. Yes. Mr. Scarf. Yes. Mrs. Walp. Yes. Mr. Walsh. Yes. Thank you. The motion carried. Okay. Um moving on to the information items um 1 through 10. I do want to pause uh to recognize number two. Um, uh, April is Autism Acceptance Month and, uh, we'd like to have Sarah read our Oops, excuse me. We'd like to have
009Sarah read the, uh, proclamation on that. Thank you. Thanks. Be it resolved that the Colts Neck Board of Education hereby approves the following resolution. Whereas the month of April is globally acknowledged as autism acce acceptance month dedicated to increasing awareness, understanding and acceptance of autism spectrum disorder. And whereas it is important to recognize and support individuals with autism by fostering a learning environment and community that embraces neurodeiversity and promotes inclusivity. And whereas autism spectrum disorders are characterized by a range of challenges and strengths impacting social communication, behavior, and sensory experiences. And whereas raising awareness about autism is essential in promoting early diagnosis, intervention, and access to appropriate resources and support. And whereas creating an inclusive and supportive environment for individuals with autism involves promoting understanding, empathy, and acceptance within schools, workplaces, homes, and communities. And
010whereas the Colts Neck Township Board of Education acknowledges the importance of fostering understanding and support for individuals of on the autism spectrum and recognizing their unique social and emotional needs. And whereas creating inclusive and supportive learning environments that cultivate positive relationships, understanding, and empathy for all students, including those with autism, is integral to the mission of the Colts Board of Education. And whereas the Colts Township Board of Education is committed to promoting inclusive practices within educational settings to ensure safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments for all. And whereas collaboration among schools, families, and the broader communication uh community is essential to enhancing awareness and understanding of autism and to furthering inclusive practices that benefit every student. And whereas the Colts Board U Township Board of Education recognizes the ongoing efforts required to advance autism awareness
011and acceptance contributing to the creation of a more compassionate and inclusive envir uh community. Therefore, now therefore, be resolved that the Colts Township Board of Education hereby recognizes April 2025 as Autism Awareness Month in New Jersey. Great. Thank you, Sarah. Um, thank you to all the board members um, you know, who uh, participated in um, purchasing the shirts and wearing them. I know some of you were unable to get them on due to uh, work conflicts. Um, but we want to thank you for your participation. Um, and I just want to make a statement. This board of education is truly grateful for all of our students in our community uh that hold unique traits and we appreciate um uh all that they bring to the Colts Township School District. So, thank you uh very much.
012Um we're going to move on uh to making a motion to approve those action items 1 through 10 at this time. if I could get a roll call or if you have any questions or comments first on any of those uh items one through 10. So one one question number four evaluation what um what are those evaluations? Those are those are part of the development process. They're part of the evaluations that go into students um who are being evaluated as part of their development of their Thank you. Anybody else? Uh, okay. Mr. Morask, if I could please have a roll call. Oh, I'm sorry. A motion first and second. Second. Yep. And a roll call. Yeah. Roll. I said I got to speak up. I'm sorry. Mrs. Cameron, yes. Mrs. Harowitz, yes. Mr. Ro, yes.
013Mrs. Ramirez, yes. Mr. Reagan, yes. Mr. Scales, yes. Mr. Scarpa, yes. Mrs. Vulpi, yes. Mr. Walsh, yes. Thank you. The motion passed unanimously. Okay. Let's see. Um uh if everybody could take note, we have one communications from March 21st. Where's the comments? Yeah. Did I miss that? Hold on. Okay. Um Okay. I missed the um the comments from uh attending constituents. At this time, if anybody would like to get up and uh share a question or comment, they could do so at this time. Please state your name and address for the record. Okay. Nobody at this time. Uh we're going to close public comment. Um and we're going to move forward to our board liaison reports. Uh I'd like to start with um the parent advisory committee liaison, uh Mrs. Horowitz. Thank you. Um, we
014had a very productive set of parent advisory committee meetings this month with a lot of great feedback. Uh, some key topics of discussion were the uh the need for strong communication between parents and teachers. Uh, some parents uh expressed a desire for more consistent communication practices across all uh grade levels and the administration took that under consideration. Um, we also reviewed the current structure of spring conferences. There was some really good dialogue and um, we discussed the possibility of consolidating conference days um, and evenings in the future to help reduce the number of short uh, session days which can be challenging for some working families. We also discussed the concerns with the school lunch program, particularly around pricing, menu availability, and portion sizes. uh to help address that concern. Um a uh representative from Ponttonian
015did I say okay will attend the next um pack meeting in May to engage with the parents. Uh another discussion centered around Chromebook use. So Dr. Garvey um had decided to form a task force to review the uh instructional technology use and uh gather more input from uh teachers, parents and administrators. Lastly, the um we have a date yet for the May um hearing advisory committee, but I'm sure it will announce soon. Uh great, Mrs. Harwoods. Uh can you uh roll into the PTO? Yes. Let me just pull Yep. Take your time. Okay. So, the spring gala was was it last? Last week. Um it was a tremendous success. There were 330 attendees and they're projecting a profit of about $50,000. They'll have the final numbers for their next PTO meeting. Um, some upcoming events
016are the flower sale which is May 9th. Um, the Crest school store is May 15th and the 16th uh flowers will be coming out soon about it. The second grade carnival will be May 31st. And then there are some uh eighth grade items. The lawn signs are available for purchase through April 30th. They're $25 each and you can purchase them at coltsnack or get more information and purchase at coltnackpto.org. Um, if you have it, uh, any eighth graders, they need, um, photos submitted to their photo montage. If you can email to class of 2025 at Coltsneck PTO by April 30th. Um, there will be ads coming out soon about the there'll be information coming out soon about the graduation ads, the eighth grade dance. Um, there will be an invite and sign up and details
017to follow shortly. Um and then they will be collecting baby photos for their ice cream social. Uh they're also going to be sending out a nomination form for volunteer of the year. Honores will be recognized at the PTO general meeting on June 4th. And lastly, the PTO will have a few open positions on their exec board for 2526. If interested, please contact Kim Kaufman at president uh coltsnneckpto.org. There'll be a list on the website soon of all the open positions. Uh, great. Mrs. uh, Horitz, I just wanted to add a comment to that. Um, I attended the gala this year. I was fortunate to be able to, uh, attend this year. Um, I just wanted to thank, they gave out these lovely books. Um, uh, and I wanted to thank all the people that donated.
018There were some awesome donations, uh, this year. I had a fantastic time and it was so great to see all the hardworking moms of our district. um to be able to get dressed up and have a night out and enjoy themselves. Mrs. Rearen attended. She was kind enough to stop by my table, so it was nice to chat with her. And uh all the moms looked absolutely so beautiful. And uh I'm glad they were all able to make it. And I just want to thank the PTO ladies. Um although I don't know uh many of them um since I'm I've been at the PTO for so long. Uh they did such a fantastic job. Everybody involved. uh that was just such an extravagant event and it was well put together and you could see all
019the hard work and dedication they put in for all of our kids. So I want to personally thank them on behalf of this board. Uh so thank you very much. Um moving on, we are going to uh ask Mrs. Cameron to do her uh Col Township report. I'm sorry, newsletter. Yep. Sorry about that. Um, so the second board of education newsletter will be going out shortly after spring break. So be on the lookout for important updates and upcoming events and highlights from the board. That's all. Great. Thank you. Um, Mr. Ragnetta, thank you. Um, for those participating in flag football, uh, if you guys practice like me and Brian do with our team on Thursday nights there at Five Points Road, there will be a soccer game going on, um, on the field. to the
020entrance uh where I know a lot of teams practice at. So, just be aware of that. You might want to change your location for practices on Thursday night. Um, and I want to um give a big congratulations to um the elementary school's choir and primary schools choir and elementary school's band for a great performance last Tuesday. Uh my son was in the band. He did great and everyone did great. They sounded so amazing for their ages and from where they are for just starting out this year. um really really impressed and um think I hope they keep up with it because they've really sent it great. Great. Thank you. Uh Mr. Ragnetta. Yeah, sure. I just wanted to say congratulations to the Colts neck cougars on uh clinching. Some of you know the NJSIA Central
021Group Three Championship. Um your hard work, determination, just bringing home a state victory. Um I'm just very proud of you. So, thank you. Great. Thank you, Mrs. Camera. Um, okay. Moving on to the uh cult col township uh committee liaison. Uh Mr. Scarpa and Mrs. Camera. Either one of you want to report. Should have turned my microphone off. Um at the March at the meeting on March 25th, Brian, Kevin, Angelique, and I attended Mayor Bus announced that Colts Neck Committee meetings will be livereamed. Um the township administrator provided an update on the sewage and roof issues on the municipal buildings and explained how the contractors will address these concerns. No additional expense to taxpayers. There was a special meeting um on April 1st. Angelique attended and the next meeting will be held tomorrow, April 9th.
022Would you like to add anything, Mr. Scarpa? Okay, great. Uh thank you guys. Um, moving on to the uh Col Township senior leazison, Mr. Walsh. Seniors had a great um the Matilda was fantastic by the way. I attended and Angelique I love going to the shows. They're Oh, I'm sorry. You sit next to me. It was It was phenomenal. That's right. Mr. Scarpa sat with us in the front row. I for Yeah. So, uh seniors had an opportunity to attend a dress rehearsal. They were four, but it's a start and that word spreading amongst amongst the senior citizens that come out and attend school events. It's a good time, you know, they they really enjoyed themselves. So, thank you for uh working that whole thing out with Dr. Ry so we can more, you know,
023engage with our senior citizens in the town. They had their meeting at the Cole Snake in on April 2nd. They have a big trip going to Longwood Gardens, which I love to go myself. Maybe I'll get on that bus. It's April 23rd. Um they have a big um trip to Kate May Zoo on May 15th. And I encourage the seniors from conversations with the president to attend our meetings. You know, hear what's going on in our school district. It's all all great things. And um as a representative of the board, we try diligently to really watch the tax impact on our budget, but provide a phenomenal education to our our kids. That's why we sit on the board. So, we try to balance it both and but I'm really uh happy to see that the
024seniors are starting to come back to our schools and see what's happening. That's it. Um Mr. Walsh, I just have a question. I've been meaning to ask you this. I know that you're unable to make the day meetings. Would there would they um allow me to step in for you even though I'm not a senior to just No, you have to be invited. Oh, okay. We have to be invited by a senior cit. All right. Can't walk in. Okay. Well, maybe you could get an invitation for me. Okay. Um Alrighty. Uh moving on to Naval Weapons Station Earl. Um Mrs. Ramirez and Mr. Scarpa. Yes. On um Friday, March 21st, we had a wonderful meeting um here in the administration building. Uh we had CDR James Mccardi filling in for Captain Smith um along with
025our station Earl Leazison Ida. Um Brian and I both attended our superintendent and then various members of um our school community that are integral in um really every aspect of our military families and what role that plays. So, we had um individuals from our uh administration that um helped get our uh military families enrolled when they first moved to the community. Um see them out um when they move away from our community. Um that work in counseling, our uh school principles um else was there. Oh, yeah. Special services. That's right, Dr. Beck. Um so, it was it was a great meeting. We had um a lot of good discussion. Um the overall uh mood of the meeting which is true um in other meetings that I've attended with our um our naval weapons station leaison
026is that we're doing a great job here in this district and that families from our military they they love being here they love coming to our district and they don't want to leave. Um so that was kind of the resounding theme of the meeting. Um but we had an opportunity to discuss with the individuals from our administration uh kind of what we're doing already, what's working, and then um we opened it up to see where we can enhance uh what we're currently already doing. Uh just to note, we do have purple update this Friday as was earlier mentioned. Um so that's a a breakfast here in our district that will be honoring our military families. Uh Phyllis touched on the newsletter that's going out. So, we did discuss how we're going to highlight in our
027newsletter our military families. So, hopefully we have some opportunities to have some maybe some quotes from some students and some picture opportunities during our purple update on uh this coming Friday. Um we talked about uh possibly uh doing some tours uh with some classes on the base. Uh so that's something that um stay tuned for that. Hopefully something will pan from that. Um and uh let me see what else. I'll touch on that afterwards. Oh, our Purple Star uh school status. Um so there is an application for that and so um is still forthcoming. It didn't get released yet, right? Okay. Okay. So, um as of the 25th, it hadn't been released yet. So, um that's still just pending. So, hopefully we have an update on that when it comes to I know Mary Jane
028is waiting on that. So, we can go ahead and uh fill that out. Just to note that is not a district-wide um application and uh uh status um but it's school based rather. So I'm sure we'll be seeking to get all three of our schools um applied for that and see what comes from that. Um and again there was just you know an overwhelming theme of having the entire community here um in Colts neck really benefit from the base and the kids being in our district. Um and uh yeah that was uh that's again overall. Brian, do you have anything to add? Yeah, I think it was a fantastic meeting on the 21st. I I came out energized. I was like, this is what it's all about. It was very very good. Very well represented
029by the school, our administration, and obviously the Naval Weapons Station. Um I did draw on a piece here that I and just checking on this. I think the average stay is about two and a half years per military family, which resonated with me. You know, these folks are coming. They're establishing quick roots in our schools and then they're leaving within two and a half years. But to Jessica's point, uh what we impress on them stays with them for quite a while. So I was thinking like and Jessica and I were thinking about this, how can we sort of uh reflect on that their impact in our school albeit it's a short period of time, but they are leaving a significant impact and this town is very very blessed to have uh the naval weapons station
030here. It makes us very unique. So it's maybe they they can leave a handprint behind or something that resonates on the physical footprint of the school and then maybe they visit in years from now with their families and they were part of our school district. So we are looking into opportunities like that. I would love to see something permanent uh perhaps a plaque associated with the pavilions as we build that out to tie in so they can be well represented. Again, they they may not be here for a very long period of time, but the time that they are here does resonate well and it is a star in our community. So, we want to make sure we reflect that. So, uh we're in the process of thinking about these things and trying to get
031them to over the finish line. Great. That that's an awesome idea, Brian. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Um thank you, Mrs. Ramirez. Um okay, we're moving on to the uh state and county school boards. Um May 6th, uh the Mammoth County School Boards Association is having a hybrid meeting. Uh they are going to be celebrating the teacher of the year. Her name is Sarah Mazone. She's an English teacher in Redbank uh regional high school. She will be recognized uh along with board of ed members um around Mammoth County who have achieved milestones and honors. Um and that's about it. I think they they're still putting out for the uh October um 20 what is it 20 the workshop um in later in October. So if anybody wants to go I don't want to
032keep repeating myself. You could all read those emails and register uh if you if you want to go. Okay. Ending Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, you sure can. So in addition to the the workshop, one of the things they can also talk about are any opportunities for training because boards can actually become board members can become certified uh an you know almost like an accreditation process as can boards in their training. That's an opportunity. So if the board wanted to pursue opportunities of trainings with our representative or even credits that you can get as a board member at workshop, it's something that a board can work towards as well in terms of promoting their board and and and participation as a board member. Okay, we certainly can discuss it. I could learn more. Um I'm
033unfamiliar with that being um you know only a couple years on the board. So yeah, we we can discuss further. Okay. Sure. Okay. We are going to actually move on now to the committee of a whole work session. At this time, we're going to move right into the advoc advocacy and government relations. Um Dr. Garay uh is uh better versed on this uh than I am. So I am going to actually have her lead on uh this um topic. Sure. So I uh in the what basically is there's a large mass action lawsuit that's different um you know law firms are soliciting in terms of boards of education in March of 2024 and again recently in January of uh our district received two separate invitations to join this mass action lawsuit against social media companies
034and in 2024 Goldman Spitzer shared its intentions to file claims on behalf of school districts seeking compensation from social media companies for their role in creating and supporting the social media public health crisis facing our youth today. Um in 2025 February, this past February, we were contacted by a California law firm, which is actually where the actual uh mass action suit originated uh to present the same invitation. Um the group with the board. I I shared with our board attorney Chris Dasty um to get his legal uh opinion on it which I included in um this week's or this last week's um excuse me the uh update excuse me thank you sorry looking at it and I'm looking right at it. So basically uh the the gist of it is is that the contingency fee
035agreement in which the law firms receive 25% of the proceeds. So it's certainly invested to get as many involved in it as possible and any um you know any proceeds that come as or payments that are done as a result of the litigation um it is something that is spread split monetarily among all the districts who join. So it's just something I felt that in terms of wanting to bring it to the board to see if it was something you wanted to join the although there is no cost is certainly which they say takes about three to five hours to fill out and I'm not sure whether that's something district done whether the superintendent would do something like that or that something I would do with our board attorney which doesn't mean which means it's
036not for Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll find out if we could exclude the attorney from it. I would rather go that route if it's a questionnaire regarding um us in our district. I don't know why he would have any say in that anyway, but you know like how we feel about you know uh the social media is that that's what they're going to ask. basically about whether or not we feel that social media is contributing to you know the mental health crisis of the nation that we stand with other langage um because We ourselves use social media right foroting the district we're doing but um definitely I think it's worth it certainly absolutely and getting much information so I'll continue to bring you say the last one after I spoke with you um I asked about
037the timing they said you'd want to join the next meeting where we are I can bring in my next question. I know because that could be very pricey for five hours of um answering questions. Uh okay. All right. Uh let's move on to the ad hoc affordable. One question. Do do they tell us how many districts are in the I'm sure I can get that. Yeah, you know, I don't know where it says I don't know. They're not gonna That's why I'm asking how many there, let's just say sizable law firm. Um, I just want to Is there a link to it to um to the or the invitation that we received that we could just like look at real quick before I can find I can send the link my updates which are just
038descriptions from the two law firms but I think we can dig a little deeper and see what it actually says and like I said exactly what it says because right now it's in the northern it was filed in the northern district of California they referenced the 1500 different school districts the litigation that was resolved against Juel recently so they referenced that so I think they're trying to drum up the same type of interest for that but I can certainly yeah just because I'll Mary Jane I'd say if you could get some answers and some more clarification on more of what it entails and then bring that back to the board whether it's in one of the superintendent updates or um I guess time is of the essence it seems to some extent especially if we
039decide to move forward with it you know so action there is something that says it so right so maybe yeah obviously and I just need to know um who the attorneys are that are involved if they give that information they let you know who the actual like litigation team is I'll just need that yeah it looks like it is that France law group is the it. Okay. But I think but I will certainly make sure that it's there because we also received the same invitation from so I don't know if there's contingency like piggybacking on each other and they get to share that you know 25% of what what it is. So I can certainly thank you to be continued. Yes. Great. Um okay Mr. scales. Can you um yeah report out on your affordable
040housing just informal um we so we were we were officially invited so April 16th at 6:00 pm to 8:00 p.m. will be the first uh subcommittee meeting and that will be held via um Zoom and in person. So, we need to determine um obviously we're going to be representing the board when we're there um the two of us, Mr. Walsh and I. So, when before we do that, obviously, we need to figure out number one, how how are we going to report back to this board from that meeting. That's number one, right? So, normally we have the agenda of the meeting, which we won't get ahead of time. we'll get, you know, a couple days in advance just like we do normally here. So, we have to figure out what sort of the the guidelines
041um are going to be. And then the other number two is we just passed um the other reads of the new bylaws for all the other subcommittees that we just introduced here. This will essentially have to be added to that as well. Okay. So, we'll have to go back um within the next I think our next two weeks or whatever go in and write another paragraph for um that regulation. But we'll need Yeah. But we'll need to know again how in order for me to include language in there. How do we want to report? How do you this board, all of us collectively, how do you want Mr. Walsh and I to report back during the cow meeting during official formalities. We have to decide that because that has to be listed in the verbiage.
042So well it's is is it a le it's a liazison right? It's not a it's not a committee meeting. I mean you can we can do it at um a regular account meeting when we do the liazison reports unless it's something pressing then I certainly would move it up uh into a RAM meeting. I mean if it's something that we have to be notified immediately but I think that's fair. Yeah, leazison don't need to report out minutes for anything. So um the only thing is that even though it's it's a liaison role, it's just the it's the sensitivity of it is what I'm concerned about because the there's there's a sentiment of lack of transparency from that committee from town committees and and such. I again representing the board when I'm there, what our primary
043focus and what I think we're really good at as a board is transparency to our constituents. So I want to make sure that everything that we talk during that meeting is reported directly to the public. Whether it's from on their side of it, what whatever they do, that's for them to decide. But Mr. Walsh and I when we report back, I want it in set in stone and reported back to the public officially. Okay. That's why I want to figure out how how we want to do that because to your point, we don't need there's no formal process. I can do it verbally here. However, I would want some like a like a a write up maybe of minutes of the meeting or something along. Okay. Let me speak to u Mr. Toby had reached
044out to me uh earlier um a while back. So, let me uh reach out to him and find out how he's going to conduct that and then I will certainly report back to everybody. Uh, and what what dates the meeting? 16th. Okay. 6 6 6 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Okay. Be at the um at the conference room in there. I'll get the official word. Um I just accept the invite this morning. Okay. All right. Let me uh let me work on that. And then is there any formal action being taken during that? Don't know yet. That's the thing. So that's what because if there is then the if if you were going to be voting in anything or or anything like that I don't does if you're acting on behalf of the board then there
045might need to be approval from us. But that's what I mean. I don't think there's votes. However, input just input. That's what they're looking for. They're not looking for voting on behalf of us. Okay. Yep. Okay. Um okay. Uh Mr. Scales, was that uh it? Did you complete everything or did you have anything else? No, that's it. Those are just those two things is we're we're in a holding pattern until we figure out sort of again. Um that's sort of that's at step two of all of the work that we've done so far. Uh okay, great. As soon as I find out and I speak with uh Mr. Toby, I will forward you the info. Um Okay. Yes. I'm sorry. We could also um when we uh had the resolutions and the affordable housing we
046created on the board of education website an affordable housing tab that is has the documents of the study and the impact sheet all those things those that's a almost seems like a it's if it's in conjunction with the planning board and we could make a subfolder that just has that information. And so if they're just town minutes, like that there are minutes from those meetings, we could just be putting them on there as an additional place where people could find the minutes unless there was something you wanted to do authentically originally, just like a summary or something. At least that's the place where we're Okay. Maybe just a suggestion. That's it. Okay. Thank you. Um, buildings and ground safety and security. Uh, Mr. Walsh. I requested your mic's not on. Oh, there it is. There
047it is. How you doing? I requested the uh architect that did a proposal for a roofing on all three schools. The roofing proposal is over $3 million, which is significant. My questions are a few. With the new solar panel installation and ESIP project, were the majority of the roofs repaired? Is there a need for a $3 million installation on existing roofs in the school? I wanted to appreciate the invitation that was sent out to the architect and explain, you know, the need why you feel it should be the uh roof should be installed in our district. explain the from you know the cost anal uh the cost factor and you know are are there any ways that short of a new roof it can be you know solved that's so I' like appreciate you coming
048and giving the presentation to the board I also wanted Nick being our our facility manager to come and give your input yeah appreciate it so Seems like we always talk about and and just a few more questions. And just a few more preliminary questions. I'm sure you're going to get to them. So just obviously there's three schools. We have three plans here. So we're just looking at Cedar Drive just by way of reference. Uh can you explain there's no legend here. Can you explain what TPO bur and MOD bit mean? Also go into the warranty aspects. I'm sure you're gonna cover that because Nick, when we were on site, you did express that some roof portions portions were covered under warranty. So, we shouldn't have to cover address those now. I don't see any of
049that being represented here. And then, but by my by my rudimentary count, according to this, it's 8 for 24, one for 22, four sections for 23, 5 for 25, and two for 26. and but four eight nine 10 12 13 that's 13 sections that should have happened yesterday year so according to these numbers so interested in how you came up with those numbers again and scale that to all three schools and Mr. Moretta Mr. Hopkins I just want to take a opportunity to introduce Mr. Hopkins I know he's new to to introduce mh Mr. Ted Hopkins is is with FBHD Architects. He's been part of our uh he's been part of our professional services for the board um since I've been here and so uh it's uh welcome and a lot of information to share
050but I wanted to make sure that there was a formal introduction to you to the board as well. So I appreciate Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Um my name is Ted Hopkins. Uh you can call me Ted. It's William David, but we won't get into that right now. Um Ted Hopkins. So, you know, I've I've been with the district for over 10 years. Um, a number of years ago, uh, brought these kind of with me. Uh, we did a comprehensive facility study and part of that was the entirety of the buildings, including the roofs. Uh, we we did not have at that point in time, uh, and I'm going to update that in a moment, a a good handle on when exactly the roofs were running out of quarantine. at at that
051time. Uh we also did a just a roofing condition study back in 2021 for the district back in September about three and a half years ago. And we outlined a a basically a uh a 10-year maybe it was eight-year uh look at at each of the of the roofs and their condition. Uh I would I would never say that anything that is under warranty is good. I would never say that anything not under warranty is not good. Uh it needs to be assessed for what it is. Uh the type of roof it is and and uh you know we make recommendations as to when they should be replaced. Um you know there's there's a uh in in my in my world you can either be proactive or reactive. uh that is entirely up to the
052board and and I give them a lot of respect for making those difficult decisions based upon the the amount of monies that are that are limited to a capital budget. Um I've been doing this for 30 years u and been at at the uh FBHD before it was FBHD uh for for that time. I became a partner about 15 years ago. Uh roofing is is a good part of our part of our our work. We we do a lot of it. Um my former partner John Vice was a forensics expert and he taught us what what we know and uh not complicated but there are some major you know decisions that have to be made in order to to kind of move forward with a roofing replacement. Recognize that that the uh the numbers may
053seem um high and I can certainly walk you through that. One of the questions you asked me uh was what is tpo bur uh mod bit and uh shingles. I think I can take care of that one. TPO is thermal plastic. It's kind of a a coating if you will over top of a insulation system. U BUR is a builtup roof. It's a multi-layered um old uh system. It's an older system. Not a lot of builtup roofs done lately. It's the one with the aggregate is on top of the roof. Small, think of it as small stones. I don't know if any of you walk roofs. I walk a lot of them. You probably don't. Um, but it but there are small stones that kind of um uh kind of seal into the into the
054top of the uh top of the roof and uh kind of keeps it stable. It it can flow a little bit. Um and and you don't really have anything on at least the first one. Try that again. Those are mostly flat roofs. What you're describing the building? Yes. Yes. Uh and and flat is a relative term. Uh Vincent, as you know, uh back in the day, there were flat roofs and the water would just kind of work its way to the nearest drain. Eventually, a lot of evaporation, but it work its way. Uh nowadays, uh to meet the code, we recommend a quarter inch uh per foot slope. That helps the water get to the drain faster. We also recommend, which you don't have on any of your roofs right now, an R30, which is
055an RV value uh relative uh to what they were when they were built 15, 20 years ago, which is probably started at 15 and they're probably coasting down to about 12 or 11. Not giving you a lot of good R value. The code is R30 right now. So, we would recommend uh when we do this to go to an R30. that was in the proposal that I that I I gave to to Vincent. Um that's very important and those two things are are highly important and I think even for the future of Colts neck and any roof that you would want to do after that. If you have a quarter inch per foot and you have R30, you're never going to have to rip the roof again. I will say that again. You'll never have
056to rip the roof again. R30 is the highest R you would go. After that, it becomes superolous. An R35 and R40 and R45 gives you no better value than an R30. It's a line. I'm going to say R30. R30 is the is the code. I can't imagine it going any higher than that. You do a quarter inch per foot. You can do certainly better than that, but I think at that point, you're just basically ripping off the the top membrane, whatever that may be, keeping the insulation, doing any other insulation replacement uh that's necessary that might have been damaged, and then just going over it again. Your roofs are not there yet. Your roofs don't have a quarter inch per square inch uh slope, and they're not at at R30s. Until we get to that
057point, I would always strongly recommend doing an R30 roof with a quarter inch per foot slope. that's going to help the water get off the roofs very very quickly. Two of the roofing systems that are on here are an EPDM roof. Everybody knows that as a rubber roof. Uh it's come a long way. It really has. Uh the the warranty is 30 years. Uh you can get a 20-year roof, you can get a 25-y year roof, but the value to go from a 20 to a 30 is almost insignificant. It's maybe 10%. It's a deal. you should take it. Um, but our uh a 30-year warranty is is really really good. And what that means, I know somebody would probably ask, is basically they would take care of any leak for 30 years without being
058having to pay for it. Why? The membrane's a little bit thicker. Uh the um I'll call it the seams are a lot better than they were even 10, 15 years ago. And they have confidence that it can last that long. And that's the only that we do if we do EPM anymore. Rarely do a 20-year roof. Um, and the other system that we do is a mod mod bit. It's a it's a two ply system. Uh, that is a much more expensive system. Uh, but it is a uh a modified bumen. So, it's a multi-layered asphaltic roof uh with a I'll call it a a fine granle top. Um, and uh, it it's a very effective roof. I recommend it all the time. I actually replace the roof on my building and I used a
059modified pitchman roof. My building is only 10,000 square feet. Uh, but that value is is good. So, a modified bitchman roof is good. when you start exploding to the amount of roofs that you have in your building, 40,000 50,000 that's under under the proposal, the the delta can be significant. So, that's something to take into consideration for the value that I believe and I just talked to somebody on the phone a couple days ago uh that was in this gentleman's chair. He said, not not him, but his his chair. He said, "I don't know why anybody would do a modified pitchman roof just from a cost perspective alone. I tend to agree with that. When you get to a certain square footage, I think it it it's it's a great roof. Uh it's a two-
060ply roof as opposed to a EPDM roof, which is a single ply. Uh but the R value is the same. The pitch is the same. You're paying for that extra layer on top. And it's and it's great, but I don't know if it can make up for the the dollar value delta. Let me just say that. So, having said all that, I just want to um when when we did the report a number of years ago, uh we did this drawing. We did these drawings as part of that. So, this was what it was uh three and a half years ago. And I understand uh this gentleman here was kind enough to walk me on the roofs. Uh showed me what was being planned with the ESIP uh and other uh things that are going
061on. And basically what you see in green is is the balance of the what's not going to be taken care of. So that answers the question, Mr. Walsh, what was done during the ETE versus what's left over. Yeah. So everything in green was what wasn't done during the right. Then the only exception to that is on the first one, Cedar Drive. Number four is your pitched roof. You guys did that four or five years ago, three, four years ago, something like that. You guys did that and and uh we helped a little bit. We didn't do it, but we helped a little bit with the existing uh director of facilities and you're able to take care of that uh under that that install. Everything else that you see in green is the balance of what's
062not going to be done in the EIP. These roofs are no longer under warranty anymore. They're not under warranty. To answer your question, the warranties that we have majority are at the elementary school. We only had one area left at Cedar Drive school and that area was actually done during the So the only warranty we have left is the core of the building. If you remember when we walked the elementary school, the core of the actual building and the primary school first because those warranties are done. So it gives us a little time still to do the roots that are need to be done now. We still have a two-year window until we have to get correct. Uh they were all put in 2007. Well, uh the green ones actually the greens were before that.
063All the warranties were put in 2007. The I would say 30 years. What's that? He was asking for the areas that are in green when they were put in when they're at least 20 years ago. Absolutely. Absolutely. Everywhere. Yeah. And thank God we have the warranty at the elementary school. Um I don't want to put it on the spot, but Miss McCormack's office has been leaking like a s for the last three weeks. But thank God we've had the warranty coming here five times and they're about to do almost a $10,000 repair as a part of that warranty. Something that we would normally have to pay. Correct. professional fac. The best thing we could do outside of putting in a new roof is doing what we did with the you know coming in and doing
064a type of um you know type of spray or you know like a foam spray or a version of the um the roof you mentioned earlier. Uh that's the best we could do is you're talking about something a quick fix. Otherwise, we're just talking about repairs and removing and At that point, there's no warranty with that. You know, I could recote myself. I can go buy the bucket. I can go on top of the roof. I can do it myself. Then we're just if it leaks, I have to I got to hire someone anyway. So, really, the best thing we can do with the roof truthfully is the warranty. And we are saving so much money at the elementary school with the warranty right now as a prime example. And I've utilized the warranty myself
065since I've been here at least 15 20 times. I can only imagine the tune of how expensive that would be if we had to pay out of pocket. So, green. So, if you could explain that a little bit more. What does green on all these maps mean? Green means it hasn't been done yet, Mr. Scale. So that's So it hasn't been done. You're recommending it. It needs to be done. 100%, sir. Absolutely. It's um majority of our roofs are all leaking. Uh Ted saw them when he went up there with me. I mean, we're talking some of them are older, actively leaking. Some of them are older than 20 years. So the whole elementary school is leaking basically. Uh the elementary school, thank God, the majority of the green is actually right now, sir. The
066elementary school is completely warrantied because the areas on the outside have solar. So those roofs were just redone and the green is under warranty till 2027. So at the moment the elementary school is actually completely under warranted. So green means under warranty but it's not no green means it needs to be done but it's not doing well. So green means needs to be replaced. Green means it needs to be replaced but it's still under when is it under warranty? So this school has no warranty left. This school is under warranty. This is under warranty to 2027. So we have about two years left. So, is there is there a way to kind of rejig these to show us like what sections would cost us money and what sections wouldn't cost us any money? It's the
067green on here. Yeah. So, the green is going to cost So, this all the white is stuff that we just did. So, that's warranty for 16 years. It won't cost us anything going forward. The green is what's going to need to be replaced and it's going to cost us. But you you were you were pointing to green on here and said that's under warranty only at the elementary school. Only at the elementary school. The middle school and the primary school have no warranty. So then the green. Okay. So the green needs to be done. One portion needs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was not updated for that purpose. point replacement associated with it. Yeah, basically took an old doc and you slapped on what was done by eet and kept all the old numbers. Uh
068it's my it was my numbers. Again, the documentation as to when these were under warranty and when they weren't was not available in 2021. I could not get that information. I have better information now after two weeks of speaking with this gentleman than I did before. Yeah, I found the warranty when I got here. So, I wor I reached out to TMCO who I worked with in my past when I was in Patterson and the gentleman who I knew there said, "Hey, by the way, you have roofs under warranty." And that's how we got this information. Well, everything's unknown under warranty because everything under warranty information says unknown. So, I mean again just just I mean we're splitting hairs but just so we know like again are these green of what needs to be replaced
069basically like what's going to cost money what's not and then yellow is yellow mean like that's a major issue no yellow yellow was just a a way when I was walking around u and I I mentioned that the canopy you know obviously it's not as critical because it doesn't house anything underneath of it it's just a canopy okay so we could do that as an alter So, it's like a soft the numbers came in. Great. We could certainly do that. Yeah. But the canopy, it it didn't look great, but again, there was nobody really, you know, housed underneath of it. So, I I took it from that perspective. Focus on on the areas where their kids Yeah. and staff and then that could be an alternate bid. And that's why I leave unlike years ago
070on everything is what we should that's what I'm looking at. Everything with a pitch is unlike years ago, we took out the canopy. There used to be a wraparound canopy in front of the elementary school. We did remove that years ago. It was damaged from the storms and things like Right. So that came down. So that used to have a different facade in the in the was there because like everything else it's you almost 30 years old. Might even be older than that probably. So just something to keep on the lookout in case we have to take it down, remove it, replace it, etc. So the stuff that's like again that you showed that's still under warranty that's that's green that needs to be replaced like that's something that we would have to approve quickly
071to still get everything done under warranty. Uh warranty would expires for the elementary school in 2027. So our thought proc of 26 we would conquer the middle school and the primary school since those warranties are void. Yeah. And it gives us another year till we get to the elementary school. So and then we would kind of be replacing it right as the warranties expire. Yeah. because that's like I mean the way that I would look at it right if I was doing like a project plan and again this is me being in software sales so apologize but it's more of like phase one would be this project phase two would be this project phase three would be this and then the dollar amounts of all of those phases whether or not it's going to be
072under warranty and then because warranty unfortunately it's time right time is money like we have to hurry up and and get that done otherwise every hour is going to cost us money. And then my my last question is from like all the like eloquently like the different types of roofs and thing like that where are the materials manufactured from? Do we know like if we were to we were to select like United States? It is all United States. Everything's United States. Okay. Perfect. All right. So we don't So we're not up against tariffs. N sir. All right. Thank you. Most of everything that should be bought I say should. Yeah. And it's in our specification. There is a New Jersey made in America law. Yeah. U things sneak around and they get perhaps, you know,
073brought across the border when components and so forth, but fabrication and and most components should be made in the United States. Roofing, it's a no-brainer. Everything's in the United States. Do you feel this is a critical need for district to pursue this? I do, sir. Yes. Um when I got here, the roofs were extremely bad. It's one of the reasons one of the reasons we did we did the solar in the east to be honest with you. Obviously, the energy savings that we're going to make from the solar is huge. We're talking almost 55% of our bills offsetting, which is amazing. But the other side of it was going to get the roofs done. And at the time, that was Mr. Masco and Mer and I quickest fix to get the majority of those roofs
074done. And if you actually look, we got about 50% of the roofs done at the middle school, which was pretty significant. We got about 33% done at the elementary. It wasn't great for the core of the building with solar is all driven by how much light you can take in and everything. And the primary school, we did well, but the primary school, um, we just have one small section left to do. It's actually not that big. Um, and the primary school for the most part is all metal roofs, which is made supposed to be last 40 years, I believe. So, we have at least another uh, you know, 10 to 120, I think. The whole point of us wanting also discussing this is now with the 16-year warranty that we got from the EIP and
075working along with Mr. Hopkins here and fixing the rest of the roofs. We'll be looking at 25 20 to 30 years of of warranted roofs. And that's a huge component where we start talking about what we want to do inside the building because, you know, constantly I'm being asked, you know, and I I want I like doing the fun stuff. roofs and it's not the fun stuff. No one cares about roofs. No one cares about boilers, HVAC. But we it's really important for you. I don't want to do the inside all that work, sir. And then it rains and it ruins it and then I got to come to you and tell you we have to buy all new furniture because the leak came through the ceiling. So what we're trying to do is we're
076trying to close up the building envelope and make and move our way inside. And you know, a lot of our stuff is, you know, our schools are old and especially at the elementary and the middle school. The primary school not so much, but even that's not new anymore. And sir, your is also the working with the switch gear, correct? switch gear. Yeah. Can you explain the need for a switch gear room and Well, that was that was a a ride grant that happened in 2023. Um was a request of the district. We came out to look at the gear. Um it is original to the building. Yeah. Original to the building 1963. I'd like to tell you that as I've learned over the years that it it's forever. It it's not it has a life
077shelf. I mean, think think of it from that perspective. uh wiring is maybe even worse because once the wiring goes and the conduits go and everything else uh it creates brown outs and blackouts. Uh the gear is is essential. Uh I've seen more brown outs and blackouts in my career in the last 5 years than I've ever seen. It's because a lot of schools are built in the 1950s and60s and it's time. Uh it doesn't last forever. It does have a lifes and if I could chime in the other part of it too is that we're adding so much to it now. We're bringing in more electrical components. I just we just put HBC in a classroom in the building. So, there's not much left on that I keep tapping into. Yeah, it it does.
078It does have a time frame on it and and you're getting very very close to the end. So, Vincent asked my engineer to come out. It's actually beyond its useful life. He was that beyond its use. Oh, yeah. 58 and he came out did an analysis. We put it as a ride grant. So, that that is a a good thing. Uh can be done at at 40 on the dollar from from the state's perspective. You're paying 60. Uh so that is, you know, a good deal. Um I did reook at the numbers after we spoke after we uh it's not as bad as I thought. The number that I looked at was was the I looked from the 131. I won't get into the weeds, but it's much closer to the dollar value that that
079I said it would be. So it's actually pretty close. Um right now it's about 825. I think the original number was about 800. I think we're going to be anticipating a proposal. Yeah. Yeah. Based upon based upon the project and it is worth while adding that it's a year lead time just right now they're apparently they're right a year lead time. It's a year out. So if you want to do it for next summer we would have to be out to bid and award May Juneish and I say May I don't mean to be sarcastic. I'll say June to get it shop drawings and then wait a year. It takes that long. It's one of the few industries that have not recovered from CO. Um, insulation was a problem for the first year for roofing.
080They solved it in a year. U electrical components, generators, gear have not have just gotten their act together. They're still a year out. They were a year out five years ago. They're still a year out. Used to be able to get them very quickly. Once um once it starts, what's the time frame we're looking at for each school? The the roofs and um can multiples be done at the same time? Uh the you want me to go if you say anything wrong, I'll Yeah, um the plan ideally would be to go out to bid sometime in the early fall next year. Gives us plenty of time to collect our bids. We always have the power to reject them. We don't like the numbers or we want to try and go, you know, rephrase and go
081back out. You always have the power to do that. But the idea would be to go back out to bid in early fall with the anticipation that we would do the work next summer. To answer you if you could do both schools. The answer is I would say definitely because the primary school is such a small area. It's we just missed one little area as part of the far right over the cafeteria and we're about to actually do repairs there. Sorry. I meant the the time frame of the repairs itself for your school. What's the time frame for that? How long would it take for the repairs itself? For the actual roof work? Yeah. Uh I would say a couple months. You mean for this working green? Yeah. for each of the school. Oh, you're
082looking at maybe a maybe a month and a half. Maybe a month and a half at the most. Okay, perfect. It really depends on the cruise. You probably do it in three weeks if you wanted to, but that's not how they would set it up. You're looking between four and six weeks. Okay, perfect. Plenty of time. But we want to get this conversation started now. So, we would be easily prepared to have the conversation in the fall if we decide to do it and go out to bid. So, at least then we'll have plenty of time to assess the bids and see what the timeline is. If we still want to go forward, The only thing that I would offer that in addition to that, and he's right in everything he said, is if you
083were to go out for a roofing bid today, you're going to be at the very max end of the price. If you go out for a bid in, I'll say October, November. Contractors like to lock in their bids to get work for the for their guys, and that's the way it works. And the earlier you go out, better number you're going to get. So, I would recommend an October, November awarding no later than I'm going to say December, early January at the latest. It locks them in. They they give the best prices they can and it just drifts higher as you get closer and closer to the summer. It's just the way it works. As the summer comes, everyone realizes, I rose, let me try to go out to bid and then all of a
084sudden there's already gone. Yeah. And everybody's loaded up and if you're going to do it, they're going to they're going to take an aggravation factor on top and you'll you'll pay for that. They'll do it for you. But it's gonna Yeah. Gentlemen, this is incredibly important. Uh, and thank you very much for this detail and I appreciate the way you approach, you know, making sure it's water sealed before we do infrastructure work on the inside. Talk to us about warranties, you know, like warranties, you know, go a car sale. Oh, but it doesn't cover this. Tell me in your experience, what is warranty going to cover and what it's not going to cover? Because chances are this will be in we'll be calling on the warranty 10 years from from now, right? And like future
085boards are going to have to deal with it. We want to make sure we set them up right. What's a warranty? It It's a very uh straightforward question. It's a very straightforward answer. Leaks. No, no, I know what it's uncovered, but like I'm giving you the answer. If it creates a leak, yeah, they will take care of it's okay. If mold if you start to see something, but it hasn't gotten to the point of leak, they won't fix it. But if it leaks, they'll come out and they'll fix that leak. Okay. So, you have to show leak. How about act of God and like hurricanes and stuff like that? Right. Does it cover that? That's what we have insurance for. That's the insurance, not not them. Okay. And one more question. Let's say the company
086goes out of business. The one that's providing the warranty. What happens then? I get that all the time. Great question. Um, we deal with manufacturers that are longstanding and I've in my 35 years never come even close to that. You're always backed up by the manufacturer, not by the contractor. So that's the difference. That's a great question. The contractor is obligated to take care of that roof leak for the first two years. Used to be five, now it's two. The manufacturer will call on somebody after that. And they'll call a contractor that deals specifically with their system, whatever that may be, be it EPDM or modified bid, it doesn't really matter, and they'll take care of that for the next 28 years. Okay? So, the first two years is by contractor. Is it likely that
087the contractor is going to go out in two years? No. But even if he does, I still got the manufacturer. Gotcha. Okay. And and the and the manufacturers that we recommend are very long lasting and we would never do Joe's roofing and and Joe's manufacturing really. That's the that's the uh if you're going to make the the analogy, we stay with the major major players. Okay. So, the contractor is going to come and go. It's the product the product supply that's the backbone behind it. And are the warranties transferable? Like say the building no longer is a school and it becomes something else. thinking hypothetically are warranties transferable. Absolutely. So it's transferable to you realize that thanks for asking. Absolutely. Okay. So it's transferable to the product, not necessarily. It's a roof. It's not a
088building. They don't care what's underneath of it or it's become it's it's a roof and they'll they'll man, you know, they'll take care of it for that 30 years. And and after, by the way, I mean, you're at the end of of of your warranties. If any, let's say you didn't do it, let's say you're into your, you know, beyond, they'll still come out and fix it. They'll just have to charge you for it. Of course. Of course. That's what we're trying to avoid. When I was up on the roof, I saw the gentleman stick his two fingers, actually two hands underneath of one of the plies and he lifted it up right in front of me. That's not supposed to happen. Just not supposed to do that. Which one? Which school? Elementary. Number one.
089Well, that's what I was going to That was my last thing. Like, I can show you where it was. We have to hurry. I can show you that. We don't have to overtake. They're coming every week. Yeah. So, that's supposed to happen. That's actually a really good example. So, that's an example of how the warranty is helping us. So, they've had a leak in the front office in room three at the elementary school for a couple weeks now. The warranty company has been out four times in three weeks. I have pages of reports of all the they've done over 27 leak repairs all for free as a part of the warranty. They realized recently that it's not stopping it because I'm still calling them every day. So, now they're put together putting together a plan.
090I should hopefully have it soon in the next day or two. That's going to they're pretty much going to sounds like they're going to coat the roof area for us because it's just too expensive for them to keep coming out and making repairs. So, in this situation, we're going to get 10 to 12,000 worth of work for free. So, that's in roofs. I'm that's my thing. Like when we were when we discussed the um solar and we discussed the kind of roofs that they were going to put on with the solar, as long as it came with a warranty, I was okay with it because that's when you really get into trouble when you're just on your own with a roof less or whatever it is and he moves it from A to B. that
091has its own mind. You move, you stop the leak here, 3 days later the leak is 5T to the right. You can't explain how it got there. So really a warranty in roofs in schools, flat roofs and everything are worth more than gold truth. So Nick, it's an excellent point. I promise you, this is my last question. I look at this as a shared service opportunity. You look at this as green and white, right? Green is one company, white will likely be another company. So let's say we have a leak on would you say we have to replace green? We have to replace green. We have to replace green. Let's say we have a leak on on green or we have a leak on white that's flowing over to green. Now we have a compet
092like between EIP and the new installer. I think hypothetical all the time. How can that get how can that get digested here? I don't get that question very often, but I have to be honest with you. It it's more than likely not going to happen. Areas of roofing are usually divided by dividers, by a rising wall, by something that really helps you clearly delineate one roof versus another. Um, you may get something underneath, but the origin would be the place that you would start and that would be the where you would look for the warranty to take care of under the roof where it's happening. Because I gotta be honest with you, he's right. I mean you a water you know can go underneath and then it just hits a beam and runs. But usually
093that's stopped by a rising wall that that's where that beam also stops. Okay. So good question. But it's usually pretty clear. I haven't ever come across that where two guys are looking at each other like hey that's mine that's yours. Doesn't happen. Well one's a solar panel leading roof with infrastructure on top and the other one just going to be pure roof. Right. So correct ones require extra work to actually get to the problem. I've seen these things happen before with solar panels. It's a nightmare. So, that's one of those done a lot of them. It depends on how they're secured to the roof, what kind of mechanism, whether it's ballasted or whether it's tied in. Uh I don't do many tie-ins. I do a lot of ballasted roof. It sits on a on a
094on a Well, it sits on a piece of roofing in addition to the roof and and the the the metal shield. It sits on that additional. So, it really don't have a lot of digging. It could slide a little bit. I have seen that. But usually that protective layer gets you between that that basically that aluminum chassis, if you will, and the actual roof itself. Okay. It gives it a little bit of a buffer. And you I don't know if you remember on the roof, Mr. Scar, but we had that there was actually about about 6 to 8 in between the roof and the actual And that's for all the That's where that got sold. Yep. 100%. Thank you. I I just want to call out to what Vince and I I just pulled up
095the 2022 report uh that we had in the roofing study which we were looking at and the recommended years that were in there. So we can reshare that. It's in the share dry but we'll put that out to the board again in the update. So you can see like for example for at the elementary school in the floor plan um in where we're looking at nine on the piece of paper in front of us nine and 10 were recommended in the 2022 study to be done in 2022 that summer we covered it in the EIP. So when areas once we got the solar you know um evaluations and where things are going taking advantage of that. So that one is colorcoded from the 2022 study with regards to areas years of recommendation. There you go.
096That's exactly what it is. It has many more colors of the rainbow on the study, but it is and again it was a projection from 2021 as to whether uh which roofs will be done. Some roofs are going to do better over years, some roofs are not. Some roofs get get worse u in a very short amount of time. So it was a projection, but thank you. That's so but for the for the sake of this conversation adding in the warranty information, the known whatever is known at this point in time. Absolutely. Yeah, perfect. Um, it's also worth noting that with the warranty, um, it's also extremely important as far as, um, trying to support this nicely. Yeah. Um, the best part about it truthfully assert is that there's a nice pass from the next
097from one person to the next. So, like hypothetically, if I ever leave or you know, whatever the situation is, it's much easier for the next people to just pick it up. Like you were saying earlier, leaving the next board with something easier to take over. It's one it's a huge headache to leave for the next board or the next facilities manager or the next city anyone to not have to worry about because that is always the biggest hit. I know the number is shocking and it is high but um I don't want to be that guy but four or five more years it's going to be almost double. So that's a nice thing too about going out to bid now. It locks us in with pricing for a project that we're not going to do
098for almost two years from now. I have one more question. Uh as far as the warranty goes, let's say the roof leaks and it causes damage elsewhere in the building. Does the warranty cover the the repair of that other damage? How does that work? No, no, no. The it's really just the roof. My experience. Yes. And the other part of warranty too is you can't touch it. I like our warranty that we have now that's expiring. If I was to try to go upstairs and make some do some work myself or do it in house or hire a guy in, it would void the warranty. So that's why it's really important to have it because you like that's why I'm just beating up the company every day because they are the ones who have to
099fix it. It's their responsibility. One of the things that we do is try to mitigate that for you and and provide uh the best systems and also some of the best service that will come out and and we know who they are. We're doing it for a long time. I know who the the the good companies are that will come out uh that day or let's say early the next day. He makes a phone call. Uh they're out there right away. That's a company that's that's really good and you want to have as as your part of your team. If I call them and give it like they ask for level one, two or three. If I say level three, they're given and that's extremely important. Where are most of the leaks? Were they in
100the gym? Uh the majority of the leaks. These uh actually are not the gym, sir. The majority of the leaks are in the top right corner near the music room. Um that area. You also have a lot of leaks in the eighth grade commons in the back. Um the eighth grade commons was built in 98, so it's almost uh 30 years old at this point. Um but the commons have a lot of leaks in the back left. And uh currently there's a lot of uh I'm actually about to do uh some repairs on Friday. We have leaks over the um art room at the middle school. Pretty bad. U Mr. Ma, I just have a a concern. Are you guys monitoring um mold growth from all these leaks? Absolutely. Because that is a serious issue
101uh especially with children, breathing issues. It could cause a number of health uh health things. So, I just want to make sure that we're on the one issue is the leak, but then Okay. I'm a big health and safety guy. Health and safety is always my first priority. Um I indoor quality. I can do my own testing. So, yes. Okay. Great. I just want to make sure that the kids are being always. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. In fact, I appreciate you saying out loud. I used to say the N word. We do. We actually don't. No, we never actually in the hallway hear someone say you don't want to mention mold to me, but the M word. Yes. It's like a speestous. It's the a word. No one actually says as freaks everybody out. Okay,
102great. I appreciate uh like Voldemort as he said. You just don't say it. Just don't say it. Okay, great. Thank you. As long as you're alerted to that. Terrific. Absolutely. Um Okay. Is there anything else? Uh Mr. Walsh. Yeah. We'll clean up the charts for you. We get it back to We'll update everything accordingly. To echo that a lot of questions, Brian, your mic. Your mic. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure that we're going to replace the mics. I think uh uh to echo it is a lot of money on the table. There's a lot of responsibility. We make sure that we're taking care of this the right way and we take our role very seriously. So, we appreciate the time, due diligence, and exchange for back and forth. And there will be
103more questions. More importantly, our kids are under the roof. So, absolutely. Yes, of course. Make sure And and there's also ways to, you know, it's it's a process, right? So if we don't so want to do in two years, you do it in three summers. But the whole point is that we do it accordingly enough that in 20 years from now, 30 years from now, it'll be the same process again. People taking it over, we'll see the warranties expiring and they could start off at seed drive, primary, and elementary. So what we that's really what we're trying to do. If somebody were to ask me to your point, what would be the most important thing you can do to your buildings? There's two things. You're taking care of it with the HBAC and roofing. So
104you're protecting the whole that's where 90% of water is going to come into your building. You can't get some through windows and some through the walls. That happens. Roofing is is is a major major piece. So I would say that HBAC. So you're doing the right thing by looking at and our buildings are our areas of solace, right? If we ever had a serious issue in town, everyone's going to use the schools. That's why we have the generators. That's why we have everything ready, right? That's where people are going to come. It would be pretty I would hate to have everyone come there because of this. Everyone can't go home and it's just leaking everyone on top of everything else. It's also a good thing because we don't have, you know, areas. We don't have
105a PAL in town. We don't have uh, you know, there's there's no wreck building. It's us. We're everything schools. We're the we are the most valuable asset in this district is our schools at this town. Questions. Any other questions? Um, I think uh I I think we can move on. Yeah. We appreciate uh the presentation. Thank you both. Yeah. Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um Mr. Walsh, you want to close uh your uh report with anything or Okay. All right. Thank you. Um okay, we are going to move on to curriculum. Um Mrs. Camera, if you want to start with that, please. Um, so we'll start with the 2025 summerbridge update. As of 32825, there are 106 students registered for the summerbridge program. Yes, 106. The enrollment breakdown of the program
106is as follows. This is just from Dr. Garby's um superintendent report. 63 are enrolled in academic. 21 are enrolled in instrumental, 22 are enrolled in musical theater. Um so I think that's wonderful. And then an idea I had was um I don't know if we're allowed to do this, but having maybe high school students who want to earn their volunteer hours of for um community service, are they allowed to Well, yes, they are. We've actually had high school volunteers. Oh, wonderful. If they if they're doing it, they'll we'll do an approval as volunteers. We've done that for like cheerleading. We've done that for different things. Great. So, and and last year we had some former students that came back to help volunteer. So, great. And how do we get the word out to them? Well,
107I think it's based on the the need, too. So, I think that um I I'd speak back with Dr. Reynolds and and the teachers of those programs as we're they're looking to see who's running those programs and have them Okay. coordinate. Great. Yep. Okay. Um I have a question. When um when you take volunteers, do you screen them on any type of um you know, I mean, they're still children, but there are security issues. They're not the same as our employees. So, they are they do have to go through our volunteer training type of thing. Um, but they they don't have to be fingerprinted and stuff. So, especially if they're uh high school kids or whatnot, we don't do that. Okay. They go through our training process. Okay. Okay. Um, anything else for number one?
108Be good. Okay. All right. Moving on to two. Um, so the, uh, reports, the 2324 New Jersey performance reports were just released. Um, I sent everyone the two, um, emails. I don't know if you got a chance to look at them. So, the reports highlight our academic performance in um, ELA, math, and science along with uh, something that stood out to me was our very favorable uh, teacher student ratios. Um, based on this, we are 7 to1, which is much lower than many of the surrounding districts. Um so we are within meeting both for ELA and mathematics. Um the report said 72.2% for ELA, 70.9% for mathematics. And um I didn't know I did ask Dr. Garbeay if we could put this on our website the performance report links. I don't know if they're already
109on or we were waiting till after the meeting. We do that annually and we also send a messaging out to let people know that they're available and if they have any questions to contact us. We also you know once everything we I shared u the finance meeting there's also comparative data that starts to go on where we look at state county and uh DFG as well. Great. So um yeah this information is obviously beneficial encouraging for our whole community to see. And then I did look at some of the other surrounding um towns out of curiosity and I noticed that both um Little Silver and Rumson were two of the few that were exceptional. And I just thought maybe we can learn a little bit about their curriculums and some of their instructional practices. That
110was just an idea I had because um where I teach, you know, we're much more similar to where Colts Neck is, but they really um they stood out. So just you know for great teacher practice and in general just learning about it. So that was just a recommendation I had. Um I have a question. Oh I'm sorry. No I was going to say yes kudos to the colleagues. We we do a lot of that's part of um so back I want to say it was probably in 2020 20 uh 2012 2011 um when the standards and online testing started and whatnot um myself and four other people curriculum director started the Mammoth County Curriculum Consortia which is a lot bigger organization now we do a lot of shared PD training and stuff and it was
111basically for those reasons what are you doing I want to know how you're doing and what you're doing so we collaborate a lot on the resources we're using the in the professional development. We share a lot of professional development. They'll come to us, we go to them, they well, you know, the organization itself will have one speaker for everybody. So, it's really been a place, but um yes, and they they're like us. So, we're very much um with regard to the actual resources themselves. Um we have found we're pretty similar across the board as you know kind of in terms of what they're doing, but sometimes we we a couple years ago we looked at time looked at what's the time allocation for language arts. We made some adjustments based on time and feedback that
112our then literacy coach did a full dive in with um time research, you know, with being able to see how much with there's recommendations from the programs for the amount of time that you allocate for the implementation of things. And we want to make sure that if we're implementing and adopting curriculum and resources that we're also implementing them with fidelity and the amount of time that's needed for them. So we've adjusted things through the years for that as well. Yeah. Yes. So I absolutely wholeheartedly support that. Yeah. I'm just I'm curious mostly um go on one of their websites. It looks like they had um Elise Little Silver looked like they had the same math program. I was just curious about their ELA programs as well. So just do a little research. Um any other
113comments? Anyone else on two? Uh yes, I have a comment. Um you said um I'm pleased to hear we're seven uh to one. That's exceptional uh ratio. Are the districts that are achieving higher scores that same ratio? I didn't get a chance to You know what? I didn't I'm not sure. That's a good question. I didn't look. We can look again. I I feel like we were a little bit lower, but they were closer to us. You know, it is exceptional our ratio. I'm just concerned why we aren't scoring higher with that ratio. Um you know, I wasn't really impressed with the scores that I saw. Um you know, is there, you know, way I mean, I know she mentioned the programs are the same. you know, what else could we do to get these
114scores better? I want to, you know, me, I'm I'm competitive. I want our district to be doing way better than it is. So, yeah, I think that we we we're continuing to see growth and changes. You know, one of the things that we were looking at in the district report, uh, you know, was we're we're right on the cusp of of exceeding those expectations. We're we're now falling in the high end. I want to with reach reach that higher level than we're doing 100%. And I think one of the things that we've done a deep dive this spring in is pacing guides in our math department with regards to looking at how we're pacing and changing some of the recommendations. So we too are diving in deep to that even with uh the facilitation of
115our um you know our intervention program. So, I think that that's something we're we're I know we're so close and it would be amazing if we could just, you know, we it's it's all there. We have hard dedic hard hardworking, dedicated staff that are committed and want are just as competitive us, you know, and to see that growth. I think um you know, when you have teachers who are coaches and co just teachers in general, you want to see that growth, you know, and I think that the ratio also takes into consideration though some our resource rooms and things like that. So that's all of those all of the groupings. That's not just the general ed. It's basically Yeah, it is broken down that way. It also encompasses partner teaching like if it's an in-class
116support environment with two teachers in the classroom, it also takes that into consideration as well. So but that being said, it's it's comparable. You know, you can look at it and say, you know, it's the same size district, different things. So um there's always good information and you can get lost in the data. You can really go down this rabbit hole and it's a good it's good one to go to, especially when you're looking at the comparison. I'd like to see like what you said about, you know, um the certain um children's programs like if they have the same amount of kids like special ed program. So the way I want to compare it. I I don't I'll get with Phyllis so she could teach me more, but I want to see if they're aligned
117with us with the same amount of special ed students as compared to us. Sure. Why are they succeeding? Yeah, they have classification rates, the percentages. The different classifications that go in that are more district authentic. So I'm not sure as a matter of fact I don't know off the top of my head that that is public that is published publicly with regards to the type of disabilities that I think that's more of an au internal mechanism. So um but that's something that we can certainly uh show percentage wise like so I think this year I think we were at 17 I think that's what's in the report this year is seven around 17 and then it's uh we look at percentage of of students with IEPS and then you look at it across the board
118we we keep internal documentation of the grade levels the progress going on and and as we break out those demographics during the annual reports we do watch those trends as to where those students are performing in in that right and and just so you're aware there too. I did look at, you know, Marro Manelp and I was looking for um, you know, just little little silver rumson. I went to Manisquan. I I was looking a little bit and um, we were really on par if not ahead of of a lot of the surrounding districts. Okay. Just, you know, so there are two links just for the public. One is just a general summary. The other one has the academic um, details. That one gives a lot more information. Uh, we did meet our targets in
119most areas. is the area we were weak in in both ELA and um and math is our students with disabilities. So when I get to STM math, I'll kind of like go back to that go back to that, but that's something we need to be aware of that we're not meeting in that area and obviously we want to give the most support to that population of students. Okay. Um any other comments on performance? I think too something worth noting is when you look at those reports too, our numbers of participation is dropping. So that's going to impact our scores too. I don't know what Rumsons are. I don't, you know, or Little Silvers or any of the surrounding districts for their participation rate. Um, but I think that's important to look at as well because
120if our participation rate is dropping, it was 96% two or three school years ago and then now it's at 90%. Right. That's going to impact it. Absolutely. And so I think I know um Rumson, both of them K through eight, um, they have similar numbers as far as their student body goes. So, if you're looking at that, that's a great there those are great districts for us to look at because they're so similar in just their numbers at least. Obviously, we don't know IEPs and and demographics and all of that. Um, but yeah, if we don't have the participation, then our school scores just by nature of that are going to be lower if we don't have as many people contributing to it. So, something else just worth us considering. A little PSA. Yes. the
121more you know. Um, number three. Yeah. Okay. Um, Dr. Reynolds sent a letter on March 28th um about the NJSLA testing schedule and policy. I'm assuming that's posted on our district website. Wonderful. So, it just it just goes over the dates. Um, grades three to three and eight ELA is May 6th and 7th. Um, grades three to eight for math is the 12th, 13th, and 14th. uh grades seven and eight is May 12th and 13th and then grade five and grade eight take science uh May 19th and 20th. On that letter also is um some great parent resources, practice tests that um students can take at home. Um some new digital items that were just released. So it it's just it was a great letter. Um it was very well written. It just gave a
122lot of information and I hope um the parents in the district take the time to read it. I don't know. Did you want to add anything else? Anyone? Okay. Um, all right. The primary school, uh, the math parent survey results was in Dr. Garabay's update. Um, let me just take mine out because I highlighted a few comments that I wanted to share. Okay. Start from the beginning. Okay. So overall, starting with the youngest, our our um looks like our kindergarteners, our first graders, they just need minimal help with the parents. So I thought that was wonderful. Um 61% are using the homework practice book for the student additional um practice for homework. Um they are comfortable with the with the additional practice book and their children's their children are understanding mostly was like three, fours
123and fives. So again, all good statistics. Um the data I liked was that most parents felt that their children had no problems using though the online status resources and that contains um what's called visual learning and another look videos. So if they need to retach, they can. Um the largest percentage child does not face challenges with completing the math homework. So that's everything we want. And again, majority are able to complete it independently. So I thought those were all just great statistics. Um, in terms of what I've always felt, um, 93% of the parents would like the additional practice workbook to continue in third through fifth grade, which I think is really important. Um, a lot of the feedback was again just about the amount of reading and how difficult this program is, which I
124feel like I have mentioned. If your child um is not as strong with reading, the front page is usually just a review of computation. The entire back page is mostly problem solving. Um again, the reading portion is what requires me to help my child. A lot of reading, challenging for first graders. Um some parents are concerned about tests being on the Chromebook. I guess that begins in our district in third grade, which is a little, you know, is young, but at the same time, they are taking I could argue both sides of that. they are taking the NJSLA which is online. So, you do want them to get that comfort on on the Chromebook. Um, some parents do prefer written books. I like the idea if as long as they're doing the homework, you give
125them the choice in the third through fifth grade. Um, do you want to do it online? Do you want to do it on homework? That's me personally because I think most likely, you know, we just want them practicing. Uh, the math program's too literacy based. You So, you see that idea over and over again. Um, just mostly about how much reading goes into the math program. Um, again, some people want more paper based. I like having a paper copy of the homework. I find the workbook useful. So, I think that's pretty good. Um, this book is a must for math practice at home. Would love online supplemental assignments and games. So, those are just some of the comments that I highlighted. Um, so with that being said, I guess at our next meeting, I am
126going to make the motion that we extend the practice workbooks. We'll have to vote on it. Um, but based on the parent feedback and the survey that we we wanted definitely for our third graders, I don't know if we want to go up. So this group, this group, second grade group, if we want to kind of scaffold it, just do it this year with them, they'll be the first group to keep getting the workbooks through to fifth. or if we want to just make it mandatory, those are decisions we'll have to make. So that if I can just clarify on that um that's a budgetary decision. Okay. So the workbooks right now are in the tenative budget for 3, four, and five. The additional practice workbooks they're in there as well as for K to
127K12, which is the only homework assignments they get. They don't get the online component. So they only So the parents that were surveyed only have that as a point of reference, which is good because it was good finding out the feedback on it. So in I in addition to as we were talking about the how because it's about the the the what is the right we want to have make sure the parents are we're responding to what was said of the third grade parents but we also have to have conversation internally which we've started when when it was put into the tenative budget for the additional practice workbooks moving forward because it is a um we want to make sure that we're spending money on resources that are going to be used right it's not
128just take it home and say whatever because homework is assigned in the additional practice workbook homework is assigned through multiple ways three four five right so I guess it's a it's a change of that we want to make sure that we've heard through the parent advisory making sure we're consistent and talking and I think that that was something that in the parent academy that was on Monday that was just Monday yes yesterday um we talked a little bit more about getting out with the messaging of the programs as well and doing with more frequency maybe I was spoke with Dr. Reynolds in reflection doing it maybe three or four times a year talking having something a venue where parents can ask questions because I think that the feedback we received from the parents were there
129were like this was really informative we wish more parents were here so it is recorded is is online and we could probably do it with more frequency so that if uh and it's it's it responded to a lot of questions regarding literacy based online using so it is so with regard to a motion I I mean respectfully I don't know that there needs to be a motion it's the adoption of the budget that has the workbooks in it if we want to look at it differently only do it in third grade, we would make that adjustment to the tenative budget. So that would be to the tenative budget and the final budget. So that was but they are right now included in the tenative budget all grade levels K to five. Mary Jane, can you
130just remind us what the uh do you have those numbers in front of you? The cost of the workbooks that are in the budget sorry just for please hold. Yeah. We can move on and you can come back. Circle back to that. Circle. No pressure. No pressure. That's an important number I think for the public. She's fine. Right. Um yeah, I did have a few other things to say about the workbooks, but okay. So in the third through 5th, yes, I understand students, a lot of the students are doing the are um completing the homework online. Um, but we do have a lot of parents that are, you know, again, are not happy with the amount of time students are online. So, it kind of does create a balance as long as they have the
131choice. What's great about the homework book, again, for a parent who does not understand how um this particular way, let's just say, of multiplying with partial products is is being taught. There is always a sample problem in the homework book. So, it is a means of communication as well. Um, what I love about it, because I do, I'm a fifth grade teacher. I assign my my students a homework online. They all have the homework book, but guess what? We give benchmark tests. We give midterms. All of a sudden, you have this great resource now to practice. Um, you could get additional practice. And especially now coming back, you know, getting ready for state assessments. A lot of parents are, you know, they'll email, what can my child do to get ready? Here's this practice workbook.
132You can go, you know, complete the problems you've never done. you can go back to your exLS as well. Um, so those are just some, you know, the the screef free learning I think is really important. I think it's especially important for our ELLL and special education students to have something tangible in front of them and I just think it empowers our parents as well because now they have the tools in front of them. So, do you want do you want me to go on to the next one now? That was just my kind of summary of the of the continue and then she'll wrap it up with the cost of the uh Okay. Um, next was parent survey. Okay. Next was the ST survey. So, I just want to pass this out if you
133don't mind. Yeah. Okay. So, I was kind of shocked by the results of our school with ST. So, um ST is developed by the Mind Research Institute. It's a visual instructional program. It's designed to enhance students conceptual understanding of mathematics through interactive gamebased learning. So it emphasizes what's called spatial temporal reasoning. So spatial, right? Anything to do with space like where things are or how far apart they are. Temporal is about time like when something happens or how long it takes. So, so when you're solving these ST puzzles, you're using this spatial thinking to figure out where the pieces go and this temporal thinking to understand the order of steps you need to take to finish the puzzle. So, this ST program, it really enables students to grasp mathematical concepts without any reliance on language.
134So, what was the concern a parents had over and over again? Too much reading, too much reading, too much reading. This complements that concern 110%. Um and it's so important again for our who's not meeting right who didn't meet any of of the NJSL um I'm sorry of of the state report right our our disabled students again our English English language learners. So it really again is is just such a powerful tool for for these populations. Um I'm just seeing what else I wrote. Um so in general I was looking um in Mammoth County both Marorrow Manelopin use ST and the article if anyone else if anyone in the audience is interested it's all about the research in Marro which contradicts everything that um Dr. Garbay's um study of the Colts neck teachers found um
135it's showing the percentage that these students went up. Um I highlighted some of the things. It's all about how it's self-directed learning. Students progressing at their own pace. Um you'll see this word over and over again. Individualized learning for students. Um individualized learning, individualized learning, highest achievers. There's challenge activities. Um they talked all about the success. This is just this is about Marro. This is right off the ST website. And so I got to thinking, well, Marorrow has a blue ribbon school. Manelopin has two blue ribbon schools and this program is implemented in these schools with fidelity. So I I I do I just feel like the data I maybe it wasn't given to the right grade. I think it really has to start with the beginning and you build. I know I think it
136was piloted in our school with fourth and fifth graders. Oh, with everybody a little bit. Okay, that's good to know. Um I just really disagree with with the data. Um the data in my school is equivalent to that in of of Marro. And um again, these are now three blue ribbon schools that are all using StMath. So I think it's a great supplemental tool. It is completely different than what we have now, which which we're using a lot of which is just word pro, you know, which is just I won't I won't even say word problems. It's word problems and computation. This is so different from that. It's all conceptual. So I I really I really believe in this program. I I would like um to formally request this integration really just for our preschools
137through second grade. I'd like to just really try it for a year starting in the beginning of the year as well as our ELLs and students with IEPs K to8 and just see we we have one year we could collect the data. If we don't see what Marro saw, we don't have to continue it. But we obviously are are are failing that population right now. And and I don't see I don't I think we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying it. So that's why I wanted everyone to see this. This is, you know, data from another district that has blue ribbon status. Phyllis, didn't you say earlier that um I don't remember if it was Rumson or Lil Silver, forgive me. Um that they have the same math program as us
138and they're exceeding us in those numbers. They I believe I don't know about Rumson. I believe Little Silver. I went on their website and I was looking at their curriculum. You don't get a lot of information, but I'm pretty sure they use Savis, too. Right. So, I mean, again, I think that you can pull different schools. As we just said, different schools have different demographics. There's different numbers. So, I'm not obviously you have more insight for Marorrow than um I probably do just based off of some of the um research that you're presenting here, but you know, there's so many other factors that go into it that could be the reason for why they're performing better in math. Um, one of them could be the STMath, of course, but you know, again, there's just there's
139other factors here. Um, and I think it's also very important for us to understand as the board what our role is here. And so, as a board, if we're if we're taking the time to do these studies for our staff, we value our staff's opinion and they're the ones that are in the classrooms. They're the ones that are implementing this. And so if if they're giving us that push back and they based off of what I read, they have very good rationale for different things. I'm not in those classrooms, so I can't speak to, you know, uh whether or not I agree with them or not because I'm a I'm not a teacher and b I'm not in those specific classrooms, but they're specific children. But for us as a board to suggest that they
140have to participate in a program that clearly from these test results they're not in favor of. I think we would be failing them then as their board of education because they're the ones that know best. We rely on their expertise in that. That's their wheelhouse. That's their their, you know, their space. In my career, if somebody came in and told me that they could that they think I need to be doing a very specific program with my patients, you know, I would respectfully probably give push back as well. And so I think if we were failing in this area, I think if our math was completely failing and our students were doing terrible, then we need to look back at things and say, okay, what are we doing? How can we do it different? And
141that's always a collaboration with our administration and our teachers. Um, I don't know. I I just don't feel that we should be directing the administration to be implementing a program like this when our test results are showing that we are on the rise for those test scores. We're doing well. We're comparative to some of the other districts as we mentioned that are doing well. We are exceeding many of our surrounding districts in this area. So again, just you know that that's my input in my opinion, right? No, I think I think that's valuable. We are not meeting in terms of our um disabled students. So it might be something and again we with the critique over and over again was the too much reading. So we also want to balance what you're saying with with
142the concerns of our parents and this this might be a bridge. It's just you know my recommendation. So in looking at that I just wanted to to add the article here and I I have no issue reaching out to the two districts to find out the student population because I don't know if you've worked with the the article highlighted here which I've seen before. I know that Mar this they used it with their high performing students. So it actually even mentions that in the article. So we're looking at it with regard to we pilot it and gave it to teachers as per the request who work with students with disabilities and so it's a different so so I think that I would really want to see that growth because they I think that comparatively um
143your specific district also uses many of the other programs that we have as well which is and um FRA I think we saw like in terms of the comparative we all use all the things FRA was is a great example where when we're looking to supplement our core program which is envision math. the teachers will say to us and we'll look at it and and look at it in terms of how they're performing but what's lacking right so FRA was something they were they when they went out and explored they said okay this is a really good one we want we think it's a really good mirror supports our programs and so on right and fraction so everyone knows it's a fractions program just so yeah sorry figure that out but just in case you
144didn't it's it's all fraction so that was something we felt yes needed we needed some work with right and it and we were for it and it's in the elementary school curriculum every year as a supplemental program So, I think that I would um I think I would be curious as to the student growth in that population. I would like to see that growth um or at least measurable growth that's resulting in just this program's implementation. Do you know what I mean? Like if it's before and after data, it's it's that type of thing because I think, you know, we're always charged with making those decisions and if fiscally right and how do we know this works, how and that type of thing. And I and if we to your point about our special needs
145students underperforming, we recognize that and that is something actually that Dr. Reynolds and our instructional coaches have been meeting with the in-class support teachers, the resource room teachers to say how can we look at our pacing guides differently. a member of that and I would I actually want to share that work with the board as well to say how we are like looking to focus in on those core concepts in the envision program and it's uh tedious work but it's really good work so I think making some changes of our programs and and that type of thing. Um listen I I'm always open for different ideas. I think that I just um value as we all do sitting at the desk the opinion of the professionals who work every day with our children. And if
146we want to pilot, and I included that in my report as well, the pilot cost 40, I think it was 2 thou for the grades span was going to be $4,000 or $4,500. So it was not a pilot. Yeah, it was about $4,500. They were not going to let us pilot it for free. So that was a free link resource that we got that was a teacher site. I'm sure you've probably seen the free one that they and they were able to try that part of it out. If we if we are looking to pilot, I would also make the strong recommendation we look to see what what other districts are doing. you had referenced little silver looks like that not just this program because I don't think that is something that is in within
147the purview of the board to say this program this is what we do and I know based on you know just all the conversations we have I think we could say we look at other things and I can show you the pacing guide things I think we can look at a lot of different things and to kind of compartmental it within the role of the board collaborating with the administration the staff and everything like that to say we know we've got you know we this is a blaring issue it's evident they're underperforming and we want to get them because they take the test, they do all the things like that and they're showing individualized growth, right? They may have gone from one area and improved and that's also something using linkit we're looking at. Okay,
148you may not have been proficient but did you grow, right? That's another thing as well and we you know with regard to um performance because as you know there's a very small group of students that are eligible to you know take a DM or to be ex you know the exemption or alternative assessment. So um yeah I there's really good data and I think work that I definitely want to share right with the board there. So right and I will also just add on there's very few programs though that your highle students and your lowest level students can all participate in and all show growth in. I mean that's that's one of the um most to me impressive parts of this program. Like you said this was about higher level. I have the district and
149my data. We we used it for our you know we started it. It was so successful. That's how it started. It was implemented just for our um IEPs and it was so successful that we we brought it to now it's K to five. We stop at fifth. We don't use it after that point at in the middle school. Um but it really it it really is an an amazing program and again just to be fair too so everyone knows teachers should be trained in it before you just start using the program. I mean, there is a whole learning curve that we kind of just kind of dove right in because they gave us that pilot. So, um, you know, you really want to start at the beginning with with anything. And so, that's just my
150recommendation. We don't have to do it by any means. And I I do think like just recommended, we we do definitely want to see what some of the other districts that are outperforming us are using. But um it is it will it will help meet you know some of what the parents are saying with the reading as well as the fact that um you know it is 100% research based and and just correct me this is a fully online program though right so it doesn't necessarily it is an online it doesn't have that secondary conversation you know that's going it does go right and that could be a problem too with the parents who think their children are on the Chromebook too much it is a Chromebook based program um but I found that kids
151prefer will go on it verse playing video games. So, as a as a parent, if your kids's gonna play video games anyway, and they come home, they say, "Oh, I love Gigi. It's this Gigi the Penguin is is is the um the star of this program and they they look at it almost like a video game and they want to play it. So, you don't usually have to like make them unlike." So, it's, you know, it's just something to consider. It is researchbased and we are trying to do things to elevate our schools to blue ribbon status. So, like I said, we we try it and we see what happens. If we don't get the results, you know, it could be one and done. Excuse me. My comment, too. I think I think we're all
152on the same page. It's more of like so picture. We're we're kind of like we're at the you know, we're at the edge of a cliff, right? We just want to kind of get over this like little hump to get blue ribbon status. Right. So I think it's like it's important that we look at everything that's out there, but there's like implementation, there's lead times, there's cost to everything, right? So where like where would you even start with something like that? That's kind of where my mind goes, right? If we're looking, we're the 70 percentile or whatever it was, right? When we were looking at those reports, we see like neighboring towns are in the 80s and things like that. So what is it that we can do like as a district without to your
153point without overstepping on sort of the ability that we've you know we've hired teachers based off of you know different things over the last couple years right so they've kind of we've hired them to fit into you know your sort of mindset of you know how we want to move the district right so for us to change something really quickly it'd be like you know it's it's kind of like you ever you ever hear the the analogy about data like data is a lot like mayonnaise. If there's a lot of it, it's really disgusting. But if if it's really small, indigestible dosage, it's easy. So like when you look at when you when you look at data, right, it's like there's there's just so much data that's out there, right? And it's impossible because people
154get overwhelmed by it. So how can we refine Exactly. How do we refine the mayonnaise to make it nice and spreadable on a sandwich so we can easily digest it? Can we move on mayo? But like do like what I mean is I'm being funny obviously but there's so much there's so much overwhelming data. There's so many like different tests that's out there. There's so many different curriculums and like we think about when we were children when we were in education like there was really kind of like there was a very clear-cut way of teaching our children, right? And that's the way it was. We're like you went this way and that was that. And they're not to discount, but if we look at what the federal government is doing, right, with the the abolishment
155of the Department of Education, like it's all sort of connected, right? It's more of going back to what made the country strong. It's going back to what made school districts strong. Like, how do we take that and then take what all the new things that are out there, not step on teachers, right, because we want them to do well. How do we as a board even start to action that? Like is there some sort of like is there another committee that we do like a teacher committee that you can go like we've got a parent action committee we've got the liaison is there something that we can do without again overstepping your role but is there something that we can do is there like a task force that can be formed to like look into
156something like this like how do we even start? So I I these are all good conversations. You know, I think that what is root rooted in is we want to see our students better, right? We're right there and it's even when we said even moving the needle and getting it going in comparison and it is about learning and seeing okay with what group of students is this meeting with success. Are they like our students? Is it the same demographic? Is it the same that type of thing like that? um you know and are incomparable if you were to say to us okay let's look at through the lens of special education if it was focusing on that demographic which we do and we should be um continuously I think I'd like to show the board
157what we are planning on doing based on the conversation what we are what we have are putting in motion with regard to the pacing guides and the struct different structuring that we're doing for our uh for resource room IC those type of things and then look at um if you you know with regards to piloting if we wanted to pilot something we could have comparable programs you know maybe there's something with this group where it's just we a group and is it resource room is it in-class support like what is where do we want to see it you know because it may not um I I think that's where we want to see like that if that's the goal of it then we should from a from the from the district point of view, we
158could put together what we have and where we see those gaps are, you know, and what we have and what we can do with consideration for next year and say, "Okay, listen, before we I think it was $12,000 for the implementation of like a K to 5 and it was 4,000 or 45 because the 45 with it was with the PD module you were talking about. I think was the 45 for two grades. So if we take those same two grades and look at STMath and another and nothing like maybe break up into threes and say next year we make that investment and say you know we'll use um special ed funding or whatever the case may be to target and we look at resource rooms or we look at targeted group of students because
159we do want to make that apples to apples comparison when we're looking at that. So something no I think that that's a great place to start you know that that's we want to know is is this program I believe it is but based on my district's data um we have there's an article on Marro it's there's more data but will it does it work with our our population of students so well and that's and you got to measure different things like I mean like look at doge for example right everyone wants to to go against like you know protest against it but what has it done it's uncovered some pretty pretty interesting things, right? And like then the abolishment again of the Department of Education to give districts like us like more autonomy to decide
160like what to do as a district for that, but how do you get around like there's different laws, there's different union restrictions about like how the district can work with teachers and things like that? Is there a way to put task force together where we can work with like I think it flows into multiple people. I think it flows in the natural flow of what we do. We're always implementing and evaluating what we're doing and when we see something for example the being a writer program right we're like yep okay this this is what we're looking into in comparison to our on demand writings and all the things that we're happening and it's a need we're seeing based on the assessment results. So that's what we're like, okay, we're teachers saw it, they grabbed it,
161they said yes. As a matter of fact, the pilot teachers were being spoken to like by the non-pilot teachers like, I want that. I want to use that part. So it's being spread out and they're got right. And they've so it's part of the natural process of what we do. So it's a case of saying like um the you want whenever you're doing anything curriculum wise from a you want from you want buyin, right? You want the teachers to believe in it, not not directed that this is what you're doing. are the direction is in the accountability, right? Fidelity of implementation, um tracking of results, like th that's the administrative oversight piece of it to make sure what we're do what we're saying we're doing, we're doing it well, right? And that's the other piece
162of it. It's more like human nature is no one responds well to a mandate. They respond well to guided behavior. And then like ambassadors, right? ambassadors who just exactly like you said are showing results, showing success and then that's when it starts to blend and bleed into other parts of the so and and it doesn't and sometimes it can be quick, you know, and sometimes it's it's some because it's like you want to fix something right away, right? Sometimes that's an easy thing and sometimes it's it's, you know, procedural. We've we've been trying a couple things through the years. I think that um you know, Mrs. Kennes and Dr. Reynolds have done a lot of work in curriculum, pacing guides, assessments, aligning those thing, aligning them a lot more with different things. We started quarterly
163assessments at the middle school. We're seeing those results in the grade level maths. We're not there yet, but we made significant gains and we're hoping moving forward. So, I think it sometimes is, you know, programmatic and procedural what we're doing with our processes. And I know for some of the newer board members, you might not be aware of this and but some of us are aware obviously is being on the board. Our teachers do their curriculum writing over the summer and that's a collaborative process and so they they give that feedback and if there's gaps or there's issues with certain curriculum or certain uh subject areas they're going to bring that to Dr. Reynolds attention and to Mary Jane and and we'll it gets addressed at that time. Right. So speaking to like you saying
164like is there a task force I kind of feel like that already again naturally happens over right when they're working on their curriculum and um makes sense. Right. So, so yeah, it already is kind of happening on the parent side. We're done. I promise. Yeah, I don't want to be rude, but we're spending too much time on this. Um, we're definitely going to leave it open for future discussion. I just want to keep the meeting uh going. It's ready almost nine o'clock and we have a lot more to cover. So, if we could move on to finance, please. And uh if we could get our uh whoever is going to present this uh present it quickly, factually. And uh yeah, let's move it along. Yes. So, we the budget 20 25 2026 it's uh into
165the county. It's pending the review. Um, we've been looking at a lot of different types of efficiencies to see what we can do about cutting some of the um cutting back on some of the either uh, you know, some administrative cost, some administrative spending, but also looking for ways to improve some of our uh, revenue streams as well. So, and we're still in the process of that. I think we're going to have another um finance meeting uh sometime maybe like in May um just to go over and just to cross our tees and our eyes regarding um those aspects of the budget. Okay. Uh, anybody have any uh questions uh for Jason or anybody from finance want to add anything? No. Okay. No, no questions for Jason. Okay, that was quick. Thank you, Jason. Um,
166okay. Moving right on to uh policy. Wonderful. Uh, Dr. Gar and I had a great meeting. Was it last week, right? Yeah. Um, about sort of the the transition. I wanted to wrap my head around it a little bit more just to kind of see you like again what your team's got to go through. It's heavy lift and there's we we talked a lot about sort of like physically I mean there they are right there. So we so I learned a lot about the uh you know how we used to keep the physical document and how we scan things into it and now how we're moving. But I think the the biggest thing that my biggest takeaway from it and reporting back to the public too is that when you go through a transition, things
167can be lost in translation, right? We're moving all of our policies from one specific area from one company to another organization, right? So things can slip through the cracks dramatically. So there's going to be checks and balances to make sure that everything is being checked from this document translates to this document, right? So for example like we call section 1000 when stress estimate is going to be converted over to a different section like Dr. Garbage gone through all that and my biggest thing that is how do we report that now to the public right of what we're doing. So you had some suggestions on how to do that as well and to kind of just assure the public that again we're we're almost we're level setting and we're essentially and you brought it up right
168you we we're auditing we're auditing all of our policy and how can we report that back to the public that we've gone through everything and that the new company that we're using doesn't insert any additional policies that we didn't previously have and how they take the policies that we've created essentially from scratch as a district and include that into this new book of policy. So, I'll let you kind of provide more color on that, but I thought it was a great meeting. Sure. Yes, it was. And I think it's a it's great sharing that information. So, uh the physical copies of our new policy manual are sitting in front of me of volume one and volume two. Those are Yes. And so the there is also a digital version that came that I I didn't
169have a chance to upload that'll be uploaded between tomorrow and Thursday. Um the first part of it is exactly what Mr. scale said with regards to what was the current number what is there's a um you know a crossover with that and then using what tools we have whether it be Gemini AI or whatever the type to do kind of a scan to make sure that internally the administration is saying like you know Mr. Morasco looking at all the ones that he deals with on a regular basis you Dr. Reynolds looking at those the principles have policies. We have our handbooks that have them in there. The ones that they're go-to ones. They we administratively we're sectioning them off to make sure everything's there. For my office, we are evaluating all of them to make
170sure that the ones that were submitted that are currently in place with stress ESME are now captured in this. There is a crosswalk that school boards has provided us. So those are the ones thing. The other part was I also provided them with a list of our custom uh policies, ones that have authentic language, and there were multiple ones. So, we want to make sure that that authentic language translates over translated over into the policies because it's not and I think you've heard heard me say a couple times, it's not just we took Strauss Esme and plugged it into schoolboard. Some of the policies are different. The language is different. So, we said that we would develop um uh like a draft. I'll propose it to you based on we can work on it together
171with regard to an action plan for like a timing of things because I do feel and I think we said there might a little bit of a shared responsibility for us to be looking at okay look at the finance ones like look at parent involvement community ones and just kind of take a couple not once we say that yes all the policies are here the ones that are supposed to be here making sure they say what we want them to say is exactly what you and I talked about importance as well because the language is different it does vary some of them are exactly the same some of them are So, we will have an outline of that. So, once I'm able to dive into that crosswalk tomorrow and see what that looks like, I'll
172share that uh with the board and then we dive in behind the scenes of that. So, um stay tuned. So I think the other part of it too we said is that because these are very uh public facing documents you know it the board is a policym entity and they want to make sure that even when we do our checks and balance we may put something like a feedback or or part to the public and say listen here are the policies that are there we've gone through this process here's what we've found these are the reasons we did it and if there see if you see something you know let us know like you said it's almost like an it's they're our policies they're our district policies we can invite that um critical eye as
173well. You know, everything's welcome. In the software world, when you change a software, you have to go through an implementation, right? You go through change management and then you have to explain to your users, which essentially are all of our parents how to use it, right? So, there'll be like again small user guide. Here's how you can quickly find something by typing in. We just have to learn all of that in the new system first and then we can translate that into here. Here we go. Here's a quick one sheeter on how to access the new policies and then it'll help your staff as well. Yeah, that's the other part too that I forgot to mention. I apologize that Strauss Esme currently houses our policies and the search engine. There's very there's things that are
174it's hosted on our website. We'll be converting to board docs which is a new system that the administration hasn't worked in yet. There are other districts that use it. So, it's it's you know we have no problem that we'll be learning it but it will be a learning curve about navigating it you know. Um, one program you know how to do with your eyes closed and the other one you're kind of learning how to do it differently and that's okay. But and we'll all learn it. We'll all learn it. One team, one dream. So that's uh the update. But they did but they did arrive when we met. They had they weren't here. They arrived today. Yeah. And now they're here. Yes. Everything I expected and more. Um, any questions for uh Mr. Scales for
175policy? No other comments, Rob? Nope. No, all good. Okay, great. Yeah, these are all the second reads that will be going to second read. So, all good. Y Okay. Um All right, moving on. Uh negotiation, there's nothing. Transportation. Uh we're going to um give the floor to Dr. Garbeay for personnel at this time. These are just uh anticipated uh you'll notice uh two things. Um there'll be uh an abbreviated update this week because it is our spring recess that we're coming up to and I'm sure everyone's looking forward to having a little bit of time away and enjoying with family and celebrating the holidays. um so on uh the spring holidays that are you know during our recess uh these you will receive a draft agenda on Friday because we'll post on Monday when we
176get back. So, believe it or not, we're already anticipating and creating the draft agenda likely to be a bolder revise because whenever there's a break, there's things business that comes up, you know, through that point. You will see a lot of end of the year personnel approvals with regards to leaves, events, chaperones, all of the things that happen because there's just a constant flurry of really fun activities that are happening at the end of the year that require some staff approvals. So, those are all just things that are coming up. Um, you can anticipate there. Great. Um, okay. Terrific. Um, uh, let's open the floor. We're going to move on, uh, open the floor for comments, uh, from attended constituents. This will be on all subjects, uh, for this evening. If you'd like, make your
177way to the podium, state your name and address for the record. You ladies still awake out there? All right. Okay. Um, seeing none, we'll close public comment. Um, we're going to open it to new business at this time. If any board member would like to bring up any new business, um, please feel free. This is one for me. Um, okay, Mr. Scales. Again, the Star Spangle Banner getting chills when I hear it every time. Um, is there any Would anyone have any qualms to doing that before every board meeting? Um, absolutely in support of it. If that's a request, we could certainly move forward in implementing it. Reason being I say that is if we think about what we just passed to the students, right? And we're we're telling the students that we want them
178to now understand the Star Spangle Banner. I think it's be important for us as a board to do it as well. So leading by example and to Dr. the what you played on there. Is that what we anticipate to play for the students as well? No, there's actually a variety at Cedar Drive. I know the students have been recorded. I know that. Yes. And there it's being played. So, I can actually give a report as to what that is. So, I think they're working on it differently. I gave the principles, you know, the autonomy to say, "All right, how is this how to implement it?" Right? And and they come up with great creative ideas. uh much to the and work in collaborative with our very talented music staff as well who have worked with
179that. So I think that there's um they would they perform one of our meetings for the board meetings the whole student body people who you're going to Mr. Scales we're going to need a bigger boat if you're a Jaws boy let's um but I certainly can uh give an update and maybe provide some video of of it happening and stuff like that. Amazing. Yeah, that is amazing. That's better than I ever anticipated. Yep, me too. What a fantastic um thing to let us know about. Thank you so much. Amazing. Thank you. Um okay. Uh any other new business? I just have Mrs. Haritz. Yes. Um so last week I had the ability to go to the Hate Ends Now event at Marorrow Middle School. Um what they had there was it was about anti-semitism and
180they had a Holocaust replica cattle car. Um you know, and I've mentioned Holocaust survivor was really moving. Um it's something a lot of districts are are doing now. You go into the cattle car for like 15 minutes to see like a a 360 video um of kind of what survivors experiences were and it was very emotional and you know um it was a really great experience. I know that I think Cold Snack High School had done it. Um and it really is only for eighth graders because of the sensitivity of what they're seeing. But it's definitely something that if we're open to it, you know, it's something we can explore. Obviously not now, but maybe down the road. And apparently because it is expensive, you can share it with other districts. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Because
181I because I asked them after and they said it was something along the lines of like $5,000 a day. Yeah. They do it typically for three to four days. Yeah. But it's usually shared other districts. There's a lot of um a lot of fundraising that's gone into um you know having the ability to provide that the cattle cards. It sits on the property for you know for days. So but it was it was a really great experience and I don't know if anybody like that it's a wonderful idea. I think we should give that some thought. Now, we I brought up the point before we are focusing on the now, but it's also for a long-standing opportunity as we proceed forward. We're establishing routine and pattern. We're three generations from that generation now. So, uh
182and to realize that a time has passed and if you don't study history, you deem to repeat it. So, I think that element of history does need to be examined and appreciated. Something that I would like to see obviously continue to discuss it but I keep an eye on generations that are passing. I get concerned about losing the vision associated with that. So I do appreciate that there's not many left survivors left and now three generations post that something to consider. So I am in support of that. Thank you for Yeah, we couldn't agree more than the Holocaust is actually one of the mandated areas of studies in the state uh standards and um what I have always enjoyed in terms of what we're doing here is that I we take it I in my
183opinion to another level. We have a great partnership we talked about with the change project where we do we you know we're actually featured on their website where our students are from Cedar Drive with Dr. Wiggby and um that partnership. So we're always looking at opportunities um to do that. So I think that um e through the curriculum we can kind of package up exactly what it is that we do present it and then also you know see opportunities other opportunities that are doing it. Yeah. And also consider what what I mentioned the last meeting where you have personally not enough hours in the day to do all these things. But I am involved in which is grandchildren. Yes. And they do come into the schools to do like a 30 minute presentation and discuss,
184you know, go through what their what their grandparents went through. And um it is free. So it's a little bit different than the kettle car experience, but it's, you know, it's still really meaningful. So, do you want to make I don't do I don't know if you have to make a motion, but should we put it on our schedule our the RAM the next RAM meeting so we could vote on incorporating it? I mean, I think that where it left off was I I think I I meant to reach out to you to see if that was something that I don't I don't know if we talked about it. I don't remember that week to be honest. I I think we Yeah, I think what we would do is to say that that yes, send
185me the information and then the contact information and then you know Dr. Reynolds and Dr. rugby will reach out and say, you know, like this is what we're doing and then following through it. And again, in a revision of an experience, um, usually experiences don't necessarily need emotion or that type of thing. It's more like is if if it's a trip or if it's something like that that requires board approval. But the adding experiences for our kids is um something we do. If we it's funded, if it's some if it's free, not not something we do, but if it's something that if people are coming in as guest speakers, sometimes we'll have our speakers approved because they're outside people who are coming in on our property. And there's this whole insurance thing that Mr. Morasco
186gets all like detail about. I'm kidding. But in terms of all of those uh those so anything like that, that's we we'll recognize that. But and if it becomes something that's you know part of the experience curriculum and those kind of things those are motion approved but those types of experiences don't necessarily you know have to go yeah absolutely we don't need it on the agenda even better but we can continue the conversation as a matter of the cow I could probably like I said package up that Holocaust thing so we can show because I think it is important for the community to know how much we do with that um and appreciate you know that aspect of our history and for all the reasons that you just said. Great. Uh thank you for sharing
187that. Um Mrs. Harwood, um we uh are we done with new business? Anybody else for new business? Okay. Uh at this time, I am going to make a motion to go into executive session for the two items, confidential student matter and negotiations. No action will be taken at this time. Um Mrs. Camera, as we discussed, um uh you will need to recuse yourself from the um the subcontring uh CNTa. So, uh, if you'll join us for the first one and then you could be dismissed after that. Um, all right. So, if I could have a motion to move this into executive session. Oh, for how long? Oh, I'd say, um, I'm going to make it brief. 25 minutes. Um, hopefully less time. Um, motion. Okay, great. Thank you. All in favor? Great. Motion. Okay, great.
188Thank you. Thank you for coming, ladies and staying that long. Okay. Okay. We're making up some time.