001good evening everyone at this time I'd like to call to order the March 12th 2025 Hamilton Township Board of Education meeting this meeting is being held in compliance with the Sunshine Law having been advertised in the pr of at laning city and notice is posted at the township clerk's office M laning post office MBA post office Elan County Library as well as the schools of the district this meeting is being recorded roll call please an Mrs B pres pres Dr Serena here Mrs Jackson here Dr law here Dr Nelson here Mrs PTO here Mr Rogers here Mrs bar here can I please have a motion to convene into executive session so move second motion by Dr Nelson second by Dr Sereno all in fav favor I opposed resolve that pursuant to sections seven and eight
002of the open public meetings act the public shall be excluded from that portion of the meeting involving discussion of legal matters attorney client privilege Personnel matters and HIV yet further resolved that the discussion of each subject matter in executive session can be disclosed to the public when formal action is taken on such subject matter or any other appropriate time be a further resolve the board may take action on items discussed in executive therefore be it resolve the board will be an executive session for approximately 30 minutes good evening everyone welcome to the H Township Board of Education un at this time can I please have a motion to close executive session and reconvene to public session move second motion by Dr Nelson second by Dr Sereno all in favor oos we please stand for the
003Flag City flag United States ofer stand please take a moment of silence for private reflection thank you can I please have a motion to approve the minutes of regular and executive session meeting February 13 2025 motion second motion by Miss Fredo uh second by Miss Jackson comments or questions roll call Mrs anchor yes Mrs Bachelor yes Dr Sereno yes Mrs Jackson yes Dr L abstain Dr Nelson yes Mrs perto yes Mr Rogers yes and Mrs bar yes at this time I will turn it over to Dr zto for presentation all right so first off we have our reading challenge winner and I saw Mrs Brian here y so please present the winner of the reading challenge Mr G you might take a picture for this yeah [Applause] March's winner is Kellen Kean in Mrs Elliott's
004second grade home room and Mrs Elliot said Kellen is a dedicated student who has a strong love of reading he is enthusiastic about learning congratulations [Applause] Kellen congratulations congratulations all right can I now please have Dr Holmes from down here Dr Holstrom on behalf of the Board of Education and the Hamilton Township Administration we'd like to congratulate you the coaches and the Davies boys basketball team for their out stand undefeated [Music] season I'm going to hand it over to our coaches we have Coach Mor and Coach Jenner and like we said undefeated um and also I'm going to ask Mr Lewis to come because although he wasn't an official coach he played a very pival role in the season [Music] uh coaches just want to say what an amazing season we had was probably the
005best group we ever had learning they listened many times on the court we change plays we down they listened and we won it was great 17 and0 we've never had a like this for this team they fought from behind a couple times times and money got tough they didn't stop they just fall guys coaches thank you guys we enjoyed it we're going to miss you guys especially our eighth graders and everything we're going to call some names right now this is our eighth graders first uh Zane far hman Mitchell Dean Mohammed seu [Applause] por Jamal gney King r [Applause] yeah we just also want to say they also represented the school in such a good way uh we're so proud of you guys good luck to the eighth graders in seventh and six you got
006to do a threee right so no pressure all right before you sit down Mr Lewis can you tell what you guys the deal that you made with our basketball go to the mic let the community know what you did with them please and can you please just take a moment with with what you shared with me about what the schools were saying about them and about their behavior in school can you talk about that we just want to say as coaches too this year Mr Lewis stepped in and helped us a little it was great we appreciate it you volunteered this time and so crazy well I just believe in children uh or young adults achieving goals so we set some goals for them this year and I lost a lot of money in Chick-fil-A
007then after Chick-fil-A I promise them if they went undefeated this season that they would be going to dinner at a restaurant called majanos and Cherry Hill and so on the 28th of this month we will be taking up to dinner at Maan at Cherry Hill so literally they made me eat to my words that we played against when our team faed verus our children our I mean our young adults sorry young adults performed and they conducted themselves as mature young men never gave an expression that was controversial or made somebody feel like you know what these are kids go out of control no they maintain their character and their integrity and to me that's one of the biggest things I saw these guys do so when lose a draw you would have went to ma
008there congratulations gentlemen thank you so so much thanks for being great [Applause] coaches for our eighth graders their hoodies will be here in mid April and for the rest of our players their t-shirts will be here at the same time so we ordered them hoodies for their Championship run their undefeated season and [Applause] t-shirts congratulations all right Dr homson we're not done yet so la was it last weekend was the actual last Saturday so last Saturday Dr homom was texting me the words that our student Isaac was expected to spell at the spelling be not only do I not know how to spell them I honestly didn't know what half of those words meant so I'm going to be very honest about that um but on behalf of the uh Board of Education Hamilton Township
009Administration we would like to congratulate dve student Isaac he's won the regional spelling be and uh Dr you want to talk for a minute about what he has to do next and what's going on first of all congratulations um he comes from a family of spellers cuz I know um last year had gone on scripts as well so see him here welcome back to our your home away from home but uh so I will say R I'm going to probably say them wrong but ranul San filtrum IIA the words that he was spelling I couldn't even pronounce let alone like droso said I don't now that I know them um he went several rounds back and forth it ended up being him and another student in the last couple rounds that went back and forth
010multiple times and uh and he came out Victorious so congratulations um he is on his way to the scripts National Spelling day um and we're so proud to hear you on that next day so come on down recognized Mr G I'd like to get a picture with everybody together can the family come down as well take a picture with Dr m just a little bit about Isaac he's also on our academic team he was up at m a couple weekends ago so we are seeing great things from him and we have him for another year so I hopefully we'll Trav the scripts SP it all and we'll be back good um the next thing on the agenda I just wanted to take a moment to thank our amazing community and uh our Board of Education
011as well as our teachers our staff our Administration on a wonderful gift auction that we had um just so you guys know the amount profited was over $28,000 in one night which is a record for everyone's hard work did not go unnoticed so I want to say thank you very much for that um at this time can I so we have some we have some substitute speakers tonight from the William D's Middle School they have Paula and Nate and they're going to be giving us the update for dve so you guys kind of Take the Lead and go for it thank you guys Mr Carnell Thomas visited in February and led the students through various team building strategies he encouraged students through these activities to find confidence in themselves to be silly with their peers
012he also stressed the importance of encouraging each other to feel comfortable in showing support and building their peers up Mr Thomas also leted students through an activity in setting goals for themselves for the rest of the year and njhs members to continue to serve as teacher assistants and tutors at the after school homework club they assist students with missing assignments and help with academics on Friday March 28th 2025 the William Davies middle school will be hosting its 17th annual ladies tea in recognition of women's History Month this event provides the opportunity for approximately 75 young ladies in the 6th 7th and eth grade to network with successful Prof professional women who come from diverse backgrounds the theme this year the bravest thing is to be yourself delivers the inspirational message to young female students to
013continue to strive to be the best version of the themselves and to focus on self-improvement the William Davies Innovation Center will once again transform into a Charming setting for T social the morning events include an elegant brunch a table adequate lesson and an opportunity for the ladies to meet with each of the invited women sponsors of the 17th annual ladies tea include the resorts of Atlantic City with Lance and table settings hon Township Education Association green garden teas davies's Dragon Pride SL tbis committee Davy's bookstore hmh publishing and acne the event will commence at approximately 9:00 a.m. and will continue until 1:30 p.m. the guest keynote speaker will be DEA Jackson the William Davy's Middle School is proud to host the successful event the successful young women's motivational event March is youth Arts month and
014to celebrate the annual DAV Student Art Exhibit is now in play at the Atlanta County Library the reception March 12th 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. Elementary onest choir four students from DAV 6th grade choir were nominated and selected for this prestigious group Mari Holland hi Tina Robinson Rosalie ronz and noriah Simpkins they rehears and performed with the group on Saturday March 1st at Washington Township High School two Davies band students burned with the all South Jersey junior high band on Sunday March 19th wait 9th William Davies wait William Liam Jones on the trumpet and Marcus lingo Flores on the tro the Davis choir will perform at the township choir concert Thursday March 13th 6:30 p.m. at his school the Davies vandon choir will be traving to row Rowan University next week to perform at the middle
015school festivals the band will be attending a festival on Monday um March February 17th and the quir will be attending a festival on March 20th the Davies will band will perform at the township band concert Thursday March 27th 6:30 p.m. at the head School the music department will be sponsoring a dance in April dance through the decades will take place on Friday April 4th in the Davis cafeteria L ofie players are performing Disney's Moana Jr on Friday March 21st at 700 p.m. and Saturday March 22nd at 2 p.m. at hes tickets will be sold at the door for $10 cash only right now the seventh grade is learning about the life saving skill of CPR they're working in small groups helping each other with the correct skills needed for compression and breast eth grade is
016learn about emergency situations with the proper procedures in various first aid emergencies from bleeding to treating these things tomorrow some of the eighth grade medical science students will be going on a field trip to the m museum in Philadelphia they will be going on a guided tour of the museum to view the preserved collections of anatomical specimens models and medical instruments on display they will also engage in a game based activity where they will assume the role of bacterium to learn how antibiotic resistances form and ways they can help reduce the risk of disease the Medical Science field triple will expose the students to a wide variety of careers in healthcare and biosciences as well as introduce them to the history and culture of medicine the National Junior Honor Society students have been busy this
017month 20 members traveled to Sher and high schools to read the classes for read Across America week this was a wonderful opportunity and an enjoyable experience for the students members assisted with the basket auction basket auction checking tickets numbers and congratulating winners a few members will able to stay until the very end ensuring all winners were verified at and the cafe was cleaned up extra thanks to rosin sales dagia GRE Gavin Gabriel and brex de and JHS students have been tutoring other students during homework club helping them instill worth work ethics navigating online assignments and keeping track of grades we also assisted with the monthly food distribution for the month of February by packing bags of donated food as a reminder anyone who has reusable bags can donate them for food distribution good and that
018is why you are the president and the vice president I appreciate you guys stepping in like that thank you last great job guys all right there's I just want to make sure is there anyone in the audience that is a staff member of the month that had a video going no then we're going to postpone it with some technical difficulties till the next month and what I'd like to do if you're cool the mic is I'm going to ask the board members to kind of go sit over there unless you want to cck your neck in a while but go sit over there so we can take a look at Chris V's oh it's on the computer Chris v's rivy and informational budget presentation so on the agenda tonight is the approval of the budget
019submission for the 256 school year so we're just going to go through a quick presentation on that so some of the budget highlights are featured here an increased focus on stem technology computer science with the addition of the technology feuture at the high school um and focus on Behavioral Health with the addition of the school counsel to high school and to help offset some of the high uh special sending students out of District we're looking to add a additional special a teacher and then there's some also some kkim highlights there related to targeted professional development and then using data to focus on the gaps in student so our enrollment is slowly creeping up um a little bit at a time uh you can see the past few years here so an increase of approximately we're
020estimating about nine students last year or the carrier so our budget revenues so the overall budget uh shows an increase of about 5.4 million however 5.7 million of that is the funding for the Shaner preschool addition project so um when we backed that out and assuming we have um we were required to budget uh 15 to 25% decrease in in the grants line um from the state so uh you know if we were to maintained a flat um grant funding for the current year um we would be looking at a 2.6% increase um overall in the budget this is a breakdown of our state aid the uh we did receive about $2 million in additional state aid I do have a little highlight on the extraordinary Aid as that's estimated for the current year and
021for next year um extraordinary Aid is an application process uh for individual uh special education students when their costs exceed uh it's a range between 40 to 55,000 so when that happens when they exceed that 40 to 55,000 we do a separate application to the state to get additional funding for those students um that application occurs in the spring we get the funding in The Following fall so that's why the current year and next year is just last so overall Hamilton Township right now is being underfunded by the state so as I had indicated we're getting um around $2 million in an increase in state aid however um in our state aid notice um the state projects that we should have receed received uh an increase of 4 million um that's the second highlighted line
022there the overall state aid should have been around 35 million however they put a cap on it this year um and they're only increasing uh schools by 6% so um the last line there shows that you know based on their calculations we're still owed another $2.1 million um in funding that we won't be receiving this year U also as part of the state notice they do a calculation for what the local fair share is and our local fair share uh and that's the tax levy uh for the community is 32.4 million our proposed tax levy in this um next school year is 22.4 million so we are running um at about 70% of our local fair share which means we're able to maintain a l programs run efficiently um and not burden the taxpayers in
023the town there's a breakdown of our grants um weed multiple grants from the state and federal government we are required again as I said earlier to budget at a 15 to 25% decrease so while it looks like everything is going to be cut that's just we're required to budget at that but you could see that you know over the past few years the trend on those grants and that um right above the total grants the other grants that 2.9 Million two years ago that was Co related funding so that of course is now falling we're projecting our salaries and benefits uh a total of 99.3% increase salaries uh overall about 5.5% and that includes adding the additional positions as well and then benefits we we uh projecting a 12 to 15% increase and then when
024you add some other additional staff members and other things like that that's where higher this is an overview of our educational expenditures um you'll see some of the lines look like we're making dratic Cuts in reality we're reallocating some positions and expenses uh you know to other needed location so you'll see uh 12% decrease in basic skills but a 12% increase in special end so we're you know kind of trying to accommodate the needs we have the overall service was on the top right and that's bonds that were voted on by the taxpayers years ago to fund capital projects and then the bottom left is the estimated tax impact so we're looking at an increase of $54 that the average homean made Landing which comes out to the average assessed value is about $65,500 so
025would be $54 per um home for the year at a 2.92% this is the budget resolution total budget of 76.9 million and the 23.6 million taxes last I just want to thank the Board of Education and the community uh Administration staff uh hdaa and the PTA and our local police department for all their support throughout the years [Applause] well everyone just settled back in any board members have any questions on the budget one more in comments I just want to make sure some of the stuff is clear um we've been we uh several of us including myself have had conversations with um state senators and state um assembly members especially on the one it one slide on there where we saw that we were supposed to be getting 4 million and more we only got
0262.1 million while other cities like Atlantic City continue to get much more than they even been allocated uh because of who they know and who they've lobbied um so at the top levels of the government in the state um they are aware of it I talked to I talked to two three Representatives last night including our Senator and um also talk to hopefully we'll be our next Governor from Jack chiarello about it as well and he's certainly aware of the issue and he thinks that uh words you'll hear from him would be like uh the the uh the formula needs to be corrected and that's to actually get schools like ours the actual share that we're supposed to get and not put some kind of imaginary red line on that says you know we can
027only increase it by 6% but continue to get money to places like Al city um the other important thing there is how efficient um this uh the you know our our school is our teachers are uh that slight us say we're supposed to be taxing at a level of $32 million to our you know our tax base I.E people that live here people like everybody on this board um but we only get tax of 22 million so that means that $10 million don't show does not show up in our tax Bas and if you look at the tax Bas that's about $54 for every $160,000 of house you own and that gets us $200,000 so 10 million into that is roughly what is that 50 times so if we were to do what the state
028says we're supposed to do uh your taxes would be an additional $3,000 so just giving you idea of how much you know we we don't like the idea of how to raise the taxes but with our our um uh health insurance going up at 177% we have to do what we have to do just to keep it equal to last year our our health insurance has gone up $800,000 well this projector go up $800,000 at the same level of service that we got last year and so to do that we have to raise the taxes and it's not anything we want to do especially depending on which side of the aisle you sit on I know we're we're not know that way here but um being taxpayers we obviously don't want to do that to
029ourselves so I just want to let you guys kind of understand some of the stuff that's going on and we have to unfortunately work in the the constraints of what the state lawmakers have done to us and uh and I I just want to say thanks to Chris and his team for putting together a well balanced budget unlike the federal government we can't just print money we have to work with what we got and the teachers um are certainly aware of it and and they've worked with us uh hard the last few weeks just to even get us to this spot so I want to say thank you to everybody for understanding and especially Chris's team for doing um a great job and putting that together for us that's all I have any other questions
030thank you Chris to you and your team for putting that together and turn it back to Dr Z okay since our last meeting I've writ to students of multiple grade levels attended the most improved readers at the H school attended the shener kindergarten concert worked with the htaa on expectations participated in the PTA auction I met with all of our sgos and technology department people to discuss school security updates and recently uh Mrs liski and I met with Rowan and uh to discuss Pathways for teachers not only for our staff but also students as well for your review please see registration transfer statistics for the month enrollment for the month discipline reports for the month and the HB reports some dates to remember March 13th is the tenser choir concert March 14th is PTA movie
031night doors open at 6:00 and the event starts at 6:30 March 17th is a PTA meeting right here in D cafeteria the 27th is the township band concert uh at the high school auditorium at 6:30 p.m. on the 28th we have the kindergarten dance at senior school I heard that's going to be a Rip Roar and dance Mrs ponz um uh April 1st and 2nd are parent conferences April 9th is our next Board of Education meeting at 5:15 for executive and 5:45 for regular session May 14th is our PTA meeting and the DS cafeteria and we will be closed from the 18th to the 25th for spring grade that concludes my superintendent report at this time we will open public comment on tonight's agenda items there are two opportunities to address the members of the
032board the board values welcomes comments and opinions from residents as long as remarks are not personal or disre the public comment portion of the meeting allows the board to listen to community members hear their opinions on school policy and operations the first public portion is reserved for persons wishing to speak about agenda items only second opportunity following the action items is when residents May address the board on any school related issue each speaker is asked to limit their comments to 3 minutes and your opped to yeld your time to another the public comments portion of the meeting during both sessions will not exceed 30 minutes upon being recognized persons wishing to speak should stand and identify themselves by name and address any public comment on T's agenda okay at this time we will have Board
033number comments there any board numbers would like to make comments Nelson always good for something I wanted to say thank you to everybody that showed for the blood drive this past weekend at chainer I I do know I saw a couple of you here and um I think it was success success as always I know people to try to sign up last minute couldn't get in so guess that's a good thing um and uh and I also wanted to say thank you to the PTA and the teachers who supported the PTA for the basket auction as uh Dr Zoo said it was a big success fun as always house was packed and I think we had a lot of fun um I think it was within the session that dodgeball occur right and that um
034that that was a good night to watch the teachers Administration battle it out and um I along with that in a good segue is uh play-by-play commentary done by the TDN Network and um I want to say thank you to your guys' efforts especially um I I do enjoy watching on YouTube and I've gotten a couple uh other places to look at it and there's been some excitement where I do need to talk to you about a couple of them because they want to start get involved and see if we can bridge this stuff with a couple outside organizations but uh I want to say you guys do a great job and I I look down at Mr ER in there uh he's one of the voices there right his personalities so it was great
035I enjoy it and uh keep with great work um at first I want to say thank you to all the PTA and the teachers for the hard work for the basket auction it was amazing it is a lot of fun like Dr Nelson said and um it it brings everybody together to enjoy and get to know each other so I think I think it was a raging success and I can't wait till next year um I I am beyond proud of our school district every time I turn around there's something else that that just amazes me the basketball team I am a regular viewer of the Dragon network if you are not on there I tell you get on there you are so good and it's like watching a professional thing I I am amazed
036at what what you've done and what the students have done so I just urge you to check it out it's it's well worth your time anyone else sorry um I wanted a comment about the read Across America um um event I guess from last week I got to read at Shaner and Mrs Mao's class and then also at hes and Mrs giglio's class and the kids are just they're adorable they're so engaging they were asking questions they were involved in the stories um for kindergarten I did one of the Dr Seuss books and then for the third grade class I did a book um it's part of a power to choose um Series so you read and and basically give them options you're choosing a better option and a not so good option and so
037we did um we read a whole story based on the positive things and then we went back and did a funny one with the not so positive and they had a blast it was it was and I enjoyed it it was a lot of fun so um I appreciate being able to be involved in things like that and actually get out and see the kids and see the teachers and um and all of that so thank you for you know for making that an opportunity for us just to Echo what everyone said um congratulations again to our basketball and our spelling be and basket raffle I was with some firsttime basket raffle goers and they were like this is so efficient they could take this showell on the road I'm like no they can't but
038it is a wonderful event it's really great um for the community to all come out so thank you and of course um nice weather's here so like there's so much good that's coming um okay there so thank you to everybody and all that you do every day all right we're going to head into committee reports start with Miss Jackson for personnel and policy please so personnel and policy met on Tuesday March 4th at 6:15 uh we went through new policies up for first read some budget items and some staffing updates um our next meeting will be on Tuesday April first so can I have a motion to approve um items 9.2 through 9.1 before we go forward and that I have a small discussion item on regulation number 5533 about smoking on the very last
039uh line of that regulation principal or designated will notify the students parents and legal Guardians crossed out why why would that be I know there's not more than a few non-traditional families um why would you specifically take out and legal Guardians Mr rers before Dr Z responds and have a motion at a second and then we'll open discussion so um I'll give a motion motion by Dr nson second by Dr [Music] Sero okay thank yes so Mr Rogers this is um a recommendation from Strauss Esme which is the company that helps us do our our policies and procedures so their legal team makes these suggestions we don't put the cross outs on there I can check it out and find out why before the second read to find out why they are suggesting that okay
040I'll reach out to stra SES to find out why they are suggesting thank you it does make sense I understand what you're saying any any other comments or questions on items 9.2 or 9.11 Mrs anchor yes Mrs Bachelor yes Dr seren yes Mrs Jackson yes Dr L yes Dr Nelson yes Mrs perto yes Mr Rogers yes and Mrs bar yes at this time can we have our district Vanna White come down to the main Podium to introduce any new hires that might be in attendance tonight good evening everyone we have one new hire here this evening and her name is Sarah Pera there she is Sarah will be a a par at the sheener school and we look forward to her starting very soon thank you congratulations congratulations congratulations thank you Sarah if you don't
041mind just taking a picture of Mr Kos so I we can put you in our newsletter thank you so [Music] much all right Dr I'll finance and operations thank you um on March 4th at 4M met with uh myself Mr Rogers Dr trino Dr zto Mr V and Ian Nelson we went over um the budget and implications for the 2025 school year saw the presentation um in addition uh and late additions to our items on here for the vehicle purchase then the um disposition of the older vehicles uh and so at this time I'd like to get an approval for or motion for uh items approval for items 10.1 through 10.17 so moved second any comments or questions roll call Mrs anchor yes Mrs Bachelor yes Dr Serena yes Mrs Jackson yes Dr L yes
042Dr Nelson yes Mrs PTO abstained from 10.8 yes to the rest Mr Rogers yes and Mrs bar yes that concludes my report thank you Dr hson Dr the curriculum committee met on Tuesday March 4 four we discuss that um fall scores fall M scores excuse me and we also discuss budget at this time I'd like to motion to move 11.2 and 11.3 motion by Dr Sereno second second by Miss fro comments or questions roll call Mrs anry yes Mrs Bachelor yes Dr Sero yes Mrs Jackson yes Dr La yes Dr Nelson yes Mrs Bram yes Mr Rogers yes Mrs BL yes all right at this time members of the board May comment on any item or topic that has been previously discussed as old business sorry we were just double checking we already approved the
043board meeting change date that's a new bus we do not need to vote on that tonight we did that last at this time we will reopen public comments um students parents employees and community members May comment on any item of Interest pertaining to the house of Township School District public comment is limited to 3 minutes per person you can come on down to the mic name and address for the record can stay there get you the we'll get you the mic I Susan Lazar um just a Community member and my address is 7414 Driftwood Lane Township of Hamilton um I'm also involed with sustainable jersey with the Township and I just wanted to I didn't know if you know that they're doing trees for schools uh there's tree planning grants uh the applications do May
04413th they're um $10,000 to $250,000 for tree planting I didn't know if you were aware of it I'm not so um I can I don't have the whole Grant stuff but I have a handout from stainable Jersey for school so if anybody absolutely if you want would you grab that that's it thank you so much absolutely and the other thing is um I know I don't have in but there's some actions with sustainable Jersey for schools that maybe we can collaborate with the municipality um organization at some point all right absolutely thank you and please if you don't mind can you give your name to Mrs ster because we do have our resource Fair coming up soon okay definitely would invite you to come to that as well okay okay thank you so much wonderful
045thank you any other public comment all right I this time can I please have a motion to adjourn motion by missa second by drino all favor iOS have a great night everybody