001Good evening everyone. It is now 6:15 and we're going to call our February monthly board meeting to order. Miss uh let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. >> I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Miss Allen, can we have a roll call, please? Oh, I'm sorry. Before we do that, I just wanted to say Mr. Payne is unable to be here tonight. That's why I'm opening up the meeting. Okay. Miss Allen, >> yes. >> Miss [clears throat] Alvarez, >> here. >> Mr. Depay. >> Ms. Forest >> here. >> Mr. Marazine >> here. >> Dr. Pek >> here. Mr. Hero >> here. >> Miss Ratner >> here. >> Miss Chararma >> here.
002>> Mr. Tufano >> here. >> Mr. Zikner >> here. >> We have a quorum. In accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law, the Monroe County Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published and electronic notice provided by having the date, time, and place thereof posted January 14th, 2026 and February 11th, 2026 at all schools on the district website, home news Tribune, Cranberry Press, and filed with the clerk of the copy. Okay, I'm going to be reading our close session resolution. Whereas the Senator Byron M. Bayer Open Public Meetings Act, NJSA 10 col4-6 SEC provides that the Monroe Township Board of Education may hold an executive session from which the public is excluded to discuss matters that are confidential or or are one of the nine subject
003matters listed in section 12B of the act. And whereas the board hereby declares that its discussion of the following subjects will be made public at a time when the public's interest in disclosure is greater than any privacy or governmental interest being protected from disclosure. Now therefore be it resolved by the Monroe Township Board of Education that the board shall go into executive session to discuss the following items. Additional items may be determined and announced as needed. pending or anticipated litigation and matters covered by the attorney client privilege matters involving employees in terms of their employment and contract hip investigation involving students. Be it further resolved that said discussion may be disclosed to the public when reasons for discussing and acting upon it in close session no longer exist. Action may be taken on any of
004the items stated above. Do I have a motion? >> Motion second. >> Motion by Mr. to final second by Miss Ratner. All those in favor? >> I Okay. Um we should be back from close session at around 7:15 p.m. >> Hello. Okay, it is now 7:15, so I would like to open the public portion of the meeting. Okay, the uh next item on our agenda is the approval of minutes. First up, public board of education meeting minutes for January 21st, 21st, 2026. >> Motion by Miss Ratner. >> Second by Mr. Zikner. >> Miss Allen, can we have a roll call or do we do all at once? >> We can do all those in favor. >> I >> Okay. >> Uh the second item are the close session meeting minutes for January 21st, 2026. Is
005there a motion? >> Motion. >> Mr. Tfano. Second. >> Second by Mr. Piro. >> All those in favor? >> I I >> I. >> All right. Both were approved. Moving on to the next item on the agenda is the student board members report. We only have one student board member this evening. Hello. [laughter] >> Hi. Good evening everybody. I apologize in advance for my voice. I'm currently recovering from a cold. Um but I'll begin with Barkley Brook. Barkley Brook hosted the Team USA spirit day on Friday, February 6th to honor former Barkerbrook student Bree Norbrook, who competed for Team USA in snowboarding in this year's Winter Olympics. In celebration of the 100th day of school, Berkeley Brook is hosting a schoolwide spirit week this week. In addition to other themed days, students will be invited
006to dress as if they are 100 years old or wear a themed shirt on the 100th day of school. Tomorrow, February 19th, Barkley Brooks committee organized a Valentine Valentine's Day card drive for soup for Spmore seniors and residents at our local assisted living facilities with the hope that their this small act of kindness will spread love, support, and compassion to many members of our community. Students colored pictures and wrote heartfelt notes to the residents. They collected hundreds of Valentines which were distributed to local senior citizens in Rossmore as well as local assisted living facilities. And moving on to Brookside. Brookside held their schoolwide spelling be in February. Their school champion is fourth grader August Bendra. We they also held a team USA day at Brookside on February 6 to honor the same student to honor
007the same former student participating in the Olympics. And to celebrate the 100 day of school, Brookside is having a spirit week from February 17th to February 20th, which includes a variety of classroom activities and dress up days. Parent teacher conferences are being held this week on today, February 18th, and tomorrow, February 19th. Marking period 2 report cards in grades four and five are available for grades four and five are available to parents on February 19th. For Mil Lake, the schools kicked off February with the fantastic Woodland Mil Lake PTO book fair and the family night shopping event brought together so many families to celebrate the joy of reading. There is nothing better than seeing students so excited about books. The Super Bowl collection wrapped up on February 6th and they are proud to say they're
008proud of the student council and the generosity of the Mille community. Service learning at its best. From February 9th to the 13th, their halls were filled with positivity during We Love our School Spirit Week. The participation in Falcon Pride were contagious. We are looking forward to celebrating the 100th day of school on February 19th, a reminder of just how much growth and learning has taken place already. Later in the month, students will celebrate in dental visits on February 25th and the 26th to support student wellness. They'll close out February with the Kids Heart Challenge on February 27th, supporting the American Heart Association while promoting heart health and teamwork. As we move into March, they're especially excited to share their schoolwide fairy tale theme, Dreams Do Come True, for ReadAcross America from March 2nd to the
0099th. Our classrooms and hallways will be transformed as we bring stories to life across grade levels. On Tuesday, March 3rd, we are honored to welcome our board of education members, community readers, and mayor Delina into our classrooms to read with students and celebrate literacy. On Wednesday, March 4th, Woodland students and the Jamesburg Alex will visit Mil Lake to read to the lead learners, continuing to strengthen the community partnerships and love for reading. The excitement continues with their evening of reading and a visit from the author Sue Flees. Later in the month, Millie continues to shine through uh literacy, service, wellness, and strong community connections. For Woodland, the title I ready to the title one ready to rise zero period program in English language arts, math, and STEM has begun. The student council sponsored several spirited
010events throughout the month, including spirited themed spirit days celebrating Groundhog's Day, Valentine's Day, and President's Day. In addition, the student council coordinated a successful Super Bowl food drive fundraiser and a winter coat drive to support families in need. Beyond collecting donations, several student council members along with their adviser, Mr. Dale, and chapron by their parents volunteered at Rise and Heightstown, where they assisted in stocking shelves to support underprivileged families. Their service reflects Woodland's ongoing commitment to character development and civic responsibility. Mrs. Sidler hosted a math award celebration recognizing students for their outstanding dedication to logging over 3,000 minutes of math. TNT sports t kicked off their winter session of after school athletic programming. Students are participating in soccer, basketball, and tennis. Students from Under Township High School visited Woodland to engage in collaborated unified activity
011with the unified PAL unified and PAL students to celebrate the kickoff of the winter Olympics and to show support for the Monroe alum. Students and staff proudly wore red, white, and blue. The PTO successfully coordinated a book fair for all students. This event not only fostered excitement around reading but also helped students expand their home libraries and further develop a love for literacy. for Oak Tree. On February 12th, an hour of code night for the third grade students and their parents was hosted. On February 13th, the Falcon Fest schoolwide pep rally and kids heart challenge took place, raising over $14,000. The PTA schoolwide Friday frenzy where each Friday the school participated in a theme day to raise funds for the annual field day events. On February 20th, the school will earn enough tal falcon feather
012tickets to reach the goal. So they are celebrating with a game day celebration day on February 21st. The PTA family formal event will take place and from March 2nd to the 6th theme events for ReadAcross America will take place in Applegarth. Applegarth had its second pep rally of the year on February 6th. Recipients of the inclusive award, one of their core values were honored at the pep rally on February 6th. They participate in a district ride, red, white, and blue say to support of Briana's participation in the Winter Olympics. Conferences will be held this week and have been held this week on February 17th and today on February 18th. Applegarth has had four 4-hour sessions on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the students. Uh the schoolwide spelling bee will take place on Friday, February 20th,
013and good luck to all participants. and the robotic Olympi the robot Olympics will be held under the direction of their media specialists on February 24th and February 27th. And now moving on to the middle school. The middle school's spelling be was held on February 11th showcasing the exceptional talent talents of 21 outstanding spellers who successfully tackled a number of challenging words. uh and Akara will advance to the scripts regional spelling bee and we they extend their warmest congratulations and best wishes for continued success. The Monro Haja Middle School Falcon and Purple Jazz Ensembles were welcomed by excited seniors at Brookdale Senior Living on February 13th. The two ensembles performed an hour of live jazz music for the residents to great applause and appreciation. Last week, the Monroe Middle School administration held grade level expectation assemblies
014with all students. This was an opportunity to compliment the students on what they are doing is well, but also a time to review school expectations both inside and outside of the classroom. Their students are doing a magnificent job this year. A huge congratulations to the MTMS Code Zero Robotics teams for placing first, second, third, and fifth out of total out of 19 total teams at the Crusaders competition. And now and now five of those t of one team is um a three-time regional qualifier. And um a special congratulations to the MTMS wrestler Tyke Shama who did an amazing job and won the won numerous tournaments including the GMC champion and the by county championship. Uh congratulations the moving on to the high school. The high school has officially opened the work-based learning program applications for
015the 2026 and 2027 school year. This program is available for juniors interested in internships and career experience and is wholly unique to the Monro Township High School. [clears throat] All applications must be submitted to uh by February 27th, which is coming up now. And additionally, the course scheduling process for next year is beginning for students in grades 8 through 11th. Parents are advised that choosing a course level higher than a teacher's recommendation will require a waiver and a commitment to stay in the class. [clears throat] In highlighting our students, national honors were our senior Josephina Corona, who was awarded a $3,200 National Honor Society scholarship, one of only 24 recipients in the state of New Jersey. In athletics, the gold competition cheerleading team secured a first place finish at the Mustang Mania competition. In swimming,
016Brandon Anun and Aiden Louu set new county records at the GMC Championships. In arts and clubs, six students earned seats at the NJ all states bands. And speech and debate, Arjun Kukari and Sahiti Pakiro took home state trophies with Kokuri um qualifying for the national tournament of champions. Important reminders and deadlines. Students are reminded that parking on campus without permission will result in a loss of parking privileges during their senior year. And this is being taken seriously. And finally, the school is proud to celebrate Black History Month throughout the state uh month of February, recognizing the contributions and history of the black community in Monroe and our world and America. >> Thank you. [laughter] [applause] >> Thank you, Miss Patel, for your very detailed reports. We always love hearing about what's happening at all of
017our schools and you sounded great. Yeah, no worries. You did a great job. Okay, the next item on our agenda are the committee reports. Is there any committee person wishing to share the report? Uh Mr. Piro, >> we'll start out. We had the uh BG&T committee meeting on February 12th. Present was myself, Miss Alvarez, Mr. Marzine, uh Mr. Payne, Dr. Layman, Zach Moralda, Dr. Kevin Higgins, Mr. Dave Tine, and Miss Donna Martyr, [clears throat] and our guest was Rich uh Alderiso from the DI Group Architecture. Uh so, first off, we went over the ESP projects. Uh committee members reviewed a weekly update provided by Honeywell, which highlights completion of the LED lighting upgrade. Uh the lighting contractors are now 100% complete in Barkley Brook, Brookside, Mil Lake, Woodland, Oak Tree, the Fieldhouse, and the high
018school and transportation and the administr administration building. Um MTV also has a full crew working on the middle school, second shift, uh boilers and pumps and middle and they are now operational. uh Barkley Brook boilers and pumps are now also operational and uh work is progressing um with these the Apple thro grant uh we revised that EACM the contracted there continues working second shift finishing the duck work painting speckling and adjusting set points the demolition removal of the existing uh boilers at Apagore school uh will be in the coming weeks we spoke uh we had presentation from uh Rich Alderiso of DI Group Administration presented the final revised proposal prepared by an architect on record. Uh committee members reviewed and discussed project purpose study overview. Information was analyzed for the following buildings. Uh an addition
019on Oak Tree. Uh working redoing the annex at uh Mil Lake School to upgrade it. And uh an addition of Barkley Brook. Um all commi all the committee agreed on the final proposal which was presented. Um I'll let Dr. Layman speak on that after I finish these couple other things. The convert they want to convert also the high school team meeting rooms to genet classrooms. So in the high school over by the gym there's two rooms that are basically used after school. They're called meeting rooms. They have benches and whiteboards and the teams use them before um like a game or practice. They use it for training. Uh what they want to do is we want to convert these to a regular classroom. This way during the day we would be able to use these
020for health, fizzed, whatever classes we need to put in there, but they would still be there at night for the team rooms. The only real difference is um they won't have benches, they'll have desks and everything else. So um we spoke about that and the the committee was all in agreement to do that. and also they are doing bidding for the HVAC at Barkley Brook School. Um it's going out to bid on the project. The bid opening should be on May 5th and the recommendation should come to us by the March um I mean excuse me by March 5th and the recommendation should come by March 16th. Um the existing HVAC control system is from 1999 and beyond its usable life. Uh this project will be fully funded via the state capital needs grant. So
021this will come out of a grant to do this. Uh then we uh went to transportation administration gave us an overview of bus operations uh driver staffing and contractor routes. They spoke briefly about they're still working the kinks out of the bus app which we launched um in the pilot program and um they talked about uh training for bus drivers and we also spoke about inclement weather and bus stops and things to that nature. Um and also with the bus app the team is going to test the app with the middle school also to also provide feedback from older students. Um but that pretty much is what happened. If Mr. Layman would just like to talk on the kindergarten. >> Yeah, sure. I mean that that basically and uh we'll post it on the web
022if it's not already there uh so the public has access to it. It's information that we can now use to have accurate numbers when we look to seek um support for funding for the construction project related to our long-term permanent solution for full day. So it's information for us. Um they did it in the context of preparing a project timeline for a referendum. It's not something that's on the table for us right now. Um but it's something that we can use as information. The plan itself won't change. We can update it in the future if we need to in terms of costs and things like that. But we have a solid number for the next several years um as a starting point for funding advocacy. >> Yes. >> Does anybody have questions or comments? Mr.
023Tfano, >> I have I have two questions. Um my first question is how much was that capital improvement grant? Do we know the amount the dollar amount? >> I don't know the exact dollar amount. I don't have it in front of me. I can find out from Mr. T. >> Then my Mr. Allen has the number for you. >> Yeah. So that's actually from the state aid the additional state aid that we received the $500,000. 500,00 >> so we're only using a portion of that for this particular purpose. >> Okay. Do we know what the other portion is being? >> Um part of it was for the design study that spoke about. Yeah. And then any other um needs basically related to the HVAC controls [clears throat] the controls at the um at the school.
024>> My second question is you said you had discussed um the inclement weather and stuff like that. Did anybody contact the township and ask them to make sure that they clear snow uh an extra special effort put into clearing snow where our children are being dropped off at bus stops. >> Anybody speak to that? uh transportation that if they seen an issue on the road, it should be they should notify whoever needs to be notified whether it's sidewalk, >> streets, whatever. If they see an issue, then they need to notify whatever agency should handle that whether it be the police. >> But that was discussed >> zoning or Yes, we talked to them about >> Yes. And was there a resolution or did did we >> said that they were going to >> So when
025we receive information about something like that, we communicate to the road department, communicate to the township, and they have in the past worked with us and would in the future, I'm sure. >> Well, you said they will. Did they confirm that they will? Are they going to send >> They have worked with us. I'm telling you that they have worked with us just recently in the past of clearing a street that we had an issue with. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments, Mr. Ratner. >> Um yeah, I just had um a followup about the kindergarten discussion. Um I wanted to I guess get more information as from what I understand this is just sort of giving us the numbers of what they suggested that we would need but it doesn't necessarily
026mean that we need to utilize that company for what we're going to do moving forward or >> so this this company provided us the road map to the project. So, it's everything from soft car costs, hard costs. Um, if we were to take this through fruition, um, everything would go out to bid and things like that. But these are estimates regardless of the company you use. >> Okay. Um, and then just because I had the opportunity to look at the attachment um, from the meeting um, the timeline that they gave in order for us to put this if we were looking to put it on potentially a November 2026 um, ballot, which is something like when we were discussing the strategic plan, you know, had brought brought up as a possibility said that um, we
027would need to have a board resolution um, prepared in March or April. I know like we also have to get budget numbers from the state. So like I I know everything is tight but I guess knowing all the work that has to be done before that how would we finalize that in order to have it there in ter? So the so remember we had two paths right we have >> implemented in our current facilities and then the second path is this path which represents the construction project related to creating more space right so the path that we're heading down right now is integrating it into our current budget and implementing next year at this point it's not my recommendation to take this to a referendum for November if we were heading down that path with
028this document we would be accelerating that um and making recommendations and moves starting next month in order to get um begin the state approvals, begin the processing of everything and get the ball rolling. >> Um and then just because of that, I know there were also other programs that were suggested to combine into this if we were to move forward. Are those projects like I know we had at one point not in this proposal talked about like high school bleachers. I also know like the HVAC system at I believe it's at Melik is potentially being included with this if we move forward. Are those that specifically more is that something that it's not an urgent need? >> So when it comes time to talk about what a referenda could potentially look like then everything could
029be on the table. We did discuss at the meeting that it would make sense when we started to do the work at Mil Lake to integrate the roof and the HVAC project together because we're working on that on the other uh in the annex side of the building. Um, so that would be in my mind a natural connection and then moving forward with a bond referendum at some point. Um, further discussion on what else could be included certainly, you know, would take place. >> Any other comments or questions for Mr. Piro? Okay, seeing none, Mr. Zikner, you had your hand up. You want to give your report? >> We met the curriculum personnel meeting was held on Thursday, February 12th. At 5:00 pm, presents were Dr. Layman, myself, Gail Depay, Carmen Alvarez, Dr. Amanda Peek,
030Kate Ratner, got it right this time, Sue Gasco, Danielle Dust, uh, Dr. Kelly Rosselle, Steve Barendika, and Zach Morata, uh Samantha Mloud, Jen Roland, and Maretta Ruela, uh Salvatore Anga, and Jim Cerni. Uh Mr. Barendika introduced the NFL Youth Flag Football Grant, which was $2,500. He discussed the grant, explained how it would be implemented within our summer sports program. He outlined its relationship with our nutrition program and identified the grade levels involved. He also noted that the program would be tuition free and open to all students. Dr. Roselle introduced the MTSS which stands for multi-tier system of support 21st century career technology program pilot. She explained how the new software would integrate with our current assessment tools and serve as an additional diagnostic tool. She also demonstrated its relevance in the middle school. The cost
031would be $595 and include 500 licenses which was just blew my blew me away. I got to tell you that is cheap. Uh Mr. Morana introduced and reviewed the Monroe Township High School and Middle School elective updates for the September school year. He outlined the class classes being offered and those being renamed. He also identified the competencies being integrated into the courses and explained the rationale for continuing to modify the course offerings. He also noted that the new AP courses would be offered at the high school throughout the presentations. Uh the three presenters answered questions and the meeting ended at 5:28 p.m. Additional information is available in the curriculum video meeting for February 12th located on the Monroe website which [clears throat] is at monrok12.nj. us. Thank you. >> Thank you Mr. Zikner. Any questions
032or comments? Miss Ratner? >> Yep. just I wanted to commend the student who um looked for the grant. That's you know fantastic. And so the kudos to that student for going above and beyond and trying to find ways to bring a program here. Anyone else wishing to give a committee report? Miss Ratner. >> Okay. I have two. Um the first is for the legislative advocacy and community engagement committee. Um we met on February 12th. Board of Education members present were myself, Miss Force, Miss Chararma, and Miss Deepain. The district administration was represented by Dr. Leman, and Mr. Moralda. We reviewed the district's advocacy page, which has received over 4,000 views. Based on feedback, we discussed revising our letter to include more specific financial data that would be relevant for full day kindergarten. In addition, M.
033shared some feedback from the NJSBA, the schoolboard meetings um that she had attended with Senator Gopal um and Dan Harris who is the chief of staff for Craig Coughlin. Cool. Um that emphasized the importance of in-person meetings with legislators as well as face-to-face conversations. Um they will have more impact than sending letters or emails even if they're individualized. Um so we discussed trying to find a way to do that and we also uh discussed reviewing the advocacy calendar to track some of the deadlines and ensure that we continue moving forward and making progress during the year. Um then we discussed reconvening our citizens advisory committee in March. Um this way we can share and discuss um some of the things that are happening such as the budget process as well as updates on full day
034kindergarten. Um and if there is any discussion about referendum perhaps that as well as uh summer programs. Uh we reviewed a few of legislative updates which included a bill that has moved forward um in from one of the committees related to sharing pilot revenue uh with school districts which is something that you know we sort of discussed at length um but would love to find out more about how some of the other townships have been successful doing this. um as well as a bill um with proposed requirements for mercury free score school flooring materials. Um and then finally we had discussed strengthening our community engagement um through informal events um to share information and hear concerns throughout the year. Um so that way we are you know not always just going out there when we
035want to ask for something but also making it more of a a two-way relationship in the community. Any comments or question for Miss Ratner? >> No. Do you want to do your next one? >> Sure. You're going to laugh at me because I actually have a question for myself, but um so the next one is the [laughter] policy committee. Um which met on February 12th. The board members were myself, Miss Miss Force, Mr. Mayorine, and Miss Deain. The district administration was represented um by Dr. Leman. Our meeting was primarily dictated by the policy wellness check provided by Strauss Esme. Uh first we reviewed a new career and technical education policy. Our district provide we offer these pathways for students that are in grades 9 to 12. We also provide access to um the county vocational
036and magnet schools for programs that we are unable to offer here. Um we learned that the school counselors as well as those subject teachers share this information um especially during scheduling time to ensure that students understand their options and we discussed um looking into ensuring that communication is also going home um and being shared with all students even if they're not necessarily in those courses. Um so um this policy basically just covers all of that um and it's up for a first reading tonight. There are also several um policies that are up for a first reading tonight that had very very small changes. Um essentially like changing the title name um or adding an M for mandatory. Um these are on our agenda for a first read as well. Essentially, we reviewed all of the
0372000s which are for programming. Um in addition, there is a resolution on the agenda that will allow the administration going forward to add the mandatory M to our policies um where that's the only change required. Finally, there's one policy in regulation tonight for a second and final reading, which is 1522 sexual harassment for staff. Um, as well as one policy on the agenda um for abolishment, which was the suggestion of Strauss Esme uh for special education receiving schools because we don't allow um out of district students into our schools um for services. Um I did just want to get the clarification with the resolution. Is that only policies or is it policies and regulations? I just I wasn't sure if any of the regulations are mandatory and if it's included for that that was >>
038so your question is the work we did well there's a resol there's a regulation the regulation is to be adopted uh tonight as well. So if it was a mandatory M next to it then we will have the corresponding regulation. Does that answer your question >> for the resolution? The resolution only says policies. So I didn't just know if >> well we should. >> So policies are what are mandated. Regulations are >> none of those are ever mandated. Okay. That's that's just what I want the clarification on. Thanks. >> Anyone else with questions or comments for Miss Ratner? Okay. I'm going to be reading the finance committee report. >> Okay. The finance committee held its monthly meeting on February 12th to review final matters, discuss asset management items, and receive an update on the 2026
0392027 budget calendar. The food service director successfully sold four pieces of unused equipment through an online bidding platform. The sales generated $7,200 in revenue. These funds will be returned to the food service account within the district's financial structure. Administration requested approval to sell six buses through govdees.com. The vehicles include four 54 passenger buses and two 25 passenger buses that have reached their 10-year replacement mark under the district's established fleet fleet cycle. Committee members noted that prior bus sales through gov deals produce favorable financial results. The district follows a structured repayment cycle like other departments, ensuring buses are replaced at appropriate intervals while maintaining backup vehicles for reliability. Looking ahead, the transportation department has requested two to three new buses for the 2026 2027 school year. These purchases would be structured under a 5-year lease purchase
040agreement. No new buses were purchased during the current fiscal year, making the upcoming replacements timely and necessary to maintain the fleet cycle. Uh lastly, the committee reviewed an important update regarding the 2026 2027 budget timeline. A proposed state measure may extend the governor's budget address to March 10th, which would delay the release of state aid figures until approximately March 12th. The district's budget presentation is currently scheduled for March 16th with final submission to the county due March 19th. This potential shift would create an extremely compressed timeline to incorporate state aid numbers, finalize documents, and make any necessary adjustments. Members expressed concerns that while the governor's address may be extended by two weeks, other statutory deadlines may not shift accordingly. With rising costs and already tight budgets, any reduction in state aid would present additional challenges.
041administration indicated they would continue monitoring developments and keep the board and the public informed. This concludes my report. Any questions or comments? >> No. >> Miss Alan, do you want to highlight what's on the the agenda with respect to that? >> Sure. Yes. [clears throat] So being that um we have not received official notification yet um regarding the governor's budget address and the delay um but we have been advised that we should anticipate that there will be a delay um a two-e delay. So we would like to propose um to change at this point to change the the um budget presentation meeting to that Wednesday um instead of the Monday. So two days later um at this point until we hear from the state um and then because the ne the following day it would
042be due at this point to the county. So once we get if we should get word from the state, in fact, we just got a notification today from the county that they are um they will let us know as soon as they receive word because everybody's asking them, all the school districts are asking them for this information. Um so we would at that point like to extend you change the board meeting date until the following Wednesday, the 25th, I believe it is, giving us a little bit of time. um a little bit extra time because we're really basically using losing about 18 days to prepare the budget. Um in the past um eight years ago when we had a new governor, it was a similar situation and they did extend the the state aid um
043by two weeks, the dead the um governor's address and state aid. So we did accordingly adjust our budget calendar. Um, I think we were only given nine days because the county, I believe, only gave us a nine-day extension for them to receive our finalized budget. So, that is on the um on our my report tonight um for um to ask for approval to extend at this point, have the anticipated budget meeting date on that [clears throat] Wednesday and then likely it will be changed again. >> I believe it's March 18th. Okay, you're probably right. I don't have [snorts] Yes, I think you're probably right. >> Yeah, Miss Men, can I just um a quick followup? Yeah, >> I I don't envy you guys having to deal with the tight deadlines. [clears throat] Um so, I
044guess there just two questions. The first is with assuming like everything would be fine with that budget hearing, but I I know that's obviously cutting it pretty close if there were any concerns that are brought up. Um but from what I remember, then like changes can be made after that initial budget hearing. it's um if there was anything that you know is a concern for board members especially because I know we're you know discussing some potentially big programs. So um assuming like that would still be a potential way to go if there were concerns that were brought up. >> Yeah. And and like Miss Alber said um hopefully we don't know if all the dates are going to be extended but hopefully they will follow suit. >> Right. I didn't know if that there was
045going to be like that domino effect. So like the April meeting may be pushed down further as well. So, we'll have to see. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh the next item on the agenda is public forum for agenda items only. Uh members of the public wishing to speak and come up to the podium. You will have four minutes. You can ask your questions at the beginning or throughout, but the clock does not stop for the 4m minute period. So, any members of the public wishing to speak on agenda items only. [snorts] Good evening everyone. I didn't want to come back so soon, but it's always a pleasure to see you all. Um, I was hoping to stay a little later before I came back into this, but it's easier being here. Uh before
046I use my time for the main reason I came today, I want to quickly comment on the committee reports specific to the kindergarten discussion. Um and my recommendations are for the finance committee. I know we just had a 10-minute meeting this week. I had been asking for this when I was on the board that we need to see the finance implications on the budget of starting full day kindergarten in September. Um I know when I started asking it was too early but now is the time that the board members who are going to you know biggest part of our responsibility is the budget uh have a great idea a good solid idea of what's giving and taking in our penny pinch tight budget to allow for a full day kindergarten. So if the finance committee
047could have a discussion on it uh in the month of March it'll be greatly appreciated. also wanted to ask uh and this is related to the BG&T update on the LED lighting which was part of the ESUP project. I had been asking to see the savings because a ESP project is based off of our savings. We're going to pay for it not out of our operational budgets but from the savings. So we did um you know realize this project in phases but some of those schools have had full LED lighting for a few months now almost six months. So I would like the finance committee to start seeing the savings in in the bills and discussing that openly in public. So if you could that would be greatly appreciated. The reason I'm here today is
048I have always said that people don't need to come here. The easier way is to email the board members. You know email your concerns to the board members to the administration and you'll hear back. uh the calendar was shared in the agenda and when I saw that I emailed the entire board yesterday and Dr. Layman with my concerns. I only heard back from Miss Ratner and Mr. Marazine. Thank you. Um I did not hear back from the board president. I hope Miss Payne is doing fine. She's doing well. Um I did hear back from Dr. Layman, but that was just a thank you. So, I'm here today because it's on the agenda and you guys are going to be voting on it and I wanted to make my concerns heard before you took a vote
049on it because I haven't heard or seen any changes since I shared my concerns. The first concern is well, let me start by praising the new format. It is excellent. One page looks great. So, kudos for that change. Um and I know it was possible because we could take out the weekends from our calendar but um November 8th Sunday is Diwali and May 16th Sunday if I have my days right is eidala. These are two holidays that on my term on the board I advocated for. Diwali for a few years before it became a permanent part of our calendar and Eid Lada the whole Muslim community has been advocated advocating for it and I believe they sent an email in January with the dates to Dr. layman and in that email they also noted that
050if the day is a it falls on a weekend please make sure you note it on the calendar and the importance of that is that the community awareness aspect is critical if the teachers know that there's a major holiday on a Sunday before they will not plan a test the next day and they will go easy with the students if they've been celebrating a major holiday the Sunday before I my ask in the email was that legend in the middle of that calendar needs to include November 8th and May 16th as major holidays that are celebrated by a huge demographic of our student body and even staff members. Um, Yam Kipur is not mentioned in the calendar. It says it's a holiday on September 21st, but it doesn't say Yam Kipur. It's important to mention
051what the holiday is. I'll come back in the second forum. Thank you, >> Dr. Leman. Did you? >> Sure. >> Yeah. Thank you Miss Bora for your comment and uh that is something that I am going to add to the calendar um because we did hear your feedback. I heard feedback from uh some of the other community members. So that was going to be one of the uh recommended changes that I had when we got to that part of the uh the vote because we did uh we did leave off Yam Kapor, we did leave off Dvali, um we did leave off the other Eid um and I believe there's another date too that I wanted to add in there. So, yes. >> Any other members of the public wishing to speak? >> Uh, good
052evening, Christy Scurby, Monroe Township. I think the other date was Columbus Day. I don't think that was marked as Columbus Day. It's a day off, but I don't think it said Columbus Day on the calendar. >> Yeah, there's a few. But >> speaking of the calendar, to piggyback of what my um former board vice president, who served an exceptional term um and advocated for our students in our community the entire time she was on the board, brought up um my question, I guess to you is Dr. Layman when Dr. Chanley took over as superintendent, she went back through the calendar and she came up with educational reasons why she wanted to make some changes. One of the biggest changes that she made which was implemented for the entire time she was superintendent. I think she
053did three calendars perhaps maybe four. I think it was three. Uh was the November week off and she had educational data that she had and reasons why Monday and Wednesday should be a day off. I was board president. I know that we sat in meetings and I thought that you were on board with that rationale and I'm wondering what has changed this year now that she has been put off on um she's sitting on administrative leave that week has been customary to have off there are educational reasons for it and I'm wondering why the change was now I do know when I was board president that the now vice president argued every year that she worked in Elizabeth and they didn't have off so therefore she felt Monroe shouldn't have off. And I'm wondering if
054you were pressured by the board to change that this year because we saw what happens when the board does pressure the superintendent and they don't back down. Um, another thing, starting school before Labor Day, going later than we ever have in Monroe to June 25th. These are all concerns and you can see it it blew up on social media. There is a lot of concern for going back before Labor Day and for putting in three snow days. That was another thing that Dr. Chanley did. She reviewed prior years weather reports when we had snow days and there was one year we built zero snow days in so that we didn't have to go back before Labor Day. And for the last few years we've built one day in. We're now building in three days. If
055we don't build in three days, if we build in two days and keep one day, we could go back after Labor Day or we could have the two days off in November or we could take two days off the end of the year. Another thing that Dr. Chanley implemented was making some of the holidays a half day because she explained to the board of education and the community several times each year when the calendar came up that a lot of times our students have no idea why we're celebrating these holidays. And by having a half a day on these holidays, one of them being Veterans Day, the schools are allowed to host programs, and I know a lot of our elementary schools would bring veterans in and do an assembly to teach the children why
056it actually is a holiday. And then they had the rest of the day to go home and celebrate if they chose to. And that allowed us to have more days because a half day counts as a full day. And then we were able to do that as a half a day instead of a full day off and then either go back later in September. There were times where we needed to um have January 2nd off um when it came there was a time that January 2nd fell on a Friday. We didn't want to have the staff and the students come back on a Friday and then have Saturday and Sunday off. So she works around those things. I'm wondering how in the world this is on the agenda to go back before Labor Day, be
057in school later than we ever have, and not have the November holiday, the two days in November off. It's this board is is really I I have no words for what you've done this year. It's it's really outstanding. you know, >> can I address the uh calendar comments after some more calendar feedback? Yes, I'll just go through it all. >> Any other members of the public wishing to speak? >> Hello. Hi, my name is Ganesh Masla, address morning drive. So I want to reiterate again what Gazala has said that yeah for Diwali uh I just want to reiterate that you know what we also as a Hindu festival we want because people a lot of people celebrate uh during the night and then it's easy if we have the holiday the next day at leis
058that will be considered okay um and also I want to know like why there was changes to the uh September like the Labor Day thing right because usually That's what I have taken. It's been 10 years here I have been in Monroe. Usually we plan our vacation just after like Labor Day. That's how we do it. Uh in fact I'll be traveling also just before Labor Day. So I just want to like what why the decision was made and if that is because of any budget concerns or something I just want to know about from the board. Okay. uh also like some people were telling in the I heard from the social media that November also usually like the first week you have the school I don't know it's a education week where you have
059holidays for the uh students I don't know if it's that if that has been updated also uh consider that uh and have that updated and uh I don't know if the I couldn't find the agenda for Dr. Dr. Chanley, right? I know like I've been speaking to the board I think few months ago ago on the uh reinstatement of Dr. Chanley. >> I just so I'll talk to that on the board agenda. All right. Thank you. Afterwards. Thank you. >> Thank you. Anyone else? [clears throat] >> Good evening. Lucille Benos, Monroe Township. I guess with the buildings and grounds. There was some report about what to do with the kindergartens or [clears throat] what might be needed. Okay, there. So, that was I don't you paid for that report, I imagine, and it would project
060how much possibly it could cost. Well, [clears throat] and then you're waiting for the state budget or you might put it up for referendum. First of all, [clears throat] whatever they say now, you keep on kicking the can down the road and those costs are going to increase. As far as a referendum is uh as far as waiting, you know, putting forth a referendum, referendums aren't mandated for school budget, you know, to implement full day kindergarten. So, here you live in Monroe Township with the senior comm more seniors. That referendum always gets voted down. Did you ever pass a referendum in Monroe because of all the seniors? Guess what? You're not here for the seniors. You're here for the kids. So if you don't need a referendum, you make that decision. You make sure that
061these kids, the only town in Middle Sex County that does not have full day kindergarten. That's embarrassing. You know, I I'm a senior. I don't have kids in school. My children, they went to a private high school and I paid taxes all these years. So what? You know what? That's what our job is, isn't it? To make sure our children get the best that we can give them. So folks, don't wait for a referendum. Don't keep on kicking the can down the road. So until it's mandated in 2029 or 2030, do it. Do it next September. You know what's it going to cost? By the way, you have a superintendent who's on paid leave. How much does that cost? Is she home? Is what is she doing? Is she getting is she How much is
062there? There there's a super >> Oh, this is for agenda items only. This public forum. >> Okay. So, as part of finance in your finance, how much did you is this superintendent getting paid without working? I'd love that kind of job. >> Don, this is a personnel question. >> Oh, come on. Really? You know, that's kind of weak. I don't know who you are, but >> but meanwhile, okay, so you know what? There there's obviously some personal issues here. Um, do the don't do the referendum. Get those kids in full day kindergarten this sep next September coming up. You should be if you don't, you should be embarrassed. The only town in Middle Sex County that doesn't have it. Thank you. >> Dr. Leman, do you want to talk about that? Yeah, I'll follow up
063on the calendar piece, but before I do that, just to clarify the kindergarten piece, >> the the plan is the goal is to integrate it into next year's budget. No referendum needed and house the students in our current space. What BG&T committee spoke about in the report that was done is uh providing us information for a long-term uh solution. Currently, in our buildings, we've historically been uh overcrowded. We've reclaimed spaces in our libraries, our art rooms, behind stages uh for classrooms. So, we would implement full day next year with our current layout. This plan that was uh developed would restore our buildings back to uh art rooms with art rooms, music rooms as music rooms, stages as stages, the library as library. Um it would also provide us the space for growth related to those
064projects. So, the goal is no referendum >> uh for next year. >> I'm sorry, ma'am. You can only come up once during each forum. There's another one at the end of the meeting. >> I'm sorry, ma'am. >> Thank you. Um, regarding the calendar, just a few highlights. Um, I'm going to pull up my notes here. So, in terms of one of the challenges we ran into this year, uh we haven't had this in probably 10 or 12 years is uh Eastern Passover are separate. So, typically they're associated with the same spring break. Um that was one of the the challenges we ran into when I looked at uh looking back at developing and including three snow days. Um, to me that's a uh responsible action to take because we have information about when we had
065to bring students in on President's Day in two 2024. It was actually February 19th. We had about 87% of our students on site which means 13% of them were out. That's dramatically uh larger absenteeism rate. Our absenteeism rate is typically anywhere between 97 98 99% depends on your school. Um so you're looking at a difference of probably 7 to 800 almost a thousand students and that's just an unplanned uh you know reclamation [clears throat] of a day. Uh additionally we had uh 219 staff members out on that day that is an abnormally large number of staff uh missing and we already are doing on a normal day on occasion we're running double or triple runs if we have you know absenteeisms in transportation. So my concern just looking forward is trying to be proactive with
066the inclusion of uh this the additional snow days. Um in terms of some of the other times uh we're really just looking at and again it was something I want to include uh those November 8th Dvali day the Yamapour will note that on there the Eid we will note on there. Um, in terms of the full days, I received feedback from the community, um, parents in particular that were concerned with the number of half days, um, and trying to arrange coverage. On the flip side, uh, I got suggestions from other community members andor some staff members that said, "Hey, can we convert some of the full days off to half days? We can reclaim some of these other days." So, I feel like for every comment I got on one side, I got a comment
067on the other side. Um, so you know th this is probably one of the more controversial andor difficult undertakings I would pro imagine not just our district but most districts do in terms of trying to find a happy medium. Um it definitely is a different philosophy and it's no shot at the person who was making involved in making the calendar before. Um we certainly have not needed those extra snow days in the past. Um I'm concerned right now looking at Sunday into Monday's weather that we're already going to be talking about potentially and again that may not come through but it's on my radar already um that we'll be starting to draw from spring break. So it's it's on the back of my mind right now and it would I my just from my perspective
068it's a responsible action to take in terms of being proactive because we have information that when this the days are scheduled the kids kids attend when we have to reclaim an unscheduled day there's definitely a lower attendance rate. Um so that's in terms of just information that's guiding my decision. Um you you may agree or disagree right and everyone has a different perspective but it wasn't done out of haphazard or an intentional uh change because I didn't believe in what was I was a part of the calendar development for the past six years I've been sitting in this in this central office role. So um certainly my input has been respected andor considered throughout the process. Um I did look back at before we were taking the the weeks off. Um there were weeks that
069actually we were in on election day. So, I looked at those that data, but then um you know, I also looked at a couple a few years where we were in on the Monday and the Wednesday. And again, our attendance rate is definitely not where it is when we uh when we have those unscheduled reclaimed days as it is when we have the scheduled days. So, I don't want you to feel like the decisions were haphazard, the decisions were random, or they were just changed for the sake of change. Um it was trying to be proactive, trying to think of the students in terms of um them being in school, them being here on the on the days that are planned in advance. Um and I get and when you add in those extra snow
070days, it certainly does stretch out the length of the length of the calendar and that's why it looks like, you know, we're starting a little early, although Labor Day is extremely late this year, right? That's another factor. Um, and then you know we have we have the locked in graduation date now for uh June 25th. So it doesn't answer all of your questions, but it it I just want you to feel like there was I wasn't pressured to make the changes. I looked at it with a blank slate and I used information um to [clears throat] make some decisions. So again, you may disagree with it. Um and again, I apologize for leaving those days off. We we did work with our community to make sure the dates that we're recognizing are accurate because sometimes
071we find multiple dates that could potentially be recognized. So, we did um levure community connections there. And uh we did notice uh one of the school times was transposed. So, we're we'll also adjust. So, Woodland School is three says 3:29 instead of 239. So, those two were transposed. Um again, there were a lot of eyes on this. Um it definitely is a different presentation as well. We got feedback about colors. Um when you photocopy this, there certainly could be some confusion. So what we um what we will do is we our intent is to have multiple versions of the calendar whether you want to print a big one out, you want to do a horizontal one. So we can tweak um you know maybe put different symbols that represent different days. So that way if
072you photocopy it um you c you certainly can kind of cross reference things. But I don't want you to feel like and anyone who gave me feedback that you know this was done haphazardly or done um you know [clears throat] without thought. Um and again there was conferred with you know multiple stakeholders and again it's I think whether we approve this I change it we approve the changed one it's going to swing the pendulum that someone else is going to be irritated or have other opinions and and again from our initial district perspective this was something that met the students needs and uh again I'm open for feedback. I always am open for feedback. My ears are open. I respond. Um, so it's certainly it's certainly something that, you know, this wasn't again halfaphazard or
073random. >> Thank you, Dr. Leman, for that detailed explanation. Mr. Stefan, can your question wait till we go right to vote on the calendar or do you need Yes. >> Well, I' I'd like to ask him now because I', depending on his answer, I'd make a motion to delay that vote. Um, so I I think it's imperative I ask him now. So we you you mentioned that we're going to have a large uh spike in absenteeism. When my kids were in school, I personally took a time share out for the week of Labor Day. How many parents do you think are going to schedule their reschedule their whole vacation plans when the kids have to come back on Labor Day? I think we're going to have a larger abs absenteeism during that time than what
074you explained. I I would also recommend it seems to me like you want to add some things in there uh due to some feedback we got now and and a lot of emails you've been receiving. go if we put this vote off for till next month and you can make all those changes and see what that public outcry is about um maybe it would be beneficial to everyone involved. I mean that's just my opinion. I think that I think if the board is inclined to to vote it down then we I will take feedback and whatever the the wishes of the board are which receive feedback from the community I will certainly make adjustments. Um, so that you know, >> we can also, you know, before we go to vote on it, we can modify
075the motion to add those dates and then we're voting on the the calendar with the modifications that were discussed this evening. >> Yeah, but I don't think he can do much about modifying coming back the fall. >> I don't think that's on the table. >> It's whatever the feedback is, I'm willing to take it. That that's actually what I was going to ask like if there are simple modifications for the calendar besides just adding those holidays but like actual date changes are those able to be done during the meeting where like if we said like is it possible to do this instead of that? Because I feel like those would be more I guess major changes than what was put out there for the community. >> Yeah. I mean, if there are changes that require
076me to try and identify another graduation date or something like that, that's not something I do on the table, you know, while we're sitting here. Um, if there are other things that could be tweaked that I that we don't need to verify with an outside source or something like that, I'm okay with moving forward with something like that. But in terms of just adding those days and things, that's very simple task that we can do. I think we should just follow the process and when it's time to vote, we can have a discussion. >> Okay. Any other members of the public wishing to >> comment on agenda items only? >> Okay. All right. Seeing none, uh the next item on our agenda is the assistant superintendence report. and the superintendent's report. >> Thank you. So,
077just wanted to highlight um because our student board member does amazing things. She's kind of beginning to highlight all the things I used to speak about in my assistant superport. Um but we do have uh some sign significant music related things going on. So, we want to extend our congratulations and best wishes to the Monroe Township Music Educators and students who will representing the district in the 2026 NJMEA, which is New Jersey Music Educators Association Conference in Atlantic City. This week, several of our staff members have been selected to present professional development sessions for music educators from across the state. This is their statewide conference. So, we have Nina Schmer and uh Lisa Constantino. They're presenting travel for a purpose grant writing to enhance your music classroom. Chris Giorella Garello will be presenting common clarinet
078corundum conundrums and cures. Uh and Mr. Moralda and Tiana Zerelli will be presenting beyond the school day strengthening and growing programs through authentic arts enrichment. Um so we're really proud of those staff members who were selected and recognized as leaders in music education at the state level. Additionally, our MTMS chamber singers under the direction of uh Mr. Scheder uh successfully auditioned and will perform at the conference on Friday, February 20th at 12:45 p.m. Um, and we also congratulate 11, that's 11 talented high school students who earned placement in the 2026 All State Wind Ensemble S uh symphonic band and treble chorus. Uh the students will rehearse and perform at Atlantic City this week and will conclude their experience with a performance on Sunday at the historic New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. So we
079wish luck to all the students and staff involved um in their presentations, both student presentations and staff development and uh representing our district. So, it's recommended that the board approve under personal items 10 member vote items A through U. >> Is there a motion? >> I make a motion. >> Mr. Po, >> second by Mr. Zikner. Any questions or comments? Okay. Miss Allen. >> Yes. Miss Alvarez. >> Yes. >> Miss Forest. >> Yes. >> Mr. Mr. Marazine, >> yes. >> Dr. Peek, >> yes. >> Mr. Piro, >> yes. >> Miss Ratner, >> um, yes. However, we're accused on R16 for Mr. Ratner. >> Uh, Miss Chararma, >> yes. >> Mr. Tano, >> yes. >> Mr. Zikner, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> It's recommended that the board approve under personnel items nine member vote, items
080V through A Z. V through a Z. >> Is there a motion? >> Motion, Mr. Ratner. Second by Mr. Piro. >> Any questions or comments? >> Miss Allen? >> Yes. Uh, Miss Alvarez? >> Yes. >> Miss Forest? >> Yes. >> Mr. Marzine? >> Yes. >> Mr. Piro? >> Yes. >> M. Ratner. >> Um, yes. We're Q's on [clears throat] Sorry. Um, recuse on AX 10 for Mr. Ratner. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Uh, Miss Chararma, >> yes. >> Mr. Tufano, >> yes. >> Mr. Zikner, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Under board action 10-member vote, it's recommended that the board approve the attached board actions, action items A through N. Um, with the calendar changes that I had noted before in terms of adding, uh, those holidays that we are missing. >> Okay. Should we read
081those into the record? Um I I think I wrote them down somewhere. >> Yep. So I'm going to add Yam Kapoor. >> Okay. >> Dvali, >> Eid alada as well as uh Columbus Day. >> Any questions or comments? >> What do we have any solution for the Labor Day? >> It's staying as is. Right. In terms of my recommendation right now, we can open up for discussion once the motion's made. >> I'll make a motion. >> Motion by Miss Ratner. >> I'll second it. >> Second by Mr. Zikner. Miss Ratner. >> Um, [clears throat] so I know that we have had a lot of feedback regarding the calendar um since us over [sighs] really just the last two days. And this has been something that you know we discussed last year as well that there's
082not a lot of time for our community to look at the calendar and provide feedback. Um Dr. Layman I you know I do give you credit. I I know that you had reached out to people and that you were trying to accommodate and so um you know I I know it's not an easy task to do and I know that ultimately there are going to be people that are happy there are people that are unhappy. Um, but you know, I did read through each of the emails that were sent to us and you know, we got several from staff members. We got several from, you know, parents with students in the district. And I feel like as a board member, our responsibility is to represent the community that you know has elected us as well
083as ensure that you know those people that are working with our students feel that what we are you know giving them providing them with in terms of this calendar will be the best for all of them. And you know, given like just some of the suggestions that were in there, I you know, I know that some of these are more substantive changes that can be made tonight. You know, I did look at other districts. A lot of them are starting before Labor Day this year. So, you know, I and I know you had looked around as well, but you know, one thing that like when looking around, I had noticed was that um most of those districts that are starting before Labor Day are also getting out much earlier. Um and so, you know, and
084for those districts that are not doing that, you know, like I think it's Malbor had added in the week for November this year. Um and so I think it's those like the combination of those three things that is you know a big concern and that's not even taking into account everything on social media which you know there has been a lot and again you have people on all sides of the argument but you know looking at from our official board perspective right these teachers who had you know suggested like the concerns with Columbus Day and Veterans Day plus the extra snow days and you know the data that was provided was before people became accustomed to having that schedule. Um and so I feel like and again this is something that I said last year
085so this is not you but >> well [clears throat] I mean I can motion to table it but then I also feel like just it's important to hear the feedback as to why um so some of the feedback was that um for those two days Columbus Day and Veterans Day the students have often I know that we had people who had discussed that but there are teachers who also you know observe Columbus Day and whereas Junth which I also understand has been an ask is fully off for both, but that's also very close to finals. Um, as far as the week in November, I know that one of the concerns brought up has been child care, right? Because then people need to find child care for that entire week. But, you know, and this is
086some coming from a parent who sent this email because, you know, I have my personal opinions, both me up here, I'm a board member, you know, and so I'm trying to share what the community has brought to us, right? And they said that you know there are is instructional disruption which is something like I've mentioned attending school only on Monday and Wednesday right so a kid going in Monday off Tuesday in Wednesday off Thursday Friday it really you know just what they said is destroys classroom momentum and student engagement or you may have students that then are not present which then creates a more challenging situation for them to catch up or for students to be able to um you know or um for parents to find child care for that whereas they may just
087use a vacation week. And so ultimately, you know, we all receive the emails. Um I don't really I can make a motion to table this. I I I don't know if we can make motions to change things like that. So um you know, I also don't really love the idea of tableling this because then we're not getting calendar to the end of March. So I'm not really, you know, we can also just vote as we feel is best based on, you know, the information we have. So >> So you going to make a motion? I mean, I I don't really want to make that motion to table it. Um, I just just want to say the other thing is the holidays. Um, which is something that I've brought up in the past. I feel like
088no matter what, we will always be leaving out somebody's holiday. And so, this is something that I believe Woodbridge and Piscatoaway had done. And this is something I think we could change would be to not necessarily have the holidays on the calendar, but then you know perhaps have a second page that lists all of this approved holidays from the state. And this way they're still all there. People are getting them, but you know, if somebody celebrates Chinese New Year, if somebody celebrates another holiday, you know, Ash Wednesday was today. I didn't even realize that. Then they're still able to see those holidays. So that was another point of feedback that was brought up to me. But I don't know how to make all of these into a motion. It's really more feedback. So, um, that's
089most of what I had to say. Um, any other questions or comments? >> No, I I just don't understand. So, are we supposed to We're not going to change the calendar at all. >> The only thing that's being that we're voting on right now [clears throat] that Dr. Layman read into the record is to note the names of the holidays. >> Okay. >> That's the only change we're voting on right now. >> Okay. question. >> But just to be clear, Miss For um the motion is to approve the calendar as it appears in your agenda with Dr. Layman's additions. So a yes vote >> that's it and then it's done. >> A yes vote would approve the calendar as it's in your agenda plus the uh additions that Dr. Layman just >> mentioned. >> Okay.
090Roll call. Miss Alice. >> Miss Alvarez. >> Yes. >> Miss Forest. >> Yes. >> Mr. Marzine, >> yes to all, no one ill. >> Dr. Peek, >> yes to all, no one else. >> Mr. Piro, >> yes. >> Miss Ratner, >> party calendar. >> Um, yes to all. Um, recuse on letter A for Mr. Snider and no on letter L for the school calendar. >> School. >> Miss Chararma. >> Yes. >> Mr. Tufano. >> Yes to all no one else. >> Mr. Zikner. >> Yes. >> Okay. So we have So motion passes. It's recommended by the board or that the board approve under board action nine and nine member vote uh action items O through S. O through S. >> Any motion? Motion by Mr. Trafan. >> Second by Mr. Marazine. Any questions or comments?
091>> Seeing none. Miss Allen. Yes. Miss Alvarez. >> Yes. [clears throat] Miss Forest. >> Yes. >> Mr. Meerine. >> Yes. >> Mr. Piro. >> Yes. >> Miss Ratner. Um. Yes. Uh, refuse on letters O and P for Mr. Ratner. Uh, Miss Chararma, >> yes. >> Mr. Tufano, >> yes. >> Mr. Zikner, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Okay. Did you Okay. Um, we're going to take a short five minute recess to hit this thing. Okay. Thank you for your patience. This is my first time running a meeting. I didn't know that we needed to motion to recess. Um, Mr. Weiss needed a couple minutes. So, we're ready to move forward. >> Great. And thank you. Um, what I'm going to do is since there's a a bill list item that uh deals with Dr. Chanley,
092I'm just going to read the doctrine of necessity. Whereas Dr. Sherie Chanley serves in the capacity of superintendent for the 2526 school year. And whereas the board must consider certain financial matters concerning Dr. Chanley's employment. And whereas upon review of the various conflicts of interest of the current board members, it has been determined that six of the members have conflicts of interest pursuant to the New Jersey School Ethics Act. Whereas pursuant to policy 0163, when a quorum of the board has conflicted interests, the doctrine of necessity may be invoked in order to allow conflicted board members to participate and vote only when the board of education has fewer non-conlicted board members than are required pursuant to statute to take action. And whereas when invoking the doctrine of necessity, the board shall state publicly that it
093is invoking the doctrine of necessity with the reasons for doing so and the specific nature of the conflicts of interest. And whereas the board policy further provides that it shall read the resolution invoking the doctrine of necessity at a regularly scheduled public meeting, post the notice of the resolution for 30 days, and provide the school ethics commission with a copy of the resolution. And whereas the school ethics act NJSA18A12-21 was enacted by the New Jersey state legislature to ensure and preserve public confidence in schoolboard members and school administrators and to provide specific ethical standards to guide their conduct. And whereas the school ethics commission has provided guidance regarding the invocation of the doctrine of necessity when a quorum of the board of education is not available because members of the board of education have conflicts
094of interest on a matter required to be discussed and voted upon. And whereas the board intends to uh vote this evening on financial matters related to Dr. Chanley whereas the members of the board that have conflicts of interest that would prevent their participation and vote on matters related to Dr. Chanley are as follows. Carmen Alvarez, Gail Depay, Peter Piro, Usha Chararma, and Charles Zikner are involved in litigation with Dr. Chanley and Kate Ratner's husband David is a teacher employed by the board. Whereas, as a result of the foregoing, the board does not have a quorum to to consider and vote on the financial matters related to Dr. Chanley's employment, and the board's council and the board have determined that it is necessary to invoke the doctor necessity. Now therefore, be it resolved that the above
095paragraphs are incorporated by reference, and be it further resolved that the Doctrine of Necessity is hereby invoked with respect to the board's public votes related to Dr. Chanley and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution having been read at a public meeting of the board on February 18th, 2025 be posted in accordance with the board's standard procedures for not less than 30 days and that the board secretary reflect the same in the minutes of the meeting and be it further resolved that a copy of this resolution be provided to the school ethics commission. Can I get a motion and a second? >> Motion by Mr. Tfano. >> Second by Mr. Marazine. >> I have a question. >> Yes, Mr. Um, [clears throat] Mr. Weiss, I would like for you, if you don't
096mind, to give the same legal advice you gave this board in in previous conversation about our obligation as a board to pay legal bills that we are contractually obligated to pay. >> Yeah, Mr. Tavano, I appreciate your question. The fact though is that we're now out in public and I'm not going to provide the advice that I gave to this board. um in a public forum, but I certainly appreciate your your sentiments. >> Um any questions or comments, Miss Ratner? >> Oh, not not on the doctrine. I apologize. >> Oh, wait. >> Okay. >> We had a motion in a second. >> Yes, we did. All right, Miss Allen. >> Yep. Miss Alvarez. >> Okay. Yes to all recuse on 13409. This is the doctor. >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> That's I just went 15
097seconds. >> Okay. Yes. >> Yep. >> Okay. Um, Miss Forest, >> yes. >> Mr. Meyer, >> yes. >> Dr. Peek, >> yes. >> Mr. Pero, >> yes. >> Miss Ratner, >> yes. >> Miss Chararma, >> yes. >> Mr. Tufano, >> yes. >> Mr. Zikner, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Okay. The next item on the agenda is num the business administrator's report. Miss Allen. >> Yes. It is recommended that board action items A through L under the 10 member vote be approved by consent. Roll call. >> Is there a motion? >> Motion. >> Mr. Ratner, second by Mr. Tfano. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Uh Mr. T, you have a question? >> Yeah. I just want to ask you on A2, can someone explain to me what the the living room at Princeton is? It
098is um for special education student. >> Okay. >> So, we have a student that attends that. >> Okay. That's all I wanted to know. Thank you, >> Mrs. Ratner. >> Yep. I also just I have two quick questions. Um the first is letter G. Um it says the previously submitted um grant of 45,000 if a awarded. Um, [clears throat] is this just to submit the grant application or is this approving it so that if we get it, we're able to take action with it? >> Submitting of the application. We have not been awarded the grant yet. >> Okay. Um, and then just my other question, um, I saw along the bill a lot of um, checks for like home news tribute and things like that and I know that we've been required to do it
099a certain way and if I remember the law is changing on that. Um, and so I just wasn't sure when that takes effect. I and if um especially because we're with the meeting date changes if there's going to be a change and then how we have to provide this in to the public. >> Do you want to take it? >> No. Do you have the date? I >> I don't have the date. I don't either. I don't have the date >> because I thought it was March 1st which is like >> it's very soon but yeah um but there is a requirement that boards publish notices for um I can't it's a consistent period of time prior to kind of the cut off >> um so for for now um there will be public notices
100that are going to be in the newspapers but that will be ending I believe it's sometime in March. >> Okay. So that's what those fees might have been for. >> No, those were for before, but because of the changes in our meeting dates. I did not know if then that's going to be during that transitional period. >> I have to look at the date, it could be, but um we'll check and we'll notice appropriately. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? >> All right, Miss Allen. >> Okay, so um Miss Alvarez. >> Okay. Yes to all recuse on 1349 14218 and 14177 >> or abstain I'm sorry. >> Okay. Um Miss Forest. >> Yes. And um no to check number 1349 14177 and 14218. >> Okay. Mr. Marazine. >> Yes to all.
101Okay, Dr. Pek. >> Yes to all. >> Mr. Pero. >> Uh, I am no to 1349. I have to recuse on 13414. I'm a no on 14177 and no on 14218. >> Okay. Um, Miss Ratner, um, I need to recuse on, um, 14218 um, 14 is 00452 uh, 13874 and 14177. Okay, Miss Chararma. >> Yes. For all and no for 1349, 14177, and 14218. Okay. Mr. Tufano. >> Yes. >> Mr. Zikner. >> Yes. Except for 1349, 14177, and 14218. Parrots. >> Okay. So motion passes except for one the check number 13409 and um and 14177. Okay. Um, it is recommended that um, board action items M through N under the nine member vote be approved by consent. Roll call. >> Motion. >> A motion by Miss Ratner. >> Any second? >> Second by Mr. Piro.
102Any questions or comments? >> Mrs. Ratner. Um, I just wanted to take thank um one of our residents for a donation um to the middle school. So, thank you very much. >> Okay, Miss Allen. >> Yes. Um, Miss Alvarez, >> yes. >> Miss Forest, >> yes. >> Mr. Marazine, >> yes. >> Mr. Piro, >> yes. >> Miss Ratner, >> yes. >> Miss um recuse on letter end. >> I'm sorry. Yes. >> Recuse. Yes. To all recuse on letter N. >> Okay. Miss Sharma, >> yes. >> Mr. Tufano, >> yes. >> Mr. Zikner, >> yes. [clears throat] >> Motion passes. And that concludes my report. Okay. The next item on the agenda is the board president's report, but she um did not provide me with something to read. So, we're going to move on to other
103board business. Any members of the board? U Mr. Tfano? >> Yes. I have another question for our attorney. Um, hypothetically speaking, if a board who is contractually obligated to pay someone's legal bills doesn't pay them, what would be the consequences to that action? >> Um, it would be it most likely be a lawsuit to try and collect. >> Okay. Thank you. I have a follow-up question. [clears throat] Um, is is it our duty to do that as as a board member? Is it your duty to do what >> to a you know followed what the contract says? >> Uh to the extent that you're involved in a contract, yes, you'd be obligated. I'm assuming that if it's a valid contract, both parties would be obligated to uh perform both uh you know, both of their
104obligations pursuant to the terms of the contract. >> And and let's say I voted uh yes today and the next month I just changed my mind. And I could just vote no on that contract. Just what? Do whatever. >> You can absolutely always vote however your heart and mind tell you to vote. >> Okay. >> I have another question. In your legal opinion, if somebody votes no on something they're contractually obligated to pay for, could there be huge ramifications financially to that vote? Um, anything is possible. I I really um, you know, hypotheticals are not really where we want to be right now. >> Well, we we don't want to we don't want to tell the public what we discuss in close session. So, I'm trying to word it in a way that's possible. >>
105And I think the public glean that from from what you're saying, >> right? [laughter] So, there is a chance that this board and this school district could be sued for an excessive amount of money because we're voting no on something. Well, some people are voting no on some things that we are contractually obligated to vote yes for to the extent that the district >> Hypothetically. >> Yeah. Hypothetically, of course. >> Okay. >> Um to the extent that the district is obligated to pay something and they don't pay something that's owed, the district will have a problem. >> Thank you. I rest my case, your honor. [laughter] >> I would just like to make a comment that it's difficult to sometimes vote when you have questions that you can't ask. What do we ask? Is is
106Miss Chanley's contract contractually Miss Ratner? >> We can't. We can't. We can. Miss Ratner. >> Yes, we can. She's been rised. >> No, she No. >> Yeah, she's been riced, but not. >> So, we can ask that question. So, I'd like to make a motion. I mean, I would like to ask the question. >> Is Miss Chanley's contract specifically >> written where her legal fees are supposed to be paid by the board? I'm not going to answer that accurate. >> Well, that's not really a really that's not acceptable answer. Is her contract, which is of course public knowledge, her contract. Is it in her contract that her legal fees must be paid for if she's put on administrative leave? >> The language of the contract speaks for itself. And I've given the board my position
107on it. >> Thank you, >> Mr. Ratner. Go ahead. Go ahead. I didn't see your hand, Miss Force. Miss Force, I didn't see your hand. >> Okay. So, I just wanted to say that um I just completed a few weeks ago governance one. It was eye opening and I just want to say that was emphasized in each session regardless of the topic was decorum and confidentiality. So, I understand and I empathize with the public because I was on that side before. But according to everything that I learned, we are we are not allowed to discuss certain things. We are not allowed to provide information. We're not even allowed to engage or or comment or anything under what what I was trained. I mean, I I didn't realize how much confidentiality was really emphasized in everything.
108You know, unfortunately, that's what we're bound by. And we are bound by a higher ethical standard than any other elected official. And that's it. Unfortunately, we're we're we're not allowed [clears throat] to comment or have opinions or or discuss anything. Yeah. I mean, and I and I get it, >> you know, but we're just not allowed to. >> Thank you for sharing that. Anybody else wishing to speak, Miss Ratner? >> Um, yes. Just changing topics for a minute. Um, I just wanted to um share that I had the honor of attending uh the Ramadan lighting over the weekend along with Mr. Zikner and Mr. Marazine. Um, it was a fantastic event. Um, you know, I think this is their second time doing it. Um, and it's really nice to hear about, you know, all the
109different diversity that's in our township. They also served really good chai while we were sitting there because it was pretty cold. um which I enjoyed very much even though apparently I spilled it all over my jacket but that's besides the point. It was it was really good. Um and so I also um did just want to share that um I'm looking forward to reading to some of the classes at some of our elementary schools uh in a couple of weeks which will be either way whether meeting changes or not before the next meeting. Um if you haven't had the opportunity to do it, it's really one of like my favorite things to do as a board. So, I'd recommend if you can, you know, try and get over there and read um wherever we're invited
110to do. Um and then the other thing was I had gotten um notification that we they have um there's a lot of training that school boards offers, but in the spring they have something called the spring symposium, which is essentially like a mini uh workshop. Um so, the workshop is one that's over multiple days in the fall. Um, if you are looking for more opportunities to learn about different things, then that's definitely a great opportunity. Um, so I'd recommend definitely checking it out if you can. >> And that's all. >> Thank you, Mrs. Ratner. Mr. Zikner. >> Yeah. I just want to also mention I wasn't sure, did you also add Dr. Layman's name to that >> and Dr. Layman and actually also Mr. Morala. >> Right. Right. So, right. I I don't know. Do
111we forget anything? >> I misjrusted. >> Right. [laughter] >> I think I got everybody now. >> Yeah. I wanted to make sure we get them all. Thank you. Appreciate that. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Marrison. >> I have just uh two things. Um so, um Dr. Layman mentioned about the uh NJMA uh conference uh that we're very involved in. I just wanted to point out that um the music supervisor supervisor um Mr. uh Seid Seidner, I saying that right? >> Snider. Uh he's the actually the NJMEA president. um and he's down there uh representing that us as well. Um and then the other thing I wanted to um uh talk about was um it's my understanding there was an incident with a bus. Um I I don't want I don't want to say accident. I
112guess it was an accident, but we'll we'll say [clears throat] whatever. Incident with a bus. Um, and um, that being said, there I've received a lot of feedback uh, from in my email from people, you know, asking questions about that. And, um, at this time, I would like to make a motion for an independent investigation regarding the February 3rd bus incident. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Motion by Mr. Marazine, second by Mr. Defano questions comments >> there's >> my understanding is there is a there is an investigation we got to be real careful here >> we cannot >> we had a close session discussion >> um [laughter] and and I think we we kind of went through it all but to the extent that this motion uh is out there I would
113just caution the board um >> because of the issues that we discussed inside um you know you can certainly you know call your vote vote. Um I think you'd need someone to put in there for the appointment. Um but you could you could certainly go ahead with the vote. Uh it's just the effect of the vote. I have questions about specifically who are we appointing how much do we have any information? >> Mr. Marazine, >> do you have any? >> Uh I think we we would follow suit from what has been done in the past where you would um Mr. Weiss uh give a recommendation of attorneys. >> That's I I I we can go into close session but um >> there we're limited as to what we can say out here. >> Miss R,
114you have a question. Comment. I I just given the information that's been provided, it's hard to sort of know who is being like >> I would I would suggest I would suggest that we >> pause this for a moment, go into executive session to discuss this issue and then come out and we can address it. >> I'll make a motion to go into close session to discuss the for the purpose of discussing the motion on the table. >> Is there a second? Second >> motion by Mrs. Ranner, second by Mr. Tfano. Questions, comments, discussion? >> Okay. Uh, is there a roll call? >> Yes, >> Miss Alvarez. >> Uh, no. Based on what we heard, I don't feel the need. >> Um, Miss Forest, >> um, >> to go into close session for the to
115discuss it. >> We're going close. >> Yes. >> No. Did you say no? >> No. She said yes. >> Oh, yes. Okay. I'm sorry. Um, Mr. Marazine, >> yes. >> Dr. Peek, >> yes. >> Mr. Piro, >> no. >> Miss Ratner, >> yes. >> Miss Chararma, >> no. >> Mr. Tufano? >> Yes. >> Mr. Zikner? >> Yes. >> Okay. Motion passes to go into close session. Okay. Okay. The board is going to take a recess to enter executive. >> The board will be in close session for approximately 20 minutes to receive attorney client advice. >> Okay. The uh board is back from executive session. So we are opening the meeting now to the public. Motion to return to public. >> Okay. Session. >> You have a motion on the table. So, we have to pick
116up with that motion. >> Yeah, he said. >> I just >> Okay, so there's a motion on the table. >> Uh, I'm going to table the motion for now and defer to the attorney. >> Wait, wait. >> No. Yeah. >> No. Um, Mr. Marazine, you can either withdraw the motion or we can move forward. Um, >> With the vote on the motion to table. >> I'm going to withdraw and make a motion to table. Um, one or the other. >> One or the other. >> I'll make a motion to table. >> Is there a second? >> No. There's a motion to table on the floor. >> So, if if he's not withdrawing his motion, >> the should proceed with the motion to table. >> Can we get point of clarification? You missed. You said withdraw
117and ends motion. So, are you withdrawing the motion or are you making the mo? >> I'm going to withdraw the motion for now. >> Okay. So then the motion to table has been withdrawn. So now do we have a motion to what? Appoint. Are you withdrawing that motion? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> So there's no motion. >> So So there's no motion now because it's been withdrawn. >> Okay. Okay. So is there a motion to reopen the meeting? >> I make a motion reopening. Second. >> Oh, wait. Sorry. Reopen. >> Go ahead. >> You already opened. >> I did already. Somebody say >> Come on, Gail. >> Okay. Um, is there a motion for the >> No, you don't need a motion. >> Oh, no. [laughter] >> Okay. I'm sorry, guys. It's my first time,
118right? You ladies out there, you know. Okay. >> Okay. Mr. Weiss would like to read a statement for the public. >> Okay. Members of the public, uh, for those of you who are here and at home, the board of education wishes to express that its thoughts are with the student who was involved in the bus incident and their family at this time. The health, safety, and welfare of every child entrusted to the district's care is and will always be the board's highest priority. The board recognizes the impact that this event has had on its students, staff, and the broader Monroe community. The board understands that there is a public desire for answers and further information. However, this is now a legal matter. The district will conduct a thorough internal investigation and will continue to cooperate
119fully with local law enforcement to ensure a complete and accurate understanding of the facts. To protect the integrity of the district's investigations and to respect the privacy of the individuals involved, the board will not be issuing any further statements or answering specific questions regarding the incident at this time. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Weiss. Moving along, the next item on the agenda is our second public forum. Any members of the public wishing to speak can do so now. You will have four minutes. Hey, good evening. Uh, Mike Winer, nine Sequoia Court. Uh, I came here tonight because, uh, I wanted to speak about a couple issues I had with grades with my kids. Uh, so I experienced some great issues with grade books over the last couple years. And that led me to asking
120a general question, which was, do we have any policies that dictate either the number of assignments that should be in a grade book for a marking period or do we have any policies that dictate how many assignments should be in a category for a marking period? So, I emailed a few people, uh, guidance counselor, vice principal at the middle school. Unfortunately, I didn't get an answer from anyone, which is, to be honest with you, extremely disappointing that they would ignore my email. I'm not, you know, that that's that's another story and another comment for another time. But, uh, I ended up reaching out to Dr. Layman and he was nice enough to, uh, to give me some of his time to discuss some of these issues among other things that I came across. And, uh,
121what I found out is that we don't have policies that dictate this. So, we have policies that dictate that there's categories for the gradebook and there's percentages for those categories, which I understand. I'm a teacher myself with over 20 years experience. Um, but there's no policies that dictate how many assignments for a marking period or how many assignments should be in a category. Uh, I came here tonight to implore all of you to address this in some way. I mean I really I really feel strongly that we need some kind of policy that guides the teachers in terms of again how many grades what's the minimum amount of grades we want to see for a marking period and what should the minimum number of grades be in a particular category. The reason that I feel
122strongly about this and I'm going to say I'm speaking for my wife on this too who's also a teacher with numerous years of experience. Um, you know, simply speaking, without a policy like this, it's tough to have consistency class to class to be honest [snorts] with you because you have some teachers who are who have numerous grades in their grade book. You have other teachers who have what seems like a minimum number of grades. And there's also situations and and this is really what got me started on this journey of asking this question. I've come across situations where there's classes where we'll have a category like summit of assessment and that's worth 40% and there's one grade in that category. I mean that's ridiculous. That means that that one assignment is counting for 40% of
123the kids's mark and period grade. On top of that, not only does it count for 40%, but in no way, shape, or form have I, as a parent, ever been notified by a teacher saying, "Hey, heads up. We're having this assessment and it's worth 40%." you know, have if I knew that if I had a heads up about that and I knew that my that my child was going to be taking an assessment that was worth that much, obviously I would go out of my way to make sure they're prepared for it. But we don't even have that opportunity. So, it's it's been somewhat frustrating to be honest with you. Uh, and I'm surprised that we don't have these policies. Uh, my school district that I work at has has several policies that that govern
124this. Ours, I believe, is that no assignment can be worth more than the quarterly exam, which is 15%. So any assignment I have in my grade book has to be worth 14% or less. Uh you know and again that's just a general policy that kind of makes it easy for teachers to you know guide where they want to go with their grade book. So again I was just surprised that we didn't have policies about that. I'm experiencing a lot of frustrations with that in terms of my kids experience in the school and I wanted to implore you guys to uh address that in some way and create these policies to help guide the teachers. That's it. >> Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. >> Any other members of the public wishing to speak? [clears
125throat] >> Hello, my name is Ganeshra Musla, address 283 Morning Glory. Um, so I know I have [clears throat] been coming to the board meetings uh last year also for doc about to ask about Dr. Chanley. I don't know what's the status on it. Um I was reading the board minutes from last few months and uh I think it's still under investigation. So I have a few questions for the board like uh um what is the plan for reinstating her uh back to the board and until now what investigation have been done by the board? How long will it take more for the board for the investigation? how how much fees we have spent until now on the investigation and what's the plan to get her back. >> We cannot discuss personnel matters in public.
126>> No, she is suspended from the she's on leave from from May right from last year. So I want to know how much we have as a as a taxpayer. I just want to know how much we have spent on it. >> Okay. Um you can email Miss Allen. She can give you that information. >> Okay. And >> she's our business administrator. >> And uh I want to know like um how much time you have spent on it till now. At least you can say that right from how long this investigation going on. [clears throat] >> Excuse me. Thank you. Let's see when we voted on it, right? >> Yeah. >> I don't remember the month. >> You'd have to check the >> six months. 8 months. >> I would have to check the minutes
127and get back to you to see which month we voted voted to uh conduct the investigation. >> Yeah. At least like a ballpark like seven, eight months, whatever. Right. >> Because I was here in September, I think probably like in September or something, and I still I rated my the same thing, but I I think the board hasn't got anything. I I was not I didn't get any reply on that. uh on that uh forum when I asked and after that also I didn't see anything in the minutes yet. Um I mean you can email but I want to answer on this forum right that okay there's an investigation going on we are we are about to conquer something I mean you cannot just say it'll be sent email I want it on the forum
128itself here whatever information you have >> I'm sorry we already answered your question we will give you the information when we voted to conduct the investigation but in terms of discussing personal matter. >> It's not personal matter. How can it be personal? >> Where we're at in the process that cannot be discussed in public. >> But how long I mean why it's personal matter? I'm talking about what is uh from the >> we're discussing somebody's employment publicly. It's not it's not allowed. >> It's not allowed. >> No. >> But but as a taxpayer who is paying for it. Yeah. I cannot get that question answered. I mean it's so crazy like what what is the president's we set setting up to future superintendents right who is going to come to Monroe tomorrow and uh with
129this whatever is happening I think whatever investigation right it's not like rocket science you do something and then we are we have lawyers here we are paying for it and then there should be a result right you cannot just take like in year you're still paying for the for the superend the district is paying the tax is paying and you just say that you know what there will be email uh answer to me that's so crazy so I want uh whatever thing right whatever you want to write put that in the minutes of meeting so that next time at least if you say that you know what you cannot answer the write that in the minutes of meeting next time at least I know that everybody will be everybody will know okay this is what
130the board is up to thank you >> thank you Any other members wishing to speak? >> Good evening again, Chrissy Scurby Monroe. Um, Miss Allen, if you could bring that number um of how much money we've spent on the investigation to next month's meeting, I think this gentleman should get a um an answer publicly to that. Um, and I and I really I'm in disbelief of of what I see here. The lack of transparency, the lack of caring about our students, our staff. We heard from Miss Ratner, you had multiple staff members, multiple parents writing in about the calendar a and you just approve it. Thank you to those who voted no because at least you're standing up for the parents and the staff members, the people who voted you in to look out for
131them and to be their voice. Thank you. And Mr. Maradine, I don't know what went on in close session, but I applaud you for making a motion to do an independent investigation into that bus accident. Um, I don't know how you're going to do an internal investigation. Who's going to lead that? the people that were responsible to make sure that protocols were followed. That that's not how you do an investigation. Just like you did to Dr. Chanley when there was no reason to put her out on administrative leave. Here you have a child who was hit by a bus that this district wanted to deny happened until the mother went and found the video and then supplied it to you guys. You were trying to tell a sixth grade student she lied about being hit
132by a bus. How would any of you feel if it was your child and now you don't want to do an internal investigation into what took place? It really is appalling and disappointing. I'd like to ask also why was there no budget philosophy meeting? What is the budget philosophy this year? Miss Ellen, are you going out to maximum spending authority or are you doing whatever you want? Because we've always in this district always, except for this year, had a budget philosophy meeting where the board members and the public had a voice to say what they wanted to see in the budget. What programs did we absolutely want? What programs would we agree to exceed the 2% cap for? Do would we direct the administration to go to maximum spending authority? Would we ask them not
133to go to maximum spending authority for the sake of the taxpayers? You did not have a budget philosophy meeting. How are you creating a budget based on what feedback? Not from the public. You've taken the public's voice away and you sit here and say, "Well, we don't know if we're going to have full day kindergarten." Well, we don't know. We have to see what the budget says. But if the board said we want full day in that budget, it would be in the budget and you would know the parameters to make that happen. But you didn't. You didn't ask the board what they want to see. Make a decision. Full day kindergarten or not. We're at the end of February. Parents are signing their children up for other programs. Make a decision. Are we having
134it or are we not? But stop with this flip-flopping. Please God, don't have another referendum because it's a waste of money because we know it's going to fail. We had a referendum for $2.5 million to keep courtesy busing and I think it passed by what gazala 200 votes. You want to have a $20 million referendum when you sat here and told us we can fit all the children in the building. Oak Tree is at a record low attendance. Oak Tree School operated with a thousand students in the building at one point. What is it now? 550 you can have full day kindergarten. You don't need a referendum. You don't need to add on to the buildings. Any other members of the public wishing to speak? Hello everybody. Um, I just wanted to come and represent
135the um, well, not represent, I won't say that, but I wanted to say that uh, as a member of the video production. >> Can you say your name? >> Oh, I'm sorry. >> Robin McGuire and uh, I'm living Monroe. Sorry about that. It's okay. >> Um, I'm uh, part of the video production group uh, and classes in our school. I'm in video production 3 right now and I love that program. Um, it's the one of my favorite things, if not my favorite thing I've done in my entire school career at Monroe. And, um, I just was wondering why it is not considered an art class because, um, what do you call it? Video production is not just like about, you know, hey, this is how a camera works. It's about here are different angles, here's
136different forms of lighting, here are different things that we see in in media and in um in film today. And you know, we come in here every month and make you guys look pretty on camera. And um we do countless projects and proud uh countless um competitions throughout the year depending on what class you're in. Um that and we produce impressive work I feel like. And not only that, but uh film is one of the most impressive arts, if not the most impressive art in my opinion, that I've ever seen. Um it can move you in ways that are indescribable and I feel like that is insanely underestimated by not having it as it's considered an art class. Um, so I'd ask like why isn't it an art class and is there methods that we
137can go through to make it become an art elective instead of just an elective that is taken? >> So I can give you uh a pretty general answer some specifics and then we can certainly uh dive into the details at a future time. But in uh in the high school classes are siloed based on uh graduation requirements and which classes fit which you know uh category in terms of what counts towards what and in this case technology education the teacher certificate is aligned with the the uh the category in which the class falls into. In some courses depending on what the instructor certification is could be in one location or another. Um, so in terms of the placement and the location of that that class, that's why it's categored where it is right now. Um,
138it's can certainly be more complicated than that, but uh, in terms of where the funnel it fits into, it's in that funnel right now. Uh, and that's why it counts towards those electives credits um, towards your graduation. If it was in an art category, it would count towards those elective credits and you would have to find another course that would meet. Like granted, you've taken a bunch of them, so you're not worried about hitting those electives, but certain students find a niche in different areas and they target different classes to meet those graduation requirements. >> Yeah. So, is there um is there a way to change which in your terms funnel it was in? Because like and I'm not I I don't want to say like I want to make it clear like I'm not,
139you know, representative of everybody that's in video production. This is just my own opinion. Um, but like I just think that it's like an injustice almost to like the type of product that you know comes out of the class. >> I respect I hear that. Um, I think if in terms of the reignment of that that would that would be a significant change because you have students planning multiple years. I'm going to take this course to hit this requirement at this timeline and things like that. Um on occasion we would pivot a course here or there uh depending on either replace replacement of a staff member with new certificates or the changing of an entire department or program and fitting things and realigning programs. I would say reclassifying that as an art class is not
140on on our radar right now. It's not on the table. Um and if it were to be, it would certainly be a almost like a phasing in piece. Um allowing students that are tracked to potentially have that course to meet a requirement. um have other courses time to to weave in other courses as a part of their plan. >> So, >> all right. Thank you. I just was curious. All right. Have a great night. >> Thank you, >> Gazala Bora, Monroe Township. Sorry I didn't do it before. I'm getting back in the groove. Um I want to answer the taxpayers's question. It's public information investigation started in September. We've been investigating for six months and as per public billist I believe we've play paid close to $15,000 and I would like to urge uh Mr.
141Zikner for the other gentlemen that came here about the concern with the assessments and a policy. I I feel like this could be a curriculum committee public discussion so that the public understands how we are you know how the teachers have like a standard to follow and if that could be taken up in the curriculum committee that would be great. Um Dr. Dr. Layman, after I'm done with my three and a half minutes, if you could address my question in the email about why we have additional PD days in this year's calendar than previous year. Uh the main reason I am using the second forum is to talk about kindergarten, full day kindergarten. Um I from speaking to the you know amazing educators in this town I know everybody is behind the full day kindergarten
142and they're all set and they can really hit the ground running in September. Um all the three building principles of that you know of where they'll be starting full day K are ready and whatever compromises need to be made or whatever adjustments need to be made they're ready. So I feel like now the onus is on this board and I had sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp sp spoken to miss deep d pay in length about this the board needs to make sure that when this budget is put together you're comparing line item for line item between last year and this year to see what is changing and how are we fitting that program in
143is that's not the administration's the administration is trying to make something happen that the board asked for our job sorry not mine anymore but your job as board members is to see that another program does not suffer because of this. And that is why I've been asking for this to be brought up in a finance committee. Um it is still there's still time. I know the state aid numbers are going to come in later and I hope they stay the same and based on that the administration has planned out the budget to fit in the full day kindergarten. But our diligence, the board's diligence is important for the taxpayers and that needs to be done. Another asks for um this conversation is the three building principles that are making it happen. I hope that they
144can come and speak either at a public meeting or at a building ground meeting to share with the taxpayers how they're going to make it happen to to answer the question that people like me have. All these years we couldn't do it. How all of a sudden are we doing it? We didn't get a big cash inflow. We didn't create more space that much more spaces in our building. And what I'm getting to is that there is a referendum in the future for kindergarten. I do not agree with Miss Kirby that we can continue to provide the best quality of education in our elementary schools because I know music and art and all of these extras are going to get impacted. But if we want to make a valid case for the town to put
145in more money, I know it's an unfair ask for the town, but if we're going to have to make that ass to make that program complete, then those building principles are the ones that are going to convince these taxpayers that yes, we are making it happen right now, but it's not a perfect scenario. Perfect scenario will be one in which we can build the infrastructure to support all the programs, not just have the kids in the building with the bathroom and then manage other things on a card. So my ask is that and this is not the administration's job. This is the elected officials job. So I hope all of you hear me and will do your due diligence for this full day kindergarten to become a real success. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss
146Bora. know that probably mostly everyone at this table is all for full day kindergarten. So yes, we're all on the same page. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to come up to the microphone? Okay, seeing none, our next scheduled board of education meeting on the agenda says March 16th. However, there's a possibility it may be moved to March 18th. Oh, >> I think you said what outside. I thought I heard you say >> Okay. I'm sorry. >> So, in terms of the staff development days, so the teachers work 184 days. Students attend 180 days. Um, we have not fully utilized those full 184 days before. Um and it's again we may we may run into years in the future where we have the holidays uh that we look we recognize during the year and we may
147need to leverage some of those PD days as half days and that's where some of the feedback we got is turn those those full day PD days into half days which then regains days um which is counter to let's have less half days in the calendar which is some of the other feedback we got. So in terms of staff development days that this the staff will be working 184 days. Now um additionally in response to that we've had challenges across the board with the staff development when we're working on half days we're essentially having three to four tiers of time slots on a half day. You have the high school window, the middle school window, and then two elementary windows. Um because you have a few elementary schools in one window and a couple in
148another one. So when it goes to the fidelity of providing the programming for the for the staff across the board which we're uh required to provide them staff development training uh and they're required to acquire 20 hours a year 100 over a course of five years. Um those days all combined uh get us there. Now, the challenges we have when they're all half days is if we're looking to run, let's say, an AI course, we have to run four individual AI courses to meet the time slots. But additionally, and that's if the the buildings that are in the elementary level combine and combine locations when we run a full day PD day, we can maximize it and run say one. We get everybody cross whether it's elementary, middle, we have all the elementary schools coming
149together if they choose to take that. Um, additionally we have uh usually approaching about 100 120 personalized projects which means uh staff members work with their colleagues. Sometimes it's within the building within a grade level on curricular based projects implementing new uh whether it's ELA, math, science, whatever we have rolling out. Um and they meet and in the half-day model they'll meet in those afternoon sessions. Again restricted with working with staff within their own building. It has to do with going to lunch, coming back from the lunch, and having about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half to do that work. Having those full day opportunities allow the staff to interact through the throughout the district because they have the entire time committed. It's initial about five, five and a half
150hours of time and we can better address the district-wide programming in terms of our course offering. So on those days, the staff choose to take a course or develop a project. Um and then additionally we've noticed um staff and we we allow them what's called collaborative planning time. So the staff will engage in planning time where we we acquire subs for groups of teachers to work either in the morning or the afternoon or sometimes it's a full day. Um that's pulling them out of the out of the classroom um for either a morning or an afternoon. um by engaging these two full day PD days um and working with the staff to thoroughly and plan out those projects um I'm hoping that the staff won't have to be pulled out of their classroom. we won't
151have to leverage subs because now they have the time the large chunk of time that they can leverage again for their projects which is um oftentimes building on that work is what they're doing in their collaborative planning and not always the collaborative planning times used for other things as well um but we're also looking to potentially leverage those opportunities as well so um there's a lot of things in place with that uh those full day opportunities >> uh Dr. Dr. Layman, just a quick question. Um, so, so obviously the teachers need to have their 20 hours um, uh, to keep their teachers certification, but my question is, uh, is it in the teachers contract that we're required to provide the 20 hours for them? >> So, we we as a as a district over the
152course of five years, they needed to gain 100. If we uh if we have no staff development days, then we are need to provide them opportunities to acquire those credits. And then that that incurs sending them out to professional development offsite. Um again getting substitutes, bringing them in, pulling them out of class. So we do have uh a requirement to provide them opportunities to gather the staff development. Um certainly if if they're interested in not engaging in those four extra days in some way, shape or form, you know, we can engage in those conversations. uh you know whether it's through their collective arguing agreement or whatever but we certainly uh we certainly are leveraging the contract. We're providing those opportunities and uh again we're looking at maximizing the effectiveness of the uh professional development that
153we offer. >> Thank you Dr. >> Okay. So um on the agenda it says our next scheduled board of education meeting is March 16th. However, we're anticipating that to be moved to March 18th. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion by Mr. Toano, second by Miss Ratner. All those in favor? >> I I >> Thank you.