Monroe Township Board of Education 09.07.11 Regular Meeting

001good evening the meeting of the Monroe Township Board of Education will come to order and I'd like to welcome everybody to our first meeting in the new Monro Township High School please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance over there the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all may we have a roll call Mr gski Mrs colano here Mr cherella here Mrs anelis here Mr Braverman here Mr calman here Mr Klein here Mr Larry here Mr Masters here Mr tesler here Mrs Fon here mam board president you have a qu thank you in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings law the Monro Township Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting to be published

002by having the date time and place thereof posted September 2nd 2011 one at all schools two home News Tribune three cranberry press and four filed with the clerk of the municipality this time we will go to number five on the agenda the public forum anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record what it's agenda items I'm sorry oh I don't know I'm sorry I'm just gonna talk and if if I can't you'll just tell me to sit down my name is Suzanne Eisenberg I live at 12 trial Boulevard um child X was missing from band practice last week where were you on Tuesday night her friend wrote on her Facebook wall her resp response family emergency the next day child X sends

003an email to the band director to please excuse her absences from band practices Hurricane Irene destroyed her home and everything in it including her flute her marching dots and her uniform shoes out of all the devastation that occurred to her family her passion of marching in the band was her concern and now risk the band students with their families are working diligently to replace her flute so that she can continue participating in marching band family B right here on Schoolhouse Road had to quickly evacuate their house due to the quick Rising Waters of the brook due to the storm when I spoke to the owner I asked what she needed help with her response was I'm okay the football team is coming over to help me lift the heavy items out of my house a

004few days later she asked me for help I called the rec center who came to her rescue the soccer team why why am I telling you this because these children are parts of different teams not only on the field but off the field as well they're hard work um through their hard work they bring people together whether it's a soccer field a football field or an instrument in their hearts these children have already started to their fair share of play paying to play so I ask you to reconsider um opening up the voting again or ask to um reconsider pay to play these children have already done enough their families have done enough we are a community we're a village we're a town we're a people and these children have already shown that they can

005pull together and help one another so I ask that you reconsider that thank [Applause] you my name is Rebecca Eisenberg and I live on 12 trial Boulevard I am a sophomore student in the school who plays in the band you might have heard me play last night at the ribbon cutting ceremony I feel so lucky to have parents who support me in every way they possibly can they're always at the football games and com and at competitions to hear me play My mom is on the is at the music parent Association and was with me every day at band camp my parents say they will pay for me to play because they don't want me to stop from doing what I love however there are probably many children out there who are going to be

006forced to stop doing what they love you hold the power in your hands of allowing these children to continue what they love doing please consider revoking pay [Applause] toly anyone else you want to respond hi my name is Jeff campire I'm from for malberry Court Monroe I have uh two children in the high school one in the junior high this pay to play is a problem and a lot of respects not being involved in sports or other activities puts these kids back on the street I grew up in a really bad neighborhood and I know what I'm I grew up in nor New Jersey uh when I went to school we just went to school and you got involved and everybody was involved in sports stayed out of trouble involved in clubs they were out

007of trouble you're going to have a lot of kids that are going to be out on the street that are not going to be doing what they were supposed to be doing after school um you really need to reconsider this uh this is just another tax on this town we pay enough taxes you know try to help out the people that need the help thank you anyone else on the public Michelle Michelle armini 9 Ethel Street I would also like to Echo what the other two people have said um I think these children deserve every opportunity to join Sports and to have it taken care of um 165,00 ,000 on $110 million budget seems a really really small amount of money for you to find you you seem to find money a after we get

008terrified that the budgets are not going to go through and there's not going to be enough money and all of a sudden after that there's plenty of money that comes by so find $165,000 for these kids they deserve it and the kind of kids that went out and helped the people in the hurricane should be applauded it was heartwarming to see people come out and help the community so those are our community kids they deserve it okay um what I'm asking is U the last week's closed session did that resolution get get um did that subject get resolved was a Personnel item um no we're still in that process you have you haven't resolved that situation no okay when we when do you think that will be resolved and we will hear the results of

009that possibly tonight and possibly another meeting after that are you having another closed session yes we have what else is on the Clos session that's the only item is the superintendent evaluation okay so you'll read that resolution out again before you go into Clos session yes thank you okay anyone else from the public wish to speak okay then we will close the hi my name is Debbie nadio I reside at Six Laurel iway I have a question we did get the extra money what are we doing with it putting in our personal piggy banks we are the taxpayers here okay you are elected officials to serve our best interest for our children I want to compliment Ken I'm going to mess your name up Luke cofman and uh Mi Mr Masters when you gave your

010reason I saw it on the TV for taking pay to play take it out you gave a reason you gave a legitimate reason whether you like to their answers or not they gave a reason legitimate reason as far as people that want you to keep the pay to play in some of their answer was I budget it you got a budget that's not an answer our kids deserve more they have shown us that they are responsible the coaches enforce these kids to be better students colleges look for well-rounded children not for kids who just do academically well they want kids to be social I'm so upset that this was even thought about when extra money came into our hands what do you have intentions of doing with this extra money it's there it's there for

011the children not for anything else but the children so please I'm asking you we are taxpayers we are the voters who elected all of you into office because you are going to be you're going to take consider our best interest for our children and I really only saw three or four of you that took in consideration the best interest for our children and this community these G these kids deserve an opportunity to try different sports whether they're good or not whether they're going to change Sports change different clubs they have a right that is their right don't make us choose to pull our kids out thank you I know the money was the we got extra money from the state back in July and at that time the board uh voted on what to do

012with that extra money and I'm going to have Mr Gorski explain how much we received and where it went thank you we recently received received an additional state aid Award of $887,000 approximately which the board debated and decided to to reinstate um zero period transportation for approximately $250,000 as a 201122 budget item um a new science initiative at the elementary schools was also appropriated for aox o imately $400,000 I'll be brief and uh the remainder about $230,000 was appropriated for tax relief in the budget this uh request and revised budget was sent to the county and we are still waiting County Executive superintendent approval is there any other comment from the public okay seeing no one we will close um the public forum and at this time we will go to number six on the

013agenda Champion all open public forum back I didn't know it was coming my name is Elena Sally Elena Sally 23 Drexel terce um I actually didn't even know I was coming tonight because I didn't know the meeting was tonight on the website I couldn't find it um today my daughter calls me at 20 after 2 she missed her bus she was supposed to be staying after for cheerleading practice which got cancelled because the Outdoor Sports had to come indoors and they were never told that their practice which was supposed to be indoors was cancelled so I had to come up here and pick her up which on Wednesdays thank God I don't work because I was able to come and get her and she didn't have to sit here for almost two hours um I

014think there's going to be a problem I don't have if we if we have to pay to play I will do that but I think there's no room for these girls to practice in this school once November comes it's a competition team there's 35 girls that's $3,500 they're last year and the year before they bust them over to the rec center and from what I understand today um the athletic director made a statement that he didn't know whether the money was going to be there for busing to bus the girls over there if there's no room for them to practice in this high school they are a sport whether people in this school think they are or not they are a sport and I just I think that there's going to be problems this year

015and if we're paying that money if I have to pay the money I will pay it but I also don't want anything cut from what they had last year if they're paying $3,500 to do this I don't think that's fair that's all thank [Applause] you good evening my name is Adriana bikun um I live at 13 Bay Hill Boulevard and I had a question um what exactly is considered a sport or a club club that has never been made clear um I know that it was voted um by the Supreme Court that example cheerleading is not a sport it's a club so is there a um anywhere where it's defined what are the clubs and what are the sports because I don't think that's been made clear to the public to the parents or to

016the kids not that it matters I mean obviously you know if this is going to be enforced it has to be paid the children that could afford it will afford it the the kids that can't um like it was stated before a lot of them are going to be in the streets and they're not going to be participating so was this ever addressed yes I'll have Mr gisy answer yes there is a a recently uh created policy that addresses the differentiation between the sports and clubs all sports are included in the $100 fee without exemption Mar ing band is also considered a sport subject to the $100 fee clubs however are a little different those clubs that have a curriculum content or um address social um the well-being of students are exempt also those clubs

017where someone is nominated such as National Honor Society are exempt there is a uh an extra flyer attachment that was part of the policy that defines all of the clubs throughout the district both high school and middle school which ones are subject to the $25 fee and which ones are exempt there's a great deal of ones that are exempt all of the sports are non-exempt and they are $100 if however and I want to make this clear because it's an important point if any child is displaced or homeless um or financially um uh impaired by the hurricane their fee is exempt and if any child is on PR reduced lunch their fees are exempt and if any child wishes to solicit the exemption for any other reason they could appeal to the superintendent of schools

018as per the policy and seek exemption okay so um going back to the example of cheerleading so if it was stated that it is not a sport who made the decision that that is a sport within the district or sport b or banned if that's if you know you have all these other districts and all of these all these different school districts that don't consider it a sport or the Supreme Court not considering cheerleading to be a sport who made that decision in our district I know I know that cheerleading in monre has always been considered a sport and and that by land United States of America not the the marching band the marching band in particular and and um and cheerleading closer align to sporting because of the costs involved um and the coaching

019and and and and so on okay so the fee was again designed to help offset some of the costs so that some of these clubs particularly the ones that would added added later would not have to be uh considered to be cut with the budget um okay so then if it if it's going to be to outset the transportation because they they they go to different schools then it shouldn't be a paid to play it should be to cover their fees for busing okay JV for example don't travel they have four games five games in the year they don't do anything but cheer within the school grounds why are they going to be charged $100 well I mentioned this to another parent that had called and inquired about specific cost accounting to each Club compared

020to another club why would this one which is so much equipment intensive be the same price as another one and uh this was all designed in aggregate to help support the whole program as a whole and all the costs were considered together for the purpose of coming up with the fee and actually po play to participate has been something that the board has been discussing in committee and in in board meetings back in February and March before there was any um be before the budget because this was part of the budget so this this is something that the par the public has always been invited to our board board meetings and our committee meetings it's not been closed it's always been open and we've discussed this for many months so there was a lot of

021discussion that went into the decision as to what we wanted to include what we didn't want to include and um I know there is a list and if the list is not on the website we'll make sure that that list gets up on the website I understand what Mr Gorski was saying that um the fees are to outset and so it could be evened out but it still doesn't answer the question if if you have a team or the JV team that is not traveling they should not be in the same amount they should not pay the same amount that the teams that are traveling like like Varsity or the competition team for cheerleaders it makes no sense well the transportation is one component you still have the insurance you still have the field maintenance

022you still have uh all of the equipment you still have the stien and and the related cost for the instructors um you know that that's just one piece that you're that you're pulling out okay and yes you know a specific cost accounting for each particular sporting event could have been done and we could have had a differentiated uh price for every single one but um I believe that would have just confused the matter even more and uh not have really created any any big disparity in prices thank you anyone else from the public scon Mr Larry we're in public for okay if there is no more public I will close it and we will go on to number six champions of Education Mrs Cole Pono may I make a comment no we're going to hold

023off your comments until other board business five good evening members of the public members of the Board of Education um I am honored this evening to be able to present a champions of Education award last night we had the ribbon cutting ceremony for the opening of our new high school and it was very well done and there is just so much behind the scenes work that goes into preparing for the opening of a school district under normal circumstances this year in particular we were challenged by some extraordinary circumstances and logistical items that had to be accomplished within a very short period of time so while there's been a lot of focus on the opening of the high school there's been a lot of other things that have been going on to make today a POS

024today possible including the transition of our sixth graders out of the elementary schools into the middle school the move of Applegarth into the old high school the high school into the new facility the dismantling of our trailers the regular cleaning and maintenance of our buildings all the things that generally occur over the summer will multiply tfold and I think it only fitting that we acknowledge and recognize Jerry take for his incredible contribution to make that [Music] happen I I shared last night and not to be redundant but last night I spoke about the amount of stress that uh the administrative team has been under this summer and how I was particularly uh vexed by the inordinate amount of work that needed to be done and each time I went to Jerry take he said Ken

025don't worry about it it'll get done um until we reached the point where I was finally asked to stop coming into the buildings and so this evening I want to publicly acknowledge Jerry's calm professional and reassuring demeanor throughout this entire process and on behalf of the Board of Education like to present this plaque presented to Jerry tag as a Monroe Township Public School champion of education for exemplary service and providing leadership during the construction of the new high school and District con reconfiguration your efforts are appreciated and this is from superintendent of schools myself and Kathy kapano the Board of Education president Jerry [Music] [Applause] he's a lot back in the school I just want to add to that and and I I know I I said something last night about um under Jerry's leadership

026and he he doesn't ever ask for anything and he comes in here every day and he's got this smile on his face and he does his job and he does it he's does it extraordinarily but he he bought the high school project on time and under budget right after he just bought the Oak Tree project on time and under budget with very few change orders which is an amazing feat in itself and he spends his tireless time here and his dedication to Monroe is unbelievable and I think you're very underappreciated and um so the on behalf of the board uh we just want to thank you for everything that you do for all of us and our children anyone else okay we will go to the superintendent's Report with Dr Hamilton okay before I present

027my actual report this evening um our director of our supervisor of testing grants and special project projects is going to provide the board with a brief overview of the grant that we received for the teacher evaluation pilot uh when we get into the action items I I'll make an addendum uh an amendment to some of those items but I'll ask Mrs oconnell if she will present for us this [Music] evening I have to apologize I have a little bit of lentis so I'm going to do the best that I can and I apologize for my ugly voice um in uh I'm going to say approximately late June was it or was it July the state of New Jersey came out with a grant opportunity called excellent Educators for New Jersey um they were awarding pilot

028programs uh for re for new evaluation syst systems so I'm going to present to you on that we decided as a district to apply for it so the goals of this teacher Effectiveness program are number one and first and foremost is to increase student achievement we want to am I blocking you sure okay um and the other major purpose is to really accurately assess teacher Effectiveness with a um kind of a more more comprehensive program so we wanted to support ongoing Improvement for educators F and this is another important point to facilitate school and District collaborative cultures so this would mean we would really be working with teachers it wouldn't be the administration just saying here's our new evaluation system this is what you have to do it's really creating a whole team and I'll

029show you that getting feedback so adjustments can be made and to actively engage District educ Educators and stakeholders in shaping the development and implementation of the evaluation system and then it's also to collaborate with other districts who would um get this award I'm so sorry so you know one of the big things is obviously what is the benefit to Monroe basically the biggest benefit is hopefully to improve our student results by having more highly effective teachers it's an opportunity to identify and recognize the greatness in um classrooms and develop and support teachers who need a little bit more assistance so that they be can become better teachers also to engage Educators and other stakeholders in shaping the evaluation system the bottom line is the state of New Jersey Plans to come out with a Statewide

030evaluation system for school districts in New Jersey um in 2013 so this is a pilot project with 11 districts who would be working together to try and shape what this P what this program was going to be um and then the ability to how to use pilot results and uh $176,100 it's obviously a nice little bonus so I don't know if you can see this but and this is like a little bit of one of the controversial things about this program it's based on teacher evaluation 100% off course um student achievement outputs of learning would be considered 50% of the evaluation system so we would have to design evaluation system with 50% of the total evaluation based on student achievement um 35 to 45% of that would be on student gr growth and state approved

031test I'm going to this the next slide shows this a little bit better so if you can't see it that well don't worry about it um and then the district would um do like 5% on their own whatever kind of evaluation in terms of student achievement that they wanted the second half of it has to do with teacher practice practice excuse me and there were several different models that we could choose from in terms of um research based scientifically looked at programs in terms of evaluating teachers classroom practices how how they um you know maybe like how they effectively question students um student engagement things things like that that's just two of many of them um so that would be 25 to 45 47.5% and then we would have to find at least one additional

032tool to assess our teachers practice I just want to go into this part because this is probably one of the most I guess more controversial Parts I don't I know if I should say that or not um 35 to 45% would be um as I said part on student achievement so what we would look at is say for example the New Jersey ask and GES three through eight in language arts and math um part of this pilot project would be to come up with other types of Assessments that could be measurable for students in other subject areas so those have not been created yet we would work with other pilot districts to try and create these kinds of things so that we can measure students achievement in every different subject area um I think I

033basically explained that oh some of the options for that would be performance task saer like an art class some type of performance task or a music class um we could use curriculum based assessments nationally Norm tests and student learning objectives now when you look at this one of the things things we have to consider is in grades um one and two we use New Jersey pass test and that's not really a nationally normed test that we we would have to look at looking at something else and we've had some discussions anyway about like whether NJ pass is the best um test that we can be using so we would look at some other options and things like that but we would have the year to look at it distri will develop um schoolwide measures but

034that basically says the same thing so what we looked at in terms of developing this grant or I looked at or I guess we did but when I wrote it we chose we looked at several different models there's Charlotte Danielson model but we really came up with this um company called learning Sciences International that also works with Charlotte Danon but really also one of their good models is Dr Robert Marano actually Barbara if you just look on the floor there you can just show those books if you don't mind there's a a few of Marzano's books they're based on the Art and Science of teaching framework and um I put the resources in the end so if you want to look at any of those kinds of things um he is um very very well

035known and has a very very comprehensive model in terms of measuring teacher Effectiveness so this just explains a little bit of his model it monitors and supports the implementation of research-based strategies in the classroom I'm so sorry it identifies key strategies that are revealed through research he has been researching for many many many years in terms of effective teaching it's also ways to maximize student learning and here's another key thing I think right now in our observation systems and the way we evaluate teachers it's very individualized you know one principal may do one thing another supervisor may do another thing it's very very general this would provide a very common language across the board K through 12 for Effective teaching what it looks like what it is and it this would the other nice thing

036is this learning Sciences um company that we would be working with on this proposal would really allow us to customize what works for Mona Township so it's not to say to speak um I think Newark is one of the people who were awarded this it's not to say that we have to do the exact same things as New York we're not new Yark we're a much very much different district from new Yark trying can't think of any of the other names that came up but we can we can customize this the way we want to customize it for Monroe so the teacher practice components include research based valid and reliable all of that kind of stuff that we always talk about and we would collect evidence on basically five different things the learning learning environment

037that the students are in the teacher's instructional practice planning and preparation how the teacher plans and prepares their lessons it also includes a component of self-reflection where the teacher really needs to go back and look at how they're teaching hopefully we will look at some teachers even videotaping themselves and kind of going over and seeing what worked what didn't work those kinds of things and then of course their professional responsibilities and collaborations then the rating systems in this Marzano casual teacher evaluation model have five different levels of performance for teachers innovating applying developing beginning or not using the other thing I particularly like about this model is that it provides a differentiated process between novice and Veteran teachers so the expectation should not be that like a novice teacher who's been teaching two years should

038should be expected not to do the same types of things that say somebody's been teaching 20 years so this is about teacher growth no matter what year you're in you know you start out in the beginning you're learning certain things we expect you to have a few more mistakes and a few more bumps along the road by the time you've been teaching 20 years you got to get it straight you so to speak so what would this whole proposal include um basically we would have to provide a minimum of three days and I think it's more like six days in the grant of training for our evaluators that would be all evaluators supervisors principles Vice principls anybody who evaluates the teacher would also include frequent monit excuse me frequent monitoring for um accuracy of those

039evaluations so different people would come in and see how accurate is that valuation ongoing coaching for the evaluators to assure intergrator reliability and also understanding and and use in this it's called the intas model which you could Google or whatever it's um basically an inter um many many states got together along with like Pearson ETS different groups and they created um these Core teaching standards that measure effective teaching so we would use that model that model fits right in line with the Marzano model and uh use of effective evaluation and observation strategies and requirements so now for the teachers it would also include two full days of training the way we worked it out for our district is that the two we would select and I'll go over this more towards the end we would

040kind of figure out who we wanted as teacher leaders it would be a collaborative process I'll talk about that at the very end so I think we budgeted for in this about 30 we can change that and tweak that when you write a grant you write in certain things and you always know that some things are going to be adapted and changed it's not going to look exactly like it does in the in the draft but um we have certain teacher leaders in each and every building at each grade level and they would be our leaders to be trained in that and then what we would look at as a c savings because in the initially looking at this and Dr Hamilton and I talked about this it looked like if we trained every teacher

041in our staff in year one and had to cover for substitutes and things like that it would be quite expensive so we look at it's one of the benefits of Monroe is our professional development model model includes a train the trainers I think we have over what 70 people do you have any idea trained Jeff would probably know how many people close to 100 close to 100 people who have taken this course called train the trainers and train the trainers really affect ly teaches you how to be an effective trainer and and TurnKey the training so that everybody has the information on that so that's a tremendous cost savings to our district for non- 10year teachers we would and this is exactly pretty much what what what we have now is three formal observations with

042pre and post conferences for our non-tenure teachers what we don't necessarily have in writing is to informal observations but I believe that um supervisors and principles can do informal observations as they choose to do it's just not like mandated like this in this particular Grant the state of New Jersey says this is the minimum that you have to do for 10e teachers it would include two formal observations with pre and post conference and two inform informal observations also a summit of evaluation with a Mally developed PDP is a professional development plan so that they could plan for what they want to improve for the next year annual teachers would have to self assess themselves self do a selfassessment each year um and then we would follow up with professional development in specific areas of weaknesses

043for um our staff members so the district's commitment is basically to provide resources such as the time that would be involved in in terms of meetings the training etc those would be the resources we needed other than meeting space you know some of the logistics like that creating a process for full support of evaluators and teachers we would employ a web-based system of evaluation management we already use New Jersey smart which is a Statewide information system and we also use a system of called Genesis that that we collect different student data on so that's pretty much in place already we would create a district advisory committee as I mentioned before I I'm not sure I did mention that before for input and support and that would be one of our kickoff things and also we

044need to develop an additional measure for Teacher practice so I'm not sure you can really see this so I'm just going to just kind of read it to you really clearly the timelines for this this grant is from September 1st 2001 now through September 30th 20 12 so it's only a one-year pilot and after that as I said the state of New Jersey Plans to take all this information and create a Statewide evaluation system so it's coming down the pike anyway so we basically in this grant have four reporting periods if you think of them sort of like a quarter you know there's reporting period 1 two 3 4 so the first thing obviously is we would have a district stakeholder advisory committee who would really look at what our current evaluation system is what

045kind of changes and what kinds of things we need to tweak um that would be reporting period one excuse me we would me with this company learning Sciences who is the company that we chose to help us implement the Marzano model they have something also called eye observation which is an online program so say a teacher is there I use the effective questioning um example before say a teacher um is observed and it comes up that you know you're really not like doing higher order questioning with your students or something like that they can actually this eye observation has like a video the teacher can just click on and watch and see that being implemented in the classroom so they have real life examples that would um we would meet with them in the beginning

046and help create our own customized templates and tools for what works in our district then we would have the training for the evaluators we would obviously all the way down the road we have to collaborate the department and the other districts to help create those growth measures for the untested non-tested subjects um we need to create and disseminate interest inventories and recommendation forms to identify and recruit instructional leaders and coaches and I think this is really important because honestly in when we're writing a grant we just kind of like say okay this teacher will be do this and this teacher will do that and you just kind of stick names in there however we're not going to just like choose people at an administrative level I think it's really important that we develop some kind

047of surveys and interest things so that make sure that it's the right teacher and the right fit for creating the proper evaluation system um and so then after the evaluators are trained LSI would come in and train the instructional leaders we need to update our professional development program to fit in line with this it's called E4 andj excellent Educators for New Jersey requir requirements and then after we see how our teachers are doing maybe we we're going to have far more comprehensive data on how our teachers are performing and what skills they have in the classroom and then we can develop our professional program professional development programs exactly to line up with where our needs are so we're not just saying oh take a course in this for no particular reason and then of course

048there would be um TurnKey training for sta so that's it any questions I have a I I have a quick question and I have a copy of the gra for all of you 35 to 40% of the evaluation of the teachers are going to be on student achievement okay so what happens though if you have a teacher who will the evaluation on the student achievement be on students that are in that particular teachers class all of those kinds of this is why it's considered a pilot program because it was not very clear to from the state excuse me how they want this to be laid out they do say in the two tested areas so for New Jersey ask I assume for example if your um child my my son was in well he was

049in second grade last year let's say he was in third grade last year and took NJ ASK we would look at the teacher would look at the incoming njl score and then probably the outgoing one you can't it's going to be a little bit tricky to be honest with you because those njs scores don't actually come out till August and a teacher getting their evaluation at the end of June so all of those Logistics the state is aware of I went to a meeting you know about this whole proposal and you know we know we have to work out all of those kinds of things it's not set in stone but they do intend to use and create a model where 50% ultimately is based on some type of student achievement it's our opportunity to

050kind of like mold what we think would work best because my other the other part of my question was what would happen if if it's if it's uh the assessment is individualized to the classroom what happens if those kids if if the teacher is marked off as saying she isn't using it or he isn't using it but then those kids score higher well I know you have 5050 you're measuring two different things I'm not sure maybe I'm not miss no I just I was just wondering you know how that would work out yeah and it doesn't state in the in our grant proposal or in the um application for the grant by the state it doesn't say it says you know 35 to 45% but it doesn't State specifically what how much growth do you

051expect the students to have do you expect them to maintain none of that was stated and that's all part of the pilot so I think it gives us an opportunity to say here's what we think should happen and we you know become a district that helps pilot a state model one of the things that um I think is attractive about this grant is ultimately the state is going to develop a new teacher evaluation tool and we really won't get a vote on that the pilot however gives us an opportunity to address some of those concerns that that you point out specifically as it relates to student achievement for example what happens in those areas where um there may be a criteria set for example what happens in an art classroom versus a math classroom in

052terms of how you evaluate a student so we're hoping that we'll be able to have some influence on this process as the state develops its its new tool that will be you utilized in every District um the item that's on the agenda for the acceptance of this grant I'm I am going to hold that off until the next meeting because I want to further Engage The Association the Teachers Association in developing further developing this committee that will help to develop and monitor um this this process and to also make sure that we have a common language in terms of what we want to see the final product look like to the extent that we'll be able to influence that so the item that's listed specifically for the acceptance of this grant I'm I'm going to

053hold that off until the next meeting and I also want the board members to have an opportunity to review the Grant in its entirety um and then the company that's under the business administrators report will also be deferred until the next meeting any other questions go ahead next time sorry um how long is the pilot uh program scheduled to go on and is any anticipation when the state September 1st we were actually um given a preliminary award it's not I mean it we were awarded this money but it's not we don't have the formal agreement yet from the state of New Jersey so we're not starting until we get the formal agreement till the till we decide till we of course the takes action on it and whatnot so that' be September 1st so we're

054already behind the eightball but the state is not ready yet either so you know typical was it a one year thing or two year one year and then until September 30th 2012 so year plus the summer and there's any anticipation when the state is going to adopt a new valuation they say according to this is is in September 2012 okay all right thanks that's their plan a question yeah a couple things I know it's a great thing to be part of a pilot because you can kind of be like sort of in a driver's seat but the one thing we have to make sure we keep in mind is mono Township has a disproportionate number of kids with special needs and I think it's going to be a very difficult challenge to manage um how

055we're going to assess student achievement if it's 50% of a teacher's evaluation if 100% of her students have special needs and to be able to to Define growth or achievement or forward progress is going to be a challenge my recommendation on that I mean I I I've thought a lot about this personally um and I was discussing with somebody today it could possibly mean when you say 50% it could mean that the teacher maintains the state has not identified this yet and that's what they want our districts to collaborate and all the different districts to collaborate and pilot to to have conversations just like what you're saying because they recognize there are lot of pro things how do you how do you do an art student you know you a gym kid somebody has a

056little bit of disability you know I can't do that many push-ups but you know am I not GNA my you know my gym teacher going to get in trouble for that you know so all of those kinds of things and that's exactly what Dr Hamilton is saying gives us an opportunity and you're saying too to give get us in the driver's seat to kind of say hey here's a red flag here's here's what we need to address well with regard to special education children most if not all have individual education programs and that becomes the uh The Benchmark in which you can go and evaluate I mean if you have a child that is profoundly I mean very very simple tasks would be and they advance to personal cleanliness hey that's a great achievement right

057right so those are all the I mean there's a lot of questions in terms of that there definitely is but that's why it's considered a pilot program program there will be discussions throughout the time with both Department Evette and the other districts who are piloting these programs you know it's there's a lot of questions and I think we should keep you informed along the way and and tell you the progress that we're making in terms of that any further questions yeah when the pilot program ends in September of 2012 this when will the state adopt their evaluation according to what they said not going to tell you I'm a h I'm 100% confident with what they said because I know how it works and you probably do too they're saying September 2012 even though this

058isn't ended my guess to be honest with you would be that they probably will not be ready to really make a definite change until at least 2013 I mean I just think it's going to take them some time but you know I'm not the sayate I can't say their plan is to have something implemented 2000 SE mber 2012 that is their plan okay all right thank you anyone else have a question so procedurally we're moving Mr Masters uh superintendent 2J is being removed and business administrator D is that what's being removed he hasn't he hasn't said so yet now we will go with the superintendent's report okay before we get into the P the person um action items I just want to commend our principles today and our staff for an extraordinary opening um particularly

059with all the transitions that happened this summer we had a very smooth opening we had some Transportation challenges at the end of the day today uh we started out with a delay at the high school that had a a ripple effect on the rest of the the pickup and drop offs this afternoon but nothing Monumental fortunately so I I do want to acknowledge um our Stu our staff for doing such an exceptional job today even here in the high school kids were in class within a few minutes and moving about as though they had been here forever um so with that said Madame board president and members of the Board of Education I'd like to recommend that the board approved Personnel items a through L by roll call vote second Mr Chella and Mr caufman

060down there I believe any comments or questions for the superintendent Mr Klein first on H can you explain what that is they're going from looks like cafeteria duty to Transportation special ed yes these are some changes in paraprofessional assignments that were previously approved okay and then we got a r Department of coordinators at the high school are these presently teachers that we're giving an extra assignment to yes this happens every year okay and last but not least in k k k k okay I have two questions here on on new employees um first we have have let me do the easiest one first uh Mr Lombardi who lives in Baldwin New York waldwin Long Island we're not able to talk about individual uh people Mr Klein okay but there there are two on here uh

061one in particular has roughly a three-hour ride each way in heavy traffic to get to our schools we're not able to discuss that can't discuss it at all no okay so I can withdraw that thank you anyone else Lee teaches okay then we will have a roll call Miss anelis yes I recuse myself on item J so noted Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs Fon yes Mr calman yes Mr Klein no one k so noted Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes kapano yes madame board president Personnel items a through L passes moving on to board action items indicated as Roman numeral two under the superintendent report Madame board president and members of the Board of Education it is recommended that items a through I Hold On a through exception of J

062right A through K with the exception of J item J is being pulled until further exploration so that's items a through I and then K excluding jve second Miss antelis and Mr tiella questions for the superintendent I do if I can find where I am is that Mr Klein yes I found where I am uh a attached list of requests for staff profession professional development um that comes down when I when I vote e um this platform this new uh assessment system and I saw the way it's broken down don't we have some of those programs already for assessing the students 12 um mark That's the core K2 it was former it's formerly known as learnia um and learnia is no longer being endorsed by the state of New Jersey it's actually being um spoken

063as as a sunset assessment system the new assessment system will set us up directly for the 201425 assessment system um and that ties directly into New Jersey joining the park Consortium um with the new common core standards and I could go into much greater detail on the intricacies of the program and the effess of effectiveness of using formative assessment for Learning and how important it is in the district did we pay for larnia no it it was never no and so what what happened is that when the state backed off of larnia they then charged they and what they were charging was comparable to this product but didn't do nearly as much as this new improved product did okay thank you on that uh on H i i h i it is recommended for the

064your board to approve uh for writing workshop training is that something that we do all the time once a year yes we are expanding it this year uh this has been a multi-year implementation process and the last thing is the last thing I have a question on is k um you explain that the children uh it's a student that's going to the Children's Home and it's that's special lead and it's 30460 per DM is that per day per week per day that is per day per day and how much of that is picked up by the state ZIP thank you I'm done are there any other comments or questions for the super it I seeing none we'll have a roll call Miss anelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs Fon yes Mr calman

065yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes M K Pano yes Madam board president board action items a through K with the exception of J passes that concludes the superintendent's report then we will go on to the business admin administrators report Mr Gorski Madame board president and members of the Monro Township Board of Education it is recommended that board action items a through D with the exception of D be approved by consent roll call so mooved second miss an Tellis and Mr Chella are there any comments or questions for Mr Gorski Mr tesler just if you can explain a a little more on the details of the signage a certainly thank you um recently the Monroe Township Board of Education solicited quotes for directional signage at the new Monroe Township

066High School this building here you'll see them out in the hallway by Mr T's efforts um and recommendation by soliciting quotes and doing this independently as opposed to the general contractor installing these signs we were able to save the markup and um uh recognize cost savings um once the job was completed um it was appreciated so much that we decided um at the committee level to expand this into the Monroe Township Middle School being that we have a campus approach to both buildings and that would create safety and uniformity as all of the directional signages would be the same um M&S signs is the vendor we have permission um in aggregate not to go out the bid um by instead having the powers within me as the qualified purchasing agent to have a resolution before

067the board this is actually more disclosure than is required by law but we chose to to put it forth anyway nature signs inside the school signage inside the school oh okay okay right directional signage inside the school School in the hallways and and so on okay gotcha anyone else then we will have a roll call Mr bski Miss antelis yes Mr Braverman yes Mr Chella yes Mrs Fon yes Mr calman yes Mr Klein yes Mr Larry yes Mr Masters yes Mr tesler yes M colano Madam board president board action items a through D with the exception of D passes okay thank you very much uh board president's report all a couple of things one that we had a very successful School opening as Dr Hamilton told you today and um even in the rain I

068can't remember our last first day of school where it's rained so that's really I think rain has always been good luck so if it is we're going to have a really good year um second we had a very wonderful ribbon cutting opening ceremony last night for this new school if you haven't had a chance to tour this school and see how beautiful it is we'll have to make arrangements for you to do so because it's an absolutely gorgeous facility and lastly uh as I mentioned before all of our committee meetings are open to the public our committee meetings are put on the website so that you know when they're available and I I don't believe they are posted now but we're going to try to post the agendas to the meetings on the website if

069possible so that um you will have an idea of what will be discussed at at um committee meetings so at this time we'll go to committee reports does anybody from the board have a committee report Mr coo Mr Ley thank you uh last night I had an opportunity to talk to Senator Linda Greenstein and uh this will followup to the meeting we had in Trenton with the State Department of Education she has received no information Michael has received no information uh we are going to follow up with vigorous pursuit to find out what is going on and let's bring a couple of facts to the Forefront if you recall the Board of Education the city of Elizabeth has been caught with the hand in the cookie jar the president of the board lady who's making

070very handsome money has enrolled her son for reduced lunch an assistant superintendent has enrolled their child for free lunch now that's minor thievery you think but the reality is when a child gets free or reduced lunch there's a whole administrative Machinery that goes into place the free and reduced lunch program is is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture believe it or not and it spreads out when you get free and reduced lunch you get increased money from the Federal Communication Commission and the state of New Jersey says if a child is getting free lunch that automatically says the school district gets $5,700 in addition if it's reduced lunch it's $4,700 and up in the city of Elizabeth there's wh scale thievery now Michael has been working very diligently I talked with our Auditors

071last night and we come up absolutely clean we have very very low numbers and that may be part of the reason we're only getting $354 and some of our nearby characters are getting thousands of dollars and I hope that the efforts of Senator Raymond lesnak of Union County and Senator Michael D of Warren County will pursue this matter at the Senate this system is rotten to the core can I add something to that is is that for his committee report yes just in addition to his okay okay uh one thing that um Mr Larry left out is last year there was an audit done at Camden and Camden receives I don't know $200 million from us and probably $200 million from the federal government and when they did the audit they found tens of millions

072of dollars going into the pockets of the administrators whether it be expenses vacations uh bonuses so you can imagine how much more that is there as well as Asbury Park which they're auditing now and I guess they're going to go through all these Title One districts so that's just an added information added comment thank you and to follow up Mr lry point I wanted to raise a few minutes ago when I was cut off was that this school district if we use Mr L does that have to do with your committee report wait for later I will I will follow up we'll have comments later follow on go ahead is there any other committee reports Mr Kaufman the curriculum committee actually met this evening to go over a few items uh we went over uh

073some new and exciting things that are going to be happening in the math programs from K to 8 we also covered some uh new metrics that we're going to be using to track what we're doing in the science programs uh we are also going to be changing the delivery method of the uh f Falcon newsletter to uh an electronic format which is going to save the district money be able to turn around time for publishing um and it looks to be an exciting exciting program um in addition we also moved forward we're talking about electronic books iPad based uh working with some of the Publishers that we typically get um a lot of our materials from one of the biggest contractors is Pearson so we are aggressively moving forward uh with the iPad deployment and

074all the things that we can do to um lessen the load on our students so no more carrying of books a lot of the materials that we're going to be having for students to be using are all going to be electronically based um in the effort to not only be green but to be much more cost effective and make Optimum use of the iPad so I would recommend a lot of people who are at new faces I've seen tonight keep coming keep watching Channel 28 we're going to be having some pretty incredible demonstrations on the technologies that we're going to be using here in the high school and then moving that forward and filtering it down into the elementary level so stay tuned okay any questions for curriculum any other board committee meetings okay see

075that was committee me okay go ahead okay seeing no more committee meetings reports we will go to Other Board of Education business Mr tesler just a be brief Community announcement the um monored Foundation uh back in June um was scheduling and planning a fundraiser a softball game fundraiser which is a Revenge match it's the teachers versus police after uh the teachers beat them in the basketball game this winter um originally it was a fundraiser for the Education Foundation but after the um after the uh after Hurricane Irene affected so many residents in Monroe we've decided to uh have the fundraiser but donate all that money to the victims of the hurricane so the softball game is this Friday cross your fingers I think the weather's going to be good um it's going to be at

0766:30 p.m. at the softball field the girl softball field next to the Construction office um donations is $5 or whatever we'll also be collecting any um clothing and financial donations as well so it'll be a good time and root for your favorite teacher or police officer Miss um just want to know that um a couple of businesses in town donated an iPad that will be raffling off at the game and um the generosity of the um businesses in town has been overwhelming so far uh the game hasn't even started and uh we've got $400 so um the the community is really um coming together on this it's a great thing to see and Monro is a great town so hope to see you all out there and no rain Mr Chella I just I just

077wanted to just quickly um just thank the the township and and everybody here for coming out today but just the the the amazing amazing things that I've been seeing with uh just the sense of community and support for the people that have had all the you know all the troubles with the storm and the unless you've been over there and looked at what's going on you can't even imagine how how devastating it really is and you know I just want to say that our town grew you know quickly relatively quickly you know my family has been in this town for for about 100 years and sometimes that that quick growth made me think anyway that you know that that we were lacking that sense of cohesiveness and community that sometimes happens with a when they

078when you have a community that's that's maybe smaller or been around for a long time but I could tell you something that the people in this town after who came out and and uh and reached out to people and showed their love and support proved me wrong you know I really they really did teach me that this is a community and and uh this is a great community and and I just I can't say enough I can't even describe it in words um the way I feel uh based upon what I saw and and I I want to thank also the people that came out tonight um I I I do agree with the people who spoke regarding the uh uh pay to participate and and what you'd like to be like to see be

079done I agree with that um I just and I think that that's something that the board should be mindful of going forward um there's a lot of things that are changing a lot of things that are happening with the is uh as a result of this storm and I know we have some things in place for people in need but there's also a lot of things that happen I think with pride and and things like that where uh people might not come forward to say that they're needy so I think it's important that we understand that and uh and maybe go a step further to be able to help them out the best we can and thank you Mr brayman uh through you madam president I wonder if you can ask the finance committee to

080review the pay for play as it appears and as it affects the budget and I'd like them to report back to the board by next meeting which is September 29th now if if you 21 gladly accepted I believe the meeting is the 21st well 21st then um if if you can't do that I'll make it a motion I I can do that I'll have them I I believe um Mr Larry there'll be a finance meeting before that we will have one have no fears we will review in depth okay thank you thank you Mr I think cleaner Madam it's hard to see down there Mr Klein this is going to be a long one first thing I want to say is um I feel for the families that were involved in the floods I had

081an opportunity not to work as much as uh IRA has and some of the other members but to go down and bring donations of clothing and food uh first day um many residents were brought up to our community to Regency to our clubhouse and all of our residents came out with food and products that were needed uh to keep the people I can't say happy but keep them fed and uh tried to make it a little more peaceful uh I do want to thank mayor poochie J um council president Tam bro and definitely definitely councilman Michael liebertz I believe uh councilman liebertz orchestrated a big meeting there and I was not able to make it because I was a zoning board meeting and um I guess that's what spearheaded uh the residents getting them together

082finding out what needed and I thought the little bit that I saw of it was very good now let's get down to meat and potatoes uh I'm glad to see many people here that I have never seen at other meetings and I wish we had many more that would show up at our meetings to hear what goes on to voice their opinions uh you have to understand something that when we get elected to this position it's not only to help the children but it's also to help the taxpayers and I'll get into more of that uh the one thing I do want to bring up is um as I've spoken many times Renaissance won their bid or their uh their claim to uh get a conversion from a PRC which is an adult community to

083a family community I would I had to recuse myself because I had testified as a resident against hannanian that led to hannanian losing and having to come back with a C and raer I was not able to testify therefore it was approved that will be another 130 homes with the minimum of two children will equate to 260 more children in our school system um property taxes for new homes built during the last 12 years had increases of $800 to over $1,000 for this coming year mainly because of our school budget I see people agreeing uh older residents cannot sell their homes they're being priced out of their homes they cannot sell their homes because of the taxes when you go into Clearbrook you can buy a home there now for 65 to $100,000 canc Cordia

084whose homes were selling at close to 300,000 the homes now are 100 to2 125,000 and Renaissance I understand is from 20,000 not Rena Rance oh I said Renaissance um Ross Ros we had one sell for $1,000 for $1,443 squ so you have to understand with the way our property taxes are going and the lack of money that we get from the state and those of you who have attended all these meetings and I see we have PTA presidents here know what my cry has been since I've been on the board and that was to contact the State write letters do something if it comes that we have to to Trenton to uh to um protest then that's what it's going to be there is no way that we should be getting 300 and some OD

085dollars this coming year per student and have everything else on the backs of the taxpayer uh a couple of things Edison and Woodbridge were in the newspaper they cut out zero period busing as far as pay to play goes um if we reinstated the other two then I believe this should be reinstated also um I'm going to go into the grants first before I hit you with the hard ball you know I read in the papers and I see grants going to Edison who receives a hell of a lot money a lot more money than we get and they had a grant last year for two labs and four classrooms for 900 $100,000 from the state as a gift South River needed a roof on one of their schools or two of their schools they

086receive $300,000 as a gift mind you they get a lot more money than we do Woodbridge who gets a hell of a lot more than we do just Reed $500,000 for rofes on their buildings Michael how much money did we get to put the roofs on our buildings nothing zero oh go ahead answer specifically for roofs we received nothing nothing however for this high school we did receive a $15 million school yeah that was on the first referendum correct and we received nothing on the second referendum and just to add insult to injury New Brunswick built the high school called the Taj Mahal for $187 million paid for totally by the state $94,000 per seat this school cost $69,000 per seed a difference of $25,000 per seed now thank you Mr lry now we get

087into the property taxes it's getting to a point now now I have people that recognize me from the board or from the zoning board that stopped me in the market or they'll stopped me the other day was in front of a bagel shop and a lot of the older people say wait a minute we have no children in the schools why should we pay property taxes and my answer is that when my kids went to school the Elder people paid for it but it was a lot cheaper then um in East Brunswick which was a highly rated School our taxes would go up 3 cents to 5 cents maybe 6 cents every year you could live with that but we cannot live with double digits every year this past year was 21 cents 100 the

088year before was probably 12 cents 100 all I know is ever since the cut was made in school aid or I should say the formula was developed because of the Abbot decision our taxes are going up $500 to $600 every year and this was the top this year it has to be controlled you have other states that will give a discount the people over 65 for as much as 50% because the taxes are getting so high I was never for that I am for it now my suggestion is and this is something we probably have to talk about is because of what it costs to educate our children because we don't get our fair share from the state I'm recommending that we work out a program where people are residents over 65 receive a 25%

089deduction in the schooled part of their property taxes that's what I would push for as far as all these expenditures you have to understand something we had to cut a million dollars out of the budget the council's been very good to us and I saw the reaction from our PTA presidents the cut was supposed to help in property taxes basically everything that we cut now we did cut a million5 before that so let's get that understood the additional million dollars that we cut and the programs that we all went along with when they met with the council are all being reinstated except for pay to play so if we've already done all those put pay to play in don't let the people have to pay for pay to play but Cuts have to come from

090somewhere and I have no idea what the negotiations were with the teachers union I know there was a settlement we know nothing about it we're going to see what that is it may lead to where the council has been very very good to us that they may come out next year and say you want to know something what you said you can cut you reinstated so therefore instead of having to cut a million what happens if they decide to say okay bordered I want you to cut $4 to5 million what do we do then so we're in a tough spot you have people that are paying very high taxes and it hurts people are not making the money they were making before and I happen to think my own opinion that there are certain things

091or certain programs that we have that is sufficient that we could lay back a couple of years without having to improve and and use the money where we have to improve that's my opinion uh let me see if there's anything else here over 65 control taxes I believe I have everything thank you very much for your time thank you Mr Klein Mr ly I'd like to amplify in a couple of points that Mark made the constitution of the state of New Jersey says thow and efficient we have heard that for 40 years it also says equality of treatment we I call that parody right you take the 7.8 bill million dollar the state gives an aid with the 1.2 million children and you run the numbers out and it says every child should be worth

0926,46 bucks now we get $354 after the Magnificent increment of $800,000 we are standing right now at 5.6% of the $36 million we would be getting on a truly parody basis so that is the problem we are like people fighting on the the Titanic trying to get off I mean there are school districts that are making stupendous amounts of money they are paying nothing to the state and it's coming from the suburbs amen Mr tesler I'll be brief uh two quick comments I guess on uh pay to uh we decided to bring that back to the finance committee which I'm part of so I'm sure we will discuss it and come uh and come with a resolution uh and I have a lot of friends out here so I promise you and we will discuss

093the pay to- play at the finance committee so come back at the next meeting and you can find out the result of that and for full disclosure I do have a daughter that participates in two cheerleading teams in the club thank you to answer Mr Klein and M Mr Larry in regard to the state funding I don't think there is anybody sitting in this table or probably in the audience who does not disagree with you I think every one of us here has been trying to work with the state talk to the state write letters to the state I know I have I know many of the other board members have I know the Administration has and we're going to keep going until something happens we've been stiffed Michael Ken Hamilton I went down saw

094the assistant commissioner for finance Dr Hamilton laid out a very persuasive case why the 43 miles of Monroe are unique why we have to have busing and lots of other things and then we went and started to look at where are we and we looked at comparables places like Oldbridge right across the creek they get 4,5 $100 per student now Senator Greenstein asked them to start providing us with information based on my conversation of last night she has received zip and I've talked to Michael and they have they're they're stonewalling us well we're going to do something about it Kathy just one other thing Mr Klein quickly uh those of you who read the home News Tribune would have seen an article that I wrote that was printed today concerning charter schools there was a

095gentleman about a week and a half ago that uh is part of a charter school system and now wants to have charter schools in top performing neighborhoods or I should say top performing districts namely he was talking about Plainsboro Princeton and I forgot what the other two were East Wind or west Windor and so on what happens with a charter school is let's take East Brunswick and the the the excuse that was used was that they're going to teach Hebrew I'm Jewish I went to a Hebrew school for six years my parents paid for it my friend is Chinese he sent his kids to a Chinese school that's what they call it to learn the language in East Brunswick's case 108 children left their system the law states that it's either 80% or 85% of

096the tuition goes to the charter school so in their case I think there're somewhere around let's say $16,000 a student 85 80 to 85% of that goes to the charter school when you look at what they receive from the state and state aid they're getting a little over $2,000 per student so now out of that money that's going to the Charter School only $2,000 of that is from the state all the rest is from the property taxes now with 108 students going out can you get rid of teachers no you still need the same teachers can you close a building no you still need the same building can you get rid of janitors no so everything Remains the Same except that they wound up losing somewhere a mil 400,000 and my thinking is and this

097are only my thoughts is that the charter school system in the inner cities the Abbott districts and the title one schools would probably work and they're getting enough money to do it but what's happening is they're still failing they're not successful as the public schools were not successful because unless the parents or the Guardians are involved these kids are going to fail so what I think these people that are in the charter school business and that's exactly what it is it's a business want to go into the good school districts because then they can say hey we have a charter school and look how well they do well they would have done as well in our school you hear about the technology that our uh curriculum and and technology department uh moved to 21st century

098all these new programs that we add for the 21st century this guy Mr BL I think his name was wrote that all these successful schools allow status quo and do not move towards the 21st century and that's what led to my response so if you do have the home news you will read what my response was to them and it's a danger because if it happens here and we're only getting 300 and some odat dollars a student and let's say we're at $115,000 a year that money is coming out of all your pockets and that's got to be stopped people who want a private school environment let them send their kids to schools like ruus prep and pay the prices there but the tax payers cannot afford to back these Charter Schools thanks is there

099any other other board business okay seeing none close session it be it resolved that the board that the Board of Education of the township of Monroe hereby moves to go into Clos session in accordance with Sunshine Law chapter 231 of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 col 4-6 through 10 col 4-21 to discuss the following subject superintendent evaluation the discussion conducted in closed session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the matter has been resolved need a motion in a second second Mo Mr Chella Miss Ellis all in favor I opposed abstain we will move into closed session people great you were watching the last board meeting okay what are we up to you're on M the meeting of the Board of Education will now reconvene back into public session and

100at this time we will go to number 12 on the agenda public forum again anyone from the public wishing to speak please come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record it's 95 Blossom Way my first question this evening deals with the uh superintendent report and the subject area coordinators for the high school could I know uh their main responsibilities as coordinators in those areas sure I can take that uh several years ago the board uh abolished the concept of Department chairs and created a teacher leader initiative in the district so these people are responsible for acting as a liaison between teachers and District administrators and they coordinate depart Department efforts related to curriculum support supplies materials things of that sort are they responsible for uh classroom observations at all no

101okay thank you my second question deals with the business administrators report and it's the BC the the contract was awarded to this company could I ask uh there's mention of 300 students there can any student K to 12 or k to whatever age be admitted into this program is there any qualifications for that um the uh before and after school care program is an independent organization that that provides these Services independent of the school district however the school district uh lends and offers some school facilities for their purpose in which uh contract which is forthcoming uh will disclose the annual fee this all came out of the building grounds Transportation committee leading up to this board report right can anybody participate I I believe they can all right and I believe you've had experience with

102this company in the past yes are there are the employees of this company screened criminal background checked as with the teachers and uh buildings I believe they are yes okay uh the last question or the last comment I have is any number of meetings we've um we've heard how Monroe Township has to you to want a better word been victimized by the state as far as money is concerned I think it'd be really helpful if uh those people involved in this would take the state formula and show us how and where in that formula don't Monroe Township has been victimized and compare it with a say a Township such as all bridges have been mentioned that benefited oh let's see unduly benefited from this for formula uh may I answer no Mr Gorski will answer

103this one okay fine um Dr Hamilton Mr Larry as Finance chair and I along with our board Counsel had a meeting with the Department of Education recently and we had inquired specifically why there was such a disparity amongst districts within the same district Factor group the only um expression that the state gave us was that Monroe Township has a very high property wealth per pupil metric and also income per pupil metric those two factors are hindering our distribution of fair state aid these are lagging indicators they're based on a couple years ago data and we specifically showed statistical um data how Oldbridge for example has a similar District Factor group yet receives a a much greater multiple of Monroe and the state has promised us a comparative analysis between the districts that we chose Oldbridge

104was one of them and they were going to give more specifics on why the money went to Oldbridge why they get uh several thousand dollars per pupil and Monroe only receives 300 but the main uh focus of the formula which drives this is again property wealth per pupil and uh income per pupil Dr Hamilton and I presented a very strong compelling argument that Monroe should be reviewed a little outside of the cookie cutter approach with property wealth per pupil because you know when you compare homes that are selling in Regency with very high property value some as high as you know4 $600,000 with no children contributing to the school it skews those metrics to our disadvantage and uh they appreciated that argument and also we we presented how Monroe also has to spend a lot

105of money for Courtesy busing as it would be uh imprudent and improper for us to have students walking in highways without sidewalks it's also important to point out that the district Factor group that we were using to show comparisons were those that designation was never intended to be used for that comparative purpose the district Factor groups were designed specifically for student achievement and was not an indicator of commonalities related to wealth and the ability to pay by by taxpayers for school districts so that District fact group indicator is misappropriate applied inappropriately applied in this instance um and and and one one final statement why is this important why do you why does the public keep hearing about this matter it's really quite simple it all it all funnels down to your tax rate because the

106more money we received in state aid does not mean we're going to go ahead and appropriate more money and spend more money it will offset the tax rate which would greatly reduce the amount of Burden for the the community we had projected that had we received the average amount of state aid that others within our same district Factor group and I agree with Dr Hamilton that's not used in the state model but it is still a good um analytical uh categorization there would have been no tax increase this year so that's how significant this matter is and that's why we'll continue to fight for more funding Miss Co Pono Mr L at that meeting Senator Greenstein specifically asked the assistant commissioner to provide the information about Oldbridge North Brunswick and South planfield which are FG

107over K12 over 3,500 students we haven't seen nothing and that's why and I had a conversation with her last night right over there and she's not happy and I know that uh Michael has not received anything and we're going to our Council was with us and we're going to pursue this matter vigorously Kathy thank you I think you've answered my question thank you Mr Klein can you make this quick short and sweet okay those of you that have attended these meetings know for the last upwards of two years to three years I personally have sent letters to the New Jersey Department of Education um chief justice rabne and I use that term loosely and Governor Christie basically supplying him with the information that Mr ly develops he's great with numbers and I did get one

108answer from Christie I've also spoken up at Town Hall meetings at least three town hall meetings two were about the financing the funding that we're not getting and the one in Monroe we had plent of people complaining about it and I brought up the bit about the conversion the Salo act or Soo Act whatever the hell it is which ran out the end of August but I just want you to understand and the letter just went out to Christie last week or a week before they what hurts us is we have so many retirement communities that the taxes they pay can go to the schools without putting any weight on the schools but why should we have to suffer for that and what I said was you have havan who are going to build 126

109homes that was converted from 326 homes that were prc's see I have 126 there at two kids per you have now you have another 130 with Renaissance you have uh not not Renaissance with the Renaissance properties and then you have two other developments going on so by the time you turn around we're going to have 500 more students so yeah they're going to be paying taxes until we have um a revaluation they'll be paying taxes 1200 12,000 13,000 a year and if they have two kids going to school and we're only getting $328 a student from the government where's that money coming from it's the property taxes and when this gentleman asked you know how do they come up with these figures man I'd love I'm not a mathematician he is and you can sit

110down with all the instructions they give you there is no way that any formula would equate to us receiving under $400 a student impossible is there anyone else from the public who wishes to speak hi Lara libros SKS um I guess a couple of things first I wanted to tell you I was at the meeting for the victims of the hurricane and on on a really good note the principal from M Lake I don't know her name Dr Barberry she was absolutely wonderful and I don't I think I were you there that night too yes but she got up and spoke with such Authority and made the people of the Town feel so welcomed and she was wonderful so you know what with all the negatives being spoken you need to hear the positives and

111she should be commended so on that end she I think she really was well spoken and she told the people of the town about if there was problems busing your children what the law was and and how she opened up the school so you know she really should be commended um pay to play I sent an email to all of you I did did receive a response from Dr Hamilton I did not receive a response from anybody else on the board which I I kind of am a little upset about I thought someone from the board who it's an elected position should have responded to me um I have a daughter in high school who is down to play three Sports my taxes went up I don't know $6 $700 probably close and then $300

112plus $50 for the technology fee I think it's a lot to ask the people and especially with what's going on now in the town I F I would rather give money elsewhere than than that I think that you really need to look at that I think people are really upset about it um the other question I have is are we going to see any tax relief from the trailers I see they're being taken out um I don't know that anyone asked that question Gorski um the trailer accounts in the budget in aggregate is about uh $2 million a year it's about $1.5 million of rentals and about $500,000 of utilities related to these very inefficient uh units um this year for 2011 2012 we were able to budget less trailers however there was a removal

113fee okay that was built into the original contract many years ago that uh requires um or eats up most of the savings this year in 2012 2013 we are um projecting to save about 95% of that appropriation with only a few trailers remaining so the majority of that would be um relieved in the budget so we should see that next year as well yes anyone else on the public Phil Levy 92 Kings Mill Road uh I think maybe I'm a little bit in the minority being in the senior development and getting a $900 raise all school taxes it would seem to me that when the seniors of the community of Monroe voted down the budget they said they didn't like the budget and when the council sat down with the board and agreed to take

114off $1.5 million from the budget which I think was far too little it was agreed to for the board to then spend the $800,000 that we got from the state putting back the busing for zero putting back some other things that the council had cut out was the wrong thing to do that money was meant for tax relief and that's exactly how it should be used when the township votes against a budget that means they don't like it and when you go and override what the people want and what the council said you should do I think it's incorrect for this board to do that and it only gets the people that do come out and vote and most of them are seniors they come out and vote it down again and next time I

115think you're going to be faced with a council that's not going to be too happy with what this board did and they're going to look to cut three four or maybe five million from your budget thank you thank you is there anyone else from the public sh minia 9 Nathaniel Street how about that Clos session resolution the Clos res the Clos session resolution is in regard to the superintendent evaluation we shared the board's evaluation with the superintendent the superintendent at this time is taking that evaluation back with him and he will come to the board in a future uh meeting to have another discussion on the evaluation so at this time there is no resolution to the resolution thank you oh you know just on what Mr leevy said uh in as much as I

116I believe that you should reinstate the $165,000 uh for the children and and sports um and I don't think what I'm next going to say is uh the contradiction to that but when was the last time that the Board of Education actually sent back funds for tax relief scap Pano we sent back $600,000 for the oak tree School in two increments it was originally authorized $26,600 th000 the construction closed out at $26 million and it was $600,000 was returned to the township of Monroe and when was that what year was that three years ago okay and that that even amount to one one cent per taxpayer mhm what I thought it you had to be 750,000 before it accounted for 1 cent per taxpayer that's that was approximately correct at the time it was about

117700,000 so it was a fraction of a cent almost a cent a fraction of a cent almost I think if you take Mr Levy's Point since the economy is getting worse uh the spending should be cut down a little not not necessarily cut down but we should be careful about the spending I attended a I believe it was a finance meeting in January and there were funds that were found that hadn't been used for specific uh targets um and I can bring that information to the next meeting but um at that meeting it was decided to find a way to spend it and not to bring it back to the town not to bring it back to the taxpayers uh and that was at a meeting in January of 2011 so I think the board

118doesn't have a sense I know I've heard board members say it's only $20 it's only well it's only $20 for some people it's a lot more money for others so responsible spending I think is what people are looking for I don't think anyone wants to no one wants want the children to suffer but I think the the taxpayers should be respected and not be dismissed and um sometimes the the money should actually go to tax relief thank you thank you is there anyone else from the public seeing no one our next scheduled public Board of Education meeting will be on Wednesday September 21st 2011 7:00 p.m. at the high school a motion to adjourn second who who was the first Mr Kaufman miss analis all in favor opposed extensions meeting is adjourned