001you I up good evening and welcome to the mono Township Board of Education please rise and salute the flag I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all Mr Gorski roll call Mr rman Mr Chella here Mr Klein though I did call that I was going to miss it because my wife's in the hospital um she threw me out and I made it so it's very important to be here and that's why I'm here so yes I'm here that's pretty here Mr Larry here Mrs Leonard Mr Masters here Mr tesler here Mrs Fon Mr calman here just board president you have a quorum uh student board members um this Friday no no no just
002acknowledging that you're here okay okay four is me um in accordance with the provisions of the New Jersey open public meetings all the monen board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having the daytime in place thereof posted January 7 2011 one at all schools two home News Tribune three Cranbury press four filed with with the clerk of the municipality five student board members report um this Friday Brookside will have its PTA school store Tuesday January 25th the parents Workshop will be held in the Brookside school media center on February 3rd there will be a mil Lake and Woodland PTO meeting at 7:30 p.m. in Woodland Elementary School and mil lak's PTO is holding variety show tryouts on February 11th in the wood Woodland gymnasium um oak tree will have
003its school store this Thursday January 20th uh as long uh as well as a PTA sponsored assembly program Wednesday January 26th Woodland's PTO sponsored school store will be happening this Friday January 21st followed by a d col culminating assembly at 9:30 a.m. uh January 24th finally Woodland's character Jeopardy assembly will be next Friday January 28th thank you great item number six presentation to student data analysis [Music] um last week The Star Ledger published uh state test scores and although we have a lot of work to do there is some strong evidence that the things that we have been engaged in over the last two years have um created some very positive results and although the superintendent action plan serves as the blueprint from our work it it also provides further evidence that the district is
004moving in the in the right direction and I really want to thank the members of the super intendent advisory Council and cabinet for their work with with helping to execute the superintendent's action plan one of the things that we've been focused on is closing the gap between Monroe and some of the more affluent wealthier districts and and part of why I think that's so important to keep on the Forefront is because I've continually advocated that we have the resources and the talent pool here in order to do that and that has been an an ongoing goal and we are very well on our way to doing doing just that um I ask Mr Gorman to provide us with an analysis of the data that was provided in the Star Ledger um so that we would
005have a frame of reference as we look at our benchmarks that were established last year our our progress between last year and this year and then to look at some of those areas where we need to further develop an improvement plan so that we continue to close that Gap Mr Gorman do you want us to move out there yeah um in order to get to that screen I'm going to need you seat here or we could bring some lounge chairs over for you courtesy seting in here Cafe right after the hey how you doing P I've changed you to present thank you physically at least mentally a whole different story okay good evening all right let's try this better um okay so this article came out last Thursday from the January 6th Star Ledger and
006uh basically it was a comparison of how we did in Monroe compared to the other District Factor groups but before I did that I wanted to give you an overview of some internal data crunching on how we've matched up against ourselves in a year and Dr Hamilton mentioned the superintendent's action plan and I believe this is you'll see some really nice evidence um in the data that I present to you and in addition what you'll see is um I'll ID ify a couple of areas that we're taking a nice look at so we know like we said we have some more work to do and um that's what the data is so good because it Paints the picture for us so just some highlights I want to give you some highlights the grade four average
007total literacy proficiency gains from 2010 to 2009 went from 80.3% to 73.2% where an increase of 7.1% that is the three um NJ ASK uh grade four test results in language arts literacy total proficiency so we took all the schools from the three elementary schools averaged them up and we saw gains from 2010 to 2009 we also saw a leap in our mathematics proficiency gains in uh grade four from 91.6 and 80.7 um a year ago which I I believe is a very significant jump in uh in those types of gains as well we sort science proficiency gains from 9.2 um from 96.3 and those are the areas that are tested in fourth grade and that's why they were reported out grade science proficiency Rose to 93.8 versus in 2009 91.3 and the grade 11
008language arts literacy proficiency squares Rose to 92.7 total proficiency versus 2009 of 87.7 and I think these highlights are are really should be noted because they are significant and the literacy Advanced proficient the advanced proficient that means our highest Learners are achieving at even a higher level uh so the total proficiency M wraps up proficiency and advanced proficiency but I thought it was important to note that the advanced proficiency rate went up in the high school on literacy these are the data that was presented um and what I want to call your attention to if you look at these totals here with the exception of uh one area we have done some really great work in a year um this is a small decline in Brookside but the gains at Oak Tre at Woodland um
009at appar and at the high school in literacy is profound and I don't believe that it's a coincidence because it was due my belief partially to the implementation of balance literacy program um in mathematics the scores at the elementary level were very high and here we will take a look at this dip at the eighth grade level um in the mathematics score and that is definitely on our radar and that could be a number of different factors um through the connected math 2 program through an anomaly um or whatever other reasons but we're going to start looking at that and that's uh where some of our problems of practices are focused in in the district area so we'll be working on that area and then at the high school even there was a nice Gap
010up um in science near perfect in a lot of areas at the fourth grade level compared to last year and at applegare as well so we definitely on the right path overall is a picture this is a very positive report I believe from a onee game okay here are the the next set of data comes directly from the article in the store Ledger and what we did is we compared The Ledger actually compared all the it listed all the um scores from the different schools in MTH in middlex County um so here are the FG schools in middlex County along with Monroe Township dellen middle sex Barrow mtown North Brunswick Oldbridge and South planfield also the GH the I and the J districts that were listed in The Ledger Edison Highland Park pasaway North Brunswick
011as gh's eyes where East Brunswick mouin and South Brunswick and the tjs of granberry West Winds of playing field I'm sure that's PLS Barrel Jeff oh I'm sorry where over that bottom one no question about that cor that before tonight is over okay in literacy the highlights grade four total literacy scores average of all three mon Road schools is 80.3 Which is higher than 17 out of the 20 individual schools in the FG Factor better than 10 out of the 133 GH schools better than 13 out of the 16 high schools and within five percentage points of the three J schools grade eight total literacy literacy is 91.9 Which is higher than all seven FG schools nine out of 12 GH schools three out of four I schools and within eight points of the highest
012of the four J schools again pretty impressive definitely with fact um very impressive towards the FG the GH and the I rate 11 total l literacy squares 92.7 is equal or higher than 6 out of the seven FG schools All 4 G8 schools within 3.2 percentage points of all three I schools and within 5 percentage points of the one J school and um these again were the totals which I mentioned to you which I showed you a couple slides back in the area of mathematics major this is the highlight of the show right here grade four oak tree total mathematics proficiency 95.8 highest in the entire County this includes 25 FG 13 GH 16i and 3j schools 57 other the schools and the oak Tre Community has scored numeral Uno and um that's that's a
013nice our farm team that's our farm team which is really great it is our farm team also our grade four Total Advanced proficiency mathematics sores of all three schools is 50 our Advanced proficiency so um that's over half of our kids as advanced proficient higher that's a very impressive stat it's higher than 23 out of the 26 FG schools 6 out of 13 GH schools N Out of 16 high schools and within 15 percentage points are the highest of the three J schools again here is the data summary of the data science highlights include grade four total science scores 99.23% is points of the highest GJ schools it's a tongue twister for me um and again there's the science data which is very impressive again I do believe the future is very bright in a
014mere year these are I do not believe that these jumps and squares are by coincidence I do believe that it's due to the concerted effort of the team of Educators that we've put together in this district and I think it's it's evident and thank you of course we'll post this presentation on the website um I'll also try to include a link to the Star Ledger article I don't know how long that stays up for online um any questions a f job I try to do that it takes a long time yeah it was fun a couple hours [Music] oh yeah I was hoping it would no no you know I was talking to my thank you I appreciate it okay that's fine Mr President no just a minute Mark you I was here oh okay
015before we uh continue with the agenda I just want to make a comment um obviously it's a great thing when you see the uh test results come back from all the standardized testing that any school district has to go through but to see the uh types of results that we've been getting uh over um many many years with the culmination of this year's uh results coming back oak tree is setting the bar so unbelievably High For This District especially the fourth grade team I would just like to congratulate oak tree and the fourth grade team for all their hard work and um I know that the rest of the school district is not far behind uh We've made a lot of great strides and I know we're going to continue moving forward continuously raising the
016B Monroe Township to not only set the standard in this in this region but to raise the standard in the region Dr Hamilton do you have anything no sir okay um um John I think one of the real keystones is the advanced proficient numbers that really really indicates that there has been a a good strong curriculum program and strong teaching does anyone else want to speak to the stats um Mark I wish we had attendance here like we have when we talk about the budget or it's the sayate of the district for the parents to see this it's the leadership Dr Hamilton Mr Gorman all the um department leaders the department heads that set the standard and give the teachers the proper tools and of course the teachers are doing a great job so uh
017it's a credit to you guys and to everybody in the system to have results like that is fantastic thanks thank you Mr anyone else before we move on to public uh Forum I just want to make a note that uh item four of the agenda the uh posting of the uh public forum was actually done on January 14th uh so we just want to make sure that we're in compliance item number seven public form anyone wishing to speak before the board please come up state your name and address for the record seeing no one we move forward to the approval of the minutes of the public Board of Education meeting November 17th 2010 motion second Mr tesler Mr cherella all those in favor I opposed comments I abstain on December 15th well we'll let you
018know when we get there oh you did the first one back it down tough guy anyone else comments pass great uh public Board of Education meeting December 15 2010 motion Mr tesler Mr cherella any abstentions Mr Klein fapson fon all those in favor I I opposed comments passes close session minutes December 15 2010 tesler and chirola uh any extensions Mr Klein and Miss Fon all those in favor I opposed comments motion passes great item nine superintendent's report uh we conducted the first part of our instructional rounds at the mundro Township High School um we are light years ahead of other districts with implementing this protocol um and just um some other information we had a major glitch with alert now uh this morning um in case you hear some complaints about the call going out
019late we had to implement the old standby paper uh call and call system because the automated system server was down um so between 4:30 and 5:00 this morning um alert now got a very ey rate message from me so if you should hear about that I'm not my usual Pleasant self at 4:30 in the morning um but we were able to finally reach a support person and we're working on a backup system should we ever uh encounter that problem again it wasn't just my row by the way um and in closing your report for your review is the enrollment report for the months of November and December um and you see that our enrollment is continuing to to increase um the out of District placements are also included in your report along with the home
020instruction um reports our fire drills and lockdown procedures are listed there for your consideration um and you will notice that in some instances the fire schools are principles are still conducting two fire drills in addition to the lock Dr lockdown drill that is not required they're only required to do one of each but some principles have elected to continue to do the the two fire drills anyway and bus drills were also included um I all um moving on to the Personnel items uh Mr President members of the Board of Education it is recommended that Personnel items a through S be approved by roll call vote move carella Mr tesler Mr liry yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Ferron yes Mrs Leonard Mr Braverman Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano yes Mr Klein yes Mr Masters yes Mr
021calman yes Mr board president Personnel items a through S and the superintendent's report passes uh moving on to board action items um Mr President m of the board of education is recommended by the superintendent that board of ed actions items a through G be approved by roll call vote so move second discussion roll call Mr Larry yes Mr Tessler yes Mrs Ferron yes Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano yes Mr Klein yes Mr Masters yes Mr calman yes Mr board president board action items a through G superintendent report passes that concludes the superintendent's report at this time there may be an additional item should the board elect to go into close session all right moving on item 10 business administrator report Mr board president and members of the Board of Education it is recommended that board
022action items a through n be approved by consent roll call please note the change some prior agendas um need to have the letter O uh changed with the letter N there was a typographical error it should be items a through n motion so move Mr tesler discussion roll call Mr Larry yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon yes Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano yes Mr Klein yes Mr Masters yes Mr calman yes Mr board president board action items A8 through n under business administrator report passes great item 11 board president's report I don't really have anything to report on other than the fact that uh we know that this issue today with uh um alert one was a problem uh I want to make sure that uh the district knows that we're going to make every
023effort to make sure that we have a primary and a secondary system in place to make sure we don't run into these issues anymore uh do I have any committee reports Kathy oh thank you um I'm going to give a report on a buildings and grounds committee meeting that we had last Monday January 10th I believe um some of the items that we discussed on the agenda was the um one was the sale of District industrial arts equipment and textbooks from Applegarth the high school and the maintenance shop the committee approved advertising and accepting bids on the sale of these outdated textbooks and computer hardware that we no longer need our curriculum and we know have no use for them because they're outdated this was approved on this evening's agenda uh temporary classroom units currently
024we have 89 uh units in Barkley Brook all over the district and as of June 30th we will be removing 71 units from Brookside Barkley Brook Applegarth and the high school and we will be left with only 18 and the cost of tearing down and removing these units were included in the lease agreement ments when they were approved and signed new high school update everything is going well and is on time the work that's left to be done is primarily on the first floor in the gym area um the committee discussed adding some additional storage units uh storage closets Cabinetry and shelving to some of the classrooms that require additional storage space and it's better to do it now while we're working on it and sometime in the future um we also approved for the
025new high school adding a second layer of snow guards to some areas on the top of this building where drifting and blowing snow coming off the building could possibly cause a safety issue um after conducting an asbest IAQ testing at Applegarth Dr Lynch of environmental Safety Management Corporation has issued an all clear letter to the district and this letter will be available to the public and lastly the committee requested a prioritized list of capital projects throughout the district that will need to be addressed in the next few coming years and that is that report great anyone else okay great Other Board of Education business Mr Klein couple of things um as I've mentioned in the past I've been doing everything in my power to attempt to uh wake up the governor and our officials to
026give us more funding to give us our fair share I did receive a letter back this is a while ago and somehow I misplaced it on my desk from the governor stating that um he read the letter that I sent and he turned it over to Brent schundler who was supposed to contact me I was never contacted okay so a letter went out um to the acting commissioner her name is relle Hendricks and included in that was the letter from the governor uh the original letter sent to the governor and two letters that I'm going to bring up now that I just sent out uh one letter of course went to miss Hendricks the other one went to chief justice rabner as you know the Abott decision is up for discussion again and I tried
027to time the letter before they for them to receive before they made a decision as to possibly with hope changing the formula or overturning Abbott completely so I will continue doing this for as long as I'm on the board hoping that we will get a response and get some help um just a note Piscataway uh was in the papers again complaining about their school aid that they need more mind you they were only cut 28% from 17 million to 12 .4 million we will cut 95% to $236,000 which is utterly ridiculous so they're crying about it and they're at least getting 14 Mill $12 million and we're getting squat um last two things and this is just suggestions um I know I spoke to um uh Mike about this about our electric bills you know
028you have these alternate um uh delivery companies that will deliver electricity a lot less expensive than what we pay now through pscg and they work right along with them and I understand that we have a state contract did we ever check with companies like verie ver Riden and two or three others to see whether those prices are still below what the state program is have we had a chance to check that um back in July um a resident requested of uh the superintendent and I to review a contract for Energy Services by a provider called uh Veridian right and um we determined that due to the multi-level marketing nature of um the particular energy provider that it wasn't in the district's best interest to try to promote um customers for this organization to get commissions
029back um in in that field the district currently L participates and buys energy through Aces program through the ed Service Commission and uh we recognize um collaborative purchasing Savings in that regard now I do understand that verie is probably uh the lowest of all of them veridan I know how they work they're trying to use people it's more like a pyramid and uh that would not be good but companies like veren and I think Commonwealth is well con constellation I think constellation is the other one um it's straightforward they deal directly with us but if you've done your homework on that then we as long as we're doing well health insurance um I went through your report and uh all these checks that go out and when I see what goes out to Blue Cross
030Blue Shield I mean it makes you Shiver I know uh the program that I'm going to bring up has been done in the private sector I don't know if we're allowed to do it and what I'm talking about is Self Insurance where all of your normal uh medical costs we would pay out of our pocket and only have um um insurance for catastrophic illnesses or hospitalization I don't know whether we're allowed to do that and the second thing which we did uh did discuss and I know that's something that would have to be in negotiations is offering uh two insurance policies plane Jane policy that would be offered free and the policy that we have now that uh would have to have a cost to it I also understand I don't know what well I
031better not say it I understand that we are having a fairly large increase again in medical coverage and Uh something's got to happen so that's the end of my report I appreciate the time um Mr Clan to address your your comment the district last year um went through a review of our health Insurance um policies and we went away from a premium based policy to an actual claims-based policy so basically for medical insurance we're paying the actual claims of the participants plus a small administrative markup and we recognized significant uh savings over the last year in that regard very good so um we are we are thank you Mike Larry uh you made mention of the Educational Service Commission it provides pooling arrangements for energy for telecommunication and uh Mike is involved with that and
032that provides some reasonable uh discounts for and and they have uh in some cases uh hundreds of school districts involved so they they're talking about a very large Market base the second thing I want to bring to people's attention was that yesterday in the New York Times at page a18 uh they had an article that said that Governor Christy supports county-based schools for autism and uh this is going to be a very interesting thing to watch now in Middle sex County we have probably the best autism array under the Educational Service Commission we have the academy Learning Center and we have the center for lifelong learning that are specifically designed for autism and the uh leadership of that are people who are subject matter experts and who are well recognized throughout uh the educational Community
033but there are Advocates known as span the Statewide parents advocacy Network who want to have integration of autistic children in classrooms and I see this is going to be a knockdown drag out brawl and it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out I'll try and keep you posted as it as it evolves anyone else Kathy um I sort of want to piggyback something to Mr Klein's letter writing campaigns that he proposes every year or every meeting um we in the we're in the beginning of the budget process um we have a lot of preliminary work going on with our budget and we are or a big part of this budget this year is going to be opening up the new High School in the past we used to get a waiver from the state
034to open up a new school so we're not opening up a small school we're opening up a regular large school this year the waiver is no longer in effect it was there last year it was there when we um passed the referendum and we did so with the with the impression that we would be having the waiver still in effect so this year they decided no waiver and there's a 2% cap so we have a a lot to fit under the 2% cap in just opening up the new high school um and I don't know if I need to do this in a motion or not but I think that it would be very good for this board and the board president to write a letter or many to the Governor to the commissioner of
035Education to the State Board of Education to our assembly people our Senators representing us to State our case because obviously if we don't do something we're not going to get anything and even if we do something we might not get anything and I doubt that we will but they need to know how this is going to affect us I think that if they're going to decide not to have a waiver it should be on future projects not on projects that they promised a waiver for so I think um what I would like Mr Kaufman representing us is to um send a letter to State our case sure and I don't know if I need to do that in a motion no we're good I I second your proposal amen all those in favor I opposed
036motion carries anyone else thank you very sure I just want to recognize the oak tree PT recently received an award for the largest new unit uh for 2009 2010 in the entire state which is a pretty big accomplishment that's the O tree PTA largest new unit great anyone else okay seeing no one we go on to item uh 14 close session be it resolved the Board of Education of the township on Monroe hereby moves to go into close session in accordance with Sunshine Law 23 one of the public laws of 1975 njsa 10 colum 4-6 through 10 colum 4-21 to discuss the following subjects Personnel matter number Z employee number 02052 discussion conducted and Clos session can be disclosed to the public at such time as the matter has been resolved motion second tesler Miss
037Cal Peno all those in favor I post discussion we'll be back we yeah we'll go out it it's going to be [Music] easier I just buzz it okay we're back uh Dr Hamilton um it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the suspension of employee identified as 0020 52 retroactively from January 14th to January 19th the superintendent and the business administrative board secretary are hereby authorized and directed to take all necessary steps to implement this action of the Board of Education second second all those in favor we're do a roll call any discussion roll call Mr Larry yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Ferron yes Mrs Leonard yes Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano yes Mr Klein yes Mr Masters yes Mr cman yes Mr board president motion to extend suspension to today passes thank you
038next item it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the termination of employee identified as 02052 effective January 19th 2011 the superintendent and the board administrator board secret business administrator board secretary are hereby authorized and directed to take all necessary steps to implement this action of the board of education so moved Kathy second Mr cherella discussion roll call Mr Larry yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon yes Mrs Leonard yes Mr Chella yes Mrs kapano yes Mr Klein yes yes Mr Masters yes Mr calman yes Mr board president motion for termination passes um can I ask a board member to amend the previous motion to make those dates January 14th through January 18th motion to amend motion for second would like to recast your vote taking for the new dates yeah just to make sure
039the records are are correct any discussion [Music] Mr Gorski roll call Mr Larry yes Mr tesler yes Mrs Fon yes Mrs Leonard yes Mr Chella yes Mrs colano yes Mr Klein yes Mr Masters yes Mr calman yes Mr board president motion to amend passes that's it for me sir okay item 15 public for anyone wishing to speak before the board please state your name and address for the record anyone seeing no one the next scheduled public Board of Education meeting will be held on Wednesday February 16th 2011 at 7 p.m. at this High School motion to adjourn second tesler we'll give it to Mr yeah he's he's been waiting here all afternoon I've been robbed all those in favor I I opposed I can't turn the computer off motion passes thank you everyone turn the
040computer off